"Both Sides of a Sheet of Paper" Topic

TMP member robert piepenbrink once wrote – TMP link -

RULES should be both sides of a sheet of paper – in a pinch, both sides to two sheets of paper.

Do you agree?

Great sound bite--that's about it.

And then write the designer an angry letter asking why the rules don't cover vehicle over-runs, why there's no examples explaining how charging actually works and why there's no campaign rules :-)

I'm pretty happy if the meat of the rues is under 20 pages. DBA and FiveCore come to mind.

While it IS possible to write rules that work (within a limited framework) of such brevity they are not always suited to players of a more contentious outlook.

Where players are happy with 'fixing' the rules on the fly when uncovered situations arise and can do it with minimal interruption, they can work very well.

Trying to use them outside the framework or with others who have a different 'take' on the period to the author(s) usually ends in rapid abandonment.

On the opposite tack, rules that try to cover every eventuality in long and comprehensive texts are equally likely to fail to satisfy players.

I can see why some players genuinely believe the extra effort involved in trying to cover most bases just isn't justified.

I disagree. As others have said above, such short rules are nearly always incomplete and will certainly not include examples and explanations which help to make rules understandable. Often such rules are not much more than a QRS and a few notes. They might be understandable to the author and playable by his group but cannot be played by others without extra guidance.

Let's see his rules yeah?

I hate the word "should" in s tmp poll.
Who died and made you boss?

No. A QRS is one page front and back.

Might be nice for convention tournament. Then people can get introduced to the gaming genre and go from there.

Hmm. The things I get myself into. We ARE all remembering that all I did was express a contrary opinion in a poll which seemed to presume rules which filled volumes, aren't we? And that I didn't try to start a thread on the subject? That said:

1. I've never in my life written a rules writer to complain about something omitted. The only time I ever complained to one about anything, I felt he'd messed with basing unnecessarily. I try to encourage people to write rules, not punish them for doing so. I have made mock of multiple volumes and of proprietary lines of castings and rules, and I'll stand by those complaints.

2. I don't know how long you'd have to make a set of rules so that two competitive adolescent males had no difficulties interpreting them the same way in their first game. Has anyone actually seen this phenomenon?

3. I prefer to play with older players and friends and/or be present as a judge. I also prefer to print out the rules stripped down for the particular game. Better only to put in the section of French single-man turrets if the day's game has French tanks, and to leave out the Katushya rule until someone invents the things. It's not as though I were charging anyone for the rules.

4. "Back of the envelope" rules are not that uncommon. Check through old Wargamers' Newsletters, and you'll find one "Philip" Barker's page and a fraction "Napoleonic Rules--Birmingham Style." Young's "Elementary Game" is about a page. You have to expand it--taking rules from the Advanced Game--to get to two full pages. Featherstone's Horse & Musket rules are under my "two pages both sides" and Glidden's "Landing Party" series just over two as I recall--using a 10 point font throughout.

5. Nothing against illustrations and examples of play, but especially, as rustymusket points out, for conventions--I do not say necessarily for tournaments--if you have not limited the game to players familiar with a set of rules, you ought to be playing with something short enough they can read it before play and refer back to it as the game goes on.

Or does anyone actually prefer the "just go ahead and I'll tell you when you did something wrong" approach?

The Lord of the Rings would not fit on two sides. Why should rules? You could not write a credible simulation on two sides. Maybe snakes and ladders but that is not a wargame. Clearly he had little comprehension of at least what some folk want.

20 to 30 pages of rules is more the sweet spot for me. I have seen a couple of two page rules games that looked interesting however. One was a napoleonic set that a member here was sending out to whoever asked for it and the other is the 2 page wargame rules guy.

No.

My QILS rules do conform top this standard. They were not designed to do so, they just do. My other rules do not.

Rules should be long enough to explain the dynamics and context of the game. They should be structured so a player can read what is relevant.

Interesting topic.

As someone who likes to write rules that are as brief as possible, I find some of the comments written above seem to imply that players need to have everything explained in full before they can understand what the rules mean.

I would argue – somewhat contentiously – that being able to exercise brevity and clarity are essential skills for any writer of wargame rules, and that it is not unreasonable to expect the reader to use their historical knowledge and common sense to extrapolate the rules to meet any unforeseen circumstances.

Robert – We all get the dubious benefit of having our statements extracted by the overlord and presented for debate.

Tis the price we pay to post :)

Certainly it should be possible to distill the essence of rules onto a single double sided sheet, including key tables.

And yes, it is annoying to have one's words taken out of context.

Should, no. Can, yes.

Ushcha, I yield to none in my love of Tolkien. That doesn't keep me from appreciating a Robert Howard or Lord Dunsany short story when I don't have a three day weekend to spare. Neither fantasy stories nor rules are REQUIRED to come in multi-volume sets, and if length were the measure of quality, I'd be re-reading David Eddings instead of LOTR.

As for not comprehending what "at least some people" want, I most certainly do. (I am a person myself, as are many of my friends.) Possibly they are different people? And want different things?

I commend to the interested the excellent LION RAMPANT--64 pages as it stands, but the actual rules are about 14 pages with more illustration than text, with a single-page (one side) QRS. If the other side of that QRS had the turn sequence and the mechanisms, you would be perilously close to a two-page set.

Oh, and Ushcha? Next time you get your chess set out of the closet, count the pages on the rules.

"Snakes and Ladders" indeed!

Simple, easy to learn rules are not the same as simple, easy to learn tactics and strategy, and are not inherently more prone to luck. They are perhaps a little LESS prone to saying one thing on page 15 of the main rule book, something a little different on page 43, and something else again in the codex.

There are rules written for the novice wargamer.

There are also rules written for the veteran wargamer.
For the later "Inf moves 6" per turn" makes perfect sense, and implies a whole series of conventions and mechanisms that need no further explanation. Same for "Roll X dice, each 6 is a hit."

For the latter breed of wargamers, rules for any game should indeed fit perfectly on 2 pages. Perhaps you should use a smaller fontsize, and play around a bit with the margins, but in essence, 2 pages should suffice.

Disclaimer: I consider a set of wargaming rules as a set of guidelines to conduct a game between gentlemen wargamers – not a book of law that should cover every possible situation and list all possible exceptions. I consider myself mature enough to be able to fill in the blanks myself.

The purpose of the wargame is not to follow a set of rules. The rules are merely there to guide the game and help the players through a set of procedures to steer the game forwards. That might be a philosophical point, but I think it is too often overlooked.

Oh Robert,
You are wrubg in so many ways ;-). I just looked up chess rules.

link

They were well over 2 sides. I did say simulation. Never seen a tank move like a knight! I never said you could not play a Game, I said a credible simulation. Rock, Paper Scissors may fit on one side and may have many tactics but it is not in my opinion a good WW2 simulation. QED :-).

I never said you could not play a Game, I said a credible simulation.

Depends of course on what you mean by "credible simulation".

2 pages usually works. I'd say you should be able to write a game in under 10 pages. That would include diagrams. Notes, army lists and QRS would get more. The average person is accustomed to short and conscious rules. Monopoly, for example.

I did take the time to read Robert's original post. I took it as him stating a preference and possibly playing devil's advocate. Nothing more. He does even post something quite different in his second paragraph.

I have successfully run participation games using home made rules on no more than 2 sides of A4 paper for years with no complaints from either experienced or novice players. The key is writing for specific games. To try and cover all aspects of a specific conflict would need more. The difficulty in writing rules of any length is that they will never please everyone. Some will be seen as so detailed that they are virtually unplayable, whilst others will be too simple to represent the period they are aimed at. I write for the group of players I mix with, games which can be played in an evening and enjoyed, that works for me and anyone who doesn't like them can write their own rules.

UshCha, that must be the GW version: the Chess ruleBOOK with history, examples of play and discussion of strategy. Here's the chess rules

PDF link

Exactly two pages, and if you took out the commentary, you could still trim it about 10%.

As for a credible simulation, I've been wargaming for 50 years and did 25 Army and Air Force. I'm not sure I've seen one, though often something could be learned from a game.

And now, having offended a decent proportion of the fraternity, may I say something in favor of rulebooks?
--When you need to explain to a complete outsider what the hobby is, there is no better way than a copy of Charge!, which is always a delight to read.
--Charles Grant is still a magnificent explanation of the reasoning behind the rules.
--When I need to explain representation to someone who hasn't grown up with miniatures, there is still nothing better than the illustration in The Complete Brigadier.
--I bought Bruce Weigle's 1870 strictly for the chapter on how he makes his magnificent terrain, and it was money well spent even without the maps and orders of battle which make his rules a "must-have" for FPW players.

I could cite many other examples. You can do a lot of good and useful things with a 64 page rulebook.

But what you can't do, all too often, if fight a wargame. I can't mail a book the size of any of these to my opponent for a January game, And I certainly can't round up six strangers at a convention and hand them each a copy of even a 32 page booklet. For that, I need no more than two sides of two pieces of paper--sequence, mechanisms and critical numbers, not campaign suggestions, terrain making hints and design philosophy.

Turkish officers used to throw down their hats and stand on them as a symbol that they would retreat no further, and many in their day "died on their hats." Well, this is MY hat, and I'm standing on it. Write volumes if you please--but keep the rules short enough to be quickly learned and referred back to as necessary.

As for a credible simulation, I've been wargaming for 50 years and did 25 Army and Air Force. I'm not sure I've seen one, though often something could be learned from a game.

I've seen tons of them. Under my two page rules (using less than all the dynamics), I've had three history PhD's (two were wargamers, one not) tell me that my games that were in the conflicts of their respective theses (WWI opening, Plains Indian Wars, and Luddite Rebellion) were good representations of the battles they gamed.

And I've had an Army officer ask to buy one of my (sci fi) games and consultancy to support training for opposed urban operations. (I declined to sell anything to the government, as I used to build actual training simulations for the military and was a fed civil servant at the time. I did help him out with his stuff (which included some of my old stuff).)

Those met my definition of credible.

UshCha, that must be the GW version

Speaking of GW versions, their Age of Sigmar rules (published last year) are actually 4 pages long, and with some trimming would probably fit in 3 pages.

That said, they do not include unit stats and special rules, which are provided separately.

I disagree. He is describing the QRS, not the rules.

I looked at our rules. To get a clear and workable definition of dead ground took nearly a whole page including diagrams . If you consider dead ground is immaterial, then we haver no common ground. A single one or two hour game with a stranger is on occasion an interesting diversion. It is not or never will be for me what it's really about. To me what it is really about is pushing your ability to understand your opponents plan while concentrating in time and space to foil his plan and make him conform to yours. That requires some level of detail in the rules and practise to implement plausible real world tactics within the model. This is a requirement not dissimilar to that required for engineering models. Sophisticated engineering models have manuals hundreds of pages long. Reducing it to 2 pages would be a farce.

It depends on what you define as a good and interesting game.

It is not or never will be for me what it's really about.

Fair enough. That's your preference in wargaming.

To me what it is really about is pushing your ability to understand your opponents plan while concentrating in time and space to foil his plan and make him conform to yours.

Great. But you don't need complex rules for that. Chess and Go are relatively simple games ruleswise, which do adhere to your description above.

Sophisticated engineering models have manuals hundreds of pages long. Reducing it to 2 pages would be a farce.

You're confusing the technical description of something, and the user manual of that same something. Very complex consumer engineering models these days regularly do not come with any user manuals at all.

It depends on what you define as a good and interesting game.

Correct.

For me, if you need more than 2 pages to write down the game rules (which is something different from a manual explaining to a novice wargamer how to play a wargame), the rules haven't been polished enough.

Writing complex rules hundreds of pages long is easy. For every eventuality or event you insert yet another procedure or table. Cfr the running joke of the dropped-oil-lamp-table in AD&D.

Polishing your rules, capturing everything in a few elegant mechanics, trimming away everything that is not needed while still maintaining the desired tactical depth is where the real skill in rules design is.

To get a clear and workable definition of dead ground took nearly a whole page including diagrams . If you consider dead ground is immaterial, then we have no common ground.

Exactly. Everybody says they want super-short rules and it should be possible to have a whole game on two pages…. and then they want rules for airborne landings (with gliders, of course!) and the mortars need to behave differently from other artillery, which need to behave differently from rockets, and of course self-propelled guns, and Hey, where's the rules for Rail Guns? And you've got the Vickers HMG behaving the same as the German MG42 which is ridiculous, everybody knows they were very different….

Oh, and on page 2 it says that If the attacking side has at least one tank and one infantry unit in halftracks, they receive a +1 on assault, but….

I have two armor units and one infantry with the trait. Do I get the bonus twice?

I have one tank and two infantry units, one of which has halftracks. Do I still get the bonus?

I have one tank and two half tracked infantry units. Do I get the bonus twice?

The enemy has infantry in halftracks, too; does his bonus negate mine?

Does the bonus apply when I'm defending, too?

Does the bonus apply in every kind of terrain? What about in towns, where tanks get a -1? Do I add the -1 to the tank first, then apply the +1 for the accompanying halftracks….?

Anybody who think that a two-page set of miniatures rules can function outside a small, friendly club, has obviously never dealt with more than a few wargamers.

Exactly. Everybody says they want super-short rules and it should be possible to have a whole game on two pages…. and then they want rules for airborne landings (with gliders, of course!) and the mortars need to behave differently from other artillery, which need to behave differently from rockets, and of course self-propelled guns, and Hey, where's the rules for Rail Guns? And you've got the Vickers HMG behaving the same as the German MG42 which is ridiculous, everybody knows they were very different….

You're describing the gamer who DOESN'T want 2 pages of rules, but a whole pletora of rules.

Every wargamer I've met who wants 2 pages of rules isn't concerned with all sorts of hardware and troop details. Rather, they are concerned about the essentials of a certain period, and how these essentials can be captured in a simple and elegant ruleset.

Anybody who think that a two-page set of miniatures rules can function outside a small, friendly club, has obviously never dealt with more than a few wargamers.

So?

Most wargaming is played within small friendly clubs.

To get a clear and workable definition of dead ground took nearly a whole page including diagrams .

In QILS, it takes nine sentences, which also cover some parts of other concepts.

Anybody who think that a two-page set of miniatures rules can function outside a small, friendly club, has obviously never dealt with more than a few wargamers.

I've had hundreds of players I've never met before play QILS at cons. About 2/3 of them or so ask where they can get the rules.

Everybody says they want super-short rules and it should be possible to have a whole game on two pages

No more people take this extreme position than the number than take the opposite extreme saying it is not possible.

Rules can be longer than that, especially if/when they include the much needed play examples, but for the QRS, one or two double-sided pages is preferred.

I don't care if it's both sides of a sheet of paper, or just one, as long as they use enough sheets to get the job done.

You're describing the gamer who DOESN'T want 2 pages of rules, but a whole pletora of rules.

No, I'm describing the average person who needs clarification because the rules aren't complete.

Look at the discussion forums for just about any major hobby publisher. The vast majority of threads are:

- People who need more explanation and clarification.

- People who've come up with situations that aren't explicitly covered in the rules and need a ruling.

- People who want the game to do more things such as covering a slightly different period, theatre of war, army, or whatever.

Gamers love to say that they want brevity and simplicity, but all evidence points to the contrary.

Not ALL the evidence, Garth. And as we used to say in the trade "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." If you sell a thousand copies of a short set of rules, and 900 of the purchasers are content, who do you find in the discussion forums? Uh huh. It's easy to demonstrate that someone's notion of complete rules will require very long rules. It's harder to prove that these people are average.

It's also, I suspect, difficult to demonstrate that they'd be content with a longer set of rules if they had one. If that were true, then you ought to start hitting widely popular rules which don't have threads calling for explanation, clarification and rulings on things not covered. (Purely out of curiosity, can anyone give examples of such sets? How long were they?)

I do put the different period/theater/army problem in a separate category, though. Fire and Fury is not "incomplete" because people want to adapt it to the Napoleonic Wars or the regimental level. The desire to adapt a set of rules seems to be purely a measure of popularity. See TSATF especially. Does anyone think TSATF would be IMPROVED if every army,period and theater to which it has been adapted were included in the original volume? How long would it be?

I'd also note that in large measure short rules go under the radar. Two or twelve gamers sharing four pages of rules don't go to TMP with questions, or even post reviews. I saw more reviews of Rogue Stars BEFORE IT WAS OUT than I have ever seen of Charge! Care to speculate on which was more played in 2016? Publicity is not the same as popularity. If it were, we wouldn't be treated to the "shooting stars" of miniatures rules--arriving with great publicity one year and gone without a trace in under five. (No, I will not name names: some of the publishers may be TMP advertisers, and anyway I was fool enough to buy some of them.)

Oh. And how many of those threads with questions are because the rules have an immovable object on page 23, and an irresistable force on page 47? Oddly enough, that sort of problem is seldom solved by writing longer rules.

I think there's also a question of expectations.

If I am playing FUBAR, I expect to figure out questions myself.
If I shelled out 40 bucks for a print-book, I expect support to be available.

Of course, some 2 pagers also have great support and some expensive games have nothing, so what do I know.

I've played with (and written) very short sets of rules (certainly less than 5 pages) but accept that they are either limited in scope or apply to 'play sheets' for individual units/ships/charecters that are – in of themselves – quite complicated. Is that cheating? To 'out source' some of the rules (weapon ranges, say) to individual sheets?

Anyway, this is ludicrous: horses for courses. Some rules are long and complex because they need to be, some aren't.

Perhaps another question could be "can a short set of rules (say two pages) be too short to function successfully or can a longer set if rules be long winded and still be full of holes and not cover what's needed?".

I would say an unequivocal "yes" with both of those options…

John T

Is that cheating? To 'out source' some of the rules (weapon ranges, say) to individual sheets?

This gets at one of the things I see us continually running around because we won't pick standard terms. Not come up with definitions. Just pick terms.

It is obvious that there are a number of concepts out there that people can agree upon and solidify. The problem seems to be that we can't come to an agreement on which words to use for the concepts.

IMV, the "rules" discuss the dynamics. What I envision as a "play sheet", I would call "stats". They are not part of the rules. They simply link certain parts of the total performance space described by the rules to specific units (another great ambiguous term) for a scenario.

So, no, I wouldn't say that is cheating.

'play sheets' for individual units/ships/charecters that are – in of themselves – quite complicated.

However, as you identify, if the "play sheets" include dynamics that are not already in the "rules", then they do contain "rules".

I'm not completely against unit descriptions and scenarios having rules. In fact, I think that is essential.

I do not favor having tons of complicated rules added to the game for different units, which may be what you describe. Not cheating, just poor form.

My rule of thumb for custom unit/scenario rules is:
– Custom rules should single simple sentences.
– No more than one rule per player.

Too many rules are poorly presented in terms of structure and reference. Rules at would fit on two sides of a sheet of paper become monsters of prose and hidden specification. Perhaps a better question is what rules are well presented -- even if you don't like the game they document?

You have good and bad examples both for short and long rules. That by itself is not an argument.

However, I do feel that as a games designer, making your rules as tight, coherent and concise as possible, is an excellent goal. Not because we don't want to waste any paper, but because it forces you to think what is really essential in the rules, and what are only unnecessary details and complications that can be trimmed.

Anyone can write a set of wargame rules. Anyone can translate historical statistical data in an incoherent collection of game procedures. But it takes good design to trim these elements to their core essentials using a few simple coherent game mechanics.

Good wargames design is not only about designing something that reflects military history. It is foremost about designing a good game.

If you take all of the pictures and historical narratives out of some rule books you would have about two pages of rules.

Wolfhag

John Treadway is completely correct.

While I am very much in agreement with Bob Piepenbrink in applying an Occamist razor to rules. The less the better, and not multiplying causes for no purpose, the length of rules is merely a "dimension" of the game. If the game runs well and provides a fun experience for the players and does not leave something that MUST be there out (like no firing rules in a modern game) then it's fine. If you can get the rules down to that, excellent. If you need more, write more. But most rules out there are just paper to sell. They are large and over illustrated to inflate the price tag.

As John said, the rules frame the game, and if the game works with the rules, and works fine, then its done.

Ah Wolfhag… you are most astute.

But most rules out there are just paper to sell. They are large and over illustrated to inflate the price tag.

Anyone who says that obviously doesn't have the first idea about the publishing business. Adding pictures is no more expensive than adding words. In modern publishing, a page is a page.

Adding pages to something, however, increases the publisher's cost if it makes the book bigger and heavier, which increases the cost of printing it, storing it, and shipping it. All before you've made a single dollar selling it.

In what business is it ever a good idea to increase the cost of a product, before you've sold it?

People put illustrations in books because (a) it's the 21st century and people like illustrations now; (b) illustrations often make reading more pleasant and understanding something easier; or – most likely (c) they've reached the end of a chapter and something needs to go in that last half-page of empty space because you can't start the next chapter until the header of the next page.

And by the way: anybody who's done printing knows that book paper is laid out in spreads of 16 page increments.* A book with 155 pages costs exactly the same as a book with 160 pages, but a book with 161 pages is substantially more expensive because you've included a new fold.

So if your rules come to 44 pages, then you've got four pages you need to fill with… something, because 44 isn't an increment of 16 and 48 is. Put more words in there if you like, or more pictures; it won't affect the price one penny.

And before you say, "I can do Print-on-Demand with any number of pages!"… yes of course you can, for about 3-4 times the cost of traditional printing. Now that's a way to drive up the cost of your book!

* Yes, you can find printers to do spreads of 8 or 12 pages, but 16 is the most cost-efficient.

In what business is it ever a good idea to increase the cost of a product, before you've sold it?

In pretty much every business for all of time it is a good idea to increase the value of the product at a rate higher than the rate of increase of the cost.

The trade space comes in when you consider the rate of purchase with respect to atomic unit cost.

Since value in this case is perceived value by your target market, if adding a picture adds what you believe will be more value than the cost, but does not push it past the tipping point of decreased sales with respect to margin, then you have exactly the case described.

Hey Garth in the park. In the real publishing world what you say is true. However in publishing war game rules it's nothing else than cash cowing. War Game rules are meant to be the instructions to the game. No one makes the instructions to their toaster or washing machine huge and complex with lavish pictures just to show pretty pictures. They are instructions to tell someone how to operate the machinery and after that to be shoved into the junk drawer in the kitchen cabinets and forgotten. Once you know how to play the game you don't need the rules any more. What passes for war game rules today, what I call the 100/100 club, over 100 pages and over $100 USD are substitute war games. They aren't instructions on how to play the game, they ARE the game to the people who buy them.

As far as "In what business it ever a good idea to increase the cost of a product before you've sold it?-- simple

The automobile industry.

Over designed, overbuilt, over-expensive products with power coffee-cup handlers and all sorts of useless crap you don't need to get you from point a cheaply and efficiently.
Each one is nothing but 90% deadweight put on the car for no other reason than psychological penis-enlargement. Without the subliminal text of vanity, a car would be under $3,000 USD bare bones, with 120 miles to the gallon, and simple no frills interiors and stick shifts.