"Starting a new sci-fi wargames rules" Topic

Hello to all! I am working on a free sci-fi rules, but in the core design it seems important to know a few things:

-Scale: 6-10mm, 15-20mm, or 28mm?
-Terrain: hex, squares or free?
-Movement and shooting: limited or like in Crossfire?

What do you think?

timesofwar.byethost7.com

Howdy,

The way I see things..
6mm scifi and 28mm are worlds apart. When I think 6mm I think 40k Epic with company level action, tons of troops and vehicles.
With 28mm I see the game as more of what I think a scifi engagement would be – small squads of specialized troops, back up by 1 or two vehicles.

I'm also a big fan of free move. It so much more flexible in terms of what you can give troops, 15cms, 10cms etc than 1 hex or 2.

I haven't played Crossfire, but the scifi that I have, I prefer the ability to fire while moving, without huge drops in accuracy. I like to think they have discovered some form of sophisticated sights/tracking/range finder etc.

Hope this helps, and good luck in your endeavour

15mm
Hex or square
I agree with Project Vehemence on move and shoot without huge drops in accuracy

Make the rules for yourself and don't worry about what we think.

I have to agree with Project Vehemence.

My personal choice is for 15mm to get larger battles but you can get the effect of the specialized troops.

Free move.

Shoot and move or move and shoot. Also there could be a adjustment for firing on the move, dependent on the level of tech.

Good luck with the project. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. How big do you see the size of the forces?

What Caesar said.

Grid-based games are the way to go, in my opinion. The ability to move freely can not only lead to disputes, but are the primary cause for an increase in movement rules complexity.

Right now there is a discussion going on about the upcoming (ancients) DBA version 3.0 rules. One quickly notices the references to "geometry tricks" and "getting the kinks out of the line" (this is a reference to players literally putting kinks into their battle lines in order to shield units from contact, or sub-optimal contact). Phil Barker is spending time trying to get the wording just so, in order to rid his rules of all these tricks of play.

Do yourself a favor; ignore the free movement purists and go with a grid.

As for the rest: you really haven't given us enough information to know. If the intent is to play out a company action, and you want to model it 1:1, most people will readily tell you that 28mm is out. By the same token, if the intent is to have 5-10 figures per side, many would rule out 6mm or 10mm.

I expect a rules designer to have a specific goal of what they are trying to accomplish. Whether it is reflecting something they think other rules ignore, or thinking they can do it more simply, or hitting their own particular favorites, they are going to write the rules that do what they want.

So what's moving you? Make it all about that. Otherwise you're motivated by all the whims of the people who answer.

(A longer way to say I agree with Caesar.)

andy

Fourth agreement for Caesar. It's fun to hear what other people want, but you'll get a hundred different opinions from a hundred different people. At the end of the day if you are not psyched and interested in your mechanics or theme you won't have the energy and motivation to bring a project to completion. Plus I always find I can tell when authors were passionate about a rulesets as compared to "just writing it"…I think that really shows through in the finished product.

For what it's worth I like 28mm, mainly because those are the majority of figures I own. Free and hex movement are lots of fun. And I like to be able to move and shoot so you don't end up in a standoff situation where each player doesn't want to be the first to expose themselves to enemy fire.

Thanks to all for the opinions.

I was planning on making it Platoon-Company level. Fast paced game.

You all mean 10-15mm like Gruntz? You hit the target in scale. I am starting to like small scales, but not too small.

I was thinking to implement the free move using the Crossfire rule variation of moving units from one terrain piece to another.

I think it's difficult to design a better game than stargrunt 2.
AND it's free now.
Unless you take sg2 and add your own minor improvements on.

Which is pretty much saying not to bother.
But designing games is fun.
Writing rules so other people understand them rather sucks the fun out of it.
So I wouldn't bother publishing to the world.
The world is full of ingrates who will tell you that such and such is better and what do you mean by this full stop here. etc etc.

Caesar is right.

All the best,

John.

Excellent! There aren't enough sci-fi rules to choose from…

@Bede: Not enough sci-fi rules?