"Which was the most influential rule set ?" Topic

What rule sets have had the greatest influence on wargaming ? Pick top 3 or something

Not the same thing at all as the BEST rules or the GLOSSIEST rules or even the most POPULAR rules.

Here's a few suggestions :

Little Wars
DBA
Dungeons & Dragons
WRG Ancients
Chainmail
Challenger 2000
Warhammer
WH40K

How about Grants "The War Game".

Could be said to have attracted many people into the hobby and laid the foundation for many rulesets.

Kriegspiel ;-)

But that is perhaps not relevant to the question, really. I suggest it be removed and expressly not relevant, as you're probably looking for rules after the hobby had started.

Also; influential on what? Western culture as a whole? All kinds of games? Or only wargames played with miniatures?

In terms of overall influence in games being played, new people being pulled into the hobby, and sales, I would guess at DBA and Warhammer/Warhammer 40K. For me, I would add Charles Grant's The Wargame.

Fire and Fury and Tactica really set the bar in the mid-80s for production value.

I think many rule sets would be happy to have that level of production even now.

Plus F&F took a wholistic approach giving advice on terrain, providing b&w templates to make your own paper buildings, figures and markers and scenarios. Quite a complete package.

Fire and Fury. Got me started whole hog into gaming.

I vote for The Sword and the Flame as one of the most influential. It had a huge impact on Colonial gaming in general and they were innovative in that almost all of the few skirmish level rules at that time (1979) were bogged down in detail at mostly a 1 to 1 ratio, with little flexibility. TSATF changed all that and I believe is directly or indirectly responsible for the loose skirmish-style rules like the ones Two Hour Wargames and Too Fat Lardies do.

Featherstone's rules in his book "Wargames" (1962). Triggered the popularity of recreational wargaming.

I second Fletcher Pratt and also Jane's naval war game.

Bill D

Another vote for TSATF I don't know to many people who don't like or play it.

Charles Grants 'Battle' for me.

plus DBA

My vote goes to Ossian J D Elgstrom's Hur Man Fur Krig Med Tennsoldaten

link

and if only Tolkien, C S Lewis's and Brig Peter Young's medieval fantasy rules had survived….

link

Probably not in order-

Chainmail- for leading the way for D&D
Warhammer (both)- for bringing wargaming more "mainstream"
Probably chess or checkers or something of the like, invented forever ago and showed that there was interest in moving war to the tabletop.

I'd have to go with Warhammer as well for bringing gaming to more people. Of course warhammer came from somewhere so you might put that down as the most influential as it caused all that warhammer caused but you have to put a limit on it.

So I'd say Warhammer/Warhammer 40K.

Warhammer for being the easy way in and being so very pretty.

As stated before the Don's "Wargames" as a book and sets of rules. Without it I doubt if anything else would have been written and we would all be trainspotters.

Didn't we do this poll already?
VR
James Mattes

However since then….
WRG's Ancients rules for setting the "scientific" approach to scales and time in games, Fire and Fury for the great advance in presentation and Barkers DBA for making the games playable again.

D&D. I think it inspired Warhammer which brought more people into tabletop gaming than any other game, I think.

The Old Metal Detector:
and if only Tolkien, C S Lewis's and Brig Peter Young's medieval fantasy rules had survived….

Donjons & Flagons! I love it!

D&D without it we would all have regiments made up of troops in the same dozen poses. It took D&D to expand the range on miniature lines. D&D brought on the rise of fantasy gaming and with it opened the flood gates to new players.

D&D & 40k.

40k really did bring futuristic wargaming into the homes. There was not alot out there before that (that I am aware of…)

I'd like to vote in Mage Knight, for kicking off the prepainted plastics revolution.

I had a PM sugegsting chess – my response :

Probably not – because chess grew out of earlier games, and also it's pretty limited in influence – there aren't a lot of chess like games around. DBA on the other hand spawned DBM, DBR, HoTT, and countless unofficial horse & musket / WWI/ WWII / sea games / air games / etc rule sets.

Also; influential on what? Western culture as a whole? All kinds of games? Or only wargames played with miniatures?

Influential on wargaming in particular. Chess – It's a popular game, but as a design it's a bit of a dead end, not many variants have really taken off.

Didn't we do this poll already?
VR
James Mattes

Almost certainly at some point – but I couldn't easily find it. I'm waiting for Connard Sage to do that for me.

Fletcher Pratt, D&D, Tractics, Air-War, and Star-Fleet Battles (fore-runner to the simpler Full Thrust, and other space games).

Let's examine the question

What rule sets have had the greatest influence on wargaming?

No mention there of 'what was the set of rules that bought you into wargaming?' is there? There are far too many personal reminiscences in this thread, as usual.

So

Wells: Little Wars.

Featherstone: War Games.

Scruby: All About Wargames.

WRG: Ancients

Oh yeah! STARGUARD 2250 AD Really the first Sci-Fi minis game.

WRG Ancients, EMPIRE, and Chainmail/D&D are my top three, but before them, KINGMAKER, Red Baron, and the Avalon Hill Bookshelf series of games – and there were a TON of them, Origins, Diplomacy, The Russian Civil War, the list goes on and on and on. Of course, board games are not really "miniatures games" but they certainly do start people in the hobby.

No mention there of 'what was the set of rules that bought you into wargaming?' is there? There are far too many personal reminiscences in this thread, as usual.

Looking at the publication dates of some, it must be the youngsters, who missed out on that which inspired the authors of their chosen rule set. I wasn't around for the birth of Little Wars, but I remember the other 'wee ones'.

Possibly, the question should have been: Who has been the most influential wargames author? To which I would answer, due to his prolific output and influence on boys who went on to become 'wargames entrepeneurs' – Featherstone.

Chess.Avalon hill boardgames,Little Wars and Rogue trader for me anyway.Others will differ of course.

What Connard Sage aid…

However, his list is of historical wargaming influence…
I would certainly add D&D because this certainly influenced skirmish and definitely fantasy wargaming in a huge way.

Yes, board games by Avalon Hill and how about Stratego? How old is Risk?

I would also probably add the stuff done at the war colleges both in the United States and in the U.K. The name escapes me but I believe that the Army War College and West Point used some sort of formal rules mechanisms that have effected wargames in general (expecially micro armor). Wouldn't the Naval Academy also have something similar (naval games)

But to be fair Little Wars followed closely by War Games have had a huge influence. Scruby's definitely had a huge influence in the U.S.

D&D and Warhammer/Warhammer 40K

Jeff

Another vote for Fire & Fury. Just looking at that set of rules made me want to see how wargaming worked. Borrowed the book from a friend and was instantly hooked. Went to my first convention a couple of weeks later and have been hooked ever since.

Yeah – The Fletcher Pratt rules shpuld definetly be on the list

There are far too many personal reminiscences in this thread, as usual.

And they aren't going to stop just because I mentioned it. No sirree.

Q "If Hitler had invaded Britain, would his main landing area have been Kent or the south coast?"

A "Definitely Kent. I visited Margate as a child and it was the best holiday I ever had"

Objectivity? Bah, we don't need no steenking objectivity.

Right, I'm off to see Eric Bibb do his blues thing. Play nice :)

Charge-Young
The Wargame-Grant
Wargames-Featherstone

Right, I'm off to see Eric Bibb do his blues thing. Play nice :)

Nice – I was looking at tickets for Eric Bibb last night (he's playing, about an hour's drive away, next week), I knew he was touring and I've been umming and arring about going.

So, could you post how it went ? Might help to swing my decision.

WRG-various sets.They held their own for a long time.Ancients almost had a monopoly.

Rogue Trader was relatively unprecedented, and spawned what is *the* dominant force in the industry. I would list that instead of 40k/WHFB.

Let's read that question again:
"What rule sets have had the greatest influence on wargaming ?"

By the term "rule set," I take this to mean a set of rules for playing tabletop war games, which is not the same thing as a boxed game or board game, or something abstract for which the appearance or identity of the figures really has no bearing on the game. To me, this rules out chess and other abstract strategy games, Risk and other board games, and even most AH war games, as all of these either only use figures as abstract pieces with arbitrary abilities (for example, the abilities of a piece in chess has nothing to do with the meaning of its name, or for that matter the piece's appearance. Similarly, in Risk a piece is just a number counter, nothing more, while AH games don't use figures at all.) By the term "wargaming," I assume the discussion is restricted to games attempting to simulate warfare, whether real or imagined (and whether realistic or abstract).

So, I think we have:
Kriegspiel, for introducing the idea of a wargame as a simulation.

Little Wars, for introducing the idea of a rule-based wargame as a hobby
.
Grant & Featherstone's works (I'm less familiar with these, though I know the names of the authors) for reviving the hobby and really kicking off the growth of a dedicated industry (as opposed to toy soldier manufacturers, who produced primarily for abstract play and maybe dioramas or modeling).

Chainmail, for launching the entire fantasy branch of the hobby.

Warhammer, for revealing the possibilities of high-end production and marketing values.

40K, for driving the sci-fi ground battles genre into prominence.

DBA, for reproving the concept that simple rules can provide a very satisfying and realistic gaming experience.

Empire, as a cautionary tale. *

And there are certainly more. Note, by the way, that I do think that abstract games and boardgames like chess, Risk, Squad Leader, AH, etc., have been very influential, as have role-playing games like D&D and Traveller. However, as these do not fall under the apparent premise of the question (being either abstract, or not involving figures, or not involving war), I have left them out of the mix.

* (Okay, the Empire bit was just a joke… I must confess I know nothing of the game but what I have heard here— but what I have heard has been less than flattering.)

Dungeons & Dragons
Rogue Trader
Flames of War

Oh forgot cry havoc ,another boardgame.
played it with tabletop figures aswell,just like a modern miniatures game.great Ruleset from the early 80's.

I've also played cry havoc – good game, but I don't think it had a revolutionary effect or huge influence on wargaming.

D&D helped to spawn the "fantasy" gaming market in all it's forms (wargaming, role playing and computer gaming).

A lot of "historical" wargamers have a Warhammer army in the closet. Warhammer is in many ways the public face of wargaming as GW locates it's stores in prominent positions.

DBA/DBM had a lot of "historical" gamers in it's thrall for years and continues to influence element based games. However, it's influence is pretty limited to the grognards as the writing and production of the rule books is awful.

D&D- the entire hobby changed. the first use of "points" for increasing levels or powers of a unit.

But that's assuming you consider the whole role playing thing a "wargame"

So, could you post how it went ? Might help to swing my decision.

You've got a PM :)

Of the list above I would say for me Little Wars. Read it and although I was already a wargamer got me hooked on the History of wargaming.
VR
James Mattes

BGWWII

Brian