Designer's Notes: That Others May Live - Game Summary
"That Others May Live" is a solitaire game about Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) operations during the Vietnam War. The player is tasked with rescuing downed aircrew caught deep in the hilly jungles and forests of South East Asia. This article is a summary of how the game works and plays. If you're curious, then this article should give you the information you need as to whether or not to pull the trigger on it.
That Others Might Live is published by Hollandspiele and is due for release in late summer 2023. I should note that the images used here are the playtest version and are (thankfully) not the final artwork for the game.
The Basics - Components
The major action of the game takes place on a map, which is two concentric circles. The inner circle is called the Center Zone while the outer ring is divided up into four Outer Zones that are labeled according to their cardinal direction. An Orbit Box near the map represents a relatively safe area for aircraft to regroup or loiter.
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| TOML Map - Playtest artwork |
Aircraft counters represent individual aircraft and include A-1 Skyraiders, HH-53 Super Jolly Green Giant helicopters, O-2 Skymasters (Forward Air Controllers), and Fast Movers (F-4 Phantoms and other fast attack jets). These were the standard kinds of aircraft that were typically used in CSAR missions in Southeast Asia.
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| A-1 Skyraider counter (playtest art) |
The NVA is represented mainly by the presence of anti-aircraft threats, which includes everything from small arms right up to the 57mm S-60. These are hidden from the player at the start of the game and unless you find and deal with them quickly, they will shoot down your rescue helicopters. Much of That Others May Live deals with suppression of anti-aircraft weapons, although there are other aspects to the game that are critical to mission success.
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| 37mm M38 counter (playtest art) |
The game is primarily card-driven. Card decks include the "Pilots and PJs", which reflects the unique abilities of your team and can mean the difference between success and failure. Aircraft Action Cards are used to direct your aircraft to direct their attacks, mark targets, and use special ordnance such as smoke, CS gas, napalm, and cluster munitions. A Resolution deck determines the outcome of these actions as well as enemy attacks and search attempts. Finally, an Event deck throws random events such as MiGs and bad weather your way.
Setup
At the start of each scenario, there are one or two "Survivor" markers on the map, indicating the position of your downed aircrew (henceforth referred to as "Survivor"). The Survivor is usually placed in the center of two concentric circles.
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| Survivor - Healthy (playtest art) |
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| Survivor - Injured (playtest art) |
Hidden and Enemy markers are placed in the zones surrounding your Survivor and these are revealed either due to friendly "Troll for Fire" actions or when a helicopter enters the zone. On the back of each marker is a number that indicates how many Enemy Guns must be drawn from an opaque cup and placed in the zone.
Each zone also has a Zone marker that creates special conditions that apply to a limited area of the map. The presence of Village markers prevents the use of special ordnance in the area. Some enemies in a zone are entrenched, which makes it much harder for them to kill or suppress. Other zone markers might show a Target of Opportunity, the destruction of which gives the rescue operation an impetus to stay in the area even when things start to look bleak.
Turn Sequence
After drawing for a random event, you'll draw up to five Action Cards, of which there are two types: Aircraft and Command. Later in the turn, aircraft cards can be assigned to aircraft to make them troll for fire or conduct certain kinds of attacks using special ordnance. Smoke cards, for example, allow you to place a smoke marker in a zone that obscures the area and makes it harder for enemy guns to hit your aircraft. Action Cards may be reserved, which gives you the ability to plan things out for the turns ahead.
Command cards are used to make requests up the chain that include requesting an exfiltration team to go in and help your Survivor move out of the area. These cards can also be used to request fast moving jet aircraft along with tankers to refuel them. If your Survivor is uninjured, you can try to move them out of their current zone if it's too hot for a rescue attempt. An Exfiltration team can also attempt to move them out of the area and deliver them safely out of the enemy's reach.
After resolving Command Cards, you move your aircraft. Aircraft move differently to reflect their abilities and roles. Prop-driven Skyraiders, for example, move one zone per turn and can loiter on the map or the Orbit Box throughout the entire game. Fast moving jet aircraft can be placed anywhere on the map without the need to move across zones. However, their rapid rate of fuel consumption means they are only available for two turns.
When the movement segment ends, you can assign Aircraft Action cards to aircraft on the map. Each zone can have up to two Aircraft Action cards assigned to it. After all Action Cards have been assigned, each zone on the map is checked for enemy fire. Enemy guns may target one zone, which is determined according to priority: either their current zone or, if there are no targets in their zone, then the zone within range with the most aircraft.
Enemy AAA fire is resolved by totaling the amount of enemy firepower poured into a given zone and drawing a number of Resolution cards. For each crosshairs icon you get while drawing, a random aircraft in the target zone takes a hit.
Fortunately, the number of hits can be reduced by "burning" or discarding Aircraft Action Cards in your hand. This represents a mixture of luck and last-second evasive maneuvering. Be warned, however - even luck has its limits. No matter how many cards you burn, one hit always gets through in the end.
A Fast Mover that's hit is removed from play and does not return to the Fast Mover Pool. Those guys are damaged and returning to base. Your other aircraft counters have two sides - Cool and Shaken. If an aircraft on its Cool side is hit, it's flipped to its Shaken side. An aircraft on its Shaken side that takes a hit is either shot down or destroyed. If the plane is shot down, you place the aircraft's pilot on the map and now you have another person to rescue. It's possible that a simple mission of rescuing a single pilot can devolve into a chain of shootdowns that require multiple rescue attempts and pickups.
After all enemy fire is resolved, the player's aircraft take their actions. Skyraiders and Fast movers can make attacks against enemy guns. FACs can mark targets on the map and double the number of hits that are scored against them. Helicopters can attempt to rescue a Survivor in the same zone.
The turn ends with a quick check to see if the enemy captures a Survivor on the map and, if things are going badly, to see whether the mission is aborted. A Bomb Damage Assessment segment is conducted to determine whether or not the hits inflicted on enemy guns actually kill them. Hits on guns do not accumulate from turn to turn, which reflects how difficult it was to destroy them in real life.
Scenarios & Campaign
The game presents four historical scenarios, a standard scenario, and a mini-campaign. The standard scenario "Caged Tiger" allows you to control a seasoned team of Combat Search and Rescue pilots in June 1967. You'll have four A-1 Skyraiders, two HH-53 Super Jolly Green Giant helicopters, and an O-2 Skymaster FAC under your command. In addition, you'll get the ability to call in airstrikes from F-4 Phantoms to hammer on any enemy guns in the area. With no knowledge of what's lurking in the terrain below, the mission might just be a matter of sending in your helos and going home. Or it may be a carefully laid flak trap that will tie down your aircraft and shoot down more fliers.
The historical scenarios are based on actual rescue attempts during the Vietnam War. The first scenario, "Cauldron of Fire" features the attempted rescue of a downed A-4 pilot in the A Shau Valley in June 1968. The second scenario, "Streetcar Down" is loosely based on the rescue of Kenny Fields near Tchepone, Laos in January 1969. "You've Got Your Troubles" is set in 1965 and takes place before the standardization of CSAR in South East Asia. Nicola Saggini contributed the excellent scenario "Air Force Cross", which is based on the rescue of a downed A-6 aircrew during the Easter Offensive of 1972.
A mini-campaign lets you form your own CSAR team and conduct three missions that let you tally your final score and determine success or failure for the team. During the course of the campaign, you can gain and spend Morale points for certain advantages, such as the ability to customize your pilots and parajumpers or purchase an extra turn on the next mission.
Closing Comments
I'm quite proud of That Others May Live. It's the product of years of work and research. Most importantly, it had great support in playtesting and development. Ryan Heilman worked as the game's developer over several months and his contribution greatly helped to improve the final product.
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| Ryan Heilman and Dave Shaw's "Brave Little Belgium" |
The playtest group was second to none. They offered sound advice and provided a very solid direction in terms of what worked and the things that needed to be smoothed out before it was ready for publication. I am grateful for their help.
Any success of That Others May Live is due to the team that surrounded and supported it.
I didn't imagine a wide audience for this game while designing it. If you're an aircraft buff and you enjoy Vietnam-era wargaming, I think you'll like it. TOML requires a few plays to get the basics down and get comfortable with the rules and flow of play. It is not a complex game, but there are lots of simple parts that function together to make it work. People who complained about NATO Air Commander (my previous design) being too procedural will probably not find much relief here.
Having said that, I was aware even die-hards would rarely want to sit down and play a three or four hour game about Combat Search and Rescue. Much of the playtesting was focused on smoothing out the experience and paring down the play time by removing rules and streamlining procedures. I was also conscious of keeping the player engaged and making a game where decisions really mattered.
To that end, simplification and abstraction were my major development goals. Much of the difficulty of designing this game revolved around how to represent a highly dynamic and complex situation in a way that didn't bog down the player or make them feel like an observer.
I think the end result is a rewarding experience, especially over the course of multiple plays. Each rescue mission tells a story and even the losses are interesting. Those who tend to hop quickly from game to game after attempting one or two scenarios might walk away from TOML with a shrug, and I fully accept that. But if you like to dig into a game and play it more than just a few times, then TOML has something to offer you. More importantly, there's something to learn.
Though the topic is admittedly obscure, players might come to appreciate how this little-known aspect of combat operations worked for a brief period in the long battle for Vietnam. If so, then I will have achieved my main goal for designing it.
Looking back on the game's long evolution, I am extremely proud of how far it has come in that regard. Even though we are still at a pre-release stage, That Others Might Live already feels like a success.
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