"Homebrew rules..." Topic
25 Posts
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Bozkashi Jones | 18 May 2017 2:38 p.m. PST |
There are some good rulesets out there so I just wondered we so many of us use "homebrew" rules… I use commercial sets – GQ, Battlestations!Battlestations!, Sails of Glory, for example – but for certain types of actions I prefer homebrew. As an example, for small actions such as a couple of destroyers against a similar pair the main decisions are which way to point the ship and what to shoot at. For single ship actions the number of command decisions is even more limited with most commercial sets. That's why I've been cobbling together a set that gives me a few more decisions. I only have a certain number of actions – 4 – so I can load the guns and fire them and still have actions left over. When I start taking damage though I have to start making decisions. Let's say I've lost some crew so I'm down to 3 actions, I take a couple of hits – one starts a fire and another starts flooding the boiler room. Next turn I could load, fire, try and patch up the crew in the sick berth, stem the flooding, fight the fire… but I can't do it all. Maybe it's time to make smoke and sort out the ship. It gives me the "flavour" I'm after – to be the captain of a destroyer, like I'm in my own Douglas Reeman novel. Don't get me wrong; I don't always want this level of detail. For a fleet action in the Med I'd use BB – ideal for big actions. For something like the Barents Sea I'd use GQ as there would be a dozen ships in action, not to mention the merchants. For modern I use homebrew with the emphasis on reacting and fast decision making – it makes them more tense, exciting and players are more likely to make mistakes, which for me gives the "feel" of what I imagine modern naval combat to be. For age of sail I use SoG; there seem to be plenty of good sets for small actions, but not many that replicate the command and control problems of a fleet action, so do players use homebrew or "house" rules to fill the gaps? Just interested in your thoughts. Nick |
Mako11 | 18 May 2017 4:55 p.m. PST |
After the age of sail, I suspect loading weapons isn't really an issue, unless they are knocked out. There are always personnel, and/or tech to do that, unlike in the earlier eras. |
Blutarski | 18 May 2017 8:13 p.m. PST |
Home brew rules ultimately stem from dissatisfaction with one aspect or another of commercial rule sets. I started writing my "Steer to Glory" AoS rules as a reaction to (a)the awesomely cumbersome rule mechanics found in one rule set that shall not be named, (b) the ridiculously non-historical tactics encouraged by another set of rules that shall not be named, and (c) the complete absence in both sets of any restrictions upon Cypress Garden like cybernetically coordinated simultaneous mass motorboat maneuvers by one's fleet. B |
Bozkashi Jones | 19 May 2017 1:36 a.m. PST |
Mako – yep, that's true, but I use it as a mechanism so that as a ship takes damage the firing becomes more sporadic, which is about the "feel" of the action reflecting what I've read about naval combat. The actual homebrew rules don't matter too much, I was wondering about why we use them. Blutarski – that's what I was wondering, though obviously my lawyers tell me that I have no idea what rulesets you refer to ;-) C3 seems to be quite poorly handled in most sets and yes, players have far too much control, so I can see why you would turn to homebrew. |
Blutarski | 19 May 2017 4:38 a.m. PST |
Boz – My barrister, H Rumpole, advised me to refrain from being specific in that regard. I concede that I am prone to hyperbole on occasion (currently under treatment). Most commercial rules are written and offered for sale by well intentioned people. Some are just better at the task than others. The C3 problem was actually quite simply solved (to my satisfaction at least) by a very clever friend. Phil Jarvio, please get in touch if you are still out there! Been way too long. B |
Poniatowski | 19 May 2017 5:01 a.m. PST |
What Blutarski said…. It is us, thinking we can make something better or trying to as it doesn't sit well with us on how it should be played. I have written Napoleonic Tactical rules because I was unhappy with the rules out there… The closest thing I liked to what I had written is when I got to playtest some Fire & Fury rules as they were being designed for Napoleonics.. then they went and upped the scale and blew the aspect ratio up, like so many other games do…. SO, homebrew is what happens when we think we can do something better…. then, with luck, they get published.. only to be used to make someone else's hombre rule set. |
Cursd Captain | 19 May 2017 7:35 a.m. PST |
Because of disappointment. I started writing my own rules (no longer homebrew rule set) (or hombre rule set -- I like that) -- because local players had bought into the problematic rules named after a major fleet battle and published by a chain of stores, and were disappointed. But, I recognize a coercive impulse in writing rules. I have recently been struck by Frank Chadwick's explanation for his very light rules in Volley and Bayonet: the players must decide if they want to act in period or not. Rules can't insure historical or realistic behavior by themselves. I wonder if anyone ever starts with a discussion of what kinds of things they don't want to see happen in the story and makes a commitment among friends to abide by those principles. I have seen this work in experimental RPGs like Microscope, where it's called agreeing to a "palette" for the game. |
Murvihill | 19 May 2017 10:26 a.m. PST |
After playing a few games in an era you decide what you want in a wargame: play-ability, scope of control, speed etc. Eventually you find that no set of published rules has everything in the combination you're looking for so you make up your own. The only exception to this was The Sword and the Flame, I've had so much fun with it I've never looked for anything else in colonials. |
Yellow Admiral | 19 May 2017 10:49 a.m. PST |
In the 90s I wrote a whole set of fleet action AoS rules because I wanted to used Andy Callan's super-cool flag signalling system in The Byng Touch but hated the rest of the mechanics. Almost a decade ago I pulled that set out again and modified it so much that it became a different set of rules, because I wanted to play without rosters (all status tracked with props on the table), but still handle large fleets at a fast pace with unique vessels using proper sailing tactics and a realistic pace and scale of damage results. Unfortunately, I am too short of players in this area to playtest (or even play), so I dropped the project. I haven't had the willpower to ramp up the effort for far away conventions. "Maybe next year" plays on a loop in my head every time I run across the project in the closet. I also have a set of half-baked rules for playing big fleet actions in the Renaissance (roughly 1500-1650), again partly because I have yet to see rules that do this the way I'd like it done, but also partly because I want to play games with swarms of the beautiful Langton Renaissance galleys and Valiant galleons on the table (they're pretty, but too small for single-ship actions). Most rules for this era are written either specifically for Lepanto or the 1588 Armada battles, and work poorly for much else. If I want unified rules to do both, or to play big, sprawling battles mixing galleys and round ships, I'm going to have to write them myself… - Ix |
Yellow Admiral | 19 May 2017 10:50 a.m. PST |
On the flip side of this discussion: I am philosophically opposed to writing my own rules for AoS games games at the micro-tactical level: 1-2 ships per player, managing things like gun loads, sail settings, crew allocations, and other "captain level" decisions. There are already plenty of rules in the world that do this well enough, or will with only slight modifications. - Ix |
A C London | 20 May 2017 1:38 p.m. PST |
I can think of two reasons why home brew sets are more common at sea than ashore. 1. Because naval is a minority interest a higher proportion of us start-out with a deep interest in the history. We are therefore more likely to find in a commercial set an inaccuracy which we won't stomach. Of course there are land wargamers who have spent years reading around their subject/ ferreting through archives but there is a greater admixture of players whose primary aim is a competitive game / to have fun rolling dice with their mates. These are more likely to accept a commercial set if it is clearly presented, gives a quick and satisfying result in three hours and does not diverge too obviously from reality. 2. Perhaps for this reason, a greater proportion of naval games are either direct refights or plausible "what ifs." These expose differences between the tabletop and history; and lead to commercial sets being rejected. A land game is more likely to be "200 points, you bring Romans, I'll bring Gauls, we'll dice for terrain as per the book." That approach suits competitive play, which cuts-out home brew. You can't have much of a competition if people in Seville play a different set from those in Madrid; and it helps if the same set is played in Paris, London and Chicago too. I guess most of us would see both these factors as positives. They probably are on balance. But it's a shame that 1 means that new players tend to start ashore rather than at sea. Peculiar too really, when you think that naval history is both inherently more interesting and more easily transferred to the tabletop. While I prefer historical refights, factor 2 also has its downside. Tired people can play a "200 pt" land game on the way home from work with no need for preparation. While the need to find obits, complete ship data cards, etc might get naval games put-off to high days and holidays. Also, the occasional points-based game can test players and help them to refine their tactics. Alan |
Bozkashi Jones | 20 May 2017 3:56 p.m. PST |
Interesting points Alan – I'd never considered that naval wargamers tend to go for historical battles or plausible "what ifs", but you're dead right. Looking back on my AARs there are refights of: Cape Spada 1940 Convoy PQ13 1942 Denmark Straits 1941 River Plate 1939 Operation Praying mantis 1987 And plausible actions including: Renown and Duke of York intercept Tirpitz returning from Operation Sportpalast 1942 Beatty's 1st BC Sqn catch Hipper returning from a raid on England's East Coast 1914 In my limited experience of land gaming I don't think I've ever fought a historical battle. Maybe it's the work involved – for naval gamers a bit of blue cloth can be the North Altantic, the Mediterranean or the Pacific and once one has the main units of one's chosen fleet plus a smattering of DDs, CLs and CAs pretty much any action is possible. The interest in history is a good point too. Land gamers obviously have a similar interest but histories tend to follow corps or divisional level, with occasional mentions of lower level formations. This does make historical actions difficult (though not impossible) unless going for 'grand tactical' level. For naval the exploits of each individual ships are easy to find and so is that ship's part in a larger battle. And I also suppose that sheer numbers play a part. Even scaled down Waterloo 1815 or Caen 1944 are big affairs. For naval gamers fleet actions will often still be less than 40-50 ships a side, unless doing Jutland or the WW2 Pacific battles. This is achievable – the poor land gamer can't just paint his figures grey and apply a dark wash and some highlights, and they have to do hundreds of them. And I now realise I've wandered off topic – when I started the topic! Humble apologies… Nick |
Lion in the Stars | 21 May 2017 3:32 a.m. PST |
I wrote a set of submarine v submarine rules because I didn't like any of the existing rules (my rules are a modification of Full Thrust), though I was inspired by NVDoyle. I played Seapower with some house rules, mostly an expansion of the gun/armor tables to include 20" tubes and superheavy armor belts. I also use David Manley's mods to Trafalgar. |
Charlie 12 | 23 May 2017 7:59 p.m. PST |
Not so much homebrew, but another impulse is to move a proven system into another era. Currently, two of us are taking the GQ3/FAI system and adapting it to the predreadnought era. |
Sailor Steve | 23 May 2017 10:25 p.m. PST |
"Home brew rules ultimately stem from dissatisfaction with one aspect or another of commercial rule sets." I feel exactly the same way, except in my own weirdness I tend to make it worse, not better. My dissatisfaction is with generic damage locations. Following on 'Clear For Action' but going a lot further, my Ship Sheets have the front side filled with everything needed to run the ship – speed, acceleration, turn rates, guns, torpedoes, and a bit of history describing when the ship was modified. the back side includes everything needed for taking damage – a top-view of the ship, a damage chart for guns and another for torpedoes, speed-effect chart for when engines and boilers are taken out, flooding chart and percentage thereof for capsizing, and ammo supply charts. It all looks complicated, but my friends who have tried it all say it plays a lot quicker than expected and while it is complex it's not really that complicated, and despite all the numbers seen at first glance it actually works like a flow chart, so you're only performing one simple operation at a time. On the other hand they're as crazy as I am, so what do they know? Outside of that there is a single chart for firing and another for damage, so besides the individual sheet for each ship there are only two charts necessary. It's cumbersome and slow when cruisers and destroyers start taking massive amounts of hits, but normally play is pretty fast, with each turn only covering one minute. My main goal was not to be able to play fleet actions quickly, as that's already been done a lot, but to make me feel like I was on board a ship again, with all the complications to worry about. Silly, but it's just for me, and anybody I can get to play with me. |
A C London | 24 May 2017 8:39 a.m. PST |
Lots of good points made. Thanks Lion for pointing to another reason for writing your own set: to focus on an aspect of warfare that you find especially interesting. An all-round set will contain bags of stuff extraneous to sub v sub fighting and will likely have to make compromises that you can avoid. Charlie points to another – adapting a favourite print set to a new period. Decades ago I was put-off pre-dreads by the quality of the rules available for them. Newer sets have been recommended to me, that I'd like to try. But I can see the point of bringing Fleet Action Imminent back in time. Steve's captain's rules sound fascinating. People say that naval rules go into too much detail; but more often the problem is that we go into too much detail for the size of the action we're fighting. Rules with that level of detail wouldn't do for Jutland but they turn a small action into a good evening. I know of a set (haven't seen or played it yet) that covers just damage control. You deploy damage control parties and flood to try to keep an even-keel. Everything else is abstracted away. Not the only set of rules you'd want to play for a period, but one from which you'd likely be able to learn a lot. Steve also underlines the point about the weight of knowledge naval players bring to a game. How many ashore know that much about the regiments they command? I very much agree with Bozkashi/ Nick. My favourite is the ironclad era, during which (tho it pains me to admit it) there wasn't that much action. Still, I find that a greater proportion of my ironclad fights are historical/ nr historical than the land battles I fight using sets which cover periods in which there were many well-recorded battles. Hope I haven't been too simplistic. Some land rules do lead you to actual battles. For example, the Fire and Fury sets covering land aspects of the American Civil War focus on refighting real actions. Also, I don't think its simply a good/ bad equation. There is something to be said for quick, points-limited battles. I'd like to see more naval wargame competitions. But overall we get the better of the bargain. Alan |
Yellow Admiral | 24 May 2017 11:05 p.m. PST |
Currently, two of us are taking the GQ3/FAI system and adapting it to the predreadnought era. I'd love to see what you come up with. I started this project years ago, abandoned it ("too much wooooooorrrrk!" he whined…), and am now sort of leaning back into it a bit at a time. There are many pre-dreadnought battles I want to play before my pre-dreadnought gaming peers and I all die off, and I've always thought the GQ3 framework was an excellent starting point for the period. - Ix |
Yellow Admiral | 24 May 2017 11:11 p.m. PST |
Revisiting this topic: A project I started last year (and have sworn to finish this year!) is to pit the post-ACW US Navy against the navy of Napoleon III. This will naturally require some large fleet actions, and all of my favorite ironclad rules would be overwhelmed by the number of vessels. My hunt for rules to play out a true fleet-action approach to the 1860s in a short period of time (4-6 hours) has turned up nothing satisfying, so…. the writing begins. Wish me luck. - Ix |
Yellow Admiral | 24 May 2017 11:19 p.m. PST |
My dissatisfaction is with generic damage locations. A beef of mine for some time. As you say, it's appropriate to the admiral's eyrie, but hardly enough to move the imagination onto the bridge of a single ship. I'll add another: predictable strike/sink points, at least in the Age of Sail. I've long felt that the (now very old) approach of providing a ship with a set number of "hull" boxes and declaring it striking or sinking when it runs out is too deterministic. The literal tipping point of a vessel is actually hard to predict, and morale failure is even harder (and less . I prefer to have the flotation/morale boxes (or score or whatever) represent the predictable buffer, after which the likelihood of disaster seems close but still a bit unpredictable. - Ix |
A C London | 25 May 2017 10:38 a.m. PST |
Hi Yellow, What size of French v post-Civil War battles are you plotting? I ask because this period interests me hugely. I have spent thirty or so years studying it and developing a set of rules for it. They are not quite there yet but already produce games (in my, not entirely unbiased, view) way above any other set of wargame rules. Notionally, they are fast play. However, I've noticed that players (esp those new to the period) tend to enjoy the games more when commanding fewer ships. Also, that increasing the number of players doesn't speed play in anything like proportion. The convoy moves at the speed of the slowest. We tried Lissa at about half strength twice and neither game finished. We play in a pub, with only about 3/ 3.5 hours a game, so you might do better with 4 or 5 hrs. But I'm coming to feel that smaller games (esp if you can fit two into an evening) tend to give more pleasure than big ones. David Manley has recently published a big-battle set aimed directly at Lissa, which might suit your needs better. I have not seen it, but he has an excellent reputation. If writing your own, my tip would be to keep as close as you possibly can to the history. There's a temptation to fudge the gun/ armour balance to make penetration easier than it was in reality, in the belief that this produces a better "game." It doesn't; and once that crucial balance is broken the whole thing unravels. As this is far and away the most interesting era of naval history, the closer you get to reality, the better the game will be. Alan |
Yellow Admiral | 25 May 2017 12:02 p.m. PST |
What size of French v post-Civil War battles are you plotting? Numerous small coastal actions or high seas guerre de course raider/hunter encounters can be handled just fine by Iron & Fire or Sail & Steam Navies, but large-scale attempts to sieze or defend a port like Vera Cruz, Tampico, Martinique, or even New Orleans require rules that handle a fleet-scale battle with shore batteries at a reasonable pace. For that matter, even historical ACW battles like New Orleans, Charleston and Mobile Bay require this, and I haven't really seen rules that feel right to me. I&F and S&SN have the right feel of detail and design differences, but tend to bog with more than 1-2 ships per player – there are just too many mechanical operations to work through for each move and shot. Games that reduce the movement and shooting mechanics tend to gloss over the design differences that I consider critical to represent in the early ironclad period. You can see some of my thoughts about a Franco-American conflict in this TMP thread that got me started thinking about this silly subject. My dubious psuedo-historical narrative already includes two big battles at Vera Cruz: the American assault to take the port early in the Franco-American war, then the French counter-attack to take it back with a large fleet of a dozen+ SOLs supported by a good-sized detachment of ironclads, frigates, sloops, etc. Caribbean naval warfare by remote powers always naturally settles into two phases: the "fleet ops" season from December through May and the "raids & patrols" phase during the hurricane season from June through November. David Manley has recently published a big-battle set aimed directly at Lissa, which might suit your needs better. I have not seen it, but he has an excellent reputation. I got them, and while I think they probably accomplish their goal of "Lissa in a day", they (deliberately) gloss over many of small but critical design differences which I'd like to see represented in the Franco-American conflict. The French and American ironclads had very different design approaches, the Confederates yet another, and ex-pat Confederate shipbuilders making a coastal force for Maximilian with access to French arms, iron and engines would have had another still. There's a temptation to fudge the gun/ armour balance to make penetration easier than it was in reality, in the belief that this produces a better "game." It doesn't; and once that crucial balance is broken the whole thing unravels. I'm on your choir, preacher, that's never a temptation of mine. One of my pet peeves is games that increase the pace and/or scale of damage in order to speed the game. The real result is to destroy the historical balance between fire and maneuver and thus lose the most important part of any wargame – the decision cycle that gives the player the point of view of his historical counterpart. - Ix |
A C London | 26 May 2017 5:48 p.m. PST |
Yellow, I've not tried it, but I don't think my rules would work well for something like Charleston. For me the essence of naval warfare is it's fluidity; and the command and control problems that provokes. It's that which makes naval wargaming – done right – so much more exciting than anything that happens ashore. A prolonged bombardment of powerful fixed defences would give the forts' defenders a dull game and I am not sure it would hold the interest of the attackers for long enough. In a campaign I would abstract it, or fight just a slice and multiply-up the results. They work better for attempts to pass (rather than to obliterate) forts. A half-scale attempt at Mobile went disastrously quickly when I over-estimated the effect of the mines / torpedoes. But games based around Buchanan's last fight went well and we have had some fascinating ones based around the passing of lesser fortifications up river. A battle between a handful of Fr ironclads, a dozen steam ships of the line, a dozen lesser steamers and a US force of (when stiffened by shore defences) similar force wd strain against the upper limits of rules like mine which try to bring-out the character of individual ships. Which is why I wondered about David Manley's big battle set. I've been reading yr Mexican thread with great interest. I agree with most of what you say about the naval side – esp re the power of the French rams. One thing I'd like to hear more about is your belief in the effectiveness of the Fr rifles in penetrating armour, if not that of the turrets of the US monitors. One of the great things about the ironclad era is the way in which ships were frequently up-gunned. So that a single model gives you a multitude of characters to game with. Even by ironclad standards the Fr discarded and replaced their guns with unusual rapidity in the 1860s. That could be down to zeal to get the very best guns in place, but I rather suspect it reflects problems in getting useful penetration out of them. It is something I need to read more about. By your time, I guess the older six ironclads would mostly be carrying the M1864 version of the 6.4 inch rifle, but that still seems rather small for an armour-penetrating gun. Do you know how it compares in power with similar-sized rifles used in the Civil War and at Lissa? Of course a lot depends on how you grade the US armour compounded out of thin plates. The bigger guns carried by the Provence class shd make more of a dent. Anyway, I must not waffle too long. It is a formidable project. Let us know how it goes. Alan |
Sailor Steve | 27 May 2017 4:09 a.m. PST |
I'll add another: predictable strike/sink points I ran into a similar problem with some World War 2 games. I hated seeing the ship take flooding damage from a hit on a radar mast, or the bridge, or a turret, etc. Likewise the opposite, as exemplified by 'Fletcher Pratt's' – after X number of damage you lose the use of a gun. I use a percent dice role to determine location, and that's what is hit. Period. Flooding damage only takes place with a waterline hit, based on reports I've read "There was flooding along eighty feet of the waterline." Guns are only lost if they are hit. This has lead to some fun games in which one turret (or boiler, or engine) somehow turns into a hit-magnet. Three turrets operating just fine, while 'B' turret is a mangled mess. Silly, but we've had some good times. |
A C London | 27 May 2017 8:12 a.m. PST |
Steve, I very much agree with your first two points. I too dislike damage systems like that. Tho I guess the second has the advantage of speeding play and it can be hard to know which corners to cut. I can see pros and cons to your third point. A lot depends on the period. A feature of systems that allocate armament damage to specific mounts (a roll of 1 hits A turret, 2 hits B turret, etc) is that the damage inflicted by each penetrating armament hit declines as damage accumulates. The first penetrating hit on a turret is certain to count. The second penetrating turret hit will (in a four turret ship) have only a 75 percent chance of reducing the target's firepower, the third penetrating hit is only half as likely to inflict damage as the first, etc. In one sense that is logical. Once half the turrets are knocked out the chances of a shell finding a serviceable one are halved. A graph tracking damage inflicted by penetrating turret hits would show the effect of successive hits tailing-off. However I wonder if, depending on the period, that reflects the way accumulated damage tended to reduce a ship's effective firepower. In periods in which guns were centrally controlled splinters could cut the links between remaining mounts and the gunnery control, reducing a ship's effective firepower. As damage accumulated the paths through which ammunition could be got to the remaining mounts might be cut, flooded or blocked by minor fires. Magazines themselves might be flooded for fear of fire or to keep the ship trim. Power lines to the turrets might be cut. Ultimately, hits elsewhere might produce such a list as to prevent turrets from being traversed. A key factor, that tends to be under-represented in naval rules, is morale. You often read about incredibly brave men keeping a few guns firing from a doomed ship. You rarely hear of them hitting anything. It must have taken a lot of courage / training and adrenaline to stand by your guns as the ship is blasted around you. But might the knowledge that in a few minutes' time you would likely be dead or in the water get in the way of the split-second judgments which make the difference between hitting and missing at sea. My hunch is that, depending on the period, this might off-set the shells penetrating already knocked-out mounts. So that the graph showing the effect of penetrating armament hits on a vessel's ability to return, effective, well-aimed shots, would be flat or even turn up. For this reason I tend to prefer systems that cause armament hits to produce roughly linear damage, tho I can see that this is debatable and that contra arguments can be made. Alan |
Ottoathome | 27 May 2017 2:13 p.m. PST |
I designed my own rules for much the same reasons. Most of the rest I had played were just too complicated. I called them "Jane's Frightening Ships, 1937." Worked very well. Only 12 pages long, covered everything from air surface, subsurface and amphibious operations. Now I'm going to do a redesign of that and make them even more streamlined. The major purpose was to do away with ship cards. |
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