"Changes in Basic Rules Mechanics - Why and When?" Topic

OK, I will try and frame this properly. I began much of my "organized" gaming with WRG Ancients (3rd Edition) and continued doing so until 7th Edition gave way to DBA. I also played George Gush's Pike & Shot rules (both 1st and 2nd Editions) extensively, as well as Dave Millward's somewhat similar "Musketeer" rules. I played many games with Bill Protz's ECW rules that were quite enjoyable if different than the others. At various times I played Bowden and Ray's "Minuteman" AWI rules, also their Medieval and ACW rules. Never could get my heart or head wrapped around Empire, but then I'm not a big Napoleonic fan. Also played many naval games with "Wooden Ships & Iron Men" and with "Ship O' The Line". Then I reached the point where 7th Edition, with its "telepathic" command and control system completely frustrated me and just couldn't get into DBA and 12 element "armies", so I voluntarily took a much-needed "leave of absence", for about 12 years!

So, now I return to the hobby, and it seems that much that I remembered has either changed or is somehow "evil" in the eyes of many posts and reviews that I read. So, without starting a flame war if possible, can some of the "old hands" answer a few questions?

1. When and why did simple written orders and roster sheets become bad things? When viewing pictures of games, I find the various forms of chits, tokens, markers and such to be much more intrusive than each player having a simple roster sheet.

2. When and why did (I thought) simple charts for things such as firing, melee and morale become bad things. I repeatedly see comments disparaging the "overly complex" WRG charts and systems, but the reality is that, if you played the rules fairly regularly, you quickly memorized most of the factors and results and checks could be run in seconds.

3. How has replacing the "old systems" (whether with average dice and D6's or with percentage dice) been improved by throwing a bucket of dice? Bill Protz has always used this method, and his BAR rules today use it with a dice for each firing "section", and they did add an interesting flavor to his ECW rules, but I now see rules where one D6 is thrown for each and every figure firing. Is it really that difficult to multiply X number of figures times a factor, modify the factor, then either throw 2 dice to modify up or down (WRG, Gush, Millward), or throw percentage dice to either gain or lose an additional casualty (Bowden & Ray)?

4. How or why is "initiative" based sequential movement better than simultaneous movement? The only time we ever had a significant problem with simultaneous movement was when multiple units declared charges or formation or direction changes were involved. These were very simply resolved by quartering the movement of the respective units. In fact, for quite some time, sequential movement was considered "counter-moving" and was a bad thing. The logic being that rather than making a plan and sticking to it, you just waited to see what your opponent did and then reacted.

5. When and why did "event cards" become the norm in so many rules? The first rules that I remember featuring these prominently were "The Sword and the Flame", and in a skirmish game it made some sense and allowed unique situations to happen. In most of the larger battle rules (WRG and similar), the Reaction Test often created these unusual circumstances, especially if you used the optional rules for General's character or boldness.

Just curious about the above. I've spent the last three years playtesting and trying various sets of rules for different periods of interest and, so far, the best I've found is Bob Bryant's "Might of Arms", which is where I think Phil should have gone after 6th Edition. The mechanic of using fatigue points and unit cohesion makes for a much smoother game than casulaty removal (IMO) and the mandate of facing off unit-to-unit in melee prevents the old WRG tactic of slipping in the "odd" figure from the end of a unit or a wedge to increase striking power while making it very difficult to achieve the magic "one per figure" casualty requirement for your opponent. This was, if not an outright loophole, then at best a questionable tactic that was frequently exploited by players with "gimmick" armies.

Probably the next best set that I have tried is Bill Protz's BAR rules for the SYW. I still don't care particularly for initiative cards and multiple dice, but the rules require players to employ realistic historical formations and make historical formation changes. And they are a very "gentlemanly" set of rules, with clear examples and details provided.

Again, my intent is not to start a flame war here, I'm sure all have their favorites and many are passionate about them. I am looking for reasoned responses to my questions. I am actively painting, and playtesting with paper armies, but would like to settle on some rules before I begin basing troops. Right now I lean heavily towards returning to Gush for the late 17th century, and even early 18th, but with some personal modifications. Your input will be greatly appreciated.

Bill
Sir William the Aged
warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com

At random:

1) I don't like written orders or roster sheets. Once the Gods of Wargaming realized this, they issued a diktat to change things. I convinced them to remove the death penalty for non-compliance.

3) The "old system" WAS buckets O'Dice. The "add up a bunch of positivie factores and subtract a bunch of negative factors and go with the original roll" mechanic was the new fangled bit.

4) Simultaneous movement leads to more arguments than warranted. Been there, done that, got the tee swhirt. I much prefer action and reaction.

2) WRG charts were "simple"?

5) I never use event cards.

Frankly, sir William, I think you are acting out Old Fart Syndrome. There is nothing wrong with that, it's how I got MY WRG nom de Guerre. It is simply the attitude that "We did things better when I started out".

To be honest, I never had more fun playing Ancients then with WRG 4th and 5th. I have always hated "simulation" and the guys who actually think that gamers on a table simulate ANYTHING but shoving figures across the table.

I also still play 1776 for my AWI games and find the rules do not suffer in comparison to more "modern" rules, even if they do have simultaneous movement.

I've been wargaming since the late 60s so I think I qualify as an "old hand".

"1. When and why did simple written orders and roster sheets become bad things?"

In my experience, neither of them ever were "good things". Written orders were always a pain, that inivitably got forgotten in the heat of the game. Roster sheets are unnecessary paperwork that can be handled far better with a few unobtrusive markers on the table or dispensed with altogether by removing individual figures when hit.

"2. When and why did (I thought) simple charts for things such as firing, melee and morale become bad things. I repeatedly see comments disparaging the "overly complex" WRG charts and systems"

Compared to the charts for moving firing and melee when I started wargaming, the WRG charts were indeed overly complex. A lot of relatively recent games have charts that are far less complicated thah those old WRG charts.

"3. How has replacing the "old systems" (whether with average dice and D6's or with percentage dice) been improved by throwing a bucket of dice?"

I think you'll find the "old systems" were that you rolled one die per figure!

"4. How or why is "initiative" based sequential movement better than simultaneous movement?"

Sequential movement is not "better" than simultaneous movement. Personally, these days I prefer an interleaved sequential movement system where either each player activates a unit in turn or the order of unit activation is determined by cards. Horses for courses.

"5. When and why did "event cards" become the norm in so many rules?"

Don Featherstone advocated the use of Chance Cards in "Advanced Wargames" (published 1969), so they've been around a while …

"The first rules that I remember featuring these prominently were "The Sword and the Flame","

I do not recollect the use of event cards in TSATF?

All of which illustrates that in reality there is nothing new under the sun. Indeed in the last few years there seems to have been quite a resurgence in so called "Old School Wargaming" epitomised in Featherstone's works and books like "Charge!".

Hi

In the early and mid 70s, Doug and I were playing with different groups using different rules that had some or all of the attributes you mention. AND we embarked on the stupid path of writing what appealed to us.

NOW, when we started doing figs, the ethos we were given was that "proper gamers" wrote their own rules. Never intended OURs to be in print!

My primary complaint about the various incarnations of WRG…is that they were designed for tournaments. And I cannnot think of anything that would do other than guarantee bad behavior.

So, what is your hobby? That is the issue.

Rocky

it is just a fashion.

rosters and tables will make a return shortly, when someone works out you can hide them inside an iphone app. probably simultaneous movement as well (I'm picking Age of Sail for the ground breaker, within the next 18 months).

then the next returning gamer will want to know when computer moderated rules made a return.

look abouit a bit, and you will find all your old favourites still in use in some rules or other, just not the fashionable ones.

The big story is the way the insidious return of 'saving throws' has become so mainstremed by WAB and FOW that no one notices how bloody annoying it is having to roll one die half a dozen times before you determine a single action – that should have gone the way of spring loaded cannons firing matchsticks.

The phrase "swings and roundabouts" comes to mind, but at the end of the day what matters is playability on the tabletop.

Mind you, I think too many in the hobby have a mindset of thinking "new" means "better"

N.B. I think you are right about Bryant's "Might of Arms"

Personally, I think as players wanted to do LARGE complete battles (think Malplaquet 1709), old processes and the battalion scale just didn't work. New mechanics were adopted to allow for such games, and these evolved into the norm.

Regards, Bill Gray
ageofeagles.grouply.com

"New mechanics were adopted to allow for such games, and these evolved into the norm."

I thnk the "norm" depneds almost entirely on where you are located and who you game with.

I'm happy with most of the newfangled themes (if you believe anything is really new), but agree with you on roster sheets and simple written orders (like the arrows used in Shako or Spearhead). I find markers to be unnecessary clutter. Seldom do I see markers that look really good, and unobtrusive.

Much of these are personal preference, I quite like card activation, introduces lots of friction in a simple manner, but simultaneous movement is far and away the fastest, as long as you have a decent orders/mode system to make it work.

I loath rosters and always have, markers/chits/counters do it for me but I spent decades playing boardgames alongside minis games. Written orders though, no problem, Spearhead/Shako have one of the best written order systems I've come across.

Event cards – yuk, although I don't mind random events in games is they are culturally appropriate and don't take the whole thing over. I'd rather see more effective models of friction in the basic mechanisms.

WRG, well….. Phil does like to break his elegantly simple games with too many modifiers. Look at the monstrosity Horse, Foot & Guns has become.

This is one of those threads with questions that will vary between almost every person who posts based on their own personal experience.
My response will come from not only being a gamer but having designed rules since the 1970s.

John is right about 1960s and early 1970s American rules were buchet of dice like TSRs napoleonic rules called Tricolor.
Bowden's Empire ! and Empire 2 rules were a nice break from that system. he kept becoming more complicated with 3 and later but as much in the support rules than the basic combat mechanics.
I too started out with WRG Ancients 4th edition. I never found the rules too complicated. it only became difficult when combat moved from casualty counting to fatigue counting and later.
Nothing new has been added in major mechanics. A different use of them in various systems and more supportive mechanics. There is nothing wrong with the use of various machanics. However some are applied without regard of the era being covered . (just a pet pieve of mine.)
With the internet, there is more opportunity to express your views whether they have merit or not. More gamers seem to have become more fanatical pro or con about certain rule sets.
Back in the 1970s it was not unusual to go to a tournament where rules were interpreted different. I even read in a few UK magazines of the time that clubs playing one set of rules at one show and then the next show playing a different set was not uncommon. Not the case anymore. A guy gets a set of rules and it is difficult to get them to try something else. (A very general statement with exceptions I know.)

1. When and why did simple written orders and roster sheets become bad things? When viewing pictures of games, I find the various forms of chits, tokens, markers and such to be much more intrusive than each player having a simple roster sheet.

What do you mean here? Most games I play have both written army lists and use counters.

I prefer counters on the table top. They allow both sides to see whatever effect the counter represents, without having to remember, or continually ask the opposing player "So, is that unit disordered? How about that one? Them? …"

Is it really that difficult to multiply X number of figures times a factor, modify the factor, then either throw 2 dice to modify up or down (WRG, Gush, Millward), or throw percentage dice to either gain or lose an additional casualty (Bowden & Ray)?

Obviously, it is! You've just outlined a process with 3 steps, when rolling one die per model is a single step. If the probabilities work out the same, I'll take the latter.

Not to mention that the procedure you mention apparently has almost no room for randomness (except for rounding fractions up or down, it seems).

I have some sympathy with burlesonbill if he's been out of the hobby for 12 years. A lot can happen in that time

However……

I do note that he is a supporting TMPer and a check on his name tells me he has been a member for 934 days and has made 387 posts.

Is there an agenda here I'm missing?

Jeremy,

No hidden agenda, no secret code. I game strictly solo now or with my Son, and we have been exploring various sets of rules trying to find the ones we like. The questions that I posed may be slightly "slanted" based on the sets that we've tried, we certainly haven't tried everything. But many of the "hot" sets out there right now, or at least the ones that seem to garner a lot of the press, do feature most, if not all, of the items that I questioned.

And, yes, I have "been back" for awhile now, just not doing a lot of gaming yet. After roughly 30 years of collecting, then modelling and then wargaming, for personal reasons, in 1994 I ran an ad in "The Courier" and sold every single one of my figures, rules, books, magazines, paints, dice, original Elastolin castles, terrain boards, scenics, everything. Retired, period.

Or so I thought, about 3 and a half years ago I discovered a box when demolishing my old storage building that was still full of unpainted 15mm and 25mm lead, a few odd dice and my "traveling sets" of WRG 6th and Gush's 2nd Edition. My Son showed some interest, the internet re-kindled mine, and here we are today.

I knew this post would stir some passions, but was completely serious about not wanting to start a flame war. I obviously missed one or more transitions in the hobby during my absence and I am just trying to understand the rationale behind some of the changes that I have observed.

Bill

Andrew Paul,

I prefer counters on the table top. They allow both sides to see whatever effect the counter represents, without having to remember, or continually ask the opposing player "So, is that unit disordered? How about that one? Them? …"

One might pose the question, "Could an actual field commander tell at a glance if his opponent was fatigued or disordered?" Many times his assumption was a calculated risk based on cumulative damage, number of charges, physical appearance, etc. To answer the question: At the regimental or battalion level, very likely; at the brigade level, very possible; at the division or army level, very unlikely unless he happened to be focusing his attention on that one point in the line or unless informed by courier.

Obviously, it is! You've just outlined a process with 3 steps, when rolling one die per model is a single step. If the probabilities work out the same, I'll take the latter.

Not to mention that the procedure you mention apparently has almost no room for randomness (except for rounding fractions up or down, it seems).

With all due respect Andrew, in most of the sets that I have examined and tested, even when rolling a die for every single figure, there are still modifiers for both fire and melee, and total casualties still have to be tallied. Plus many sets (as mentioned in another post) allow for saving throws, which definitely increases the amount of die rolling and tallying. As far as "randomness" goes, it is true that Bowden & Ray had very little, but WRG Ancients allowed a random factor of +/- 1 on missile fire and, depending on if your troops were classed as Regular or Irregular, it was possible to roll +/- 3 or 4 factors, certainly a wide variance. Gush's 2nd Edition Pike & Shot (and I believe Millward, but I don't have my copy in front of me), allowed the same +/- 1 for missile fire and +/- 3 in melee, based on the unit's morale or training class.

Bill

The adoption of mechanics to place more stringent meanings, seems to stem from the natural distrust in gamers for their opponents. Sadly this has grown and it is not only a case of tournamnet players needing more controled guidelines for orders on the field.

The old simple orders were used with the intent of friendly club games with little thought to players tweeking the rules to gain an advantage to always have to win.

But this trend and need in such supporting mechanics extend at least into the 1980s. We developed movement/facing chits for use with our tournament expansion back in 1982. We even developed a simple generic chart with a type of order for each number. Players only had to assign the proper number to the unit using a dice to represent the order manuever order selected. It was wquite generic and could be used for several lelvels and systems.

#4. there are still UGOIGO systems in use and on the drawing board. As are the 'old' mechanics that you mention.

Soem of the new 2000 era mechanics had been discussed in several seminars that I participated in during the 1980s. Some that are popular now were rejected back then because they were not the norm (not in favor) for must of the gamer target group.

I do not regard the order of movement as event cards. these are more common in board games. Featherstone's term chance cards is better.

I myself do not use them. We use an alternative chance system where a unit is assigned a color for both sides. All dice representing those units is rolled. the order of play is determined by high to lowest dice. Just another variation on the chance theme. This does not work for all of our rules or level of play. No mechanic should work with every system.

Combat charts as other mechanics work for some levels of play and not for others. the designer must select the mechanic that best illustrate what they are trying to recreate.

There are no remotely "universal " rules for wargaming! Warhammer comes about as close as anything! There are so many choices , and locally and personally, the same choices are "tweaked" and adapted to suit individual tastes and conceptions! I play poker and the rules are the same in Kentucky or in Nepal, and the game/hobby is huge, and will remain so. On the other hand, there are likely several local small groups playing ACW using different rulesets or variations. This is the norm for wargaming! The hobby will likely stay relatively small and very diverse. This is neither good nor bad , I stress, rather I mean to say that there is plenty of room for your views and others also. The way to go is to please yourself first and then try to find a few guys to game with that share your outlooks. This is a hobby that is at its best on a personal level or a very small, tight, group, that shares a general point of view on rules structure, scales, periods and so on! The bigger and more inclusive you try to get, the more the personal diversity turns negative, and the super competetive rules lawyers begin to dominate, and friendly fun games become contentious debates on "historical accuracy" and "playability" and other such dangerous topics! Dangerous, because so many individual views on these terms collide with no chance of consensus!

Play what YOU like with WHO you like and keep this fun, and not a chore! Good luck to you sir!

Hi

As an aside referring to Rudy's above.

In conversation with Phil Barker in San Antonio in 1982, he told the story this way. In the UK, every gathering had a "tourny" run by the local club. This produced a lot of hard feelings as each club used it home set for "nationals". As he was not a member of any of the host groups, he was asked to produce a specific set of tournament rules for everyone.

One set to rule them all.

This was to allow people to show up with appropriate armies and basing and so on.

And he had two whole weeks to do the deed.

At the time, he felt somewhat trapped by the effort. In that, he wanted to do something very different, but time was the issues, and each edition could only be a "tweek". No one would accept a serious change all at once.

I haven't spoken to Phil in years and I don't know if he is more satisfied. The issue is that he is a nice guy who gets bashed for not doing it right the first time OR being a proper rules writer.

I think it would work for all of us to draw up a list of what we want from rules and then ask for a fit. Personally, doug and I did that back in 75 or so and we ended up with our "Art of War" rules. Your milage may vary!

Rocky

It could be John's initial reply was correct…

TMP link

On the other hand, if we are to ignore the "The OFM is the shadowy puppet master behind wargaming" conspiracy theory (and you will if you don't want a lot of 15mm black helicopters turning up at your house) it could be just evolution. Some one feels that he has a better method to do something, and introduces it- there wasn't a meeting in '99 that said 'Right- all of these are definately banned'

I like the lots of dice, and I don't mind the saving throws- Warmaster is pretty quick to calculate, and you can get a wide range of results.

If there are three levels of complexity in the history of wargames rules, level one being very fast play, three being Chieftain/Tercio/WRG 6th ed, then current game designs lean to level one and two, level one being the most popular. I don't see level three coming back too soon, but it still has its fans.

Written orders had their problems in the old daze in that they were too vague in the various rule sets, in fact so vague that they could easily lead to blows! Charts are fine, as long as they are well presented (subtle graphics) and not too onerous. Massive dicing is again a symptom of the level one approach- make it fast and painless.

I'm a level two fan myself.

TPC