"Why do you care if rules "are no longer supported"?" Topic

Does that mean the they are now illegal to play?

Are they no longer fun?

Will someone take your minis away?

Are you now no longer one of the Cool Kids?

Every time a company lets a rule set die, a little of me dies with it.

it means the poor s (retailers) who bought them are stuck with them, again, and the cool kids won't buy them and another b&m store bites the dust

But every time a bell rings an angel gets it's wings.

Everything evens out. Or not. Depending.

Regards, the Gorb

Only dusty old grognards (fully equipped with all the unfortunate streotypical attributes) play OOP rulesets.

Anyone for a game of any of Arnold Hendricks' Milgamex ancients rules, or "1944"?

Allen

I would actually prefer that a set of rules "dies" to the extent that they are not constantly being updated and changed. Im not a fan of things like 40K which is in its ## version. In addition, I tend to tinker with rules and the ongoing support and changes in the rules do nothing for me since I dont want to relearn the system every couple years. I generally find that as rules continue to evolve they get more complicated and are less fun for me. Sometimes things do get fixed that needed fixing but Ive usually come up with my own fix before that happens.

What really saddens me is when any set goes out of print. I want to read old rules and either through reading or comments on the web I find old rules which I find interesting. Then I am frustrated when I cant find a copy.

Because I seek affirmation through the broadest gaming audiences possible. If 40K and Hannah Montana could somehow be combined into a single wonderous chimera of mass-market appeal, I could die happy. Perhaps from some sort of brain tumor.

I can sort of understand the "I won't play those rules, they're not supported" mindset, but I don't agree with it.

One gamer, years ago, was unhappy with me for writing new rulesets and running my own rules for the group. He thought I was "diluting the waters." He thought we should band together and support the leading ruleset (whatever that was at the moment) and play only that ruleset. I don't think he ever understood that, for me, writing rules was a major part of the hobby.

Like many other dusty old grognards, I've reached the stage in life when I realize I don't have enough time left to start a bunch of big new projects, and that I need to concentrate on all the stuff I've been accumulating for the past 30 years. That means, yes, those old long-OOP rules.

It doesn't bother me at all. Most of the games I'm interested in aren't played at my FLGS anyway. Just as long as I can still find the minis for the rules. I know I'll never get to play the game but I still enjoy hunting for the minis and building/painting them. Just last week I lucked out and found 2 mechs for Spirit Warrior.

I don't really care if they are OOP or not as long as I know them. I don't have much time to learn new rules with all the other reading I'm doing all the time.

I used to care, since the cool kids played the newest thing. But since I've realized that I either play solitaire, or if I bring them to put on a game that no matter how new or supported or whammodyne they are I'm still the only guy who has read the rules, it doesn't matter. Provided I like them, they're good.

I could care less. I have plenty of rules from the past that I'm happy to use (Charge for example). Rules never die, only those who use them.

More to the point, I can't recall any time I've heard someone disparaging "unsupported" rules who wasn't selling a competing ruleset, or trying to garner support for his or her favourite ruleset.

To my mind, this whole notion of rules being "supported" or not illustrates the divide between "old school" rules and "new school" rules. In the Old Days (tm) many rulesets consisted of only a single rulebook (or a boxed set of rulebooks) that contained everything you'd ever need to play. If nothing else was ever published for that ruleset, it didn't matter; no one really needed it.

These days, many gamers consider a game system is not "viable" unless there's a constant stream of new stuff being published for it. Once that constant stream stops, the game is somehow no longer playable.

This all seems linked to the rather strange belief that somehow you should be upset or jealous if you're playing a set of rules that's not as popular as the market leader.

My only real interest these days is in the defunct FASA Star Trek STCS (well, I keep up with ADB's SFB and FC and with spaceship gaming in general, but don't really play that much).

The 'dead and unsupported' works fine for me. Me and my closest internet buddies play around with the dead STCS on Yahoo groups all the time.

I'm afraid I suffer from reverse snobbery and will only play rules which are completely obscure and unobtainable unless you happen to meet the author and he grudgingly hands you a dog eared playsheet or you find a set stuck in that big dusty box at the back of the Irregular stand.

Commercial and supported, brrrrr, what a horrible thought.

Lol, perhaps you would be interested in our old D&D group's completely revised and expanded combat rules, converted to a percentage system, that includes all manner of obscure weapons, rule play by class along with multiple attack depending on level, class, ability AND a nifty secondary skills system that pre-dates most gaming company efforts to do the same.

I'm told that anything so fine improves with age. ;)

….and when I say 'old', I'm talkin' early 1980's (damn, I feel old….).

If I have a set of rules that I like, but are not "supported" I still play.

However, there are two types of "supported" rules; first are those run by the devloper/publisher and the other types are those run by fans.

I think the idea of "supported" rules sets is a concept of the internet age. It's so easy today for rules developers to have a site or a Yahoo Group to answer questions and provide updated data that there's now almost an expection that the developer will maintain a site/group of some type. If for no other reason than it's good for marketing.

But, frankly, in the internet age it's difficult to find a rules set that's NOT supported online, even if it's a bunch of fans running a Yahoo Group.

Supported or not is almost a moot point. There's plenty of support for all but the most obscure rules.

IMHO
Ray

It's never worried me.

I look for two things in a set of rules:

1) I like playing them, and
2) I can find opponents.

So long as me and at least one opponent supports them, then I am happy.

If the rules set is well written and covers all the relevant topics, why would it need any support?

Griefbringer

doesn't bother me at all…

I'm with Grief, above

I'm afraid I suffer from reverse snobbery and will only play rules which are completely obscure and unobtainable unless you happen to meet the author and he grudgingly hands you a dog eared playsheet or you find a set stuck in that big dusty box at the back of the Irregular stand.

Martin, can I interest you in a set of Warzone rules I recently bought from the former project leader who kindly signed them for me?

Griefbringer wrote:

If the rules set is well written and covers all the relevant topics, why would it need any support?

Indeed. But some companies deliberately don't do this so that they can sell more stuff.

And I have never really got to grips with the idea that "support" in the form of expensive supplements, that can cost hundreds of pounds for a complete set, is a plus point for any set of rules.

With the Internet you could find a discussion group for even the most obscure and long OOP ruleset, that's some kind of support and maybe you'll even find more support that when the rules were published.

What's this 'support' you are talking about. In MY day we walked five miles – uphill – in the snow to the library to read the only copy of an obscure text and HAND COPY organization and maps for units and battles, then we had to type in up on a TYPEWRITER!

If you were really lucky, you could send the designer a letter and hope to get an answer back with a SASE.

You were lucky, you had a typewriter.

You were lucky to have stamps and envelopes.

We had to get a passing tramp to head off in the author's general direction, write a message in ink on his naked skin, and promise him a bottle of methylated spirits if he delivered it and brought back the answer scrawled beneath.

You've probably never tried writing on a naked homeless man with an alcoholic tic. It's not as much fun as you'd think.

Probably the only down side to a dead rules set and miniatures line is if you get someone interested and then bring down the hammer of…

"Where do I get the rules?"

"Well… a set pops up on ebay sometimes…"

"Those minis are awesome! Where can I get them?"

"Well… sometimes someone puts their collection up on ebay…"

I still play Ultimate Warzone and it only sometimes makes me sad that I'll never get new figures and that it's a pain to get the old ones… Historicals, I still get a game of Baptism of Fire 1st edition in sometimes and I don't feel anything odd about using the rule set.

My periods will always be supported with new background material. People print history books all the time.

We had to get a passing tramp to head off in the author's general direction, write a message in ink on his naked skin,

Pfft. At least you had ink.

The problem is…if I get someone started playing some classic rule set that's been OOP for 20 years, he's going to want his own copy of the rules, and a legal, printed copy in good condition may prove hard to find. I once took bootlegging for granted, but can no longer.

I don't think it matters for historical rules so much, but for anything which isn't mainstream and hence cross-company supported, it means the figures won't be around much longer. Which means next year, when you can afford another unit of ThingFlingers, you can't get hold of any.

Is there a Yahoo group for "1776"? It's only 32 years old.

I think it's all because of "buy-in"

You put on this great game for people and then they ask:

"This is cool, where can I buy the rules? Let me design my army, where can I buy the figures?"

The answer must be You Can't and You Can't

So the ultimate result is: "Thanks but no thanks. I'm looking for a game I can get into"

It only matters if the rule set has a line of figure that goes along with it.

As I never have all the figures I want for a game, if the game goes OOP, then I know I never will, and that's depressing.

Having said that, I still play Tigers&Stalins on occasion.

Fortunately for me, even though most of my favorite rules sets are "OOP" and/or "unsupported" there are enough figure lines compatible out there, that on the off chance someone new comes along and wants to join us, it's not that hard to point them in the direction of good choices.

Thankfully, when it comes to Warmaster, since they were giving the PDFs away for free on the old specialist website, I don't have any problem sharing those PDFs with anyone.

I don't care if the rules are dead, but its easier to find players for whatever is currently hot. Unfortunately, what's hot is always changing, so you're always re-investing. GW is not really an exception, because though its consistently durable you're always buying new rules, codexes, and figures.

Dead can be better because not only is it not changing, often the rules are free online or cheap second hand.

I play whatever but assume I'll have to build both armies…

Andrew

Give me strength JTOFM – are you suggesting there are people who stop playing a ruleset because it's gone out of print or the publisher has said "nope, no more new stuff for that"

As a (often) solo gamer I look for 1 thing in a set of rules :
1) I like playing them.

Don't always find it of course, but I do look for it !

Suggesting a set is dropped because otherwise you aren't in with the cool kids is an oxymoron. Wargamers. Cool Kids. What are you thinking ? Or, more pertinantly, what are you drinking ?

(And on the general support thing : In my day you had to wait for Donald Featherstone to write a new book…..)

It only matters if the rule set has a line of figure that goes along with it.

I'm thinking the same…
These days I kind of shy away from rules put out by miniature companies that are tied to a specific 'look'… rules that rely on unit cards and convoluted stats that discourage making up homegrown units (I'm thinking Rackham and Privateer and GW).
I'd much rather find a less specifically 'thematic' rule set that gives me the basics to make my own units/armies… and then use whatever minis I like with them.

… that being said I'm still hoping for new rules for GZG's triumvirate… Full Thrust/Dirtside/Stargrunt…

@Melvin Foogle…
You may have found my long lost pappy.

As for John's question, I really don't care. You need good rules. You can…

1) Write your own
2) Find an old game that got it right
3) Find a current game that you hope will get it right in the future

I would love for someone to introduce and support great rules with a large following for a long time. Perhaps with the exception for FASA and BattleTech, that has rarely happened.

20thmaine wrote:

Give me strength JTOFM – are you suggesting there are people who stop playing a ruleset because it's gone out of print or the publisher has said "nope, no more new stuff for that"

Hundreds of them. Whining on the Interwebs.

"Hundreds of them. Whining on the Interwebs."

And their cousins, the "your new edition sucks!" boo birds, who will huffily leave the game behind despite having a perfectly serviceable prior edition that they loved, and were playing frequently right up to the day they bought/borrowed/etc the new edition.

This despite reassurance by the writers of both editions that they were NOT hiring enforcers to visit previous players and confiscate their older editions.

Yes, I still remember the storm that was Champions: New Millennium. Like it was yesterday.

Its an odd phenomenon in gaming. The games with aggressively marketed new editions, un-forgiving re-writes that force updating, and (too often) a blatant " the consumer" attitude seem to create significant groups of fans who *won't* leave their beloved prior editions or abandoned games (sometimes with no regard to actual quality), while companies with a more relaxed attitude seem to incite everlasting and retro-active hatred and disdain if a rules revision goes sour.

"Martin, can I interest you in a set of Warzone rules I recently bought from the former project leader who kindly signed them for me?"

LOL. The unsigned ones are much more valuable;-)

I'LL play a game of 40K RT or 2nd ED any day of the week still have all the books and enough minis to field any of the armies 2 times. but you could not pay me to play any of the newer rules sets, they just have to many rules that I dont like in mini war games
Im the same with Reapers CAV game.

Give me strength JTOFM – are you suggesting there are people who stop playing a ruleset because it's gone out of print or the publisher has said "nope, no more new stuff for that"

Pay attention, 007!
They are whining all over TMP, too!
They will also abandon 4th Edition, no matter how much they like it, because 5th Edition just came out. Pity poor 3rd Edition, too.

Don't blame just fantasy, sci-fi and role playing gamers either. WRG Ancients, anyone?

Obvious self-promotion follows;

Here's how you can get a legal OOP title.

1. Let me know the title and publisher.
2. I'll contact them, tell them that people want to buy their titles, and have them upload them to our website, WargameVault.com.
3. You go there, buy them, download them, play. We pay them royalties. Everybody's happy. Simple!

Steve Smith
WargameVault.com

Obvious self-promotion has now ended.

Because somebody will, I gotta insert:
Step 2.25 – The owner refuses or is impossible to contact. If this is the case, goto 5 <memo: player is out of luck>.

Well, there is always that possibility, but for some reason, it's hard for people to turn down free money!