Dresden 20 Design - Phase 2: Playtesting (continued)

Maneuvering for a Better Game

But Dresden’s Historical scenario still didn’t quite capture the true story of this battle. From the outset, my goal for Dresden 20 was to try and emphasize the different approach alternatives that were available to Napoleon. All the previous games on this battle focused on the major battle which developed before the city itself. This ignores the possibilities that the Emperor considered in how he initially intended to prosecute the engagement. To me, this traditional approach to designing a game on the Battle of Dresden was boring – set piece battles don’t make for a particularly challenging match as the outcome tends to be largely decided by the way the die rolls come out, not by player decisions. Accordingly, I find games with opportunities for maneuver to be far more interesting.

To inject the element of maneuver into the game, the Standard scenario allows the French player to choose the entry points for his reinforcements. He can either have them come in near Dresden, near the protected bridgehead at Konigstein (roughly 20 miles away), or via the crossing point at Pirna where the French intended to construct a pontoon bridge across the Elbe. With this in mind, I turned the test team loose, asking them to focus on determining whether this variable entry scheme was working as intended.

While initial feedback was promising, there were clearly problems. First, most French players tended to send their strongest units directly to Dresden, directing a few secondary forces to try and cross at Pirna to threaten the Allied flank, while Konigstein was rarely used as it was simply too far from the main action. The second problem was that it was far too easy for the Allies to block the Pirna pontoon site, basically stranding an entire French assault column with a single unit.

Crossing Three Problems Off

We fixed the Pirna problem by adding in three potential pontoon sites. While it was still feasible for the Allies to send enough troops to block all of them, doing so meant pulling forces away from the main fighting in front of Dresden. It was also found that even a token French force crossing at Konigstein was enough to threaten to unhinge any blocking force at Pirna.

The fix for the “all French to Dresden” problem came from a surprising source. After a test group session of three simultaneous games, Joshua Shirley, the 13 year old son of one of our playtesters, asked the simple question “Why do the French reinforcements have to go to Dresden first? Why can’t I send them Pirna first?” The stunned expressions of the rest of us sitting around the table made it clear that the child was wiser than the adults – a quick shift allowing the French to decide not just which of his reinforcements would go where, but also in which sequence they’d show up. It was a major turning point.

The next problem we were forced to confront was Konigstein itself. Originally, I’d made this old medieval castle on a steep-sided hill a sort of Super Fortified hex., with a +3 defensive bonus. But then Kim Meints ran a couple test games where he unexpectedly sent the Allied screening force to storm the castle and succeeded in doing so with surprising frequency – an accomplishment that historically wasn’t really within their ability to achieve. We then went through a series of adjustments to Konigstein’s defensive rating, and a rather lengthy debate whether we should simply prohibit Allied attacks on the castle at all (we eventually decided to give Konigstein a +4 defense – the Allies can attack it if they want, but it requires bringing in extra forces to have a reasonable chance of success).

Carey-ing The Day

By this point, we were pretty close to having everything ready to go. The game played out well, with lots of opportunities for both the Allies and French to frustrate the opposition, while still keeping the focus of the game on the fighting around Dresden.

Perhaps the last detail that needed ironing out was the question of the French V Cavalry corps and its impact on delaying the arrival of Klenau’s IV Austrian corps to the point where it was effectively unable to participate in the battle. There was consensus about what we wanted to achieve with these units, but a strong difference of opinion about how the rule for it should be implemented. Steve Carey, who’d generously volunteered to take over as developer for Dresden 20, felt that my initial draft of the rule for addressing V Cavalry’s actions were overly complex and typically resulted in fairly scripted play. Eventually, a compromise was reached where the French player was encouraged, but not forced, to use the unit in an historical manner, while the Allies were given somewhat greater freedom of action in deciding how they would react to what the French did. It was a good decision that extended game play beyond the confines of the map itself, giving players an increased sense of this battle being fought in the context of a much larger campaign.

Throughout the course of the Napoleonic 20 series development, VPG has been exceptionally fortunate to have the services of some truly remarkable playtesters. Without their help, the games would be nowhere near as much fun to play or be able to provide gamers with such compelling narratives of the battles we’re trying to model. A game designer’s vision can only take a game so far – eventually, at some point, he needs the insight and input of others, that extra added impetus that helps bring the project from concept to fruition. It’s not just a matter of playing the test game a few times, it’s an interactive process where the designer has to articulate what he’s trying to achieve and the test team responds with critique as to whether that vision is being realized and, if not, provides suggestions on how the game can be modified to do that.

While my name may be on the game package as “Designer,” the real credit for a game’s success should go to those dedicated members of the playtest team who help morph that initial testkit copy into a real work of art.

Next installment: making Dresden 20 more than a “stand alone” game – integration into the Germany 20 sub-series.

Lance McMillan