"Game measurements are driven by your table, not by scale?" Topic

Going to stir up the tea leaves a bit here and get some discussion started.

We talk about scale in games A LOT, specifically ground scale.
This game is "1-to-50" scale. We need an exact scale to figure out weapons damage at a particular range or exact vehicle movement speeds etc.

Some designers will flat out state that scale is the first decision to make (or one of the first) because without it, everything falls apart.

After all, if you don't know what one inch/centimetre represents, then how do you know how far you can walk and shoot?

My contention today is that this is actually often not the case.
Rather, another simple factor drives your game measurements and it's so obvious most of us don't think about it.

Quick, grab a random skirmish game off the book shelf or hard drive.
How far does a normal grunt move in one turn? Probably 4-6", maybe up to about 8 or 10.
How far can he shoot? If it doesn't say Line of Sight, odds are it's in the 24-36" range.
How quickly does a vehicle move? Probably 2-3 times his speed.

This isn't even that dependent on the game size either. Pick a game where you use stands instead of individual figures. The ranges might drop a little bit (at very big scales) but there's a good chance the movement rates are still about the same.

So why is that?
How can Warhammer 40K, Command Decision, Chain of Command and Stargrunt II all be on a fairly comparable scale? That's crazy talk right?

What does space vikings, world war 2 troopers and hard scifi troopers have in common?

The gaming table.

Do you play on a differently sized table for each of the above games?
We don't and I'd wager you don't either.

So our scifi skirmish and ww2 battalion games have to fit in the same gaming space (from 3 to 6 feet across typically).

Let's take that 6" move and 24-36" range and look at a typical 3x4 foot dinner table. Our unit will take about 6 moves to cross from one edge to the other.
If both units are deployed a bit into the table and are moving towards each other, that means that we'll make contact in a few turns (convenient given that most games tend to have roughly equal turn lengths) and will be in weapons range most, but not all, of the time.

The physical requirements of playing a tabletop game mean that both players need to be able to move around before contact and to enable deployment to be meaningful.
Movement can't be too slow, or it becomes boring as troops inch their way across the table and if it's too fast, position becomes meaningless as troops can assault across the table.

This puts the possible range of movement values in a relatively narrow range, corresponding to, typically, 1/6-1/8 table lengths per turn.

And that's why all our guys move about 6" per turn, regardless of scale.

You may now proceed to tell me how this one specific game is completely different and therefore I'm wrong :-)

This is why every horse ever seen on a table is the slowest, oldest, most broken down horse ever…..

And our tanks all run on half a gas tank :-)

Two things:

1). There are two scales to consider, distance and time. A shorter time interval will reduce the amount moved and not impact weapons ranges.

2). You can design a game top down or bottom up. In a top down game, unit movement rates are determined on how fast people or vehicles typically moved in reality, not how fast they were theoretically. Bottom up rules start with a persons theoretical speed.

In fact, I do use different table sizes for different games. I play Command Decision on a minimum 6x6 table, preferably larger. I play 5Core on a 1x2 or 1x3 table.

yep. Some rare few games are even quite honest about being "fit-the-table" scale.

For Modern naval and space games this can result in the actual "unit" location being a spot of paint on the miniature or the use of abstracted "range bands" simply because when weapons ranges are measured in miles or greater anything like a scale representation on a table measured in inches will be almost microscopic.

If I play a naval engagement in 1:6000 scale then the 4 foot width of my table is only 4.54 scale miles. The range of a Harpoon missile is over 50 miles.

Rich – Out of curiosity, do you use two different actual tables or do you just use a smaller area of the table to play on?

Appreciate your point about time scale as well.

Dave – Yeah, space games tend to fudge it a LOT because we like big, nice space ship mini's :-)

cant/wont argue this point. The game has to fit on the table. We are too old to play on the floor any longer.

FWIW, I play a lot of games that use a ground Scale of 1"=100m annd a time scale of @ 30 minutes per turn. A 4x8 or 5x9 table seems to work just fine. Ranges work, especially if you have enough terrain. I've only pushed around 5Core, but as I'm using 15mm figures I may double the ranges and movement (which brings it on line with CD)

Works for me. My kitchen table is 3' x 4' 2". I have some old "table protectors" that happen to be hunter green, and I use these to extend the surface to almost 5'. Voila, that becomes the game size. As it turns out, most of my game systems work just fine for this, which lends one to suspect that most games actually are designed for the 3' – 6' range of a typical table And, of course, if you happen to create a table that exceeds a depth-to-center of much more than 2.5' from the narrowest edge, you've probably created an unplayable table, simply because human beings' arms aren't that long.
Also, many published rules establish the size of the playing space from the very beginning, which suggest these dimensions were concieved as the restrictive space for the game from the get-go, and in all likelihood based on the designer's expectations of what table space players will have available.
In this case, necessity is the mother of ranges.

Well of course the size of the table dictates the game mechanics. Table top miniature war games are an abstraction regardless of how "realistic" a game designer might it want to be otherwise. I have never really been bothered by things such as unit frontage, ground scale, etc. If the game looks good and the ranges and movement seem reasonable for the "game" then I am fine with that. As someone mentioned above some of us are too old to get down on the floor anymore and beside I would be afraid someone would step on one of my painstakingly painted models.

"…necessity is the mother of ranges." Parzival, you are sublime.

This is why every horse ever seen on a table is the slowest, oldest, most broken down horse ever…..

You said it, Brother.

Mostly, I use a homegrown rules system (for air and land battles for 20th and 21st century). I use it with different ground scales, games of different scope, and with different scales of miniatures.

The scope of the scenario dictates the scale of the miniatures, and the specific ground scale that I might use in a given game (yes I use different ground scales depending the level of detail and types of units and equipment involved). For example, I might play a "large" armored battle with 6mm miniatures, but depending on the period, say early WWII as opposed to the Gulf War, the scale could be 16m per inch, 25m per inch, or 50m per inch.

The turn length and maximum movement rate is a constant; however, the movement distance varies greatly depending on the miniature and ground scale that I choose for a given game. Lastly, my table is modular, and is sized to fit the needs of the game, resulting in 3'x6' (rarely), 4'x6' (often), 6'x9' (frequently), and 6'x10' (rarely).

While this probably all sounds very complex, it is actually a lot simpler than it might seem. Unit/weapons cards are printed for use with the various ground scales used, the rules mechanics are basically the same regardless of scales. Mostly, common sense will establish a best miniature scale and ground scale for a given scenario.

All of the games/scales use 1 to 1 representation with the exception of infantry in 6mm which are grouped as fire teams, sections and weapon crews. The infantry weapons effect in micro scale is a function of the individual weapons ratings for 1 to 1 infantry. The command, control and morale is similarly a function of that used for the individual figs.

Some level of detail can be added or removed as fits the scope of the scenario, such as I might keep track of ammo for two squads battling in the jungle, but not for a game with 200 AFVs and associated infantry roaming about.

All of that said, the maximum table size does limit the maximum scope and size of the game, but does not exclusively decide those factors. Movement distances and table size are mutually considered in relation to each other, but really end up being a function of scenario scope.

Weasel-

Two different tables. I'm blessed with a large unfinished basement and have plenty of space ( as long as the wife isn't sewing). I play 5Core and DBA on the smaller table or sometime the dining room table and I playbVolleynand Bayonet and CD in the big table. I've got Shiloh set up on it now.

I reckon game designers should start with game time as their first metric and work from there.

DB

Evilgong – 2 hours and 50 dollars is my driving principle (ideally 3x3 feet or less too) :-)

I agree with the underlying current of the OP, but …

* You use one word, scale, to mean two or three different things yet talk about scale as if it were a single thing.

* It's a small sample of games you list, so your comment about being free to provide a single counter-example loses some of its snark.

* I've never seen TS(/H)ATF, FOW, Aeronef, WoW, the various 'Clix games, Space 1889, or Circus Maximus played on those sized tables (not that they couldn't be) … they are one of the reasons I like going to cons; I can play games there that don't fit on my table.

* The latter half of the OP talks about things that I would consider to be part of the scenario, not the game. Thus, you could have a lot of games where only certain types of scenario are playable on a dinner table and others are not.

And since you invited us …

You may now proceed to tell me how this one specific game is completely different and therefore I'm wrong

QILS doesn't work like that at all. Movement distance and range is explicitly listed as "units" which are mutable to accommodate different figure and play surface sizes. Units are also mutable within a scenario for different units to allow you to balance effects in figure design.

What is a "standard grunt" varies from milieu to milieu, so how many units that figure moves varies from milieu to milieu.

That said, I do design the scenarios I sell (and most of the ones I play (with a big exception coming up next month)) to fit on a dinner table (3'x4') or card table (3'x3'), have sides that are divisible by 2/3 through 8 or so and play out in 90 min +/- 30 min.

I generally design (or modify) scenarios for cons to fit on larger tables (or intend to run two on a single table) and run longer.

I only have room for a rather small table and therefore I frequently reduce game measurements to allow a game to fit. For example, "Black Powder" played at half measurements makes by table equivalent to an 8*5.

Some game mechanics and distances are predicated on assumptions of table size, others aren't.

The maximum move distances in e.g. Command Decision are very large indeed, and once you get into operational games, they become extreme (and direct fire ranges, completely irrelevant). VGs 'Hells Highway' has the entertaining mechanic that motorised units in travel mode had _unlimited_ movement on metalled roads.

This actually works very well, as road capacity limits and the presence of some annoying obstacles produce enormous traffic jams instead of units flying all over the table. It is also somewhat inadviseable to drive into enemy positions in travel mode.

Personally I'm not a fan of games where units inch across the table. There is no scope for manouvre or use of reserves, and really, if one player wants to assault right across the table on turn one, let them. They'll get massacred by defensive fire if they haven't prepped the position first.

But yes, the general point is correct. We scale our games to work with the available playing area.

These days I get all bent out of shape trying to figure how to make things fit my Hexon terrain, including 5Core Brigade Commander:)

Captain Obvious to the Rescue!

Seriously, of course table size should be the driving factor when determining distances moved, fired etc.

One of the best game design essays I have ever read was about a board game. The game designer made a reasoning roughly as follows:
- Intended duration of the game 3 hours
- To make it interesting, we have 15 turns => 5 turns per hour, both sides, hence 6 minutes per turn per player.
- What can you do in 6 minutes as a player?
- How far do we want one counter to move if you only have 15 turns to move from here to there?
- Etc.

In other words, the game was designed top-down given the constraints in resources (in this case time and number of turns). For wargames the same applies.

Just a comment on this for consideration. Back in 1981 when we did our World War 2 tank combat rules titled "Fire! Ogon! Freur! We included three combat scales so that players could use any of them based on the size of their table. 1:25, 1:50 and 1:100 for the ground scale. Vehicle scale was one to one. It worked well with the micro-armor that was popular then. Since then we have used the rules for 10mm and 15mm as well.

Indeed table size drives everything else.

I have a 6 X 4 table. I play smaller games on a mat on the table.

Exceptions to the 6" move: grand tactical games like Volley & Bayonet or Bloody Big Battles, where infantry move is 12", more than musket range. So you can jump the enemy on the first turn or so, but they get defensive fire. If you haven't softened them up it can be dicey. Movement is restricted to straight lines with such generous moves.