"Where's the Wargaming Rules Innovation?" Topic

To be honest I by convention use the term "game" but is it really a usefull definition? Playing with slot cars is a hobby, it apes for some like me real racing. It is a hobby but is it a "game"? I run a Simulation as it feeds my study of the basics of warfare and I get enjoyment out of it. But is it really a "game". Perhaps it is, military men wargame there battle plans, but most certainly is not a game in some senses, failure to get it right could cot lives.
A simulation needs to be two things, sufficiently accurate to achieve the objectives of the simulation and fast to implement. Having a computer simulation that takes too long to run may be of no use, it's answers are too late to be useful. Similarly our simulation, have those two objectives, the simulation of outcomes to the decisions we make. That is my entertainment, built in humor has no place in a serious simulation. Obviously many games are not designed that way as not all wagamers are really interested in the history and tactics, they care more in in moving around nicely painted models in casul that does not require the depth of thought that a good game of chess requires. In ovation between the two types of game will be widely disparate, even mutually exclusive. An improvement in one may be a detriment to another person.

Reducing rules while increasing the options to me would be a great advance, complexity increasing for a reduced simulation overhead. To others it is just another step to getting a headache as the actual decision making has got more complex. More than offsetting the reduction in rules.

A definition for "game" is a useful definition if you want to design one. How about a system that consists of loading a musket. You start, you go through the process and end up with a loaded musket…it takes 5 turns. Or how about a movie. Are those games?

No. A game needs an artificial environment of some sort, whether a golf course, jigsaw puzzle or a set of mechanics in a commercial wargame. A game needs at least one player making decisions to accomplish a task or challenge within that environment and of course, there has to be some way of determining a win or success.

So if you are watching a movie and the 'game' is to find an error in continuity first or the largest number, you have a game. If the challenge with loading a musket is to see how fast it can be done, the winner being the one who does it the fastest…that's a game.

The only objective of a simulation…that is what makes it a simulation, is that whatever medium is used, game mechanics or computer, the aspects of reality targeted are effectively modeled.

YOUR simulations may have the added requirement of being fast to implement, but being quick or slow doesn't determine whether it is a functioning simulation, only that it is user-friendly…

What's state of the art? Where are the revolutionary breakthroughs surrounding the handling of time, space and matter?

Great question! Any "breakthrough" would have to break with current convention (no activations, order dice or IGUG) and game design wouldn't it? To be "revolutionary" (which means the chance of acceptance is low) it needs to be vastly different and break with tradition or else it is just "evolutionary" like every "new" game.

Try this for a 1:1 low-level game:
Time: The realistic timing between all units on the playing surface, somewhat like what a video game engine does (I'm not commenting on the gameplay or realism). Timing naturally embraces the OODA Decision Loop allowing better crews to act before their opponent, this should define initiative, not a random die roll. The OODA Loop is intuitive and naturally repeats itself making it a good way to design a game sequence around to eliminate IGUG and random activation restrictions. When you execute an action decide immediately on the next one and start the loop over again – no more waiting for the orders phase or to be activated.

To be enjoyable players should not be sitting around while another player is moving and shooting all of his units, the game needs to be interactive. If you see an enemy threat you should be able to react right away or attempt to do so. Some games already do that well.

Space: A playable way to simulate simultaneous movement synchronized with rates of fire that would eliminate clunky opportunity fire rules and allow the players a way to visualize a dynamic battlefield (video game engine). A Fog of War would be naturally created using Action Timing within the Decision Loop as no one is sure of who will execute their order next. Action Timing could deliver split-second results in 1:1 combat with better crews being quicker. But no action should be 100% guaranteed of success. SNAFU's should happen at the worst time.

Matter: Replace arbitrary and abstracted rules with a way to recreate real tactics with more than just a die roll modifier. In reality, units are not "activated", they are always active and somewhat able to respond based on a number of factors like Situational Awareness and training. The use of player Risk-Reward Tactics would give a timing modifier to "seize" the initiative from your opponent, not just a die roll modifier for a binary result. Let the player have a hand in his fate, then he can't blame it all on his die rolling.

By eliminating artificial and arbitrary rules each unit would be moving along the games timing path (like a video game engine) from action to action with each unit action being executed within every other unit Decision Loop and each unit starting their loop over again once they "Act" (execute their order). If your loop takes too long to execute (being too slow for any number of reasons) – you are dead.

Ideally, it should be so simple and intuitive that a 14-year-old with no wargaming experience and some slight learning disabilities should be able to catch on.

Any takers?

Wolfhag

So after 2 weeks no takers?????????

If anyone is interested I can post something by the weekend.

Wolfhag

Perhaps the tendency of many rules to conform to 'the same old movement/fire/morale systems' is that such systems have worked satisfactorily for years, are tried and tested, and players are content with them?

MiniPigs 12 Apr 2019 2:21 p.m. PST
That's interesting. There well may be rules out there that are innovative, well written, easy on the brain and loads of fun that I dont know about.

MiniPig wrote:

I dont know a hundreth of the rules that exist for wargaming. I dont know that we need better rules but innovation continues to take place in many fields that we dont necessarily have an absence of adequate proucts. And yet, absent strong necessity, the desire to continue to refine, simplify and experiment with new systems and techniques must still surely be with this hobby?

If it isnt then it isnt. If it is, then I would love to hear about examples.

Wolfhag:

I didn't comment because your game system is known to me. I am surprised that the author of the thread didn't respond.

It is rather odd at times, but the Game Design list seems to have threads that die the moment actual game design technical questions are asked or answered.

As for innovation. There are only four parts to any game or simulation system:

Time: How time or the sequence of actions and events are moderated. And no, simply having a game that doesn't identify a time scale is still sequencing actions and events… That's what game systems do. At some level all wargames can be scaled to time if the game is representing something real. For game and simulation designers, Time/sequencing of activities and events is the backbone of a system.

Activities: What is done during the game, whether moving units, combat, calculating morale etc.

Events These are results of decisions or created events such weather, end of a turn, combat results.

Decisions The User or Player decisions in the game, what decisions, where and when they can make them.

Most all current wargames handle those elements this way:

Time: These are phases, where X activities occur, whether this is by type of activity, movement, combat etc. or by number of activities allowed [command pips, cards etc.]

Activities: As above, activities are generally either grouped by type or grouped by number of activities allowed.

Events: These are usually moderated or resolved by dice or cards.

Decision: These are linked to type of activity or by number of activities allowed. Some are multiple decisions such as where and what formation to move the units.

In our Hobby currently, Innovation [A large change as opposed to variations within the approaches above] would be those systems that have one or more of the game functions fall outside what I just mentioned. For instance:

Time: Your approach to moderating the sequence of events in the wargame is an innovative approach…it falls outside of the general approach to the passage of time in today's wargames. A past innovation was the introduction of cards/pips as a way of moderating time instead of phases of a turn.

Activities: Having the player decide what activities to carry out in a phase, with all available to him would be innovative. Games with command pips did that in the past, Bolt Action dice or CoC dice are variations on that approach, not an innovation per se.

An innovation would be having the players determine when they want activities to take place in a turn or having cards determine when game phases like combat or checking for morale for one side or the other occurs. Some board games have introduced these mechanisms recently.

Such things have been suggested for wargames, but there hasn't been much interest in them.

Events: These tend to be either controlled by the player as the result of his decisions or by chance. Games tend to lean to one or the other, the Complete Brigadier is the extreme on one side, the older Piquet the chance side. Some games like Longstreet put chance events [like poor shooting or hidden terrain as a opposing player decision, which is an innovation…

Decisions: For a wargame, the idea is that player decisions somehow mirror the decisions facing their historical counterparts, which is a straight jacket of sorts. Innovations here would provide players with different ways to understand and make those decisions. What is interesting here is that it is the combination of Time, Activities and Events subsystems that provide that.

Innovations in those three will provide innovation in Decision-making. IF they also model historical challenges faced by actual commanders, that would be an effective innovation.

Not sure that list is necessarily complete.

There is much about modeling and relative detail. Two areas that spring to mind are:-

1) depiction of urban areas. This varies from an amorphous blob to detailed streets. But it is more subtle than that. The initial versions of Crossfire before it became "gamey" was probably the most detailed as it was all supposed to take place inside effective combat range. Our own games compromised by effectively allowing almost real levels of street layout but compromising by removing gardens, and houses were 25 times too few (the impact area scaling of ground scale). There are merits for each by the simulator but I have never seen it discussed or even novel ways of depicting the optimum.
2) Depiction of terrain. To me it seems absurd to see company games with platoon level terrain. Inside a company in defense there is typically huge amounts of terrain. At optimum a Company in defense will hold a frontage of about 1500m. In practice this could be much more say 2500m, a lot of terrain, far too much really for a 1/72 scale set of models. Again this is not discussed or even evaluated in terms of simulation. I personally care not for fantasy games so "it just looks good" carries no weight whatsoever with me, like exponential range scaling a complete dead end as far as simulation goes.

I'n not even sure we have agreed very basic parameters, we use a single parameter "Fear, Fire and Fatigue" that covers Morale and in effect, ammunition and training.

I do agree that warfare modelling the technical aspects is a rare indeed topic on the site.

UshCha:

Keep in mind that this 'four parts' is something used…it's a working definition for design.

It's complete in terms of the game system. The depiction of urban areas and terrain apply in how they affect the four basic elements of a game/simulation system.

I'm not even sure we have agreed very basic parameters, we use a single parameter "Fear, Fire and Fatigue" that covers Morale and in effect, ammunition and training.

One of the reasons for such working terms for the system design is to clear away the details and see the forest for the trees, the system parameters among all the details and subsystems.

For instance, your single parameter 'Fear, Fire and Fatigue' will show up in a game or simulation game as

Time lost or gained
An impact on Activities, number, type or quality.
Required Events… something has to happen to time allotments, ability to perform Activities, or player Decisions based on combat, movement, fatigue etc.

How those factors you list have to be expressed as either elements of time, activities, events or player decisions, added to or taking away from those elements.

There is no other way to express those things in a game system regardless of the detail or specific issue.

McLaddie,

It is rather odd at times, but the Game Design list seems to have threads that die the moment actual game design technical questions are asked or answered.

Yes, I've noticed that too. I think the people on TMP seem to be "mostly" satisfied with traditional abstracted rules to push their models around, nothing wrong with that (FoW, BA, etc) but there are some on TMP that I'll listen to any time and are real experts. It seems most discussions center around different ways to activate units and suppression. People should play what they like and find enjoyable and not be tortured by rules, I do.

Thanks for the comments and feedback. I think the biggest difference to my approach and traditional 1:1 Company level games is that their design is more of a "Design for Effect" (activations, initiative, IGYG, etc) and my approach is "Design for Cause" showing the lower level cause and reasons for an action (timing within the OODA Loop). I use a single D20 with only a couple of modifiers in the entire game. I also depend heavily on customized vehicle model data cards that keep information readily available with a minimum of modifiers or rule exceptions. Comparing data cards gives you an idea of the enemy vehicles strengths and weaknesses against yours.

Goal: I wanted to implement historical tactics to get the split second results in a 1:1 tank-tank game. I thought the use of the OODA Decision Loop would allow me to do that. It made a lot of sense to me and was the way people naturally approached a problem or decide on an action, it has the benefit of not having to be taught and would not need as many artificial and abstracted rules.

Traditional games and the OODA Decision Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act): With most traditional "Design for Effect" games the low level technical/combat effects are built into the design using abstracted rules and die rolls. It's very difficult to give a good representation of the OODA Decision Loop and split-second results by parsing a 10-90 second turn into discrete actions performed by one player at a time in a random activation sequence using dice, modifiers, and cards. Historical weapons rate of fire is hard to portray too. However, it does introduce some interesting tactics and strategies in head-to-head play as in UshCha's game. Normally specific weapons platform performance and crew training is a modifier for unit activation in Design for Effect. I replace that with timing modifiers that show the lower level cause of when a unit will Act in the loop. I think the biggest problem in Design for Effect is accurately modeling 1:1 opportunity fire (cannot synchronize the rate of movement and rate of fire) and overwatch rules (not needed in large games). However, they can give a very good "feel" and historical outcomes even for experienced combat vets playing the game. It is better at higher level games where you don't really need to show low-level aspects of combat to keep the game playable. Neither one is really better than the other, it depends on what you like and the level of play. The use of Command Dice present some interesting tactics and solutions for a player too but are pretty much an IGYG/reaction system. I needed something where units were always active.

Using timing and the OODA Loop: I tried to fit the OODA Decision Loop to give split-second results into a traditional unit activation and IGYG game system or unit action points and failed. An accurate portrayal of the OODA Loop means that every unit is always active and acting with timing within their individual loop, not an IGYG or unit activation. So an accurate portrayal is each unit on the table is acting within their individual loop and faster/quicker units executing the "Act" part of the loop first and then starting their loop (Observation) over again. The initiative is not determined with a die roll and no need for a separate order phase. You shoot before your opponent if you are quicker, little is left to chance.

Weapons Performance: I looked at the historical weapons performance values for turret traverse, aim time, engagement times, rates of fire, etc from training, War Office Reports, proving grounds, manuals and AAR's. They are all measured in minutes or seconds, that's when I got the one-second timing idea. I was fortunate enough to have people available with hands-on experience on WWII T-34's (Kubinka), Sherman's and Panthers. I was able to spend time inside the turret of some more modern tanks to get a better feel of what the crew experience would be and go to various museums including the Royal Tank Museum at Bovington. They helped me refine some of the historical timing aspects and the Situational Awareness limitations a tank commander and crew have in combat (that's somewhat variable).

Action Timing and the OODA Loop: Since I could measure weapons and crew performance in seconds, by using the timing of an order (Decide) to be executed in seconds in a future turn (Act), I figured I could get the split second results without further game rules by having each unit act within their own loop. Quicker units will fire before slower units. With all other things being equal, good crews should be executing their orders before poor crews, that should give a pretty fair representation of "getting inside your opponent's loop" and should eliminate the need for initiative rules. In the game, an Ace crew will have a 4-6 second advantage over a poor crew in a head-to-head engagement. However, when flanking an Ace crew a poor crew will most likely shoot first because his tactical advantage gives him a timing advantage, there are no dice to roll.

Reaction: Since units are always "active/activated" just as they are in a real battle, they can respond to any enemy activity in their LOS on the turn it occurs – so pay attention. It speeds up and simplifies the game too. This allows players to change an order to react to a new threat when he sees it just like on a real battlefield. However, being surprised, buttoned up, enemy fire and suppression will delay him in taking action. Even though you can react on a turn performing the action you choose will take awhile.

Engagement Delay: So while you can attempt to react on any turn there may be a delay to take action (delays allow the enemy to get inside your loop) and any order will take additional time to execute. It's different than other games where you react and execute your order immediately on the same turn. When you react you may see that you are at a tactical disadvantage to get off the first shot so may want to move and evade rather than fire. That's a player decision, not a die roll. A delay of 5-10 turns can mean a complete surprise and the first clue an enemy is near is an AP round bouncing around the inside of your tank, it can happen to the best of them.

A player executing the OODA Loop: Units are always active, just like in a real battle so there are no initiative or activation rules or command dice. Once a player executes an order for a unit he starts the loop over again observing the situation in his LOS (Observation), sizing up the tactical situation (Orient), issues and order (Decide) with Action Timing and determines the future Action Turn (the order Action Timing + current turn # = Action Turn) and executes it when announced (Act) and then starts the loop over again at Observation. Players do this naturally and it eliminates the need for abstracted traditional Design for Effect game rules for activation, initiative, opportunity fire, and overwatch. That should make the game easier to play.

Player Actions: During the game, the player's "Action Loop" (what he is doing) for each unit is to determine the Action Timing for an order and note the future Action Turn it executes. That takes 5-20 seconds, no more than one die roll with no modifiers to worry about and does not hold up other players. As each turn is announced he can attempt to change his current order to respond to a new threat in his LOS. When his Action Turn is announced and the unit has not been killed off in a previous turn, he executes it (normally shooting) and then immediately starts his loop over again and determines his next Action Turn to shoot at the same target, engage a new target or move. That's it for each unit. I've seen a new player tracking 12 tanks at once. If players think like a real tank commander and imagine what you'd want to do as the action unfolds on a turn-to-turn basis and think in "real time" like in a video game you'll be fine. Many older and experienced players get hung up on an IGYG or unit activation and wait to be told what and when to do something. If a player forgets to execute his order on his Action Turn he can execute it on a later turn when he realizes it if – if the unit is still alive and the target is still in his LOS. You need to pay attention to all of the action and not wait for your "turn" like other games.

Virtual Movement: Moving units have a movement marker placed in front of the model showing the direction, speed and distance moved each turn. Each movement marker is divided into 5 or 10 equal segments to show how far they (virtually not physically moved by the player) move as each turn is announced. Every 5th or 10th turn all models with a marker are advanced to the end of the marker and the marker placed to show direction and speed for the next 5 or 10 turns. That speeds up multi-player games and is a playable way to portray simultaneous movement. Movement markers are normally the only information markers on the table. The virtual movement markers give a dynamic feel to the overall table and allow players to realistically estimate where a moving unit may be in 5 to 20 turns IF there are no changes. Units without a marker are stopped. I normally play 1" = 25m so a unit moves 1" to 2" every 5 turns. I haven't had any complaints about it. We've had players move across an 8-foot table in a 2.5-hour game. There is a lot of player participation and it really speeds up a game with multiple players since everyone is moving their models at the same time but restricted to the direction of the movement marker. That synchronized all moving and firing on a turn-to-turn basis while also synchronizing every unit in the game and eliminating the need for Opportunity Fire rules and exceptions. It's a playable way to simulate simultaneous movement without additional rules and does not allow players to game the system.

Turn-to-Turn Game Play: The game is played with each game turn/second being announced sequentially. First, all moving units move (virtual or physical movement). If a target has moved out of the LOS the shooter can change his order. Both sides can react to new LOS from movement including changing order. Next, all units with an Action Turn to execute an order given in a previous turn (normally 5-20 turns previously) do so, simultaneous fire does naturally occur. Units that executed their order for the turn immediately determine their Action Turn for their next order or move (no orders phase) starting their loop over again and not waiting to be "activated". Both sides can react to new LOS from shooting including changing order. If there were no Action Turns to shoot the next turn # is immediately announced. Repeat.

If there are no unit Action Turns for the current game turn the next game turn is immediately announced. The gameplay is always moving to the next Action Turn or movement segment and there are no initiative, activation, opportunity fire or orders phase to worry about.

How much action is there: A typical 2-3 hour game with 10-20 tanks per side can involve 150-300 one second timing turns which translates to 30-60 five turn movement segments when the players simultaneously advance the models. Units that last the entire game will fire 10-20 times. That's a lot of action compared to other games. Fewer rules = more fun and more action.

S—t Happens: Yes it does and it will normally happen at the worst possible time and it should be pertinent to the action taking place. You don't want the game to be too predictable. Many games portray this as a Random Action or Fog of War, I use a SNAFU Check. Rolling a natural 20 on the D20 when you shoot (5% chance) something has gone wrong with the shot. A simple way is to roll a D20 again and that is the number of Engagement Delay turns that prevent the shooting crew from reacting or performing an action. Make up any explainable reason. Personally, I like rolling on a custom SNAFU Chart. It covers much of the problems and malfunctions crews historically experienced in combat. Things like a misfire, jammed shell, loader loaded the wrong round, loader passes out from shell fumes, commander wounded by the gun recoil, driver panics and backs up, gunner chokes and misses, turret traverse stops working, intercom goes out, etc. Make up your own and add some color to the game. We are using Design for Cause so be creative. The result may extend the next Action Turn (Engagement Delay) or a malfunction that can attempted to be fixed in the Admin Turn.

Fog of War and Split Second Results: Since no one knows who will execute their order next a natural Fog of War and some suspense is generated without the need for additional rules. If I fired on turn #37 and knocked you out and you were supposed to fire on turn #38 – too bad. That's a split second result without a special rule or die roll. However, if you had decided to use a Risk-Reward Tactic to shoot two turns sooner with less accuracy or your crew was better than mine with a 2-3 second advantage and hit me the opposite would have happened. I think that type of result and interaction is what makes the game interesting. The game does allow players to act quickly so they can't blame the results on a bad die roll. Some people will not like that as they like the unit activation rules.

Play Test: If this sounds complicated (and I know it does) what I described above is the same version I played at KublaCon in May with an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old with a slight learning disability that never played a WWII game and did not read the rules. The 15-year-old controlled eight tanks. Using Action Timing to determine your Action Turn portrays the OODA Decision Loop in an intuitive and natural way and even a new player readily understands. Navigating the customized data card is probably the steepest learning curve. The concepts of the OODA Loop, Action Timing, Action Turn, and Virtual Movement are pretty easy to pick up. I'm not really concerned if people find it innovative, evolutionary, revolutionary, realistic or not just as long as it's fun and fairly easy to play.

I can probably clarify any questions by posting an image of the data card we used for the kids at KublaCon and an example of play.

Thanks again,
Wolfhag

I was thinking about Wolfhags system. Having thought long and hard I do recall that 20 odd years ago I had my first abortive attempt at writing a set of ancient war games rules. We did consider something similar (but by no means identical) approach. One of the interesting things was that in the Greek civil wars the infantry battles took a long time to resolve. We looked at a system whereby when the protagonist clashed the time it would take to resolve determined and stored. The actual result was determined as the war game time clock reached that point. In the end we abandoned it as in our system it had as many failings as it had gains and the flaws in the current games game were not really fixed by the proposed system.

Wolfhags system has overcome this issue, possibly because of the very short timescales it addresses. There are no "interrupts" in the system, everything can credibly be resolved at 1 second intervals, without any need to split the time steps. This was not plausible in our version.

Wolfhag does hit the nail on the head, the numbers of war gamer's who actually care about the plausibility of games is really very small. The very obvious failing of games to represent even the basics seems not to bother them. Serious gamer's who really want to model aspects of the science of plausibly do seem few and far between.

For instance Company morale in "games" of WW2 onwards still persists but in very few eyewitness accounts is there anything that to me indicates of some overall awareness of the company situation, so resolving it at that level seems to be a "tradition" without much if any connection with reality.

Similarly range seems to be massively over emphasized with a very few notable exceptions. Machine guns effectiveness is quite similar over a very wide range band and is employed in different ways to rifles. This is rarely reflected in games.

Another "tradition" in games is that you MUST ALWAYS always shoot the nearest enemy. Again no basis in fact. The M1 tank manual notes that if facing a serious threat you shoot the side of the enemy further away while he shoots the enemy in front of you. In many cases this applies to infantry in trenches as well. Again a case of "traditional war gaming" deliberately failing to reflect reality.

Perhaps we serious gamers should describe ourselves as 3D board gamers as board gamers are far more interested in the game than the models.

Its not helped by the bizaree tradition of players playing massive ranges of games. In no other sport that I can thing of (note Chess is now a Sport) play such a wide range of games in such a short space of time.

This inevitably means there will be a lack of understanding and expertise in any of the games.

I guess the serous gamers just need to recognize we are a small minority in what is already a minority sport.

Ushcha,
I've been working on how to communicate the game in an understandable and playable way using two pages of rules. I think I'm pretty close. I think of my system like a "Game Engine" that players can plug in customized values for weapons platform performance, customized gunnery rules, vehicle speeds, tactics, armor/hit location, spotting, etc.

The game engine will handle the sequence of events while parsing the action to deliver split-second results. This eliminates rules for opportunity fire, activations, etc. Since units are always active they can react during any turn to enemy activity. However, you don't perform an action on the same turn as reacting, actions take time and are dependent on a number of factors handled in the game and customized by the player. If you don't like my values use your own – what could be better than that!

Here it is and I'll have a downloadable PDF soon:

Treadheads WWII Tank-Tank game: This is a completely different approach to traditional 1:1 game turns and sequences. The game uses turns as a timing mechanism to determine rates of fire and movement. The timing factors are based on historical rates of fire in combat with better crews and the use of historical tactics giving a timing advantage. It uses a form of realistic simultaneous movement rates. The timing allows a more historic recreation of the interactive nature of 1:1 combat with split-second results. It allows for good solitaire play and large games with up to 40 vehicles per side using any scale but is best for 6mm to 15mm models.

Game Summary: Game turns are announced sequentially. All units with the current turn to shoot do so (simultaneous fire will occur) and then immediately decide their timing (based on the historical rate of fire) to shoot again or move, there is no orders phase.

Important: If there is no firing for the current turn the next turn is immediately announced. Play moves from action to action with movement.

Every unit with a movement marker is assumed to move 1/10 of its distance as each game turn is announced but is not actually moved by the player each turn (think of it as virtual movement). Every 10th turn is a movement segment when all units with a movement marker are moved simultaneously at the speed/distance on their marker and only in the direction the marker is pointing. This speeds up the game, especially with multi-players. You can make movement markers (like a small ruler) that are the same distance of movement. If you divide it into 10 segments you'll get a realistic idea and playable way to determine exactly how far they all units on the table move each turn.

What is different: There is no individual player movement or shooting segment like in an IGUG game. Units are not individually "activated" by the player to perform an action like other games either. The synchronizing of timing between all units eliminates the need for initiative rules and gives a better portrayal of 1:1 action between units. The only record-keeping is to track the turn of firing for each unit and place a movement marker to move. There are no other admin markers to clutter the game. Players can normally control 4-8 units in their first game. Timing speeds up the game by eliminating artificial and abstracted game rules that determine movement and shooting sequences. You can use any gunfire system or dice you want from any other game.

Player Interaction & Game Play: The game plays quickly because it is always moving to the next turn of shooting or the next movement segment. You are not determining initiative, activating units or doing nothing while your opponent moves or shoots all of his units. However, you need to pay attention to each turn.

Fog of War: No one knows the exact turn an enemy unit will be firing and all units in the game are synchronized to the same game turn. Optional rules and the occasional SNAFU make it even more difficult to predict. Units are always "active" and units can react to enemy activity on the turn it occurs in their LOS, that includes changing orders. Players can react in any turn so need to pay attention to each turn of activity as they are not "waiting" for their turn like other games. However, the decisions players make and their timing to shoot should be kept secret. Your personal Situational Awareness (or lack of it) will determine your success.

Optional Rules:
Player Risk-Reward Decisions: A player can shoot 1-2 turns sooner but with an accuracy penalty.
Tracking: When your turn to shoot is announced, hold fire to track your target keeping it in your LOS. You can fire in any future turn with no additional delay. This is ideal for ambushes or to wait for a flank shot.
Gunfire and Armor Rules: Use your favorite rules for gunnery, hit location, damage, armor, etc.

Determining Timing Factors – Timing modifiers replace die roll modifiers used in most games.
First Shot at a new target takes a little longer to acquire and engage it. Some units are quicker:
Turreted Tanks: RoF + D6+2, SPG & Assault Guns: RoF + D6+6, Anti-Tank Guns and Artillery: RoF + D6

Gun Rate of Fire: This is based on the caliber of the gun already engaged after the first shot.
37-40mm 6 turns, 50-60mm 7 turns, 70-80mm 8 turns, 85-90mm 9 turns, 95-100mm 10 turns, 105mm 12 turns, 120mm+ 20 turns (uses two-part ammunition)

Rate of Fire Modifier: Anti-Tanks Guns are faster with a -2 turn modifier
Crew Training: Better crews perform their actions more quickly than poor crews.
Crew Modifier: Poor Crews +3 turns, Veteran Crews 0, Ace Crews -2 turns
Fire While Moving: Final Rate of Fire x1.5 rounded up, there is no turning allowed when firing on the move.
SNAFU's: Each time a unit shoots there should be a 5% to 10% chance of jam, misfire, bad shot, etc. The result can be to increase the number of turns for the next action (delay) or more historical and colorful results.
Determining Historic Vehicle Speed: Divide historic maximum speed in kph by 10. That is the number of inches a vehicle can move every movement segment (10 turns) on good terrain. So a speed of 45kph the vehicle moves 4.5" every 10 turns or 0.45" each turn (virtual movement). This should work for any size table.

Ground Scale: Realistically, a unit moving at 45kph (4.5") will move about 125m in 10 turns. That means a realistic ground scale would be 1" = 27.7m (or 25m) to help determine your gunfire ranges. Terrain effects can reduce speeds to 25%, 50% or 75% of the top speed.

Movement Segment: Every 10th turn is a movement segment. All players move all of their units simultaneously in the direction the marker was pointing, then turn the vehicle to show the direction of movement for the next 10 turns. To move, place a movement marker by the vehicle showing the distance in inches to move and the direction the vehicle is moving (it can only move in that direction). To stop remove the marker. This speeds up the game and gives a dynamic feel to the battlefield. Units will move into and out of the LOS.

Reaction, Initiative, and Activation: There are no unit activation or initiative rules, command dice, turn interrupts or cards used. Just as in real combat, all units are "active" and can react to any enemy activity (moving or shooting) in their LOS by placing a movement marker to move or shoot by determining the timing in turns it will take to engage and get the shot off. They can also cancel an order and issue a new one in any turn in response to enemy activity in their LOS. The system allows you to perform as a real tank crew did.

Shooting: On the turn of shooting, face the gun/turret at the target and the hull facing within 45 degrees of the target and roll the dice to determine a hit or miss using your preferred gunnery method. On the turn, a target moves out of your LOS or is destroyed before shooting at it, immediately engage a new target or move. The game delivers realistic split-second results: If you were scheduled to shoot on turn #74 and your opponent shot and killed you on turn #73 you are dead and don't get to shoot, you were too slow by one second. It happens.

Shooting Example: On turn #41 a 75mm gun is taking the first shot at a target. Its timing to shoot is determined: D6+2 + 8. So if a 3 was rolled on a D6 the shot will take 13 turns (3+2+8) so the player will shoot on turn #54. The player makes a note of the turn of each unit to shoot. When turn #54 is announced he shoots (if he is still alive) and IMMEDIATELY determines his next turn to shoot at a new or same target or place a movement marker to move (Shoot & Scoot), there is no orders phase. His next shot is 8 turns (modified by the crew type or a Risk-Reward Decision) to shoot on turn #62. While waiting for your turn to shoot there are no other actions the player needs to perform and you can cancel an order to engage a new threat in your LOS or move during any turn. Ace crews have a 5 turn advantage over poor crews and 2 turns over veteran crews.

Timing: The RoF for different calibers is generalized but players can research and use specific timing factors for different weapons systems as they see fit. Risk-Reward Decisions, crew and SNAFU's will alter timing.

Players OODA Loop: Timing allows players to use their natural OODA Decision Loop approaching the game in the same way that they would approach real combat situations and actions in everyday life. This means it does not need to be taught to a player. You are basically observing a dynamic battlefield and making a decision to shoot or move based on what you expect to happen in the next 5-20 turns, not random actions or IGYG. Determining the timing to shoot involves no more than one die roll and adding/subtracting up to three numbers. There are more planning and decision making and less reliance on die rolls and abstracted game rules. This system is being used to design a detailed combined arms game from WWI and into the future that will put the player in the same position as tank crews and team leaders using the same weapons and tactics as they did.

Designer Notes: If you have not guessed by now, each turn used as a timing mechanism is one second. This allows historic weapons platform performance, movement and RoF because historically performance is based on seconds or minutes of timing. This system has the advantage of being easier to play because it eliminates almost all of the artificial and abstracted rules that most games use. There are very few rules to memorize and has been playtested. The timing of actions synchronizes all units to the same turn, gives an accurate portrayal of opportunity fire, and eliminates the need for activation and initiative rules. The initiative goes to the quickest and better crews and the player's use of the right tactics will give an advantage. Players can take risks to gain a split-second advantage but it can backfire with catastrophic consequences. Timing delivers historical split-second results that were common in WWII tank-tank combat that most game systems cannot duplicate.

Wolfhag

You want innovative?
I ain't been shot mum, by TFL.

Agree with earlier post, too many wedded to figure ratio. Figure removal rules produce ludicrous casualties at battalion and above games.

Again dissagreement. It Ain't been shot Mum to me is too Gamey for a serious gain so no inovation as far as I am concerned.

I do agree about casualty removal. Lossesof even 10% will often render a unit combat ineefective depending on circumstances and quality.

Again dissagreement. It Ain't been shot Mum to me is too Gamey for a serious gain so no inovation as far as I am concerned.

UshCha:

It sounds like 'innovation' has a pretty narrow focus for you: Gamey innovation doesn't count.

@UshCha

Again dissagreement. It Ain't been shot Mum to me is too Gamey for a serious gain so no inovation as far as I am concerned.

I do agree about casualty removal. Lossesof even 10% will often render a unit combat ineefective depending on circumstances and quality.

Why so serious? :P

You appear to be very angry at the notion of innovation and angrier still that gamers don't play games the way you want them to.

Further, you seem to want to stop others from discussing the very concept of innovation or confusing what that is by asking a series of gatling-gun like questions around the nature of "What is innovation?" If it doesn't exist why does it concern you? Are you worried we might wish it into existence?

Incidentally, no one suggests that rules have to be either perfect or gamey or not-gamey. There can be different rules for different vibes. Some play TSATF because it's gamey and love it and others want to slog through the endless charts of a WRG rules set because they feel comfortable with charts. I think there's room for games that are "Beer and Pretzel" as well as technical simulations.

At West Point, I took part in a micro armour game which was a simulation and have to tell you it was boring; and not only boring but also pretty much predetermined.

All this business about what troops see and hear and how they react, well we're usually commanders who can see it all not a unit that can only see some of what is going on.

I am not interested in some pedants enlightenment that because the 33rd at the battle of Giacomo's Farm stepped in cow dung and it slowed their roll, cow dung is now a terrain modifier and must be rolled for…oh I forgot, you want to take the dice away. Maybe people could scream in each others' faces and whomever hollers the loudest wins the firefight? That'd also get the endorphins moving.

You also seem mired with concerns about the tactical mechanics but what about command and control? I want to be a general soaring above my troops like a hawk; be-feathered and free as a bird.

I think it unfair to suggest that most gamers arent about the purity of the simulation; why should they be? These games arent being paid for by their governments, rather they have to spend money and time setting these games up. Do you really think there are enough gamers like you that will constantly go to all this trouble just because they HAVE to recreate reality?

This is exactly what I mean by "But Im not wrong" mentalities. Basically there are some that think everyone has to do it their way or else they're lightweights.

People have real lives and limited time and they do want a game as much as a simulation. It's up to bright people with positive attitudes to produce that result.

I'll tell you where real innovation can be had, in the realm of mini-campaigns and solo gaming. Automating an interesting enemy with an AI system, now that could be real innovation.

"…oh I forgot, you want to take the dice away. Maybe people could scream in each others' faces and whomever hollers the loudest wins the firefight? That'd also get the endorphins moving."

Arthur Taylor eliminated dice from his wargame rules published by Shire in 1971; there was still an element of chance included by using standard playing cards (but only when trying to "net in" WWII units to the radio network). All other operations required no dice or other probability devices.

Fletcher Pratt's naval rules from the '30s also avoided dice (and luck), relying on players' skill (and the technical characteristics of their weapons) to determine combat results.

And, of course, H.G. Wells' rules required no dice at all.

No shouting required.

Minipigs wrote – "I'll tell you where real innovation can be had, in the realm of mini-campaigns and solo gaming. Automating an interesting enemy with an AI system, now that could be real innovation."

- – -

Bravo, sir! Perhaps the most insightful and valuable commentary in this thread.

B

"And, of course, H.G. Wells' rules required no dice at all."

….. which cause me to recall my very early AFV game which involved ZERO dice on any sort, while still taking into account shot deviations versus range as well as deflection characteristics of sloped armor:

Spitball shooter versus 1:35 tank models from across my bedroom.

;-)

B

Blutarski,
Spitballs in your bedroom? What a lightweight!

We used a Sheridan 5mm pellet gun in a vacant lot shooting at Tamiya WWII tanks at 50 yards. One time I hit the unbuttoned tank commander of a Panther and he shattered into 6 pieces.

Wolfhag

Wolfie,
My only other ballistic alternatives were my father's 30cal M1 carbine or a 6.5mm Arisaka war trophy; either would have made a terrible mess of my painstakingly assembled models. Besides, I was an extremely accomplished spitball practitioner at that time of my young life ….. as many of my junior high school classmates would grudgingly testify.

Technical tip – Never use a BIC pen to make your spitball shooter – they stink. The best pen to start with is the "Lindy Pen" – more accurate and better velocity due to smoother internal bore (Not kidding here – I did a lot of testing!)

;-)

B

If only you could have found a pen with internal rifling. Wrapping the spitball around a BB would have given you more range and velocity and qualify as an APCR round.

Hey, have we stumbled on something innovative?

Wolfhag

Innovation takes many forms. It doesnt always have to be the physical mechanics of the game, it can be other things that make a game more enjoyable. A lot of rules are poorly written and the author's prose is also often sleep inducing. Just realizing that shortcoming and reducing a set of rules to as few pages as possible is innovation indeed.

Automating an interesting enemy with an AI system, now that could be real innovation."

This has been proposed a number of times. It is a wonder that it hasn't been done more, though some board games use web or computer support. A version of that for a semi-board game of submarine warfare is already available.

YouTube link You can see one player using his cell phone to find out what the enemy ships are doing.

"A lot of rules are poorly written and the author's prose is also often sleep inducing. Just realizing that shortcoming and reducing a set of rules to as few pages as possible is innovation indeed."

So perhaps what is needed is employment of competent editors, graphic designers, and proofreaders. I would submit that "Little Wars" and "Charge, or How to Play War Games" elegantly introduce players with little or no experience to the game, being well- written, well- illustrated, and explained with no presumption of prior knowledge. Both of these are worth reading as entertainment alone.

Innovation (from Webster's): "…any custom, manner, etc., newly introduced…"

Both of the above works could hardly be described as innovative at present; do we need (perhaps) less innovation, but a return to basics?

do we need (perhaps) less innovation, but a return to basics?

When a winning football team trains to win in the playoffs, it wasn't fancy new play innovations…It was back to basics. [At least with the high school and college teams I played on as well as what is said by professional coaches today.]

Writing procedural instructions effectively is very difficult, which is what rulebooks are…at least the actual rules dictating processes and player actions. The rules can be entertaining to read, but crap to follow as rules. You know what rulebooks I am talking about. And certainly vice versa.

However, well done games or well-written rules may feel innovative in a sea of bad examples, [Such as building that bike with translated Chinese instructions or old WRG rules] but they aren't…they are just well done.

McLaddie may be right, With the exception of Wolhags unique approach to tank warfare the issue is that basic history and tactics are forgotten.

There is currently a thread on the "utter drivel thread" on "Too much "lard"". Depressingly it is too much like normal threads. The discussion is about "mechanisms" not about the accuracy of the system to reproduce the basic tactics of the period. With few exceptions wargaming is on a backward march again. However even that may not be an inovation, the rot set in early as can be seen in the article "Amazing Article on Wargame Design History & WWII In France" thread in the Genral wargames section. Srubby and Gygax were never friends to serious wargamners, both were fatansists. Gygax desserting, thankfull for real fantasy so out of harms way.

There is currently a thread on the "utter drivel thread" on "Too much "lard"". Depressingly it is too much like normal threads. The discussion is about "mechanisms" not about the accuracy of the system to reproduce the basic tactics of the period. With few exceptions wargaming is on a backward march again.

UshCha:
Well, of course it is too much like normal threads. For example, look at the Design thread "Historical Rules?" [note the question mark…]

The problem is that designers don't know much about simulation design, let alone representing historical events, so can't communicate [or won't] that information to gamers. That is the wall. For example on the Utter Drivel Thread:

As Well Pickett's Charge. Someone explain to me and give an historical example of staff officer bestowing magic powers on units. Or marching across an open field and then gunning down a waiting defender because you have the initiative. And, while I'm in full rant mode, shouldn't the single most important factors in determining initiative be troop and leader quality, not staff officers sprinkling bags of magic fairy dust.

This gamer has NO idea what the designer had in mind with the rules or how they were supposed to represent historical processes. So it all looks like 'magic fairy dust." To be fair, the staff are supposedly delivering orders, which could seem just like fairy dust under the circumstances.

How can any gamer have an intelligent conversation about history or understand what the rules represent when the connections are never made. Or what rules are just there as game mechanics with no connections. Only the designer can explain it.

There is the wall.

The bounce-back is that everyone fusses over 'historical flavor and feel', but in the end can only agree that it is 'personal taste' and 'to each his own.'

Thus ends every conversation on history and game design. As deep and wide-ranging as counting grognards around a game table.

Personally, I think if a game meets the designer's aspirations and goals it should be considered a success. Just because you don't agree with him does not mean it is a bad game, just not to your liking.

We all have to find a game that meets our aspirations and goals or write our own like many of us do to reflect what we want to see in the game.

Hopefully, the designer has given the reason behind the rules and abstractions to explain how and why he wrote them and the compromises he had to make. This is especially true in "Design for Effect" games where there can be a variety of detailed explanations that can fill in the abstractions of the effect.

Constructive criticism would involve a critique of the designer's goals, abstractions and where he succeeded and failed. Whether you like them or not is a different matter.

There are many rule sets I don't like but when I observe other players playing them they appear to have fun and get into the game. Even if I'm left asking is that the designer has accomplished his goals. It normally comes down to balancing playability and detail and what he thinks is important.

Wolfhag

Personally, I think if a game meets the designer's aspirations and goals it should be considered a success. Just because you don't agree with him does not mean it is a bad game, just not to your liking.

Wolfhag:

Absolutely. However…if one of the aspirations is to represent, recreate, model, or illustrate or *gasp* simulate something of reality/history, then that has to be established. That is a comparison. For instance,

I drew a pictures of General Montgomery at El Alamain:

It is my impression of the general. I have a perfect right to draw that and call it what I will, and it may be good art and folks may love it or hate it, but regardless, that is NOT an accurate or realistic rendition of the general…and if that was my purpose in drawing it, I did fail and anyone can see that. How do I know that it isn't accurate? Because I can compare it to evidence [or what I wanted to model]such as this:

That is what gamers haven't been able to do…compare to what specific history the designer meant to model.

And you know what I think of the less than technical phrase 'designing for effect'. I have yet to see a wargame that wasn't designed for effect.

I guess one problem is, many wargamers really have little interest in the actual history of there period. Detailed knowledge of its uniform is no indication in my experience of any real knowledge of the tactics and command structures of there relevant armies. This is proably not helped by the fact that rules were used to play pure fantasy like Astec vs Viking. In my experience the more model obsessed the less attention is paid to the re-creation of history. Just life I guess.
Scubby and Guygax never did historical wargamers any favors as they are fatasists, maybe that is where the money is?

I guess one problem is, many wargamers really have little interest in the actual history of there period.

Maybe so. The amount of interest in history has nothing to do with whether the designer is providing reference to the evidence in history/reality used as the template for the wargame.

I also think decades of hobby training has also been a factor. It is hard to be interested in the relationships between the game and history if the specific history is never provided… if it's non-existent, how can one be interested in it?

Yet, many historical wargamers ARE interested in history.

The problem with simulation is how to define what we're trying to simulate. I see rules designers hit the drill books to determine time and space and that's fine but recreating how troops performed is more difficult. For instance, when wargaming Naseby 1645 is that battle always supposed to play out the way it did historically to prove rules concept validity or was that battle's result a one off?

It seems when you examine them closely, every battle has some variation from the norm whether the commander was drunk or the troops were disordered in a ditch on their advance. How do these unique-to-that-battle factors get blended into the rules without dragging the game down?

Do we really think there are enough gamers who want to spend their time reorganizing their units ala "British Grenadier"? Now, British Grenadier might be phenomenal rules of simulation but when I wargame, I do not want to spend my time reorganizing or un-disrupting my units; I want action!

Trying to cover all contingencies that come up in battles is great but when it inflates the rules to 50 pages to read in the name of thoroughness before someone can even try them out are we not asking for apathy?

I think it is the game designers responsibility to build all these contingencies into a game and still keep it light and entertaining. Instead, it seems the way some of you approach this is that the audience owes you. Imagine if the only people allowed to attend and pay for a concert were those who understood how to play instruments, set up sound systems or stage lighting? You would have awfully small audiences.

MiniPigs, your opinim of wargamers is that they are inveterate Morons. With lessthan 50 pages you are not going to get Anything other than a "game" in the worst sence of the word.

As said by the Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield to his son in 1746. If a jobs worth doing its worth doing well. If you want it done well you have to invest time and money. Baseball players dont get to be good skimping on prectice.

Minipigs makes a good point, play what you enjoy to the level of abstraction you are comfortable with. That's my opinion. But I also agree with UshCha to a point that if you are going to play a game of a certain era why not learn more about the details, it should make the game more enjoyable. We all need to find our own personal balance.

McLaddie,
Well, in the end, you have to either agree or disagree with the game designer about the level of realism and most likely will not get a consensus to agree. Ideally, he has the data and numbers to prove his design in his notes and AAR's.

I think most (not all) people play miniatures for the visual experience and historical authenticity is mostly secondary and "feel" is most important in convincing them of realism because they have not experienced the real thing. To each his own.

For me, as my level of knowledge increased I was more interested in representing the historical details that matched my level of knowledge and military experience but then I'm not a real miniatures guy either. At this point in my gaming "career", most games are fun but few give me the historical authenticity that I'm expecting. A good group makes it more enjoyable too.

I have designed a game for the ACW Battle of the Crater and Charge of the Light Brigade for a convention. I researched and analyzed the tactics, movement rates, rates of fire, command options, mistakes and causality rates. I borrowed nothing from other games, too complicated. There were a few risk-reward decisions the players could make to move more quickly through the defensive fire taking fewer causalities but be disorganized at the assault or move slower, probably take more causalities but arrive consolidated for the assault. There were a few chances for things to go wrong and sometimes did.

In both games, the attacker's fate was pretty much sealed because of the design. In both games, we had a very historic outcome. It was entertaining for the players because the figures and terrain was excellent and the game sequence was interactive, not 100% IGYG. They really got into the history and unit backgrounds. They also liked the fact that the outcome was "historical" so they felt it was "real". However, I doubt if that system would be used successfully for other battles. I guess you'd call that design for effect.

The game I'm currently working on I wanted to recreate the nuances of tank-tank combat in detail using the manuals and real weapons platform performance for a basis. There was not much I could borrow from other games. By breaking down the tasks of the crew and weapons platform performance into measurable amounts of time (seconds) based on what I could find researching and reading manuals. I combined these together with varying degrees of abstraction to get a range of time for a crew to react and engage a new target. Better crews will be faster than poor crews. Trading accuracy for speed will help shoot more quickly but with less accuracy. Being flanked or surprised will increase response time as will being buttoned up and suppressed. I compared the outcomes to historical battles, first-person accounts, training standards, etc.

Because things like movement rates, turret traverse, rates of fire, reloading, etc are measured in seconds I used seconds for the timing. Strictly by chance (not my design intention), this timing fit nicely into the OODA Decision Loop. I was able to replace almost all traditional game rules like initiative, activations and opportunity fire by having each unit go through their individual loop with the "Act" part a certain number of turns/seconds in the future and unknown to their opponent.

The "timing" is recreated by announcing each one-second game turn sequentially and all units with their "Act" (normally shooting) occurring on the current turn are performed. If there are no actions we go right to the next turn, the clock keeps ticking. The game moves quickly from one action to the next depending on the "Act" turn for all units and does not need activation or initiative rules. Any unit can react in a turn to a threat and cancel an order and issue a new one.

A typical engagement and first shot could be from 1-20 turns/seconds. A follow-up shot at the same target would involve reloading and aiming. That could take 4-15 turns depending on the crew training, 2 or 3 man turret, ammo rack location, performing rapid-fire, and historical reload times. It could take 25-30 seconds for large two-piece ammo of 122mm+.

I guess you could call it design for effect but the factors that result in the action will show exactly what caused it to occur so maybe it is design for cause.

If you are interested in the nuances of tank-tank combat and the differences in historical and crew performance you may like it. If you just simply want to "activate" your units and roll a D6 to determine a kill or not you'd have no interest. You can't please everyone. Some people have their favorite game sequence, initiative and activation rules that give them the right balance that for them gives the right historical "feel" in a game and are not looking for anything else. People should be ok with that.

Wolfhag

@UshCha

MiniPigs, your opinim of wargamers is that they are inveterate Morons. With lessthan 50 pages you are not going to get Anything other than a "game" in the worst sence of the word.

As said by the Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield to his son in 1746. If a jobs worth doing its worth doing well. If you want it done well you have to invest time and money. Baseball players dont get to be good skimping on prectice.

That isnt what I am saying. Rather, I think of gamers as having limited, valuable leisure time with no desire to commit dozens of rules sets to memory with lots of squiggly minor rules. It gets worse when you try to corral 6 players into a room and assume they all know the rules.

In any case, you give me the impression that gamers need to go through discomfort to get a good game. That concept is indeed alien to me. As far as i know, most gamers follow the Cyndi Lauper model and just want to have fun.

Incidentally, the baseball analogy isn't apropos here. Baseball is loved because it's a very simple, traditional, slow changing game which in turn invites investments of practice to develop skills without having to worry about the rules changing overnight. In other words, people can practice a lot precisely because it is a stable set of rules.

Having said that, even with long historied, stable rules, a lot of problems arise from interpreting baseball situations during games. Imagine, if you used a different set of rules every week?

By contrast, who, aside from a small clique of dedicated pioneers such as yourself, wants to invest a lot of time in un-playtested, unproven, dense rules which are touted by the next wargaming Svengali to be the living end?

I must say, I do appreciate you underlining one of my basic premises.

Well, in the end, you have to either agree or disagree with the game designer about the level of realism and most likely will not get a consensus to agree. Ideally, he has the data and numbers to prove his design in his notes and AAR's.

Wolfhag:

You may like or not like the level of realism and there is no reason to ever expect consensus unless you think that everyone liking chess is a possibility, so why bring it up?

The issue isn't whether everyone likes your particular level of realism, but whether there is established realism portrayed. There is no way all folks will like the cartoon above, but there will be something close to consensus that it isn't a realistic likeness of Monty.

Don't confuse the two issues.

The problem with simulation is how to define what we're trying to simulate.

Minipig:
It can't be too much of a problem because very single wargame and simulation designer does it. It's just whether they succeed in simulating what they have defined/chosen to simulate.

For instance, when wargaming Naseby 1645 is that battle always supposed to play out the way it did historically to prove rules concept validity or was that battle's result a one off?

That isn't some dark, mysterious conundrum. Simulation designers have faced and developed several methods to address those questions.

It seems when you examine them closely, every battle has some variation from the norm whether the commander was drunk or the troops were disordered in a ditch on their advance. How do these unique-to-that-battle factors get blended into the rules without dragging the game down?

And this is somehow different from the challenges that ALL simulation designers face? There are ways to address those 'one-off' events as well as determining which are significant and which aren't in most all cases.

Do we really think there are enough gamers who want to spend their time reorganizing their units ala "British Grenadier"?

I don't know, but the designer wanted to have those issues and the gamers are free to decide what they like.

Now, British Grenadier might be phenomenal rules of simulation but when I wargame, I do not want to spend my time reorganizing or un-disrupting my units; I want action!

Who knows if it is a simulation at all? And simulations can, if designed well focusing on what you like, prove that action still be a phenomenal simulation. A poorly designed wargame and/or simulation isn't something to use as an example of either.

Trying to cover all contingencies that come up in battles is great but when it inflates the rules to 50 pages to read in the name of thoroughness before someone can even try them out are we not asking for apathy?

No simulation designer in any field tries to cover all contingencies in anything modeled. And as Systems Engineer Jerry Banks says in his Handbook of Simulation "The model should be complex enough to answer the questions raised, but not too complex…there is a point of no return where the simulation fails to work at all."

In other words, inflating the detail in a simulation is just as bad as doing in a wargame design.

I think it is the game designers responsibility to build all these contingencies into a game and still keep it light and entertaining.

And simulations can do that if the designers know how. Being unable to answer game design/simulation questions isn't the same as proving they are unanswerable.

Instead, it seems the way some of you approach this is that the audience owes you. Imagine if the only people allowed to attend and pay for a concert were those who understood how to play instruments, set up sound systems or stage lighting? You would have awfully small audiences.

The audience doesn't owe the players anything but the price of admission. The players owe the audience what they were told they would receive. In the hobby, they aren't. The designers are the ones failing the wargamers.

They promise realism, but don't know how to produce it, let alone define it in game terms. They promise to recreate battles and period warfare, but can't be bothered to identify where they got their notions of such things, let alone whether their design succeeds in representing them.

They claim they've drawn their portrait of Monty but never reveal the evidence and pictures to prove it.

For once the cynic is going to be upbeat.
Even now on the Modern Threads there are serious and useful debates about such things as barbed wire and Artillery Impacts. These are where data is exchanged and designers and players can gain a real understanding of the real world and how it could is implemented in games. From here we get rule improvements as our understanding grows.

Not from yet more die throwing mechanisms which are aimed at the gambling side of play. This is the real inovation, optimising a system to provide the minimum number of rules that give a plausible outcome.

UshCha wrote – "Not from yet more die throwing mechanisms which are aimed at the gambling side of play. This is the real innovation, optimising a system to provide the minimum number of rules that give a plausible outcome.

I am no fan of littering a rule set with endless dice rolls just for the sake of some perceived "excitement" in rolling dice ….. "saving throws" for instance. UshCha is IMO spot on when he suggests that the ideal solution is a plausible outcome from a minimum of rules. However, in the course of writing my own rules, I have discovered occasions when an intuitively simple dice roll procedure has enabled elimination of an array of complex rules and accompanying "look'up" charts (ship collisions and WW1 naval gunnery spotting are two areas) ….. so do not simply dismiss a "dice solution" out of hand.

Writing rules that are at once "good", playable and enjoyable is IMO an art form.

B

Writing rules that are at once "good", playable and enjoyable is IMO an art form.

Absolutely. There are some technical aspects of game design that require more than just artistry. The same is true of simulation design of any sort.

This is the real innovation, optimizing a system to provide the minimum number of rules that give a plausible outcome.

"Plausible outcome?" Compared to what? Is it any wonder with such a wish-washy descriptions of representative success that opinion rules with often-repeated terms as 'historical flavor' and 'feel?'

Real innovation will be when the hobby can get past such vague qualities, become more technical, more specific and produce some design clarity around the idea of representing history and military operations. Until then wargame design innovation will continue to be the hunt for new, fun mechanics and different uses for dice.

McLaddie wrote -
"Plausible outcome?" Compared to what? Is it any wonder with such a wish-washy descriptions of representative success that opinion rules with often-repeated terms as 'historical flavor' and 'feel?'

>>>>> It's entirely possible that UshCha's "plausible outcome" simply refers to the ability of his envisaged rule mechanics being able to deliver a wide range of individually plausible outcomes. Exactly what relationship UshCha's idea of a "plausible outcome" bears to historical flavor and/or feel is a question you need to ask UshCha.

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McLaddie wrote -
Real innovation will be when the hobby can get past such vague qualities, become more technical, more specific and produce some design clarity around the idea of representing history and military operations. Until then wargame design innovation will continue to be the hunt for new, fun mechanics and different uses for dice.

>>>>> What exactly do you mean by "the hobby … becoming more technical" (I hope you are not advocating a return to the days of TRACTICS!!!); also, what is meant by the phrase "design clarity" in terms of portraying history and military operations?

B

Exactly what relationship UshCha's idea of a "plausible outcome" bears to historical flavor and/or feel is a question you need to ask UshCha.

Blutarski: Uh, yeah. Or anyone else that uses that phrase as a measure of historical representation.

The technical doesn't refer to what players would be required to do in playing a game. It is about what designers would have to do to do to further the methodologies of game design.

For instance, what could it mean to design to 'plausible outcomes?' How 'plausible was the a Confederate victory at Gettysburg, or the Germans driving the Americans on Utah Beach into the sea? How do you determine that historically? And we wonder why many wargames seem to simply recreate the same battle outcome over and over again.

How do you design for 'effect?' Do you know it when you see it in a design?

Dave Brown has the possibility that brigades in his recent rules will "Hesitate" without support from higher command 1/3 of the time every fifteen minutes or so. Is that a historically 'plausible' Civil War outcome?

If wargame designers got 'technical', you and I would be able to answer those questions. 'Plausible outcomes' and 'designing for effect' would have specific design meanings rather than having to as the designer or wargamer what he means…which always devolves down to simply 'to each his own opinion.' The opposite of technical or accurate or having a common language for designing wargames.

Right how about this for inovation! On the Cold war thread (I'm a cold war simulator) there is a most excellent link to a defensive set up.

link

Given the set up it is reasonable to assess the optimum simulation set of the game, against the real world set up and discuss the deviations in a credible manner. To some extent that was how our own rules were created but as a less complex level.

Perhaps a range of such "test cases" could be anmmased and then I agree the "Drivel" some of which I may agree to have contributed, would be a thing of the past.

But a rules designer is free to put as much technical and simulation data into a wargames rules set as he/she likes, however they need to (if they want anyone else to care) also

1. Write the rules clearly and succinctly

2. Make sure the technical and simulation bits are invisibly baked into the rules

3. Make the mechanics easy to remember and fun; if for no other reason but that you have to assume people need to find the energy to congregate and play the rules. The idea that people will do something because the author thinks they've stumbled onto a purity of simulation is bizarre. Real generals had no choice while, if the rules are dry and boring, wargaming generals can always find an excuse not to show up

It's got nothing to do with dice, although Clausewitz does recommend cards for simulation.

Two lessons from history:

1. While working at a Startup, I recommended we have weekly meetings with the Board. I also recommended they be kept short (45 minutes max) or people would stop coming. The CEO got a taste of being on stage with a captive audience and kept lengthening the meetings until they were 3 hours long. Soon after, people stopped coming.

2. Assuming that everyone wants to do something from your point of view is pure and utter tone-deaf arrogance. It doesnt matter how clever one thinks their simulation design is, if it is the equivalent of Brussels sprout flavored candy, it will net you near zero takers. Thus, if you want people to take your bitter tasting pill, you'd better bury it in jam.

It's time to stop blaming the consumer and come up with the product.

@MacLaddie

The Utah beach analogy is interesting because I always thought the analytical consensus about D-Day is that it was a lucky allied accident. Thus, if people refighting it always get the same historical result, that might demonstrate design bias. Rather similar to complaints that a lot of Napoleonic gamers feel that rules writers often make the French army supermen.

The Utah beach analogy is interesting because I always thought the analytical consensus about D-Day is that it was a lucky allied accident.

Again, lucky compared to what? And how often did such strings of lucky accidents occur? Why should anyone be surprised that wargamers would complain about bias when that is ALL there is to any wargame design answers to those questions.

Simulation designers have always faced those kinds of questions from Astrophysics to business and systems analysis.

There are methods for addressing those very pertinent questions.

First and foremost I most certainly don't design for a mass audience. Nor would I want too. Out target is knowingly those who want the ability to gain some insight ino thr underlying tactics of war fighting.

You only have to look at the, to me dreadful, popular rules which are primarily just a toy fest, connection to reality being willingly dumped for more toys on table. So that gets rid of that one.

Some basic data certainly in the modern period has basic data such as weapon effective ranges and how its is used. Many rules fail before they even get that far. Is that innovation? To me certainly not, that is a backward step to just becoming a "game" of no use exploring the underlying tactics of warfare.

Given the set up it is reasonable to assess the optimum simulation set of the game, against the real world set up and discuss the deviations in a credible manner.

What do you mean by the bold phrases? How does that set up and story-line make it 'reasonable' to assess the 'optimum' simulation? What 'real world set ups?' And how do you know you are 'discussing the deviations' in a 'credible' manner.

There is some pertinent information from an experienced soldier about some aspects [machine gun placement], but the story is fictional and is a one-off situation.

Well lets see,
Do it by the book. First the layout of the h=machine guns in trems of starements as to the range etc can be verified from a number of manuals on its application. Thus to some extent the authorts bonafides is shown. The penetration of the ammunition can also be checked as can the prerformance of the basic surveylance radar. The minefield extimate of damage rates is inline with US mauals, perhaps a little low but acceptable. Thre is an issue that as marked on the map the minefields are not ideal as they could be extended significantly in area to improve thier delaying potential but as this narrative is not direcctly directed at this aspect it could be considsred the authores choice.

Thus there is some reason to assume rthat the author is a credible sourse of expertise and that the situation given the boundary conditions he imposes are valid responce.

The next process is to see how a game off X would perform using the basic layout. Then the expert of the rules in question given the same organisation flexibility and weapons deployes in what he consisders the optimum positions arrording to the rules in question. Even at this stage any disparity between the wargame optimum defenece abnd the datuum could then be analised as to why if any there were discrepancies and for what reason.

For instance do the test rules have limitations not apparent in the reference deployement. If so what is the evidence is there to support one or the others deployment. To me this is just basic scientific analysis. It may sparn more specific analysi on one technical aspect or another to confire and test a more specific test case.

@UshCha

First and foremost I most certainly don't design for a mass audience. Nor would I want too. Out target is knowingly those who want the ability to gain some insight into the underlying tactics of war fighting.

Yeah, that's great. Where are these rules? Or do I have to be tapped by a secret society to be illuminated by them?

You only have to look at the, to me dreadful, popular rules which are primarily just a toy fest, connection to reality being willingly dumped for more toys on table. So that gets rid of that one.

You keep coming across as irate or looking for a fight but with what and with whom? I still cant tell if you're angry at the rules that exist, the historical sincerity of people that wargame (and yet, you were defending them above)or the idea that wargames rules are capable of innovation.

So once and for all, are all the wargame rules needed for both good games and simulations currently extant or do they need to be created?

Some basic data certainly in the modern period has basic data such as weapon effective ranges and how its is used. Many rules fail before they even get that far. Is that innovation? To me certainly not, that is a backward step to just becoming a "game" of no use exploring the underlying tactics of warfare.

See, this is a good illustration. You keep going on about high minded wargaming but most of your examples are technical and mechanical. Why do you think good wargames simulation is all about physics?

@MacLaddie

Minipigs said: The Utah beach analogy is interesting because I always thought the analytical consensus about D-Day is that it was a lucky allied accident.

MacLaddie said: Again, lucky compared to what? And how often did such strings of lucky accidents occur? Why should anyone be surprised that wargamers would complain about bias when that is ALL there is to any wargame design answers to those questions.

OK, so you like to argue as well. Terrific but this isnt the point, the point is how to assess whether a result is a one off or a given. Please dont tell me you're in the clouds while you're grabbing for straws.

Simulation designers have always faced those kinds of questions from Astrophysics to business and systems analysis.

There are methods for addressing those very pertinent questions.

Again, terrific. Do we have examples? Or is this more straw grabbing grandstanding? Cause it sure dont look like innovation.

Maybe you could stick some of that passion into rules innovation?