"Point Values: Here to Stay?" Topic

Writing in Slingshot magazine, Richard Taylor writes about point values – meaning systems for building armies based on points for units and troop types – and concludes:

I think therefore that point values in some form are here to stay, except in those rules that simply leave it up to the players (and I would consider such rules to be unfinished).

Do you agree?

I disagree with the quote. It should always be left up to the players. Point games are for tournaments. Sc-fi and fantasy are great for point games.

I like my historical games to be well, historical or ones that are largely based on historical accounts. I build my armies based on historical OBs not an artificial point system. I guess that's why I haven't played much ancients.

Most battles are not an even affair. Dealing with being outnumbered or having poorer quality troops is par for the course. History is replete with such. Playing point games is like playing chess.

Points based rules lead to lazy wargaming. Game masters should rely on good scenario design instead of rules that foster lining 'em up and having at it. Frankly, ancients rules have been guided by this kind of thinking for decades so i'm not surprised it comes out of Slingshot.

I'm a big fan of DBA, so points are less of a priority to me these days. I find that separate victory conditiobs beyond "kill the other guy" goes a long way in making obviously unbalanced forces competitive with each other.

Yes. While points can never be totally fair to both sides, guessing that this bunch of models would be equal to another bunch is even less likely to be so. One side can still have vastly more points in a scenario game and be fair if the victory conditions are made to reflect this.

Points based rules lead to lazy wargaming.

With all due respect, that's bovine excrement.
We play Flames of War SCENARIOS all the time, with points.
"The Germans defend with 2400 points from East Front, and the Russians attack with 3600 points." Note. No tournament. The players get to select what they consider appropriate forces for their mission, based on what is available to them.
I would consider "lazy wargaming" the GM spoon feeding the players the exact forces.

You know, Dear Editor in Chief, you have been quoting a heck of a lot of pontificating pompous blowhards this week.
Ivory tower idealists telling the rest of us how we should be playing with our toy soldiers. "You are doing it all wrong! THIS is how it should be done!"

Points systems have been around for a long time. They were certainly around – even being commonly used – in the 70s, when I started gaming with miniatures. And they will continue to be used by some game systems. So, in that sense, I would agree that they are "here to stay".

But I would also add that "points based" games don't have to be played using points. I like Bolt Action, a currently popular "points" game, but I very rarely play it with purchased units. Instead, I just make up a scenario and use what I feel are reasonably historically accurate unit compositions. It works fine.

Points systems are just a tool that is available for those that want a "fair" game, but don't have the time or desire to otherwise create a scenario. They do provide common ground to facilitate setting up games in certain situations such as tournament and club settings. They definitely have a place in miniatures gaming. They're just not for me, by and large.

Bravo Winston.

It depends, sometimes I use points, sometimes I don't. I actually prefer randomised armies or canned scenarios, when I don't have time to design them myself.

No one day the world will die and the ant people who come after us will not use a point system.

Game masters should rely on good scenario design instead of rules that foster lining 'em up and having at it.

Points systems are not the same thing as side vs. side pure attrition scenarios.

So, here's my daily heresy … "Point systems are the same things as army lists. If you have a single scenario with only two armies listed, each of those army lists equates the breakdown of forces in it to an abstract concept in a well-defined way, which is the functional equivalent of enumerating it. Some point systems just have more flexibility and granularity and use a very familiar calculus of aggregation."

I agree that point systems are "here to stay", and I don't agree that rules without points are unfinished.

Disagree

The main problem with points systems is that many seem to have little or no basis in a recognisable 'system'. They allocate points on a fairly random basis – usually 'grading' from best to worst on some arbitrary scheme – and then try them out a few times to see if they give a workable game.

While this method can produce results from a large sample (i.e. a big beta testing group) it is debatable that the results would be valid statistically. If they are not them you just have a points system that is someone's opinion of how things should work. Not, to my mind, a particularly useful tool at all.

I'm not saying that calculating 'effectiveness' to use in a points system is easy, it isn't, but many of the points systems that I have seen make no attempt to produce a system based in analysis. They just tend to be the 'add 1 to cost for Guards' type of thing.

"Pontificating pompous blowhards" and "ivory tower idealists telling the rest of us how we should be playing"? Where the hell did that come from? There was absolutely nothing prescriptive contained in that quote; it was an observation, followed by a personal opinion.

And why wouldn't the Editor in Chief bring up for discussion various issues that are being addressed in the hobby press? It is a discussion board, after all.

As for the observation from Mr. Taylor, I think that is self-evident. Although I have absolutely no use for point systems, they are clearly useful to some types of gamers, and essential in non-historical genres where there is no real-world reference.

Point based army commands has been the norm since I started focusing on miniatures back in 1976. It did not matter if I was playing Napoleonics, Ancients or WW2 the forces were based on points.
So another less than useful except for the game designer.

You take 50 trucks and I get one tank, lets see who wins…
Did those many points awarded to your heavy cavalry now have anything to do with combat value, now we are fighting in marshland?….

But then when you start a rule system you don't master and some doubts may appear on what the author valued more in the system, points give you an idea how to balance or not your game.

Piffle, Winston.

I assume the article dates from, what, 1975?

Lazy Wargaming.

Points are only a tool to try to quantify the performance of units within the gaming system. Treat with care. Anyone who looks at point systems with a critical eye knows that it is simply impossible to correctly express the so-called quality of troops with a single number. As long as you know that, no problem.

However, when people start to use point systems as the goal of their games – as an optimization exercise when putting together an army – then that implies a certain style of wargaming that some like, and that some do not like. De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum.

Points are useful for gamers who don't know the period, don't bother to get to know the period, are too lazy to design a good scenario, or are not familiar with the rules to make an eyeball judgement of two forces.

I would consider "lazy wargaming" the GM spoon feeding the players the exact forces.

And you'd be wrong. It's a helluva lot of work creating scenarios that are fun, challenging, and interesting. It can be even more work to research forces for an actual historical battle, when you have to have exactly what your historical counterparts had, not your favorite stuff from some army list. There's a reason that people pay good money for scenario books.

Points values are supposed to be an easy way to balance forces, and while most such systems are only partially successful, they can be a huge help in scenario design.

I don't think any of the rules that currently interest me have points systems, but I have used them that way in the past. The biggest problem I have with points systems is the gamers who get wedded to them and feel the game is "played wrong" if you ignore them. I pretty much stopped playing ancients because most games are bland, points-based, tournament-style matches without any real historical context. I prefer historical scenarios, historically plausible "what if" exercises, and campaigns that generate battles based on player decisions.

As for the quote from the OP:

I think therefore that point values in some form are here to stay, except in those rules that simply leave it up to the players (and I would consider such rules to be unfinished).

That's a silly statement. Of course points values are here to stay. So are hex grids. They're a useful invention, but not all games need them.

- Ix

This seems like a "duh" moment. Points values have become ingrained in the gaming mindset and while no game REQUIRES them, they're certainly a possibility that is expected, along with any other number of concepts like reaction fire or alternating activations.