"What draws you to a set of rules? " Topic

Hi all,

I've always been a rulebook junkie. I have loads of rulebooks, some of which I've never even played. Lately I've being thinking about what draws me to particular rulesets so I've put together some thoughts on my blog.

Ferb

Good question. I wish I knew the answer.

x42

1) Games need to finish in two hours
2) Mechanics need to be uncomplicated and simple enough rules to allow for a game after a 3-4 month hiatus
3) Results & activity of a game need to seem reasonable
4) Must allow for meetup games with strangers
5) Must be easy to aquire an "army"

Simplicity, playability and value for money.

What Mr Elmo said. I like God of Battles, Song of Drums and Shakos and Crossfire for those reasons. The simplicity helps as my children normally want to play. Playability is also a must!

The idea that it might lead to a better game for my historical battles …

Clues that I might find this? maybe the author … maybe glimpses of some good mechanisms/originality; _never indications of figures scales … _never pretty pictures … _never the promise that I will have fun (anyone can promise fun for anything – re wargames, however, the truth is, if it is good it will be fun – and if it is poor it will not be fun however hard it tries)…

Word of mouth is particularly convincing. Glossy adverts have 'don't go near' written all over them.

Watching a demo game at a show will draw me to a game, a hard sell will kill my interest.

If I like a set, I will then review it myself and the word of mouth passes on.

Phil

If I can get past the first few pages without falling asleep, I am probably ok. Amazing how many rules fail that test.

Since this is a form of relaxation for me,they have to be playable and fun.I dont want some tedious game where people argue.My real life is stressful enough.

Simple yet reward historical tactics. Easy to say, very hard to do.

Cheap to buy (free is even better!).
Easy and pleasurable to read (think HG Wells, Young &c.) in good English, without legalistic layout and 'Barkerese' style text.
Do not require all sorts of different dice. Preferably uses only d6 or d10 throughout.
Playsheet fits onto two sides of A4 (one side is better still!). Easy to learn most of the rules by heart.
Gives an enjoyable, playable game that can be completed in three hours or less.
Some interesting new or original mechanism, structure or historical analysis – otherwise why not stick with the rules I'm using? – rather than just a tweaking of long-established systems.
Capable of being tweaked by me, if I choose to do so, without breaking system completely.

For me, whether I am initially interested in a set of rules totally depends on the game scale/figure ratio.

For Horse and Musket I want multiple stands to represent a battalion. (I basically want a stand to represent one or two companies of infantry and I have no interest in games where a single stand represents a whole battalion or brigade)

For WW2 I'm only interested in games with a 1:1 figure ratio. I don't know why it is but I am incapable of imagining a single tank model as representing anything more than one vehicle.

Small. No more than 30 on a side for larger games, 12 max for smaller games.

Fast. Get 'em done in under 2 hours.

Fun. Must feel like a Hollywood movie (which I think as fun), not a simulation of a battle (which I do not think as fun).

Scale. Must be 28mm.

IMO…

In my mind, simplicity is relative.
The game may be very complex but play very smoothly.

So, "fast play" and "simple mechanics" are just meaningless phrases. Sort of like "elegant".

I want the rules to produce a game that feels like the period it supposedly represents. The time it takes to learn the rules or play the game are secondary. Probably because I can leave games set up for long periods of time if necessary.

I also have tons of rule sets I've never played. I read them once or twice and filed them away because something about them disagreed with my understanding of how things "should" work in the game.

I am drawn to a set of rules if it delivers that subjective "period flavor" in a way that is exciting, rewards tactical planning and decision making, and looks good. These days, I also like the games to take no more than 3-4 hours, so I can get home before midnight on Saturday night. I tend to agree with Arthur1815 that I like games whose charts can fit on one sheet of paper, or have mechanics which can be easily memorized. Lasalle and Maurice fit into this category, yet have that indefinable "period flavor" I was looking for. Volley and Bayonet, while simple and fast, seem quite bland to me.

My two cents

A table of content or index. Well written adn with lots of examples.

First criteria: Do enough people play it? There's no point, in my opinion, of buying a rule set which no one else will touch for whatever reason (and most of those reasons are to do with being stick in the muds about rules they've played for years)

Other than that, other criteria I choose down to what I want to do with each era: I like my WW2 games company level and on a 1=1 vehicle and figure ratio covering the entire war. I like my Napoleonics rules to have skirmishers and with 16-24 figures to a unit. An attractive rules set gets you to do classic "bits" from each historical era and not be about overt games mechanics just with different uniforms.

Lots of pictures, examples of play, percentile dice

Lots of pictures, examples of play

Absence of negatives like complicated look-up tables, irrelevant detail, gaps and contradictions, tortured syntax, assumptions…So many things to dislike!

it changes over the years.
My first wargaming years it had to be a ruleset which portrayed the period the best with a lot of period flavour etc. Now it is more that i like an evening of simple fun playing, drinking a pint and chatting so let's say social gaming has the upper hand and the rules set has to fit in.

From all the flak TFL got recently it seems a pretty cover is high on a lot of peoples list.

I guess all these different opinions are why we have so many different rulesets :-)

1. Simplicity
2. Brevity
3. Able to be understood after six cans of Lager in The OFM's Basement of Everlasting Wargame Goodness.

Eric

Nothing. 12 years of Catholic school and 22 years in the NYPD, I am sick to death of rules.

Bill;
Whilst you may be a survivor of Sister Mary Elephant, you really should try a game or two with The OFM or me.

You'd laugh as much as anything else.

The only "rules", which really matter, are to have fun. The only thing we ask is that you let every player take their turn.

Unless, of course, His OFM-ness, is still upset over being spanked like a bad, bad donkey at Frenchtown…

In any event, there are some of us who enjoy having fun more than the game itself.

Eric

Simplicity – Being able to hold most of the game in your head is a plus. Being able to hold it in your head after not playing for months is a big plus.

Small Table – I game a lot at home. If the game can't be played on a small dining table then it's not likely to get played.

Flexible Basing – Can the figures be used for other games? Are they designed for only one or two scales? I'm less attracted to them if they are.

Lack of Peripherals – I'm less attracted to games that require special gadgets, such as specific card decks, dice or turning circles.

'Command Friction' – I like games where troops don't always do what you want them to do.

Solo Playability – Because sometimes the only opponent I have available is myself. So games with no hidden information are attractive to me. Oddly enough I'm not so taken with games where you play against a 'programmed' foe – I still like to play both sides myself.

Eric, One: I had Brothers of the Scared Heart. not nuns.
Two: I played the game "Crack Wars in Brooklyn" for the decade of the 80's.

Nobody won and nobody laughed… And we used up all of our casualty markers…..Bill

Theme: What I like. (Ancients, Medievals, Fantasy, BattleTech, Star Wars, LOTR)

Appears to Play Fast and Simple.

Versatility and Breadth: can play with points or not, variable table sizes, variable unit sizes and is applicable to more than just a single historical era.

It really helps if the game appears complete (no or few supplements) and has a build-your-own units component.

Format and presentation: easy to follow. I come from a boardgaming background. Prefer rules presented in the Sequence of Play format.

Regards,

J. P. Kelly

I used to utterly reject 'board' games (premeasured movement in a hex or grid system). However, I've recently come to prefer this type of game because movement, LoS, and basically everything else dealing with relative positioning of the miniatures becomes far more simple.

I don't have a problem with bookkeeping. I *do* have a problem with massive numbers of dice rolls. You can note subsystem damage without bogging a game down- try rolling over a hundred dice MULTIPLE TIMES PER UNIT without falling asleep.

Buckets 'o Dice is something I prefer sets to avoid. Up to around six dice at a time is perfectly fine- more, and it had better be the central clash of the battle.

I wrote and tried a set of Reimagined BSG rules that, for the most part, worked well enough. However, a 2D6 hit location roll was required for EVERY SINGLE PENETRATING HIT- when even a small escortstar could put out twenty-plus shots in a turn. That was a situation I tried to avoid afterwards.

SouthernPhantom: good point.

Regards,

J. P. Kelly

In the end, I think it's often (to quoe Samuel Johnson) 'the triumph of optimism over experience'!

But one keeps hoping…

True: always looking for that 'perfect' set…

Regards,

J. P. Kelly

Time and scale make sense-'Still waiting for the day when 40K invents radios and a weapon you can shoot farther than you can throw. Oh, and the Emperor has nothing better to do that day than play platoon sgt. because that farm house is sooooo important.

A reasonable attempt to capture intangibles that are difficult to quantify but greatly affect the outcome of a battle (e.g. shock, panic, morale, etc.).

A reasonable limit to administrative rules and rolls. They are difficult to quantify (chance of forming square, morale check, etc.) or are an attempt to stop players from doing what they're going to do anyway (e.g. command and control).

Size and Proportion that makes sense. A 50mm mortar round weighs less than 5 lbs. A 150mm HE artillery round can weigh over 70 lbs. A 500 lbs. bomb weighs 500 lbs. Which is going to mess you up more?

Fluid scale. Nothing wrong with fighting a small battle in 90 minutes on your kitchen tabletop or a large one for eight hours at a convention. Fighting a large battle in 90 minutes on your kitchen table is going to be a problem.

An understanding that "play-ability" is not synonymous with oversimplification. Rock, scissors, and paper has already been invented.

The people touting it. If people I know are toxic players like it, I steer clear of it. If they hate them, I get interested.

Simple and fast but providing a decent flavour of the period and producing historically-credible results quickly and with as little chart-cranking as possible and – because we like big games – very fast and simple….also…did I mention speed and ease of use?