"Mechanics I don’t like Pt2" Topic

2) Silly sub games.

I really want to play the game, not Poker, so managing a hand of cards for activity pulls be from the game. Do I play the Initiative 5 card now or risk it and play a 1 meaning I go second? Should I play my Activate two units on the left card to hope I draw a card of the right, where all the action is?

Casinos are also where you play dice games, arranging the big squiggle and little squiggle that I just rolled on a battle board just to move the berzerkers pulls me from the game.

Hmmmm, I see your point

Robert Piepenbrick sums it up perfectly:

"When understanding the game mechanics is more important than understanding period tactics, the rules have trouble."

Thank you Deucey. That's very kind.

I played a Rorke's Drift game as the British. My character's unit was defending the mealy bag perimeter.
The game was based on Piquet mechanics and card draw.
The Zulus broke in. They were busy wiping out part of the garrison.
In the meantime, I had accumulated many Volley cards, but I could not turn around to face the Zulus in my rear. That's okay, I guess, because they couldn't draw the cards to let them charge me in the rear.
FINALLY, I drew a Maneuver card, which allowed me to turn around. I had also accumulated 3 Volley cards. So, I turned around and fired all my volley cards and wiped out the Zulus.
That ended the game.
The GM was expecting the players to congratulate him on the game. He was rather upset when both the Zulu player and I told him that we felt it was blatantly unrealistic.
For that reason… I agree with the OP.

That is what I said early. I don't like cards in my wargames.

All war-games are unrealistic. Does any game really capture period tactics or just our concieved portrayals?

In SAGA any die can move berserkers.

John +1. That is why What a from TFL falls flat for me. The "I have a great mechanic" we have to make a game with it and who cares if, not just unrealistic, but urine poor game results.

Are they the ones with "Blinds"?
I picked up a game that had all kinds of rules for Blinds without bothering to define them or explain what they were. 🤷

Specialty Dice. Doesn't matter what for. Just another way to make money.

I can live with cards when they are for something lite, like Memoir '44 or Command and Colors, but even then it is frustrating when you are overly dependent on having the right cards. I see various rules mentioned favorably on TMP, so I look them up to learn something about them. As soon as I see a big card-based mechanic, they immediately go into the "No" pile.

I don't like anything that requires me to throw a single die. Nothing feels better than a big handful of dice hitting the table.

Blinds …. agreed

I like TSATF and rules from Wiley Games use cards.

I am not a big fan of cards dictating your choices or limiting orders. I think cards work well to randomize activations and perhaps as bonuses for certain actions.

I've also become more ambivalent over time about game-wthin-a-game processes… but there are exceptions. The important thing is for the side process to not be a distraction from the game. I think a side-game or sub-game can be just fine if it is a decision tree related to, or integral to, the theme.

Using Jeff Knudsen's game Away Boarders! as an example: each ship has a whole layout on which the ship is managed – allocating crew to tasks, loading guns, sail settings, damage, etc. This isn't a distraction from the game, it is the game – what you do as a captain to manage your own vessel(s) is just as important as the movement and shooting of the miniatures on the table. It's also really really fun.

There is also the minor issue that some systems need a monkey wrench to break up a predictable process, like a turn sequence. I always prefer player choices to a randomizer (roll a die, pull a card, pull a chit, etc.), but either way, there is an extraneous process orthogonal to the game system that becomes a disruptive out-of-game decision point.

As long as the players remain engaged and the process seems related to the actions, a complex game sub-process can be fine.

He was rather upset when both the Zulu player and I told him that we felt it was blatantly unrealistic.

You can't argue with the Piquet players. They're fanatics.

TBH, I don't think "realism" is even the issue here, player engagement is. Piquet players will tell you it's a narrative game and you're supposed to enjoy the surprises and chaos; my retort is that I want to play a game, not watch one. The Piquet player is reduced to being the robot enacting Lady Luck's script, and she's a control freak who hates plausibility. I don't find Piquet games to be either believable or fun.

I have similar problems with both FOB (the successor game to Piquet) and the various Commands & Colors games. I don't feel like a commander, I feel like an ADC to a card deck.

Louis XIV, have you tried To The Strongest?

It is the most card-heavy system I know of, and is driven by the cards, but there's no hand of cards, and every card pull is a direct decision about an action directly on the table. The cards are basically just a substitute for a dicing system, except that they have a memory – you can only pull so many high cards, or low cards, or fail cards. A die could roll its highest or lowest number an infinite number of times.

I'd be interested to know how you feel about it.

There was a Western role playing game where the players sat down to play poker. Except they didn't play poker.
Instead they rolled successive D20 to randomize playing poker. Yeah. Talk about "a game within the game".
Why not play poker? Oh, no! It was in the rules!
I played the game once. That was enough.

I'm not sure what the objection to blinds is.
I understand why players might not like mechanics that bear no relationship to real command (although if it gives a good game, personally I am all for it).
Blinds, however, allow hidden movement and fog of war, something that real commanders do have to deal with all the time. Is there a better way of doing that on the tabletop?
Piquet claims to do it with the cards; the idea is that although you thought your unit was ready to charge the enemy, in fact there was some SNAFU that prevented it. It sounds good, but the game feels like you are a slave to the card draw.
So what is the problem with blinds?

I was fortunate enough to have sat in on a convention game.
(they needed a third). It was the only tabletop game I played that had regular card usage. Great fun and companions
but after awhile it started to go all 'Casino' with the card
plays. The mechanics didn't really need them but it gave players with different skills and styles a slight edge where needed. The problem was, too many cards. too many edges.

All told, put me in the (for now) anti-card group.

I dislike games that have all your units do exactly what you want, all the time. I want some form of CnC.

I also dislike systems where sometimes you have to roll high, sometimes you have to roll low…

Dave

I'd say depends on level and period, PzGeneral. Commanding a WWII Corps is a more cooperative exercise than shouting commands at a horse & musket brigade, where I think generally morale rules are sufficient.

I too generally prefer one way--usually high--to be good. The best defense of the alternative I ever heard is that it makes using crooked dice really tricky. (CLS II needed high for fire, melee and morale, low for Combat Effectiveness and 3's and 4's for artillery drift. "Lucky" dice had to really be lucky.)

I'm not sure what the objection to blinds is.

No problem, except for the fact that the rules ASSUMED that I knew already what they were. Nowhere in the rules that I bought did it explain what they were.
I can only ASSUME that they ASSUMED I already knew what they were. I later found out that the rules I bought were the 3rd or 4th in a series that used that mechanism. I was supposed to know what "blinds" were, and how they worked. The term "blinds" is definitely not self-explanatory.

Which is the crux of the matter. Any rules mechanism that is not well explained is bad, particularly if the game itself relies on it.
I am not in the Club already. I have not been initiated into its mysteries. So, I wasted my money on those rules. I did sell them off in a flea market, though. I asked for $5. USD They were in almost mint condition, by the way.
Again, by the way. I also sold off Piquet for $5. USD 😄
Buying and selling rules is not a viable financial strategy. 🙄

Why not play poker? Oh, no! It was in the rules!

Eh… I get it.

We don't switch to real target shooting or video games for the action parts of a game either. A player's skill IRL is probably nothing like the skills of his character(s), and shooting and horseback riding and playing poker are all skills outside the miniatures gaming hobby. If you want to say this figure is terrible at poker, that one is the chatty card shark sleight-of-hand cheater, and the others are varying skill levels near average, that's easier to represent with modifiers and die rolls than an actual poker game between players.

Faster, too. Poker is also a very slow, boring game, if you're doing it right – hours of boredom punctuated by minutes of sweat-pouring stress (which you have to be able to hide).

I would actually prefer a poker game to a Western game, but that's probably not typical for a miniatures gamer.

- Ix

So what is the problem with blinds?

is it a dummy stand?, 3x5 card? Poker chip? Deer or Duck stand?

I'm with the OFM, what is a blind? Is it in the table?