"Do rules designers sometimes overthink things?" Topic

Prime example.
If you are a Napoleonic Corps commander, do you really need to tell a battalion to form square?

Even though they were deliberately being silly, SPI had Italian units needing more water to boil pasta in CNA.

At first I thought DBM was on the right track with simplifying units by function. But then the special pleaders came in with the "Yeah, but what about….?" exceptions and it got out of hand.

Discuss.

Of course – every rules writer has to include their own biases and then then take account of everybody else.

The fact is, rules do not mirror reality, they mirror a virtual reality that happens to share common features with the virtual reality as perceived by the gamer. The closer rules get to that perceived virtual reality, the 'better' the gamer thinks the rules are. And that involves a lot of overthinking by the writer if s/he wants to be successful!

No. No rule designer has ever over thought anything.

Nope, never, never. That includes every wargamer and poster on TMP…

Do rules designers sometimes overthink things?

No. Rules writers usually overthink things.

Yes. Definitely yes. There is a fine line between realism vs. playability vs. fun vs. player expectations.

Gamers do. Certainly when they try to "fix" rules

Of course they do.

Some do, some don't.

More and more seem to overhype the importance or originality of their rules. It brings a smile every time I read the author telling me how good his rules are… That's not how it works!

I would overthink your question but I already have a headache, so no thanks. Overthinking is highly over rated.

I have played a few rules sets where it was clear the writer was trying to deal with "rule lawyers" by adding a lot of nit picking details. So in the end they had a simulation, not a fun game.

Yes, I think so. But I also don't expect a tabletop wargame to recreate the actual decisions of any participant in a battle. I expect it to evoke sense of the milieu and present representative tactical, operational, and strategic challenges. So I wouldn't necessarily say that having a player (who is not a Napoleonic commander) tell a unit to form a square is good or bad without knowing the other aims of the game.

At first I thought DBM was on the right track with simplifying units by function. But then the special pleaders came in with the "Yeah, but what about….?" exceptions and it got out of hand.

This, and a couple of the other comments above, don't seem targeted at game designers and overthinking as much as players and their poor behaviour and expectations (whininess, rules lawyering, personal sub-optimization, etc.). While the comment doesn't create the same set of leadership decisions for me, it does evoke the milieu of my work where I have to deal with people who want technology to email them when their coffee is ready, have custom features for every of their parochial concerns regardless of how they align to the process overall, integrate directly with each everything else without any effort or understanding on the part of the user and then about how unwieldy the designers made their technology.

I'm not sure adding excessive complexity is 'overthinking'.

It is however very easy to make rules confusing and complicated, as the ideas are clear in your head but you forget that the people attempting to play the game need to figure out how it works themselves. That is why playtesting is a good idea:)

Stuff I thought was elegantly simple, other people have declared to be cumbersome and obtuse. Honest feedback is very welcome.

Many of the misundersandings of rules, perceived complexity, faulty interpretation etc. is due to wargames rules writers not writing up their design philosophy. So, I am all in favour of rules designers to explicitly state what their aims are, and why certain mechanics were designed in a particlar manner.

The example given by the OP about a corps commander ordering a battalion to form square makes sense only if the aim of the game is to put the player in the position of a corps commander and that position only. But perhaps this was not intended, only assumed by the player.

Something I run into at work constantly: if you can't explain your design or implementation in simple, manifest steps, then you really don't understand the problem you're trying to address. This is one of the very few hard and fast "rules" that seem to stand the test of time.

I'm thinking about this now. I'll get back to you.

yes we do. Some of tgis comes from expecting 'rules lawyers' to be sniping at every mechanic while we are doing playtesting or seminars.
So in an effort to reduce that time consuming aspect, we do over think items of potential controversy.

It's the clarifications of the clarifications of a simple rule that seem to get out of hand… ;-)

I would have to say yes.

"Does a bear…"

for some time I trained to be a systems analyst, and it was amazing how many times I had to ask stupid questions about processes.

I can remember the need to produce four copies of certain printed information, since it was vital. I walked round with the bits of paper and found out that..

1) went into a filing cabinet never to be looked at again.
2) went into a bound book that was reviewed at month end. and was then never looked at again…
3) went into an in tray, and when the tray was full the secretary would weed out non priority items and dispose of them
4) well we couldn't work out where it was supposed to go, but we assumed it was going on some desk somewhere in the organisation.

so when I design rules..

I design for effect – but take into account what level of command I am simulating.

try to allow a commander the same opportunities as a real commander would have had, since this will give him ample opportunity to make a mess of things.

in games for participation, I try and keep crunchy rules away from the players, and make them use alternative methods to simulate random actions

I try and keep player aid cards focused on aiding the player.

If you need more than one side of charts for any particular action, then rules are too complex (I try and fit the four Ms on a single, double sided sheet of letter or A4 card) (4M – Move, Missile, Morale, Melee)

If a rules lawyer plays my game, they normally find that the math behind the game design disrupts their methodologies.

I refine my games after extensive blind playtesting.

I reduce and reuse or recycle mechanisms – a Grid iron card game design was re used for a gladiator game.

I once wrote out a set of rules that I had been playing and testing for over a year, and it ran to forty pages just explaining concepts that most gamers who hadn't been brought up via games workshop products would have had instinctively.

So writing rules is hard!

In a word, yes!! Most likely because they know how gamers will scheme to subvert the rules at every turn if they find an advantage from such pursuit!

So we all bear some blame!

If you are a Napoleonic Corps commander, do you really need to tell a battalion to form square?

In my rules Snappy Nappy, each player is a corp commander. To my mind, a commander should worry about the next level down (division) and also a second level down (brigade), but no further. Thus, each unit in SN is a brigade.

Yes, historical exceptions abound, but they are exceptions, not rules. If you really want exceptions included, then the GM should include a scenario-specific rule or house rule.

So writing rules is hard!

True. All rules, including my own, will have something obscure missing or not explained fully. My problem with rules writers (minis, boardgames, etc) is that over and over again, we sit down to play and sure enough we are either the dumbest or the smartest guys in the galaxy because we consistently find problems in basic functions. If we can find it on playtest number one…

And that's part of the playtest conundrum: You need a constant source of NEW playtesters to look at the versions of the rules. Once playtesters run through rules, they are not as effective at testing the new variations because they fall back on the way they played before or the way they think it should be played. Along comes my group and voila! Our sum total of the rules universe is what's printed on the page, not a number of playtests often GM'd by the designer who verbally correct/interpreted game play.

We found we need to play a game at least twice, and often three times, to start to understand the designer's intent.

wargames rules writers not writing up their design philosophy.

Partially. We find it less philosophy and more not being clear about rules mechanics, or the order in which they occur, or what happens at the conclusion of the mechanic. We can figure out a lot because we have decades of experience in wargaming, and quite often we are right (unsure about it, but ultimately right), but sometimes we are just wrong. And those conundrums affect game play.

Allowances have to be made for a niche industry with a lot of one-man 'companies' producing games, but sometimes you just have to wonder. :)

Russ in most sets of rules the players is actually performing the duties of several layers of command and not just the Corps Commander. So to this guy's question, I would say yes.

Wasn't it rapid fire that had grenade throwing in a game where you are ostensibly commanding companies and battalions? :-)

If you are a Napoleonic Corps commander, do you really need to tell a battalion to form square?…

…Yes, historical exceptions abound, but they are exceptions, not rules. If you really want exceptions included, then the GM should include a scenario-specific rule or house rule.

I don't think the word 'need' is necessarily the accurate term. "Can" may be a better verb. Whether a corps commander ordered battalions about all depends on the commander and the situation. That is why 'exceptions abound' because it wasn't a rule. Micro-managing was not only a temptation completely open to a corps or army commander, but at times deemed necessary… i.e. needed. And of course, I am talking about pre-20th century corps and army commanders.

That doesn't mean a player has to have that ability in a large scale game, but don't translate a game design decision because of focus and simplicity into a historical imparative.

We found we need to play a game at least twice, and often three times, to start to understand the designer's intent.

wargames rules writers not writing up their design philosophy.

Partially. We find it less philosophy and more not being clear about rules mechanics, or the order in which they occur, or what happens at the conclusion of the mechanic. We can figure out a lot because we have decades of experience in wargaming, and quite often we are right (unsure about it, but ultimately right), but sometimes we are just wrong. And those conundrums affect game play.

They do affect play and the designer's 'intent' shouldn't be a guessing game for the consumer. The issue is that wargames aren't simply games. They are designed to represent something else. That is part of the designer's 'intent.'

If I paint a portrait and never tell you who it was I was trying to represent, how can you know the artist's 'intent' let alone how well he succeeded in representing that person? That is the connudrum, but one that has an obvious cause and solution. Talking about 'design philiosophy' doesn't necessarily answer either of those questions.

It does effect play. All of us have had the experience of being immersed in play, only to be popped out of the game because 'something doesn't make sense'. That is, we don't know what is being represented or understand the intent of the mechanics.

And then there are the misinterpreted rules. The classic I always refer to is the F&F 'command radius' rule. Units within the radius get a bonus when moving. Those termed 'out of command' don't suffer any penalty. Any number of folks saw this as an unrealistic representation of the basic command structure, so changed the rule.

Ten years after first playing F&F I found out that the 'command radius' rule didn't represent the basic command structure at all, but the help commanders could provide outside of the command structure because they could see more of the battlefield.

So folks were changing the rules or playing the rules without understanding the intent of the rule or what it actually represented. Not only was the designer's effort lost on the players, but the play experience was skewed.

I have to plead guilty on this one. Almost everything I've ever written did not stand up to the first play test. My technique (if you can call it that) is to draft a rule with as much as detail as I can add and then torture the poor play testers through it. When they don't like something or question it I always ask them how they would do it. I can eventually end up with something playable they'll like.

Most of my play testing has been done at conventions so no one has a chance (or desire) to read boring rules first and just want to get on playing and blowing things up. That forces you to keep it simple and intuitive.

By observing players and seeing what their expectations are I've been able to fashion something people seem to like.

Wolfhag