Legacy

In recent years a number of 'legacy' games have been coming out, with Risk Legacy being the prime example. These games all have the interesting mechanic that each game you play has an impact on subsequent games. Risk Legacy popularized it, but it certainly wasn't the first game to do that. Legacy game play is nothing new, the market is just seeing it implemented in new and interesting ways.

Role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons are perhaps the quintessential 'legacy' game. As the story progresses, the player characters gain experience and level up, and the plot moves forward. It's the story that really drives good RPGs, not the mechanics, and the best stories are always the ones that are derived from the narrative. Sure, tales of amazing dice rolls (both good and bad) are fun, but without the narrative these moments blur together over time. “I rolled a 20!” is great, but “I beheaded the dragon!” is better, and will be something players will talk about for ages.

There have been several good 'role playing without the role playing' board games out there that capture much the same feelings as traditional RPGs. The ones that stick out the most to me are the ones with campaigns, though. Good mechanics are important, as they are with any board game, but what sets a good RPG-style board game apart from an OK one is the ongoing story. Descent, Myth, and games like it that have chained adventures which help to highlight the epic deeds of the players by giving them a bigger context; an overarching story makes these actions both more memorable and more coherent because the players' actions have consequences. What they do in one game will be remembered not only for being a memorable moment in its own right, but because things are different in subsequent games because of it.

Table top strategy war games, like Warhammer, have also had campaign modes for what seems like forever. When these are done on the scale of an entire army, the deeds of individual units tend to get lost, but at a smaller skirmish level, like in the now defunct Necromunda, the scale is more manageable for keeping track of specifics. When the scale is reduced far enough, then the distinction between war game and role playing game begins to disappear; if each player is only controlling one character they are essentially playing an RPG. Even when players are controlling a small handful of models in a war game, it's a small enough scale for those good RPG-style stories to develop.

One of my all-time favourite board games is the Blood Bowl miniatures game, a game of fantasy football with Orcs and Elves vying for touchdowns. I've been playing it for probably close to seven years, and I'm enjoying it as much now as I did when I started, if not more so. The game play itself is great, but what keeps me coming back is the narrative that is created by the advancement of the teams. As they do well, 'players' gain new skills, but there is always a risk that these team members will suffer serious injuries or die. 'Coaches' have to make difficult decisions sometimes; is it worth trying a dangerous play to win a match, or should the team be more cautious to avoid injuries that could hamper them in later matches? The longer I have been using a team, the harder those decisions become, because I find myself more emotionally invested in the well-being of my players; if one of my team members dies, I feel guilty. But when they do well, I really do feel proud of them.

After Blood Bowl games, I've even written short little stories about what happened. Together with the other coaches in the league we have created a whole world full of whimsy and great memories. Because each match has permanent consequences, our world has continuity, and that allows the stories we write and the memories we create to grow and to expand that world.

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