"How Important Are The Right Rules?" Topic

On a scale of 0 (not important) to 10 (vital), how important is it to have the 'right' set of wargaming rules for your period/genre/project?

8.5

‘Very', wherever that is on your ‘scale'.

10

10 for me too.

About as important as the "right" socks and shoes.

10

Maybe 9. They don't have to be perfect, but there are a lot of ways to be catastrophically bad. And the more you play, the worse some types of imperfections get, because people learn to take advantage of them.

If I like them in the moment, they are the right rules.

9

More than anything else the rules can make or break the game for me.

If the rules are enjoyable to play and capture the important aspects of the "feel" of the period for me I can overlook a great many faults in figures, terrain, etc.

For me, for whatever period, the best rules are the ones I can get someone else to play with me in the time and space available. Sometimes those don't exist for a particular period or size of action. Then I game something else.

9

Rules? 9.

There are other important things as well: enough figures, painted. Decent scenery. A reasonable scenario. All these things need to come together.

10. Rules must work or nothing about it is satisfying.

9

11 for naval games

I agree with those posted above (so I'm going with 8 to 9). Another ways that rules can be catastrophically bad is that you can't actually play them as written. So if I have to re-write a set of rules, I should not have bought them in the first place.

Worth noting that not all unsatisfactory rules are unsatisfactory the same way. "Can't find anything in the rules" is a killer starting out, but you can reach a point where it doesn't matter. "Clunky mechanisms" are, always and everywhere, clunky, though people may grow used to them.

But there's also "bad tactics rewarded" and this may only show up over time, because don't immediately think of countercharging infantry with artillery pieces or cavalry stopping infantry advances by volley fire of carbines. Then someone discovers that such things are allowed by the rules/actually work consistently and only then do those rules become the "wrong" rules. But it's a different sort of wrong--a fatal flaw, where the other two can be lived with.

9 ….willing to make a few concessions

10.

@robert piepenbrink
Agree with all

There is also the concept of "Beer and pretzel rules". The rules are kinda stupid, but everyone has a good time

Peoples' opinions of rules also depends on their previous experience. Someone whose only experience is games workshop will have different perspectives from a hardcore Grognard

John

I'll go with the majority with a 9. But I'll bring up this, Are the rules(that are great for the period/genre) right for you? Blood and Plunder and Midgard are great rules. They bring in elements of period/genre. I TOTALY SUCK AT PLAYING THEM. I don't lose, I get wiped out. I don't blame the rules. Maybe I just don"t 'fit' the period/genre?

Life is too short for bad rules.

Not 10; we are not playing boardgames but with miniatures. But 9, I think: the rules ARE the game, pretty much.

Whatever I like to play are good.

11 out of 10 – decent rules are imperative. Without them what is the point of playing? Minis with a failed ruleset is just a waste of time and money.

The rules need to be "right" if the players are all fully engaged in decisions and outcomes.

If an alpha wants to set up the game, scenario , forces, scenery et al then he will probably also have control over the rules. This means the players just need to roll some dice and proceed at the alpha player's direction. The rules quality is irrelevant (the alpha player is running the game).
The alpha player runs the game with the players as partial intersects with his plan.

With alpha players, the participants don't need to know about the rules, that is outside of their engagement requirement.
Thus, rules matter if all are engaged. The rules matter very little if the alpha player is running the game; just roll some D6 and he will tell you how you have done.

martin

10. Agree with everyone here.

10

I will disagree with most of you, respectfully. Life is to short for bad rules, BUT. If the terrain is right, if the ob is good, if the relative strengths between units are correct, THEN the game should give a historically plausible outcomes regardless of the rules. Scenario writing is underrated.

I would say 7. The people you are playing the game with make for a good game. Even when the rules are crap. My weekly group plays several rules sets that we tolerate because we like the period. We have gone through 4 or 5 sets of ACW rules in the last year, looking for something we all like. We are tweaking the one set that our hard core players will play.

Do not get me wrong rules are important. Bad rules will ruin the game played on the best looking table. But I will play a game with people I enjoy gaming with suing those terrible rules.

I will disagree with most of you, respectfully. Life is to short for bad rules, BUT. If the terrain is right, if the ob is good, if the relative strengths between units are correct, THEN the game should give a historically plausible outcomes regardless of the rules. Scenario writing is underrated.

That's not a number. Quantify your disagreement.

FTR, I agree with everything you said here, but I don't care how nice the figures and terrain are or how "plausible" the outcome if I have to:

• be overrun by a Napoleonic tsunami of shoulder-to-shoulder columns;
  
• see ancient units killed by the buttocks of death;
  
• work for hours on an exercise in advanced accounting with ship models displayed motionless on the table in front of me;
  
• spend 8 hours pushing the reserves 1 foot across a rear area;
  
• stand around with 5-7 other players for 30 minutes at a time watching one player do all the moving and shooting;
  
• watch a game play itself while I move units as commanded by cards;
  
• move hub-to-hub walls of tanks
  
• fire ships' guns with less range than the length of their own vessel
  
• watch sail-powered ships motor straight upwind.

I'm sure I could think of more things I've run out of patience for.

I find a good set of rules makes mediocre figures and terrain cease to matter. I agree there are other important factors – a good GM, a good scenario, engaged players – but none of those things can fix critically flawed rules.

I sold several 15mm WWII armies over the years because zi couldn't find a set of rules that I liked.

10

It's vital to have good enough rules; any game can be ruined by rules that are incoherent, rewards grossly ahistorical behaviour*, or just too damn slow.

With nice figures, pleasant opponents, and a good scenario, though, a decent set of rules will serve almost as well as a great one.

* OK, in a fantasy game you may not care about historical plausibility per se, but you'll still be ticked off if the rules reward behaviour that makes no sense within the setting.

The problem is that nobody can agree what the right rules are for that period.
Some in our group swear by Empire, with its 12(?) or so morale or class levels.
Age of Reason has 3. (We never use Guards! 😄)
TSATF has 2 levels for Regulars.

Strategy and Tactics had a magazine game based on the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. The rules were based on Napoleon at Borodino. A fine game, but for Sixth Fleet???
I suspect Weed may have been involved. 🙄🤷

MY opinion of best rules for the period is not universally shared.

The right rules make all the difference.

Steve Jackson's Ogre maintains a devoted following because it got the rules just right for a game of giant cybernetic tanks throwing tac nukes around the battlefield. It is simple beer and pretzels and it is my go to when I just want to roll dice and blow stuff up.

Ogre/GEV would not be satisfying to me if I wanted to game Cold War gone hot in the Fulda Gap. For that I would want more detailed rules.

Proof of the importance of rules can be found in the most asked question in wargaming circles, "what rules are good for XXX?"

"what rules are good for XXX?"

This is about as useful a question as "What is a good car?"

What is a good car indeed. What makes for good rules. Many elements have been shared here.

That can be the start of another thread.

I give it a 9. Getting the rules right is so important that I've spent more time creating and tweaking mine than actually playing games with them. It's personal. I have a perspective on a period I enjoy that nothing I've seen quite satisfies. Too complex, too basic, wrong scale, or just the wrong emphasis. Chasing the Goldilocks rules…my holy grail.

It's not endless tinkering for me. I'm simply chasing rules that capture the command decisions and human factors that drive the grand tactical battles I enjoy.

Scenarios make it a 10. Great scenarios elevate good rules. Poor scenarios can sink even excellent ones. When both click, that's gaming at its best.

+1

Whether buying oe writing rules you need to have your specification of what you want in a set. Ther is no such thing as a common specification.

Steve Jackson's Ogre maintains a devoted following because it got the rules just right for a game of giant cybernetic tanks throwing tac nukes around the battlefield. It is simple beer and pretzels and it is my go to when I just want to roll dice and blow stuff up.

That to me is the definition of a dire set of rules never to be played. That's because its not even remotely close to my specification but is ideal for other players.

What YOU want is what counts and only that.

Unless you plan to play solo, you must also consider what the prospective players want – presumably you will invite gamers who share your interests and rule specification – but otherwise UshCha sums it up perfectly.

UshCha- agree

arthur1815 – agree