"Evaluating Rule Books" Topic

One of the things I find interesting about this business is watching customers evaluate rule books. There are a number of criteria that are personal taste and are readily understood, such as "plain text or loaded with eye candy." But I'm amazed at customers who have seemingly arbitrary criteria that puzzle me:

• Length: DBA 3.0 is short. I've played it twice. By a wide margin, we've had to look up and puzzle over those rules, more than any other set I can think of. Flames of War is long and I picked it up in one sitting (allowing in both cases for minor mistakes/omissions).
  
• Charts: Too many charts. There is an ingrained feeling that "many charts = tedious game" for some. I showed a customer a game with a tri-fold of charts. BUT there were 6 charts for melee that were all the same – you use one chart for infantry vs. infantry, one for infantry vs. cavalry and so on. Used 2D6, very simple chart to use. I thought it brilliant game design to put loads of factors into the charts instead of having lists of DRMs, exceptions etc. No sale.
  
• Dice: I only play games that use D6 or D10. Or I won't play anything that uses a D20. Really? Why do you care about the type of dice? D20 hard to read? Buy a bigger one. D6 not fine grained enough? Depends on how many, and how they are used right? By itself "the game uses nothing but D6" tells you nothing about the game. Just about the dice you'll need to own.
  
• No Rebasing: I can't recall reading a set of rules that could not be played with pretty near any basing, even if different units were based differently. Black Powder's solution is very elegant but rosters, markers, sabots, etc. all allow you to play the game as is, and with just a few minutes of time. Plus, if you end up not liking them, you haven't spent hours and hours of wasted time rebasing.
  
• Turn Sequence: I won't/only play I-Go-U-Go games. IGOUGO is "unrealistic." ALL turn sequences are unrealistic. It is all about trade offs. But even in IGOUGO there can be a lot of variety, reactions, counter charges, such that it is far more integrated and complex a turn sequence compared to, say, Chess.
  
• Markers/Rosters: I won't play a game that uses a roster/marker. Really? Both are just ways to track stats, losses, status. Don't like rosters? Use chits. Don't like chits? Use rosters.

I'm sure there are more of these, but it does make selling and promoting rule books an interesting challenge.

Dear Extra Crispy

Is it perhaps that all these things you listed are covers to "I'm not interested in spending the money, but If you wanted to give it to me for free I might be persuaded to take if off your hands."

Another arbitrary condition is book size. This past weekend when I saw the size of the book for Sword and Flame? I was astounded, but then I leafed through it and saw all the historical background.

In a lot of ways, taste in rules is like a taste for flavors of ice cream and is completely subjective. At least for me, a lot of the things you list aren't absolute make or break for me but unless a set of rules has enough to strongly recommend it and interest me, they may well be reasons I'll list as reasons I decide that I'm not interested in buying/trying a new set of rules. Rebasing is probably one of the strongest reasons that I will decide not to try a new set of rules that doesn't otherwise have some strong reason to recommend it as one that looks interesting.

Chris

Here's the weird thing to me. If you say "I don't like nuts in ice cream – tried it, not for me" that makes sense. I like these kinds not those kinds. But I often feel like gamers are saying "I won't eat flavors that have two of the same vowel in the name."

I think to some extent, the choice for rules don't actually matter as much as we like to think, so we have to come up with silly reasons for our preferences :)

I think I'm with OSchmidt on this one

I think articulting the details of a high-level and complex thought process are difficult, so we tend to focus on external or simple explanations when they are at hand. Often times, when digging in, the simple explanations are related to, but not sufficiently descriptive of, the core reasoning.

Some games make it look scarier too.

I forget which tabletop RPG I played that had broken the combat sequence down into every possible step that could happen, and it was this huge, 12 page monstrosity.

But in actuality, the whole thing took maybe 30 seconds, because you didn't use most of those factors at any particular moment.

Whether your wargaming group is using the rules is an important consideration.

pjm

That RPG sounds like Rolemaster, or perhaps Aftermath.

Aftermath had the D30 hit location chart, which was 'borrowed' by some schoolfriends. I then discovered it was being used to administer beatings on each other (roll an 8. Punch on left upper arm etc)

I will reject a game for some of the criteria the OP mentioned. While they may seem arbitrary, there is a method to the madness.

DICE – I prefer D6s because I have a bunch sitting around the house, and they are easier to find. I hate games that use "groping for dice" because I feel that it slows the game. I hate D20s because after a bit of use they never seem to stop rolling.

CHARTS – I remember playing games (like B-17) that required a bunch of charts. I tired of shuffling through them, and feel that they slow the game. I avoid games like that now.

ROSTERS – Similarly, I hate having to do paperwork to play a game and feels that it slows the game.

While some might consider these arbitrary, they are my personal preferences based on years of experience playing games. I know what I like and am going to stick with that. So if I see that a game uses one of these components that I dislike, I see no reason to bother with it.

MH Dee – Curiously,while Rolemaster is famous for being super-aggro with charts and rules, when I've run games where nobody knows the rules, it's one of the easiest to run, because it's all just "tell me what you do, roll D100, see what happened".

I am actually of the opinion that it helps if players DONT know the rules much for that game :)

I believe the extreme cases are caused by the all too common tendency to follow the herd. Is it "in" to repeat a certain belief – then you hear it even from people who know nothing about it.

"Vox populi, vox Humbug."

Dear Extra Crispy

There is another reason.

Most people don't read rules. Unless they're the guy putting on the game, they go to the game night quite content to let the GM lead them by the nose through the game telling them their options and telling them when to roll the die and what they have to roll.

They are therefore free to adopt whatever excuse they want. Besides it makes them much more authoritative to say the things you quoted.

If they want a copy of the rules, they'll borrow the GM's and copy it at work. But they probably still won't read it.

I have a guy who's been gaming with me for a decade and still asks "how many dice does a machine gun roll?"