-	-	-	-	-
Dragon #65	-	-	-	Dragon magazine

When gamers discuss their preferences
they usually concentrate on the purpose
behind a game design, the realism
(simulation) vs. playability question.
Should the game be designed primarily
to reflect/reproduce history — even a
made-up history such as a science fiction
novel? Or should history be subordinated
to the need for an interesting,
easy-to-play game?

In other words, players talk about
game styles, not playing styles. This
could be because many gamers are indifferent
players, content to play a game
a few times and then put it aside rather
than attempt to learn the best moves and
strategies. With hundreds of games on
the market, this attitude isn’t surprising.
But two basic game-playing styles do
exist, no matter the game being played.

Harkening back to the well-known
nineteenth century distinction in music,
painting, and other arts, I call the two
styles the Classical and the Romantic.
The perfect Classical player tries to know
each game inside out. He wants to learn
the best countermove to every move his
opponent might make. He takes nothing
for granted, paying attention to little details
which probably won’t matter most
of the time, but which in certain cases
could be important. He dislikes risks —
not that he never takes risks, but he prefers
a slow-but-steady, certain win to a
quick but only probable attempt at victory.
He tries not to be overcautious, however,
for fear of becoming predictable.
He tries to maximize his minimum gain
each turn — as the “perfect player” of
mathematical game theory is expected
to do — rather than make moves and
attacks which could gain a lot but might
leave him worse off than when he started.

A cliche among football fans is that the
best teams win by making fewer mistakes,
letting the other team beat itself.
So it is with the Classical wargamer, who
concentrates on eliminating errors rather
than on discovering brilliant coups.
When a less than top-class player tries to
play classically he can be predictable,
unimaginative, overcautious; he won’t
get clobbered, but he may find himself
consistently falling short of victory. A
poor player who wants to play classically
tends to let his pieces mill around, accomplishing
very little. He just doesn’t
know how to get started, so he plays
ultra-cautiously and goes nowhere.

The perfect Romantic looks for the
decisive blow that will cripple his enemy,
psychologically if not physically (on the
board). He wishes to convince his opponent
of the inevitability of defeat; in some
cases, a player with a still-tenable position
will resign a game to a Romantic
opponent when he has been beaten
psychologically.

The Romantic is willing to take a risk in
order to disrupt enemy plans and throw
the game into a line of play his opponent
is unfamiliar with. He looks for opportunities
for a big gain, rather than “only”
trying to maximize his minimum gain. A
flamboyant (but at best only probable)
win is his goal. He may make mistakes,
but he hopes to seize victory rather than
wait for the enemy to beat himself. The
Romantic player tends to be a little sloppy
about seemingly minor details; if he
gets in his decisive blow(s), he won’t
need to worry about little things — and if
his big coups fail, those little things
won’t make a difference in the overall
result. When a less than top-class player
tries the Romantic style he tends to attack
a lot, taking risks without good reason.
Usually the risks will catch up with
him. A poor Romantic player specializes
in banzai charges, forced marches, single-
handed attacks, and dissipation of
effort and strength to no good purpose.

Some examples and further explication
are desirable. Chess is a game
which leans to the Classical approach,
epitomized by the style of American
Bobby Fischer and all Russian players in
general. But Romantics play the game,
too. Some years ago Fischer met Bent
Larsen in a match to determine who
would go on to the next round of the
World Championship elimination. Larsen
attempted to throw Fischer off stride by
making unusual moves. He hoped that
Fischer wouldn’t be able to correctly analyze
all the unusual positions. But
Fischer’s knowledge of the game is unmatched,
and by countering Larsen’s
ploys, Fischer won the match 6-0.

Larsen’s moves were probably not the
best possible, but if Fischer had not previously
determined what would be the
best line of play to follow in each case, he
might have lost.

The Russians have been known as
masters of the draw. Two Classical players
contesting a heavily analyzed game
like chess can often finish in a draw,
though Fischer shows that the very finest
Classical player can find new and
superior lines of play to slowly overwhelm
an opponent. (Fischer is also
known as a master of the psyche-out; no
doubt he has a Romantic streak in him.)

 Let’s get closer to standard wargames
and adventure games. Starforce Alpha
Centauri is designed to favor the Romantic
player. The designer has said that the
game is like two karate masters maneuvering,
looking for an opening for a single,
decisive blow to end the contest.
The option to move in overdrive, farther
than permitted normally but with a
chance for a potentially disastrous failure,
is custom-made for the Romantic
player.

On the other hand, Stellar Conquest is
a game of many options and much detail.
The articles about Stellar Conquest
which have appeared in DRAGON™ Magazine
and other publications indicate
how much mastery of the game is required
to play it well.

In Afrika Korps the Romantic, playing
the German side, might risk a 2-1 or 1-2
attack on Tobruk, while the Classical
player would besiege the place and go
on toward Alexandria, expecting that if
he played well he would either force the
British to abandon Tobruk or he would
take their home base.

Diplomacy, though without any overt
chance factor, is a good game for both
Classical and Romantic players. The ne-
gotiations and alliance structures give
both types plenty to work with. The
Classical player tends to be better at tactics
and strategy; he prefers long alliances
to continuous free-for-all, for there
are too many risks and incalculable factors
inherent in such a fluid situation.
The Romantic tends to prefer the fluid
state, and his big weapon is the backstab.

The Classical wargamer concentrates on eliminating
errors. . . . The perfect Romantic looks for the decisive
blow that will cripple his enemy.

The D&D® and AD&D™ games, to
name two prominent examples of roleplaying
games, are unusual insofar as
there is no player-enemy, but both playing
styles can be discerned. The Classical
player tries to avoid a reliance on
dice, though he must accept the occasional
melee (where luck tends to average
out). He hates to roll a saving throw.
He likes to devise thorough, sometimes
complicated plans to defeat a monster or
trap with a minimum of risk. The Romantic
doesn’t mind risking a saving throw
against spells (or whatever) in order to
get in his blow at the enemy. Sometimes
he likes to rely on guile and bluff. The
second-level character who pretends to
be a 20th-level magic-user and slaps a
dragon in the face must be accounted a
Romantic!

There is nothing a Classical player
hates more than losing to an inferior
player because of bad dice throws. For
this reason, he avoids the more Romantic
games, such as Starforce, because in
such games even a poor player will occasionally
luck out and win. (This is one
reason why there are more Romantic
than Classical games — more people will
play the former because the less skillful
players still have a chance to win, as they
do not in a Classical game.) While the
good Romantic player is inclined to occasionally
take a calculated risk, the
poor Romantic is prone to gamble quite
often (usually because he can’t think of
anything better to do), and once in a
while he’ll hit the jackpot.

Don’t confuse the intuitive player with
the Romantic. Many good players depend
on intuition rather than study and
logic to make good moves, yet the moves
can be either Classical or Romantic. A
Romantic player can also be a very cerebral
or intellectual player who happens
to prefer the Romantic style. Some people
would refer to Classical players with
derision as “mathematical” players. It is
true that Classical players are concerned
with odds and expected losses (though
this alone doesn’t identify or qualify a
person as a Classical player). Nonetheless,
Classical players do quite well in
non-mathematical games.

If you can identify your opponent’s
playing style, you may be able to take
advantage of it. A Romantic may be
suckered into an area which looks weak
but is not. A Classical player may be unable
to react effectively to unusual
moves. Obviously, this discussion of
playing styles is simplified; no one is
wholly Romantic or wholly Classical,
and some people are Romantic when
they play some games and Classical in
other games. Whatever style your opponent
uses, recognizing it is the first step
to taking advantage of his weaknesses.