"Knowledgeable rule writers. Name them." Topic

Following on from John the OFM's post, I was wondering which rule writers we considered knowledgeable? How does this knowledge manifest itself?

Also of interest is whether we need knowledgeable rule writers when so many posters tell us "it's just a game".

Featherstone

Brigadier Young and Colonel Lawford.

Charles Grant

Rick Preistley is a very knowledgeable rules writer, I think. He has written quite a few rulesets that have been very successful. He may not hit every time but some of the most popular rules being played today were developed, at least partially, by him.

You can have a poorly crafted game without a knowledgeable rules writer. "Knowledge" isn't just in the history bits, but also in game mechanics, etc.

And for the record, Wally Simon is my choice.

Some of his stuff was out there, but some of it was pretty neat.

Eric

Frank Chadwick knows his stuff.

Can't remember who wrote them, but IIRC the best rules I ever read were called "The Final Argument of Kings" a 7YW set. They were clear, concise, made sense, and inspired love at first sight.
Unfortunately for actual game play, they sucked.

Richard Clarke and the other Lardies. The designer's notes and background information included with their rules are superb and show a real understanding of the period.

Jason Matthews

(I'm limiting my response to designers that write games I enjoy.)

Sam Mustafa has the credentials of knowledge.

Following on from John the OFM's post, I was wondering which rule writers we considered knowledgeable?

I presume you still mean knowledgeable about war since you reference OFMs post?

Given Rick P's gaming style, I'd bet not all that knowledgeable about war. Richard Clarke OtoH is probably more knowledgeable than some. Any game writer who is s Veteran of a war is probably pretty knowledgeable about war.

Richard H. Berg of S&T, SPI and now GMT Fame (and Infamy)

Just about any designer for GMT Games, for certain.

I'm a pretty good rules developer, but that door is closing since my writing career is taking off.

Check the CSW pages and links…board wargames tend to be of greater detail, despite the complexity of the game, than miniatures rules.

Another vote for Frank Chadwick.

Also, Phil Barker would qualify easily. He may not have ever been able to write a coherent sentence, and lately he is increasingly coming off as a pompous ass and going well out of his way to alienate his audience, but he certainly has wide and deep knowledge of his field.

Philip Sabin would definitely be at the top of the list, too.

Doug

I don't have any of his rules, but there's a guy named Buck Surdu who is a Colonel in the US Army who has written and published Napoleonic, ACW, and WW2 rules

Does that means he knows more than a non-soldier about the American Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars? I don't know, but I wouldn't think so.

And how does extensive historical knowledge translate into "accurate" or "realistic" rules anyway? Just knowing how thick the front glacis armor on a Tiger tank was doesn't mean you can produce a set of rules that represents history well.

Yes … Sabin, Barker, Young, Grant, Chadwick, Priestley, Johnson … all of the less well-known WD contributors such as Richard Brooks and Ian Drury …

Phil

Is there a commonly accepted definition for what a knowledgeable rules writer is?

Other than he claims he is knowledgeable? hehe!

George von Reisswitz, author of the Prussian Kriegsspiel, served in the campaigns of 1813-4 and became a career officer. He certainly knew something about how the Prussian Army operated in the late Napoleonic Wars. He was also trying to create a training game for officers, not an entertainment for civilians, so one might assume he did not make compromises in order to create 'fun', 'playability' &c. – although having a closed, umpire controlled system makes a game very 'playable' for participants!

Featherstone, Young, Lawford and Grant had experienced 20th century war, and were knowledgeable about other periods of military history as well. However, they were concerned to devise an entertainment, not a training aid or simulation of a particular level of command, and sometimes made compromises with history in order to produce playable games.

There's two questions here.

First- "Knowledgeable Rule Writers." OK, I see no definition of "knowledgeable," so I'm on my own. Well, off the top of my head I'd have to say Sam Mustapha has the credentials and seems quite knowledgeable about history and the periods he works in. I believe he actually teaches history at a major university. I don't particularly like the rules he writes, but that's personal preference. and many other people do like them. You can't say he's not knowledgeable. I'm not familar with many others. On the other hand if you want to say that "knowledgeable" means he produces a good game, then the criteria is a bit wider. Feaatherstone etc.

The question then becomes "How knowledgeable do you have to be to produce a set of wargame rules?"

But then again I'm in the "It's just a game" camp.

For me it always comes down to playing a game, not taking a history class. I'm not in the hobby to learn history, that's done outside the hobby through books and study. But history has only a tenuous hold in gaming, which we engage in (or at least I do) for fun.

You don't need a knowledge of Latin-American Countries to design Junta, you don't need to get 16 year old Ingenues to design "The Barbie Game." and you don't need Donald Trump on the design team of a game like Monopoly, so…..

Do they have to be?

From Terrement: I'd add Terry Gore of SAGA, who wrote both Ancient Warfare and Medieval Warfare before he died. I playtested for him on both, and MW is now published by Foundry. Terry was a professor and an author of history, and I'd offer that he knew of what he wrote as well as any.

There are very few rules-writers who are not knowledgeable, because the act of writing rules requires the writer to acquire, filter, structure and present knowledge. Some research better than others, some come up with better games than others, and some write clearer rules than others, but most of the manifold failures I have met (and commited myself) in wargames rules are failures of simplification or failures of clarity rather than lack of knowledge.

As for the idea of Phil Barker not being able to write a coherent sentence, I think it is more a question of people blaming him for their lack of reading skills. But I am happy to repeat my challenge, to date unmet, for anyone to post a sentence from one of Phil Barker's published sets of rules and explain why any normally-literate person should experience any great difficulty in understanding it.

All the best,

John.

Greg Novak.

Rolls D20….gary gygax?

Dave Brown of General de Brigade and he usually on the GdeB site every day to answer/clarify the rules using the real world situations to underpin his rationale.

Larry Brom of The Sword and the Flame and its variants. Also Jay Stribling and Mark Stevens who have contributed many variants and supplements to TSATF.

Jim

A couple of posters have sagely posed the question of those decorated WW2 veterans, Brigadier Young and Col. Lawson, that whilst experienced in modern warfare, does that give them a deeper understanding of horse and musket warfare?

Its a perennial question I ask myself of modern historians, because I instinctively prefer and trust military history written by military men.

I believe there is such a thing as a 'Universal Soldier'. Experiences of War, Operations, and battle, that transcend the weapons or systems or tactics used. Fear, mateship, physical endurance, an understanding of ground and environmentals, apply in any era.

An ability to 'interpret' contemporary sources, and an understanding that the manuals and books of reference of the day were likely just as loosely applied then as they are today…

So yes, whilst they were writing rules to give a game, rather than a training aid, they would also instinctively have known what you can and can't ask of a soldier, and understoon the pressures and limitations of command.

So add weight to the opinions of those who have been in the Service, and really sit up and listen to those who have actually 'seen the elephant' for themselves…

Bruce Weigle. Top notch in the European wars of the mid-19th Century!

I read Phil Sabin's really interesting book, Simulating War last summer. My impression is that he is a board game guy? Has he done any miniatures games?

Lost Battles is intended to be a miniatures game and is regularly played as such by Sabin et al at UK shows.

Rich Hasenauer of Fire & Fury. And Battlefront.

For Ditto The abdominal Snowman …

Phil Sabin's game of Bagradas: Lost Battles using wargame figures …

what Margard said, though I'd add that I suspect Sabin would see the distinction between boardgame and miniatures game as an artificial idea (both being wargames whichever set of tools you use to present them) – OK, I know he would, as I have had that debate …

Phil
Ancients on the Move

Terry Gore, John Hill

I don't have much to add because all of the ones I would have added are here already.

If you look at these many have systems that work and give reasonable results. Very few of these have "Army Specific" rules in their systems. Troops are troops and equipment is only as good as the troops in many of these systems.

Got to put in for the Richard Clarke, Nick Skinnernd the others at TFL, and the folks that write supplements for their rules and articles for their Specials. They demonstrate they know of what they speak.

Bob Jones and Brent Oman

Fred Jane, Fletcher Pratt, John Hill.

Ed Texeira of Two Hour Wargames.

His "knowledge" has developed his series of rules to focus on the crisis points of combat and individuals/units immediate reaction to them giving realistic feeling results that are still fun to play.

I have actually played a few minis games with Phil Sabin.

As with the original thread, it depends what you mean by knowledgeable. As John says, says the act of rules writing requires the acquisition of knowledge.

Paddy Griffith – don't think his name has been mentioned yet

This has really become a list of "People whose rules I like." Fair enough, but not very useful.

I spend a lot of time around people who've written rules. None of them are idiots, and all of them know their subject well. (I exclude myself, for having recently published rules about Cavemen, and dinosaurs who want to eat Hitler)

Combat veterans know their own subject intimately, of course. You can mull over whether the sainted Young and Lawford's WWII experience translates directly to their chosen horse nad musket era, but they also wrote "Wellington's Victory", a fine book about the Salamanca campaign.

That said, it seems curious that, while nobody questions that Don Featherstone knows what it was like to be inside a tank in 1943 better than 99% of other wargames designers, I don't know anyone who is currently playing his rules for the subject. Does that seem odd to anyone else?

Yes it is odd, but then how well known is that fact? I didn't know until know, and the Don was my intro to wargaming back in the day, and I thought I had copies of just about every WW2 ruleset published since then?

What are they called? (I actually think Donald's approach to wargaming – going for a holistic approach that allows the player to concentrate on the tactics rather than wading through charts and minutiea, is actually back in fashion….)

That said, it seems curious that, while nobody questions that Don Featherstone knows what it was like to be inside a tank in 1943 better than 99% of other wargames designers

After meeting Don for lunch with Nic Robson of Eureka, I was amused to learn that he'd spent a lot of the war armed with a typewriter, as his typing skills made him more useful to his HQ than being in a tank. It qualified him for typing his prodigious quantity of inspirational wargames books. It doesn't mean he does not also have some hair-raising wartime tales to tell.

Whatever Don Featherstone's wartime experiences were, in the vast majority of his wargames books and articles he described games in which players were the commanders of several units, even whole armies, rather than individual soldiers.
He never, as far as I am aware, devised a game like Jim Wallman's Tank Duel to portray the combat experience of the crew of a tank. Perhaps that would have been too close to grim reality for comfort? Or he may have felt that no game could ever recreate the claustrophobia, fear &c. of being in a 'Tommy Cooker'?
The republication of many of his books in John Curry's History of Wargaming Project may result in a new generation of wargamers discovering his rules, and in we older gamers returning to them, as Sparker suggests.
Featherstone's rules never had the production values or promotion of today's rules, such as FoW, so it is, perhaps, not surprising that they never enjoyed the same popularity.

I think the lasting value of much of his work is in his scenarios. His 'Battle Notes for Wargamers' gets regular use by me for example…

As to some of the above it would depend on the role the veteran took and what actions the rules were written to portray.
A private may well write good rules if portraying skirmish, section or even company level wargames rules. But brigade, corp level games?
Equally, perhaps even Young wasn't as familiar with lower tactics than division or army level.
Reading the manuals is one thing understanding them and having first hand experience is another.

Interesting question. There are two sets of rules that led me to try them by the deep understanding of the period and profound insights that the authors displayed. They are both American rules writers – Bill Gray, of Age of Eagles, and Sam Mustapha of Grande Armee and Lasalle fame. These two have the rare gift of not only knowing their stuff, but being able to put it across in a game format that is not only accessible but also engaging.

In the UK we seem to be missing that crossover from history to gaming. There are people here who write great rules for games, and some of the finest historians in the world are still originating from these shores. But the two rarely meet these days. For example, Chandler – who played wargames for a time in the 60s – didnt stray from the historians path. Paddy Griffith did so, albeit in his own unique style of game, and yes the legends of Featherstone, Gilder and Grant senior go without saying – but are from an earlier period of wargaming.

So many rules these days seem to base their 'history' on principles laid down by other more established wargames rules.

So who currently? I guess Colin Rumford has a very good basis for his rules system, certainly his supplements show great understanding. Nice rules too.

Phil Barker certainly knows his academic stuff about Rome and Byzantium, and he's a very nice chap to meet face to face, but his rules dont do it for me. Far too much bias and obfuscation. And everything he produces seems to be errata enriched, judging from the tidal wave of corrections that flood from his pen. He lost me forever with the mess that was 7th ed.

I think what Im trying to say is that having the knowledge is one thing, being able to put that into boring unplayable rule sets is also a factor of some learned minds, but using deep knowledge to produce a set of stimulating and accessible wargames rules which many folk will want to play is still a challenge to the brilliant academic mind.

It is certainly not a requirement to have a profound understanding of a period to write nice rules for it. Sometimes "just enough" will do. Having a flair for game design can get a good or enjoyably playable game with the flavour of a period without obvious and profound depth in knowledge being presented – viz Flames of War, Fire and Fury, Napoleon's Battles and Age of Napoleon. I might put the Lardies in that category too.

Nor is it a requirement that authors have serving experience – not only can I think of a couple of sets of WW2 rules written by ex military men which don't quite cut the mustard, but taking this view would by definition rule out any rule set being good when written out of period. Which is clearly daft given some of the excellent rules that exist for periods across history, and not at all in living memory.

Maybe we need a Wargames-Historical Depth continuum for rules classifiacation?

"Empire? It's a wargame Cap'n, but not as we know it!"