"A really bad attack of rules writers obsession" Topic

There is a danger as a rule writer that you go too far. I caught myself writing that a two man team in a Willy's jeep carrying a machine gun, one is also the driver the other is the number 2 and they can dismount the radio from the Jeep. Fine no problem there.

However I then found myself thinking do I need to say that the Jeep now has no radio and no crew so now is inert and may not move! That is really taking the rip out of the reader but it is a danger for some of us obsessives.

It does raise the question however, perhaps slightly less bizarre about how much your readers understand about their period. We once had a guy turn up with marvelously painted set tanks to play. It was a bit of a culture shock for us when it turned out he had no idea what a Platoon was. How much knowledge should you assume for your readers? I guess from the bit at the start we assume some knowledge.

On another occasion we had to take a player out to look at the houses along the road and point out that the one at the end was some hundreds of yards away and that no, somebody standing back from the window at that distance cannot be seen even with binoculars. Please note we deliberately have scales in meters on the table top so folk have a connection to reality.

Well, I had five jeeps in my cavalry platoon, plus three M551 and a mortar track and an Infantry M113. 41 men and nine vehicles. Only the infantry squad had a radio that was dismountable. All vehicles had a radio in them that could only be used in the track. All jeeps had three man crews. A driver, a gunner for the mounted M60 and the team leader which could range from a Spec4 to SSG to Lt. Driver monitored the radio if I was out of the Jeep. In late 1978, we replaced the jeeps with M113s and the crew remained the same. The scout and a M901 TOW operated as a team.
But the point is the radios were not removable from any vehicle. My vehicle and the PLTSgt had two radios. One for platoon and one for company or battalion.

On designing, deciding is you are working on a game or simulation will influence your amount of detail.

How much knowledge should you assume for your readers?

I've always been amazed about in general how little players know about historical tactics and how to execute them. I guess that unless you've served in combat arms or are very well-read on the historical battle tactics and details of the period to have any real knowledge.

Unfortunately, playing the popular commercial war games will teach you the wrong lessons. The realism and enjoyment mainly come from visuals and eye candy. The rules help you play pretend.

The historical miniature crowd seems to be more about the toys than tactics, but there are quite a few knowledgeable historians and tacticians on TMP.

Wolfhag

We were playing my one-page Napoleonics and a couple of players complained that infantry could attack cavalry. I told them not to put their cavalry in front of infantry. I can't right rules for bad tactics…

How about writing some explanations in the designer's notes section?

- T&OEs for forces catered for in the rules
- Example play-throughs using tactics catered for similarly

At least readers will have some useful information even if they don't use the rules.

The flip side of the lack of player knowledge about tactics and practice is that it may be so obvious to the rule writer that certain situations escape notice. Often because "no one would be stupid enough to try that…"

I helped playtest a set of English Civil War rules that allowed piuckemen to operate in woodland at the exact same effectiveness as in open ground.When I pointed this out to the rule writer he said it never occurred to him that anyone would try to take pikes into the woods, it simply wasn't done in period.

Some times, especially with Ancients, we simply don't know enough to write accurate rules. I spent considerable time exploring Late Bronze Age warfare and rules for that period. A huge grey area was chariotry. Much ink has been spilled in speculation about how they were used and what tactical role they played. I found several videos and reports by people who had built reproduction chariots and tried out various tactics and maneuvers. This lead me to three possible uses for chariotry, with cultural patterns in which were the primary uses. These were battle taxis for warriors who dismounted to fight, mobile missile platforms, and a shock of impact weapon. It is quite possible that none of these models were correct, but they satisfied me at the time.

It is hard to know how much detail to include in rules. Do we need to model what happens when a jeep gets a flat tire? How closely do we track ammunition supplies? Do we have a table for what the men had for breakfast and how this affects their fighting quality for the day? And, yes, I have actually seen such a table. It didn't seem to add much to the game besides another step in set up.

Dave Crowell It is a dilemma. We had it at work, I was in charge of a manual to assist guy's with experience in my field. Some less able management wanted it to start from scratch and teach up to the level required for the current manual. Truth is this would have made the manual unusable by the expert, it would take too long to trawl though the document to get at the key items. Hence it had a warning that is was not a training manual but a reference document for those with appropriate training.

TimePortal is correct there is a difference. Our rules are a Simulation so we have to assume some basic knowledge.
To cover how real armies fight even with some brevity would require a vastly larger tome than the rules as they stand and then they would still need to read the rules.
A stress analysis system starts on the basis you already have beyond very basic knowledge of stress analysis.
I think this supports the point of my first post, I was in danger of over specifying the rules.

This is why we have minimal designers note, the rules are there for folk who understand what a Platoon is. To start from "I think therefore I am and deduce the existence of Rice Pudding and Maneouvre Group rules" is too big a stretch.

We do have specific examples for the rules. If for example we had to instruct players on the need for formations of say tanks we would have to repeat much of what is available in real world literature. An exercise I have no enthusiasm for.

I think in those circumstances the players are probably not sufficiently engaged in the subject to want or need a simulation. If they become so, they like us, will become disaffected with commercial gammy rules and know what to look for in a more sophisticated set and be prepared for it to be more demanding, relying less on die and more on carful thought and planning.