"Why purchase commercial rules?" Topic

Why do you purchase commercial rule sets? I've purchased loads over the years and usually like a couple of things about each set, but not the whole system. So, home-brewed rules are usually the order of the day for me. Just wondered what other people do.

Commercial rules do a couple of things for me.
In case of Flames of War, it provides a common reference set when I'm playing pick up games at a game store or event. It's already hard enough to get the local gaming scene to touch anything other than 40k or WarMachine. Can't imagine how even colder the shoulder would be if I tried to get someone to try home brew WW2.

If you have a steady opponent(s) with similar interest, home brew is a great way to play the way that your community likes.

Commercial rules also make things easier by providing some general research on battles, weapons, orbats, etc. Paying someone to have that stuff packaged all together and relatively correct (we're never going to all agree on armor penetration or horsepower of every battle/piece of equipment) is simply convenient.

Why? To find opponents. I struggle to introduce others to take up 'indie' rules, let alone home-brew.

When speaking wargames, it's always nice for us to have a common language.

But more strength to anyone doing homebrew!

You need the commercial sets for the reasons given above. But more importantly, they inform us on what our likes and dislikes are in a set of rules. How could you design your own rules without that basic knowledge?

I've tried to write my own rules and it is like using a computer program I wrote, after all the work I don't feel like seeing it again.

Commercial sets also have stats in them, in many cases that alone is worth thousands of dollars in reference books.

Time, I can better spend it painting than writing my own rules.

Because I don't design rules-- it's far too time consuming and complex a project for me to even attempt. I would much rather be spending all that time painting miniatures and building scenery and let the guys who are good at rules development do all that work for me.

And I rarely change much (or anything) with any set of rules that I really like.

Because someone else does all of the heavy lifting. As stated above, it can also help provide a common reference point (which you may find especially useful at conventions).

The research to do a set of rules properly is extremely intesnive. Most people don't have that kind of time, and even good rules get things wrong soemtimes because of something missed in research or just plain not understood about the period.

Because its quick and easy and as long as you get the right sets it saves a lot of hassle. The club I joined played the systems I enjoy. No hassle, no convincing and I just get on with wargaming.

Jaz
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Because Mr Clarke is a lot more clever about these things than I am, and if I find myself in disagreement, I can always change the bits I don't like. On balance, I get good value for my money.

I think the only rules I've tried to write were limited scope skirmish. I prefer to paint the toys.

Another reason: there are periods I'm interested in gaming but about which I know little for gaming (that is, I know the history, but all the military minutiae of guns, armor and so on I leave to others). For example WW2 and WW1 naval. So i assume the author has, if nothing else, got the bits mostly right. I'll always fiddle with rules anyway, that's practically a hobby to itself.

There is also a simple pleasure to be had by 'exploring' a new set, especially when professionally and commercially put together and fully playtested by an audience wider than just 1!

Trhe flip side is that there can a great deal of pleasure derived from designing and tweaking your own set.

I see the two formats complementing each other rather than competing.

I'm with Nazrat on this. Except I do change a few things here and there. For example with Trafalgar I didn't like that the critical damage table was the same from all sides of the ship so we put in two other tables depending on which side you were shot from. Just a minor change but it made the game better, I thought.

That being said it certainly was easier doing the work to earn the money to buy the game than it was designing, writing, play testing, taking pictures, making diagrams and all the other stuff involved in producing them.

Writing and testing rules takes time. All I want to do is play.

Mostly – I do have a couple of rules projects where none of the commercial sets do what I want.

Whilst I've written rules for some of our club projects in the past, I just don't have the time (or expertise) to write and test rules for everything I want to have a go at.

To get inspiration for my home rules, which I will never use!

Why do you purchase commercial rule sets?

Mainly because the commercial rules provide a universal and transportable gaming experience.

You can show up to a store with "1,500 points of Late War Flames of War" and strangers can start playing immediately.

I find that a lot of players want some sort of neutral "authority" to make decisions for their group, so that the rules don't "belong" to one player and there is therefore no perception of bias.

I get a lot of emails and questions on my forum, of that nature. People say that they want me to resolve some dispute that came up in last night's game, and since I'm the author – and not a player in the game – they'll all agree to my ruling.

It's probably just a useful lingua franca, especially for more competitive gamers.

Because I cannot draw pretty pictures that are in books.

Both Nazrat and Extra Crispy nail it.

Because I can spend money? And the eye candy gives me hope!

I buy loads of rules I never play, mostly for an interesting read and to borrow ideas.

To support the economy

In our group nobody has the time to write home-brew rules. So we buy commercial ones and simply tweak them to our liking.

But why do you BUY commercial sets. The are dozens and dozens for almost any period free on the web. I don't mean stolen copies of others rules. A site like Perfect Captain ( link ) and War Times Journel ( wtj.com ) are wonderful. And then there are the individual clubs and people with rules like "Not Quite Mechanized" or "Eagles Over the Empire".
Last set I bought I got for $19 USD, sold at convention for $30 USD ( yes I made $11 USD ) and still thinks its the biggest rip off ever. Not one new thought or idea.

"But why do you BUY commercial sets. "

Because, for the particular period concerned, having done my research, I prefer the commercial set sufficiently to consider it worth the price.

There are indeed some nice free sets. There are also dogs, and while I may not be rich I am not at the point of saying "show me the cheapest rules you have and I will find a way to like them"

Compared to my kid's university tuition, or a golf club membership, you can go as high end as you want and this is still a darn cheap hobby.

"sold at convention for $30.00 USD"

I don't know about you, but if I want to be frugal I can can afford most miniatures rules sets by packing bagged lunches for a couple of weeks. They are, for the most part, pretty small potatoes.

Still, whatever floats your boat. It's not like you can do it "wrong".

I am an unabashed rules junkie. At last count there are 400+ sets in my collection, 99% historical. I do not count as "rules" a 4 page summary with a few charts. That's a QRS. They don't need to be fancy but they need to explain how to play the game. So to some degree, you get what you pay for. Capitan are a notable exception.

One problem is many free rules don't provide any army lists. So if armor is rated from 0 (worst) to 10 (best) it's left to me to figure that out. Part of what I pay for is that research.

In fact I have an idea for a WW2 game. But I'm going to use someone else's ratings. They have done every vehicle ever made as far as i can tell. And I don't want to do it.

As Nazrat said…
Writing rules is not in my skill set. I am not good at it.
So, I let someone who knows what they are doing take care of it, and do what I am better at.

Even 'free' rulesets aren't free, you have to make the effort to the read and understand them and some of them make me fall asleep even faster than commercial sets. How much value do you put on your time?

Anyway, I get loads of free rules for the same reasons I buy commercial ones. I ma interested in conflict simulation and rules ideas pertaining to that. I also hugely enjoy spotting rules which have been heavily blagged from other ones and getting all huffy about them if they haven't been attributed properly.

Why commecial. Cause we want a bit of an ego trip, so we don't make them free. Nobody is going to give you 2000 hrs of free time for nothing! Our rules took that long, meeting 3 times a week for 18 months plus "homework" reading technical manuals, and trying sum them up in a minimal number of rules. Writing rules is rewarding if you like that sort of thing, but for the hell which is getting all the typos (or as many as you can) and getting the enlish right is not fun. Without that Extra Crispy is right. However I have loads of commecial rules as it is they that show the "Atate of the Art" or a the very least what a "State" the art is in.

I personaly hate where the US market in paticular have gone. Too many pictiures of no relevance. The triumph of style ove substance UGGH! Books on how to run a programme (which is all a wargame is), content themselves with just relevant diagrames an illustrations to show a pont and no more.

However without a base to start frome we would not be where we are in the, generally improving wargames rules environment. Over commecialisation is not good as real a commecial set won't have the time spent on it that the passionate amature will spend. Our rules wil NEVER make a profit. What we make is really just a bit of an ego trip for the time and effort we have put in. Also its to "Pay forward" all those folk who like us struggle on to do better than the last set.

I have a deep, deep, mistrust of people who only play their own rules, as I have the same for people who only play free ones of the net. Just my opinion, other opinions are also avaliable.

John

And, given the amount of useage I get from a set of rules if I like them, ie, Crossfire, Space Hulk, DBA, and, most of all, In the Grand Manner, I think rules are very cheap, as is our hobby generally. Maybe that's why it attracts some of the cheapest, tightest soap dodgers, I have ever met.

John

John 54,
I think thats a bit harsh. I distrust folk who only play there own rules but do not write them down to be read by the opponent. Those rules vary at the owners whim and often previously un-heard of rules appear when the rules owner is in trouble.

If you rule out the parias who try to make you use only Brand X models which are generally overpriced and poor quality, with poor rules that cost stupid amounts of money, it is a cheap hobby.