How to do a doomed, "Halo Reach" type game?

[Wik]

Hey guys,

I just finished playing Halo: Reach, and afterwards, we all talked about how cool the Halo story arc has been, and how it would translate into gaming (I'm actually really surprised there isn't an official Halo RPG by now - lord knows I'd buy it). We also all agreed that Halo: Reach has one of the better storylines (only ODST's is better, in my opinion).

For those that don't know, Halo: Reach is a prequel to the Halo games, and is based on the idea that the Planet Reach is invaded by the Covenant Aliens. The death of Reach is assumed to be a known fact to the player (pretty much the first sentence of the first Halo game is about how Reach was destroyed, and it is a recurring theme in the series). Basically, the game is about how a squad of Spartan soldiers fight a doomed war to save the planet, and how their actions (and sacrifices - it's a known fact that most of the spartans die in the game, though I won't give any spoilers here) influence the later games in the franchise.

During our conversation, we also realized that this "Reach" style plotline WOULD NOT work in an RPG setting, for the most part. The reasoning being - a campaign that assumes the PCs will lose is not a fun one, even if they know in advance that it's a lost cause. That scene where they finally bite the bullet is not a rewarding one, unless they are somehow making a grand sacrifice... but even then, that grand sacrifice cannot feel all that grand, because the PCs will either feel it was preordained (if they knew they were going to their deaths from the campaign start) or something they were railroaded into (if they didn't know).

Unless I'm wrong, and it turns out that there *IS* a way to do a poignant, doomed campaign?

 

[fanboy2000]

Not to long ago, I ran the Deathwatch intro/quickstart adventure, Final Sanction. It ended in a TPK. Everyone had a good time.

In order for the kind of game you describe to work, the players have to be happy spending the game session being badass until they succumb to the TPK. The continued success of Paranoia seems to suggest that, on some level, people enjoy this kind of game.

 

[Wik]

Not to long ago, I ran the Deathwatch intro/quickstart adventure, Final Sanction. It ended in a TPK. Everyone had a good time.

In order for the kind of game you describe to work, the players have to be happy spending the game session being badass until they succumb to the TPK. The continued success of Paranoia seems to suggest that, on some level, people enjoy this kind of game.

Except Paranoia is a light-hearted game that is based around TPKs. Ditto for games like Gamma World.

Reach is, instead, a rather dark and grim game - people fighting a war that they know they can't win. There are a few scenes in the game (I don't want to give spoilers, so I'll be speaking in general terms) where it works like this: we do something heroic, think we've won, and then watch as it is taken away from us.

If I say to my players "Okay guys, we're going to play a game where you're all fighters defending a planet that is about to be destroyed, and you're going to fail at the end", I may be able to get away with it - but then, if the players do something clever that could end the war, I either manipulate things so that it fails, or let them win - and destroy the tone I'm going for. And if I don't tell them at the start, when I start gunning for that gritty feel, they can very easily feel cheated.

It's not just Halo that has this problem. The story of the 300 Spartans also springs to mind. Or a WW2 campaign set in Stalingrad or Tobruz. Or the 47 Ronin.

 

[Aloïsius]

It depends. The 300 spartans had to delay the enemy. Their goal was not victory, it was allowing others to have a chance to victory.

You may perfectly have a scenario where the goal is "delay the enemy enough through your sacrifice".

Of course, it means you are dead at the end of the game. But then, you can perfectly start the next campaign with a great ceremony or feast made in the honour of the fallen heroes who saved the world/the country/the city, and whose names are forever written in history.

Doing the same trick for a whole campaign is harder, because you need to repeat and repeat and repeat the defeat, so that the players may feel the desperation of the situation, all the while keeping them alive until the very end AND making them know that they are allowing progress elsewhere...
An "evacuation" campaign could fit that theme. A dire threat has appeared, against which there is no victory possible in this time. The heroes need to "help the future", by allowing civilians -and especially children- to escape (portals ?) to a safe-place. They won't save the city/country from the onslaught, but they know that, among the ones they saved, are the peoples who will defeat Evil in the future. It works best with prophetic setting, where the Evil villain is engaging in a genocide war to kill all the first born of country Z (and annihilate country Z) because the prophecy says that one of them will rise to destroy him.

 

[fanboy2000]

Except Paranoia is a light-hearted game that is based around TPKs. Ditto for games like Gamma World.

I agree. My point is that if players are willing to accept TPKs in one game, they might accept it in another game, even if the tone of the two games is different.

If I say to my players "Okay guys, we're going to play a game where you're all fighters defending a planet that is about to be destroyed, and you're going to fail at the end", I may be able to get away with it - but then, if the players do something clever that could end the war, I either manipulate things so that it fails, or let them win - and destroy the tone I'm going for. And if I don't tell them at the start, when I start gunning for that gritty feel, they can very easily feel cheated.

I say tell them up front and don't feel bad about it. It's not hard in an RPG to overwhelm PCs legitimately, simply have the PCs eventually face a threat that's overpowering.

The trick is to make the game interesting before that happens. Make small goals that can't be taken away (even if the ultimate end is the same). For example if the goal is to get to a communications tower and send a message, then the PCs have a shot at acquiring that goal. Once the message has been sent, they've succeeded, even if the re-enforcements come to late to save them or win the war in general. They did their part.

Also, you want to make the TPK interesting in itself. It can be like an endurance test, how much can the PCs take, how long can the last? Those are interesting questions. I don't know what your players like, but I would find it challenging and rewarding to create a character for survival in such a setting/game.

Anyways, the 40k setting was built for this kind of game.

 

[S'mon]

I played a Wehrmacht soldier in a WW2 game. I enjoyed it more as a we're-going-to-lose setting akin to the Peckinpah film "Cross of Iron" than as an alternate-timeline game.

Doomed-to-lose in a fictional universe may not be worth playing though unless maybe the players have heavy investment in that universe. Eg I don't enjoy Midnight with an 'everything is futile' approach. But people enjoy Call of Cthulu or All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and people enjoy playing Aliens with the Marines typically getting massacred by the Bugs.

 

[Someone]

"Losing" is (or at least was) a common scenario in wargames: the game was rigged to simulate actual conflicts, which are rarely evenly matched, and one of the sides is doomed to lose either because it faces unbeatable odds, or because the rules simply arrange the situation so it's just impossible to win. However, the side that loses he battle can win the game if some goals are met, like surviving a certain number of turns, destroying some vital spot (like a bridge) etc.

I'm not familiar at all with Halo, but in the scenario you're mentioning I doubt they simply are massacred and they accomplish anything: you said their action are important later in the storyline.

You could just have a similar approach. First, talk to your players about the tone of the campaing, and say clearly that while they are ultimately doomed, there are goals to meet, and they may die and lose the battle but "win" the game. They may like the idea. Notice that those goals don't need to be anything physical or material; you may decide that surviving X time counts as a win, or keeping a certain number of civilians alive for Y time, or finding out vital information, or communicationg with their superiors so everyone knows what's happening.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Maybe... it would be more enjoyable if the players have two character fighting on two different fronts of the same "war" with the second group being used as interludes between story arks via hack and slash combat heavy adventures the seem to mirror events in the campaign, but with some minor discrepancies (an unreliable narrator?).

If you truly want to mess with their heads, those interludes could be the players playing the "enemies" of the main campaign. With one of those hack and slash adventures having the players kill off a group of combatants that eerily like the player's main characters. So that without knowing it, the players experience their character's deaths from two different angles (albeit with one version being played out on an 'alternate reality').

Of course, in the end, only you will know which version of the events really happened... assuming you don't make a sequel where the players new characters are responsible rallying the troops to win the war.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Different people are looking for different things out of games. If what you want is an emotionally rich experience and to explore certain events or feelings, you could enjoy a game where the PCs are doomed.

For me, the PCs have to be able to do something that matters. "We're all going to die, but we can stop them here so they never reach Earth": totally cool. "We're all going to die, and the only difference it will make is how many faceless enemies we take with us": I don't want to play that game.

To follow-up on what Someone said, a wargame where you will "lose" the scenario but you could "win" the game by doing better than the historical version did (or something similar) can be entirely satisfying.

This would be a challenging game to run, and various people won't want to play. So be up front, and see if the players are interested, and make sure that they can do meaningful things even if they can't "win."

 

[malcolypse]

You have to give them a heroic end first and then let them work towards it to earn it. I'd start each player off with this, but I'd do it before the game starts, so they don't all know that they're having the same vision:


The Royal family asked for heroes and none disappointed.

In the end, you stand victorious and doomed. Through terrible sacrifice, the next of which will inevitably be your own life, you have fought endlessly for a chance to save the kingdom.

You've had no sleep for days, and your thoughts are muddled and painful. You remember your allies dying one after the other, giving their lives to delay the enemy for a few more moments, with only the hope that they're lives would buy many more. You remember how each one of your friends met their fate, but their faces were hidden from you by dust and gore and your own scalding tears. The Royal family insisted on being the last to leave, so you fought for the future of the land.

The city now stands as an empty husk littered with the shattered remains of friend and foe alike. Empty but for two survivors.

You look into the eyes of your enemy and see a mirror of the contempt that you feel. Realizing that you're unarmed, you pick up a sword dropped by a fallen defender.

With strength that you thought had abandonned you long ago you swing the sword into the magical mirror that was the creatures' only way of following the escapees as you feel the shocking blow from behind you and know that it was well worth it all to save them from this much pain.

Your anguish turns to confusion as your last cry escapes you lips, "Hear Ye, Hear Ye!"

The town square in the village you spent the night in is crowded, and a messenger stands above of the crowd on the twelfth step of the gallows.

"By decree of the Royal family of our great country, all citizens must make hast to the capitol. Anyone of able body must be prepared to defend their land, and any heroes of note must make themselves available to lead the defenders."