"Checking Rules for Signs of Life" Topic

In honor of our current poll on wargames which have "stood the test of time," I'd like some ideas about how we determine that they're still alive.

The poll seemed to include a number of "games" on what I think of as the "Two Geezer Rule:" "Yeah, Sam and I still play a game around Christmas most years." By that standard, probably every box game produced since Tactics II and all commercially-published miniatures rules qualify.

But what else do we have? I'd have said "still in print" but "in print" is a pretty nebulous concept in the days of PDF and POD. Conventions, maybe? Social media presence? Have we got any reasonably objective way of saying "these rules are still alive!" ?

No fixed opinion here. I'd like to hear other people's.

As long as somebody is playing games using them, then they are "alive" in my judgement.

Mister Natural +

Fair enough, and I agree about "still supported." Not much of a way to sort out the classics on that program, though.

Tough one. I was going to say that if stuff is available online to make the game easier or more playable, or add content, then it would be "alive". But I'm currently looking for Full Thrust ship designs, and all I come up with is stuff I remember seeing years ago. So I'm not sure that's a good definition, either.

For old rules, I am sure a lot of it is regional. There is a group about an hour south of me that has multi player TSATF games on a semi-regular basis, while I haven't seen one in my immediate area in 10+ years. That said, I did play a couple of solo games trying the rules with the F&IW period.

Every once in a while General Quarters get broken out. There is a local group that still plays ASL with miniatures on occassion.

There is something to be said about not always chasing the next set of rules.

One question that pops up here a lot is "Is this still supported?" What the heck does that mean? It's very annoying because it means that unless the printer keeps publishing new editions and lists it isn't worth playing.

To me, it means having a website and an active forum or community. An io group presence. A place for optional rules and various house rules. Are scenario books being published or are scenarios posted somewhere? Is the author(s) answering rules questions?

Good answer, OC. I'm mostly in agreement, though some of the true classics--"Charge!" for instance--seem to get by without. I also give points for attempts to adapt the rules to another period of level of warfare. Some of the attempts are misguided, of course, but people only make the effort if they know the rules themselves and think enough other wargamers do to make the effort worthwhile.

Robert,

Unsure on this, but it feels to me like Charge! is a period piece only. It might get played from time-to-time, but explicitly for the nostalgia, whereas it seems that some old rulesets (CLS for instance, a few from the WRG stable) are actually used as some gamers' primary rulesets.

King of the Battlefield, Eighteenth Century Rules first published in 2002.

They are often played at the Central London Wargames Club. Tomorrow will be our traditional large multiplayer Bank Holiday game of KotB. Ten of us involved, with about 40 units each, starting about 2pm.

Lots of fun. The easy to pick up system has more than stood the test of time. I'm told there will be an anniversary edition of these 18th century rules, but the author was writing 'Emperor of the Battlefield' for the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Emperor of the Battlefield was published last October and is doing well. The tried and tested Control Test and the Morale Test allow players to control a French Corps each with all the constituent battalions, batteries and squadrons on the table.

I love these games. No packs of cards are involved.
You make your own decisions so it helps to have a plan. :-)

Have fun.

Whirlwind, I like your distinction, but I'm not sure I agree with your facts. Mind you, I'm biased: CLS II was my first "grown up" wargame, and I did most of the grunt work on CLS3. But even in the heart of Vietmeyer Country, CLS games are hard to find, and if there's still a CLS community sharing game write-ups and such, I'm missing it. A few of us are trying to get regular games going again and to recruit a next generation (which will never have to buy or paint a casting if they don't want to) but it feels like an uphill struggle. On the other hand, it's pleasant and not at all surprising to attend a convention and find a "Charge!" game on the program.

I think partly this is start-up costs. CLS II requires three different artillery sticks, a drift stick, canister templates, markers for casualties, armies based in a particular specified fashion and about 100 pages of rules, poorly organized. CLS3 only ever so-so caught on. I think I was about 15 years late. And while I got rid of a lot of the requirements, it was still 35 pages, and the army organization was baked in. But if you've got two individually-based horse & musket armies, a tape measure, D6's and about a 5-6 page rules summary, you can play Charge! (And some day I'll button-hole a player long enough to get him to explain the "fast melee" system not in the Young rules.)

My armies of 500-600 each of CLS-based 30mm CLS castings stay in The Facility for scheduled games. If I wanted to fight a rearguard this afternoon, I'd break out my smaller armies of individually mounted 25/28mm figures and Charge! might very well be the rule set I use.

But it's the problem with a dispersed and nearly anarchistic hobby: we all know what we're doing individually, but when it comes to what's commonly done, there's a lot of guesswork informed by our grip on very small parts of the elephant.

Following up on that last paragraph, I just realized that Napoleon's Battles has made the second round in both "Wargames that Stood the Test of Time" and "Best Ruleset that Never Caught on" and is probably doing well enough to be a finalist in both--strongly suggesting that mostly we simply don't know what's going on outside of our own groups and the conventions we attend in person.

My guess--and it is only a guess--is that the true classics have relatively low entry costs. They require either individually mounted figures or constant frontages, and few tools which must be crafted or purchased beyond dice and tape measures, and the rules themselves can be read and understood without a "laying on of hands." These things are not sufficient, but they are necessary. Otherwise, you need to be initiated into a group to play, and when the group breaks up, there's no way in. Old players may continue, but new players try some other set.

Robert, thanks, I accept your correction. Thinking more, I think my impression of this is something like 15 years old and I have never updated it, which is probably another illustration of your general point!

robert piepenbrink – have some dissagreement (what a surprise) PDF or not is not a guide to deth regardless. Our own rules are PDF always, you can't get a printed copy at all.

What is not clear is how you define a set that was in existance to sart with that qualifies. Our own rules are still in print, still supported and still publishing (and even selling a few copies) 15 years on. In what typically seems a US traight commecial rules are all that seem to count. I suspect there are very many better, non commecial rules in lots of places. The very fact that one apparent sucess marker proposed is a website or Media presence.

We don't have one why should we? I am no lover of Facebook et al. Not a place for any long and intricate discussions. That is a TMP thing.

So to my mind any set of rules played by anybody means its live.

Human Death is difficult and surrounded in controversey still. So the best definition is actualy not dead. The only valid dead definition is never played, even than if it is still remembered is it truly dead even if not played?

In our own rules Lists are not required so not having new lists would not indicate it was dead, only that it might be, or the lists available are good enough, folk are making their own lists, although it could be dead.

Is a set of rules dead if it is no longer available in print or PDF even if somebody somewhere is playing it.

Most certainly a web presence or unavailability of New material is not eveidence of death, hibernation perhaps but dead no!

Signs of life for a set of rules would be the take up by new players. If there are no new players then the natural process of wastage as people move on to new rule sets, leave the hobby, pass away etc would mean those older rules may not be dead but are in decline, possibly terminally.

Signs of life would be simple things like the easy availability of the rules; YouTube tutorials; bloggers publishing game reports; activity in online forums and social media; new supplements or related material published; articles in the gaming press; tournaments or participation games at shows etc. If you can't tick any or most of these boxes then where do the rules exist in the consciousness of today's gaming community? How would someone find out about them? Find opponents?