"It's not you, it's me." Topic

We all know the "accepted wisdom" in the hobby: what periods are popular, what rules are best, what should work on the tabletop.

But sometimes … it just doesn't click.

Case in point: I had American Civil War armies. Nicely done, several of games tried, different rulesets. On paper, it ticked all the boxes—well-supported, widely played, lots of scenarios.

Yet on the table, I found it…a bit mundane. Hard to pin down exactly why—maybe the feel, maybe the decision space—but it never quite grabbed me. In the end, I moved the armies on to Ebay.

And that's the point of this thread.

What have you tried—despite it being popular or "highly recommended"—that just didn't work for you?

Not because it's bad. Not because others are wrong. Just because, for whatever reason:

"It's not you, it's me."

What's your "everyone loves it—but I don't" period, scale, figure range, or ruleset?

And that is why you need to write your own rules, You know what is not "you", so make rules that are "you".

I have done my own rules for many different periods, and ACW I have done multiple rule sets for similar issues. Popular and well accepted rules that just didn't do it for me got me to create what for myself what I wanted.

I played John Hill's "Johnny Reb" rules before they were ever published (still have his pre-publication manuscript).
Just did not like the mechanics, so wrote my own rules that we played for decades at home and many conventions that were wildly praised.

Often it's just little things in rules that drive me crazy as I know that it is either incorrect or simply left out of the production.

Other than ACW, the list of rules that just don't work for me is too numerous to even list.

Kim

Oh, a few:

Napoleonic Naval. I actually consider this one of the worst naval gaming periods, and I cannot understand why anyone thinks it has any potential as a gaming experience. Every Napoleonic naval game goes the same way: two excessively documented fleets make a single maneuver to get into gunnery range and then play Yahtzee until the British win. Meh. Boring.

To be clear, I also find the paintings and fiction and history of the Napoleonic naval oeuvre to be fascinating. I hear the siren's song like anyone else. It's just that I've tried this period and it's never a good gaming experience.

Other Age of Sail. I'm in love with sailing ships, half my library is about naval topcis, half the games I run are naval games, I have mountains of sailing ship miniatures from all eras of sail in 4 different scales, and I consider the 17th and 18th centuries to have some of the best naval gaming periods in all of history. The first decade of my miniatures hobby featured painting fleets and developing rules and studying the ships, battles, and tactics of the period. Then I just… stopped. I tried again in 2011, and once more in 2015-2016 with someone else's rules. It didn't stick. My sailing ships are all in boxes, and have been for years.

ACW ironclads. Love the ships, love reading about them, love studying the battles, will eagerly jump into other peoples' ACW ironclads games, have a couple dozen gorgeous Thoroughbred 1/600 ACW ship models around that I loved painting… but I just can't be bothered to put together games anymore. The spark died.

WWII land combat. I have a large microarmor collection (minis and terrain) that I painted and played with in the early 2000s, for a couple years straight. I tried a dozen rules sets, attempted to write a few myself, and then just walked away. I still play in other peoples' WWII games once in a while, I have grown a very large collection of 1/144 tanks and Victrix 12mm infantry because I love the models so much, I have plans to use them, I occasionally go through fits of painting and detailing a bunch of them… but I just don't play with them.

- Ix

As an aside, I have one genre that's a curious opposite experience from the OP topic:

Colonials. I never had any interest in colonial gaming, never sought out the games or bought the minis, never studied the conflicts or cared much for the movies (except Zulu, which I rewatch nearly every year). Colonials are just not my thing. So… it's a grave irony that a few years ago I discovered the Battles for Empire 2 is one of my favorite rules sets. I still don't care much for colonial conflicts and I can't get invested in learning about the battles, but I've had a really good time playing BFE2 games several times now, and I'll keep playing them when other people are putting them on. I don't get it.

Even more curious: I have never once enjoyed a game of TSATF, but I consider the TSATF rulebook (20th anniversary edition) to be one of the most inspiring and exciting gaming publications in existence. Looking through that book makes me want to like TSATF. Larry Brom knocked that one outta the park. I really hope it comes back into publication. It's a gem of our hobby.

Yellow Admiral,

I purchased TSATF know virtually nothing of Colonials. Liked the publication looks, bought lots of figures and painted them, Zulus, British, Egyptians, Dervish. painted nearly a 1,000 minis and my buddies did too.

In less then a year decided the rules simply didn't do it for us and wrote my own Colonial rules. Played them for over 20 years, home and at major conventions.

I know TSATF has a large following to this day, but me and my gaming group found too may flaws and went a different direction.

Kim

I was very slow to learn this about myself, but I find 15mm uninspiring. I'll happily play games with 15mm armies, but none of those armies will be anything that I put together. I have tried to make them work. Ancients, traded. ECW, traded once before, have some now I want to sell. Napoleonics, lost in a sour consignment deal. ACW, traded. Colonials, want to sell. Sci-fi, want to sell.
I jump in, but they just haven't held my attention. No good reason I can think of.

Napoleonics Yes yes I know… For me it's the equivalent of land based Starfleet Battles with black powder instead of phasers. Too many different troop types, too many different periods within a "period". Too many people arguing about "bicornes vs tricornes", or "Why you can't use those french infantry figures for Ligny when they are definitely Spanish Peninsula figures.

WW2 Land Yes I know…tar and feather me. WW2 games just are "eh". I don't know why they just are. I've played a few and in each one after a couple of turns, I walk away. They don't hold my interest.
Yes I know…the ultimate sin….

Ancients Nope…no interest at all….

There isn't often a "good reason", Bob. The artists who magically paint 6mm & 2mm figures (beyond my poor abilities) will be devastated to know I don't want to game with them.

I have tried and sold many armies and periods.
Ancients. I cut my teeth on WRG tournaments. Then I dropped out for 10 years. Came back with no interest.
Painted up British Napoleonics and sold them twice.
IRA vs British. Sold.
Wooden ships. Sold.
Warhammer. Sold.

I could go on. And on. And on.
One of the reasons was that I was doing them to join the popular crowd, but didn't really like it. Other reason was that nobody else wanted to "share the project".

15mm castings, eventually. For me, a scale too small for individual basing and not small enough for mass battles or portability.

Computer-moderated rules. Certain particular rules. It would have been ver helpful to come to love or at least accept Napoleon's Battles, but I never could.

Rosters and the continual monitoring of units.

Colonial – tried to like it, painted up big armies, tried lots of rules but in the end it just wasn't for me and sold the lot.

I'm fairly ambivalent about Napoleonics these days too. It just seems a bit dull and samey. I suspect I've been doing it too long.

TSATF. I gave them a good try with a club. On paper TSATF ticks all the boxes.The club were great chaps to game with. I enjoyed researching, collecting and painting my army. Somehow in play they just didn't click for me. I still rate them highly as a flexible toolkit.

DBA for the usual reasons. It is enjoyable solo for me though.

WW2, I just am not really interested in gaming it. Same for Napoleon's, just can't get hugely excited.

Battletech
40K
Star Fleet Battles
Full Thrust. A lot of people love it— I find it clunky and non-intuitive.
Warhammer Fantasy Battles/Age of Sigmar (especially the latter)
The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (sold my collection off)
Star Trek skirmsh/rpg ground/interior action
Star Wars skirmish/rpg ground/interior action

The above are a case of liking (even loving) the genre, but not the execution.

No Interest at all:
Korean War
Vietnam War
Iraq War
Afghanistan War
War on Terrorism
Other current or very recent conflicts. These are in part because I have no desire to imagine the motivations and tactics of Islamofascists nut jobs, and thus wouldn't want to play that "side" of the battles.

But my biggest is anything involving grotesquerie. Whether they're called demons or Chaos or plague-whatevers, if the look is intended to be as gross and diseased as possible, then I have zero interest in it. The same for games/figures involving brutalized or "bondage" depictions of women. I don't get the attraction to any of that.

Low Interest but not No Interest:
Napoleonics, WWI ground combat, WW2, SYW, Lace Wars, ECW, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Zombies. I'm not opposed to these, I'm just not motivated to make the effort.

Anything where somebody invariably starts arguing about whether this or that force was "actually" present, or whether or not a unit's capabilities included some minor detail… just shut up and go away, thankyouverymuch.

Same situation here, and sometimes I have a problem with the scale at which a game is presented. At a convention where I'm literally a captive audience I'll play darn near anything but I've never had any real interest in spending my own money on:
ACW
ECW
Crusades
Far East classical / samurai
Colonials
Ancients
Age of sails
AWI
and others more niche to mention.

WWI Land battles: I don't see anything interesting about trench warfare from a game perspective.

Colonials: even though I bought some of the rules, it seems like high tech vs. the low tech charging hoards. I figured that I would get bored after awhile.

Age of Sail: what Yellow Admiral said, though I suppose you could say the same thing with pre-dreadnought and WWI naval as well, which I like.

40K: I play since that is the only thing the locals play around here, but I don't have enough interest (or the budget) to buy the rules, supplements, or figures. Lore is a little too weird for me, as well.

Non-40K scifi: a few years back, I invested a fair amount of time and money into this genre, but now low interest. I still play but only with my son as it seems its the only type of miniatures game he likes to play.

To summarise all of the above.
"there are some rules I like and some I don't"

Seems a reasonable position for hobbyists.

martin .

I took the OP to also include genres, periods, styles of gaming, etc. separate from the rules used.

I don't think that makes the observation "some popular parts of the hobby don't appeal to me" any less quotidian, but it is more expansive.

- Ix

I love colonials. Did my Ph.D. relating to French conquest of West Africa. Began with TSATF rules but just found them slow. Hated dealing with dozens of wounded Europeans. The club has switched to Men Who Would be Kings. Like TSATF, MWWBK is very Hollywood and bloody, but fast play. As a historical reenactment of colonial engagements both fail. Colonial battles with few exceptions were walkovers with 1000s of native dead and a handful of European wounded, but how interesting would this be to game?

Naval 1860-1918: I scratch built British and French ironclad fleets and just need to find the right rules. 50 years ago I started scratch building the ships for Jutland in 1:1000 scale, but realized that finding a gymnasium to play in was never going to happen.

Napoleonics: Just doesn't fit into any scale for me. Played Sharpe's Practice in 28mm twice but skirmish battles are not what comes to mind when thinking of Napolianics. 15mm neither captures the scale of Napolianic battles and is a bit small to do justice to uniforms. And since depicting Napolianic uniforms is the big attraction to this period, painting armies in 6-10mm doesn't warrant the effort.

WWII: Played a lot in college with ROCO tanks, Airfix troops (not very worried about matching scale at that time) and house rules. Each tank = 20 vehicles. Simple record keeping. Thirty-five years later the club played FOW which I hated. Table looked like a parking lot and it just became a dice game. Then the club switched to Bolt Action which I liked a tad better, but players wanted to cram every figure they owned on the table and it was a plodding mess. Random move by cards or chit drawing have to be limited to skirmish engagements. Ten players each with 1200 points = 5 turns of straight ahead attrition. Wake me when you've moved. I do like Konflict 47 however. Give me a squad of Rocket Girls and I'm your man.

DBA: If I wanted to play a cross between Chess and Rock, Paper, Scissors, I'd buy the rules and army lists. I don't, however.

Warhammer, Trench Crusade and the alike: Gag me with a spoon. Note to today's young gamers, save you $ for a home mortgage and resist getting sucked into a plastic arms race orchestrated but the evil empire of public traded game manufacturers. Absurd, over detailed figures, scale creep, useless-color paint lines. More and more Youtube sites are focusing on how to win a Golden Dragon than practical lessons on how to paint historicals. The club has to play next to Saturday morning WH40K tournaments that are so noisy I can't hear myself think.

I have been playing for a long time and have tried many things but have finally boiled it down to just a few:
ACW 15s
ECW 28's and 15s
WSS 15s
1/2400 naval in Napoleonics, Ancients, R-J war, WW I and II with forays into ironclads.
Steam flying warships
Other areas I will play with friends but no real interest

I won't play anything Warhammer related.

John the OFM said:

Other reason was that nobody else wanted to "share the project".

I think this is an under-discussed aspect of our hobby, and probably a big contributor to the things listed in this thread.

Collaboration and a shared set of rules add a tremendous amount of reward to the gaming experience. This is surely one reason why tournament play persists despite the endless toxicity and stress. It's way less effort to play with a group that helps provide of the miniatures, a ready group of players, a shared understanding of the rules, maybe some of the terrain, some of the scenarios, etc.

I long ago gave up on tournaments, but these days I jump feet first into group efforts based on periods or rules that interest me, because having a group with a shared activity is priceless. The rules are always imperfect, but the flaws tend to fade into background noise.

- Ix

I had the same issue with ACW.

I will not spend $ on: Napoleonic's, Colonials and Ancients.

Although, not adverse to playing with them at a con.

What have you tried—despite it being popular or "highly recommended"—that just didn't work for you?

The rules I've played- usually because a club game needed another player- and didn't really enjoy include Empire, Napoleon's Battles, Challenger, dBM and Warhammer. If we look at periods then most Sci-Fi/Fantasy didn't grab me (probably my lack of imagination). I've never understood the attraction of zombies- video (exception Shawn of the Dead, probably because it spoofed the whole genre) or games.

"Other reason was that nobody else wanted to "share the project"."

I learned a long time ago that if you want to put on a game, you need to provide everything. Both/all sides, rules, terrain. If other people want to contribute, fine, but it is very unwise to rely on other people for critical stuff as it is a hobby not a job.

Wow – does anyone see anything in common with all of the rules you don't like? When you write your own, what do you make different and why?

For me, any type of IGYG or random activations are just not intuitive. I loved Panzer Blitz when I was 16 and had little historical or tactics knowledge.

After being in the infantry, reading the manuals and gaining historical and tactical knowledge I found it harder and harder to immerse myself in commercial games.

Balanced Games: I get the reason. However, in combat rates of fire are not balanced.

WaT: Definitely on the right track regarding recreating what AFV warfare is. However, it's the tail wagging the dog (dice activation) and there are no real Risk-Reward Tactics to use and ranges are abstracted. The damage system is ridiculous..

Team Yankee: Dumbed down so you don't get the historical results which would make the game a boring bloodbath.

Bolt Action: Interesting concept. However, your guys can't do anything unless you remind them every turn.

W40K: I played it when my son was young, nothing after that.

Challenger: Very interested but you really need data cards for each unit or you must look up too many values.

Yaquinto (Armor, Panzer and 88): On the right track but too many lookups on QRCs.

Napoleonic's: No interest

Air-Air games: Very interested. However, IGYG in air combat??????????????

Naval Warfare WWI+: I want to like them but the rules I've seen are a variation of land warfare.

Full Thrust: Played it a few times and was OK. Same problem using IGYG moves like air combat. I'd like to use some of SFB rules to tailor it.

Computer Moderated Rules: I had great hope for them. However, they just left a somewhat empty feeling, something was missing.

I was play testing a WWII game with the well known designer and was pretty excited about it. However, when the German player rolled a handful of dice for his MG42 and the poor British lads stood stoically in the open without hitting the deck because it was not their "turn" I immediately soured on the game.

My goal was to have a game where the action flowed more intuitively and real tactics and risk-reward decisions could be simulated.

How many time have you heard a player at the table mumble, "That could never happen."

Wolfhag

The only air combat games I've played are Wings of Glory and Aerodrome. Both have mechanisms that enforce plotted maneuvers. There is no IGYG in these games. Maneuvers are revealed, all planes are repositioned accordingly, and then you see if shots were fired and damage done.

In Wings of Glory, shooting is assumed, but might miss. Ammo is not tracked.

Aerodrome requires the firing of weapons to be secretly planned along with the maneuver, and tracks ammo, too. If you committed to fire your guns, you fire your guns and remove the ammo, even if there's nobody in your field of fire. But if you don't plan to shoot, and an enemy winds up in your sights, too bad. No shot happens. Personally, I don't care for this as much.

Full Thrust requires written orders (and thus pre-plotted maneuvering), so it's not IGYG, either. Though some people ignore the order rules and move as they wish.

My own one-on-one Star Captain ship combat rules assume initiative as a factor. Yes, it's sort of IGYG, but it's based on the assumption that the player who holds initiative "has the drop" on the enemy, and simply beat out the old "OODA loop". So it's not that the enemy is standing still, it's just that the ship with initiative has "out foxed him" for the round, and thus gains the most advantageous maneuver situation and shoots as the enemy "comes to bear." The enemy, caught with his vacc-suit down, is stuck with a poorer time-and-position response. But you can do things to improve initiative.

In GOBS, ships move in semi-IGYG fashion, but combat isn't resolved until all ships of all combatants have moved. Slowest ships move first, because faster and more maneuverable craft will be able to respond to the slow ship's maneuvers with better results. And initiative also grants the initiative winner the opportunity to move his ships after the opponent's. But again, only after everything moves does combat happen, and thus weapons fire situations are identical for the any ships in range of each other— the fire is considered to be simultaneous, so even if you blow up an enemy target, it's fire may do the same to you in the same round. In effect you get the results of real-time combat without the headache of figuring out "who goes first." It's all about grokking what it all represents.

I did make some generalized statements so I'll try to clarify.

I've played Aerodrome a few times. It's one of the most popular games at conventions. Too much guessing for me.

I've played Wings of Glory only once and watched a few games so I looked at some videos today. Yes, movement is not IGYG and there are some other aspects of the game I like. Somehow I have not tried again to play it.

Realistically, ATA combat is more about reaction and timing than predicting and guessing. Col. Boyd documented the OODA Loop for ATA combat which I really like but I have not seen any game that can accurately portray that because OODA is about timing of pilots reactions and time to execute a maneuver which is hard to portray in a game that does not have a set turn time. Looking a WoG a typical WW I fighter could turn at up to 30 degrees per second. So turning 90 degrees would be 3-4 seconds per turn in the game. Does that make sense?

Maneuvering is not just about turning, it's about an aircrafts ability to change direction mainly by banking. Example: The Jap Zero was more maneuverable than US naval planes right? Not so fast. The US found that is they kept their air speed at least 250mph IAS (?) the Zero's ailerons locked up. When the P-38 got the hydraulically boosted ailerons it significantly increased it's maneuverability. I did play a game that took banking into account. Then there is the instantaneous and sustained turn rates which can get a little complicated. That's what I like in an ATA game.

Wings of Glory does some of that in a more abstracted way by using different maneuver decks and restrictions on certain maneuvers. It works in the game and is fun.

I'm slowly working on my own ATA si-move system that that can portray the timing aspects I like but involve more detail and tracking speed. Also, I just don't like the highly abstracted gunnery and damage rules and just because you are tailing someone does not mean you can line up an accurate shot.

Doesn't Full Thrust use initiative and alternate pre-plotted movement and shooting? It does bring out some interesting strategies. The damage system is pretty cool but can involve a lot of die rolling but that builds suspense. I wonder how a weapon travelling at he speed of light can miss but I'm assuming all ships have some type of abstracted EW/spoofing going on.

Naval warfare: After the Age of Sail I think it's really an artillery duel against moving targets. That's how I simplify and model it using si-move and salvo timing.

I'm not bashing these games as I think they are all good in meeting the designers goals, playable and fun. My approach and what I like is just different.

Wolfhag