"Rules, are they just recycled ideas repackaged?" Topic

I was reading a blog that suggested that this was the case, there were no longer any fresh ideas in the hobby. I do wonder if this is the case. Certainly there seem to be lots of rules written by the same old faces.

I this true? And if so is it a bad thing, or are we comfortable with what we are used to?

It isn't so much the same old faces as the same old concepts.

That isn't to say that there aren't still innovations but we are inherently limited by the medium, coupled with changing trends in the sorts of games people like to play.

Still lots of diversity though, and 'new' things coming along (even if they are actually old ideas, they may new to some/many people), so nothing to worry about really.

Ecclesiastes 1:9
New International Version (NIV)

9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
_________________________

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child.

William Shakespeare

____________________________

Old does not make it bad, new does not make it better.

corporalpat, 2013

Sorry, woke up in a weird mood this AM.

Sometimes the "new" is the combination of old ideas not previously combined.

Board wargaming has been where all the innovations have been happening. Miniature gaming has seen little. Warning Order had a good op ed piece on this a while ago.

Some old ideas were ahead of their time.
Some things need refining.

Innovation is a weird thing. If you get too far outside the mainstream, many people are scared away. It's all about the comfort zone.

If you simply recycle what's been done before, there's no point.

I would say that in my experience, trying to deliberately write for a wide audience means connecting with things they already understand, and explaining things in a comfortable way. If an idea is too 'strange', many people reject it out of hand.

If you have a really unusual idea, put it out there – just know that thirty-seven people in the world will appreciate it. But those thirty-seven will like it a lot!

Sometimes a good idea can be rescued from a bad ruleset and placed in a good ruleset.

No two gamers mean the same thing when they say "new idea." After all, there is no common sheet of music from which we're all playing.

When I played "Wings of War" for the first time, I was blown away by all the "new" concepts and mechanics. It was completely terra nova for me. But then a buddy of mine said, "Oh yeah, it's just like Blah Blah Blah…" some game he'd played a few years ago that used asymmetrical card decks with literal movement diagrams, and so on.

It was certainly "new and innovative" to me.

In the meantime, a lot of people have discovered and love the game "X-Wing," which is new to them, and probably breaks all kind of new ground, as far as they're concerned, whereas for other people it's just Wings of War with spaceships.

Sounds to me like the guy in the blog is unable to write and sell his rules, so he thinks that innovation is dead. As others have said above, it isn't the individual rules which make something unique, it's the way they are put together in the overall package that makes them "new".

I find new and exciting rules all the time nowadays and I am an old and jaded gamer from way back!

Every once in a while you get a new concept. Old school wargames divided an X march rate by a Y minute turn and all troops could always move Z inches. Then came the notion that "time is not linear"; or, at least with regard to perception.

Piquet had this in a rather unplayable form. Warmaster improved the idea: some units did 3 things, other did nothing. Then after Warmaster you had variations of the theme in Black Powder, etc.

Rules, if anything, often have new implementations of a larger concept: i.e. Bolt Action's use of Order Dice instead of card flips for activation.

There is change and innovation in gaming rules. Lots of it. Some of it is independent, some of it parallel, and most of it tweaks of other ideas.

The human condition has been the same for a long, long time. Not the same point.

Any innovation--that is, something new--is usually an innovation based on *something else*. It usually starts with a totally new presentation and usually a new, but extreme use of the innovation, such as Picquet's card system (which themselves were simply previous uses of cards in both board and table games taken further for other reasons).

Then comes the implementation. Other folks take the innovation and apply it in different and/or more useful forms, like FOB or the Card-driven board game variations seen in Maurice.

However, however, any number of 'innovations' are simply who happens to see it when. There are a large number of miniature and board game mechanics and systems touted as 'innovations' and 'new' that aren't, really being old ideas. The hype can succeed because the gamers (and designers) aren't aware of their own hobby's history. So, if mechanics that were first explored in 1980 are forgotten, when they are then 'discovered' in 2013, everyone thinks they are 'innovative'.

That forgetfulness can also hamper innovation, time spent reinventing the wheel. Then there are ideas that form based on too little inforation. For instance, there have been gamers that insist that all table top games use dice and charts, though there have been successful rules sets such as "The Complete Brigadier" that didn't, publised in the 1980s. Regardless, the ill-informed beliefs will stonewall innovation.

Most all mediums have limits. Miniature wargame rules are no different. Often the notion is that innovations have to be new technologies rather than new ways of using the old mediums. Not so. Most innovations come from the recombinations of old ideas with the injection of the new. "Wings of War" is just one example.

Some of it has to do with new applications. Corn flakes weren't a new technology when introduced as breakfast cereal, but it created a whole new industry and a *new* norm for Americans.

I think the biggest roadblock to innovation in the hobby is how provincial it is, cut off from the larger world of game and simulation design. There is a recent article in Scientific American that spoke to why and how humans produced innovation, starting with the ancients. They found it had to do with community. There is a critical mass of numbers needed to spur on-going innovation.

Innovation is a community activity as much as one stroke of genius, which is why the scientific community insists on open communication.

For our hobby, I think it's a good question to contemplate, not only what ignites it, but why we would even want it.

They found it had to do with community. There is a critical mass of numbers needed to spur on-going innovation.

I would assume those numbers ae shrinking with miniature gaming, whereas board gaming in general (not wargaming) has been exploding the past several years.

It seems as the hobby grows grey with potbellies, miniature gamers want simpler and simpler rules that really feel too generic and like recyclying. (Note, I am not advocating the supercomplex rules of the 1980s! Just that the pendulum has swung 180-degrees to the other side. I'd like something in the middle, which is where board wargaming is right now.)

BTW everyone who LIKES recycled rules will say there is no problem. So we need to consider the soure, don't we?

Just like no one ever says they are a "bad person."

Warmaster improved the idea: some units did 3 things, other did nothing.

Though the mechanic that Warmaster used was very similar to one that I saw in early versions of Empire and produced the same love/hate reaction from players.

Which is also worth mentioning: the reason certain mechanics are re-used is because they're the ones that the "lowest common denominator" prefers. Other mechanics go out of fashion because only a few people like them, and come back into fashion (briefly?) because they're still cool mechanics.

I'm running into this with the spaceship game I'm working on. I'm tailoring it to the tastes of my gaming group, so have been bolting together mechanics that they like.

About the only thing that's possibly innovative is the movement system -- but it's not really new, it's just a way to smoothly reproduce a mechanic you've seen in Asteroids on the minis table.

Moreschauser- Featherstone- Dowdall- Young- Grant--

Everything else is a rewrite.

PP rules. Every new set has a whole bunch of innovations, along with some re-works too. This is probably true of most new rule sets. From the forthcoming PP viking rules we have vector scenery placement and cumulative D6 challenges, to name but two. Neither ever seen in the work of the above mentioned grand masters. And great gamers they were/are too. Most rule writers deliberat;y restrict themselves to certain dice types and comfortable sizes for aesthetic and tactile purposes. It is too easy to say "nothing new under the sun". MP3 players and microwave ovens. Phil Barker is (in my opinion) one of the most innovative rule writers out there. Course nothing is as good as the old 78RPM records…young people these days….all new stories and films are just re-writes…

Martin

There's always a lot of innovation taking place.
But it doesn't always get published as a glossy ruleset.

Best sources for innovative ideas are blogs and some magazine articles.

The multi move game mechanic in warhamster, and now used in most of the Warlord produced games is very similar to the previous PiP system in DBX.

In fact, a cynic could argue that the evil empire just changed the DBX mechanic enough to copywrite it and price gouge the koolaid drinkers.

Morechauser- Featherstone- Dowdall- Young- Grant--

Moreschauser, Featherstone, Young, and Grant I have heard of and admire, but who the <blank> is Dowdall?

The multi move game mechanic in warhamster, and now used in most of the Warlord produced games is very similar to the previous PiP system in DBX.

I'm not quite sure how you make that connection. The PIP system does not give the same results as the CC system in Black Powder et al.

In fact, a cynic could argue that the evil empire just changed the DBX mechanic

Since when has Warlord Games been the Evil Empire (tm)?

So long as one's reference is to rules and subjects they are familiar with, it is probably inevitable to see little evidence of actual originality or innovation.

However, perhaps primarily in the niche subjects, something "new" can appear under the sun, at least from time to time.

Part of the problem, as ever, is semantical. To some people, nothing is or can be "new" so long as it uses toy soldiers, dice, reference tables, is printed on paper or electronic "pages," and put together by one or more bipeds.

Okay, if that's your standard, you "win" and may leave the discussion in triumph.

However, original game designs are entirely possible when grounded in real knowledge of the subject, and a willingness to do old things in new ways which actually grow out of that subject.

So many games seem to be put together based on other rules rather than the subject matter. There is certainly such a thing as "unconscious plagiarism" where what seem like a new idea is really only a memory of previous experiences, often repeated through years of exposure to other sets of rules themselves built over the ruins of what came before.

Most games--especially the "house rules" type, never seriously intended for publication--take a rule from one set, a table from another, etc, then fold, cut, squish, and assemble a friendly Frankenstein monster that does what the players tell it to do.

There is nothing wrong with this. The object is to play with the toys, socialize, and have a great diversion from reality for a few hours. This is human, honorable, and in the end better than cocaine, alcohol, or keeping up with the Kardashians.

Unfortunately, this seems to be what passes for "game design," making more of it than it is.

As author/co-author of a number of original war games consciously developed without any imitation/"up dating"/plagiarizing from other rules, I can say that innovation is obviously possible.

That such rules are perhaps less visible in the market place or major events may be due to poor promotion (I'm a master of that one) and the natural reluctance to try something "new" when something "old" has already worked so well for so long.

Several sets of rules come to my mind that, irrespective of their subjects, are genuinely original.

Howard Whitehouse's "Science Vs. Pluck" is unique in several aspects, and those familiar with the game know exactly what I mean.

"Picquet" has several unique features, of which some aspects have become more nearly mainstream.

If the riposte is that these are now "old" games, the fact of their innovations is still relevant.

As co-author of Chris Feree's "Rough Riders," "B'hoys!," and "John Company," I can honestly point to their origninality, when not in subject matter then in the different concepts they are founded on.

To those sincere souls who believe nothing new has been added to the ideas our hobby has grown from, I ask that they broaden their view by comparing these systems to those of the Founders.

"Then, whisper to me, Gordoom Pasha, 'Featherstone never thought of that!'"

TVAG

I think there are many shades of gray here and multiple shades within any one game system.

I believe that the typical game is composed of many basic mechanics or concepts that have been around for years (e.g. rate of fire = number of dice rolled), some old mechanics that have been combined or applied or tweaked in new ways (e.g. the idea of activation rolls have been around a long time but Warmaster offered a new twist), and some truly unique rules.

But I do believe that most rules are somewhat derivative. Flames of War is obviously influenced by 40K and even Space Marine. Force on Force is clearly derivative of concepts seen in Star Grunt/Dirt Side. But you can't say that FoW = 40K or Space Maroine or that FoF = Star Grunt.

Our own home grown rules are definitely influenced by other games (some of them being video games!) but our games definitely don't play the same as other games since they're unique in how they're put together. Otherwise we'd simply play other systems.

So I don't agree with the blanket statement that there's nothing new under the sun. Apply that same logic to transportation and one could say that since the invention of the wheel there's been nothing new since ox pulled carts. Sure, both the ox-drawn cart and a minivan have a box-like structure, four wheels, and a means of propulsion. But that doesn't mean there's nothing new.

There's always a lot of innovation taking place.
But it doesn't always get published as a glossy ruleset.

Best sources for innovative ideas are blogs and some magazine articles.

And TMP.

I've had some of my best ideas for games after noodling through on idea here. It's almost always not a one-to-one correlation (as in, "build mechanic X in this manner") but comments on TMP usually provide a new insight into a design problem.

I would assume those numbers ae shrinking with miniature gaming, whereas board gaming in general (not wargaming) has been exploding the past several years.

It seems as the hobby grows grey with potbellies, miniature gamers want simpler and simpler rules that really feel too generic and like recyclying.

CPBelt:

I'm not sure we can assume that. Exactly who's counting the warm bodies?

I got a book of Christmas, almost a joke gift--a heavy one--titled Engineering Principles of Combat Modeling and Distributed Simulation. 2012, edited by Andreas Tolk. It's an effort to synthesis all that has been learned about wargaming and military simulation design in the last three decades. Anyway, in one chapter two of the contributing authors say this: p. 336

The table top wargame hobby continues to be strongly supported and followed today;…"

Further they say on the same page:

Beginning slowly in the 1960s and 1970s and devloping with a heightened pace of developement in the 1990s, computer wargames evntually took over much of the military wargaming scene, as well as the civilian wargaming scene. Tabletop and board wargames are still used by both audiences, but is much more common these days to encouter a computer moderated wargame than the other way around. Curiously, as a side effect of the commerical (civilian) board games being subpplanted by computer wargames, there has been a marked rise in and return to tabletop wargames using military miniatures (toy soldiers and models represeting miliatary equipment) in the civilian wargaming community.

Now I had to laugh when I read that, considering the common concern among miniature wargamers that the hobby is shrinking, or worse dying out.

Perception is reality when you don't have real numbers to work with…

Part of the problem, as ever, is semantical. To some people, nothing is or can be "new" so long as it uses toy soldiers, dice, reference tables, is printed on paper or electronic "pages," and put together by one or more bipeds.

On a certain level, this is a straw man: no one is actually arguing this position.

You are correct about "semantics" -- though it would probably be more accurate to ask, "what are the actual terms of the debate?"

If we're assuming that the "ideas" referred to by the original poster are the building blocks of games, then yes, I'd argue that there hasn't been anything truly original added to the tool kit in decades.

If we're talking about assembled systems, then occasionally you get something new as folks put blocks together in new ways.

If we're talking about the business arena, where the same handful of guys are the only ones producing product, then we're back to "yeah, not much new" -- but that's more because it takes a while to learn the ins and outs of the business.

There were an awful lot of us who disagree with you.

Tim:
I am sure that is true about Piquet,[I played it a bunch too] but there was also an awful lot of pressure to 'fix' some of it too, leading to a number of variants in die rolls and pip generation. Then there are all the games after such as FOB, also using the concepts, but seen as correcting some of the problems.

I have to say it seems that sometimes it seems difficult for authors to communicate new concepts or new combinations of tried and true concepts. Part of it is how it is explained but my years of reading questions about another set of rules seems to indicate sometimes people's experience with previous rule sets is hard to step away from and they find it difficult to have a completely clear mind.

It is usually difficult for anyone to communicate new concepts. Part of it too is the result of designers using the same game mechanics in different ways, but never explaining either what the rule represents. I love the use of 'Command Radius' rules, representing a whole league of different aspects of command, while using the very same terms and mechanics. I can give you lots of examples of that…

Is it any wonder gamers have a hard time 'stepping away' form old rules and coming to the new ones with a 'completely clear mind'?

Bill

Often they are. But in the case of new sets like SAGA, no.

DM

I'm currently working on a set of recycled ideas that may or may not contain an original idea or two. Same taste, less filling.

It really depends on how you approach the issue.

As has been said before, some of it is semantics. In the Kickstarter Gates of Antares promotional video the use of D10s instead of D6s is/was heralded as a radical new game design. Most of us who have played something beyond WH40K will think 'whatever'.

If you are looking for innovative ideas in commercially published rulesets, the chances are low that you will find it. Reasons are that people who like to tinker with new ideas are not the same people who have the time and will-power to go all the way to publication. Hence, many published rulesets are rather conservative in their use of gaming mechanics and approach to wargaming in general.

But I bet that in individual gaming groups, a lot of experimentation takes place, that goes beyond the "I think this modifier should be a +1 instead of a +2".
However, it does require an experimental mindset and the willingness to try something new.
Usually, there's at least one guy in every group who likes to come up with experimental games – whether it's a game without rulers; a game focused around morale instead of combat resolution; a game using story-telling & conversation as a driving force rather than prescribed moves and die rolls; or a game trying to emulate a very specific historical scenario with some special-purpose gaming mechanics.

Occasionally, these things then surface on the internet or in magazines, and sometimes they find their way into the glossy rulesets.

But of course, if you're only playing the big commercial systems, faithfully adhering to army lists and point values, and not trying anything yourself (and I'm not saying the OP does that), then innovation will be hard to spot.

One of the problems with innovation in wargaming is that many gamers refuse to think about new ideas, or more precisely, refuse to try them.

Let's take an example:
Most rulesets use an IGO-UGO structure, and within a turn, there's usually something like move-fire-melee-morale, in that order. Why? Because it has been like that ever since Wells wrote down his rules (ok, maybe Featherstone, but you get the idea).

Now, just as en experiment, make 8 index cards, and label each of them with a specific subsequence: "Move side A", "Fire side B", "Morale Side A" etc.
Shuffle these 8 cards together, and for each full turn, draw them in random order to determine the sequence of events in that turn.
This is not a new mechanic, I think it goes back at least till the 60s. But just by doing that, you immediately can create a fresh look on the game, and the tatics will change. Suddenly, you might get the insight that what we think are historical tactics, are more determined by our turn order than by history ;-)

However, many players will just refuse to try a simple change like that – even for a single game – 'because it's not the way wargames are supposed to be played'. It just shows that many people are not very good at thinking outside the box.

We can give more examples. Cfr Crossfire, Piquet, … all systems which proposed some new ideas, but for the most part are not liked by the community 'because it's not the proper way to play a game'.
Hence, we are stuck with FOW and its derivates.

Another example: variable movement distances.

I find it unbelievable how many wargamers just cannot grasp the idea that a unit does not move a fixed distance every turn.
"It's illogical", "It's not historical", "But then I don't know how far they can move", "Why would they move slowly, and then the next turn speed up again?" etc.

Or yet another example: the assymetry in most rules between distant combat resolution (fire) and close-contact combat (melee). In most rules, when I fire, you can't fire back, so I'm safe. But when I hit you in melee, you can hit me back and I can die.
If you ask gamers to explain that assymmetry, they have a hard time coming up with good reasons. Most of them don't come further than "It's realistic".

If people are not willing to actively think about wargaming rules (which are mostly arbitrary conventions), then innovation is lost :-) :-)

You make a very good point Phil.

I'm a huge fan of grids like those used by PBI. When I've run games using them invariably players appear more engaged in the tabletop story and action and you can't tell there's a grid since it's so subtle visually. IMO it's just so much more fun to ignore the fiddly nature of rulers and templates.

And yet the IDEA of grids in miniature wargames Is rejected out of hand by some gamers. The usual objection is that "miniatures are not board games" even though the grid isn't visually intrusive.

Grids are not "innovative" but they are not SOP for tabletop games and thus a lot of gamers reject them.

Often they are. But in the case of new sets like SAGA, no.

The SAGA Battleboard is a repackaging of "ability cards" often used by boardgames.

Rather than roll 6 SAGA dice, draw 6 cards. You can use a Warrior Card to activate a warrior unit or use the ability printed on the card "gain one attack die"

Tin Soldier Man, which blog was this on?

"However, many players will just refuse to try a simple change like that – even for a single game – 'because it's not the way wargames are supposed to be played'. It just shows that many people are not very good at thinking outside the box."

It helps if you label it correctly.

Call something a "Saving Throw," and two-thirds of all historical gamers will turn their noses up, snort and harrumph and deride it is silly, fantasy, "not historical," etc.

Take the exact same mechanic and re-name it something like, "Fire Effect Roll," and they'll praise the game, chat it up as the hottest and best new gizmo, it'll get featured on peoples' blogs and podcasts, etc.

The same is true with dice. In certain genres of gaming, for some reason d-sixes are not "historical." (Everybody knows that battleship guns and torpedoes only used percentile dice!) But I'll bet that if you used sequential d6 rolls and gave them historical-sounding names (like "Ranging Roll," "Targeting Roll," "Plunging Roll," and so on), then people would accept them and be happy.

*

If you're designing just for yourself and a few friends, then you can afford to do anything you want. But if you're taking the risk of investing, to publish a game for the public, then you must take care not to push people too far out of their comfort zones, or they'll respond negatively.

It always helps to know your audience and be careful with terminology.

"I find it unbelievable how many wargamers just cannot grasp the idea that a unit does not move a fixed distance every turn."

I find it frustrating that people think games have to have "turns," in the first place…. But I know better than to try to go there!

Most rulesets use an IGO-UGO structure, and within a turn, there's usually something like move-fire-melee-morale, in that order.

I will defend IGO-UGO very briefly: it works well if you don't restrict the number of players on a side. One of the things that I've found with interleaved activations is that such a game "processes" serially. That is, one action occurs, followed by the next action, and so on. Add more players, and the game slows down.

The advantage to IGO-UGO is that the game can "process" in parallel -- that is, all the players of one side act at the same time, without having to wait for each other. Add more players, and (if you avoid cross-talk and war councils) the game takes the same amount of time.

Bringing that back around to the point: if you have a specific objective in your game design (in this example, lots of people around a single table), then there might be a perfectly functional tool in your kit. That problem has already been solved, as it were.

I find it unbelievable how many wargamers just cannot grasp the idea that a unit does not move a fixed distance every turn.

Presented that way, I agree with you. My usual gripe with it is that games that use this mechanic also tend to layer other command-and-control mechanics on top of it. It's the redundancy that gets me, not the mechanic itself.

It helps if you label it correctly.

Call something a "Saving Throw," and two-thirds of all historical gamers will turn their noses up, snort and harrumph and deride it is silly, fantasy, "not historical," etc.

Take the exact same mechanic and re-name it something like, "Fire Effect Roll," and they'll praise the game, chat it up as the hottest and best new gizmo, it'll get featured on peoples' blogs and podcasts, etc.

Phil Yates has expressed regret for using the term "Bailed Out" for tank morale.

People have gotten over it but initially gamers laughed at the spectacle of tank crews REPEATEDLY hopping in and out of their tanks. It made him cringe when he watched gamers discuss the term at an HMGS convention where he demo'd FOW.

I encountered the same problem with our home grown rules. The shooter rolls to hit which is based on shooter skill, range, etc. The target then rolls to save which is based on target "signature", skill, concealment, size, etc.

Initially I called the save roll "evade roll". Gamers didn't take kindly to that. Changed it back to the more generic "save roll" and everything was fine again. Same roll but different terms elicited different reactions.

Games are finite procedural systems. They are 'just so' stories in many ways. Any number of gamers are attracted to that aspect of wargames. Usually, designers are not among that group, so they have some trouble understanding the mindset that resists changes "because it's not the way wargames are supposed to be played". Those gamers play games because they like the 'box' of the game rules, not 'thinking outside' the box. Designers are making boxes, so obviously they have a different mindset.

The name of a save roll or rule becomes very important with abstract rules supposedly representing something real. Wartopia's examples are good ones. The 'evade roll' represented target "signature", skill, concealment, size, etc. However, the term 'evade' called up an entirely different 'picture' of what the roll represents.

The same is true for the term 'bail out' for tank morale. Tank crews do call it 'bailing out' leaving a crippled tank, but the image of a morale term being 'bail out' didn't match
the players' images of crew morale.

Of course, if the players knew that 'evade' represented target "signature", skill, concealment, size, etc. their response might have been different.

And it does have to do with information:

The same is true with dice. In certain genres of gaming, for some reason d-sixes are not "historical." (Everybody knows that battleship guns and torpedoes only used percentile dice!) But I'll bet that if you used sequential d6 rolls and gave them historical-sounding names (like "Ranging Roll," "Targeting Roll," "Plunging Roll," and so on), then people would accept them and be happy.

The second presentation of sequential rolls provides more information, more images of what is supposed to be happening. It may all be bogus, but in the usual information vaccuum abstract most wargame mechanics provide, any source of information that adds to a gamer's awareness of what the rules represent is appreciated.

Wargame designers do need to ask the 'why' of such behaviors beyond simply catering to them.

" Same roll but different terms elicited different reactions.'

People generally don't know why they like or dislike things. They just do.

That's not intended as a put-down, just a statement on human nature. I couldn't explain why I like Pinot Noir better than Merlot. Or why I prefer Hondas over Toyotas. Nobody can really explain stuff like that, at least not in any sort of objective way, without getting into really detailed cellular analysis of the brain's synapses and all that gobbledygook.

Whatever mysterious process happens in the brain that informs us whether we like something or not, we tend, then, to go looking to put labels and explanations on it after the fact. We don't like to admit that, and we can sometimes go to great and very elaborate lengths to obfuscate it, but it's true.

People generally don't know why they like or dislike things. They just do.

That may or may not be true, depending on the situation, rather than a generalization, but when it comes to liking and disliking wargames, it behooves a designer interested in selling lots of games to consider the why's…

So when the "Same roll but different terms elicited different reactions," part of a designer's task is to elicit the reactions HE wants.

I couldn't explain why I like Pinot Noir better than Merlot.

All I know is that, "I'm NOT drinking any ******* merlot!"

:-D

I find it unbelievable how many wargamers just cannot grasp the idea that a unit does not move a fixed distance every turn.

I agree with you about variability of movement. But what I have trouble with is that rules say "a unit does not move a fixed distance every turn" and then says "so to represent that we'll roll dice to deermine how far it moves – and you end up with wildly varying movements that are far more erratic than the actual movement would have been.

By fixing one problem you create another.

I find it unbelievable how many wargamers just cannot grasp the idea that a unit does not move a fixed distance every turn.

I find this notion, that a unit doesn't move a 'fixed distance' every turn kind of a red herring. The question isn't whether the did or not, the question is if they could.

I have yet to see any historical evidence for either view point. If a historical unit moved in one half hour period and not the next, is that something planned or because of the all those unexpected things that occur to keep a unit from being efficient?

Being sucked into the threadjack some more …

Variable length movement tends to work a little better with multiple dice, as you then have an average result and more recognizable standard deviations.

As for McLaddie's point — it's really a command mechanic that still allows the player to do something with the unit. People don't like being unable to do things with their units, so this presents the same concept that Warmaster does but without the standing around.

<q.so this presents the same concept that Warmaster does but without the standing around.

Perhaps though the standing around is more realsitic? Who was it who said war is 95% sheer boredom and 5% unadulterated terror?

"Perhaps though the standing around is more realsitic? "

Oh, no doubt it would be. There are tons of ways to make games more realistic, but in many cases doing them would make for a terrible game. (Or, a game that would require resources that most players don't have, such as a double-blind Kriegsspiel with multiple tables in multiple rooms, and umpires shuttling back and forth.)

Consider casualties for example. Can you imagine a game in which firing resulted in an historically-accurate rate of casualties? Hours of shooting to get 8 men killed and 23 wounded…. people would either walk away or fall sound asleep. So we make up conceptual things like unit "cohesion" instead, which can't be measured precisely using historical evidence, so that game mechanics can do whatever we want them to do, which is usually: lots of Bang-Bang and Keep the Game Moving! And we get to see the result of our game-decision: rolling dice, making the enemy remove some figures. Call them "kills," or "breaking," or whatever, but the bottom line is: everybody needs to be doing something and having fun.

With regard to the O.P., there are a number of reasons why game mechanics and game structure have remained fairly constant. A gamer's needs and abilities haven't changed much, and probably can't change much. He still has limited time and space, and still wants to fill his precious 3-4 hours of hobby time each month with something fun and stimulating that doesn't break his budget and which can be packed up and removed and taken home in time for dinner with the wife. Working within those limitations naturally results in some consistent practices.

I think there is certainly room for new ideas and if I look in the fantasy sector games like Malifaux stand out as a dice-less system which was bold and has taken some time to grow a fan base. I like it but I know 3 or so years ago there were initial reservations.

So back on the topic of re-packaged games. Yes I think there are a lot of repeated rules. If you look at the original "Little Wars" (1913) you can still see many parallels in modern systems 100 years on. Wow I just realised we should see 2013 as a century of gaming history!

However it is no doubt difficult to change that much about moving toy soldiers around on a flat or sculpted board surface and representing a mechanic to make it challenging and fun. Given the restraint of the environment and ease of play required to make a game fun it certainly presents issues for coming up with a truly originally new approach which is why we see a lot of "Roll a bunch of D6" and if you roll a 5 or 6 you hit type games. Whatever the complexity of turn mechanics and command and control you still need that 6 to come up on the dice.