"What Are The Top Three Features Rules Must Have" Topic

What are the top features a set of rules must have to get you to buy them and try them? I've heard many "must haves" but was very curious to see if there was any sort of consensus among gamers. Some examples of common must haves I've heard are. Simple – complex rules are out of fashion. D6 system – 10/20 sided dice systems are not popular. All in one rule book – gamers hate having to buy supplements. Data cards preferred over having to look up stats in a list. Random movement – or something besides traditional I Go U Go. Price – keep it cheap and leave out frills and fancy artwork. PDF – make it available online via PDF downloads. AARs – gamers want to read about battles before buying. Website – web support and blogs are a must. Etc. etc. So for you what are the top three "must haves"? Looking forward to your answers. Cheers! Lee

What are the top features a set of rules must have to get you to buy them and try them? I've heard many "must haves" but was very curious to see if there was any sort of consensus among gamers. Some examples of common must haves I've heard are. Simple – complex rules are out of fashion. D6 system – 10/20 sided dice systems are not popular. All in one rule book – gamers hate having to buy supplements. Data cards preferred over having to look up stats in a list. Random movement – or something besides traditional I Go U Go. Price – keep it cheap and leave out frills and fancy artwork. PDF – make it available online via PDF downloads. AARs – gamers want to read about battles before buying. Website – web support and blogs are a must. Etc. etc. So for you what are the top three "must haves"? Looking forward to your answers. Cheers! Lee

Fun, fun and historical plausibility for me.

Mechanisms come and go, but having fun is always in vogue.

Rich

They must be well written and easy to understand, they should strike a proper balance between playability and the warfare of the period that they're attempting to represent and the icing on the cake is if they're also innovative.

For me personally?

Must support campaign play explicitly.

Designer notes.

Should be friendly towards various basing methods.

Keep lists of modifiers to a reasonable number of significant ones.

Interesting command control mechanism.
Rules reflect the way each nationality should play.
Interactive unpredictable turn (no ugoigo)

Index. Index. And index.

toofatlardies +1

index
complete quick reference card

In the vein of a good thread i will propose just 3
Intellectually engaging
Narrow period of focus
Concentration on aspects appropriate to that period.

martin
The other points people make are of course very valid comments on the transmission of the rules from writer to gamer

The single most important one is that I mustn't fall asleep after reading the first three pages. So FOG lost me there….

Intellectually engaging. Ymmv with this one.
Concise (no 20,000 word essays padded out with glossy photos of 28mm figures please).
Some indication of how to set up and play the game, like a sample scenario or three.

Black and white print.

Use of dice for results determination (chits or cards can work as substitutes).

A Quick Reference Sheet included with the rules.

I think I must be an anomoly in the gaming community. While will try to play the game du jour, I have not seen many rules that address enough of what I think is important. Of course, "Fun" is assumed to be the biggest motivator and that really depends on who you game with! Fun is very different for each of us. I think we can all agree that a "fun" set of rules is one we can complete within the time we have to game and is not cause for arguements due to ambiguity of the writing style of the author.

Here's my list with why each item is important to me:

MAN: This is the common thread found in history. What was his knowledge and level of training, experience and motivation to stand for what his believes in. Afterall, match man up with ANY weapons system and you potentially have a killing machine.Weapons are only as good as the man operating them. Weapons alone cannot kill. They kill by the interface of man.

LEADERSHIP, TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE SKILLS AT ALL LEVELS. How well do those men charged with executing war understand it's principles? Do they posess the skills,knowledge and expereince of how to plan, execute those plans over a wide range of "friction" and how do they get those under them to cooperate as a functioning body?

I suppose many have realized the above, but I see more emphasis on numbers (firing, casualties, units, etc.) than on the value sets I seek. Despite the flood of new rulesets emerging, none that I have seen have been able to satisfactorily address this question: "Pick a war in history: Why do you find examples of units running away with little or no casualties while others fight to the last man?" How can pin the answer solely on "quality of the unit" when every category of quality is the same for every unit? (Line is line; elite is elite, green is green, etc.) A "kill" is always a set number (5 or 6 as an example) and totally ignores that our model unit is composed of men who are indiduals with differing talents and skills. Best simple mechanic I have seen was where you have to roll for troop quality when it first attempts to move or engage in combat. That sets their performance level for todays battle/game.

COMMAND & CONTROL: Even to todays world of advanced electronics, getting a change of orders still takes a considerable amount of intel, skill and TIME! This is a process, not a radius! Distance from the commanding element is just one factor. Units do not cease to move just because they are outside of an imaginary line!

Well, those are "my" requirements for getting me to buy a new rules set. I don't care the format (prefer printed copy buy .pdf works for me, too) as long as designer notes and index are included to speed things along if needed.

It also helps justify all the research books I still am collecting over the years! (Smile)

v/r
Tom

1)They must be compatible with my existing basing and workable on my existing tables. Not usually a major problem with WWII, but a real mess in some other periods.
2) A quick scan of the rules should make it clear how units move and shoot. If there is a system for the giving of orders, that too must be clear.
3) The level of representation must track with what I find to be interesting tactically for the era--for WWII this is close around tank=platoon.

After that, I look at many things, but those three are deal breakers.

Must be true to History, Must have Morale rules, Just have to have flying monkeys

Easily taught in a few minutes to novices.
Quick to play as in "can be finished in a few hours."
Provides historical "feel."

Dye4minis,

Not to start an argument, but I think a command radius does do a fairly good job of reflecting command factors, especially in earlier times before radio, etc. I think with a little tweaking (did one side have a more mature staff process, such as Napoleon's, or the 1870 Prussians) it could work better.

Mike

Few of the OP's "must haves" are on my list.
Cards? I don't like cards with my stats on them, even if they are rather useful. They're clutter, at least to me.

"Lack of ambiguity" tops my list. All else come in a distant second.

Clearly written rules please. Avoid grey areas.
Serious editing/proof reading – short errata sheet (if any).
Examples of play to clarify the well written rules.
Basing agnostic.

Not a requirement, but I do like PDF rules because you can search words/phrases.

Easy to learn, Easy to play, Easy to Teach

Summing up the above:
1. Lack of ambiguity. Clearly written.
2. Does not insult my view of "history" for that period.
3. Flying monkeys.

That's pretty much it.

For me : command and control , innovative , and there must be an end to the game ; single figure units running around the table is so annoying .

Hi, Mike. When you use command radius rules, in the span of time one turn represents, the commander can assess, plan, write orders, dispatch, be received by sub commanders, understood by sub commanders, sub commanders can formulate a ew plan, internally disseminate and execute, for countless numbers of units within the radious. If the time frame for what a turn represents 30 minutes (or so), that requires a substantial suspension of disbelief for me! Modern armies would have a hard time to accomplish that even today.

Units outside a command radius should be able to continue performing tasks to meet their assigned objectives. Using command radius rules, representing that would not allow use of historical grand tactics and such units affected be restricted in their ability to "sieze the moment" to accomplish their assigned taskings. Perhaps, if movement and the changing of objective purposes could be ignored pertaining to an affected unit, it could work, but then why even have them in the first place, eh? If that works for you, then fine.

No arguement at all, Mike. Just trying to explain why it doesn't work for me.

Why do you like the Command Radius rules, Mike? I would like to better understand your position with regards to realistic expectations of units within a real command process. I think the topic is on-topic for what the OP is after.

Thanks for your comment.

v/r
Tom

nnascati +1

Yes, due to my lack of intelligence it needs to be very easy to learn and extremely light on rule references with lashings and lashings of fun and playability with a dash of historical believability thrown in for good measure.

Most of all, the game must provide me with some real decision making with a sense that my decisions are actually making a difference to the outcome (whether for better or worse).

Easy to learn, scenarios and points play and lots of pretty pictures.

Lack of table clutter, easy to pick up, and can fight a large battle to completion in 3 or 4 hours.

get the and ready this is going to be good .

Wow! Great number of thoughtful responses! Much appreciated. Here is my Followup which will probably highlight my ignorance. Apologies in advance. But what are Flying Monkeys?? Tom I found your comments about command and control very interesting. I have my own views on that and would be happy to have a deeper dive discourse with you. Might bore the people here though. Can you find my email through the member info?

The second theme I love is "well written, easy to read and learn", Unambiguous. Problem with writing rules is the author knows what's in his head. Problem is translating that so everyone else can understand it. I've struggled with many a rules set trying to get into the head of the designer.

That's a Detriment to fast and fun play IMO.

So here is a Followup question. What serves best to make rules easy to understand. Well written is a given. But how about examples of play? AARs? A Blog? FAQs? Feel free to list as many "helpful" items as you like.

Cheers! Lee

Hi, Lee. Email addys are not in the member's profile. Feel free to email me: tomdye14 AT yahoo dot com.

The term "flying monkeys" refers to a commander view of his troops running away. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.

You wrote: "Problem is translating that so everyone else can understand it. I've struggled with many a rules set trying to get into the head of the designer." That is spot on why I haven't been able to satisfactorily complete my cohesion rules. I am finding that it takes more verbiage to explain the concepts than the actual rules themselves!

" What serves best to make rules easy to understand." For me, besides examples, an explaination as to what the designer is trying to achieve in the mechanics he is putting forth. In game design notes, the designer should provide a discussion of what issues he/she deems important in the era the rules cover, and why he discounted other factors. This helps greatly when playing and provides a better understanding of how the designer handled things. It gives the purchased a yardstick to measure how close his design hit the intended mark.

v/r
Tom

10/20 sided dice systems are not popular

Rearrange these two words at your leisure:

Grave

Frost

John T

John T. Drawing a complete blank. Col. Frosts grave at Arnhem? Except he survived. LOL

If someone could come up with a turn system that really portrayed the timing and relationship between rate of fire and movement rate for real opportunity fire I'd be interested.

I think if that could be portrayed in a playable manner it would solve a lot of other problems created by a structured turn sequence, IGOUO or random activation's. Sitting idle while my opponent shoots at me or waiting to be artificially activated just don't feel right to me. I guess I'm weird that way.

I'm not talking about reaction checks, die roll modifiers or turn interrupts either.

Wolfhag

I think turn interrupts work quite well. Why don't you like them? I like battles that flare up and die down in an ebb and flow across the entire table irrespective of whose actual turn it is. I think real firefights were in a lot of ways like real forest fires. They tend to move around and wax and wane on their own. I like my games to have a mind of their own vs overly structured.

Done correctly turn interrupts can achieve that effect.

Lee

I think Dye4minis is on the right track. But would clarify.

Generally battles are over bar tre shouting when One side loses about 10%. In reality higher casualties are usually when the unit is overun and effectively no longer fighting. Suppression is a key factor in the shooting war not casualties. Note even today rhe role of artillery is "To Supress and fix in place".

Also decent terrain rules that make for easy interpretation.

Casualties are one of those things that a lot of games end up fudging because gamers get grumpy if they play for 3 hours and only get to remove 3 enemy guys in a platoon level fight.

Lee,
I'm not saying that I don't like interrupts or reaction. I do like them and use them but I have a somewhat different approach with them.

The turn system I'm using is all about the timing element of an action the player has selected. While an "action point" system allows a certain amount of action within a turn what I'm calling "Time & Action" uses one second turns (somewhat like action points) as the timing element to measure how long it will take an action to be performed in a future turn. I think that is different than arbitrary or random activation too.

The GM or any player announces the turn numbers in sequence. When the current turn number corresponds with a player unit action turn ALL units on the table execute their action simultaneously – that's the biggest difference. This eliminates the need for "chain reactions" and initiative determination. The action of ALL units on the table is synchronized to the same turn.

Since opportunity fire (a top feature for me) is all about timing there is no need for special rules because you can time where a moving target will be when the shooters future turn to fire comes. Sometimes the target moves out of his LOS before he gets the shot off, too bad. Sometimes another enemy unit knocks you out before you fire, too bad.

I agree with everyone about games being too attrition based. Players like to blow things up – it's called fun. Reality sucks and can be a real bummer.

Wolfhag

Rules for:

Command Control (what generals actually do).
Troop Quality.
Allow Manuver.

Thomas J. Thomas
Fame and Glory Games

Top three unneeded items:

d6 base (big playability drawback)

Pretty pictures (useless padding that makes rules more expensive and harder to use)

Special powers/rules/abilites (at least kept em to a minimum)

TomT

One of the requirements should be illustrations/pictures of what the rules are talking about regarding basing, movement, firing, combat, etc., and how units are to be based. For me, I bought WRG's "Armour and Infantry Rules 1925-1950 (still have them, by the way)" and some of the terminology was lost on the 11-year old American boy who owned them (me): "Lorry", "Bound", etc., and pics of troops mounted on "bases" would have been nice as well as the shape, size, and material of said bases. Examples through pics, PLEASE. The only part of the rules that made sense were the armor rules, as the infantry rules were a mystery to me…