"Do you write your own rules?" Topic

Hi all,

My sister proffered a good question, as she knows I write my own link
Just how many of you have or do write your own rules, or appendices to commercial sets?

I told my Sis I thought it wasn't a lot, but it would be interesting to find out a truer figure!

Yes I do. I've also been modifying and adapting commercial sets since I started wargaming in the early 1970s.

Doesn't everyone?

Write my own rules? No.
Add the occasional house rule to someone else's rules? Yes

More often than not. I do try to stick with common basing systems, so the troops are useable with commercial rules.

Emphatically yes. Numerous rules in entirety, and modifications to nearly every published rules my group uses.

I have written a few 3x5 card rules to play cowboys with my son, and to run a 54mm convention game. Nothing that I use regularly, and nothing that wouldn't fit on a single sheet of paper.

Used to. Now I don't. Even the house rules are much fewer.

By the way, this topic would make a decent poll.

Yes. I am doing layout on my SciFi rules. That system will then be used for Vietnam and other periods.

I am also converting my sci fi from big skirmish to battle rules.

I have written a zombie set as well.

I have a set for ACW and have modified a number of others like Flames of War….

Yes, form me it's part of the hobby.

Yes, write my own and modify others. Mostly it is just tweaks to correct what I see as errors or to make a game more playable but sometimes a ruleset needs major rewriting/reorganising even when the original concepts are kept.

I wrote a set of Pirate rules for melee & gunnery & Shagnasty wrote the sailing rules. We named it "AAARGH, MATEY!!!

Absolutely

Rewrote a couple of free sets of rules. Working on rules set of my own. Hat's off to those who have written their own rules. It isn't easy to do.

Yes. A set of zombie rules, and working on a set of rules for gaming Red Dawn. I do tend to "borrow" rules mechanic from rules I like.

I write my own rules for every period I ever gamed in. I like to keep them simple but have the flavor of the period.
Ancients, Medieval, FIW, AWI, Mexican American War, ACW, Boxer Rebellion, Sudan, Zulu, Wild West, WWII Europe, WWII Pacific and probably others thru the years that I've gamed have been some I wrote. I also buy and paint both sides of figures for the games + build and purchase all the needed scenery for the periods. Scales have been 15mm, 20mm, 25-28mm, 40mm, and 54mm.

I wrote, and self published, a set of introductory rules for wargaming with plastic 54mm Army Men, 1998-2007. Only set of minis rules I've ever written and published. Working on a revised version, hoping to publish again, in POD format, by the end of this year. Cheers!

"Do you write your own rules?"

Yep, sure do. Though I haven't tinkered with them for a while (kind of stopped when I got to Vehicle rules), it's a sci-fi skirmish 'game engine' (meaning I can drop in or take out rules sections/variations as desired.) And I got rid of most weapon stats (because who wants to memorize pages of those… ;-)

I tried once or twice to write rules. I did not get very far. Once a friend and I tried making some modifications to an old set we used, but in the end we did not use the mods. We just gripe about (I mean discuss, or critique) other rules.

Yes, write my own and modify others and been doing so for more years than I care to remember.

Yes. link But I probably define rules differently than most people.

Yes, and I don't hesitate to take a pencil to other rules.

Too lazy to write my own set. However, I am a tinkerer. My usual modus operandi is to either modify a set of board game rules to work with miniatures or take a set of miniature rules and cut them down to the bare bones. Move, shoot, charge, and melee, done.

Yes. I put in exactly what I want.

By "write", I assume you mean, "tweak other people's rules with wild abandon". And in that case, YES!
If you mean "write a complete, playable set of rules", then sadly, no.

Modifying commercial rules, yes. Start from scratch to write complete rules, maybe twice.

Yes, writing my own, and tweaking others.

Never done, just like my minis. Need to work on that.

Hopefully never again. I have loved the modern period since I was a kid but never found a decent set. Around the mid to late 90's we were tinkering but they never met our demands for credability. In the end we decided we could do better and started almost but not quite from scratch. Read the manuals and played lots of variants till 2000 man houres later we finished and published Maneouvre Gruop. 14 years on we have spruced them up, all the same mechaisms but with a bit of polish and better written, I hope. We are there and we will not have to do it again, they works as we want.

I always considerd new and better sets would come along but to me rules have gone backwards, gimiky mechanisms and over simplified and far too much random so I guess we will never have to do it again.

I don't tinket in actuality now, we do ponder changes but in the end they never get as far as even house rules as we are at the equivalent of the 80/20 point. 80% right, 20% of the rules. To go further would add loads more rules for only marginal gains and slow play unacceptabley which in effect makes the rules worse.

Actually I lie, we are writing new rules but for engineering so they integrate into the core rules but extend the scope further into the planning arena. They they are about scenario/campaign planning rather than actually fighting the combat.

Hopefully never again.

Yes, I agree, never again.

Wolfhag

I have for years. People seem to like some of them so I've published a few. And now that I'm getting better at 3D modelling I'm making my own models for some of them

I helped write the rules for our Starship trooper game back in the mid-eighties. I also wrote my own rules for ship-to-ship actions for War of 1812 on the high seas with 15mm ships. had to run a lot of test games trying to get the right balance between amount of weight being throw at each ship and actual damage caused. I finally worked that all out.

I modify and add to existing rule sets.

I've tried, and mostly failed. I like the titles I come up with though.

I'm much better at modifying others' rules, and happier too. I've had some of my modifications go so far that I've basically written a whole new game, but that's still not quite the same thing as sitting down to write a set of rules.

- Ix

Writing rules is the part of the hobby that I enjoy most.

Rule writers might like to check out Wargame Developments wargamedevelopments.org

I often adapt/tweak/modify published rules for my own benefit or to produce rules for other periods or genres. I have also written several sets of my own.

Constantly writing and playing my own rules.

Long ago, I wrote and actually played a few sets of minis wargames and roleplaying rules. I still fiddle at times with ideas for new ones, but it's a long time anything even reached the stage of solo testing.

Maybe I'll get at it again if and when hobby time becomes more plentiful again.

Definitely, commercial rules are written to make money for commercial rules writers, I have other fish to fry.

Yes. Generally because I'm unsatisfied with other options I have found. Occasionally to exploit what I perceive as an opportunity.

Yep, write and modify rules.

Yep. I write completely original rules, and make changes to existing rules from others.

Yes, it's the only way I can understand what's going on!

Modify rules all the time.

I tend to write other people's rules.

Though, that will change soon.

Joe Collins

Every now and then

Certainly, whenever I can't find a commercial, existing set for a period or situation. And that happens often. Or at the least, modifying a set of rules to accommodate a new era or conflict. (E.g., the Sword & the Flame for the Jacobite Rebellions, Pulp Alley's movement and combat systems for historical skirmishing, etc.)

Not for the last 20 years.

I have written quite a few rules to cover situations that the main rules don't.

I have a number of my own. Of the two biggest ones the first is a major mishmash of various ideas and processes from other systems bound around a highly bastardized version of another system's core. The second is a primarily Vietnam focused system of my own making with what I beleive is a relativley unique core combat mechanic.