"Do game mechanics really matter?" Topic

Variant? I suppose someone could call Rent a variant of la Boheme, but they are both very unique creative works-both used "new" ideas in their artistic treatment.

I don't want to get into a ing match with you over rules, but I think there are several areas of morale and sequencing that are quite unique to Piquet, and others that are developed from previous ideas-but the end result is not the equivalent (as many rules are) of cut and paste, lifting whole mechanisms by rote.

In fact, my complaint with many miniature wargame rules is that they are more accurately "assembled", rather than designed.

I am working yet again on some original ways of using some common gaming tools-especially in the area of mechanisms. I do not consider this an impossible task.

There are also many tools that are going to come to wargaming VERY soon. The iphone, iPod, being used as a tool (which I pursued 3 years too early) is now just on the cusp of adding new ways of randomization, sound augmentation, and, yes, design mechanisms.

You are the later day equivalent of the medieval church that declared all things to have been discovered, and anything that is new should be expected to be nothing more than the work of the devil.

Gouvion's comments are right on, and I suspect he is a very inventive designer. There are others-none of whom start with the premise that all things are known!

Those who do start with this premise always find out they are wrong. Always.

No, they just delay the inevitable.

Create a complex plan of attack, to include primary and secondary objectives, and a fall-back plan, in case things don't go as planned, e.g. hold in place, retreat, surrender, etc.

Array your troops for battle, in the historically accurate formations desired.

Advance them forward, until you believe they are in effective firing, or charging range.

Carefully measure the distance to make sure.

Flip a coin – heads you win, tails you lose…..

PQ1, Sam may be a good designer but i have never played any of his systems. They are not how I envision historical miniature battles.

Still even when Sam lectures at his university, where i am sure he does a good job as well, he needs a good outline to ensure the that the best information is relayed to the students in an undersatandble manner.

Game Mechanics are the outline in a game system. Good game mechanics ensure that the system is valid , understandable and playable.

Topgun Ace if that is all you think historical miniature gaming is about maybe checkers or chess would bring you as much of a challenge as HY gaming and even be cheaper. LOL.

I think, in general most rules mechanisms can be transferred – I do it all the time :-)

What needs to be changed on a period or scale basis is the emphasis on what that mechansm generates (what does success/failure mean) and how it is influenced (what modifiers etc)

For example, I have recently taken the 3d6 actions system from Ganesha Games' "Songs of Blades & Heroes" fantasy skirmish system and am using it for a set of grand-tactical napoleonics rules. I have had to adapt it but the basic idea of rolling 3 dice and counting those that roll high as successes and those that roll low as failures is a useful mechanism with lots of applications. I think Two-Hour wargames do a similar thing with 2d6 that is also widely applied.

Similaryl the PIP system from DBA can be lifted out and applied to other rules. I also think it needs tweaking for the period and scale. Ultimately it is about determining what resources a player has. If you don't like d6 then use a dAv; If it seems "all or nothing" then have separate PIP rolls for each sub-command or whatever, but the basic mechanism seems sound.

You'll never keep everyone happy anyway. Personally I hate card-draw systems. This doesn't mean they are bad, or can't generate a fun game or plausible outcomes – I just don't like cards, on a totally irrational basis :-)

[The changing of dice to-score numbers prevents the use of dice that always rolls either high or low.

Sam again your arguments are weak, Simple probability game design mechanics. The system has been used for decades by various rules. for example you have a 60% chance to hit a target so you need to roll a 60 or less on 2 x d10. In the same set of rules, you may have a morale staus that requires a number higher than 20% to pass morale.]

Rudy, I'm having trouble even keeping track of what you're talking about, much less arguing with you! You keep changing the subject to things that nobody has asserted.

If I understand you correctly, you're now saying that games should mix – up the target To-Score rolls into some that are "Roll High" and some that are "Roll Low," in order to prevent people from using loaded dice????

Okay, let's assume that a dice is a dice, and is just as likely to roll a "1" as it is a "6." Okay, can we agree on that? (Otherwise, I want to know where you buy your dice! Because I need some of those, especially when I play against Barry in FOW!!)

So -assuming normal, un-loaded dice, like most of us use – don't you agree that it's better for a game to be consistent and make all rolls *either* Roll-Higher… *or* "Roll-Lower"…. In order to make the rules easier to remember and faster to learn??

And I know I'm asking for trouble here, but….

>Sam may be a good designer but i have never played any of his systems. They are not how I envision historical miniature battles.<

Doesn't that beg an obvious question: If you've never played them, then how do you know what they're like?

So what do you say we get back to one of the discussion topics….? I have a tank, shooting at your tank. Which is better: to roll a d20, trying for a "hit number?" Or to roll several d6s, trying for X-number of "hits." ?

Why would anybody believe that rolling one kind of dice, or using one kind of chart, is more "realistic," "historical," or "accurate?"

I will say that the design quality of a game is inversely proportional to the number of tables and "special cases" the rules contain. This is known as Piquetone's First Law of Wargaming Rules.

Piquetone's Second Law: A game becomes slow and ponderous at a parallel rate to the number of die rolls required to move or resolve combat.

Piquetone's Third Law is any rule set that exceeds 100 pages in length should be rolled up and used to beat the author about the shoulder and head.

Piquetone's Fourth Law: Napoleonic Rule sets are like Streetcars, they'll be another one along in a few minutes.

Piquetone's Fifth Law: Any rule set without Designer Notes should never be purchased, unless adding the Designer Notes would contravene the Third Law.

Piquetone's Sixth Law: You can roughly judge the target audience of a set of rules by counting the number of color photographs in the set. Starting with a base of 30 years of age and five Color Pictures, you can subtract 5 years for every five additional color pictures, and add 5 years for every picture less than the original base of five. Therefore, a set with twenty color pictures is written for a 15 year old, and one with none is intended for those over 50.

Piquetone's Seventh Law: 75% of all wargamers playing a set of rules have never actually read the rules. Corollary: 90% of the critics of a set of rules have never played the rules they critique.

Piquetone's Eighth Law: The author of a set of rules never understands the rules as well as his most vocal advocates-who often feel the need to explain his rules to him.

Piquetone's Ninth Law: The cleverer the set of rules, the less they are suited to convention play. Conversely, the more banal a set of rules the better they are suited to convention play.

Piquetone's Tenth Law: Your local hobby shop owner will unerringly tell you that the best set of rules ever written just arrived today at his shop.

Piquetone's Eleventh Law: Almost all wargame data used in rule writing is unprovable, suspect, and unreliable. Trust me, I've seen the statistics…

Note: Laws 12-20 are still being verified and tested. Law 21 has been discarded after proof that no cannon ball could, in normal circumstances, bound over a line of infantry.

If I understand you correctly, you're now saying that games should mix – up the target To-Score rolls into some that are "Roll High" and some that are "Roll Low," in order to prevent people from using loaded dice????

I think what Rudy is getting at is avoiding someone with a die that consistently rolls one way – I experience this when a friend runs Polemos and other games at his house – there is one die he had, a small one, that seemed to consistently roll 6s for me. I made sure I guarded this die and not let anyone else use it. It certainly wasn't a deliberately loaded die, just a badly manufactured one, I think.

In that case, Rudy's concerns are valid. However, to be honest, other than that one die, I've never really come across anything else like it. And I'd imagine with larger dice (again, the dice I used, above, was a teeny, tiny one) one is less likely to come across this.

In the games, I host, whether Crossfire, Piquet or Warhammer, LOTR, I provide the dice and there are so many available and people are all over different areas of the ping pog table, it's very hard for someone to keep his own dice – and my friends never bother to bring their own dice.
--
Tim

Piqi, I had no idea you are this clever and had wit. Very good. I agree with almost every one of your wargaming "laws."

Here's the clincher: any game mechanic that is based as much as possible on verifiable (corroborated) historical evidence can make use of any dice methodology; because any dice can reproduce the requisite mathematical probabilities. It's just that some dice combos make more elegant sense than the others. Nothing beats 2d6 for this purpose….

1066.us

TIm, if you've got a bad die, then you should throw out the bad die… Not try to write wargame rules around the possibility of having a bad die!

(Unless it always rolls sixes, in which case I'll gladly take it!)

best,
Sam

You obviously never met Dennis Ingersol Michelson,nor read any of his writings. I'm afraid my wit over on the Fez is lost upon the denizens of the Right. Touchy bunch these days.

Tim, The attitude expressed in your note is what keeps Las Vegas casinos open 24 hours a day.

The 12th and 13th Law were just confirmed today!

Piquetone's 12th Law: Any rules set that includes enumerated rigid Army Lists should be filed under Fantasy Sets along with other sets that require no historical knowledge or reading. This is doubly true if they allow ahistorical opponents to appear on the same battlefield. They are unnecessary training wheels for the incurious newbie and should be eshewed by any adult.

Piquetone's 13th law: Someone on TMP will always ask what color the French Uniform of 18XX was rather than reading a book or using "The Google." Ignore him.

Hi

Dervel, it doesn't make a lot of difference what weapon the infantry man carries against a tank if that weapon isnt armor piercing. Thus, my 175# crossbow(which has a target effect much like a 357 carbine) doesn't care if it is a carbine or a crossbow. I only hurt the tank crew when they are unbuttoned and ambushed.

My real point is that specific rules have the problem that the world isn't convenient. It doesn't break down into the easy catagories we seem to insist on in our rules.

Napoleonic rules might be done for the big battles of europe. OR, you might be reflecting 6 frenchmen foraging where cossacks still have composite bows.

As for historical simulations. I agree that if you feel you want a game where YOU get to be napoleon, there is no way to do it. If you have been on TMP a while, you might remember a discussion I initated over Sam Mustapha's recent rules. He makes it a basic factor that your historical commanders change what YOU do as a player. I thought the mechanism was interesting(I love reading rules), but Sam no where mentions HOW he decided the various ratings.

A variant of "piquetone's" designer notes point. In our rules, Doug and I collaborate a lot, the rules are LONG. Not because they are LONG, but because with each rule, we first explain what we are modeling and why. In fact we always insist that any game need only a single sheet of paper for info.

Personally, I don't think you can "force" the player into talents he doesn't have. Like being Alex or napoleon. In one respect, you can see the army as a tool. And like the old Avalon Hill tag line "can YOU…".

Playing Hydaspes "historically" would be a solo game with no decisions. But RULES ought to be such that if you all do the same things, history is doable. I like to test rules by seeing if they ALLOW the battles they refer to to be recreated. Good rules do this, bad ones don't.

Rocky

Piquetone's 14th Law: There are no good or bad dice, just wargamers with a high degree of superstition and a low appreciation of probability.

"TIm, if you've got a bad die, then you should throw out the bad die… Not try to write wargame rules around the possibility of having a bad die!"

Hear him! Hear him!

The philosophy behind this simple statement can be applied to very many game mechanics and should be on a more liberal basis.

You are a gentleman and a scholar, Gouvion St. Mango. I tip my hat to you!

Hi

What P said. Unless you have psythic powers, or dice with moving internal weights, there are no "bad" or "good" dice.

This may surprise you, but there really are texts out there on testing "random" with dice. The short version is that your govrnment spent a lot of money trying to figure out how to have "cheater" dice. And, in essence, all the "shaving, internal void" and the like just do not work.

Where I part company with Piquetone is "allowing ahistorical or unhistorical matchups" I can, sort of, see the point if you think it is important to "game napoleon" as a player. But since I buy into the old Avalon Hill "can you be McCalliff" idea. I think it a fun exercise to do do a "death match, can my guys beat up your guys and you" type game.

It is a HOBBY. I had enough "real sim, this is important" doing them for the government. It isn't a JOB.

Rocky

…there are no "bad" or "good" dice.

Rocky,

You are WRONG! I have bags of bad or worse dice. In 40 years of gaming I have yet to meet a die I liked. :( BTW the old Avalon Hill dice are the worst. They are cursed and should be avoided at all costs.

Just throwing in a dice story:

A long-time gaming comrade, RJ, has a set of pink dice. They are fondly named after his cat -- the pussy dice. And they truly seem to role low! In fact, at my house, if RJ needs to roll low, I do not allow him to use the pink dice!

The morale of the story -- I don't think designing rules for flawed dice makes any sense. A group that identify flawed dice is most likely to not allow them!

BO

Hi

Nope, people blame the dice when they know they are too wonderful to lose.

r

Using telekinesis to affect dice rolls should be specifically forbidden in all rules.

I've never figured that one out, either. Would they not object if we simply called it something else? I mean, is there something uniquely horrible about the concept of you rolling a die, and then if you score X, I roll a die, trying to score Y?

Horrible? Yes, it's worse. It's evil. It represents all that is wrong with the human race. It's a blight on all humanity. Whoever devised this unholy mechanism should be boiled in oil, drawn and quartered and left for scavengers.

Does that particular game mechanic "belong" only in certain kinds of games?

No, it belongs in no games at all. It should be searched out in whatever dark and dank holes it may be living in and stakes driven into it's very soul. Other than that, I'm completely indifferent.

The question is more like: I have a tank, shooting at your tank. Which is better: to roll a d20, trying for a "hit number?" Or to roll several d6s, trying for X-number of "hits." ? Why would anybody believe that rolling one kind of dice, or using one kind of chart, is more "realistic," "historical," or "accurate?"

It doesn't make any difference. It's simply a matter of personal preference.

Personally, I can't imagine any particular dice mechanic or game mechanic that is uniquely suited to one subject- or period- of wargaming.

Hmmm, I'm going to go out on limb here and say gaming mechanics dealing with paratroopers probably don't belong in an ancients game. That is unless you are dealing with Daedalus and Icarus.

Rich

Hi

Rich, so when you have french paras in 'nam in the 50s with montangnards with crossbows…….

Grin.

Rocky

But Rocky, when I mentioned 'ancients' I didn't mean old Montagnards.

Rich

There's more to dice than the statistics. There is the psychological effect of physically participating in the combat resolution, and with hit/save or charge and countercharge or similar sequential or opposing mechanisms the dice roll is associated in the player's imagination with opposing effort on both sides – the sword stroke and then the parry or block, or the strength of the furious charge vs. the resolute solidity of the counter-charge, etc. More experienced players can get jaded, but I think this generally works into gamer psychology.

The corollary to this is that the defender rolling where it represents nothing real the defender is doing is not useful -- I think a penetration roll in a tank shot has little concrete association for either side – even for the shooter it's all part of the one shot – the shooter might as well roll 2 dice, or a D10 or D20.

When a pilot takes a shot at another plane, however, having the other player do a chaff roll or a jink/break roll to see if the hit is avoided can be appropriate to represent actual action by the defending player.

Rolling dice sequentially can also be used to create drama if it represents events over time that build to a climax, but making this routine dilutes its impact and becomes tiresome, except for kids, who seem to really really like saving throws.

There is an illusion of greater action and uncertainty created by throwing lots of dice, but I don't think this is a reason to support the practice (again, except for kids – they like it and the extra arithmetic can't hurt).

I personally am against using ancients rules to fight tank battles. Lots of people on TMP can't see the problem.

Hi

Hussar, my point is that our boundaries on this are artificial.

For that matter "tank battles" are artificial as the usual doctrine is AT guns and CAT get left out. If a tank commander proud of the turret gets his throat slit by a partisan with a long bread knife that just happens to look exxactly like a scramaseax, the boundry seems artificial.

Rocky

What an excellent discussion. Insightful and funny too. But I beleive the first question was really asking if there were new ways to ensure that game mechanics result in fun. The answer, as Piquet points out, is Yes. But only if rules are period specific. Each of us has a favorite period for a reason, because somewhere in our head we want to know what it felt like to rain blows upon the "Heathen" at a place and time in history (or a place and time of the Imagination). So, take dice out of it, get rid of those tables. How will you build a wargame rulebook now? It can be done without a single deck of cards. Think about games. There are many other games outside of wargames, and many mechanisms of design. Start from scratch.

Funds being different for all people, the answers will be nothing but a discussion, and debate. Its evident to me that many things new gamers like. I find exceedingly boring and vice versa. I think most of this is just a detail is complicated statement in disguise. I find the old methods work best. If it aint broke don't fix it.

I designed a game (Boomerang) specifically to represent a previously ungamed subject: settler-native conflict on the Australian Frontier using subject-specific game mechanics.

Having read as widely as possible on the subject, and despite a dearth of detailed accounts of combats, from the available evidence I was able to identify a few pivotal factors that could in combination provide a framework on which to construct a game, and which would give the game a distinctive character and flavour not found in other colonial and frontier skirmish games. I was convinced that a unique approach was required to do the subject justice; it wouldn't suffice to merely adapt an existing ruleset. The result is some mechanisms that I have not encountered in other games, such as the means by which the colonial forces usually gain victory.

Historically, the aim of parties of settlers or police was to 'disperse' the Aboriginal warriors. In Boomerang warrior bases are grouped into mobs with all bases in base contact, and bases start the game with three figures. Whenever a base takes a casualty, it is replaced with a base of smaller diameter containing two figures, and when one of these takes a hit, it is replaced with a smaller base again, containing one figure. Thus, over time bases 'shrink', and mobs are broken up or 'dispersed'. After each casualty is inflicted the Aboriginal side rolls a dispersal test with D6s, and if the number of mobs and individual bases exceeds the die roll the Aborigines are considered to have been dispersed and flee the field.

There is of course more to it than this, but this is the essence of the system. This may make the game seem very figure-intensive, but in practice you don't require too many substitute bases. All the same, for this reason it is best suited to 15mm, which is fortunate because the only Aboriginal warriors in production are in this scale.

Boomerang's firing system does employ 'buckets of dice' for the simple reason that I wanted to recreate the 'showers of missiles' effect so often described in historical accounts of skirmishes.

Why would anybody believe that rolling one kind of dice, or using one kind of chart, is more "realistic," "historical," or "accurate?"

That dice boggles my mind. All these seekers of simplicity going into massively complicated probbality theory. Bizzare.

Ive never read much stating a chart is less realistic. Just lots of whining about how hard it is to read one. Even all the simple Featherstone and Grant rules had charts. Nothing hard about it nor tedious or time consuming. Those complaints usually come from the I want a PC game with minis crowd. The kind that would complain about using a string for LOS cause its "tedious". Id recommend Grants battle to them but it has a chart.