OSchmidt | 27 Mar 2015 7:59 a.m. PST |
READ CAREFULLY! Three questions. Are Big thick Glossy Rules sets inherently better than the smaller home brew sets? Do they "standardize and focus" the hobby and lead to unity and general acceptance? Do they have the longevity to make an impact. Or are they here and gone too quickly to really learn them to proficiency? |
IUsedToBeSomeone | 27 Mar 2015 8:17 a.m. PST |
While raising these topics is fine, you are not following the original premise of only saying good things about the subject which I thought was an interesting take… Mike |
Ron W DuBray | 27 Mar 2015 8:24 a.m. PST |
OK 1 is NO 2 is NO 3 is NO 3B yes mostly gone because most get replaced with a new edition to keep the money coming in :) I hope that helps you :) |
Ed the Two Hour Wargames guy | 27 Mar 2015 8:35 a.m. PST |
Having been on both ends of this as a manufacturer – from this
to this with our contract with Lock n Load Publishing to produce all our rules in this format
I can answer these questions from a different point of view. Keep in mind that everyone's answers will be correct as it is what they believe.
1 – No, better production quality (color, etc.) does not guarantee that the rules are better. Similar to a meal from a restaurant and a home cooked meal. But it can insure wider distribution. 2 – No, as not all rules are produced in the same format. If they were it would, but all rules are not. Glossy rules do lend an air of legitimacy – as in, they look good so they must be good. Having a great paint job on a car doesn't guarantee a high performing engine. 3 – Longevity is based on the rules, not the packaging. Packaging may get them into more hands, but how they play determines longevity. However, a large section of the market is driven by the flavor of the month. |
Bismarck | 27 Mar 2015 8:38 a.m. PST |
No! on all three! I only have one of the big glossy purchased long ago. It is a work of art, designed for a smaller figure scale but larger (corps) level than I game. But what a reference! I have never played it, but it sure helped with maps and terrain features when I was gaming. OBs and TOEs as well. It did well to rekindle interest in the period, but not sure how widely it is played now. Not sure what you mean about smaller, but my two old stalwarts were never expensive, not glossy and have been around over 25 years. (Thank You, Larry Brom). Sam Lemonds |
pzivh43 | 27 Mar 2015 8:46 a.m. PST |
1 is No 2 is more Yes than No. A well done set of rules, with good wargame porn may help draw in those on the fence more than the spiral bound sets 3 Don't see how this fits? Longevity of a rules set is more due to how well it plays and is fun, than to it's glossy or non-glossy nature. I do recall that the first Sword and the Flame rules book was pretty high tech for the when it came out. Mike P |
OSchmidt | 27 Mar 2015 8:48 a.m. PST |
Dear Black Hat miniatures Neither did any of the respondents to ANY of the posts, even Ubercommando's original one. They all put in their opinion good and bad and did not really even do much analysis. |
OSchmidt | 27 Mar 2015 8:58 a.m. PST |
READ CAREFULLY! Three questions. Dear List Here you go… Are Big thick Glossy Rules sets inherently better than the smaller home brew sets? YES! Because so much effort and money is put into them they are far more likely to have professional editing and better illustrations than any cheap, tacky home brew set of rules no matter how well desktop publication has advanced. They will even more have better research done and be more historically accurate (or accurate in their genre if that is not historical) as they have more professional people making them. This means that on the whole it is a better and more encyclopedic product. Do they "standardize and focus" the hobby and lead to unity and general acceptance? YES! The proof is demonstrable. No one discusses the smaller home-brew sets on TMP or anywhere on a popular list, but mostly only on their own blog. This means they form a "rallying point" for gamers to have SOME commonality because of their reputation and cachet, which will not happen on the home brew set. They, by reason of their glamor and cost will have more acceptability and generally fit better with the preconceptions and expectations of the players than the rather odd-ball, or completely derivative things on the home brew. Besides they are far more likely to appeal to historical gamers who want veracity than the often idiosyncratic home brew rules.
Do they have the longevity to make an impact. Or are they here and gone too quickly to really learn them to proficiency?
YES! People are still playing Column Line and Square, Johnny Reb, and a host of others where lots of "This is my Napoleonic Rules" sets are rightly in oblivion. If some do not seem to have lasted it that these are discontinued in publishing and therefore removed from view, but remain vibrant and current in the clubs and groups and players who have taken to them. As I said Vietmeyer's Column Line an Square is still around. Otto |
Broglie | 27 Mar 2015 9:02 a.m. PST |
If you already knew the answers then why did you ask the questions? |
MajorB | 27 Mar 2015 9:04 a.m. PST |
The size, thickness or glossiness of a set of rules is no indication as to the quality of the rules themselves. Some "BTG" rules are very good. Others are crap. |
MajorB | 27 Mar 2015 9:06 a.m. PST |
Are Big thick Glossy Rules sets inherently better than the smaller home brew sets? No. See my previous post. Do they "standardize and focus" the hobby and lead to unity and general acceptance? No. There will always be those who eschew BTG rules for all sorts of reasons. ()And long may they prosper!) Do they have the longevity to make an impact. Or are they here and gone too quickly to really learn them to proficiency? No more than any other set of rules. The delivery package has no bearing on longevity. |
OSchmidt | 27 Mar 2015 9:08 a.m. PST |
READ CAREFULLY! Three questions. Dear List Are Big thick Glossy Rules sets inherently better than the smaller home brew sets? NO! There is no guarantee that the 100+/100+ (over 100 pages, over $100 USD) are any better than the small home brew ones. Quite often they are never used in full and if you examine people using them you will see half a dozen pages stuck into them near the bottom bottom "Fixes," "patches," "addenda," and "errata" the player has made up on his own to fix the rules to his liking. THOSE are the real rules! The rest are irrelevant. You might as well have saved yourself the time and money. Do they "standardize and focus" the hobby and lead to unity and general acceptance? NO! The simple fact is that no one reads them. Few people really familiarize themselves with them and are content to go to their gaming night and have the Umpire or GM lead them through the rules by the nose because they're too lazy to read them. Not that they're at fault, they are just too large and complicated. How many times have you seen people who are incapable of determining how many die they have to roll or what modifiers apply after playing the rules for two years. The problem is they are just too big and unless they have to ask the umpire and the spotlight is on them, they will just do what they remember from Vomit and Bayonet or do it like they do in Umpires, Eago's and Liars, or some other set. There's really no standardization or focus. They just want to come and play the game, move troops and roll the die. You can do that a lot cheaper with home brew rules and they will be just as unknowing. I have one guy who's played my own homebrew rules for 10 years, 12 pages long. He's played over 40 games. He still doesn't remember how many dice a machine gun rolls. Do they have the longevity to make an impact. Or are they here and gone too quickly to really learn them to proficiency? There's too many of them and they come out too frequently. At that point the mule in the club who does everything gets captivated by them. The other players go along. In six months he'll buy a new rules set. Then he will be captivated by that. A few guys will hold on to the same set for years. Besides even if they do stick, in six months the Game Expansion, Addition, Updated version will come along which will change the play of the game signifantly and by the third year it's an entirely new game. There you go! Otto |
Axebreaker | 27 Mar 2015 9:13 a.m. PST |
No to everything of course for the reasons everyone is repeating. However, that said I like them and prefer books of this type if the quality of the rules, paper and photography is good enough as I find these to be inspirational and good for reference. Heck, I don't even mind if the rules fall down as I already have enough good rules sets as long as the production is really good giving me something to enjoy visually at my convenience. Ever since Brigade Fire and Fury released their rule set way back in a lovely glossy format I've always preferred that type and it was a great bonus that the rules were excellent too! So, keep bringing on the nice glossy rule books please.:-) Christopher |
axabrax | 27 Mar 2015 9:13 a.m. PST |
Shiny rules will *sell* more copies. That's the whole premise of marketing. But other than perhaps having quality diagrams and visual examples, shininess has no impact on the quality of the rules. I don't really get the premise that somehow they enhance unity and longevity. Seems like an odd correlation to make to me. |
GildasFacit | 27 Mar 2015 9:15 a.m. PST |
Clearly the answer is NO on all three points. People are still playing rules that were originally produced on a tiny budget before the days of Computers never mind DTP so none of the fancy 'modern' rules can match them for longevity. Having seen the gaffs and errors in some of these 'high production value' rulesets I can't believe anyone would think they were certain to be better quality than sets with simpler layouts and less 'flash'. I'm not saying that some are not done well but it is a certainty that some are done very badly. I can't see any more 'standardisation' in rules now that when I started in 1964. True, there is more choice, which is great, but how can that mean more standardisation ? Surely it implies the opposite. |
WaltOHara | 27 Mar 2015 9:22 a.m. PST |
1. Are Big thick Glossy Rules sets inherently better than the smaller home brew sets? I don't think so. Most (not all, but most) of an average game's kernel is conveyed to the reader in about 8 pages, give or take a few, and most of the rest of a BGR (Big, Glossy Ruleset) is taken up with art, charts and the big background fiction piece. Or history piece(s). I'll caveat my response with this: I love the fluff. I buy BGRs, thought not religiously. As I've gotten older, I've grown more minimalist in my rules approach. If I can run a miniatures game from an EPUB copy on my ipad, I'm a happy man. That format really necessitates me having a smaller, tighter rule set, or to create a "cheatsheet" which I can use to run the game with. I don't want to flip pages in a BGR to run a game. I want every single thing I need to run the game handy in a concise bundle that is easy to reference and look up rules. Example: I run MUNERA SINE MISSIONE for summer camp (thank you, Alan Saunders!) using an EPUB I made for my tablet. You really only need two pages to run that game, and run it very well indeed. I can come up with the fluff for gladiator games all day long on my own, I don't need the extra weight. 2. Do they "standardize and focus" the hobby and lead to unity and general acceptance?
Yes, they certainly do. See the communities growing up around DBA, Warhammer, and Flames of War as examples. Or visit any local FLGS. What do they have on their shelves? Stock that supports the Lowest Common Denominator of gaming, and by that I mean FoW, GW, etc. It's a pity I don't have a lot of interest in games redolent in standardized focus, but that's neither here nor there. 3. Do they have the longevity to make an impact. Or are they here and gone too quickly to really learn them to proficiency? This really depends on the game. One of the great joys of my early years in the hobby was running Western games using a free rule set called THE RULES WITH NO NAME. This was a free set originally by Bryan Ansell and subsequently tinkered with by many people. After being out since 1997 or so, they released a glossy hardcover rule set some time in the oughts. Who runs games with the glossy set? I'm sure people do, but I never see them any more. I think the problem with BGRs is that the release of the rules is really almost the easiest step. To keep a ruleset alive and to ensure it succeeds over time, you have to support it-- with expansions and scenarios and miniature lines if you can. I was looking at my shelf last night and saw 4-5 sets that look fantastic but nobody seems to run them as games any more. V/R Walt |
Who asked this joker | 27 Mar 2015 9:51 a.m. PST |
1) BTG rules are prettier but like others say, they are not necessarily better. 2) BTG rules can standardize the focus if the company is making a miniatures line to go with it. Example: Flames of War, Warhammer 40K etc. 3 Longevity. Most rules that last are usually the simple and approachable ones. DBA is quite simple and the latest incarnation is quite easy to read IMHO…certainly compared to previous versions. Diagrams help to. Note this game has been around since 1990. So 25 years and not so thick and glossy. No single miniatures line tied to it. Warhammer is another example…this time with a miniatures line. The hitch here is the adolescent audience as their target. It too has lasted through various iterations for at least 20 years…probably more. Field of Glory certainly took the world by storm. A disappointment to me as it did not deliver what it promised, an ancients game for novices and veterans alike. However, many of the old DBM players loved it and played it for at least 5 years before it hit critical mass. No miniatures line again to support it but many companies had army packs. |
Sundance | 27 Mar 2015 9:53 a.m. PST |
You can keep the gloss and don't need pics except for diagrams to illustrate game concepts. Make them cheaper – pretty doesn't = good. |
darthfozzywig | 27 Mar 2015 10:39 a.m. PST |
I generally only buy rules as PDFs – just easier for me to use on many levels. But I do love pretty pictures. Miniatures are a very visual hobby. |
Dynaman8789 | 27 Mar 2015 11:10 a.m. PST |
No No. have not done so yet, never will in my opinion Yes. Once again history is the guide here. |
John Armatys | 27 Mar 2015 11:53 a.m. PST |
No to all three. Any rules which take a long time to learn to use don't deserve to survive long! |
Weasel | 27 Mar 2015 1:28 p.m. PST |
Gloss sells, even though we won't always admit it ;) I know people who won't touch anything that isn't in a big, glossy, "official" looking book from a big company and I know people who are surprised that anyone would pay for a game instead of just making something up on the spot. |
Rudysnelson | 27 Mar 2015 1:33 p.m. PST |
I cannot defend glossy rule sets filled with photos and non-helpful material. A photo that helps explain a rule mechanic or situation is fine. However photos being used to sell a product which also makes the cost of the rules double or triple in price is impossible to support. |
ubercommando | 27 Mar 2015 1:53 p.m. PST |
The two best things about big glossy rulebooks is that a) they look professional and are more likely to catch the eye of people new to the era or hobby and b) They tend to be better laid out with examples of how to do things, breaking up the text so they don't become stodgy reading and the pictures make good memory aids when you're trying to find an exact page. |
Striker | 27 Mar 2015 2:49 p.m. PST |
No on all 3 but they are really pretty. |
ordinarybass | 28 Mar 2015 6:32 a.m. PST |
1:no 2: Yes. TMP'ers tend to be a DIY crowd, but for the wider (and younger) wargame audience, the expectation is for at least a glossy -if possible big- rulebook. Not all games are intended to be mainstream, but for those that are, a glossy ruleset is necessary 3. Entirely depends on the ruleset. I've seen glossy books stick and fade. Unrelated to these three topics, I like a nice glossy book from time to time. It doesn't have to be huge, but I look at the Kings of War book as being a great example. It's a hardback book with a concise ruleset and rather than filling the book with extra rules, they give some background and then a big batch of army lists. Even though the rules are free online, I bought the hardback because I felt it was a great value ($35) and I enjoyed the rules. |
Mike Target | 28 Mar 2015 9:03 a.m. PST |
1- YES- a neatly typed and well thought out and well presented ruleset is infinitely preferable to some back of the envelope scrawl that probably made perfect sense in the authors head but is worse than useless to you . Lets get real here- the big glossy rule books start out exactly the same way- a near meaningless array of notes and numbers on handy scraps of paper, but with the added bonus that somebody went out of their way to make the damn thing readable! 2- YES. Obviously this is true. The success of games like Warhammer 40k, FOW, Bolt Action et al. proves this. Oh theres always outlyers- the asteroids and comets of the wargaming world out there in the dark with a handful of loyal supporters, we even see them in the real world some times at our local club nights- but even there, amongst a typically greying club of grognards, and with their ever increasing gravitational pull, the planet sized Big Shiny reign supreme. 3) Well obviously YES again- some of the big shinys are already pushing 30 years old- For the newer ones, well, only time will tell, lets all get back here in 50 years and see shall we? Theres no reason in principle why any particular ruleset cant be popular for a long time.It would be tricky to predict before hand though. But a thought occurs. Most of the games that arent the big shiny are generally more popular amongst people of the older persuasion, whilst the the big glossy and shiny games are more popular on younger folk. with that in mind let me make a prediction- In 50 years most of the supporters and lovers of the non-big glossy games will be dead or dying and their favored games a distant memory. In their place people like me will be hanging out in dark corners of the internet slagging off the new generation of gamers and their chosen array of interactive holographic rulesets (you open the book and hey presto! theres you're gaming table and armies neatly arrayed and a holographic Napoleon offering handy hints…) and pointing out how they are inherently inferior to something that was printed on real paper with actual ink… |
Doctor X | 28 Mar 2015 12:22 p.m. PST |
Inherently better – No, its the rules inside that counts. Standardize and focus the hobby – Not always. There are lots of glossy printed rules that rarely get played. The odds of success are much better if you have a nice fancy book but the meat of the book – the rules – needs to be accepted. The shiny look will get people to at least look at the rules which gives you a fighting chance to be standardized on. More so, if you have a supporting range of figures dedicated to the rulebook that increases the chances for standardization dramatically. Do they have the longevity to make an impact – Sometimes. See above answer. If they become the standard then they will probably be around for awhile. |
frostydog | 29 Mar 2015 2:28 a.m. PST |
Q1 No Blackpowder proves that nothing new as far as the rules are concerned, even a bit old school in parts. Just hard bound with pretty pictures. If I want pretty picture I can go on the net. Q2 No each will play their own choice Bolt Action v Chain of Command are an example. Q3 No rulesets seem to have a 3 – 5 year lifespan. Either the next big thing comes along or v 2,3 etc turn up. I have one foot in the grave anyway so do I care what young ones think. No the I too absorbed in pretty pictures and shiny things. Its all they can handle. |