Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Ghost
... A game designer said that dice heavy combat games for some reason don't seem to lend themselves to RPing.
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Warhammer and Warhammer 40K both spawned RPG's (several in the case of WH40K). I can't imagine a more dice heavy combat game (three or more dice rolls per model per combat).
I don't think the number of dice rolled makes any difference, it is the role in the game the player identifies with. If you control single figure you are liable to invest some personality into that figure. If you control hundreds then they are just playing pieces.
I can see why you might not get invested in (say) ACW as you are controlling 100's of troops, the psychological drivers on one specific soldier will be blurred out in the collective. In the mass combat games that have an RP element the character is generally a hero or leader and thus their individual motivations/dispositions can be expected to dis-proportionately affect the outcome of the battle.
In CW you generally control one vehicle and that one vehicle often has a single character in it. The performance of the vehicle is directly related to the skills of the occupants (rather than say WH where the crew are largely irrelevant to the vehicle). Given that situation it is easier to see why the driver or gunner will take on greater significance.
If you are happy just pushing counters round a table and the people in the game are just targets or dice modifiers (or have become used to them dying every other scrap) then I can see that you might not invest in the RP aspects. If you want an ongoing campaign however, you need something to glue it together or the whole thing becomes rather pointless.
I know some people play teams or corporation based campaigns (to mitigate the high body count in CW), but they are just substituting an "off-screen" presence for an "on-screen" one. How many arena teams are called "The Green Team" or "Team 3". We tend to give them names with personality or a theme, in this way the team becomes a PC (like a hive mind).
If you don't develop grudges between drivers in the arena then you are missing half the fun ;)