"Melee: Both sides attack. Shooting: One side attacks...Why?" Topic

In many tabletop mini games both sides have their chance to attack or the melee is resolved together when models are in close combat. However, when it comes to shooting, many games have one side attacking and the other side sitting there getting shot up, waiting for "their turn."
Any ideas behind the reason for this? What do you prefer?

Both sides fight, both sides shoot. I much prefer it this way. Actually, what annoys me is ancients rulesets that permit a 'charge' bonus only for the unit that initiates contact that turn, even if their enemy has previously been moving steadily across the table in a straight line…

This is a slightly different example for the one you give, but the issue is the same, I think.

I prefer a game that has both sides attack at the same time and the option to "counter charge" to either give both sides the same advantage or to negate the bonus.

I turn the Q inside out and say, why should both sides get to melee?

From a player's turn perspective, only that player is acting, thus being able to shoot, while I guess when it comes to fisticuffs, it takes two to tango.

My own rules IGOUGO by phase (Aryiki, Antiquity, Got Mitt Uns) or simultaneous by initiative order (Sol'una).

There are plenty of circumstances in which one side cannot fire or chooses not to. Melee, not so much, unless one side is helpless (Cannae?) or routing or such.

I have played in a few games where you effectively don't do anything other then remove casualties unless it's your turn. I found those games to be so boring. The guys I was playing against at the time would spend forever contemplating their every move or attack before finally doing the very first thing they had proposed. Meanwhile I would whip through my half of the turn in just a few minutes.
I need a set of rules that allows for more interaction from both sides.

I was very aware of the problem Tinyminis speaks of. That's why I designed my rules of "OGABAS" (Oh God! Anything but a Six!" It's main design intent was to handle big battles of hundreds of minis in a few hours and reach a satisfying concludion-- heck, any conclusion at all! But it also is designed so that everyone is doing something all the time. The combat phase is at the end of the turn. The turn is simple. The guy with inititive moves, the guy without initiative moves, and then there's the combat phase which is completely simultaneous and which takes up most of the time of the game where playres (both) are managing combat simultaneously. This mean everybody has lots to do, and after the combat phase there is the rally phase where players have even MORE to do all over again.

In my modern Rules, "The Shattered Century" it's similar and where the attacker makes his attacks and places his fire the defender has to decide what to do with the reults of that immediately so everyone is busy.

I'm still trying to figure out how to make it simultaneous movement but haven't got the fine meshing of that down yet. Still, there's even something that I allow in Ogabas then. So the three or so hours of a game zip by.

It can be done, but the secret is to carefully consider where the player enters the game. That is, what does the player represent, lieutenant, battalion commander, colonel? In my game of OGABAS for the 16th to 19th century the player is a general in charge of a wing of the army (left right or center) or the general in charge of everything. Same with "The Shattered Century" the modern game. Once you make this decision it's easy to decide what decisions a commander at that level would make and forget about the stuff higher up or lower down. That's the problem with most rules, they attempt to take into account everything that concerns the Commander in Chief to the platoon sergeant.

It comes from the rules defined in the 60s (Featherstone, Grant, …). Those rules had a very strict IGO-UGO turn structure.

When it is side A's turn, side A does all sorts of things with his units: moving, shooting, melee … For moving and shooting, it's fairly easy to imagine there is no interference from the enemy. But for melee, it's not so easy. If my figure is hitting yours, surely your figure can hit mine back. Hence, there should be a non-zero probability that my figure gets killed as well.

An immediate side-effect of this design is that the procedures for resolving shooting and melee are quite different as well. Usually shooting mechanics revolve around determining how many hits are inflicted; while melee mechanics revolve around determining who has won the combat. In modern parlance we would talk about roll-vs-targetnumber (if succesful, I inflict a hit without negative effects for myself) or opposed-die-rolling (both sides can win and the loser gets killed).
That basic structure still echoes in today's rules designs.

However, there are many rules that do not adhere to this structure, e.g. that allow shooting and melee for both sides in the same turn.

A further step would be to make the procedures for resolving shooting and melee uniform as well, or even do away with the distinction between the two, but that's still a mental jump not many people are ready to make.

A further step away from that basic structure is to do away with the IGO-UGO structure for moving troops. Those mechanics are well-established by now, but still regarded as exotic by many players.

A funny side effect of the strict IGO-UGO turn structure for moving/shooting etc. is that players actually DO think that units are standing still, then are moving again, then are standing still again etc. It is very hard for people to imagine that the 'real thing' is actually a continuous affair and that on a real battlefield time is not chopped up in movement/fire/melee phases for both sides.

Convenience.

@TinyMinis: The rules from Two Hour Wargames would fit your bill but slow players ares slow players. In y experience they agonize just as long over one soldier's reaction as over the plan for the 57th regiment. If anything it makes the game more boring, unless you put the players on a timer.

When we used to play JOHNNY REB, which has simultaneous movement and sometimes you wanted to see what your opponent does before moving, we used a 3 minute timer. Anything not moved when it dinged lost its turn. Players tended to move their most important units FIRST.

I've adopted the JR move system for PRIDE, but it is a bit more phased, in particular with skirmishers moving LAST, so haven't felt the need for a timer much. But it is a good mechanism for dealing with glacial players.

The main mechanism that comes from both sides fighting in melee is that there is a chance that the attacker may suffer harm and even more harm than the defender.

I have just bought a board game for the Russian front WWII and the Combat Results Table are of NO detriment to the attacker at all. The consequence being that it is always worth the attacking player putting in an attack even at low odds – not something that I feel is always appropriate.

Defensive fire (i.e. against a moving body) is a good example of a moment when one side alone should get off their shots. Outside of that simultaneous fire has much to be said of it.

In the seventies, we used rules with simultaneous movement governed by written orders each turn. "Simultaneous movement" is a slight misnomer – actually everything was simultaneous – shooting and melee as well as movement. There's a lot wrong with this method – notably time taken to write orders and people not always following exactly what they'd written but between gentlemen, they gave very exciting and enjoyable games.

Doug

However, when it comes to shooting, many games have one side attacking and the other side sitting there getting shot up, waiting for "their turn."

This did happen, and still does happen, in war.

Wars of the Roses arrow storms were sometimes like this, with one side shooting first, the other only responding having taken casualties from the first couple of quick volleys.

More modern actions actions were / are often the same, with most casualties being inflicted in the 'flinch moment' after one side opens up first. It happened when Napoleonic formations opened up on similar formations with smoothbore muskets, and it happens in more modern actions to devastating effect. There is no umpire stood between the sides in war, saying "Ready! Steady! Go!", so consequently, I don't mind one side firing first.

It is not fair, is it, war.

Just my penneth's worth.

"Gentlemen of France, fire first!"

Olicana, is spot on! Plenty of examples of this in the Napoleonic wars. In fact Ancient writers mention this as well. But consider this a side isn't just standing there and taking it, they could be doing other things that your chosen rule set might not cover in such detail but may through some abstract design mechanism.

However, Ancient writers mention of both sides throwing weapons simultaneously, from Penguin Ammianus Marcellinus "When both sides had advanced cautiously and halted, the opposing warriors glared at each other with mutual ferocity. The Romans raised their morale by striking up their battle-cry…the barritus. But the Barbarians roared out rude chants in praise of their forefathers, and while this discordant clamour was going on, skirmishing began. After an exchange of javelins and other missiles at long range, the opposing sides clashed and fought foot to foot with their shields locked in tortoise formation (i.e. shieldwall)." It goes on to say about break throughs, charges and counter-charges.

Counter-charging isn't necessarily the same as charging by the way…..

These sorts of questions usually come down to dice rolling, and the sequence in which you do it.

For example, I could say that a single die roll represents *everything*: shooting, melee, whatever. When you're near the enemy, you roll a die, and that tells you what has happened this turn.

It might produce perfectly plausible results, but most people wouldn't like it because it's not fun and interactive enough, and because it doesn't offer enough process in which to put the "period feel," or whatever bells and whistles people desire and expect from the act of playing.

So enjoyment and participation is one reason. Another reason to include opposed die rolls or some sort of "both sides participate" mechanic, is that adding steps for each side allows you to inject more decision points and things that can alter the outcomes, which makes the game more fun and challenging, especially if each player has only a limited amount of resources to make those decisions, and can't do everything he wants, every turn.

For example, in my new ACW game, only one side shoots, and scores hits. But the other side can then spend cards to mitigate some of the damage of those hits. If he spends the cards for that, then he can't spend them for something else later, and so on. It's a fun and tense way to represent the morale effect of being shot-at; the way it freezes units in place and eventually wears them down, without necessarily lots of bloodshed. Only one side is rolling the dice and "shooting," but both sides are doing something.

With the Carnage and Glory computer moderated rules the fire sequence for both sides is assumed to be simultaneous…they fire using whatever their condition was a the beginning of the turn, i.e. number, fatigue, morale, organization and then the results of both sides fire is assessed at the end of the fire sequence.

As far as charges go, both sides could charge each other, in which case they both get the modifiers or one charges and the other fires in response.

db

This did happen, and still does happen, in war.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make above.

Too many gamers try to retrofit game design to how they think an actual battle was fought.

Alternate shooting phases can be justified from a game design point-of-view, ease of flow of the game etc. But please do not pretend this is exactly how a real battle was fought.

And no, movies are not an accurate historical reference, since they are themselves linearizing a sequence of events.

Thanks everyone for the well-considered comments. I acknowledge that "taking turns" in effect, did happen depending on the situation. I was imagining a "turn" to be perhaps a minute long so all units involved in a given area would exchange fire a few times.

I think most of the time the supporting rules of melee make it necessary to resolve quickly. For example if you cannot fire into melee or voluntarily retreat from melee, you could be bogged down with a superior foe for the rest of the game. Some mechanics resolve the melee all at once, where you fight back and forth until one side breaks.
With shooting this approach wouldn't make as much sense since you're still mobile and have choices, and shooting generally happens more often (at least in modern games) so having "return fire" might slow play down.

Gamers also seem to be more accepting of it, maybe from the many players of this era who start with Warhammer 40,000. In that case you kind of mentally hunker down and get ready to grind out a long, drawn out melee. Whereas with shooting those players wouldn't be used to the enemy reacting.

Sort of along the same lines of "why MUST I move then shoot, instead of shoot then move?".

Personally I like quick, alternating activations compared to full turn UGO-IGO, and in those cases it doesn't hurt to only allow the attacker (whoever activated) to make the melee attack. The defender can choose to attack back in their own activation, or try to break the melee off, etc. That's the approach I used in my Dinosaur Cowboys skirmish game and I've been happy with the flow so far.

To answer the original question – bad game design.

For those who claim a firefight consists of only one side firing, this might be true – for a 15 second turn. Is this the time scale of the games you're referring to?

Wally Simon experimented with a variety of mechanisms to insert more interaction within a turn. The I-Go-U-Go mechanism he termed "Gotcha Sequences" and used cards, dice clocks, reaction points, rally points, and for you ACW enthusiasts, a battlefield melee idea with a "front rank" and "reserve" designation per unit to shake up the one side sits around and takes it while the other has at you.

He had a clever idea of attackers going into melee allocating "Attack Points" designed to kill off the enemy and "Position Points" designed to hold the position after the melee. Defenders did the same. A unit has a fixed number that is divided between the two, so if you want to decimate the enemy, you load up on Attack Points, but then you have a poor chance of capturing the position. On the other hand, if you really want the position, you load up on Position Points for a great chance to grab terrain, but the enemy can slip away.

In interests of disclosure, I edited the series of WS booklets "Secrets of Wargame Design" -- sort of a "Best Of" Wally. Sample article at onmilitarymatters.com, reviews of first two on a podcasts #77 (Vol 1) and #89 (Vol 2).

link

The wargaming dilemmas of today occurred in the past and have been addressed -- not everything, of course, and certainly design has advanced, but you'll be amazed at the ideas thought about and tried.

Russ

Excellent comments! You guys really raise the bar. I know design decisions often come down to players' choices as they shift between playability and perceived simulation. I suppose you should do what pleases you. I am going to try a modified 'both sides' shoot for 40K this weekend. Fingers crossed it doesn't turn into too much of a dog's breakfast!