"This is more difficult than I thought" Topic

I'm writing a set of rules for home use. Fantasy/ Dark age-ish combat. I would like "Warhammer" sized battle. 4-6 units on a side. Not to simple, but not WRG either.

It's harder than I thought. I bang out a section of the rules, check them later and go " was I thinking".

And I'm sure some stuff will look good on paper(or my monitor)and when we hit the table it won't work at all.

Props to all those who write and or publish your own rules.

Cheers, Xin

advice from someone who has done it…

do not write at a computer…

write notes at the table – as you play the game you want to play… and get a playtest group who will ask why a lot..

the rules will work a lot better – if your initial version comes from a game.

Interesting thought. I will give it a try.

Absolutely. Start with a game and a note pad. That way you can try on the fly. Let's see, let's let spears fight 2 ranks deep. Oops, turns them into a real behemoth. Okay, let's re-do that melee and just give a +1 if you;re 2 ranks deep. Ah! that works.

Bow fire hits on a 3+. Um that's a bow and not an MG42, right? Okay they hit on 5+….

Yeah, start on paper. Work out basics first (movement, ranges, armor, etc.) Once you get a decent balanced basic system working, then you can add advanced rules (tweaked to keep them within the basics and not too powerful.) One game system I've been working on for way too long was originally horrendously complicated, but after streamlining was totally different from what I started with (but MUCH better.) Just go with the flow it takes…. ;-)

The original "Ambush Alley" game started out as a pad of engineering graph paper that we wrote rules down on as we brainstormed. Then we'd take the pad to the gaming table and try out what we'd written. Notes would be made about what worked and what didn't. Eventually the notes made it to the desk and got typed up.

Writing with a pad of paper at the game table as you toss dice and shove toys around is what worked best for us.

Shawn.

Yes, don't start with the traditional way of writing rules. Perhaps the best game I have played was with homegrown Dark Age combat with 2-8 units of 10-40 figs a side. The rules were ultra simple and fitted on half a page. Less rules equals faster play and more fun and more time to concentrate on the action.

Like every skill, it takes some effort to get any good at it. Think of it like painting, and remember how awful you were when you started -- eventually, the pieces start making sense, but they don't start that way.

Remember to avoid the tendency of rules to "breed"— you'll find yourself creating exception after exception, when what you really need to do is simplify instead.

I would suggest that you consider who willing be playing the game.
Are they part-time wargamers? Kids?
What sort of games do they like to play?
I tend to game with part-timers and making the game enjoyable for them is paramount. Why spend all the time making a game that only you want to play?

I tend to game with part-timers and making the game enjoyable for them is paramount. Why spend all the time making a game that only you want to play?

This is actually a good observation. Don't try to make a game to sell. (It won't.) Make a game that you and your friends will want to play.

All great advice above. My method is to start with basic frame work usually scratched down on a note pad, envelope or restaurant place mat etc. Once I catch the idea, and it seems to have merit, I take it to the computer, work up a first draft with charts and all, and print it out. Then comes the real note taking. Play some games and make notes. Lots of notes! Right on the rules, spilled onto the back, or another sheet if necessary. Then back to the computer to edit. Repeat as necessary. Play testing is where the real ideas come from.

Don't give up, it rarely comes as easy as you would like.

Your first draft will usually be unrecognisable compared to the completed rules. It's helpful to set out some dot points on what you hope to achieve (aims/goals) so you can keep referring to that as you go. If you want a moderate level of complexity and you find yourself on page 68, it might be time to trim the fat. That sort of thing…

Bandolier gives good advice.

Before anything else, you should have a clear idea of what sort of playing experience you want the game to be:

- Will it be for multiple players, or just 1-vs-1?
- How many figures and how much table space will the average game require?
- How much time should a typical game take to complete?
- What is the player doing? Is he interacting with his opponent constantly? Or waiting for his opponent to complete a turn or phase, before he can do something?

As long as you keep those goals in mind, you can judge whether adding, deleting, or changing rules will be a good idea. You might, for example, come up with some terrifically fun game mechanics for determining victory… but if they only work in a 1-vs-1 game, and you want this to be for multiple players, then you've got to chuck them.

Some additional stuff:

- Think about what you would like to include in your rules at all costs (the 'core'). Everything else is mutable and should be centered around that core idea.
It could be a rule mechanic (e.g. a specific way to resolve combat), or a certain visual look (e.g. 40-figure units), or a specific way to select an army, or a turn mechanism, …
If you have such a core, you can always use that as a litmus test to compare everything else against it, and decide whether a specific rule supports the core, can be tossed, can be changed etc.

- As some people have said: play games! After each game, go over your rules and decide what work and what didn't. Also, is a rule really used? Some rules cover situations that pop up every 10 games. If that's the case, toss it. Keep elegance and simplicity as your guidelines.

- Don't be afraid to start over. For my homegrown fantasy rules, I've started over multiple times over the past 10 years or so. Preferences change, including your own :-)

Oh, and about the advice regarding a computer: an iPad is not a computer in this sense. It gives you a little more freedom to move and take notes, and there are cheap (i.e., free) finger-drawing apps that will allow you to make diagrams on the fly that you can clean up later.

Don't go out and buy one just for this effort, but if you have one already, it's a useful tool.

(I mention this because I wrote a truly kickin' spaceship game this weekend on my iPad, and the tablet got passed around a bit during the play-test. Much more useful than a laptop, in that sense.)

Meiczyslaw,

Yeah I have an android tablet that I've used in RPG and wargmaes. I just take a screenshot of a units stat sheet or a monster that PC's would be fighting, and I can just flick through them with a finger swipe. Takes a little set up time, but great once the game is going.

Xin

Play more than you write. Once it starts to gel you can write up more stuff, designer notes, examples, etc. But don't do this when the design is fluid. And be prepared to throw the original design out and start over.

The biggest fun is the game in the making. I've designed countless rules systems to play the same genre, ancmed, and I've discarded them all but one. But they were all fun while the testing was going on….

I reckon you want top down design.
Decide what you want your rules to do first.
Roughly.
Then consider mechanics.
At a top level you can possibly choose mechanics first and check whether that does what you want.

So for example.

Your first question should really be whether you intend selling this or giving it away to strangers or just using it at the club.
Difficulty in writing and support is proportional to how many strangers will play your game * how much they pay.

On actual game mechanics.
Commmand control and friction.
How much do you want?
Too much is limiting, too little isn't very historicals friendly and means more suspension of disbelief.
So how can you do that?
Command rolls – warmaster/BKC style.
Pips – DBx which I sort of nicked for what ho carruthers
Written orders – WRG ancients
Chits actication – rules with no name
Cards action – PK
Cards hand building – Maurice

I particularly like the Maurice hand building mechanism for my fantasy game I'm doing.

Is this a skirmish game about individuals or a higher level game about units?
Are your units an entity of themselves and hence an element ( or maybe like 4 elements ) or are they all separate based figures and can split up/reform.
I'd imagine drill to be often lacking in dark ages armies but they all had units of some sort.

It is way easier to look at a different set of rules and decide you like the way they do X but not Y. Give X a twirl.
Or
You can take an existing game and just tweak it.
I use Stargrunt 2 as a basis for ww2 skirmish.
The pitfall here is if you take a game the players already play and mess with it.
They will resist this.
So taking warhammer and "fixing" it to your tastes would be an uphill struggle.

I pretty much wouldn't write anything down initially.
The point of written rules is to explain to players you never met what your intent as the designer is.
So for this purpose, yes an ipad is a computer.
Paper and pen allow you to looser with a rough diagram or whatever.
Much more free form.
Once you have your design working then worry about specific words.

As an aside I particularly like the way Jon Tuffley in sg2 explains first intent then gives a rule wording. You know what he's trying to do so you know what the words are supposed to mean.

Commmand control and friction.

Not on this list is the BFG (Battlefleet Gothic) "special orders" concept. It allows a player to always give some orders to their units, but requires a roll to do anything different.

It's a nice balance between complete lack of control -- which is not to some people's taste -- and the idea of command focus.

AoNeil, thanks I love how Jon explains the concept before listing the rules.

Meiczyslaw, thanks to you too, I downloaded the PDF and like the concept of special orders.

Acutally thanks to all, alot of good advice here for a first time hack…er writer.

Cheers, Xin

The list of alternative C&C mechanisms was intended to be sort of illustrative rather than exhaustive.

WRG 1925-55 had the modes mechanism which sounds like the one BFG uses.
Superior has to make a roll to change the mode a force is in.
I was considering that for fantasy but I think it's more appropriate to fairly large scale forces.
Small units are unlikely to just march past enemy.
If you could get it to work the plus side is you can have default modes that forces prefer.
So Orcs might be very keen on assault, dwarves hold, that sort of thing.
Fail a roll and your unit hares off or sits there.

Something that WFB now glosses over now is figure scale and groundscale. Used to be one figure represents 10 men.
You should consider this early.
In WFB there's a weird anomaly because a character fights way better than 10 men.
That's a bit unlikely if you think about it.
You might logically expect leaders to have more effect on command control and morale than combat.
But again, WFB just kind of ignores much of this.
Units almost always do exactly what you tell them not matter how complicated that is.

In "reality" and many rule systems when you tell a unit to do something really complicated then there's a fair old chance they mess it up. Especially when directly in the face of the enemy.
Many systems have the concept of disorder as well as some sort of a command roll.
So you can tell a unit to turn about, march forward, turn back to effectively move backwards.
They might get part way through this and then get all mixed up with some walking one way and some another.
Disordered units fight worse and have lower morale.
That kind of thing.

FWIW here are my opinions

1 – write the rules YOU want to write, then find players who will give them a try. Otherwise you will have rules by committee. Messy at best.

2 – avoid all conventional terminology that is wargamese. Use the proper words for things or coin a phrase that explains your concept succinctly. This can be hard but reduces the players tendency to import baggage from other games you have rejected.

3 – Keep in mind your goals/aims. Why do you want your own set? What is wrong with the existing games that you want to avoid in yours? E.g. if yours are supposed to be simple and fast then keep them simple and fast…if you want them 'realistic' then where do you get your data? Do you just want them to feel realistic? ETC…

A thing with skirmish scale is what will the players do that makes a difference to their success or failure. If they just roll dice then it gets dull fast. What decisions must they make and how do they impact results?

An ultra realistic combat system may be very predictable and therefore boring – automatic results like 2 always beats one regardless of levels.

By all means you need feedback and suggestions but they are your rules in the end. You will do the work and be responisble for games involving them so you must feel OK with anything and everything that gets into the final version (if you ever get a final version!).

If you do have a working playtest then make it clear it is a 'playtest' and not any kind of game or players will suggest amendments purely because they think their side should win…