Why Don't You Move Your Queen Every Turn?

[bardolph]

So, I was musing on game design and balancing character options and stuff like that, and drawing analogies to other types of games, and I got to thinking about chess. And I found myself asking:

When you're playing chess, why don't you move your queen every turn?

One important point to keep in mind: a piece can only occupy one space at a time. Likewise, it can only move once per turn, and can only capture one piece at a time. In chess, there is no such thing as "damage." Because of this, a pawn can occupy a square just as easily as a queen can.

Another point to consider: the strength of your position is usually directly proportional to the number of options (possible legal moves) available on a given turn, as well as your ability to keep your decision tree as large as possible for as long as possible. Of course, your decision tree shrinks drastically whenever your king is threatened.

Often the best move is one that reduces your opponent's choices rather than one that increases your own.

Why not move a queen? Consider when:

• It's already in the best possible position.
• Moving it reduces the number of moves available on the next turn. This is especially true if by moving your queen you put her into a vulnerable position.
• Moving another piece will grow your decision tree more than moving your queen would.
• Another piece is in a better position to spoil your opponent's decision tree. If your best move is to reduce your opponent's options by placing a piece of your own into a blocking position, it's best when the blocking piece is expendable (like a pawn).
• Your king is in check, and you're queen can't do anything about it.

I don't know how this helps your argument that D&D is like chess (it isn't).

 

[Dausuul]

I don't know how this helps your argument that D&D is like chess (it isn't).

Didn't say it was. My question was, what insights can be gained from looking at this question on the chessboard, which could be applied in the context of RPGs?

 

[MerricB]

You've got a tremendously flawed analogy there. It's worth noting that the Queen's power comes entirely from versatility; the only piece the Queen's movement patterns don't mimic is the Knight's.

Where the analogy doesn't particularly work is that chess is a game about battlefield control, not the abilities of single powers. By putting a piece in a particular space, it exerts control around it, limiting the available options for your opponent. The point of this control is to finally limit the actions of the opponent's king down to one: resigning!

As such, Chess is a game about using a combination of pieces to win. In a hypothetical battle between a lone Queen and a lone King, there is no winner: the game ends in a stalemate. The Queen needs at least one other piece to win the game with. (This will normally be your King!) The point stands: Chess is a game of combining the powers of pieces.

You can see combinations of powers working in 4e; perhaps a simple one comes from the Bodak, which first weakens its opponent, then delivers the death stare to an opponent who is weakened. The death stare doesn't work without first the weakened condition coming into play. However, 4e is not a game about single characters employing powers: it's about multiple characters employing powers and using them together to maximum effect.

Two bodaks are far scarier than one, for instance. The first bodak runs up and weakens the fighter, then in the next action the second bodak uses its Death Gaze and the fighter drops.

Consider a fighter who drops an opponent prone, then the rogue who uses the combat advantage gained to sneak attack... without needing to flank the opponent (and make himself vulnerable).

Why is one power conditionally better than another rather than all the time? Because it depends on what can come next!

Cheers!

 

[Pbartender]

Edited to add: Since this seems to be causing some confusion, the analogy I'm trying to draw is "Each chess piece equals a spell or ability possessed by a PC," not "Each chess piece equals a PC." Although feel free to run with the latter if you see something interesting there!...

...When you're playing chess, why don't you move your queen every turn?

Or, in other words...

Why don't they just form Voltron straight away?

 

[Jhaelen]

When you're playing chess, why don't you move your queen every turn?

... because I don't like using a board and 'minis'. I prefer the pure mental challenge of keeping the positions of all pieces in my mind. It's much faster that way and avoids grind

Now, seriously, if I understand you correctly, you are basically looking for ways to improve powers to make their use more tactical?

Then, I'll skip the chess analogy right away though and treat your question as if it was 'Why should you use your most powerful spell all the time?'

One thing I can immediately think of is 'preparing the stage'. Translated into powers/spells, this means looking for combos. In D&D 3e and 4e there are several feats that reward using powers in a certain order, e.g. using a lightning power in round 1 will grant a bonus to using a thunder power in round 2. Or first cast an acid spell and then a fire spell to create a cloud of noxious fumes; i.e. allowing powers to synergize in interesting ways.

Another reason could be diminishing returns: Some monsters have adaptable defenses, so spamming the same power over and over will have little to no effect after a while.

The more variables there are, the easier it is to create conditions that make some powers situationally more favorable than others. In 3e this is mostly achieved by using a variety of enemies, each having different immunities and resistances. As in chess, positioning is also important.

Borrowing from MMORPGs 'cooldown' mechanisms are a popular way to prevent spamming the same power all the time.

If every power comes with a negative side-effect it's also easy to create a risk-reward system without a power that is clearly always the best.

If the power can only be used once, you'll also consider carefully if the current situation really warrants using the power - if you don't expend it, you might get more benefit from it at some future point.

 

[GAAAHHH]

You can sacrifice your queen and still win the game. However, if you've lost your queen and the opponent still has thiers, your chances of winning are very, very small.

 

[Runestar]

I think my answer to that would be: Limited Resources. Much as it makes sense to open combat with my most potent attack and work my way down, reality is that I usually cannot afford to sustain this over multiple fights, nor is it always a wise thing to do.

Closest analogy might be that in a typical dnd game, the queen represents my dailies, the rook/bishop/knight are my encounter powers while pawns are at-wills. In a fight, I won't always initiate combat with a daily. I may start with an encounter power (or even an at-will, if I think the foes don't seem particularly threatening), to test the waters, so to speak. Only when I am certain the enemies are tough would I consider blowing a daily.

In the same vein, while the nature of encounter powers means I should try to use them all within the same encounter, there is still the issue of timing and trying to get maximum mileage out of each power (so I may also hold off using them till I get into a more optimal position), rather than AP-->daily-->encounter.

Of course, if I could somehow get to use my most potent daily power as an at-will ability, then I would not hesitate to spam it every chance it get.

Or, in other words...

Why don't they just form Voltron straight away?

That was actually the case in Kamen Rider: Kiva. Past a certain stage, the protagonist doesn't even bother to engage his foes in his basic form. He just zips straight into emperor mode (sorta like the battlizer form for rangers), whips out his uber-sword-of-doom and proceeds to trounce his foes. The animation even reflects this.

 

[Celebrim]

The basic answer to the title question is that the Queen is valuable and increases in power the longer the game goes. Therefore, it behooves you to wait on deploying the Queen until she is at her most effective.

It would be kinda like having a power that did something cool, but also gave you a +1d6 bonus to damage for each round of the encounter that had already transpired. You'd have to balance the utility of doing something cool right away versus the utility of waiting and doing something even cooler in the next round.

 

[steenan]

There are several traits that may be included in an RPG combat system to make the use of powers more chess-like.

1. Situational usefulness. The game needs to have a non-trivial state: it may be positioning, or timing, or status effects, or something similar. The usefulness of powers should strongly depend on the situation, with various powers becoming stronger or weaker in different states of the game. You don't use only your strongest power, because it's better to use other powers to set the battlefield up correctly and make it even stronger.

2. Resource management. If your powers get used up (or, at least, there is a risk of them getting used up), or need some time to "reload", you need to choose your actions more carefully. If you use your biggest guns to early, you won't have them when they are really necessary.
It's also possible to achieve a similar effects with powers that lock or weaken one another. By using a power, you risk not having another one that you need. A good example of this is how charm use limits and combos work in Exalted. If you boost your attack, you don't have a charm for defense, and vice versa. You can get around it by combos, but if you try put all your charms in a combo, it becomes too expensive to use. Thus, you may get a little offensive boost and still defend, but you still risk a lot when you use most powerful attacks.

3. Importance of threats. It ties closely with both situational usefulness and resource management. As long as you have a big power ready to use, the opponent needs to take it into account in their tactics. When the power is spent, the threat is no longer. For example, once you used your area attack spell, enemies may group up without risk. Until then, their tactics is limited (or they get blasted). The tactical advantage of having the power ready may be more important than the damage done by it.
Note that it doesn't work if one doesn't know what enemies' powers are. The less predictable the situation, the more one wants to just finish the fight before opponents do something ugly, because it's impossible to meaningfully avoid threats.

4. Speaking of damage: Non-cumulative damage (or, at least, no trivially cumulative damage). If you win by dropping the enemy's HP to zero, the order of your attacks is less important. In chess, various pieces have different values, and the values depend on situation. In early game you don't use your queen much because you won't make a decisive attack anyway and you don't want to risk her by trying to take a pawn.
The easiest way of getting this kind of tactical situation in a game is to have enemies come in waves instead of all at once. Another is to have things that need to be defeated in a different way than HP damage (traps, dangerous terrain features etc.), that make amount of damage irrelevant (minions) or that have strongly varied abilities, weaknesses and resistances.

There's one important thing in all this, though. The more chess-like the combat becomes, the longer it takes (typical chess games take a few hours each) and the more abstract (more metagame, less immersive) it becomes. Some people may enjoy it, but definitely not everybody.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You can sacrifice your queen and still win the game. However, if you've lost your queen and the opponent still has thiers, your chances of winning are very, very small.

All depends upon when you make the sacrifice, and who your opponent is.





RC