"Wally Simon's Volume 7: WWII Secrets of Wargame Design" Topic
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onmilitarymatters | 13 Mar 2017 9:42 a.m. PST |
Hot off the press and now in stock here at OMM (and available at Cold Wars) -- the 7th volume in the Wally Simon series: WWII Secrets of Wargame Design ($19). Lots of nuts & bolts rules mechanics…
- The Zen of Armor Combat: To Hit or Not to Hit
- WWII Battalion Skirmish: Casualty Filter, Rally Areas, and Reinforcement Cards
- Armor Firing and Damage: Single Die Throw System
- US Invasion of Vladivostock: Goofettes A Plenty
- Skirmishing with 54mm Figures: Poses, Actions, and Sustained Fire
- A Trio of Bridges: Time as Command and Control Increments
- Command Strike at Dawn: Skirmish Raid
- Pacific Carrier Battle: Quick, Simple, and Random
- Oregon Beach: Solo Landing Scenario
- City Fight: Block by Block in Stalingrad
- Island Invasion: Naval Bombardment, Efficiency, and Reaction Points
- Town Skirmish: Suppression Fire and Reaction Chart
- Two 15mm Battles: Dispersal, Initiative Ploy, and Clock Die Op Fire
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Joe Legan | 13 Mar 2017 1:56 p.m. PST |
Wonder if there is anything new in there? Joe |
(Phil Dutre) | 14 Mar 2017 12:29 p.m. PST |
Looking forward to this volume! |
Russ Lockwood | 19 Mar 2017 2:39 p.m. PST |
Wonder if there is anything new in there? The articles are all cherry picked from Wally's PW Newsletter (1980s to 2000s) and do not duplicate any of the articles in the first six 'Secrets' volumes. I edit them, add comments where necessary, clean up what few graphics he used, and add additional illustrations (in this case, WWII-era photos). In a case or two, when he stretched an article across multiple issues with different variations, I condensed them into one article for the 'Secrets' volume. I choose articles that contain interesting, practical, and innovative rules mechanics that you can use to add spice to existing rules or replace sections of rules -- with the possible exception of "US Invasion of Vladivostock: Goofettes A Plenty" -- which is more along the lines of what *not* to do in rules design. This is the first period-specific volume -- the others covered all periods. All the articles cover 'nuts and bolts' rules mechanics. As some purchasers noted, the articles gets them thinking and experimenting -- exactly what I had in mind for a 'tabletop toolkit of ideas, analysis, and rule mechanics.' |
Ottoathome | 22 Mar 2017 7:41 a.m. PST |
Doubt there's anything "new" as Wally's been dead for over a decade. Still the stuff wally put out in Potomac Review were pure gems and Russ has done a good job of selection. I have Featherstone's War Gamers Newsletter from the 1960's and 70's and I still go through them and find new ideas and great hints in stuff I've read time and again. You never know when one of these ideas that seems irrelevant before suddenly fills a need. |
Ney Ney | 23 Mar 2017 4:07 p.m. PST |
Just curious really, who Wally Simon was. I'm not well red in all characters in our hobby so have not heard of him. Please can someone tell me more about Mr Simon? Thanks. |
Ottoathome | 23 Mar 2017 4:20 p.m. PST |
Wally Simon was the Wally of "Wally's Basement" who was literally the founder of HMGS and hisoricon. He gathered in his basement a large number of then well known gamers who were irked that Historical Miniatures were being marginalized in he big fantasy and board game cons and decided with the help of those who attended to start HMGS and the conventions. I knew Wall at that time but I was NOT in Wally's Basement for that memorable date. Ed Mohrman has the list of who was here and what generally the course of it was. Wall was an avid gamer and also created and Published (print) PW Review or Potomac Wargamers Review, from which most of the articles Russ is excerpting he things in this book and others. Wally was a great guy a tireless promoter and was on the board of HMGs for many years in the early days along with Pat Condray, Dick Sossi, Jay Hadley, Bob Coggins, and dozens of others. He was a tireless rules designer and possessed of a great sense of humor and engaging personality. Wally was one of the best rules designers in he world because he thoroughly playtested his games and when I mean playtested, he did not sit around like a university professor puffing burgundy flavored tobacco and pontificating on his august opinion on a rules set. He would toss the figures on the table and actually play game after game where he consciously tried to break the rules and make them fail so that you could see where they were lacking and fix the problem. He had no truck with either a cult of realism, or with a cult of playability. It had to be engaging, but he never lost sight of the fact that the troops were only tokens and toy soldiers and had no relation to their prototypes in real life. Wally was a friend and sponsor of many gamers, gave away whole armies, and was a tireless promoter of the games. Along with Dick Bryant and others he believed that war games had to be PUBLISHED. That is rules, battle reports, scenarios and games, otherwise it would all be like dust in the wind and just blow away. Others who knew him better than I can tell you more. |
Russ Lockwood | 23 Mar 2017 7:49 p.m. PST |
To fill in a little bit more… Wally was a statistician by profession, so he used mathematical skills to analyze probabilities within the wargame mechanics. His goal, as he once wrote: "Produce a game which keeps all players continually busy and interested in what's going on." He would toss the figures on the table and actually play game after game where he consciously tried to break the rules and make them fail so that you could see where they were lacking and fix the problem. So true. When he was in design mode, he'd change the rules in mid game, sometimes several times, always tinkering to improve the flow of a game. I recall heading down to his house for a weekend and just was amazed that he would say he felt like a WWII game, pull out some map drawn on butcher block paper that may have been used for a medieval game, pull out a box or two of microarmor, and drop it on the map. Then he'd get a tone in his voice and say he had just been working on a set of WWII rules… Wish I had lived closer… Anyway, here's the introduction I chose to begin Volume 1 "Secrets of Wargame Design" -- here, Wally outlines his approach to wargaming. Link: Wally Rules: The Search for Tabletop Perfection The other links still work as of a minute ago, so you can get a sample article from Vol 1 to read. Plug for the record: Volume 1: Secrets of Wargame Design Volume 2: More Secrets of Wargame Design Volume 3: Solo Secrets of Wargame Design Volume 4: Campaign Secrets of Wargame Design Volume 5: Master Secrets of Wargame Design Volume 6: Skirmish Secrets of Wargame Design Volume 7: WWII Secrets of Wargame Design All contain 13 articles with what few illustrations, maps, etc, that were in the original articles, supplemented by additional illustrations I inserted. Available from onmilitarymatters.com here in the US and caliverbooks.com in the UK. |
Ottoathome | 24 Mar 2017 8:22 a.m. PST |
All true Russ. One further point about wall that he never spoke about and which was apparent only after long acquaintance. Wally was highly conscious of the limitations of the game, specifically what could be done and what could not be done-- what was possible and what was not, and the latter he simply didn't try to do. He had no illusions regarding realism and never gave more than a general nod in that direction. His central theory was that the toy soldiers were just that, merely toys and tokens. He was also unstinting in either praise or condemnation, and this was especially true when his own rules and ideas turned out to be real stinkers. He was frankly contemptuous of those who tried to elevate the game to the realm of command studies or graduate courses. Another feature of the "Wally Game" was that he would forget about the chrome and complication and first tack down the basic principles and elaborate from there. Wally's "Rule of 10" became a standard corpus which once you knew you could move fast with. Infantry moved 10" cavalry 20" 10 sided die etc., all basically just abstract values, meaningless in themselves, but meant to provide a framework so you could PLAY the game and see how it worked and test it as you went along, rather than writing a huge rule book down to the last detail before you got into the game. And you are correct. There was none of this "Well, we'll leave this terrible rule in place for this game and change it next time." Oh no, as soon as it was seen to be a stinker Wally took it out and the gamers popped up with ad-hoc solutions. |
Russ Lockwood | 28 Mar 2017 6:44 a.m. PST |
Rule of 10… Ah, yes. Quite often, his enduring rules for movement were that infantry move 10 inches in every terrain, but you needed a 70% or less roll on d100 to enter new terrain. Odd little rule that had the effect of either frustrating you to pound the dice into dust or that terrain had no effect. Come to think of it, he really liked d100 percentage dice, even when a single die could do the job. Like that 70% rule…just about the same effect rolling a d6 if that was the only aspect. Yet for other parts of his rules for a particular game, modifiers would be 10% for this or that, creating a far different chance than adding/subtracting 1 on a d6. On occasion, he would get *too* mathematical for the folks around the table. One of the articles I put in one of the volumes had his usual gaming group complaining "Why can't we just use a d6 and hit on 6s?" :) |
Ottoathome | 28 Mar 2017 7:24 a.m. PST |
One more thing Russ that unfortunately no matter how much you try you will never be able to shoe-horn into the booklets was Wally's boundless and entirely infectious excitement and interest. He was a real dynamo. |
Ney Ney | 28 Mar 2017 9:15 a.m. PST |
This is great thanks so much for spending the time to tell me. Sometimes I wish there was more info like this about some of the hobbys "names" as not everyone knows them all. Again, thanks. |
Russ Lockwood | 04 Apr 2017 2:16 p.m. PST |
no matter how much you try you will never be able to shoe-horn into the booklets was Wally's boundless and entirely infectious excitement and interest. He was a real dynamo. Best I can do is make sure Wally's humor remains in the commentary/analysis of an article. I send out monthly or so After Action Reports (PDFs) of wargames I played, which always includes rules mechanics analysis, to a private e-mail list. I try to capture the spirit of the game and the players in addition to the what moved where parts -- while trying to make it interesting for the readers who may not know the system or scenario or even period. It's like a newsletter (sorry, blogs look like far too much work) that pops in. It's not exactly like PW Review or even MWAN, but the gamers that receive it appreciate it. |
Ottoathome | 04 Apr 2017 3:26 p.m. PST |
Dear Russ So do I with my "Saxe N'Violets Newsletter. I do it in print. Glad to hear you do something of the same thing. I suspect there is a whole 'nother underworld of people out there attempting to do the same thing. Otto |
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