"Games that lead the way" Topic

As I recall the latest of our big games and see the organised chaos that is bound 32of our current, what some might call a Mini Campaign(I would call a long big battle) and how it looks compared to accounts, I recall what inspired our rules to get this result. I would encourage any designer to play the following games, they were inpirational to us. Inspiration is a personal thing. It has to be inspiration in the aspects of wargaming/simulation you are interested in as a caviat.

DBM – played with the army sizes dictated by the author not three times the size played by "competition players" it is a superb movement system. It allows decisive players to keep reserves of able troops and allows them to be injected in a timely manner. In the battle it drives increasing chaos. This forces both sides to have a lull while they reorgaise. This is often mentioned but seldom appeared in games I played untill DBM. DBA to me was an essay in the craft, new and novel but to me the inspiration came from DBM. DBR to me never got to be as ghood representing it period but the cavalry charge rules that brought even more chaos to a succsessful chage was reminisent of the result for the ancient period as well but it was never read back.

Stargrunt II – agin it was a new attampt at command and control, the move sequence I guess inspired to some extent by squad leader but made more simple (my personal opinion) and effective. Again it lead to battles more representative of accounts. No buildings would change hands a number of times in the same battle.

Crossfire – Not a game I played much but the ideas and inovation showed that at least to an extent, the tyranny of the ruler was not indispensable and that done well movement could be both flexable and credible. That alone makes it inspirational.

Perhaps an honerable mention

Fire and Fury – we never went down this path but have to conceed that it was a viable alternative in some circumstances.

Obviously this is a personal opinion and without doubt biased to my own interest. which is credible maneouver on the battlefield.

Now is you chance as a designer to highlight games and the aspects of them that too you were ground braking.

Groundbreaking? The only rules that might be considered groundbreaking is "Empire III" That monster would crack concrete if you dropped it on it.

Joe Moreschauser's "How to Play War Games In Miniature". Invented just about everything that we use today. Movement stands, the same system from the ancient world to the modern, roster systems, boats and water, campaigns, gridded games, etc, and gave rules for them in a complete little book.

Donald Featherstone "War Games" Encompassed the whole of the game in one book including how to make and cast miniatures, painting, skirmish games, three periods. Coupled with Solo Wargaming he showed that the best way to get the most out of gaming was to write up battle reports and memorialize it all in a Lore.

Charles Grant's "War Games" and his work with characters and the close parallel with historical rules and game design.

Peter Young "Charge!" Overlaid everything with the magic of imagination, humor, whimsy and charm.

No one's done anything new that isn't a derivative of those three. They're still around and being played and everything else like WRG that were to "correct" the historical errors in Featherstone, have wound up on the dust-heap of war game history.

I firmly admit it in the game designer notes of my own rules "Oh God! Anything But a Six! Renaissance to Napoleonics" "Yo-Ho-Ho:(18th Century sailing ship games)" "Have I Ever Told You How The Vienese Bakers Saved Western Civilization"(siege warfare) "Magnolia's Mint Juleps N'Gritz" (American Civil War) "Honey I Sacraficed The Kids" (Pre Greek Ancients) and "The Shattered Century" (WWI-WWII) are all derivative of those three in some measure. They're also derivative in one other way. No more than 12 pages with all rules charts, illustrations and the like in `12 point Times Roman Bold.

Then we must agree to disagree. Even when I bought it as a kid I realised Featherstone's War Games approach to rules was very flawed. The rest like plastercine hills was better done. Lionel Tarry scenary in that book inspired our own 1/72 scale card buildings many, many years later, they stuck.

The other books I did have but not were to me no great gain, minimal work on command and control, little improvement over Featherstone and as a teenager had no impact on me.

As said at the start, inspiration to some is mundane to others.

Of Empire III I can make no comment as I have never heard of it.

Your last paragraph seems to imply that only "designers" need apply, but I'll ignore that. As Leonidas said in "300", "THIFFF IS TMP!" just before he violated ancient laws of ambassadorial immunity.
And since I am "designing" mods for The Sword and the Flame" for the American Revolution, maybe I do qualify, even if I never get around to sending them to Lori.

I broke into miniature wargaming in my 20s, not via the usual route here. I came in from Avalon Hill and SPI, where it seemed that the more complex the better, even at the expense of playability.
So I took in stride whatever edition of WRG Ancients in stride that had simultaneous movement, tracking individual soldier deaths in a 1:20 representation. My first purchased AWI rules, 1776, was similar.

Then along came TSATF, which threw all that out the window and under the bus.
I loved the seemingly random order if movement and uncertain movement rates. To me it seemed way more realistic, even if it may not have been. A game could be fun, instead of accomplishing a burdensome yet worthy educational task.

WRG soon abandoned the above approach but went in other directions of complexity. I went through a half dozen AWI rules seeking a Holy Grail, including my own. Which sucked but were brilliant! Until you tried to play.

So my nomination is definitely TSATF. To agree with Otto, probably none if its features were probably new, but to me they were.

Ecclesiastes 1:9-10
That's probably the primary rule of game design. Steal from the best, or stand on the shoulders of tall giants. That's my attitude with my TSATF/AWI project.

I finaly found the TSAFT review on board game geek about 7.4 average, but a very wide spread of opinion. Probably not my cup of tea, a high rated review said not too be taken to seriously, so unlikely to fit for me. However it does seem to qualify as one of the first with random movement and activation. No sure when Squad Leader came out which also had random activation.

The two sets of rules with the biggest impact on me were The Sword and the Flame and Fire and Fury.

TSATF works great for small units and is adaptable across a range of periods. You can play it out-of-the-box or speed it up with minor tweaks. It's a great game, very fun.

The Fire and Fury maneuver chart is an elegant game engine. I've played the brigade and regimental versions, but not brigade version 2.0. Again, very adaptable across periods. Was tinkering with a regimental version of the brigade version for the Mexican War in 1993, long before the Regimental version was conceived. Have played my home 100 Years War version once. It needs work

In this discussion it all comes back to the central dichotomy of realism vs game/fun in a rules set. What's the purpose of your game and how much time do you have to play it? Do you mind walking away with a headache, or would you prefer a smile? Is this a competition, or fun with friends? Featherstone's rules are pretty fun if imperfect and require a little imagination to fill the holes. My two cents.

Definitely I am of of the "if you don't have a headache you have not been playing properly" brigade much of the time. And yes I play most weeks and often plan on another evening. This does colour what you find inspirational. Hence even as a kid I was disillusioned with Featherstone, Sometimes Ludo looks more challenging and as realistic, imperfect is an understatement.

My list will be a history lesson since I have been playing miniatures since the early 1970s. Since long posts lose interest for me I will be posting several smaller posts as I remember them. LOL.
Even this type of lists will vary based on the guidelines. Are we talking popularity, innovative game mechanics.
Tricolor by TSR was a good bucket of dice game from the 1970s. The Column Line Square remained popular for decades.
In regards to innovative, Empire 2 on Napoleonc warfare broke foundations with its matrix rather than bucket of dice combat system. Later editions were tedious and slow to me but loved Empire 2.
For pre gunpowder battles WRG with counting casualties was the system played the most and enjoyed.

Hills Johnny Reb hit the market strong as an alternative to Rally Around the Flag. It remain the main system for ACW until Fire and Fury hit the market. At one convention in Nashville one year, they had games of 6mm, 15mm and 25mm going at the same time.
Empire dominated Napoleonics in the US until Napoleons Battle came along.
As mentioned DBM replaced WRG for a short period but was never as dominate. In regards to innovative DBA gained popularity rapidly. While DBA has remained strong, the systems for useing larger forces has splintered to support for several different systems.

In regards to single target systems, General Quarters provided for a quick bucket of dice game. Seekreig became the slower play alternative.
In aviation Mustangs and Messerschmidt and a similar WW1 system were at all shows. WW1 however was also dominated by Blue Max which was a board game used for miniatures. The Wings of War/Glory system would later be used.
Ship of the Line by Juggernaught would be the basis for the vastly popular Wooden Sips and Iron Men. The Trieme would be a system for ancient ships.
The other vehicle target group is tank versus tank. There were several popular rule sets in the 1970-80. My group played Tank Charts. Modern was Challenger. Other areas played different rules.

You lost me at "…organised chaos that is bound 32of our current, …"

Have you considered medical options?

Reminds me of another I dabbled with which was Mike Spicks "Air War". This was innovative and to some inspirational as it played in 2D like many Arial games but using height. It captured better than most the energy management needed in a dogfight but alas was a bit too complicated to ever have many followers. Many tried to simplify it while maintaining its strengths but nobody seems to have achieved that. It may be one of the few games that could benefit from a small amount of computer assistance.

Doug the Pug,???. If you play campaign games you will get to high bound numbers. Biggest mini campaign so far was 150 bounds, we were sorry it finished then but it was really the end of the scenario, but we cheated on maybe 20 bounds where we agreed, like in the old RPG computer games "time passes" as we were just reorganising and it was not worth the time to do it directly to the rules as nobody is advancing or doing anything that can be seen.

Unlike competition players I only play once a week, so I am not that bad. Players who were in the top echelon played 3 or 4 times a week to stay on top.

UshCha, sounds as though the way to your heart is through complexity--and if at all possible Command and Control complexity. I'll pass. I have both studied and been part of military headquarters. Wargame rules--including my own--seldom get them right, and I'd like them even less if they did.

But you'd get less flack if you called the thread "rules I sorta like." You look silly saying DBM and F&F "led the way" while denigrating Morschauser who inspired them.

You may not like Morschauser, Young, Grant or Featherstone, but they are the ones who led the way. There is no path from Wells to the rules you approve of which doesn't pass through them.

Morschauser I cannot speak to. Featherstone I can. He was a great publicist and got me into the hobby but as a rules man even at a tender age, the poorly thought out rules were a disappointment to me. Young and Grant to me came out of the same mould. I know for a fact the command mechanismn in DBM was not in Featherstone.

We all passed through the original but they were the only sources, they were not neccessarilly great works of design.

If we were talking just of rules then HG Well was probably the one who started it all with Little Wars. Granted Featherstone lead the way with popularisation but at that point there were better models that the Forces used that he could have started with.

In the end it is what inspires each of us and its an oppertunity to expand where you see unique steps forward occur in wargame design.

Piquet. Great idea but actual play could be wildly unbalanced at times. Then the magic happened. Brent Oman redid the rules. Changed somethings and refined others. Field of Battle for us the best thing since sliced bread for Ancients, 1700's thru WWI. I really believe that for games where a unit is a battalion give or take they set a standard for fun, historical feel and fast play that is exceptional. I believe guys will be playing and talking about them many years from now.

Battles by Gaslight and Gaslight. Grand skirmish rules that provide fast, slick mechanisms and fun play. You can design almost anything with them. I have used them for Planet of the Apes, Lost World, predators and alien invasions.

These will also be around for years to come.

Thanks

I agree with UshCha about HG Wells. Without Wells writing "Floor Wars" and "Little Wars", our toy soldiers may not have become our formal wargaming hobby.

In addition, some influences on wargame design would be JJR Tolkien's works, Edgar Rice Burrough's works, and many other fantasy and science fiction writers.

Further influences include Gary Gygax and company for designing Dungeons and Dragons, which for me and many of my age cohort was our entry into miniatures (through role playing).

I also have to mention Steve Jackson Games, as well as the cheap chit games published by Metagaming in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I would also include the original game designers involved in creating Warhammer and Warhammer 40k at Games Workshop, of course. Without those authors and game designers, I would not be playing any wargames.

I hase learnt something. I did not know Wells had written 2 books.

This thread makes you think.

Advanced Squab Leader, although its a game I never got on with, it was the first I was aware of that made finding Hull dowm positions for tanks uncertain. I did pinch this as it did seem to ring true to accounts so I did use it.

I could have called this tread starting points for a game design, but that is not as eye catching. Its about when authors make simple inovations that once made are difficult not to incorporate if you want state of the art simulation.

Hal Hock's Tobruk, based off the research he performed for BRL 1192 was the first squad level, single vehicle, hull down position, etc. Board game AH produced. SL and later ASL built on that design, although those games added a questionable morale mechanics that could see defeated infantry forces returning at full strength for another go.

M C MonkeyDew, I found a review and it indeed looked ground breaking and SL and ASL were just followers.

Every wargame can trace almost every one of its mechanisms back to one or more predecessors, going back at least a couple centuries until their origins are lost in the mists of time. The games we all remember from our early years in the hobby, while they seemed fresh and original at the time, were all built on a deep foundation of the work of previous designers. This is not to say that there are no innovations and that everything today's designers do is just a re-hash (as some contributors on these forums would have us believe) . . . far from it. Some true innovations are actually radical reinterpretations of things which came before, but such innovations are just as creative as those which seem to come out of thin air.

- H. G. Wells' first book on wargames was titled "Floor Games", not "Floor Wars". And, everything Wells wrote on the subject, though he may have been re-inventing some of it from scratch, had already been done before. His big contribution to the hobby was to help popularize it. See my essay, "Let the Games Begin":

warartisan.com/essays

- A tweak or twist to an existing game mechanism can dramatically alter the experience of a game, even though everything else about it is familiar. This is all that is necessary to consider a design "innovative". It is possible to introduce so much innovation into a single design that its intended audience finds it hard to accept. Indeed, many current designers conform more or less loosely to the principle that a game should innovate in just one area, while keeping the rest of the design to already accepted or standard mechanisms . . . a principle which has been lucidly outlined and advocated by designer and podcaster Geoff Engelstein in episode 21 of Ludology (and elsewhere, in the years since):

link

- While the works of Tolkien and Burroughs provided new subject matter for wargames, they contributed little or nothing to the way games were designed. The real innovation of Dungeons and Dragons was not the subject, but the mechanisms wrapped around the perspective of player-as-single-character . . . see Jon Peterson's "Playing at the World" for a detailed analysis of the history and development of these mechanisms.

War Artizan Thanks. Touble is I think you have to know these boardgames and I admit to being Boardgame Ignorant. I only just realised Memoire $$ was a board game.

War Artisan,

Although H G Wells is often cited as the father of modern miniature wargaming, you are spot on when you point out that he is one node in its development; an important and well-known node, but not its point of origin.

My favourite early designer is the medical doctor – Dr Ballinger Griffiths – who wrote and presented POLEMOS to the Royal United Services Institute in the 1880s. His was a precursor of many modern features of modern wargames. Twelve units per side, a gridded playing surface, units were single, multi-figure bases, and casualty markers (single figures that were left on the tabletop where their unit had lost casualties).

No mention of Matrix Games? Interesting as they have a growing use amongst professionals.

As to Morschauser vs. Featherstone … well the former set the pattern for what I think of as the basics of modern miniature wargames (e.g. multi-figure bases) but Featherstone did more to publicise the hobby game … and helped to revitalise the idea that wargaming could be used as a study/training/planning aid.

While Matrix games have their place, if you are working on tight timescales and quite limited performance variables they are not that useful. As a way of finding unique solutions to quire loosely prescribed aspects they have their place.

I will agree that this is a personal view of a man who runs tightly controlled scenarios. The Umpire is not always available and may not be able to rationalise timescales accurately enough to come up with an accurate argument. If for example there is no time for a forced march to be conducted its a non-rational argument. I have seen it used but it has never struck me as an adequate solution for a table top game, though some find it fun.

UshCha,

Have you ever tried Chris Engle's Politics by Other Means, his tactical Matrix Game? In the right circumstances it can produce some very interesting wargames.

So Ush-Cha? Do you know where you can get a copy of "Floor Games?"

Ottoathome,
If you google it there is a pdf.

link

A scanned copy free.

Bob the Temple Builder, I will have to look at that.

Once again you are so out of touch.

Dover Books sells a copy of the game WITH a copy of Little Wars in one volume for twelve books.

Much better than a PDF

Otto, I have no love of books in paper, pdf to me is much better, can be read on a kindle, or tablet or even printed on paper. I tend to carry even my own rules on a tablet as it takes less space. With new rules I may take a paper copy. It's just personal preference. I certainly would not call a pdf as being out of touch.

Started with Charles Grant's Battle then on to Tractics. Loved both though both are terrible designs – I didn't know any better. They represent the far ends of too little and too much in game design.

Games that made me know better and taught me what could be accomplished in toy soliders games:

Johnny Reb
Command Decision
DBX

Not much design progress made since as the "Priestley" dead end d6 designs with their power house marketing have taken over.

TomT

Tom T. I'm Hurt :-(. We are not on your list! ;-).

More seriously, I have to agree that for the bulk of the players the D6 games as you put it are all rewrites of Featherstone. I depresses me to say this but it seems as if its popular, to me its unlikely to be of interest to me. Proably because such games are primarily to show off and chat about the models than the game itself.

Sorry I'm biased toward projects I did a lot of playtest/development work on.

Never worked on one of your projects UC so I proceed in your case from ignorance.

TomT

You do not have t0 appologise :-). We are definitely not mainstream, simulationd does not sell well with modllers.