Comments on: The Fallacy of Risk vs. Resource Resource Management

By: Von

Von — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:34:41 +0000

@ Red: has that ever been a Privateer tagline? I feel like it has, but only in the earliest days of Hordes, and not for some time. I agree that it’s not helpful to new players unless they’re already inclined to think about games in a quite informed meta-systemy kind of way.

@ Dankelzahn: I think ‘accurate’ and ‘catchy’ are probably mutually exclusive. To describe the difference in mechanics with the depth and clarity that it deserves, you’ve left short, punchy taglines far behind. My own instinct is to say that Warmachine is about managing a finite, top-down, safe resource and Hordes is about managing a flexible, mobile, dangerous resource, but that’s not the sort of thing you’d put in the marketing copy unless you were actually selling through Developers’ Weekly or something.

By: Dankelzahn

Dankelzahn — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:35:45 +0000

Yeah, I’ve mentioned it on the ‘cast before but decided to put something down “in writing” as it were.

My biggest problem with the comparison is that there is no good accurate catchy comparison. The closest I can come up with is Hordes being organic and Warmachine being more mechanical or regimented, but truth be told those aren’t much better.

By: Red

Red — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:28:07 +0000

I have heard too many people use these phrases to explain the games to a NEW player without any further explanation as to what they mean, and when this happens the new player’s eyes glaze over. It doesn’t mean anything to them. As a player of the past year and half, I can discuss these two ideas with someone else who’s also been playing the game a while. Bottom line is that both games have risk and resource management. I think it’s time for Privateer to come up with a new mantra, because I cringe when I hear it too.

By: Astray Penguin

Astray Penguin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:57:31 +0000

Didn’t you rant on this in the podcast a while back?

I think people forget Warmachine has far more risks than Hordes. You can always risk a frenzy, but you can’t always get an extra focus when you just beat that heavy to 1 point from 1 death. Same goes for transfering, it’s much risker to spend focus than it is fury, where a weapon master hitting you with four 6s isn’t half as bad as doing the same to a ‘caster because you can always throw it off to a beast, where as a Warcaster must pre-judge the situation and camp focus to survive it, risking insane rolls 1 hitting them (and no, a beast exploding is a joke compared to you losing the game by the same dice roll).