"Three Worst Scenarios " Topic

What were the three worst scenarios you had played? You know the ones, where someone hosted the game and you end up with the short end of the stick.
I can think of several, American Civil War, I played the Union side…as the game progressed, I figured I had 33% less stands to field, and the Confederates were veterans with a sprinkling of elites, while I had Regulars backed up with some green troops.
Normandy 1944, Shermans, as we drove on we encountered Panthers, 88s and panzefausts galore.
Fist Full of Tows, encounter game, we drive on first, the opponent drives on second…ok probably doesn't count.

1. All games hosted by the late Hap Jordan. Rolling the right (or wrong) number always trumped tactics. When that's true, it's a bad game whoever has the good die roll.

2. Games in which it is physically impossible to reach your objective in the number of turns allotted or likely. No names there: some of the perpetrators are friends of mine.

3. 30mm CLS on a 4'x 8' table. A successful light cavalry charge was good for 36". Lose the initial cavalry clash, and you might as well start putting the troops away. (By an incredible coincidence, the only 30mm CLS player I ever knew with a 4' table was an ardent cavalryman. And of course he played and didn't just host. Once we boycotted him, it turned out he really could find a 5x9 table.)

Let's see. Overdependence on luck, impossible objectives, and a table design to favor a particular player or arm. I've certainly fought outnumbered and outgunned, but I'd say those three cover about every game where I'd never want to play that scenario again.

Any scenario where you have to cross a river.

Any scenario where your entire force has to pass through some sort of bottleneck.

An American Revolution game at a convention.
The guy running the game told me I had to march my troops down a long road in the woods.
Unseen troops opened fire and wiped me out.
"Just like in the Real Battle!" he chortled.
Jerk.

"Normandy 1944, Shermans, as we drove on we encountered Panthers, 88s and panzefausts galore."

I think that was called 'Operation Goodwood', although you'd need to add in Tigers and King Tigers too.

The classic duff scenario is where someone hasn't allowed enough time to physically reach an objective (or you can only get there by moving flat out into the teeth of the enemy guns).

I don't care about being outnumbered, out gunned, out qualitied or marched into an ambush, as long as it is fun to play. Peoples definition of 'fun' will of course vary.

I and another guy got talked into a modern air combat game by the guy who our game club. He need to have the scenario played for a campaign he was running. Although easy to learn, neither of us had seen the rules before. We were given 2x MIG 21s and 2x SU24s. All Green pilots. All we had to do were get the SUs across the board.

Then the opposition came on. 2x F15s with experienced pilots, 1x F14 with an experienced crew, 1x F14 with Veteran crew.

Needless to describe the results.

One Vietnam scenario where the setup was basically just an excuse to roll dice for the US side.
Made me appreciate "Charlie don't surf" and its asymmetrical victory conditions a lot.

A 40K scenario involving a custom space marine chapter. Each trooper had jump packs, heavy bolt guns and somehow cost less than the normal cost for a basic marine.
This was supposedly balanced by being unable to buy a handful of units that player didn't own in any event.

An Inquisitor scenario having our hive gang characters facing off against a squad of space marines.
For the uninitiated, this is roughly like having an armoured car platoon face off against a Tiger 2 platoon.

I can't think of only three worst. I've designed some real stinkers in my time.

Designing scenarios can be one of the most difficult things in wargaming to do. Partly it is because the variables in most rule mechanics will allow one unreasonable result to an entire game but, mostly it's because nothing cocks up a scenario more than players not understanding what they have to do, or understanding it but ignoring it anyway.

Getting anything other than the most basic scenario right the first time played is just fluky, IMHO. Although some of the scenarios described above do seem a bit outlandish, I'd be interested to hear about what experience in designing scenarios the designers had, and if their scenarios improved afterwards.

As I said at the start, some of my scenarios have been right proper stinkers. Thankfully, I've done enough good ones (some very good ones) that my stinkers are soon forgiven.

I commanded a wing in a TYW game at a con that was faced by a basically impenetrable swamp. I couldn't advance into it and neither could the force across from me so we both sat the whole game.

I've seen similar ones to redbanner, but the woods were only near impenetrable; however, the Russian commanders were inept so their lack of command and control effectively made the woods fully impenetrable, except for the one road, and like Winston, the Russians got wiped out by nimble guys in the woods.

I think in general bad scenarios are ones for multiplayer games where one flank just sits there and does nothing for an eight hour game.

1. The game where I was commaning a "refused" flank in anticipation of a large enemy force coming in there on turn 8. I was to hold them off. The problem was that with the rules we were using we would never get to turn 6 let alone 8 as they took just so LOOOOOOOoooonnng. As expected the game sputtered to a halt after 9 hours at somewhere in the latter stages of turn 4, and the main elements on each side had just come close to action (not one melee) and the GM called the game and declared an overwhelming French Victory.

2. A Napoleonic Sailing ship game where the GM refused to let us touch the models, we had to tell him what we wanted to do and he would then move the models. If we did something he didn't agree with he would say "You wouldn't really do that, you would do this" and substitute his own whim.

3.A scenario in which the GI's on some Pacific Island had to advance down the road and capture the village at the other end. There were substantial Japanese forces on each side of the road. However, in their initial set up they weren't covering the road and couldn't reach it with fire. The GI's on the first two turns jumped into their jeeps and raced down the road and captured thevillage on turn 3. The Japanese vainly tried to reach the road. The Umpire didn't understand why the GI's weren't moving off the road to engage the Japanese. The umpire eventually said the GIs were all killed because they were surrounded and hadn't destroyed the Japanese.In vain did the GI's protest that the victory conditions had said nothing about defeating the Japanese, and asked why he hadn't started the Japanese closer and put up road blocks. The gm said he assumed we would know that we had to defeat the Japanese first.

4. Every "Charge of the Light Brigade" or "Pickets charge" game I ever played in.

2. Games in which it is physically impossible to reach your objective in the number of turns allotted or likely. No names there: some of the perpetrators are friends of mine.

I've designed and run several games like this. Needless to say my friends weren't enamored with those games.

Jim

Usually I run into 'no possible way to accomplish the objective' scenarios, but a couple of standouts:

1. Battletech game, standup fight, but the GM doesn't like the default Battletech initiative system. Instead of alternating every mech has an initiative token in a bag that we draw. Really no problem there…. until after the first draw the GM puts the drawn token back in the bag. We say 'ok, so a mech could go multiple times before another mech goes?' 'Of course' the GM replies 'A mech might move ten times in a row!' as he draws the same token out of the bag…. End result after four hours is half the players had gone many times, the other half have gone one or twice the entire game.

2. Naval scenario, corsairs attempting to escape with booty. Only one path out of the bay. First turn, roll for wind direction; to blow directly into the bay from the direction of the exit. Not a single pirate ship manages to reach the exit, never mind get out of it, by the end of the game.

3. This one probably was fine but turned out bad due to terrible tactics on our part. AWI, brother and I playing British with another player taking on the Hessian contingent. Americans started with some stuff on the board and plenty of reinforcements incoming. British players get our forces up and start pounding away at the rebels. Hessian player decides that he simply must take the Americans in the flank via the woods, and deploys into battleline and *unlimbers his artillery* and starts to march his wing at the rate his forces can roll his cannon through the woods- 1" per turn. We point out that it will taken him 12 turns to even get within cannon range and implore him to break off the infantry and advance. No way, you should never split your forces was the reply! End result is that the valiant British regulars were eventually worn down and overwhelmed by waves of militia rabble while the Hessians are untouched and also never fire a single shot the entire game. Can't blame this one on the GM though!

-Will

Where do I start…..!

I think that the essence of wargaming is decision making and am surprised how many people present die-rolling contests and call it a wargame.
I understand that there is chaos in real-life combat, but if the major influence is weather or how many times a unit or group moves in one turn, that is not something I want to stand at a table for hours doing.
Pitting my idea of what should be done against my opponent(s) ideas is why I come to the table, not who can roll better. If I want to play craps, I'll go to Vegas.

* Chivalric Challenge – It was set up as field of honor challenges between opposing sides of a conflict. Good rules, but the scenario needed a broader context in the set up to be meaningful. It ended up just coming down to one or two decisions and then a stream of die rolls.

* Atlantis Sinking – My first shot at scenario design for this had the game being decided too early. It took a few iterations to figure out the right balance of giving the players strategic options in how the island sinks and still balancing it to make combat to be the last man standing an important part of the outcome.

* Anti Communist Partisans – Back in the day, a group of us played some partisan skirmish/assaults. They were team vs umpire, with everyone taking a turn being ump. One of the guys would always design the scenario so that it was no-win for the partisans. There wasn't even the fun of "how far can we get?" as an alternate victory objective. We just played quickly and died early on risky moves. Some people started "showing up late" when he was running the first scenario.

ACW naval participation game at Gosport many years ago, using some sort of demonic rules that were sooo slooow. Monitor vs. Virginia. After 2 hours both sides had hardly hit, let alone caused any damage. Manoeuvre rules were awful but by some fluke my Virginia collided with the Monitor and started a flood. We calculated it would take about 60 turns for the ship to sink, but there were no damage control rules and hence no way to stop the flood so I claimed victory and legged it.

Same show a few years earlier, WW2 Op Goodwood, the umpires controlled the Germans and basically it was a good excuse for their usually expertly hidden myriad tigers to KO everything on the board, the two umpires chortling to themselves as the hales players had an awful time. I managed to kill a tiger with a Wasp flamethrower, needed a 6 followed by a 6 followed by another 6 – all rolled successfully. Umpires ten invoked a "special rule" which negated the kill (the only kill of a German unit in the whole game). Gve up on that one at that point, claiming a moral victory

Naval campaign set in Greenland in WW2, commanding a US coast guard cutter. Players seated i various rooms and spaces around a village hall so I was by myself all day unless anything happened. My orders, sail up the East coast of Greenland as far as I could, locate and destroy German weather stations, look out for U boats. Except there weren't any. Turned around at the top of my patrol line and headed back to base, got there to find the players there had been involved in all sorts of shenanigans with a U boat attack on our base. I was ordered to anchor outside the base due to te risk of mines. ailed in anyway on the grounds it would give me the only opportunity I'd had all day to roll even a single die. Didn't hit a mine. Gutted. Not much fun after driving a hundred miles each way for the game. I did get to catch up on some reading though

Dear Etotheipi

Your anti-partisan offering jogged my memory of similar one. It was a WWI campaign I the mediterranan. I was on the British team. I had only TWO majestic class battleships nnd the Canopus. I had four armored crusers, the Drake and the Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue. That was it. The Italians had all their whole navy, five dreadnoughts, all their pre dreadnoughts (about 12), all their armored Cruisers, all their submarines, AND they had the Austrians who allegedly were allied with them, for another four big dreadnoughts at least. AND he gave the Italians air reconnaissance and spies in Malta, Gib, and Alex. He said that it was a scenario mimicking the first year of WWII in WWI.

For the entire game the umpire blandly asserted that the sides were even.

The worst game I ever ran was bad because it was (1) too complicated (like 30 pages of unit orders and scenario rules) and (2) lacked motivation for action. One side was trying to sneak onto a space ship and the other side was trying to find them. Boring. Sorry, guys.

The worst games I have played have been those where I was invited to play a new game with the promise that the referee would explain the rules and game mechanics, and then the referee forgot critical information. So those games were frustrating and not much fun.

Designing scenarios can be one of the most difficult things in wargaming to do. Partly it is because the variables in most rule mechanics will allow one unreasonable result to Bleeped text an entire game but, mostly it's because nothing cocks up a scenario more than players not understanding what they have to do, or understanding it but ignoring it anyway.

I had a scenario I tested 4 times, close run thing each time.

Showed it off at a club game and the initial dice rolls were so absurdly lucky for one side that everyone knew it was all over.
The chaps played through it in any event, but there was a lot of "I swear its usually fine" that night :)

If someone doesn't produce at least a QRF, I just wander off. I played the last game at which someone would explain the rules as I played some time in the previous century, and it was still too recent.

But for scenarios, there's a special place in my heart for designers who can't or won't do basic math. I was commanding Indians outside Fort Necessity once, supposed to shoot in and attrit Washington's forces. I started counting: -1 on musketry for being Indians. -2 for the palisade…"Hey! In order to hit, I need to roll an 11 on a D10!"
"Oh. Well, that's why I wanted to run a playtest." Mind you, he didn't change anything.

All kinds of things can go wrong in a game--not least, admittedly, crazy and/or stupid players, and I've had my own days. But someone ought to devise a checklist:
--Do the players either know the rules, have the rules, or at least have a reference sheet?
--Is it possible for the forces to reach each other over most of the front?
--Is it physically possible to achieve the objective in the allotted number of turns?
--Are command decisions more important to the outcome than die rolling?
None of these are complicated. They just get ignored.

And a word of thanks for the scenario designers who don't ignore them. Too easy to remember the bad and forget the good.

I've seen ACW games where one side had a large force off the table at the start and it was allowed to be placed directly on the flank of the opposing side and move to contact as soon as it magically appeared. That drew some grumbles from the victims, who felt they should have been forewarned about invisible enemy forces that were to be sprung on their flank on turn 3.

I've also commanded a unit in a Two-Hour Wargames battle where thanks to the way activation is determined by die rolls, my unlucky lads only got to move or become active once in the entire game. So they stood at their initial positions helplessly watching the action, unable to move or react or initiate fire. Naturally they got surrounded and picked off piecemeal by untouchable enemies. It was very frustrating. I think that's a flaw in those rules.

Games where players get stuck with thankless commands are a bad design, and another common failing in scenarios is to not calculate in advance if it is possible for figures to reach objectives in a reasonable time and method given the rules and orders of battle and terrain involved.

I participated in a Vietnam game, the table was loaded- US, ARVN, RoK, ANZACS, as the Vietnamese I had tunnels and hidden movement. I was so miffed, I only activated 1 squad…..

Problem with scenarios is that scenarios really should take the rules into account as well. Not all scenarios and rulesets fprm good combinations.

In an attack/defence scenario, it makes a huge difference whether your troops can move and shoot, or move OR shoot. The latter reduces the attacker's firepower by 50%.

Scenarios in which you have to move your force across a single bridge or narrow passage combined with rules that call for random activation of troops, also spell disaster.

Most rules writers subconsciously have specific scenarios in mind when writing their rules. If you deviate from those preset assumptions, you can end up with lousy games (note I say game, not scenario).

Not all scenarios and rulesets fprm good combinations.

Agree, but there is also the flipside. Most of the scenarios I write are intended to be "rules neutral". I have fairly good success playing scenarios I write for QILS using other rules systems.

Of course, "rules neutral" is not an absolute either. I have to make sure I provide "designer's notes" about the capabilities you field in place of the designed ones. And sometimes it doesn't work with other rules.

Like you say (or rather the compliment of what you said), I think a good set of rules is fairly scenario neutral.

I find that "quirkier" designs can demand scenarios made for them.

Crossfire is a good example where we always found that we needed to add a bit of terrain for example.

I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread – so many of the examples made me smile. I would add that no scenario, however, busted, necessarily leads to a bad wargame; I've had endless fun and laughs with wargaming friends playing some truly wretched scenarios.

That being said, for me, here's my three stinkers:

1. Naval wargames requiring a detailed knowledge of how to sail.

2. Games with no way of achieving victory except crossing large expanses of open ground in the face of enemy fire, very slowly (and slower once disordered through casualties).

3. Games commanding the flank column, which never gets to the table.

I have, like many of us, been guilty of creating some really terrible scenarios in my time (including a couple of the "stinkers" listed above – sorry, guys!!).

In the 1990s, I remember ran a game from C.S. Grant's "Wargaming Scenarios". It's a terrific book, with 52 great scenarios. I selected "Woodland Advance" (somewhere around number 38, I think). How I managed to screw it up so badly when adapting it for the WRG 2nd Edition Renaissance rules, I don't know – but I did. The scenario involved Blue units passing into heavily wooded territory and being ambushed by Red forces. I converted it an ECW 1643 scenario. Unfortunately, the heavily wooded terrain meant both forces were immediately disordered as soon as they came on the table and were unable to move at the pace of more than a woodland snail. I think one unit, D Class, actually routed as it was so badly disordered with scarcely a shot being fired. Firing was nearly impossible owing to the terrain. "Last of the Mohicans", it was not. It was a dark moment in my wargaming career. I've tried to avoid tables covered with woods ever since …