"Games that were difficult to you?" Topic

While we often talk about certain games being easy or difficult, it's often relative.

I've had people pick up ASL without any trouble but struggle wrapping their heads around Crossfire for example.

What games were difficult to learn for you?

Crossfire is a mystery to me

Poorly written board game rules come to mind first.

Camelot by TSR.

I bought the 19th C rules Power & Glory from Partizan Press a couple of years ago and can't make head nor tail of them. I'm sure they work OK, but reading them makes my head spin.

Hail Caesar is proving a headache (Warhammer Ancients had the same problems for me as well).

Its just something to do with the circumlocution and interleaving of unnecessary verbiage into the body of the rules.

I mean; have the funny asides, and bits of history, and certainly the rationale for the rules being as they are, but put all that away from the bits of rules you need to make the thing work.

And clear cross referencing with numbered paragraphs helps as well. Particularly if your idea of a logical way of explaining the flow of the game isn't the same as mine. At least I can deconstruct it and reassemble it into mine if all the bits are numbered. See Impetus.

Tide of Iron. The rules are just poorly written. I here it is getting a redo.

This from an ASL player (it was hard to learn too, anybody says otherwise is a liar or is not playing correctly)

Empire. I'd get so far and then have to start over.

I guess it really is relative. Checkers is harder to understand than Tide of Iron. (which I love).

Any of the TFL rules are a different story.
I had an easier time learning BANG!, in Italian.
And I can't read Italian.

Anything with more than 10 pages of rules.

Fletcher Pratt. I have horrible depth perception.

Two Hour Wargames whole system! While I really enjoy the depth of research that goes into the background, I just can't wrap my head around all the die rolling.
The Sword and the Flame remains my all time favorite set of rules.

Legacy of Glory (Napoleonics). I'm convinced there is a great game buried somewhere in those rules, but they are so poorly written and edited…

And I understand Empire 4 and 5!!

I tried and failed to grasp the mechanics of Skulldred. Perhaps I was just playing a beta version of the rules or something.

Empire…who knows which version.

Spent a whole gaming session and played one complete turn. A lot happened in that one turn, but just didn't feel right.

Two Hour Wargames whole system!

Same for me, which is a pity because they cover so many interesting topics.

Well to be sure Emprie

However-- If the author hasn't explained the game so I know how it works by page 3 I don't even buy it. Since I haven't bought a set of rules in 25 years…..

I just won't put in the time if they're that complicated.

Harpoon

"Tomorrow's War". The rule book itself is eye candy, the background and fluff is great, the rules have potential, the layout of the rules with-in the book is a nightmare. No constancy or fluid reading. It jumps from topic to topic and does a lot of back pedaling and cross reference.

In the Grand Manner.

And you get Teddy Roosevelt fighting Martains!

Force on Force.

They are not hard rules to understand but the rule book is so long. By the time I get to page 40 I don't remember what I read on page 10.

And you get Teddy Roosevelt fighting Martains!

Okay, there's a bug again. I didn't post that. Wonder where the one I did post went?

What I did say was. There are Stop boxes in THW games. They contain small exercises and reviews every few pages. Taking the time to do them makes learning the rules easier.

Let's see if this one makes it through.

I really like the "least you need to know" sections in your newer rules Ed.

Been meaning to shamelessly rip it off but haven't gotten around to it.

ASL and Empire were nightmares for me…I struggle with Force on Force because of the number of charts spread throughout the book.

I really like the "least you need to know" sections in your newer rules Ed.

Indeed! Ed's newer rules do not pass my 10 pages or less test but these little sections make everything easy as pie.

I find ASL infantry rules to be quite easy.
The vehicles though … yikes. No fun at all.

Any Napoleonic game I've seen. Any game that requires me to use a calculator or slide rule.

I find many rules use 400 words when five will do, and are consequently hard to get your head around. Particular offenders are Command Decision and Fire & Fury, even though both are actually really simple. I found writing playsheets for both helped my comprehension, rather like revising for an exam. I have yet to get my head around Force on Force, just so much verbiage.

CF and IABSM conversely are simples, whereas I struggled a bit with PBI.

I shall take ASL and raise you Third Reich, both IInd and IIIrd editions. Best of luck sorting out the unclarity and contradictions in IInd ed.

One of the most incomprehensible games I ever played was Metagamings 'Godsfire', mainly due to the 3D movement system. Again, it should have been really simple, but wasn't.

For minis games these days, if I can't fit a playable QRS onto one sheet of A4, I bin it.

On the board games, there are big chunks of the original "World in Flames" that I have absolutely zero idea how works, particularly as regards naval stuff.

We did figure out Empires in Arms pretty well though.

I don't believe it is possible to play a game of Third Reich without both players making at least one rules error, often something really important. There's just too many things to remember.
For miniatures rules, Newbury 'Fast Play' as well as being horribly misnamed are also pretty hard to get your head round; again too much stuff to remember.

Air War and Foxbat vs. Phantom, the old board games, were a nightmare. Empire was kindergarten compared to those monsters.

Go is also a bitch. Easy mechanics, strategy requires a Phd.