"Top 5 Requirements for a Good Tournament Ruleset" Topic

What qualities do you feel are essential for a ruleset that adapts well to tournament play?

It's point system should actually function as a system that gives a "poor" army a fighting chance. It should make the most effective troops very expensive.

One problem I always had with WRG ancients rules was that all weapons cost the same, regardless of their efficiency.

Very clear writing and clarity of the rules. Then, all players (or a referee if needed) can resolve disagreements about rules interpretation.

Simple mechanics with a minimum of ambiguity. If there are multiple legal styles of play for a game, it will tend to leave some players (slightly) alienated. In a tourney, you don't want to waste up to two games getting adjusted to the game if others aren't.

While I would want the mechanics to be simple and stable, there should be a lot of operational latitude so you can get a lot of flavor and variety from the different opponents.

Beyond that, I think it's all in the scenario design and playtesting. That said, as Winston Smith point out above, an equitable (as possible) point system makes that design double plus non-difficult. Also, consistency in the state space of the stats tends to make the scenario design more stable, making it easier to build a scenario that will fit reasonably well into a time constraint.

Minimum of ambiguity….
Well, that eliminates WRG…..
Or DBM.