"Commercial or Home brewed?" Topic

Just a question really!

On TMP like other forums, when someone asks for 'a good set of rules for (x) period', it seems the norm for people to suggest only commercial rule sets.

Is this because they are 'better' than non commercial sets, or simply due to them being better known?

Are non commercial sets less valuable to the average player?

Thoughts please!

If you suggest a home brewed set of rules you would then need a machanism to share them with the OP.

Unless they are part of your group, they have probably never heard of your rules and, unless you send them a copy or they are posted somewhere, how are they going go get them?

Commercial rules sets are by their very nature "better". A home brew rule set may be a better game but is almost always lacking in polish.

a commercial ruleset maybe not that good but at least it can't be too bad.
I don't know much about home brewed ones but i think most of the authors are not good at designing

In many cases a "home brewed" set is, as a document, incomplete. I have dozens of them and many amount to little more than brief outlines.

Works great if the designer is in your group. Otherwise, hard to even figure out how to play.

Even IF you can get ahold of a copy. Or have a place to get questions answered. Or find oth3r players.

An interesting question.

I imagine that almost all commercial rules start out as 'home brewed' and over time – with testing, development, and polishing – they reach a stage when they are published and transfer from being 'home brewed' to being commercial.

Just about all I ever play is my own home brew set. By mine, I mean 10 of us figured it out over the last 40 years. It's very complete for WWII and pretty good for modern, and other eras. I post bits on my blog sometimes. Certain sections work well as a stand alone.

I also did a one page set that cuts out about 200 pages.

link

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

Most commercial rulesets started out as home brewed.

At what point is a homebrew become commercial?

Is A Song of Blades and Heroes a homebrew or commercial?
What about the Two Hour Wargames Chain Reaction line?
What about the hundreds of games on Freewargameswiki?
I think in this digital age of information sharing, the line between what is a commercial product and a homebrew is very blurred.
Just because someone charges for their game doesn't mean it is a quality product and just because someone freely posts their rule set on places like Freewargameswiki doesn't make it inferior.

Bunkmeister your 1 page rules look very clever for some light-hearted, enjoyable gaming!

I think the simple answer is that commercial rules are easier to get hold of, and possibly have more existing players.

I bought a set of Song of Blades and Heroes: it's commercial. While there are free versions of Chain Reaction, they started as paid-for and have a lot of support: commercial.
A free set on freewargameswiki? Homebrew.
But as for

Just because someone charges for their game doesn't mean it is a quality product and just because someone freely posts their rule set on places like Freewargameswiki doesn't make it inferior

I couldn't agree more.

For rules – either.

For beer – commercial.

I have had good Hom brew beer!

Commercial however humble are likely to be better edited. Even our set which is only available as PDF through Wargames vault had a LOT of work done to bring it to a commercial standard. It was Home brew when we decided nothing available met our needs for a more plausible simulation. Having done so much work on it what was 3 months of free time to bring it to a publishable standard.

However some games are more about selling models as play ability so even commercial games should be treated with suspicion.

Home brew may be brilliant but generally need a bit of work to get them to be easy to understand. That said they may replay amply time spent on them.

I know how my rules work.
My written explanation is intended to remind me and my players.
Other people, well they can give em a go if they like.

Due to electronic publishing the home brew line is a bit blurred.

I rarely find commercial games that have much replay value. Most are intended to sell miniatures and emphasis power gaming and having the right sure troop or card effect.

Stuff that started as less commercial tends to emphasis play value as that's what the author group intended – not to sell themselves miniatures. Consequently WargamesVault is filled with games that are much better than the marketing bullies.

Establishing a player base remains a problem and is the secerat to the market bullies approach. Its not about quality but game store saturation so that when someone comes in to play they are only offered the commercial game.

For our own good clubs and groups should seek to break this mold by playing a teaching better quality games. It has worked for us here in Atlanta with both Combat Command and A Game of Knights and Knaves.

Thomas J. Thomas
Fame And Glory Games

Thank you Durban Gamer. That was their intention.

I look forward to your AAR!

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

Gaming should be fun if it's not, it does not matter who wrote it or why.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

Horses for courses. Thomas Thomas presents part of my view, I find most of my commercial rules become a home brew as I get out the pencil and eraser and start fiddling. I love both, but as a starting point.

I find a lot of commercial rules as opaque as home brews, and often under playtested as they are rushed to the market place. Basic proof reading is often poor in both, much less trying to synthesize subject thoughts/concepts in easily objectively understandable terms. Barkerese anyone? Redmond Simonsen said he never saw his rules interpreted 100% in the ways he intended.

As small as our hobby is I would think most of our rules, even from the big companies are still "home-brewed". The polish is the only difference.

Those who are drawn toshininess over content generally aren't going to like home brews, but you won't be able to convince the fan boys that there isn't content in their expensive shiny set..

Mick:

Some good points. My general rule about gaming is that if you play my game I'll play yours. So I used to play Flames because lots of the Flames players played in our Combat Command games. In the end most just went with Combat Command.

As to Barkerese as one of his developers/playtesters for many years, I understand the frustration. After spending a year working on DBA 3.0 (and getting great results), I decided to just modernize the entire DBX concept into a reader friendly "FASA" style rule book so that I could have a Historical Medieval and Fantistorical setting. So A Game of Knights and Knaves was born. Another advantage of electronic publishing is the ability for players to interact with the designer and assist with improving clarity (and at least finding out what the author intended, however, inarticulately). Electronic fixes and easier (and much cheaper) than the old school hard back methods. Can't thank my players enough for all the help with the new expansions for Knights and Knaves.

Thomas J. Thomas
Fame and Glory Games

I think it is a generational divide. Some of us oldsters grew up in a period where there weren't any glossy rulesets and pre-packaged miniatures. Featherstone and others encouraged the idea of writing your own rules to make the game you wanted. It's only you young punks who are spoiled for choice and have glossy production values ;-)

To me, writing rules is at the core of our hobby. I appreciate nice commercial rules, and sometimes they are very well done. but as someone who has worked in commercial publishing, it is a labor of love for most folks. Unless you are grossly commercial, it will never make you any money. And pandering to the masses means making rules more generic and "playable", which may mean they aren't what they could be.

I think we should make an effort to produce "home-brewed" rules that are complete and useable, and then distribute them online. I am a big fan of free wargame rules and similar sites. Writing rules – and understanding warfare and how it works – is at the heart of our hobby.