Over War (Part 2)

It is over, reader; I have the high war.

You can find party 1 here.

5. Disassemble Engine

Games have a flow, which, when you hit, the game pretty much runs itself. It is extremely satisfying. After examining the interactions of game elements, we single out the most important - the one that sets the pace of sessions, or even campaigns. We focus on how that engine works, how it makes the game move along, and what to do to make it do what you want to do - and how to keep it running clean.

Brad

So. You wanna build an army huh? You think you are cut out to win a Battle of The Tigers? Or become a real Strategy Troll? Well i think you can rather easily. Character creation starts with creating your commander, a collection of special rules and unique abilities like being aquatic or being big, that you can use to influence the world, but perhaps most importantly your Authority, which determines what characters your army can use.

You then organize your characters into a Unit, which is made up of to six characters in tywo rows of three that determine when their abilities go in a combat system that is totally free of random initiative. Characters are hugely customizable and there are even rules for building custom ones. This means that there are tons of possibilities for each unit to say nothing of each army.

This is the basic building block of Over War, and everything, from the social system added in Ballark In Flames to the war camp system feeds into and off of it. You can build a JRPG army of your dudes, spending hours pouring over for the most optimal combinations of unit layouts and abilities. You could also design an army that actively reflects one of the subfactions from Ballark In Flames, Overwar captures that fun wargame push and pull of canon and fun unit composition.

Lhuzie

The game engine is a Matryoshka of character creation. Armies are made of units, each unit is made of characters — unit characters, commander, formation. It works a lot like Chariots of Steel by way of DnD.

How you make characters, which characters are in a unit and in which a formation: that is what determines the outcome of warfare-narrative. There are optional rules that give additional nuance, but they are built upon this deterministic engine where agency is in pre-combat customization — akin to stellar strategic TTRPGs such as Lancer: Battlegroup.

6. Essentials For Session One

So, you got this game; you are going to play it, but you don’t have the time to read everything. Or even worse, you have read it and now it is all jumbled together. Here we break down the things that you absolutely want to get right and/or hit during your first session, so you get the feeling for what makes this game stand out from similar art.

Brad

Build your own scenario, and absolutely make sure to pregen some interesting units, this will give your players a chance to see how wild this game will work. As Always, make sure you are confident on Targeting and if you are going to use any further optional rules from Ballark In Flames.

Lhuzie

Do not run the example of one-session presented in the Monarch Edition (pg. 67) as Patrol play. It creates an awful introduction to the game that was often off-putting to players. Instead, run one of the Scenarios from the back of the book (pg. 88).

Make some example units for players to pick, ideally some that are good and bad matchups with those of the scenario you have chosen.

Study how targeting works (Monarch Edition pg. 45), so you can see how different units interact when they battle each other. It can get extremely convoluted sometimes.

Give each player 1-3 divination cards (Monarch Edition pg. 49), so they can try this element of the game that is usually reserved for longer play.

You may want to give a pass on Orders and Magnanimity for this play, to let combat flow “baseline” so players get a sense of what those levers do if they play the game again.

7. Playing The Game Wrong

Games are played wrong. Rules will be misunderstood, interactions will be confused, the importance of certain tech disregarded; etc. This is good, and it is good to acknowledge for: you cannot have the designer at your table, and even if they were, they would be just another player - and entitled to play it wrong. After identifying stress points of the game, things that don’t connect that well, we think of the things that are more likely to be (or have been) “played wrong”. What happens when you forget a line on page 273 clearly saying this is impossible?

Brad

For the love of god, use the Gambit rules, they will dramatically improve the roleplaying part of this roleplaying games. I recommend prebuilding enemy encounters to theme, after all they will be more mechanically interesting and able to stick out in players minds as well. Plus you can introduce recurring and growing enemies as fun NPCs. Don’t let anyone custom-build units until everyone is confident.

Lhuzie

The game does not have a good presentation of examples, so requires rerereading and rereading. We made our own examples for later references, taking snapshots of our hex movements for reference for the future/others.

Not all options are born equal. While a good nod to the inspiration material (RIP Knights, Cavaliers forever), no option really feels like a trap option and the “wrong” choices or combinations in a TTRPG do not feel as punishing as in wargames.

There is no “game balance” concern in Over War. You will enjoy yourself more if you abandon such notions. That said, for the most part, unit characters of same cost tend to perform at the relative same “tier” consistently.

Downtime and Support mechanics are very awkward to use.

Despite the randomizer elements on tables being all over the game, randomizer unit compositions are not very satisfying in a strategy game. Whenever possible, prepare thematic/mechanically satisfying units to face against.

While where it is at most unbalanced territory, making custom unit characters is a joy and definitely something anyone with some system mastery should try to do for some satisfyingly absurd units.

Combat is pretty underwhelming only predetermined. I recommend using Order rules. To really make use of the trickier rules/unit composition, Magnanimity rules are essential to make those viable/strategically interesting.

Gambits (Ballark in Flames, pg. 65) makes Skills meaningful and is pretty much a requirement for satisfying roleplay.

8. What to Steal

Experiencing good art is the most important step in making good art. We look back at the things that worked and did not work about this game, see what we learned for design work, interesting tech and just a general overview of things that we will take from this game and bring into others. Or more honestly: since many of us may not play this game and we have it in our library, this way we can get some use out of it.

Brad

If you listened to traditional design wisdom, it would say that Overwar is impossible, a rules heavy OSR game, a rules medium JRPG adaptation, and a tabletop strategy rpg sound like the fever dreams of a game designer. It is a good thing Overwar doesn’t care what design wisdom says is possible. This game proves that you should take big swings, and let your loves outside of the artform color your loves inside the artform.

Overwar also is proof of less page-count being more, in that you have a truly massive and possible to understand system contained in less than four hundred pages, so try slimming your book down a little.

Lhuzie

Over War is a delightful attempt to cross the bridge between wargaming in tabletop and video games and roleplaying. The excesses of cognitive load are worth considering and studying, as well as what it gained and lost by staying close then moving beyond the OSR movement and its philosophy.

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