"Should There Be Time Limits on Decision-Making in" Topic

… Tabletop Wargames?

"If you've ever found yourself watching your opponent think through every possible move while the game grinds to a halt, this is a conversation you'll want to join. In this episode, we dive into the tricky subject of whether time limits on decision-making belong in friendly tabletop wargames…"

BigLee's 'Miniature Adventures'

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Armand

Lord no. If I had an opponent who brought in a chess clock to speed up play, I would be tempted to 'punch his clock'.

I actually have a pal who does sometimes prevaricate but we try to kid him into moving faster. And, it is a game.

I think it's a good idea to discourage dawdling but I have no idea how you can enforce a bunch of hardline rules among a group of friends (or strangers at a convention). It's a hobby pastime, not a contest. Just show a little common sense, lads!

In competition games, yes. Albeit many games' sequence of play don't really allow for timing.

I ran some DBM comps where players had x minutes to spend their pips (I provided egg timers, I can't remember exactly I think it was 6 mins) but after a few turns players knew the pace and declined to time each other.

In surveys of players, slow play consistently came up as a negative.

Kings of War fantasy set uses a chess clock, but I don't know how it's used. I think total elapsed time leading to game defeat is bad – use timers to set a minimum pace of play.

One thing timed moves does is simulate one role of generals, to make good calls under time stress – it has an added bonus of curbing players from unrealistic millimetric co-ordination of units into fudgy positions.

In most pick-up style games there is a measuring of points to ensure equity of initial fighting forces, deployment rules to ensure equity of access to terrain features – so why not use a timer to ensure both players have some equity in sharing the available game-time?

Classic Space Hulk does this … for one side. The Space Marine side has 3 min (an egg timer) to execute their moves. The Genestealer/Alien/Whatever side has as long as they want. But the longer they take, the more "extra time" they give to the SM side.

Time for giving orders is really a meta-game element, not a part of the rules (the things tha govern entity interactions in the game). Similar to the space for touching a piece, releasing a piece, and taking a move back. Or pre-measuring.

All those things (and other meta-game elements) bring a flavor to the game different from the way rules do. The Space Hulk bit is fun. For that game. To create a specific type of tactical pressure. In many historical games that represent large battles, you are often already compressing time.

Through scenario design, we tend to limit people to 3-7 operaitonal level decisions per turn, which tends to keep the game moving.

The original wargames rule book of rules called for use of a timer.

We don't have any strict rules but we discourage dawdling

If my gaming buddy and I want to drink some beers and reminisce and joke around then no timer. It is all about the camaraderie.

However, if we want to get to a conclusion in a short time (because we have multiple games planned) or want to add stress to the decision making then yes we will use a timer. We have only used a 3 minute timer in the past.

I use a duck call for such situations. Pretty effective.

It depends, usually with plenty of time it doesn't matter. But at club night when you only have a few hours to arrive, set up, play and the pack away it drives me nuts when people start discussing every option and then going through the rules and probability of each outcome, and the end result is a game that has to be called due to lack of time.
It also gets annoying in small skirmish actions, gunfights or aerial dogfights where in reality anyone who dithers is dead. It's a game, but this is driven by the desire to win. I generally prefer to just do what I think seems to fit what I've read others did in history and see how it plays out. I do lose a lot.

The original wargames rule book of rules called for use of a timer.

Which book is that?

BillyNM: +1

BillyNM +2. I know one cannot realistically simulate combat but the real guys had to make decisions with bullets/arrows
whizzing past with 1000s of men moving and, usually, much more limited views. We should try to honour them with as much speed in decision-making as possible.

I always remember Major Reno at the Little Bighorn when he realized he was attacking with 200 men against a 1000+ Native Americans and was almost immediately spattered with the brains of his best scout.

BloodBowl tournaments definitely. A player who dawdles and leads to an inconclusive game before the round ends is severely hampering their opponent. When I ran tournies, timers weren't strictly required, but a player could call for them if the opponent was consistently dragging, or the referee could just step in and issue them if it was looking needed.

Playing at home, we rarely used timers. Except when "that one player" showed up; then out they came and we said we always used them.

In a training game where play is slow you cannot speed it up. some beginners have little background history of the period so you have to explain real world tactics and to some extent the rules. So timers are not suitable.

Im games between "experts" (i.e drips under pressure") I have not found it an issue, you have to have a plan at least a few bounds ahead and the IGO UGO at low level we play usually gives time for general considerartion. Occationally you are general, staff officers and even company commanders and have to produce, artillery plans, and startegic plans and logistics plans in the same bound, that can take a few minutes longe but you have to live with that.

So I have never seen the need for timers, but we do not play games in the same way as many US players do at conventions. Convention game like in the US do not exsist in my experience in the UK.

Yes. I had a friend who literally spend 5-10 minutes allocating his dice in DBM. He easily added an hour or more to each game, which meant I didn't get home from game nights until after midnight.

Thanks!

Armand

Could the problem be the rules allowing players to unrealistically micro manage their units?

I've played games using command dice where there can be multiple choices of what a unit can do and the player might spend quite a bit of time trying to manipulate the dice to put together a string of actions. I understand the concept of using them but I think they are pretty unrealistic because commanders don't make decisions like that.

Also, how many commands would a unit receive from their commander in a battle of 1+ hours?

A brigade commander in a typical US Civil War battle would receive a varying number of orders, but generally, this would consist of a few major written or verbal orders for the initial battle plan, followed by several, often frantic, updates or adjustments during the engagement.

Because of the "fog of war" and the limitations of communication technology, orders were often delivered by aides-de-camp or couriers on horseback, or via signal flags for simpler, direct commands

Games have players giving "commands" to units to do something or perform an action each turn. In reality, once given an order, the unit attempts to accomplish their objective or execute their order with some input for initiative from the commander. So in the game it should be pretty simple. Each turn the player is attempting to execute an order previously given, not issuing a new order.

For greater historical realism, players should be historically restricted to their intended order or objective unless upper command can contact them and change it.

Ideally, that can speed up the game with some rule sets but some players don't like restrictions.

Wolfhag

Ages ago we played Empire 3 using a timer. Each side had a set amount of time to conduct their turn. Players had to prioritize what was important to their goals like, moving grand tactically, bombardment, regular movement, skirmish combat, fire combat and/or melee. There was never enough time to do everything desired. It kept the battle moving and everyone involved.

Peer pressure.

"Jeez! Decide what you want to do while paying attention to the game!"

"Get your nose out of your phone!"

Then escalate to less friendly admonishments.

Violence should always be your last resort.

(smile)

Armand

Honestly it depends. If playing with friends, you can be more lenient (or more direct depending on the friend group). At a convention/ show, it drives me nuts when players hem and haw as if their lives depend on their decisions. There is nothing worse in a four hour game than that one player who takes 15 minutes contemplating their turn from every angle before taking an action. If it's not a tournament game, no one is doing to care if you were Clausewitz or il Duce.

I don't know that there needs to be a formal rule about time allowed to take a turn, but people should try to move the game along at a reasonable pace.

The more "pieces" a side has to move the longer the decision process will be. I have found myself frequently having more elements than I do command pips available. What gets moved and what doesn't? Then what gets moved where?

Going back to written orders might actually spead up game play. A unit with the order "Take and hold hill 285" Will require fewer active player decisions on a given turn. Decisions take time to make and execute.