"Rules and Shrink Wrap" Topic

Inspired by my own rant on the subject. The FLGS or some vendor in Lancaster has a brand new set of rules in a period you play. It is, of course, amazingly fast play with uncanny historical accuracy. They all are. No, of course you can't look inside any of the rule books. Why would you even think of such a thing? But you can see the back cover through the shrink wrap. What does it have to say before you consider buying the rules? For me:
1. Period.
2. Command level. Am I going to command the Grande Armee? III Corps? A platoon of Voltigeurs?
3. A broad hint at basing. Castings individually based? A constant frontage like DBA or V&B? Something more exotic, like CLS? Or "basing agnostic" which usually means keeping book on every unit?
4. Playing area. Do I need a card table or a gym? (Yes, it may depend on scale. But they could give me a few clues.)

What's your minimum information? And how often do you get it?

Suitability for solitaire play

Dice used, or cards, or what

But I wouldn't buy rules unseen. My own are at Wargames Vault with a dozen or so pp accessible. I'd want at least to read some reviews, and better yet to play them first.

doc mcb – Brilliant. I already commendt on this in the other thread, but the fact that WGV give the publisher the abiliy to expose pages to the customer is a great counter to shirnk wrap.

Don't recall the last time I relied on the book cover to get info.

We have teh internets now.
* A short and sweet how-to play video is the gold standard, but rare.
* Gamers'reviews are quite helpful.
* Unboxing/flip-through videos are slightly useful.
* Rambling game play videos are sometimes all that can be found, but at least I can crank the playback speed up up to 1.5x or higher and not have to watch endless hours of hemming and hawing over each dice roll or who to assign an action token too that generally eats up most of the vid time.

Hmm. Good points, and I may once more not be keeping up with the times. Of course part of my problem is that I'm a really hard sell for the current "price of a small army" rule books, which get the Little Wars TV reviews. I lean more toward the "both sides of a sheet of paper" school of rule design, which is seldom blessed with a choice of videos. They're generally easier to adapt, and less prone to getting a new edition next year.

For me, if it uses cards or not. I am not a fan of cards.

I don't think I've ever bought a set of miniatures rules based on what I could figure out from the rulebook in a store. Either someone's introduced me to it and I decided to get my own copy, or I bought after at least some amount of online research.

(FWIW, I bought my first miniatures rules in 1997 or so.)

Edit: I guess there's a third variant: I bought Warmaster after reading about it in White Dwarf. But it's possible that too involved some ancillary online research, I don't remember.

Since you started this threat, I have ported your response from the other, since it really applies here and not there.

But my problem as a consumer is the lack of information. Whether this is because The Vault failed to provide, or because The Vault failed to insist someone else provide doesn't really matter.

So, what stnandards do you think should be forced on publishers, lest they be banned from the platform?

Interesting that you went to enforcing standards and banning, eto. This being a free society, I figure when I don't do business with someone, I've hit my limit. What's yours?

nteresting that you went to enforcing standards and banning, eto.

Please point to the part where I said anything about enforcing anything.

I already pointed out the part where you characterize WargameVault's behaviour as a "fail" for not enforcing your specific standards on others.

Well since you asked, eto: "what stnandards do you think should be forced on publishers, lest they be banned from the platform?"

Oh. You're thinking of Wargame Vault as the platform. If you told me to set up a system, there would probably be a checklist of up to six for each type of product. I don't know that I'd fail to carry a product otherwise, but I'd at least remind the vendor that people like to have information before they spend money. And for rules, they'd be the same four I started the thread with.

Oh. You're thinking of Wargame Vault as the platform

Yes, I was referring to the thing we were actually explitly discussing in wirting in the conversation.

but I'd at least remind the vendor that people like to have information before they spend money

Wargame Vault already does that.

link

YouTube link

Apparently, we have very different defintions of the word "fail". I consider it to mean someone didn't do something there was a reasonable expectation for them to do. Appoarently you consider not doing something there is no reasonable expectationfor you to do also to be a failure. I will try to remember that distinction in characterizing your behaviour in the future.

Yes, I have clearly failed you on so many levels, eto. But I will concede that The Vault--which is NOT where the conversation started--is clearly asking for better than it's getting. I'm surprised at the gap between their request and what I actually see on their site. Of course, since I have to deal with what they have and not what they ask for, they're still not a place I search for rules.

A pity. There are places where I could use short, cheap rules in Word or as pdfs.