"Longevity of war game rules." Topic

I'm curious. I wonder what the longevity of rules sets is. That is how long do people play a set before they move on to "the latest and greatest set."

See, I don't.

I developed my own set of rules 25 years ago I like and have used them ever since for games at my house and at clubs. I see new rule sets come and go with frightening rapidity and I wonder how long a set stays current, and why people switch?

It depends …

How long is a piece of string?

I reprinted "On to Richmond" from the 1980s Courier Magazine, and am already on my third print run….

How Long is a Chinaman.

Assuming the rule set covers substantially the same level of play, I imagine it is variable and based on a number of factors. How many sets would you have gone through if you did not write your own set of rules? I don't know if it is so much looking for the latest and greatest, but, rather, looking for something that fills the need better. And, in many instances, it is an itch that can't be scratched, hence gamers want to try what is out there to see if it is better than what they have. Personally, I don't chase rules either. I am more tempted to buy rules if I see a lot of positive feedback here but, on the whole, I purchase very few rule sets.

I ran an ACW game last year using the "On to Richmond" set from the 80's.

As far as shelf life, who knows? I am sure there is a group or two somewhere that still plays a long forgotten set of rules. And then you have rules like TSATF which have had a steady following for decades.

Actually, Otto, I'm not sure that is true. Many sets, just as many movies, many TV shows, and other forms of entertainment, are ephemeral and come and go in a year or so, but there are many examples of long term classics. To name a few, Johnny Reb, TSATF, Piquet, Might and Reason, Empire, F&F, DBM, DBA, all of which have been played for a decade or more.

If a rule set can survive being actively played for 5 years or more, it has a good chance of long term use by many people. The half-life of an established set seems to be decades or more!

The flip side of this, is if you've played one set of rules exclusively for 25 years you need to get out more! There's some fascinating new approaches and play concepts that have been developed during that time that weren't even imagined 10 years ago. Gotta keep the mind fresh, you know.

Mastering the nuances of a set of rules can be as intellectually challenging as mastering tactics and a historical understanding of the period. I see no problem with "rules jumping" if done for that reason…and to keep gaming a fresh and challenging experience.

Change is a virtue of an adventurous spirit.

I still play with rules written in the early 70's, possible even in the late 60's.

I have made very few, if next to no, modifications to them.

They are not written by my goodself.

I do understand that the original author still uses the basic concepts of them in his current rulesets.

I mostly play Fire and Fury or one of the family (Age of Eagles, Battlefront: WW-II, Regimental Fire and Fury). The main rules were such a change from the games we had been playing and at a Level I had wanted to play but were beyond the rules of the time (Try all of Gettysburg or Stone's River with Johnny Reb!). Even Command Decision (mid 80's) is basically the same though now in its 4th edition.

These are on the edge of the Simulation/Game razor (for me), just enogh of both (though CD is more Simulation)

A combination of how complex, how well marketed and how widely accepted the rules are will determine how long they will last.

WRG Ancients were widely accepted and were complex. They lasted a really long time until they collapsed under their own weight.

DBA from the same company is quite simple to play and have lasted nearly 25 years and is still going strong with v3.

FoGA was widely accepted and was complex and very well marketed. It is fading now with its second edition but has lasted 8+ years.

OTR is a pretty approachable rules set and folks still play. Not well marketed nor widely accepted but it is simple.

Fire and Fury is also still played. While slightly more complex, it is similar to OTR. The Regimental version OTOH is much more complex. Not sure how popular they are.

Ultimately it is what folks want to play. Like Otto, I pretty much write my own rules. Rules sets these days are too cumbersome and fiddly. I still play DBA but I keep with that level of simplicity.

As above, I don't really "move on". Different rules represent different aspects of combat, so when I am interested in engaging in a differnt aspect of combat, I look for (or write) some new rules. I don't necessarily abandon rules just because I want to expand my experience base.

I will, however, abandon rules if I feel that they do not represent their selected domain in an engaging and entertaining way (for me, if it isn't engaging (mentally), it won't be entertaining, but just because it is engaging doesn't necessarily mean I will find it entertaining).

While I don't personally do it, I don't think there's anything wrong with sticking to a single ruleset that meets your needs and devling deeper and deeper into its performance space. Generally, I think we consider Chess and Go grandmasters to be highly intelligent and not "missing something" due to their focused attention on their game.

The Sword and the Flame came out in….1979?
The 20th Anniversary edition, the one currently in play came out on…. Oh, do the math.
No real drastic changes. Just some tidying up of a superb system.
I just used it Saturday right out of the book for an Erican Revolution game.

Larry Brom wrote a set of Napoleonics back in the mid
60's that he and I played.

I've tinkered with 'em over the years, but have made no
changes and still use them to run games. In fact,
I'll be using them at one of our game days in a couple
weeks.

And they're for sale on the Sergeants3 website.

For anyone interested, they're titled _Before I was a
Marshal_ after Lannes' supposed quote…

I played Angriff and Tractics then developed my own set of rules, Combat! that I have played since the 1970's. I buy, or borrow a set of rules now and then and add, modify, or delete a rule now and then as things crop up. Still, it's the same basic set I started with.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

My group predominantly plays homegrown, plus some independent or classic sets. To use an old term, the rules tend to be "elegant" (which means 'gracefully concise and simple; admirably succinct' from the dictionary). Simple game mechanics based on what happened in the real world. Mostly single figure games with fast play.

Depends

I still use the original Fire and Fury and TSATF

I have had a number of newer rules for Napoleonics and WWII

My own rules Company Commander have been used for 14 years now. Ran a sci-fi variant using true 25mm figs at last year's Cincycon. I still like em. I also like Tsatf along with Field of Battle. FOB is my holy grail set of rules. Gaslight is excellent still being played and been around for over a decade, IIRC. I think that Starmada and A SKY FULL OF SHIPS are being played and at least a decade old.

I'm generally playing the same rules that I did 20+ years ago. If they work and they are enjoyable then why change? Of course I'm open to suggestion for better alternatives and I think for each of my "original" rules I've probably got many, many more recent publications that I've tried, and in a few cases I have changed, but in general those "old" sets have stood the test of time. It always amazes (and saddens) me when I hear wargamers talking about a particular set of rules being "dead" or "abandoned" because they are old, the publisher isn't issuing a regular stream of supplements, etc.

The first three sets of rules I got were Classical Hack, Strategos II and Commands & Colors: Ancients. The last two I still play.

I do buy newer rules as well and like to try out other rules sets, but when a game day comes up or you get some time for a solo bash it's easier to stick with what you know and can remember.

I guess people change rules because their view of how a wargame should go has altered, because the rules no longer fit with how they see the period, or their friends have started playing a different set and like it.

As for how long a rule set will stay current, I have no idea. Provided that the research behind it does not become dated, you'd assume it would depend on each individual player.

DBA is stil la system I like. I have been irregularly playing DBA 2.2 for about 6 years now. Kiss my Hardy has been my go to rules for Age of Sail for the last 4 years. Beyond that I have not played a system long enough to say. I beleive BBB and Neil Thomas 19th century rules will work for me for a long period.

Warhammer is 30 years old ;-)

I guess the older the wargamer, the less inclination and mental energy there is to change rulesets every 6 months. Once you've settled on something your gaming group likes, less reason to change.

It also depends on what constitutes a new ruleset. New rulesets are considered a simple derivative from an earlier set, while others might consider that new set revolutionary and radical new. This goes beyond new editions of the same commercial title. Many rulesets are only slight variations on the same theme. Same ingredients, different dish. In many cases even the same dish ;-)

For me (I also write my own rules), it is more interesting to track new rules mechanisms and ideas, rather than published rulesets. New mechanisms and ideas are more defining for the flow of the hobby rather than a specific set – although sometimes a commercial set might become the torchbearer for a new style of play.

I will say this. We've been playing Featherstone's Horse and Musket rules from Wargames (Modified and streamlined of course) so rules can last quite a long time. 1962 to now? 53 years and counting.

I suspect that it varies from individual to individual as to the specific rules you use, but that eventually you settle on this and that. One need not make one's own rules to find one that satisfies, and if one finds them one tends to stick with them.

I wrote my own years ago (in the 1990's) with exasperation at the rules of the time. They worked, I liked them, and I simply stopped writing more other than a little embroidery around the edges simply because I wanted to get on with fleshing out and designing my Imagi-nations and games. I didn't want to spend endless time on learning curves. I played in a lot of different rules at conventions but never found anything that really interested me or was worth the candle. As for ferreting out the nuances, I had enough to do ferreting out the nuances of my boss's behavior at work, which was like being in a locked room with an intermittently rabid wolverine for 10 hours a day.

I think I set the record at Historicon, 2013 when Dennis Frank and I did the Battle of Hooks Farm using H. G. Wells Little Wars with original Britains figures, shooting cannon and string measurement. 100 years and still interesting.

In 2012 we did Featherstone's Horse and Musket rules, 1962 – 2012. Have not seen that done muc, exactly as written. Next month a local group will do Waterloo with Column Line and Square, likewise dating from early 1960's

I think it often has as much to do with the attention span of one's gaming group as much as personal preference. If it were up to me, I would still be playing Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, DBA 1.0, and AD&D 1st edition.

My long term gaming group suffered serious attention deficit, frequently they would get excited about and invest in a new rules set or genre before everyone even managed to finish their armies and play a game or two of the last New Big Thing. That group eventually disbanded when the economy went south and people moved to where the work was… hard to have a Satyrday night game when your players are in Washington, Ohio, Utah, and New York.

There is another local gaming group that I am a satellite to, that switches games back and forth frequently, but generally within the same small group of rules.

I had a point to make when I started writing this. I have since forgotten what it was. Maybe it is time for a nap.

I think we're probably at a point where a game will never really disappear, only fade down to a small core of people playing it.

For is it's kind of a mix. The club has been playing Song of Blades and Heroes for the entire 5 years we've been together. We've been playing Mech Attack (more sporadically) almost as long. Tomorrow's War has been played from time to time since it's release and Kings of war for the last few years.

On the other hand, we've tried dozens of other rulesets in our search for the perfect ________ ruleset.

I guess we're happy to keep the rulesets around that really work, but also equally ready to try a new ruleset.

I developed my own set of rules 25 years ago I like and have used them ever since for games at my house and at clubs.

Otto, have you amended your rules at all since 1990 or are they literally exactly the same?

I have a set of Civil War rules that I wrote 30+ years ago. There have been some cosmetic changes, but none to the basic rules. I recently dug them out after 20 years and several time said to myself "This is how I should handle this situation". Looking thru the rules, sure enough, that is what it said to do.

Dear Whirlwind

I've added a few things around the edges, usually for specific scenarios or one-ups, but they don't become part of the rules. As I think about it, no-- have't really amended them. I've rewritten them clearer or more intuitive, but not changed anything reall. I use versions of them for 1500, 1600 and 1700's

Otto

Dear Whirlwind.

By the way if you want a copy just send me your snail-mail to me at sigurd@eclipse.net and I will mail you a copy. No e-mails, I don't do electronic copies. They're only 12 pages single spaced, 12 pt times Roman Bold. Everything in the rules from specific rules to charts, tables, diagrams illustrations and a rudimentary campaign system is in the 12 pages. I put the Game designer jibber-jabber in a separate fold.

If you're interested in trying them after seeing the rules, let me know and I'll send out the event cards, combat result cards, and initiative cards. NO! This is not a card-driven gamelike "Maurice" but one where the miniatures are front and center stage.

Thanks very much for the kind offer, Otto.

I was wondering if there was a different pattern of longevity for home-brewed rules compared to commercial ones, in that presumably successful home-brewed rules do fit the needs of the user more closely than any one commercial set of rules is likely to be able to. I'm very impressed that you have hardly revised your rules since you first wrote them.

Dear Whirlwind

I'm not going to brag and say I am a brilliant game designer. I simply put down that as I designed them, the criteria and goals I wanted were my own, and therefore they match those. They were designed with a great experience of other rules which at least showed me what I did not want.

But I remember in "All About War Games" the late great Jack Scruby writing how people wrote him constantly asking where they could get rules for war games (this was in 1957) and he didn't know what to tell them because, and I quote, "I don't know what to tell them because ever model general writes his own rules."

I think there is wisdom there and perhaps an indication that we are all of us not going to be satisfied until we do. As you see in the above, some people are still using Featherstone, some Sword and Flame, and so on through many many systems. Each of us finds one that's good enough or we write out own which are "perfect" (but only in our own minds.)

You can see this time and again when someone has a set of published rules, maybe 60 or 70 pages long. But in the back he has half a dozen typed or even written pages stuck in the back. Those make the standard rules HIS rules, and they are all the "fixes" and "patches" he put in to make the rules right-- for him.

I think what Jack said 57 years ago is valid today in all ways and everywhere. We, all of us, REALLY write our own rules.

My staying with those rules isn't any endorsement of those rules other than that they are good enough for me, AND they are good enough to not create a cognitive dissonance enough to change them. That might be satisfaction -- it also might be sloth. I don't know. But I do know that what I am most eager for is to arrange scenarios and situations and "play" on the table top with my toy soldiers which is FAR more interesting than learning rules.

I want to play make-believe with my toy soldiers and civilians and little towns.

I see new rule sets come and go with frightening rapidity and I wonder how long a set stays current, and why people switch?

Well, from folks' comments, some of that come and go is simply gamers' search for different game experiences.

Some of it has to do with gamers as game designers. As Jack said: "We, all of us, REALLY write our own rules." If he and Ottoathome are right, then it could explain some of the quick turnover in rules played:

Game designers have a different view of games. Raph Koster notes this in his book A Theory of Fun for Game Design.
Short synopsis 10 years later: PDF link
He writes:

Game designers spend less time playing individual games than the typical player does. Game designers finish games less often than typical players do…Basically, game designers suffer from what I call "designeritis." They are hypersensitive to patterns in games. They grok them very readily and move on… They build up encyclopedic recollections of games past and present [and libraries of games], and then then theoretically use these to make new games. p. 138 Raph says that for designers, "It can be hard to play for enjoyment rather than analysis…

I'm not sure that gamers 'suffer' from designeritis, but I know any number of wargamers that have those libraries of rules, often unplayed, while they go one creating their own game rules. I certainly have more than a touch of the disease, for good or bad.

And then there is the question of why some games last a long time, while others come and go quickly.

Games are puzzles to be solved. Games with one optimum solution or solutions that are too easy are quickly solved and then abandoned. Tic-tack-toe? Then there are games where there are many 'optimum solutions' [like chess] or where each game is different because of random events etc. [card-driven games or those with serious chance events such as Fire & Fury's maneuver mechanics] Competitive games more often last longer because two or more players are creating game events, usually never the same way twice, creating new challenges.

Again, Raph has observations about this:

The lesson for game designers is simple: A game is destined to become boring, automated, cheated and exploited.
…ultimatedly the game, with very few exceptions, will be 'solved.'

He lists all the traits that lead to a long-lasting game, and many of them can be seen in the games mentioned here that have continued to be played.

I'm not sure that gamers 'suffer' from designeritis, but I know any number of wargamers that have those libraries of rules, often unplayed, while they go one creating their own game rules. I certainly have more than a touch of the disease, for good or bad.

Wargame designers can spot patterns and flaws in games faster than most players. Especially, like Otto and I, those that have been around a long time. Take for example the thread on area movement. We that have been designing awhile know that the pattern of the areas will determine if the game is successful or not. If just one or two key areas control the map then it just becomes a game of how much is it going to take to control those areas.
Actually, I haven't updated my modern era Airland War very much since GW1. I guess if Matrix makes a modern 3D computer game that might inspire me to get up to speed. But modern is always changing and adding new things. You have to always be on top current development.

Dear Mobius

Yes that is a large part of it. By the way it's interesting what you say about area movement. I have noted the same phenomenon and am presently doing some mathematical analysis of the very problem. That is, avoiding the one area dominating the game. That's not as easy as one thinks.

But to return.

You are correct, it is simple experience. You go into a rule set and you read some of the mechanisms, and you've played similar systems before and you KNOW, you just know where they are going to fall apart. I mean here not just fall apart logically, or systemically, but when they hit the players who will find all sorts of problems and on whom they grate most infelicitously.

You often get the idea that they are trying something new just to try something new, which isn't bad but it's not a guarantee of "the good." It's also part of the problem between "realism" and "players." Note I did not say a problem between "realism" and "playability", but players. playes simply may not be willing to put up with what is necessary to make it "realistic." Therefore if you can't get it past the players, that is, get the players to put up with it, the game is useless.

Let's take the much maligned IGOUGO. There's nothing really wrong with it, and to be fair, in the end all systems wind up as IGOUGO, and in fact, real life is largely IGOUGO, with one side reacting to the moves of the other or both sides making moves completely oblivious of the other and the contact the result of accident. So in war games it's as they say "good enough for government work."

But that's just one issue. In the end it's not at all those mechanisms which are "realistic" or "fact based" but those that lead to more enjoyment and fun. But that goes back to your design first principles, which include the definition of (among others) "What is a game?" and "What is fun?"

Two other factors are what I have always believed are the twin pillars of the hobby- "Sense of Wonder"- or "the WOW NEAT factor" which you first felt at seeing all those toy soliders, the gorgeous terrain, and the whole eye-widening, mind enthralling panorama of the toys. You still feel this and each day in your minds eye you postulate future histories of your armies, that it armies and projects you will build to reify those images in your mind.

The second factor is the "Spirit of Play" which is the "Let's pretened!" or "Let's make believe" factor which is the earnest desire to "enter into" the panorama above and be both actor and patient (the doer and the done to) in the scene in our minds eye. Please understand that I mean this second one in the STRONGEST sense of the infantile, adolescent, and immature enjoyment of the term, cowboys and Indians, army men, and whatever else label you want to apply to it. In one sense fun is the maximum indulging in these two. Things that impede our getting "into" the game are those that break the spell and hence-- destroy the game.

Rules which require you to game the game, to figure out the intricacies and nuances and the cutesy-poo systems simply destroy the game. You're solving a puzzle, NOT getting into the game. It doesn't matter what the game is, whether you are stepping into it at the level of a commander of a wing of an army in the 18th century or as Sgt. Rock, Steiner, Petrov, Pedro, or Perrier straight out of the comib books, anything that drags you back into the rules brings out of the game which is where you want to be in the first place.

I've told this before, but it's worthwhile to review. I designed my own rules, OH God! Anything But a Six! through industrial engineering. An Industrial Engineer is a person who does time studies, efficiency analysis, time and motion analysis to see if an industrial line is operating inefficiently and how to make it more productive. This is-- you know-- like the twit-twerp Donald in Jabberwocky.

Anyway, one day I was at a game and I was assigned to the corps on the refused right flank which was waiting for an enemy flanking force to come on, and I was to meet it.

This can be literally translated to "You are going to sit here for 9 hours and do absolutely nothing because while the enemy is supposed to come in on turn six, seven, or eight, the game takes so long you're going to bog down on turn four with the two sides BARELY in contact. At that time the umpire will declare, after much hemmunnundhawwin, that it is a draw.

Well rather than doing what most gamers do (sit there and read a book or putter around his hosts painting table or library, I decided to IE the game. I had a watch that also was a stopwatch, and so it was easy for me to unobtrusively measure the time elapsed in productive and non-productive time. The "productive" time was when players were moving, troops, rolling die, discussing tactics, or moves and so forth. Non productive time was when they were arguing, reading rules, paging through charts, etc. At the end of the game I told the assembled crowd who again had fought to a so called "draw" with only about 50% of their forces engaged, and were calling it a great game that it was a terrible game. "If you were in an industrial plant ou'd all be fired day one. Your efficiency rating is 16%. That means 84% of your time has been spent unproductively.

From then I started to design my own rules. Anything that took the players minds and hands off the table (except to shove munchies and beverages down their mush) was bad. We even went to a squared gridded game to save time till we could get the systems right, then went back to open movement once it was done. Well anyway, months later we came up with what has become OGABAS, and it worked and worked well. So right now they are 12 pages, single spaced, 12 pt Times Roman Bold, 3/4" margins, with 3/4" margins, and all illustrations, charts, tables, rules, examples, and a rudimentary campaign system in that. No errata, addenda, charts or tables outside of that allowed. With this we fight anything from small actions of a few units to games of 50 units, over 1,000 figures, and have a definitive non-umpire called game in five hours -- max.

NOW!! The game is predicated on certain things, as I said, you are the commander of the wing or a significant portion of an army in the 18th century or Napoleonic era (they can be used for nappies as well), and that means that you only deal with things that a general in that position would deal with. You aren't interested in such foolish folderol as limbering, unlimbering, mounting, dismounting, flanking, formation, facing, etc. That's all the charge of the regimental NCO's and officers. You, as general are only interested if a unit can still function and form a part of your plan, and lend aid to it, or is it now a liability that must be preserved, guarded, and rescued.

Some of the problem with rules is that it seems few players actually read them. Or, it they do they don't remember what they have read. People are likely to change rule systems because they don't much know the rules they actually play. If you get into a large game most players will defer to the guy who thinks he knows the rules. Hopefully there is at least one on each side.

When I was a cherry Nappy player running my average quality Swedes they set me into a game I had to face the French Guard. The game was petty boring as it was mostly artillery exchanges. Playing Empire 2 the French player was going to pull one of his patented tricks of running his Old Guard horse artillery around to the side of my line and unleashing a volley into their flanks. Being IGOUGO and Old Guard horse it could move and fire in the same turn before I could react. Except for one thing. I read the rules and have a pretty good memory. I found the passage where it says my troops if not moving could fire at moving enemy troops along their path i.e. opportunity fire. I had to argue with the players on my own side at first to do this. Apparently, they knew the rules less than I. Then more arguing with players on the other side. I was finally allowed to do this, and dispatched the I.G. horse arty. along it's path. The player lost interest and the game was called a draw shortly thereafter. Incidentally the French old guard player was also the shop owner. And Empire 2 was replaced by Empire 3 in the shop's next game.

Oh, I guess I should add. If the shop owner is one of the players on the other side make sure you have read the rules before playing him.

Dear Modius

Oh my goodness yes, the stories I could tell… I have been playing my modern rules "The Shattered Century" at my house for a decade. One gamer always plays. We play it about four times a year. One player STILL after 10 years has to ask how many dice a machine gun fires!

You are correct in every sense. I am convinced that 90% of the gamers out there don't read the rules and are like an old wool sweater, just picking up the "lint" of occasional rules now and then, or else thinking "Oh this is just like "Umpires, Ego's and Liars," or "Vomit and Bellyache", but more likely they just sit there and figure to let the GM lead them through it by the nose. I was in a "Black Powder" Game against three guys who were reputed "experts" in the rules. I beat them badly, not because I knew the rules, it was the first time I ever played, but the three experts were constantly arguing with each other as to what the rules had to say and the GM had to nursemaid them along. That's not a testament to my brilliance, lord knows I have none, but it is to the fact that people THINK they have read the rules, but they really haven't and like I said, have "smushed" in notions from other rules.

That's my point about game design. It doesn't matter what the rules say, it's what the players are going to put up with or actually use that's important.

EVEN with my OGABAS (Oh God! Anything But a Six!) I have guys who have played it for a decade, who still stumble through it, and it's only TWELVE PAGES and ridiculously simple. You don't even use most of those twelve pages, the guts of the rules are in the sequence of action in the center-fold which is just TWO pages. Granted you can have quite complex situations arising out of it, but it's really intuitive. That to me proves my other point. Their mind isn't on the rules, it's on the "Sense-of-wonder" / "Spirit Of Play" of the GAME. They want to roll die and go bang-bang, boom boom, like a kid. That's not putting them down, in their minds that's where the imagery is, and they don't want to mumbled-stumbledy around in the rules.

Kudos on your prompt dispatching of the Guard Horse Artillery.

Otto

If it is true that most gamers play or 'go through' many different rules, some of that 'never read the rules' may be having read too many rules to where it is hard to 1. keep them straight, and 2. remember them all, 3. hate having to re-review game rules over and over again when that one game in three months comes around.

To really learn how to play a game effectively and efficiently, it does require an investment of time. No time, playing once every three months and it's no surprise that wargamers might not remember how to play. I have also noticed with groups that one or two folks become the 'experts' for a set of rules and everyone else defers and depends on them to play. A lot simpler than reading the rules. And unfortunately, these folks can come across as 'rules lawyers' simply because they know the rules. I wonder if Mobius had that experience with the Guard Horse Artillery.

I know that as a game designer, working all week on game systems and training designs, sitting down to play a game in the evening or weekend can be difficult and I have "smushed" in notions from other rules. I often don't have time to review even 12 pages of rules and have a myriad of rules and mechanics floating around in my head. It can take 'too much time' working to keep it all straight, so I tend to focus on one game at a time--over a long time. So, I can appreciate Otto sticking with one set of rules and really working them.

Players not reading the rules is a symptom of all times. How many people have actually read the rules for Monopoly? Most people play it wrong, and it is very hard to convince them otherwise. "We've always played it this way!" is the usual answer. Free Parking & double income when landing on start & How to build hotels being the usual ones.

Anyway, back to wargaming:
For my house rules, I have a simple meta-rule: if we do not use a rule for a couple of games because we forget to apply the rule, then the rule probably is not needed to enjoy the game and it is tossed.

Such an attitude is , in my opinion, correlated to the role you give to rules in the entire game. For me, rules are only guidelines to move the toy soldiers around. They are not the purpose of the game. The purpose of the game is to recreate some event inspired by military history on the table. The rules serve the toys and the players, not the other way around.

In my gaming group, it frequently happens that we change or reinterpret whatever rules we are using during the game if we feel that in a particular situation the rules do not make sense, or if a literal interpretation of the rules leads to a situation that clearly would not have happened if the battlefield would have been a real one. And yes, we've had players arguing that something should happen, even it was to their own disadvantage.
But then, we don't consider wargaming a competitive sport. It is a passtime amongst gentlemen. That attitude makes a lot of difference ;-)

But don't get me wrong. You still need some set of rules to move the game forwards. It's just that I think most people should develop a more free spirited mind towards the rules and not slavishly following them as if they are the 10 commandments. Because they're not.

Dear Phil

GREAT POST! Agree completely. In fact, I'll give it a second try. I'd like to publish it in Saxe N' Violets. Can you build it up and little and go more into the topics and especially the methodology you note. For example, the whole "If we haven't used a rule for a couple of games…" And stuff like that. This is an area of gaming that is almost never dealt with, but it the most vital because it becomes part of the habitual (as in the root of "habit") conduct of games which I suspect is the "Meta-Meta rule" of all wargames. It's like English Common law. If everyone syas its a law but it's not written down anywhere, it's a law. If everyone says it's not a law, it doesn't matter if it's written in platinum on granite in the town square- it
s nota law." Same with gaming, I susect this is the REAL game which goes on behind the façade of every game.

Anyway I'll try it again. I hope Guy doesn't come along and snatch it away like the last time.

Otto

Otto,

Ok! I'll write it up! I'll follow up by email.

Phil

But don't get me wrong. You still need some set of rules to move the game forwards. It's just that I think most people should develop a more free spirited mind towards the rules and not slavishly following them as if they are the 10 commandments. Because they're not.

Phil:

While I can appreciate that approach and certainly have played many games with that attitude, it does seem to encourage the very issue, that folks don't read or play the rules: Why read the rules if you are going to change them in process anyway?

Such an attitude is , in my opinion, correlated to the role you give to rules in the entire game. For me, rules are only guidelines to move the toy soldiers around. They are not the purpose of the game. The purpose of the game is to recreate some event inspired by military history on the table. The rules serve the toys and the players, not the other way around.

That is sort of focusing on story over game, event over process, history over system. I have always believed that the rules serve the players--in anyway they chose. However, the toys are just markers for the game rules. If the rules' focus are the toys [whatever that means], you have a situation where the game of chess is all about how the pieces look or are placed rather than the game itself. Right?

Some games you have to read the rules. For board games you have to read the rules. For ASL you have to live and breath the rules. For D&D I once got some attitude from a guy when I ventured to change a rule. I "wasn't playing D&D" if I didn't use the rules exactly as written. Now, if a GM changes the rules of FOW are they still playing FOW?
I remember once at a convention someone upset complaining that the program said that such and such game was to use a specific rule set. He had spent his time boning up on them (not to mention travel time and hotel/convention fees) and then found that they were some jury-rigged version authored by the GM.

And going back to my own experience with miniatures I guess I was a bit shocked that the nappy players didn't know their rules very well. Because I had been playing WRG Modern Armor rules for some 4-5 years before this. Everyone playing those rules knew the rules to a tee. Most players of that were at the time active or ex-military. And thought of by the other cliques as hoi polloi. Going over to Napoleonics where the players supposedly were more sophisticated and educated I expected expertise.

Mobius:

Yeah, that's been my experience playing different with different rules and different players. Obviously, folks approach games for different reasons. I have a friend who plays a lot of Memoir '44. He knows the rules cold and would never question the rules, let alone change them mid-game to produce a more reasonable result. My military friends can be very rules oriented. I know that they see the rules as what creates the 'realistic' environment, the competitive battlefield, so play them that way. [From there career experience with wargames?]

That supposed sophistication and education can be what produces that lack of rules 'expertise'. They know so much about the period that it leads to the kind of rules relationship that Phil describes…more of a discussion leading to more accurate events than accurate application of the current rules. That's not bad, but it does lead to being less than invested in playing the rules as written.

Over on the TWW site, there has been a long thread/discussion of narrative games and Chris Engles put up his rules for his Matrix games, which is basically letting the players create the narrative [the game events and game processes] as they go with a host acting in some respects as a GM.

That is more formal version of what Phil describes as a game process with the focus off the rules and on the players.

One reason why I like Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun for Game Design. is that he comments on so many of the common issues of game design.

He notes that the more the game emphasizes the story [events and player creation] over the game [competition and process] the less of a game it becomes.

I designed business and education training and teaching games for specific skills, situations and knowledge, so the story was often established and thus very rules/process focused. There were games where the players worked cooperatively, but they didn't create the story.

Having said that, I have played gamers that approach board games in the same story focus while other Napoleonic players can cite any rule from SHAKO I and II, AOE or Empire I-V.

I realize there is a continuum of possibilities on how to approach the rules. When I play a boardgame, I also want the rules to be followed, and they are not up for discussion during the game. We might discuss them afterwards, and implement a variant to be used in our next game, but that's inbetween games, not during the game.

In my miniature wargaming, we have adopted the approach as I described before in this thread. However, this might be due to most of us writing our own rules rather than use a commercial set as-is. Our mindset during a game is more that each game is a testgame (and hence rules can be discussed and changed) rather than a game using a definite set. When playing published rules, we also slip into that mindset, but less often. However, we still do not hesitate to interpret a rule during the game if we think it makes more sense.

So, perhaps different approaches towards the rigidity of rules might have to do with the position one occupies on the game designer --- game consumer scale. People who like games design and think about it often, might be more inclined to change rules in midgame, because it feels more natural and less 'damaging' to them to do so.

Dear McLaddie

You write--

"That is sort of focusing on story over game, event over process, history over system. I have always believed that the rules serve the players--in anyway they chose. However, the toys are just markers for the game rules. If the rules' focus are the toys [whatever that means], you have a situation where the game of chess is all about how the pieces look or are placed rather than the game itself. Right?"

ABSOLUTELY! deep six the game, deep six the process, deep six the system and as far a chess, yes. I'm not there to win but I'm there to play chess with a friend and pass some convivial time with him. so the game of chess might as well be how the pieces look or are placed. But then Chess is a true game, not a real game. There your use of it betrays you, chess is chess, regardless if you have Egyptians of the Ramsees era for white and American Civil War troops for Black.

The soldiers are all. We're there for the story, the sensations, the Sense of wonder and spirit of Play (or let's pretend- let's make believe!). That's it, no more. Our games are barely above the moving the men and uttering the "shootie" sounds kids use.

They dynamic of Phil's group is simple, as is my own basement group. If you don't like the games there simply don't send back the RSVP.

Nah, the toys are it. That's the only reason we're there. The rules are not important. The story is what we are after. We're there to have the game, serve our own aesthetics and sense of fun, not to serve the rules. Nobody's going to spend over a thousand dollars on your set of rules. They'll spend it on the toys.

ABSOLUTELY! deep six the game, deep six the process, deep six the system and as far a chess, yes. I'm not there to win but I'm there to play chess with a friend and pass some convivial time with him. so the game of chess might as well be how the pieces look or are placed. But then Chess is a true game, not a real game. There your use of it betrays you, chess is chess, regardless if you have Egyptians of the Ramsees era for white and American Civil War troops for Black.

Otto:

That's great. I certainly play any number of games with that view of the fun. I'm not sure how my use of chess *betrays* me, seeing as how I don't divide games up into true and real games. If I remember your definitions correctly, chess started out as a real game and evolved into a true game.

Nah, the toys are it. That's the only reason we're there. The rules are not important. The story is what we are after.

Yep, got that. I was just adding that other game designers outside our hobby like Koster see that very same dynamic continuum in game play, more story means less game/rules and vice versa.

And we all have our happy medium between those two poles, story and game. From me, it all depends on the game, my mood and who I'm playing with.

So, perhaps different approaches towards the rigidity of rules might have to do with the position one occupies on the game designer --- game consumer scale. People who like games design and think about it often, might be more inclined to change rules in midgame, because it feels more natural and less 'damaging' to them to do so.

Phil:
Yeah, I think that might be very true. And as many gamers write and rewrite rules as part of their hobby fun, I imagine there are any number of gamers who occupy the some point on the Game Designer side of that scale. I know I enjoy seeing what different rules and combinations can do with both Otto's real and true games, as well as why designers choose the mechanics they do--what experiences are they shooting for.

Tynan Sylvester wrote a book a few years back simply called Game Design. The tag line is "Engineering Experiences." I really like that. It is what game designers do: construct game experiences with game processes, whether on the story or game side of the fence.

Nah, the toys are it. That's the only reason we're there. The rules are not important. The story is what we are after. We're there to have the game, serve our own aesthetics and sense of fun, not to serve the rules. Nobody's going to spend over a thousand dollars on your set of rules.

Really? So no sense of accomplishment if your team succeeded in fending off a much larger force or wrestling control of the game table?
Suppose we have a test. Let's say you play a game and it turned on a critical rule. Some days after the game you realize everyone got the rule wrong. If it was played the correct way the outcome would have been different. How do you feel about the outcome of the game? Do you feel it was invalid?

Maybe instead of cavalry breaking a square on a ‘5' or ‘6' it needed a ‘11 or higher rolled on two dice. Or artillery scattered 10-60m should have really scattered 50-300m.

The story is still the story, isn't it? But then any story is still a story.