Conventional Wisdom
rjo...@henge.com
appearing in Military Illustrated, written by some of the foremost and longest
serving wargame designers in the U.S. on the art of wargaming and reflecting on
its future.
The title of these articles is Fast Knights, edited by Robert Nott. The first of
them by Todd Fisher led me to respond on-line and generated a spirited exchange
about ‘history’ and ‘Realism’ in wargaming on the Internet. The came articles
by Matt Delamater and Scott Bowden, which reflected the same dour pessimism
about the ‘decline of gaming.’
I quote some of their ‘feelings’ on the subject of wargame development and the
true course of Wargaming:
“Additionally, there is a growing trend toward an unwillingness to spend a lot
of time gaming on the part of the over forty crowd. This has led to a dumbing
down of rules and requires rules writers to make their games play very quickly
in order to be commercial.” And later, “The proponents of the ‘easy is just as
valid as simulation’ school are either guilty of the worst sophistry, or
deluded; what they seem to produce seems to be what the market is looking for.”
- Todd Fisher, Military Illustrated, Issue 122, July 1998, page 16-17.
“Similarly within wargaming there has been a gradual inclination toward the
simpler version that requires less effort both to reproduce and to play.
...Many people are alarmed that there is a ‘dumbing’ down of the hobby, a
reaction away from realism and historical accuracy toward simplicity and
triteness. I admit that I share some dismay over the ‘DBAing’ of the hobby; it
isn’t my cup of tea.” -Matt Delamater, MI, Issue 125, October 1998, page 57.
“My perception is that, unlike my friends in the UK and in Europe who are
enjoying seeing the hobby sustain its growth, the wargaming hobby in America is
definitely on the decline”... “Scott explains that this emerges from a growing
trend towards game playing rather than military history.”- Scott Bowden, MI,
issue 124, September 1998, page 31.
Certainly a great unanimity among these designers! First, It should be
recognized that the three have financial and business relationships- Fisher
holds the copyright to Empire which was partially designed by Bowden, and has
published several of Mr. Bowden’s books and other rulesets; Mr. Fisher also
publishes Napoleon Magazine edited by Mr. Delamater, and rumor has it that
Bowden and Delamater are collaborating on a rule set to be published by Mr.
Fisher next year. A tidy little club!
So, we shouldn’t be surprised that they have discussed and shared opinions about
the state of wargame designs, particularly competing designs! But why this loud
accusation that the ‘hobby is dumbing down?’ the ‘DBAing’ of the hobby, and
decrying galloping simplicity and ‘triteness?’
I think I truly have begun to understand!
Once upon a time these men had the majority of wargamers using their designs-no
longer. Their ‘simulations’ were so tedious that many gamers simply stopped
playing them and turned to games such as DBx, Napoleonís Battles, Chipcos
designs, Piquet, etc.
These three gentlemen would have you believe that somehow qualitatively their
designs are superior to the games that wargamers seem to prefer to play. They
claim a greater degree of historicity and something called perspective. They
call upon the Goddess of History as if Clio will descend and smite all of us
heretics! They make claims of ‘simple cannot be good!’
Their arguments at the most extreme are eerily similar to the ‘If it feels good
it must be bad for you!’ arguments of the worst puritans. They try to fob off
the issue of the growing attractiveness of many of the new designs as ‘Gamers
have less time...’ This ignores the fact that their ‘simulations’ are the
deviation from the norm of wargames over the last 100 years, not the games they
castigate. Prior to such designs as Empire and Legacy, gamers such as Don
Featherstone, Charlie Sweet, and Jack Scruby fully expected to finish a game in
three or four hours. Then the ‘Simulations’ arrived and gamers had to
anticipate a VERY long day or even a weekend.
They confuse simplicity with sophistication. Quite honestly, most of their
designs are mechanically fairly unsophisticated-the bulk of the math involved in
their CRTs or Combat systems are extremely simple and easy, barely above the
trite ‘roll a six’ construct. Any complexity stems from a simple process being
iterated multiple times-the same inelegant algorithm must be repeated several
times to achieve a combat result. Many of the 'simple' games are very much more
sophisticated in their systems than Todd and Crew would have you believe.
Most of the simulationist designs have a complete lack of interrelated systems
and instead offer up separate discrete systems for combat, morale, movement,
etc. This is why the games are chart happy, and why they take so damn long. It
also speaks to a complete lack of drama and tension-no one is EVER surprised in
a ‘simulation’ game.
The ‘simulationists’ have been spinning in a very tight self-referential circle
for many years and are now shocked to find out that many other designers
(Including the co-designer of Empire) are moving on. The Chipco designs, the
DBx school, even the much maligned Napoleonís Battles, tried many new ideas and
concepts that allowed better game values with perfectly acceptable historical
underpinnings. I think Piquet with its non-sequential move process and high
integration of historical factors into 5 tables, has broken into totally new
areas for wargaming. All of these games do abstract certain aspects of
combat-just as the ‘simulation’ school does-often different areas are
abstracted, and certainly in different ways-but none of them need bow to any
great historical verity in the ‘simulation’ games.
The simulationists are so self-referential that they honestly believe that a
design done on a different conceptual basis than their aggregated ‘factoids’
approach is, by definition-ahistorical, dumb, and responsible for the decline of
the hobby. The arrogance that it takes to posit that THEY alone may judge the
hobby and THEY find it wanting-as well as holding up designs that are far more
clever, contemporary, and may be illustrating certain aspects of war more
accurately, as being ‘dumb’ is breathtaking!
Ah, well, wargamers seldom allow others to select the rules they will play, and
the commercial success of all of these ‘dumb’ rulesets means that the market is
indeed making a different judgment than the three ‘simulationists.’
Mr. Nott would serve his readers well to take a broader sampling of the hobby
than he has done so far!
BJ
patrick.wilson
You have said it neatly and it has needed saying! As a published author
with new works in the pipe, I am from the generation of the "Simulationists"
and shared many of their ideas and practices (to my ultimate regret). What
I have learned and which they, evidently have not, is that the more steps
taken to determine the possible outcomes of an event, the LESS realistic it
becomes and the slower, more complex the process.
Having been one, I can say that a "Simulationist" ultimately believes
that the more details that are accounted for, the more realistic the result.
This sounds fine, but is based on at least two false premises. One, that
EVERY relevant factor is quantifiable and, two, that even if you agree on
one hundred (or just 10) "modifiers" to an event, the laws of averages
reduce the whole thing to something that can be determined by a single D10
or even D6 roll. "Simulationists" are, in the end, Control Freaks who think
that if they know and can apply every factor, they can make for a
"scientific" result which become predictable and formulaic--just like their
rules. Worse, their choices of "relevant" modifiers are frequently based on
personal bias that is not supported by a cooler, more distant view of the
subject. (I'm particularly thinking of one of the three Gentlemen who wrote
an entire series of rules in the early to mid 70's which were not only
virtually identical for periods up to a thousand years apart, but which were
firmly based on the existence of "Super Troopers"--which he seemed always to
have in abundance.)
The fact is, within very definite limits, there is more far more chance
than purpose on a battlefield and to claim it's all comprehendible and
controllable is as big a lie as Nazism, Socialism, and "The Check's In The
Mail." Napoleon himself likened battle to a bloody accident which, once
underway, is beyond the control of anyone.
No, I think DBA and several similar games are truly just that, "Games"
with no more to do with real battle or discussion making than the most
complex sets of rules. As usual, the ultimate designs are going to fall
towards the middle of the range--but with a decided tilt towards the simpler
systems that can be, indeed, far more sophisticated than the original
Dinosaurs so many of us started out with thirty years ago.
Hooray, Sir, for saying the sooth so well.
Patrick Wilson
Tim Marshall
"Egon Schiele"), I have to agree and cheer him on. Absolutely no offense
meant to the gentlemen he mentions but what Bob is talking about is
certainly well illustrated with our group of gamers.
For many years, we developed our own WWII armour/infantry rules. They
were simple in mechanism too, but also had large numbers of charts and
different procedures. We had fun times but our games would go on for a
very long time before reaching a conclusion. We often would remember
younger days when our written rules only differentiated between light,
medium and heavy tanks (A King Tig and a Churchill having the exact same
characteristics) and wish we could get back to fast flowing games we used
to have. This year we bought a set of rules which was radically different
in mechanism and was so amazingly simplistic in combat resolution, that we
had serious doubts about it. Nevertheless, we are playing more games than
we ever did before in very quick time and our brains are only fried by the
stress of competing against each other and not because of the rules. I
expect these rules would certainly be considered a "dumb down" set, but
they allow me a good feel for infantry combat and with modifications, the
same for armoured combat as well.
I for one support any move to make games simpler.
keit...@yahoo.com
"patrick.wilson" <patrick...@mci2000.com> wrote:
> Sir,
> You have said it neatly and it has needed saying! As a published author
> with new works in the pipe, I am from the generation of the "Simulationists"
> and shared many of their ideas and practices (to my ultimate regret). What
> I have learned and which they, evidently have not, is that the more steps
> taken to determine the possible outcomes of an event, the LESS realistic it
> becomes and the slower, more complex the process.
Although I generally agree with what you're saying I'm not convinced that more
complex systems are necessarily LESS realistic. Frankly, I think DBA offers a
poor simulation of ancient warfare, and encourages unhistorical tactics. My
feeling is that a lot of the more complex rules are more realistic. But I'd
still rather play DBA, because it's fun.
All wargames have to strike a balance between "realism" and "playability".
DBA clearly falls at the playability end of the scale, the simulationists
fall at the other end. Which type of game you play depends on what you want
out of it. Personally I tend to play simple games, but I don't see anything
wrong with the simulationist approach. Your personal choice of rules is no
more important than your choice of period. Just as many of us play in several
periods, I suspect that most of us use a variety of rule types.
The type of rules you use is also probably affected by period. If you're
gaming a modern conflict then it possible to gather data on every aspect of
the battle. If I were gaming the Falklands War I would be more likely to use
complex rules that addressed every little detail, because I would be willing
to accept that the author could have got detailed stats for weapons, could
have talked with men who'd been there, and might even have experienced it
himself. I could have been there, and some of my friends were there. The
fact that we have access to detailed information should mean that rules are
more likely to accurately simulate those factors that were important at the
time. If I'm playing an ancients game, I know the rules author has never
driven an Assyrian chariot, or served in a legion. Even if the experiences of
re-enactors are used, they are not based on the real thing. I therefore tend
to use simple rules, that only attempt to simulate the overall outcome of a
battle, without going into all the minutiae.
The important thing is surely to remember that this a hobby, something we do
for fun. If you get off on complex rules that take three hours to simulate 30
seconds of action, fine. Wargaming can accomodate DBA and simulationists as
easily as it accomodates different periods. If you don't like my choice of
rules, go play with someone else. There isn't any "right" way of doing it.
The only drawback to the simulationist approach that I can see is that
there's a danger of falling into the trap of believing that any wargame can
accurately simulate what war is really like. Wargames may help to give us a
better insight into some aspects of the real thing, but the only way to
really understand it is to do it. And if DBA is an inaccurate, unhistorical
and basically pointless game, it's a damn sight better than getting my head
blown off. Wargaming is FUN, war isn't. -- Keith Venables
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Brian O'Leary
curious what others will add.
The idea of the decline of gaming is curious to me. I see more gamers, more
games, better games, more fun. If that is decline, then let Rome fall.
We play games with toys, we're not doing something noble here. Want to do
something noble, go do a dig for eight months in a place with bad food, no
heat, and no running water, then go broke trying to sell a book, while
trying to convince academia that you,ve found something new. The noble part
is in trying to grow and preserve our understanding of history. I don't do
that, I play games with toys.
I like rules with simple mechanics and lots of detail, but if DBA provides
fun for someone, and maybe inspires them to learn how a pilum was engineered
and how it effected tactics, then the rules are doing more than their fair
share.
We are lucky enough to enjoy the greatest hobby in the world, and for me and
many of my peers, the adventure doesn't end on the table. Learning,of
course it is mostly a subjective evaluation, but learning about the people
that we represent in our games and their politics, religion, etc. is all a
part of the game, and some of those dumb systems inspire us to do that.
Well, gotta go. Its about time to defend Europe from the invading Americans
again.
Brian
rjo...@henge.com wrote in message <74d5lc$d...@edrn.newsguy.com>...
>Over the last few months I have been reading a number of articles, mostly
>appearing in Military Illustrated, written by some of the foremost and
longest
>serving wargame designers in the U.S. on the art of wargaming and
reflecting on
>its future.
>...
John D Salt
>In article <ZJqa2.6412$Vx3....@news.cwix.com>,
> "patrick.wilson" <patrick...@mci2000.com> wrote:
>> I have learned and which they, evidently have not, is that the more steps
>> taken to determine the possible outcomes of an event, the LESS realistic it
>> becomes and the slower, more complex the process.
>
>Although I generally agree with what you're saying I'm not convinced that more
>complex systems are necessarily LESS realistic. Frankly, I think DBA offers a
>poor simulation of ancient warfare, and encourages unhistorical tactics. My
>feeling is that a lot of the more complex rules are more realistic. But I'd
>still rather play DBA, because it's fun.
>
>All wargames have to strike a balance between "realism" and "playability".
But no, they don't. This is the point. There is no law, principle or
effect that says you must give up one for the other. More often than
not, adding detail to rules results directly in them becoming less
convincing (I don't like the word "realistic", but my reasons would
take too long to go in to now). You may find DBA an unconvincing
representation of ancient battles, but it's not a tithe so misleading
as, let's say, WRG sixth edition.
>The only drawback to the simulationist approach that I can see is that
>there's a danger of falling into the trap of believing that any wargame can
>accurately simulate what war is really like.
Right.
While I heartily concur with the "keep it simple" stance of most of
the posters on this thread, could I ask them not to use the word
"simulationist" to characterise those who favour high complexity?
I'd suggest "complicationist" as an alternative label, if you need one.
I am a simulationist (I used to build simulation models for a living,
and expect to do so again), and we simulationists know that the
greatest enemy of a good simulation model is complexity.
All the best,
John.
--
John D Salt Dept of IS & Computing,| Barr's Law of Recursive Futility
Brunel U, Uxbridge, Middx UB8 3PH | [BLORF]: If you are smart enough
Disclaimers: I speak only for me. | to use one of these... you can
Launcher may train without warning.| probably manage without one.
patrick.wilson
Also well said! I agree, let us speak of "Complicationists" rather than
"Simulationists." For all my epiphanies about simpler systems being as
accurate as complex ones, I still believe after all these years that a game
can "simulate" some aspects of combat in an educational, rational way. I
try to design systems that favor the chance of success to the player who
uses the same tactics as the original combatants, rather than "Victory
Through Superior Rules Lawyering", which is one of the most pernicious
facets of "Complicationism."
Patrick Wilson
TYGHOCK
Our group does Renaissance. Some of our earliest games were a set called
'Legion', very simple rules, modified for our period. We did 'graduate' to
Gush, but the complexity did take a bit away. We wound up writing our own
variants of simple rules several times.
None of us are lazy or unscholarly. We just always remember that wargames are
for fun - the drama, paegentry and thrill, in historical
settings/uniforms/formations/tactics as much as possible, but still - for fun.
Battles werer not, are not and should not be exercises in calculus.
And what indeed is a Wargame without Drama?
- TYGHOCK
Paula Gray
For my 2 cents worth, I was very surprised to see that the three authors in
question talked about the overall decline of the hobby. My sensing, as well
as a few concrete figures and estimates I have, seem to indicate that
miniature gaming is doing quite well indeed. My perspective is that
historical cardboard wargaming is falling into the abys, crushed by the
onslaught of the microchip.
Otherwise, I do like historical accuracy (or at least what I sense that to
be), as well as more than a little detail. These are the main reasons why I
prefer some other systems over that of, say, Napoleon's Battles.
Nevertheless, I gotta tell ya, I really like the idea of finishing a large
Napoleonic battle in a single setting, something that NB will allow you to
accomplish. Also, the more I read the more I'm convinced that the larger,
brigade scale of NB may well be the best for the Napoleonic Wars where only
large battles provide a proper setting for many of that period's lasting
innovations. Suffice it to say, when someone merges all such concepts
together, I'll be the first customer they have.
Finally, and here I must chuckle just a bit, I find it quite interesting
that in my career as a gamer (and hundreds of rules sets later), I know of
only two rules sets where I could not understand the concepts of play by
simply reading the document in question; I had to sit and play the game with
someone else first. One of these games was Legacy of Glory (a game I like a
lot), with its legendary "turn sequence from Hell." The other was Piquet. Go
figure.
Regards,
Bill Gray
patrick.wilson wrote in message ...
John Russell, VE3LL
keit...@yahoo.com wrote in article <74doig$5ns$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> All wargames have to strike a balance between "realism" and
"playability".
keith feels that realism and playability are two ends of the same line.
there are many of us that feel these two concepts can be charted on a
rectangular grid so that there are realistic games that are playable
as well as realistic games that are not playable. Complexity varies
inversely to playability (not totally howevere). the concepts of
realism and playability are NOT mutually exclusive!
>
> The type of rules you use is also probably affected by period. If you're
> gaming a modern conflict then it possible to gather data on every aspect
of
> the battle. If I were gaming the Falklands War I would be more likely to
use
> complex rules that addressed every little detail, because I would be
willing
> to accept that the author could have got detailed stats for weapons,
could
> have talked with men who'd been there, and might even have experienced
it.
> The fact that we have access to detailed information should mean that
rules are
> more likely to accurately simulate those factors that were important at
the
> time. If I'm playing an ancients game, I know the rules author has never
> driven an Assyrian chariot, or served in a legion. Even if the
experiences of
> re-enactors are used, they are not based on the real thing. I therefore
tend
> to use simple rules, that only attempt to simulate the overall outcome of
a
> battle, without going into all the minutiae.
this is indeed true. too many put great stock in undocumented statistics
> Wargames may help to give us a
> better insight into some aspects of the real thing, but the only way to
> really understand it is to do it. And if DBA is an inaccurate,
unhistorical
> and basically pointless game, it's a damn sight better than getting my
head
> blown off. Wargaming is FUN, war isn't. -- Keith Venables
certain aspects of WAR are better understood by rollplaying games
and recreation type of activities. Indeed even paintball yields a facit
that
hunching over a table doesnt....... and just plain reading of the subject
is often the best approach to understanding warfare......
But if it is a 'game' you want then miniatures wargaming sure beats
poker , monopoly and doom.
john russell ve...@rac.ca
Ian Croxall
coming around to this point of view. I have gamed and hosted games on both sides of
the Atlantic and have been repeatedly told that my games are the most fun games that
participants remember playing in a long while. The reason is mostly, I believe, due
to the fact that I use two of the most brilliant and insightful set of rules, or
derivatives of them, ever written. These being "The Sword and the Flame" and "On to
Richmond". The charts for each of these games can be fit onto a single sheet of A4
and use very original mechanisms and concept to get the job done without reference
to the Rule Bible.
In any given engagement one can, if so desired, simulate an engagement between two
Napoleonic battalions, consult factors for deploying skirmishes, differing movement
rates for training , dice for if the officer is hit by skirmishes. Dice for weather
to see if muskets dampened by rain, dice for battalion firing, dice for casualties,
remove casualties, dice for morale reaction, test to charge, test reaction to being
charged, test to close home, test to stand and receive, fight melee, dice for
casualties, test morale, test to see if retreat, test for follow up. And all this
for one battalion. My only problem is that I have fought Borodino like this over a
weekend. The obvious (to me anyway) is that over the whole battle there are only a
handful of essentially different types and grade of units and each type had a
statistical chance of pushing back another type. The whole game could have been
played with a single ref sheet (we had 10 sheets) and a d10.
I love it when I'm games master and the smart arsed rules expert, invariably of the
simulationist type, starts complying about how something goes down and quoting my
rules back at me. I just have his horse trip and break its leg and have him walk for
a couple of turns. It's usually the same jerk who tells you the crest on the buttons
of your 6 mm hussars is the wrong type.
The more complex the rules, the more mechanisms to achieve the result, the more
ahistorical the result. Rules should reward good tactics not the rule lawyers.
Now I know someone is going to look at the original post and think. I like the
complicated games, but if this is true, why is it when I play these kind of games
does it always seem that everyone starts getting irritable and someone starts
bitching about how ahistorical the rules are for the event that just happened. Be
honest with your self. If you are a "simulationist" how many times has your game
broken down at some point to heated discussion as to what did happen, what should
have happened, what the rule meant, whether it was historically accurate or not etc.
etc.
The one thing that is consistent with the Red Shadow Games
( http://www.warflag.com/shadow/ ) is that the looser usually dies laughing.
Happy gaming, what ever type of game you prefer.
--
Regards
Ian Croxall
i...@warflag.com
Flags for Wargamers
http://www.warflag.com
Philip Dutre
> The reason is mostly, I believe, due
> to the fact that I use two of the most brilliant and insightful set of rules, or
> derivatives of them, ever written. These being "The Sword and the Flame" and
> "On to
> Richmond". The charts for each of these games can be fit onto a single sheet
> of A4
> and use very original mechanisms and concept to get the job done without
> reference
> to the Rule Bible.
I cannot agree more. In my former club, we used to have the principle that
a single game should be played to conclusion within 4 hours. This automatically
drives you towards simple but well-thought out rulesets. Most of the time,
these are more fun to play than the more complex ones, and it's a lot easier
to get newbies involved. This last factor is not to be underestimated. If the
games were really fast, such that we played two in a single evening, it happened
that a complete new player, whose first wargame ever was the first one we played
that evening, took the role of c-in-c of one side in the second game, with
acceptable results. I cannot imagine any other way of making someone enthusiastic
about the hobby.
The simulationists approach can have its merits, but for a lot of players this
does not produce a good game. I can see that some gaming groups can really
have fun by using simulationist set of rules, but in my experience, these are
a minority. Most gamers I've met favour fast-play and simple rules, and they don't
worry too much about the 'historical correctness' (whatever that means), but judge
a game more on the look and feel of a game. "Okay, I can imagine that, based
on the stuff I've read, a Napoleonic battle could have gone like this'.
I once attended a seminar by Donald Featherstone (BTW, does anyone know what he
does these days?), and he said that his group played all their games with a
single sheet of A4 paper, and it was basically the same set of rules for any
period.
To his amusement, there was a demo game going on (it was at a convention),
where
some players had programmed all their modifiers so that a computer worked
out the combat results. But then there was a interruption of power, and they
lost
all their data for that game. Also, it lasted about 20 minuted before the power
was back to normal. During those 20 minutes, they couldn't play. Featherstone
thought it was pretty amusing and that it perfectly illustrated his case.
Phil
--
=======================================================================
Philip Dutre Program of Computer Graphics Cornell University
ph...@graphics.cornell.edu http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~phil/
=======================================================================
Tim Marshall
What's the difference between multi-player Doom or Quake deathmatch and
paintball (besides Paintball being a far better physical work out)? 8)
Otherwise, good post!
rjo...@hemge.com
>
>Finally, and here I must chuckle just a bit, I find it quite interesting
>that in my career as a gamer (and hundreds of rules sets later), I know of
>only two rules sets where I could not understand the concepts of play by
>simply reading the document in question; I had to sit and play the game with
>someone else first. One of these games was Legacy of Glory (a game I like a
>lot), with its legendary "turn sequence from Hell." The other was Piquet. Go
>figure.
>
>Regards,
>
>Bill Gray
BJ: Bill, I must agree with you! Simply watching (passive) or reading (Passive)
the Piquet rules would give you little understanding what a typical Piquet buff
finds so fascinating about the rules-You see Piquet gamers may be the most
active and decision-making gamers in wargaming! Don't be a wargaming
couch-potato--play! (Of course making tough decisions that have sometimes
immediate consequences can be unnerving-VERY unlike "battle Chess"!)
BJ
Ray Rangel
> No, I think DBA and several similar games are truly just that, "Games"
>with no more to do with real battle or discussion making than the most
>complex sets of rules
You couldn't have picked a better example than DBA to illustrate my opinion.
This is that it's not really the ruleset but the manner in which then
players apply those rules that make a game "historical" or not.
Take the DBA mechanics and apply them to historically derived scenarios. Use
historical tactics and you will have, in my opinion, a fairly good
simulation.
Generally the authors that insist on complexity are intent on forcing
players to use historical tactics. In other words, they don't trust the
players to do it themselves. Most of the time I think it would be much more
productive (playable) to write simple rules and include an appendix that
details the authors view of the tactics and strategy of the period.
That is what DBx does. It provides a mechanical framework that governs how
things move, how they fight, and how a player wins. The strategy and tactics
are left to the players' imagination or knowledge resulting from research.
I focused on DBx because it was mentioned, but there are many sets of rules
(PoW, NPoW, Chipco, etc.) that are quite simple in that they allow the
player the freedom to interpret history and fight historically or
historically as their preference demands.
Tom Bryant
Having read all the posts on this thread I have come to recognize
that gaming is in good hands. Where are the "simulationists or
complicationists" to defend their positions? I have a love for history,
it is part of the reason I do historicals. One of the things I have
noted in my years of board and miniatures wargaming in both the
Sci-fi/Fantasy realm and the Historical realm is that the more complex
and difficult the systems are the more they open up the arena to the
dread rules laywer. If the rules are simpler, then people like them
better and the laywers have less to complain about. Also, I think that
many od the sim. fans are missing a key point: deeper levels of
construction and complexity do not always yield accuracy.
How many variables would a combat action entail? Lets take
firing(throwing) a missile weapon. Obvious is the skill of the user,
possible physical strength for bows and spears, inhertant accuracy of
the weapon, the fatigue of the user, morale of the user, how did he
move, etc. How many variables is that, six or more? Try figuring out
that equation just to figure out if one shot or bolt/quarrel/lance will
land on target. Do we want to discuss wound effects and ballistics? How
many of these variables have minimal effects? How many of them can be
cross factored or combined? Sim. fans would tell you that many of these
would need to be taken in their course to achieve "historical accuracy".
What exactly is that, with some precision. Are we looking at being able
to land within 1%,5%,10% or 20% of a "historically possible outcome"?
That is the big problem with the sims. The level of detail is roo
deep. For me, it works better if you can cut down the effect. Take the
above and cut it to an aggregate of weapon strength (for bows/spears and
lances human and weapon strength), accuracy( again user and weapon), and
a movemnet effect (rate of attacker movement vs. target movement). All
of these could be handled on a simple CRT and taken care of in one die
roll. "But the historical won't be the same!" scream the sim. fans. I
say prove it! Show me how including the minutiae of battle really
improves the historical outcome. Show me the case studies that talk
about the one guy who didn't hit his mark caused the whole army of
Edward III to retreat from the French, or whoever where ever. Prove to
me that the minutiae are as important and CANNOT and SHOULD NOT be
aggregated at all. I don't thing the sim. fans can do this.
In the end I think a target of playability helps improve the quality
of gaming. At some point in each period/level of gaming you reach a
point where the factors you are trying to quantify wash into the
background noise. Sure you can go into great detail on the effect of
spoofing technology employed by British warships in the Falklands vs.
Exocet missiles in flight. The qustion isn't whether or not you need to
do this, but is it really worthwhile to do so? that is something for the
designer to decide. In the end what ever level of accuracy the designer
wants to impart, he should always aim at asimple and comprehensible
system. This system should be uniform for all types of actions and only
deviate in special circumstances.
I like a degree of historical accuracy in my games, but not at the
point of sacrifincing fun. I game to have fun, not to verify some
battlefield outcome with high precision.
Tom Bryant
rjo...@henge.com
>
>While I disagree with Matt,
>Todd and Scotty on the overall decline of the hobby, I also found
>Bob's predicatable "simulationist/realist/player" diatribe yawningly
>predicable (Bob, I could probably write your copy at this point,
>though I may not quite have mastered your command of American
>English).
BJ: Jay, you ain't even close! You spent five minutes late in the day with me
at the last cold wars; badgered me into a few turns with D. La Victoire and then
made up your mind. Since I am more than aware of your present "favorite" rules-
I merely say-"Move on, Lads! Move on!"
>Did anyone happen to notice that Bob's post is essentially
>the same as the claims of those who say the hobby is "dumbing down?"
>In other words: what's the difference between Matt DeLaMater ranting
>about "unrealistic" systems, and Bob's bitching about systems that are
>"too complicated" (and hence no more realistic than, say, Piquet)?
BJ: Sorry, Jay you missed the point(and I NEVER used the phrase "too
Complicated"-if anything, they are too obvious and simple!). I'll send
diagrams, tables, and 37 citations. Too complicated just ain't the
issue-boring, inconclusive, predictable, and most of all too fatuously
pedantic-now, that's the issue! Also, telling other people that somehow what
they play "doesn't measure up!" doesn't strike me as inclusive.
>
>What seems to be missed in all of this is that the hobby is as diverse
>within itself (that is the historical minis hobby) as the overall
>hobby is from Warhammer. "To each his own" is a better mantra than "my
>game is better than yours." And no matter how many times Bob protests
>that his belief is "the game is the thing," every time he posts as he
>did here, I can't help but feel that there's an unwritten "as long as
>it agrees with me."
BJ: Nope, I am on record as having mentioned several rules sets, and with
greater frequency than my own.
>
>The bottom line is that if you enjoy Legacy of Pain (uhh, Glory), play
>it. If you like Valmy to Waterloo, play it. If you are a Piquet
>fanatic, seek help. Whatever it is, stop piss-taking everyone else in
>the hobby. Opinions are like assholes: Bob's is bigger than everyone
>else's (except maybe Scotty Bowden's).
>
>
>Jay
BJ: Gee, Jay, what's with this fascination with assholes? Must be an Ottawa
thing. Long winters up there?
rjo...@henge.com
>Right on! Very complicated games with lots of tables and factors and
>modifiers, etc., appeal to those whose interest in the game is problem
>solving. The game for these gamers and game designers is an engineering
>problem, and the solution requires a calculus defined by the rules. If
>it weren't complicated it wouldn't be interesting to those who find this
>approach appealing.
>
BJ: Bob, if I may make a slight dissent; I don't think that the "simulationists"
games' distinction is problem solving-for I find that in many other "Non-sim"
designs-maybe more so! Nor do I think that analytic (engineering) mindsets are
lashed to some "calculus" as their prefered method of wargaming. Brent Oman is
an engineer-Jim Getz is an engineer-though my degrees are in history and English
(as is Ken Bagalley's) much of my adult life has been spent with
statistics(ratings) and program budgets(analytic) and Bill Perks is a Jazz
musician(and a good recommender of great jazz recordings)-so what? Cris Brown
is a smart, savvy lawyer-who prefers not to exercise his trade on the wargame
table; Pat McGuire is a fine writer and a pretty good banjo player-but we still
let them all play Piquet.
Trust me, the simulationists have no corner on analysis, historical knowledge,
mathematical deduction and constructs, or brains! And our group has better
music!(that's a truth and a metaphor). This applies, I'm sure, to many other
"Non-sim" rule sets!
BJ
Jay
>Finally, and here I must chuckle just a bit, I find it quite interesting
>that in my career as a gamer (and hundreds of rules sets later), I know of
>only two rules sets where I could not understand the concepts of play by
>simply reading the document in question; I had to sit and play the game with
>someone else first. One of these games was Legacy of Glory (a game I like a
>lot), with its legendary "turn sequence from Hell." The other was Piquet. Go
>figure.
After Bob's tirade, and the backslapping that resulted, it was nice to
see this little bit of wisdom surface. While I disagree with Matt,
Todd and Scotty on the overall decline of the hobby, I also found
Bob's predicatable "simulationist/realist/player" diatribe yawningly
predicable (Bob, I could probably write your copy at this point,
though I may not quite have mastered your command of American
English). Did anyone happen to notice that Bob's post is essentially
the same as the claims of those who say the hobby is "dumbing down?"
In other words: what's the difference between Matt DeLaMater ranting
about "unrealistic" systems, and Bob's bitching about systems that are
"too complicated" (and hence no more realistic than, say, Piquet)?
What seems to be missed in all of this is that the hobby is as diverse
within itself (that is the historical minis hobby) as the overall
hobby is from Warhammer. "To each his own" is a better mantra than "my
game is better than yours." And no matter how many times Bob protests
that his belief is "the game is the thing," every time he posts as he
did here, I can't help but feel that there's an unwritten "as long as
it agrees with me."
The bottom line is that if you enjoy Legacy of Pain (uhh, Glory), play
it. If you like Valmy to Waterloo, play it. If you are a Piquet
fanatic, seek help. Whatever it is, stop piss-taking everyone else in
the hobby. Opinions are like assholes: Bob's is bigger than everyone
else's (except maybe Scotty Bowden's).
Jay
Ottawa, Ontario
When in doubt, assume I've typed a smiley :^)
Remove the wildcard when replying by email.
Bob Bryant
>
snip
> None of us are lazy or unscholarly. We just always remember that wargames are
> for fun - the drama, paegentry and thrill, in historical
> settings/uniforms/formations/tactics as much as possible, but still - for fun.
>
> Battles werer not, are not and should not be exercises in calculus.
> And what indeed is a Wargame without Drama?
>
> - TYGHOCK
Right on! Very complicated games with lots of tables and factors and
modifiers, etc., appeal to those whose interest in the game is problem
solving. The game for these gamers and game designers is an engineering
problem, and the solution requires a calculus defined by the rules. If
it weren't complicated it wouldn't be interesting to those who find this
approach appealing.
But--there can be more to gaming than this, as TYGHOCK points out. A
game can be theatre. It can be an enactment of something vital in human
endeavor. It can call up from the participants something that is not
strictly intellectual (in the sense of analytical)--unless the game is
too complicated. I suspect that the reason simpler games are popular now
is that many gamers are uninterested in the exclusively analytical,
engineering game experience. They want something that calls upon a wider
breadth of human capabilities in playing a wargame and require that it
not take all day. To say this is dumb is like saying Leonard Bernstein
was dumb because he could have chosen to be a lawyer or an engineer
instead of a musician. What's dumb is to not be able to conceive of an
approach to gaming that is not exclusively complicated and analytical.
--Bob Bryant
Useless_Gonzo
worlds. A complex "simulation" of warfare, and as the computer is doing
all the number crunching, die rolls, and book keeping, simplicity of play.
I hope more of these rules will come out in the future (the vast majority
seem to have been written in the mid '80's). They offer, I feel a valuable
aid to the gamer. And with the fact that the gamer doesn't exactly "know"
the rule in detail, that just leaves the tactics to worry about! (that's
the object of the game after all)
"just my two cents" Gonzo
MSta903328
into miniatures gaming? If all we have are Boomer-aged old poots, miniatures
are going to be in hurt-city inside twenty years.
Catbox :-\
Dasandersx
>Did anyone happen to notice that Bob's post is essentially
>the same as the claims of those who say the hobby is "dumbing down?"
I noticed that too. Rather than the hobby be 'dumbed down' I rather think that
players are more interested in a game with results in a day's play. We used to
play the old Gush set of Renaissance/30YW/ECW rules. They were painfully slow,
and it seemed to take forever to play a game. Half the time we had to end
before any real result was able to be declared.
Now we play Fire and Fury. we geta result in just about every game (except the
REALLY big ones).
Yes, there is a loss of detail in the faster moving games. Truth is, there
will be that in any game. The only way to avoid that loss is to do the real
thing, and I don't think anyone would like to advocate THAT!
If people don't like a gaming system, they should write their own and publish
it (and let everybody shoot holes in IT), or try something else (maybe another
period). EVERY game has to make allowances for the reality of it being a GAME,
a simulation expected to give historical results if historical tactics are
used. The authors try their best to gain that result. The complaining about
'unrealistic' games should only be listed to by someone who can prove they can
do better. Otherwise they have NO authority upon which to base the complaint.
David Sanders
Alec Habig
> Having been one, I can say that a "Simulationist" ultimately believes
>that the more details that are accounted for, the more realistic the
>result. This sounds fine, but is based on at least two false premises.
>One, that EVERY relevant factor is quantifiable and, two, that even if
>you agree on one hundred (or just 10) "modifiers" to an event, the laws
>of averages reduce the whole thing to something that can be determined
>by a single D10 or even D6 roll.
Given that I work with real scientific simulations for a living, I
figured I'd inject my $0.02 here.
Given a "simple" set of inputs, one can design an extremely realistic
simulation. In my line of work, the fundamental laws of physics as they
happen to particles in detectors which are carefully designed to have
easy-to-model shapes and properties allow us to do "Monte Carlo"
simulations, where each particle is tracked through it's journey across
the apparatus, and dice are rolled at each step to see what happens.
With a whole lot of work, this functions ok for our purposes, as the
laws of physics are reasonably well understood and able to be modelled.
However, in the process of getting it right, it often occurs that a
finely detailed tidbit is added, and the whole simulation is thrown out
of whack. More work is then required to balance it again.
While I'm as much a sucker for a monster game as the next guy, I'm sure
that the fine details people have added to most "simulations" have the
same effect, especially since the behavior of humans under extreme
stress as viewed through the haze of history and the fog of war is a wee
bit more imprecise than particle physics.
Alec
--
Alec Habig, Boston University Particle Astrophysics Group
ha...@budoe.bu.edu
http://hep.bu.edu/~habig/
Stan Olson
>
> Dear Sir,
> Also well said! I agree, let us speak of "Complicationists" rather than
> "Simulationists." For all my epiphanies about simpler systems being as
> accurate as complex ones, I still believe after all these years that a game
> can "simulate" some aspects of combat in an educational, rational way. I
> try to design systems that favor the chance of success to the player who
> uses the same tactics as the original combatants, rather than "Victory
> Through Superior Rules Lawyering", which is one of the most pernicious
> facets of "Complicationism."
> Patrick Wilson
Stan would add: I have seen figure painting styles-methods
also, be scorned by Complicationists ..
I show newbies only practical efficient
methods and media (paint-ink), so they
get troops on the gameing table rather than
have a chance to win a painting contest
by making what should be well executed
simple painting techniques deliberately
complicated enough to impress judges ....
No new person will be encouraged
in either the painting or wargaming
part of the hobby, if it is deliberately
made tedious and complicated, at the
expense of efficiency and excitement.
Stan
John D Salt
>TYGHOCK wrote:
[snips]
>> Battles were not, are not and should not be exercises in calculus.
>> And what indeed is a Wargame without Drama?
>Right on! Very complicated games with lots of tables and factors and
>modifiers, etc., appeal to those whose interest in the game is problem
>solving. The game for these gamers and game designers is an engineering
>problem, and the solution requires a calculus defined by the rules.
While wholeheartedly agreeing with TYGHOCK and Bob, I think it's
far worse than people liking "engineering" problems -- some of
the complicationists seem to thrive on _clerical_ problems, than
which I can conceive nothing more stodgily unappealing.
As to TYGHOCK's point about drama -- well, yes indeed, wargames might
be viewed as a species of theatre. I think such a view offers a
number of insights into the hobby.
Theatre usually obeys certain conventions that are also followed on
the wargames table. Successful wargames, IMHO, tend to have an
element of role-playing in the sense of the player acting out the
part of a nameable character -- the "commander's boots" approach.
Also, conventionally, wargames have a denouement, in which victory
or defeat is determined.
This can produce a high degree of artificiality -- "We're in a
wargame, so something dramatic is going to happen, here, soon"
at the beginning, and "Now it's over, I see we won by five points."
I wonder if anyone else has enjoyed "slice-of-life" wargames?
Maybe a game called "All Quiet..." or "Another day in the ROK"
doesn't have the instant appeal of "Steel, blood and thunder",
but ISTR "The Nugget" proposed a game on bringing up the soup at
Verdun. I once played a WW2 coastal forces game in which my
force of F-lighters slunk down the coast at night, offloaded their
supplies, and slunk back again, never once contacting the enemy.
It was one of the tensest games I have ever played, despite the fact
that in game terms the character I represented spent almost the
whole game nominally asleep in his sea-cabin.
As an antitdote to the "clear-cut win/lose" problem, I wonder if
anyone has, at the conclusion of a game, made each player write
the narrative of the battle, as it would appear in his memoirs
twenty years later? :-)
John D Salt
patrick.wilson <patrick...@mci2000.com> wrote:
[Snippage]
> Also well said! I agree, let us speak of "Complicationists" rather than
>"Simulationists." For all my epiphanies about simpler systems being as
>accurate as complex ones, I still believe after all these years that a game
>can "simulate" some aspects of combat in an educational, rational way.
An interesting and subtle point -- IMHO a game/simulation can represent
an activity usefully and educationally without necessarily doing so
"realistically".
OutlandOH
I need to ask something here... Have any of you played in one of my monster
WWII games? If so, I would like to see what the opinions are... I hold that I
struck a balance between "complicationalists" and "simplisticalists" (some
words, huh?)
I, too designed and ran simulations, but for the US Army. We ran a Soviet Four
DIVISION Army against a US Armored Division. We used pretty big (for the time)
unix computers to do it. The simulation ran near real time and was terribly
complicated.
One weekend I set up a massive Modern Microarmor game and had about 30 players.
I chose the WRG 1950-2000 rules and dropped the morale rules.
Guess what... we tended to have the same sort of outcomes in less time with
the microarmor game. This led me to draw this conclusion;
Why go for complicated, if the simple will suffice?
I have written other rules, too, homing in on simple, single sheet of paper
chart set-up. I have found that this approach disarms the rules lawyers.
Another result is that people spend a lot more time descision making, actually
doing things on the battlefield. Therefore, everyone (including the ref.) has
more fun and less "work".
If this is a flaw in some people's eyes, this so called "dumbing down", then so
be it...
My experiences insist this: LET THE FUN GAMING BEGIN!
And for anyone who says that the hobby is in decline, well, they need to travel
to 25 or more shows a year with me and take a look at what is really happening:
the hobby is just humming along... without the complicationalists.....
Chris von Fahnestock
MltryHstrn
By this time, it's pretty obvious that HMGS East has noticed that some
few, vocal members do question the utility of placing their three conventions
in the Pennsylvania outback. Suggestions that they be moved further north or
east seem to meet resistance from thmembers who live south and west.
Understandable. There also seems to be some resistance to the idea of
driving into urban areas. The fact is that last night I was able to drive the
75 miles from Lincoln Center (the west side of NYC) to my home in rural eastern
Suffolk County in somewhat less than two hours.
In short, what we are really discussing is individual preference and
convenience - not cold, hard reality. It is understandable that our friends in
South Carolina and Florida simply do not want to travel to areas north of
Philadelphia And those are the same reasons why some of us won't travel south
of the Mason - Dixon line to push lead. It just isn't convenient.
Having addressed the issue of crass, self-interest (mine and others) let
me move forward to the related issue of the state of the hobby in general.
Well, maybe it isn't directly connected but what the heck?
First, we are playing games, or collecting soldiers, or hanging out with
our friends, or writing, or publishing games, or writing rule sets, or building
models or anyone of a variety of activities that fall under the heading
"historical miniatures". The statement that we are somehow experiencing a
"dumbing down" of the hobby speaks to only one aspect of the hobby which is the
use of simpler as compared to more complex rules sets.
The argument begs the issue of whether or not the rest of the broad
spectrum of behaviors is somehow less intellectual than some earlier, "golden"
period of time. But look at the early writings of the "fathers" of our hobby -
Featherstone, Grant, etal. There was nothing of earth shaking complexity there
but rather descriptions of how people can have fun.
Despite all the talk, people who have designed simple, elegant games have
been successful, perhaps more so than those that are done in a more complex
fashion. Am I mistaken in the opinion that more complex games are the product
of those who believe that more critical elements rather than less produce
battle outcomes?
Let me put it another way. If I play Waterloo with Napoleon's Battles,
Piquet, Legacy of Glory, or Empire should the outcomes be different if the
strategy I employ is consistent from system to system? As Marcus Crassus said
in Spartacus, "Do you like oysters or clams? It's all a matter of taste...." As
far as I am concerned, what you play is your business. It's complexity is not
an indicator of greater or less intellectuality of the participants but, I
believe, a function of other factors. Is it important to be able to play a
complete game in three or four hours? Are the numbers of figures available
important? Can the game be played in 25mm as opposed to 15mm scale easily? Has
my attention span contracted as I have gotten older and realize that other
things than games deserve my time?
Sorry guys but when I walk into a venue and see hundreds and hundreds of
people who share our interest in playing with toy soldiers, it gives the lie
to the notion that somehow our hobby is "dying". All the talk to the contrary,
most of us are willing to travel for hours (in my case seven hours to
Gettysburg) to have a weekend of relaxation with people who share. There are
thousands of us who attend Historicon (3,500? last year) each year. I guess
that all of us dumb,graying guys will continue to attend our cons in the
hinterlands and hope that all of the critics will come up with a viable game
plan to save us from ourselves. Until then,
Great Gaming & C'ya in Lancaster!
Jerry
John M. Atkinson
The four guys (counting myself) who I game with regularly includes two
late 30s, 1 20-year old, (guess who), and a high school student, the
latter being a recovering Warhammer player.
John M. Atkinson
nospam becomes erols to reply
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. . .
it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as
FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
--Thomas Jefferson
dmarston@sosinc.net The Great Prophet Zarquon
keit...@yahoo.com wrote in message <74doig$5ns$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>The important thing is surely to remember that this a hobby, something we
do
>for fun. If you get off on complex rules that take three hours to simulate
30
>seconds of action, fine. Wargaming can accomodate DBA and simulationists as
>easily as it accomodates different periods. If you don't like my choice of
>rules, go play with someone else. There isn't any "right" way of doing it.
I agree. Good miniature games have to move fast. IMHO the main advantages
of miniature gaming over other forms of gaming, such as computer games, are
(1) the asthetic appeal of watching a well painted lead army moving accross
the table, and (2) the comraderie that one gets from the hobby. Lengthy
rules, and the arguments they cause, tend to destroy the fun of the game.
Long games with complex rules mean that players will spend hours making a
single move, causing a degree of boredom for the non-moving players.
If one wants accuracy, computer games do it far better. Computers can do a
gazillion calculations in an instant and contain tons of charts. There is
not question that Steel Panthers has as much, if not more, of the realism
that would be found in Squad Leader, without the worry of having to look up
rules and charts. And certainly it is more accurate than Command Decision.
But while the graphics are nice, they are not the same as miniatures. And
one certainly does not get the comanionship with the computer that one can
get with ones friends.
Doug
John D Salt
The Great Prophet Zarquon <[nospam] dmar...@sosinc.net> wrote:
[snips]
>If one wants accuracy, computer games do it far better. Computers can do a
>gazillion calculations in an instant and contain tons of charts.
...neither of which makes for greater "accuracy", but at least has the
virtue of concealing the incomplete and inaccurate data, bizarre
assumptions and designer's brainfarts in a humming electric box, where
nobody will notice them.
Useless_Gonzo
1. The rules should FORCE the players to use the historical tatics of both
the age and army they are using (I've seen quite a few Nappy British attack
columns in my time).
2. Visualisation: Why do we use miniatures to game? Possibly to aid in the
visualisation of the battle. So a set of rules SHOULD provide some form
of period "feel" to the game (such as ranking the officer as a "Cowardly
sot, and a poltrone" rather than just "inept").
3. Non "Rules-smithing" : Lets face it some of the most enjoyable games we've
all had were when we know nothing about the rules (such as at a Convention).
Alas too often in our hobby, the rules-smith appears. If the rules are open
to interpretation, this guy has all the options covered. Thus causing the
game to end up in something resembling a TV courtroom drama. Maybe thats
why the so called "simple" rules have become so popular.
4. Speed of play : Somebody wrote in here that "we don't use a set of rules,
if it takes longer to play the turn, than the time it represents", and never
a set of truer words said. A good set of rule should be balanced so that
the complexity is a a level where, the the time taken to play the turn leaves
the player NO time to also work out his next turn, and turn after that, and...
5. Fog of war : some element of confusion should appear within the rules to
simulate this. We need to get away from the "god-like" overview of the battle.
We need to base our tatic upon the information typical of the period in time,
and that the general would have to hand (no more "lost 6 figs off a 36 fig batt
this turn, that mean x amount of downshifts.........Naaah! I wont counter
-charge, I'll stand and fire instead.......When in reality the General probably
wouldn't even know the batt was in combat (just the brigade), never mind
how many men it had lost).
6. The final and most inportant point to a good game " The enjoyment of a
game is relative not to your opponents ability, but to his congeniality"
The one set rules I use are "Hard Pounding" (a computer set of rules), they
have gotten near to the first five points (the sixth it can't control).I
remember with glee our local rulesmith trying to argue with the computer,
when it decided to retire his cav because it was "blown" rather than
distroyed to a man, and when he tried to argue with the other players....
well that all too familiar reason for everthing wrong in the world came to
mind.........We blamed in on the computer!
Steven M Goode
Conventional Wisdom by MSta9...@aol.com
> into miniatures gaming? If all we have are Boomer-aged old poots, miniatures
> are going to be in hurt-city inside twenty years.
Well, I'm 20, so I guess that makes me Generation Y....but as a
historical gamer, I'm in the minority among miniatures gamers of my
generation, at least in my experience. There are a lot of gamers in
their teens, twenties, and early thirties who play Games Workshop stuff
exclusively. Converting them is, IMHO, an important task for historical
gamers to undertake. Of course, all of this was discussed in a previous
thread....
Andy O'Neill
>They confuse simplicity with sophistication.
I'd say they confuse elegance with triviality.
DBM is elegant (bloody hard to read) but clever in subtle ways.
Rapid Fire is trivial.
Both involve bunging d6....
>Quite honestly, most of their
>designs are mechanically fairly unsophisticated-the bulk of the math involved
>in
>their CRTs or Combat systems are extremely simple and easy, barely above the
>trite ‘roll a six’ construct. Any complexity stems from a simple process being
>iterated multiple times-the same inelegant algorithm must be repeated several
>times to achieve a combat result. Many of the 'simple' games are very much more
>sophisticated in their systems than Todd and Crew would have you believe.
As a computer developer type, I design and have studied designing
systems. A set of wargames rules is a system, so I feel the theory is
relevent...
There's a lot of fancy labels stuck on different design approaches, but
they are often similar at heart.
There are two approaches taken by developers, the bottom up and the top
down approach is how these are often labelled.
Wargames designers often take a bottom up approach.
This consists of finding all the things they want to simulate, thinking
of a rule that kind of matches and stitching the result together.
As the game is played problems are found, and other rules are nailed
onto the system.. oh, I mean rules.
When you see programs written this way it's more or less immediately
obvious that's what's happened. There's usually a kind of shape that
the programme started off and you can still see this at the heart of the
thing, and then bits have been nailed on until a topsy-turvy monstrosity
grows from the original.... Vogon construction ( if you're familiar with
hitchhikers' ).
Top down design, on the other hand, consists of looking at all the
things you want to incorporate and working out how the whole thing will
fit together prior to launching into it. To go back to the above, you
work out what neat shape the programme ought to be for it's purpose.
An example might be useful....
Let's say we're designing ww2 rules.
Top down:
Looking at the period, it's pretty obvious that German panzers were
compaaratively weak in terms of guns and armour at the outset of war.
OTOH, they were successful, and this is usually thought to be because of
the way they were deployed and their good communications. Quality of
crews is clearly also important.
So if we're going to represent the differences in armour and gun
quality, then we ought to also get crew quality in there and allow (say)
the German side some advantage in moving or activating as set against
say a Russian one.
( Frankly, I have seen no rules sets that look like this approach has
been taken. Spearhead might do, but I've not read em ).
Bottom up.
OK, we want gun penetration against armour... look up the figures and
divide millimetres by ten to give points at range bands in a hundred
yards penetrated. Divide armour by 10 to give armour points, and whack
an angle multiplier on. Write your tables for all the tanks and guns
up. Now, we need a way of applying them, so write a table controlled by
rolling a dice... let's pick a d20.
What next.. oh yeah... movement... divide mph by... ummmm....
(Many rule sets demonstrate this, eg Firefly ).
Often at the end of design, someone will point out to the designer that
those pesky 1941 Russkies are going to stomp Jerry... as they forgot to
nail on a bit in the relevent place.
Note that carrying out bottom up design, and simplifying things to the
point of triviality is NOT the same as top down design.
I would suggest that Rapid Fire demonstrates this approach.
Anyhow, that's the outline of my thoughts, hope this may be useful to
someone out there designing some ww2 rules... and maybe that'll save me
doing the job myself.
Andy O'Neill
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/index.htm
Liverpool Wargames Association
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/LWA.htm
keit...@yahoo.com
css...@brunel.ac.uk (John D Salt) wrote:
> In article <74doig$5ns$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <keit...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >All wargames have to strike a balance between "realism" and "playability".
> [snipplington snippleby]
>
> But no, they don't. This is the point. There is no law, principle or
> effect that says you must give up one for the other. More often than
> not, adding detail to rules results directly in them becoming less
> convincing (I don't like the word "realistic", but my reasons would
> take too long to go in to now). You may find DBA an unconvincing
> representation of ancient battles, but it's not a tithe so misleading
> as, let's say, WRG sixth edition.
You're right - I should have said "detail" not "realism". Perhaps I'm a
complicasimulationist at heart.
Keith Venables
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Useless_Gonzo
> I agree. Good miniature games have to move fast. IMHO the main advantages
> of miniature gaming over other forms of gaming, such as computer games, are
> (1) the asthetic appeal of watching a well painted lead army moving accross
> the table, and (2) the comraderie that one gets from the hobby. Lengthy
> rules, and the arguments they cause, tend to destroy the fun of the game.
> Long games with complex rules mean that players will spend hours making a
> single move, causing a degree of boredom for the non-moving players.
>
> If one wants accuracy, computer games do it far better. Computers can do a
> gazillion calculations in an instant and contain tons of charts. There is
> not question that Steel Panthers has as much, if not more, of the realism
> that would be found in Squad Leader, without the worry of having to look up
> rules and charts. And certainly it is more accurate than Command Decision.
> But while the graphics are nice, they are not the same as miniatures. And
> one certainly does not get the comanionship with the computer that one can
> get with ones friends.
>
> Doug
>
>
I don't know if my post started off the topic of computer games!, I think
it's wandered a bit in interpretation. I use a computer to play with the
minis, I just let the computer do all the number cruching and book keeping
so that I can spend all my time moving the minis (and making sure they all
line up in a "proper" military manner). It's kind of like having an umpire
for the game (cept he's impartial, though it does make BAD calls now and
again). There are a lot of programs written specifically for wargaming with
the use of minis.
John R. "Buck" Surdu
>
> While I heartily concur with the "keep it simple" stance of most of
> the posters on this thread, could I ask them not to use the word
> "simulationist" to characterise those who favour high complexity?
> I'd suggest "complicationist" as an alternative label, if you need one.
> I am a simulationist (I used to build simulation models for a living,
> and expect to do so again), and we simulationists know that the
> greatest enemy of a good simulation model is complexity.
>
I agree. We don't serve any useful purpose in name calling. I think
that 'simulationist' is a less accurate term than 'complicationist,' as
well. As someone who studies simulation and builds simulations for a
living, I would argue that many on both sides of the 'simulationist' vs.
'simplicitiness' argument have no real understanding of the science of
simulation. I like John's suggestion of 'complicationist.'
I happen to think that you can get some very good representations of war
with simple systems. I also think you can simplify rules to the point
of being chess. There are some very elegent, simple systems on the
market that are better representations of war than the complicated
systems. The Napoleon board game (the one with the wooden blocks) comes
to mind. There are also some simple systems that bear no resemblence to
what they purport to represent.
I am a simulationist by profession; however, I like rules that are
simple -- to a point. When the rules get so simple that it doesn't
matter what figures you have on the table, we have lost something.
Buck Surdu
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
John R. "Buck" Surdu
Major, U.S. Army
Useless_Gonzo
> Top down:
> Looking at the period, it's pretty obvious that German panzers were
> compaaratively weak in terms of guns and armour at the outset of war.
> OTOH, they were successful, and this is usually thought to be because of
> the way they were deployed and their good communications. Quality of
> crews is clearly also important.
> So if we're going to represent the differences in armour and gun
> quality, then we ought to also get crew quality in there and allow (say)
> the German side some advantage in moving or activating as set against
> say a Russian one.
> ( Frankly, I have seen no rules sets that look like this approach has
> been taken. Spearhead might do, but I've not read em ).
Try "Grey Storm Red Steel", the point you just made is the major factor
in the armour rules, for instance the T34, if you look at the stats is
a match for any German panzer short of a Panther......now take another
look, the comander had to act as a loader (so all T34s operated buttoned
up). The T34 didn't have a radio untill you got to a Battalion/Company
commander (so the T34s operated in sqns of three within shouting distance)
The T34 crews had very little training (raw crews were assigned to a "vet"
crew (ie survived one engagement) with the standing orders "Follow me, do
what I do, shoot at what I shoot at". So if you just look at the stats then
the T34 IS the best Tank, but factor in the crew quality and different design
concepts, and even a lowly Mark IV has a better than even chance.
rjo...@henge.com
><<snip>>
. There are some very elegent, simple systems on the
>market that are better representations of war than the complicated
>systems. The Napoleon board game (the one with the wooden blocks) comes
>to mind. There are also some simple systems that bear no resemblence to
>what they purport to represent.
>
>I am a simulationist by profession; however, I like rules that are
>simple -- to a point. When the rules get so simple that it doesn't
>matter what figures you have on the table, we have lost something.
>
>Buck Surdu
BJ: I couldn't agree more as to the elegance of Napoleon;1812;Quebec 1759 and
that family of block games. A classic design that has just been extended to a
new series of 'Generic' games called Victory-which is quite well done.
I also agree that some simple games are like Los Angeles, "There is no there,
there." My group got an early play test copy of a game that has been on the
market for awhile. We played for about a half hour and were convinced we were
missing some pages! "Move and roll a six to shoot with effect" wasn't very
interesting!
The issue isn't just rule complication, which can be a very bad thing, but even
more important, what is the decision density of a game(how many true decisions
does the gamer have to make in a finite cycle of play) and are those decisions
of consequence to the outcome in a clear and definitive way? The final layer is
do they reflect warfare within a given period in a way that a gamer of some
historical reading may recognize!
I only used the word simulationist as this is a term those who claim they
practice simulations seem to be most proud of, Perhaps the growing group
consensus on the term "complicationist" is more fitting (and irritating)! :-)
BJ
Ray Rangel
John R. "Buck" Surdu wrote in message <366C4576...@cs.tamu.edu>...
>I am a simulationist by profession; however, I like rules that are
>simple -- to a point. When the rules get so simple that it doesn't
>matter what figures you have on the table, we have lost something.
>
>Buck Surdu
Buck, Buck, Buck,
Surely you must realize that ANY miniature in ANY miniatures game can be
replaced with a cardboard counter. I really get tired of hearing people say,
about this or that miniatures game,
"well THAT's just a counter game...of course, *I* play *real* miniatures
games!"
Yeesshhh! Guess what...a stand on the table is a *representation* of a
military unit. If it's supposed to be a tank squadron, a regiment of
cuirassier, or a single Zulu warrior. They can all be replaced with
cardboard...or plastic...or wooden blocks. There is nothing keeping me from
playing BFE with cardboard cutouts.
All of this, of course, has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the
relative complexity, simplicity, elegance, or coarseness of the rules being
played. But I think that the point that you were try to make is that
Legere(whether represented by a cardboard counter, a stand of miniatures, or
a block of wood) should act like Legere, a tank like a tank, etc.
This is where I say that it is rules that provide the mechanics for movement
and combat, but it is up to the player and his/her historical knowledge to
make them deploy, advance, and engage in the historical manner.
When it comes to rules like DBx, the point made by PB in the intro to DBA
speaks volumes. Basically he says that result of units fighting each other
can be reduced to the combat effectiveness of one verses the other in
relative terms. This is a very important facet of gaming that, basically,
turned the 7th players on their collective ears. The concept that whether I,
as a skirmisher, kill you with a sling or kill you with a javelin you are
just as dead was (is?) a hard pill to swallow for some people.
A little afterthought here...
I am, by no means enthralled by DBx. However I use it as an example of one
of the most elegantly simple games available. Additionally it's one that
most folks have played (or are at least aware of). Therefore, I feel
comfortable using it as an example.
Dean Klein
I too am a simulationist at heart and agree with you 100%. If I want to
play elegant games of strategy, I play chess, not DBA or NB. If I want to
simulate Napoleonic combat I play your rule set (among others).
I game to learn history and study tactics, not to try to fight Waterloo
in 3hrs. If that is what others like, fine. To each his own. Just don't
label me a complicationist because somebody doesn't want to read a chart or
actually find out why your British get +9 vs French columns.
The problem with slow games has never been the rulesets, its been gamers
who don't put forth the effort to LEARN rulesets. That is what slows down
play. If you want to indoc new people to wargaming great, start them out on
DBA or Le Petit, but if that is as far as you are going to progress in the
hobby, then you are missing out on the best part IMHO.
Regards,
Dean
P.S. There is nothing "elegant" about DBA anyway. Economical yes, but
don't try to tell me an ancients starter set, possesses some sort of magical
ebb and flow.
Ray Rangel
Useless_Gonzo <@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
<91305042...@nntpcache1.nortel.net>...
>What SHOULD a set of wargames rules do? IMHO there are a few major points
>
>1. The rules should FORCE the players to use the historical tatics of both
>the age and army they are using (I've seen quite a few Nappy British attack
>columns in my time).
>
I think that the rules should tell the player how an attack column works but
that it's up to the players to apply the rules appropriately. In a recent
instance, I was running a Zulu War battle using PoW. The British player
wanted to fire into a melee. The rules don't say that British can't do that,
they do tell how to take casualties if one does such a thing. Needless to
say, I wouldn't allow the British player to fire into his own troops. If you
have seen quite a few British attack columns in your time, I would suggest
that it's only because you and the people playing allowed them. Are the
rules at fault...I think not.
>2. Visualisation: Why do we use miniatures to game? Possibly to aid in the
>visualisation of the battle. So a set of rules SHOULD provide some form
>of period "feel" to the game (such as ranking the officer as a "Cowardly
>sot, and a poltrone" rather than just "inept").
Again, it's up to the players to provide the "color" for a game. NPoW
classes leaders as Good, Average, and Poor. If one wnats to add "feel" to
the game one needs only personify the leader as a snivelling coward or
dynamic leader who can shoot fireballs from his arse.
>
>3. Non "Rules-smithing" : Lets face it some of the most enjoyable games
we've
>all had were when we know nothing about the rules (such as at a
Convention).
>Alas too often in our hobby, the rules-smith appears. If the rules are open
>to interpretation, this guy has all the options covered. Thus causing the
>game to end up in something resembling a TV courtroom drama. Maybe thats
>why the so called "simple" rules have become so popular.
>
The loathing of rules lawers is pretty much universal. The best way to keep
this under control is with peer pressure or a strong game master. Rules are
written by individuals with a particular view of history. As such, they will
always be open to interpretation by those that see things a little
differently. It's up to you to keep the "rules-smith" in line. By the way
there is a lot of difference between interpreting history and applying it to
the rules in use and playing in the cracks in the rules.
>4. Speed of play : Somebody wrote in here that "we don't use a set of
rules,
>if it takes longer to play the turn, than the time it represents", and
never
>a set of truer words said. A good set of rule should be balanced so that
>the complexity is a a level where, the the time taken to play the turn
leaves
>the player NO time to also work out his next turn, and turn after that,
and...
>
Firstly, I don't know how you would play a game like Hostile Aircraft (WWI
Aero) with a turn the same length as time scale. Fifteen second scale. One
can't even move the stand in that amount of time. What about skirmish games.
A two minute time scale...but you have fifteen figures to move... As for
planning the next turn and the turn after that...well I think you would find
that Omar Bradley, Erwin Rommel, Max Immelmann, and most other successful
fighters on the strategic, tactical, and individual level were successful
because of their ability to foresee the course of a battle and adjust.
Rarely were they simply reacting to events...they were executing a plan to
cause events.
>5. Fog of war : some element of confusion should appear within the rules to
>simulate this. We need to get away from the "god-like" overview of the
battle.
>We need to base our tatic upon the information typical of the period in
time,
>and that the general would have to hand (no more "lost 6 figs off a 36 fig
batt
>this turn, that mean x amount of downshifts.........Naaah! I wont counter
>-charge, I'll stand and fire instead.......When in reality the General
probably
>wouldn't even know the batt was in combat (just the brigade), never mind
>how many men it had lost).
>
What you say here is pretty much true. However these are games and as such
require some sort of scoring mechanism. Whether it's casualty caps or
rosters. There has to some way to "weaken" a unit through the course of a
game and have that weakening affect the game as whole. Limited intellegence
is simulated in many games by hidden movement and other devices. What you
say about the general is true. However in most games the player is not only
the general, he is also the division commanders, regimental commanders, and
battalion commanders as well.
>6. The final and most inportant point to a good game " The enjoyment of a
>game is relative not to your opponents ability, but to his congeniality"
Certainly there are good rules and bad and all shades in between. However,
before pronouncing a death sentence on a set of rules, take a moment and ask
yourself was it the rules or was it me.
rjo...@henge.com
Magnificent!
Ottawa Harry: What did he say?
Injun Joe: Dunno... But I got all winter to read 'em.
Francois Le Quebec: Another reason to secede!
Bruce of Vancouver: I love it when he talks dirty!!!!
Sergeant Preston of the Yukon: On you Husky!
King: Woof!
Rose Marie: I Love You!
The Franklin Expedition is still observing an icy indifference.
BJ
WKeyser
nothing more than to spend a good 12 hours playing a Multi-Corps sized
Napoleonic game. 24 games of DBA (30 minutes a game) does nothing for me other
than make my wrist tired from all the die rolls. I think we have to admit that
this hobby is made up of people from both ends of the complexity spectrum. On
one end we have the ones who just want to put some figures on the table and
roll some dice and the high roll wins the game, the possible out comes are win,
lose or draw. On the other end are those that want to recreate the effect of
the subaltern in the third battalion of the 22nd regiments mistake in not
closing his files to the regulation 22 inches, in the end the possible out
comes are win lose or draw. Or we could say that on one end we have the pure
die roller, he does not care if its monopoly or napoleonics as long as he has
fun with his friends, the other end is the one who researchs the different
speeds of maneuver and wants the .25 of a minute difference to be reflected in
the game. And guys, guess what each is equally happy with his game, whether it
is the 30min die rolling extravaganza or the 12 hours of looking up charts.
I think the simple is better end has been reflect in the numerous posts, so
perhaps a note from a die hard simulationist ( but only in some games and or
periods I like simple games in period where I know very little, there are many
of those). What I look for in a game is one that reflects the abilities of the
various armies (Napoleonics). Yes I want to see why and how the British line
defeated the French on a fairly regular basis, I don’t want a simple solution
i.e. the British get a +9 to the d10 against the French. I want to see that the
French skirmishers are negated by the British lights, I want to see that the
British hold there fire till the last moment and I want to see the resulting
disorder when they fire and the short counter charge by the British troops.
In the end the augment, that both a simple and complex game will give the same
results is somewhat obvious. For example in many beer and pretzel games the
designer has made the 1806 Prussian battalion markedly inferior to a French one
of the period. On the simulationist end you might see that the Prussian
battalion is not greatly inferior to the French (at least in some case equall
or better) but where the difference in abilities occurs is on the Brigade level
and higher, that is where the French hold the advantage. If we do at least a
cursory reading of the period we see that indeed the Prussians battalion in
many instances was not just a decrepit relic of the Seven Years War. However,
in the Beer and Pretzel game the advantage lies with the French on the lowest
level, but for the simulationist the difference must be found in the handling
of the battalions not just the die roll. This is perhaps the fundamental
difference between the two camps, so in the end the result of a large battle
for each will often be the same.
Neither end of the gaming spectrum is better than the other. It has proven so
far impossible to combine the speed and ease of one end of the spectrum with
the nuance and detail that make up the whole on the other end. We all make
choices as to what we want from our games. The beer and pretzel end of the
spectrum seem to have, first and foremost prority on time to play i.e. 3 hours
max. for Leipzig, second ease of play, (this also has the effect of averaging
out the abilities of the gamers) however, low on the priority list is
"historical accurate events"( I say events because it is hard to say results as
we see in any game there is only three possible results, and a result in the
required time is high on the priority list). High on the simulationist
priorities is that events make sense in regards to the history available to us.
My favorite failure of this was in a popular beer and pretzel game where I had
a French 12pdr battery and 500 meters to its front was a brigade of Prussian
light cavalry. I fired for what in game terms was two hours and I did not
inflict one causality. The reason was that I rolled really low four times and
the Prussian rolled high. The random event, or anything can happen argument of
the die rollers did not ring true. I think the fundamental here for the
simulationist is that in some situations the range of outcomes to a given event
can range from 0% to 100%. This is the biggest problem for me in the simple die
rolling games. When you have things like opposing die rolls certain events can
always happen. If one player uses a four sided die and the opponent uses a
twenty sided and the high number wins then you will always have the chance of
that four sided die beating the twenty sided. Lets take an extreme example of
this. Say you took an armored M1 company in desert storm and placed an Iraqi
platoon of T62s at 1500meters away from the M1s and it is dark. The M1s have a
d20 and the Iraquis have d4 one possible result is the T62s could win. Well if
we look at the facts that emerged from that conflict I would say that the T62s
have no chance at all.
I think as gamers we all have traits from both ends of the spectrum, I think
the simple is better school should define better and then understand that
better will not be the same for all gamers. What I want from a game is not the
same as others and to be so naive to think that a simple game is more elegant
and therefore better than a game that has more complexity is forgetting that
elegant is a very relative term. One perosn might call a girl with tatooes of
dragons on her forhead and rings through many parts of her body elegent others
would say a simple black silk dress and black pearls elegent. I find the
elegance of a complex system just as intriguing as the elegance of a simple
system.
William Keyser
Jay
> I like a degree of historical accuracy in my games, but not at the
>point of sacrifincing fun. I game to have fun, not to verify some
>battlefield outcome with high precision.
I can agree with all of those sentiments. I also like to see some
common sense apply if the rules indicate that a result is historically
silly (an example is literal interpretation of the "secure flanks"
rules in Age of Reason).
Want to hear something that may strike you as weird? The best Ancients
rules I've played to date (and my play includes Tactica, Armati,
WRG6th and 7th, and DBx) are the new Warhammer Ancients rules. I
percieved more historical feel than I do with Armati and DBA, and a
simple to play system that beats Tactica and WRG. If you don't mind
rolling handfuls of dice, it's worth it. And for those obsessed with
the "1-playsheet-4-hour-game" it's brilliant. We finished a Roman
civil war scenario with about 10 units per side in 2 1/2 hours.
Jay
Ottawa, Ontario
When in doubt, assume I've typed a smiley :^)
Remove the wildcard when replying by email.
Jay
>BJ: Jay, you ain't even close! You spent five minutes late in the day with me
>at the last cold wars; badgered me into a few turns with D. La Victoire and then
>made up your mind. Since I am more than aware of your present "favorite" rules-
>I merely say-"Move on, Lads! Move on!"
Well, I applaud your memory of me, if not the event itself. Actually
Bob, I haven't made up my minde about anything other than dropping
over US$40 (which is about $1,000 CDN these days) on yet another set
of rules when I'm not sure about them. I don't know what your
distribution net is like, but your rules don't see the shelves here,
and the only guy who has them (Steve Q.) used to sell them. In any
case, I rarely see him, and have been unable to get a set of the rules
to try. "Badger" you Bob? Hell, it seemed to me that you were trying
your damnedest to get another convert or two, and, beleive it or not,
I really think it's a shame that the dice made it one of the worst
games I've played in years (I know the dice are to blame Bob, not you,
though that's one of the reservations I have about your game)
Oh, and my present "favorite" rules are not likely anything you're
aware of, because I wrote them (with no intention of publication)
since, despite my enjoyment of VtW, I've found them too cumbersome for
battles of any size.
>BJ: Sorry, Jay you missed the point(and I NEVER used the phrase "too
>Complicated"-if anything, they are too obvious and simple!). I'll send
>diagrams, tables, and 37 citations. Too complicated just ain't the
>issue-boring, inconclusive, predictable, and most of all too fatuously
>pedantic-now, that's the issue! Also, telling other people that somehow what
>they play "doesn't measure up!" doesn't strike me as inclusive.
>
Well, let's see if I interpret this part correctly: "complicated"
wasn't what you said, sure, I can go with that, I was attempting to
interpret your meaning in few words (maybe I should've lost the
quotes, plays to that inferior understanding of American English I
have). So, are the diagrams, tables and citations reference to Piquet?
I do like that last sentence, especially juxtaposed with the one
before it.
>BJ: Gee, Jay, what's with this fascination with assholes? Must be an Ottawa
>thing. Long winters up there?
It was last year.
In any case Bob, I'm as sick of your pontificating as I am of that of
Matt DeLaMater (I haven't tracked Todd Fisher much, so I'm not sick of
him yet, and as for Scotty Bowden, I just question his scholarship,
since I've never had occasion to hear, or read on this group, his
pontification). Your snide references to all and sundry who you lable
as pedantic or lacking in innovation, or whatever have come to annoy
me. That being said, I may actually buy one of your game sets some
day, if I ever get a chance to try it again, and find I like it. Hell,
I bought Empire V, even though my opinion of Scott Bowden is based on
Armies on the Danube (though because of that book, I will never drop
bucks on another work authored by him).
Maybe you should be the one to "move on."
Oh, and I'm happy I sparked an angry reaction for a change.
Jay
>Well, I'm 20, so I guess that makes me Generation Y....but as a
>historical gamer, I'm in the minority among miniatures gamers of my
>generation, at least in my experience. There are a lot of gamers in
>their teens, twenties, and early thirties who play Games Workshop stuff
>exclusively. Converting them is, IMHO, an important task for historical
>gamers to undertake. Of course, all of this was discussed in a previous
>thread....
I think the new Warhammer Ancients rules will go a long way to
converting them. One of our club members has recently been appointed
co-ordinator of historical miniatures for our local con. His objective
is to ensure that all Warhammer players have to pass by our tables on
the way to their games.
Jay
>1. The rules should FORCE the players to use the historical tatics of both
>the age and army they are using (I've seen quite a few Nappy British attack
>columns in my time).
I'd equivocate on this one. HOW do the rules force that? If they do by
a system of realistic (at the risk of being slammed for using that
word) physical restrictions then it will work. If they use artificial
mechanisms, like saying that Napoleonic British may NEVER form a
column for attack, then they may have taken the wrong approach.
>2. Visualisation: Why do we use miniatures to game? Possibly to aid in the
>visualisation of the battle. So a set of rules SHOULD provide some form
>of period "feel" to the game (such as ranking the officer as a "Cowardly
>sot, and a poltrone" rather than just "inept").
I couldn't agree strongly enough with that point. To me period "feel"
is the most important aspect (barring actually dressing in the uniform
and setting off muskets in the game room).
>3. Non "Rules-smithing" : Lets face it some of the most enjoyable games we've
>all had were when we know nothing about the rules (such as at a Convention).
>Alas too often in our hobby, the rules-smith appears. If the rules are open
>to interpretation, this guy has all the options covered. Thus causing the
>game to end up in something resembling a TV courtroom drama. Maybe thats
>why the so called "simple" rules have become so popular.
The group to which I belong use the term "rules lawyer" for this. We
try to get around it by having umpired games, and it can work, so long
as the umpire is not intimidated by the rules lawyer.
>4. Speed of play : Somebody wrote in here that "we don't use a set of rules,
>if it takes longer to play the turn, than the time it represents", and never
>a set of truer words said. A good set of rule should be balanced so that
>the complexity is a a level where, the the time taken to play the turn leaves
>the player NO time to also work out his next turn, and turn after that, and...
While I agree with the first point, to a certain extent, I'm not sure
I can fully agree with the latter point. I think the ultimate
objective is to achieve a final result in the available gaming period,
be it 4 hours, 7 hours (our club's allotted time) or a weekend. Now,
one's satisfaction will be degraded if whole weekend worth of gaming
results in completeing 15 minutes of game time (try a fleet battle in
Harpoon), but many rules sets balance out, in that every 15 minute
turn that takes 45 minutes of real time to play, is balanced by
several that only took 5 (or, at least, that's the way it should work,
but some systems fail in that respect).
>5. Fog of war : some element of confusion should appear within the rules to
>simulate this. We need to get away from the "god-like" overview of the battle.
>We need to base our tatic upon the information typical of the period in time,
>and that the general would have to hand (no more "lost 6 figs off a 36 fig batt
>this turn, that mean x amount of downshifts.........Naaah! I wont counter
>-charge, I'll stand and fire instead.......When in reality the General probably
>wouldn't even know the batt was in combat (just the brigade), never mind
>how many men it had lost).
I agree. I like some of the methods that Principles of War uses. I'd
like to introduce more. The main problem with fog of war is when
excessibe randomness comes into play (a few systems require too many
rolls to determine things that should be automatic, which also goes to
the "speed of play" issue).
>6. The final and most inportant point to a good game " The enjoyment of a
>game is relative not to your opponents ability, but to his congeniality"
And that will determine the ultimate success of the experience.
Jay
>Let's say we're designing ww2 rules.
>
>Top down:
>( Frankly, I have seen no rules sets that look like this approach has
>been taken. Spearhead might do, but I've not read em ).
>
>Bottom up.
>(Many rule sets demonstrate this, eg Firefly ).
Interesting examples. The WWII rules I've used most often, Clash of
Armour, and the rules I've liked for a while, Command Decision, should
be easy to classify. Clash of Armour seems very much a "top down"
system. The emphasis is C2. CD, in it's current incarnation, is harder
to pin down. If it was CD 1st or 2d edition, "bottom up" would be my
immediate answer. CD 3 seems to have worked both ends against the
middle (detailed vehicle data, yet a system that can elegantly
represent early Germans vs early Soviets, or later Allies vs later
Germans). Both rules sets deal with things at a level where the really
large units are best ignored (i.e. don't try an action involving a
German Corps unless it's severely depleted).
>Note that carrying out bottom up design, and simplifying things to the
>point of triviality is NOT the same as top down design.
>I would suggest that Rapid Fire demonstrates this approach.
I agree with you WRT Rapid Fire.
Jay
>One weekend I set up a massive Modern Microarmor game and had about 30 players.
> I chose the WRG 1950-2000 rules and dropped the morale rules.
>Guess what... we tended to have the same sort of outcomes in less time with
>the microarmor game. This led me to draw this conclusion;
>Why go for complicated, if the simple will suffice?
That's certainly a good approach, especially for larger games with
many complicated parts (modern stuff has alot more for the commander
to worry about than horse, foot and guns, which is why modern
commanders have larger staffs at every level). Not too many players
want to be staff officers, they want to command.
However, my position is based on "feel," which is a very personal
thing. Take my passion: Napoleonics. While I can play something simple
like NB and expect a reasonable _outcome_ based on historical results,
I have a problem with the road taken to achieve that outcome. For me
the game isn't the result (winning is nice, but a good game is more
important to me), the feel of every action to get there should be
within the parameters that I consider important. Now, I also
understand that my own parameters are likely different from those of
other players, however, believe it or not, I am flexible (in fact I
can think of very few rules sets that I will absolutely refuse to
play, none of which are in current publication, though Shako is pretty
borderline).
The key for a "simulation" is the result. IMO the key for a game is
the whole experience. Oh, and if the US Army's simulations are the
same as what I saw in the mid-'80s, the morale rules are usually
dropped in them as well (a very difficult variable to quanify in real
life).
Jay
>Idle thought: Is anyone seeing younger people (Xers and Generation Y) coming
>into miniatures gaming? If all we have are Boomer-aged old poots, miniatures
>are going to be in hurt-city inside twenty years.
>Catbox :-\
The club to which I belong boasts about 25% over 30. In fact we have a
significant number of twentysomethings, and our youngest member is 12.
(Our oldest member won't admit his age, but his 18-year old son is one
of the best players in the club).
Brian O'Leary
other posts touching on the these and related issues. Most of the rules
that we play are homegrown and mechanically very simple. World War II games
involve a bit more number crunching than ancients, but the rules generally
leave things like doctrine and fog of war up to the player. I think that if
the player is in the spirit of the game, these things will follow. My
experience is that if the rules try to make me fight historically, that they
make me do something totally goofy instead.
My experience is that the spirit of the player is always more important than
the rules. And, that players fall into two categories, ones who want to
play, and ones who want to win. The ones who want to play, smile at
adversity and try to overcome it; while, the ones that want to win tell me
why the rules are wrong, the scenario is skewed, and tries to beat the rules
rather than the enemy.
Brian O'Leary
Useless_Gonzo <@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
<91305042...@nntpcache1.nortel.net>...
>What SHOULD a set of wargames rules do? IMHO there are a few major points
>
>1. The rules should FORCE the players to use the historical tatics of both
>the age and army they are using (I've seen quite a few Nappy British attack
>columns in my time).
>
>2. Visualisation: Why do we use miniatures to game? Possibly to aid in the
>visualisation of the battle. So a set of rules SHOULD provide some form
>of period "feel" to the game (such as ranking the officer as a "Cowardly
>sot, and a poltrone" rather than just "inept").
>
>3. Non "Rules-smithing" : Lets face it some of the most enjoyable games
we've
>all had were when we know nothing about the rules (such as at a
Convention).
>Alas too often in our hobby, the rules-smith appears. If the rules are open
>to interpretation, this guy has all the options covered. Thus causing the
>game to end up in something resembling a TV courtroom drama. Maybe thats
>why the so called "simple" rules have become so popular.
>
>4. Speed of play : Somebody wrote in here that "we don't use a set of
rules,
>if it takes longer to play the turn, than the time it represents", and
never
>a set of truer words said. A good set of rule should be balanced so that
>the complexity is a a level where, the the time taken to play the turn
leaves
>the player NO time to also work out his next turn, and turn after that,
and...
>
>5. Fog of war : some element of confusion should appear within the rules to
>simulate this. We need to get away from the "god-like" overview of the
battle.
>We need to base our tatic upon the information typical of the period in
time,
>and that the general would have to hand (no more "lost 6 figs off a 36 fig
batt
>this turn, that mean x amount of downshifts.........Naaah! I wont counter
>-charge, I'll stand and fire instead.......When in reality the General
probably
>wouldn't even know the batt was in combat (just the brigade), never mind
>how many men it had lost).
>
>6. The final and most inportant point to a good game " The enjoyment of a
>game is relative not to your opponents ability, but to his congeniality"
>
David Lavictoire
> Let's say we're designing ww2 rules.
>
> Top down:
> Looking at the period, it's pretty obvious that German panzers were
> compaaratively weak in terms of guns and armour at the outset of war.
> OTOH, they were successful, and this is usually thought to be because of
> the way they were deployed and their good communications. Quality of
> crews is clearly also important.
> So if we're going to represent the differences in armour and gun
> quality, then we ought to also get crew quality in there and allow (say)
> the German side some advantage in moving or activating as set against
> say a Russian one.
> ( Frankly, I have seen no rules sets that look like this approach has
> been taken. Spearhead might do, but I've not read em ).
I know one!
My all-time favorite set of WWII rules, CD notwithstanding, has to be Clash of
Armor. While the original rules are unplayably buggy, the errata I've seen (and
used) makes unit and leadership quality far more important than ironmongery.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to convince anyone else of the virtues of this great
system. Has anyone seen CoA II, rumored to be out this year?
Other Dave
General Heister
Tim Marshall wrote in message ...
>Although Bob Jones post seems a little acerbic (in the fine tradition of
>"Egon Schiele"), I have to agree and cheer him on. Absolutely no offense
>meant to the gentlemen he mentions but what Bob is talking about is
>certainly well illustrated with our group of gamers.
>
>For many years, we developed our own WWII armour/infantry rules. They
>were simple in mechanism too, but also had large numbers of charts and
>different procedures. We had fun times but our games would go on for a
>very long time before reaching a conclusion. We often would remember
>younger days when our written rules only differentiated between light,
>medium and heavy tanks (A King Tig and a Churchill having the exact same
>characteristics) and wish we could get back to fast flowing games we used
>to have. This year we bought a set of rules which was radically different
>in mechanism and was so amazingly simplistic in combat resolution, that we
>had serious doubts about it. Nevertheless, we are playing more games than
>we ever did before in very quick time and our brains are only fried by the
>stress of competing against each other and not because of the rules.
This is one of the things I so love about the DBx framework. You get to play
more games! The learning curve is steeper, (because you get to play more)
and constantly having to look some damn thing up in the rules is a thing
of the past. I find also that when using historical opponents, the games are
as historical as one could want.
I
>expect these rules would certainly be considered a "dumb down" set, but
>they allow me a good feel for infantry combat and with modifications, the
>same for armoured combat as well.
>
>I for one support any move to make games simpler.
>
Hear, hear.
>
General Heister
Jay wrote in message <366b6062....@news.igs.net>...
>The bottom line is that if you enjoy Legacy of Pain (uhh, Glory), play
>it. If you like Valmy to Waterloo, play it. If you are a Piquet
>fanatic, seek help. Whatever it is, stop piss-taking everyone else in
>the hobby. Opinions are like assholes: Bob's is bigger than everyone
>else's (except maybe Scotty Bowden's).
nuk...@worldnet.att.net
>
> In article <19981207223112...@ng135.aol.com>, wke...@aol.com
> says...
> >
> > Yes I proudly admit that I am a "simulationist" and happy to be one. I love
> >nothing more than to spend a good 12 hours playing a Multi-Corps sized
> >Napoleonic game.
>
>
> >. One perosn might call a girl with tatooes of
> >dragons on her forhead and rings through many parts of her body elegent others
> >would say a simple black silk dress and black pearls elegent. I find the
> >elegance of a complex system just as intriguing as the elegance of a simple
> >system.
> >
> >William Keyser
>
> dragons on their forehead and rings through parts of their body will give you a
> whole new meaning to a needing a saving roll. Don't ever fly anywhere with one
> of them because it'll get you strip searched at every airport. Stick with the
> women in simple black dresses and pearls- long term, a more expensive choice,
> but she won't impair your career, and you won't wake up facing dragon face as
> well as dragon breath.
>
> BJ
Errrr...BJ -
Wasn't Monica wearing a 'simple black dress' with or without stain?
As to 'impair your career', Duh!
And as to 'wake up facing dragon face' were you referring to Hillary?
DAW
JD Yahoo
understand and appreciate.
A good game will be:
1. (LEARNING CURVE) Easy to learn and remember the rules but impossible to
formulate a strategy that wins in all circumstances.
2. (PLEASURE) Addictive, fun, intriguing, mysterious, exciting, visually
beautiful. It will be played for the game's sake, not always the winning's
sake.
3. (A social NARCOTIC) It will take a person away from his reality. It will
bring groups of people closer together.
For me, gaming takes the place of drinking.
J.D.
St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.
"We can't risk another frontal assault. That rabbit's dynamite."
-Attributed to King Arthur of the Britons
WKeyser
>Oh, and my present "favorite" rules are not likely anything you're
>aware of, because I wrote them (with no intention of publication)
>since, despite my enjoyment of VtW, I've found them too cumbersome for
>battles of any size.
Jay
Jay I would have to disagree with you on that point. I have played Rivoli at a
convention with all beginners we played the game until 3 of the Austrian
columns had routed, it took about 4 hours, we played Castiglioni at a
convention it took about three hours for the Austrians to collapse. We have
done Wagram twice at Historicon the first time I was over ambitious and we only
played for 6 hours and we did not finish the second time I slotted two days it
took about twelve hours to play from the 8am turn to the 2pm turn. At the end
of the 2 pm turn Davouts Corps had pushed the Austrian up the hill and 1/2 the
opposing Austrian units had routed. The rest of the Austrian were engaged and
the French still had reserves, Charles called the battle and said he would
issue a General retreat order to his troops. This game had 30 players the table
was close to 40 feet long, three gamers knew the game well five or six others
had played at other conventions and the rest where beginners. We have played
Eylau (a really boring battle by the way) a number of times to a conclusion in
6 to 10 hours. I run games at various conventions and most of the games are
played to a conclusion in from 3 to 6 hours, in this setting I usually run the
tables for the first couple of turns and then I make a point of wandering away
so the gamers are forced to learn the cheat sheet book. I play with a number of
people in my area on a semi regular basis and we finish games with about a
division per person in about 3 to 6 hours. The game is played in numerous clubs
in the US, Britain, France, Italy.
From Valmy to Waterloo is not a beer and pretzel game, you can not play Leipzig
in 4hours, however, it can and is played on a Division to Corps level by 2 to 4
players who know the rules (played from 5 to 10 games previous) in from 3 to 6
hours. If you get a group of dedicated gamers who know the rules larger battles
can be played in what I and many others seem to consider a reasonable length of
time.
William
WKeyser
would maintain that the hobby has never been that historically smart. In the
last 10 years or so we have seen more innovation in rules than ever before.
These range from the simple beer and pretzel type to the more complex
simulation oriented ones. In most of these I do not see much innovation or
insight into the history of the periods that they portray but rather the
innovation seems to be in the "gaming" aspect of them. I think that perhaps 10
percent of the gaming population is interested first and foremost in the
history that the games portray and the other 90 percent "just wana have fun".
Neither camp is superior than the other and both have a place in the hobby. I
can see that influences from both camps flow back and forth, the end result is
good for the hobby. Many years ago I had the pleasure of gaming with a group of
men in England I was only a teenager and the fact that these guys were Charles
Grant, Featherstone Tony Bath, and other legends of the hobby did not have an
effect on me. The fact that I was war gaming was the pleasurable point of the
whole experience. Since then I have found that their interpretation of history
was very flawed. And the games boiled down to good die rolling. The golden 70s
was not that smart in portraying the periods that they were played. But the
games were fun and fast.
I think that both of the extremist camps should stop and think about what the
hobby is portraying it is after all history. But instead we have the two camps
spewing veniom at each other. On the one side are what BJ condescendingly
refers to as the simulationist. These evil beings seem to be bent on portraying
every detail of a battle and the end result is that the games are often longer
than the die rollers camp can deal with. And they are only doing this so people
buy their rules, you could of course accuse BJ of the same methods for the same
reasons. The camp that I call the "paranoid die rollers" are attempting to
tell me that anything can happen (even if the events they say can occur, never
happened) and their god is not the detail oriented chart filled rules but the
holy random event. (My wargamer encyclopedia says that a "paranoid die
rollers" are those who are convinced that their simple die rolling game are
the most accurate simulation of the events portrayed, but they have this
nagging doubt about the number of random events in any given game might amount
to the frequency of random events which occurred during the entire period
portrayed, and the fact that they cannot find any historical reference to the
frequency of random events in any battle, they of course attribute this to the
other holy grail of "anything can happen on a battle field" argument)
As a card carrying simulationist I must say that I find the problem with many
beer and pretzel games is not the random events that occur and the importance
of a good die rolls but rather that many do a poor job of portraying the
events in question, I also find this problem with many complex games. I will
take Napoleons battles as an example. I think the idea of a simple game
portraying brigade level combat is good. But in NB the brigades operate as
battalions, they form square, line etc. this is a problem for me. I have yet to
find an accounts of a brigade forming into one big square (ok the Egyptian
stuff is the exception to this) when faced by a cavalry square or forming into
one long column to attack the enemy as the optimum formation. Another dilemma
is the ability of passing one brigade through another when within say 500
meters of the enemy, this can by done with ease and the brigades suffer no bad
consequences, I question this. I would not have anything against a simple game
that addressed the problems of a brigade level game, in my mind the core of
such a game would be the command and control of the armies. These problems also
affect the complex games, too much detail and you lose sight of what you are
portraying. Each gamer will determine what he finds historically acceptable.
This will be based on his knowledge of the period, and his priority’s as to
time of play.
I think we should do a better job of admitting to ourselves that both ends of
the spectrum contribute to the hobby. The main point should be, lets look at
how the game any game portrays the period. If it is a simple beer and pretzel
game judge it on how it portrays the period being gamed not whether you can
play Leipzig in three hours. And on the other end lets do the same for the
complex games and judge it on its portrayal of the period in question. This
whole augment on simple is better because it is quicker is dumbing down the
hobby. The discussion should be does this game portray history or is it just a
game with lead/pewter figures on the table.
William
Bob Bryant
>
> In article <366C36...@usit.net>, Bob says...
>
> >Right on! Very complicated games with lots of tables and factors and
> >modifiers, etc., appeal to those whose interest in the game is problem
> >solving. The game for these gamers and game designers is an engineering
> >problem, and the solution requires a calculus defined by the rules. If
> >it weren't complicated it wouldn't be interesting to those who find this
> >approach appealing.
> >
> BJ: Bob, if I may make a slight dissent; I don't think that the "simulationists"
> games' distinction is problem solving-for I find that in many other "Non-sim"
> designs-maybe more so! Nor do I think that analytic (engineering) mindsets are
> lashed to some "calculus" as their prefered method of wargaming. Brent Oman is
> an engineer-Jim Getz is an engineer-though my degrees are in history and English
> (as is Ken Bagalley's) much of my adult life has been spent with
> statistics(ratings) and program budgets(analytic) and Bill Perks is a Jazz
> musician(and a good recommender of great jazz recordings)-so what? Cris Brown
> is a smart, savvy lawyer-who prefers not to exercise his trade on the wargame
> table; Pat McGuire is a fine writer and a pretty good banjo player-but we still
> let them all play Piquet.
>
Bob: I believe that I was not clear about what I meant. Let me try
again. First, "problem solving" was a poor choice of words. In any game
there is problem solving. In addition, I certainly did not mean to
denigrate those who have technical professions or imply that they are
not capable of playing a "humanistic" rather than a "technical" wargame.
I have spent my own two careers in a life of the analytical mind, first
as a university professor in microbial genetics and then in software
engineering. I was trying to say that games, in my observation--and
perhaps our experiences here differ--that have an abundance of rules
complications and tables and complicated ways of resolving combat,
etc.--is the FOCUS of that type of game. Someone called this a
"clerical" game. It seems to me that for those who like this, it is
working through the rules that is the interesting part, not so much what
the game represents. The more the game focuses on the clerical and the
complications, the harder it is to experience the game as a model for
real-life actions. By "experience," I mean something more than working
through an intellectual puzzle, what TYHOCK and I call "theatre." In my
experience, those who bring a "clerical" or "engineering" outlook to the
game table are interested primarily in working through the parameters
they see in the rules as some kind of intellectual problem to be solved
(which is what I meant by "calculus"), not in the theatre or the human
element of what the game represents. The miniature figures and the
history are almost irrelevant, merely handy to provide a framework for
the complicatins of the rules. There is nothing wrong with this. Any
game must involve a certain amount of it if it is to be convincing both
as a representation of warfare and for the period. Those who do not have
technical or analytical training or jobs can have this outlook. Anyone
can. Tis type of game can be very satisfying for them. But it is not
what wargaming is about for many gamers, or at least not the only thing.
I was trying to say that, in a nutshell, of the many different
components in enjoying a wargame, the complications in a complicationist
game are what is satisfying for the people who like these games--not
neccessarily that the complicationist game is more accurate in its
simulation. If I'm not clear yet, I give up.
> Trust me, the simulationists have no corner on analysis, historical knowledge,
> mathematical deduction and constructs, or brains! And our group has better
> music!(that's a truth and a metaphor). This applies, I'm sure, to many other
> "Non-sim" rule sets!
>
> BJ
Bob: No argument there! Did you think I said that? I envy you the
breadth of backgrounds among the people in your group.
TYGHOCK
Hey, I resent you dragging my wife into this discussion.......
- TYGHOCK
Daniel Dionne
> The simulationists are so self-referential that they honestly believe that a
> design done on a different conceptual basis than their aggregated ‘factoids’
> approach is, by definition-ahistorical, dumb, and responsible for the decline of
> the hobby.
In looking at this thread, I have to say that I've not seen such a level of
self-congratulatory posturing in quite some time. (sarcasm on) Seems like
everybody's "modern" designs are simple, elegant, fun, and photo-realistic (sarcasm
off). Truth: many older games had a poor match between game scope and game
scale. That is, the detail level didn't really allow for a full game to be fought
out to completion within a standard playing period. There are plenty of outstanding
division-level Napoleonic designs out there that suffered from being used for
corps-level (or even army-level) games.
Truth: the "modern" playing environment has changed. Games tend to be shorter,
with fewer figures; players tend to play several types of games rather than sticking
to one core period and rules set.
"Modern" designs accomodate the playing environment. But they do so by
coarsening out (abstracting) the detail level. That's necessary because of the
scale/scope shift. But don't assume it's a virtue, and don't assume it's not
possible to go too far.
As for the "dumbing down" of the hobby--yes, the hobby is dumbing down, and
necessarily so. Less-demanding games result in more gamers, because there are fewer
barriers to gaming.
But as for me--while it's nice to see the hobby expanding again, I'll never play
DBA. And especially not WWII DBA.
--Dan Dionne, ddi...@us.ibm.com
rjo...@henge.com
says...
>
>In the article that BJ mentioned it seems the phrase dumbing down was used. I
>would maintain that the hobby has never been that historically smart.
BJ: Bill, that's a perfect example of the arrogance of the simulationists-I
have been in the hobby for 32 years, I met Don Featherstone for the first time
in 1969, Scruby in the Summer of 1967, I've dined with Duke, played wargames
with Jim Getz with whom I've had a lifelong friendship-I've met many gamers of
many types and styles over the years and the hobby is historically pretty smart,
and the smartest people I've met don't play 12 hour games-they're too busy with
their lives and jobs to afford or see any gain from this style of game.
>last 10 years or so we have seen more innovation in rules than ever before.
>These range from the simple beer and pretzel type to the more complex
>simulation oriented ones. In most of these I do not see much innovation or
>insight into the history of the periods that they portray but rather the
>innovation seems to be in the "gaming" aspect of them.
BJ: You know Bill, History and its record are hard to be innovative with-the
facts, what little hard data exists, are, and have always been, the objects of
many conflicting interpretations-some more insightful than others. Since we
play wargames and we seek to illustrate our interpretation of the historical
facts, the seeking of novel, more efficient, fresh perspectives is where the
hobby is most likely to find gains. Many rule sets have been VERY derivative and
unimaginative in their designs, many have cumbersome and clunky procedures-They
stink! The expectations of gamers in the late 80s and early 90s had been so
depressed by the worst examples of the simulationist school that it is little
wonder the bulk of them were ripe for some new ideas. It is your misfortune
that in an age of jet aircraft you designed the last propellor airplane.
> I think that perhaps 10
>percent of the gaming population is interested first and foremost in the
>history that the games portray and the other 90 percent "just wana have fun".
BJ: I am not surprised you think this-pedants always see themselves apart from
the hoi polloi. I think a very high percentage of wargamers care a great deal
about the history. They also want to enjoy themselves-historical masochism is
no one's goal.
>Neither camp is superior than the other and both have a place in the hobby. I
>can see that influences from both camps flow back and forth, the end result is
>good for the hobby. Many years ago I had the pleasure of gaming with a group of
>men in England I was only a teenager and the fact that these guys were Charles
>Grant, Featherstone Tony Bath, and other legends of the hobby did not have an
>effect on me. The fact that I was war gaming was the pleasurable point of the
>whole experience. Since then I have found that their interpretation of history
>was very flawed. And the games boiled down to good die rolling. The golden 70s
>was not that smart in portraying the periods that they were played. But the
>games were fun and fast.
BJ: Bill, are you really trying to say that Grant, Featherstone, and Bath 'just
don't measure up?' Did it ever occur to you that they are probably better
historians than you, but quite intelligently chose a different way of creatively
expressing their ideas? Judgements of someone's knowledge based on the game
they choose to play-is as supect as judging a wargame's quality by the thickness
of its rulebook, how many "factoids" may be crammed into tables, and the time it
takes to play!
Are you really trying to maintain that VTW has any great perceptions to add to
our knowledge of the period? That it isn't substantially die-roll driven (check
your tables-when all is said and done only die rolls remain as any variable to
outcomes)?
>
>I think that both of the extremist camps should stop and think about what the
>hobby is portraying it is after all history. But instead we have the two camps
>spewing veniom at each other. On the one side are what BJ condescendingly
>refers to as the simulationist.
BJ: I believe that Matt, Scott, and Todd selected that monicker.
> These evil beings seem to be bent on portraying
>every detail of a battle and the end result is that the games are often longer
>than the die rollers camp can deal with.
BJ: The "die rollers camp?" How does Mr. Keyser decide outcomes? I Ching
Straws? One finger-two finger? I agree that there are people that have a
family, a demanding job, other activities in their lives that cause them to seek
out games that give them enjoyment, a sense of accurate portrayal of historical
actions, and look for games that are efficient, dynamic, and play out in a 3-4
hour time frame. They have a life.
>And they are only doing this so people
>buy their rules, you could of course accuse BJ of the same methods for the same
>reasons. The camp that I call the "paranoid die rollers" are attempting to
>tell me that anything can happen (even if the events they say can occur, never
>happened) and their god is not the detail oriented chart filled rules but the
>holy random event. (My wargamer encyclopedia says that a "paranoid die
>rollers" are those who are convinced that their simple die rolling game are
>the most accurate simulation of the events portrayed, but they have this
>nagging doubt about the number of random events in any given game might amount
>to the frequency of random events which occurred during the entire period
>portrayed, and the fact that they cannot find any historical reference to the
>frequency of random events in any battle, they of course attribute this to the
>other holy grail of "anything can happen on a battle field" argument)
BJ: Aw, Bill! That preceding paragraph is so dim-witted and shows such an
ignorance of history, probability, and the military that I stand amazed!
No reply can intelligently be made to that paragraph. Someday, someone at HMGS
will hold seminars/debates where these ideas may be argued publicly and the
complexity of these "simple" games may be studied, as well as the fatuous
"knowledge" claims of some. Did it ever occur to you that other people decide
whether you are an expert-it isn't something to be proclaimed?
<<Snip a raft of gobbildy-gook>>
Each gamer will determine what he finds historically acceptable.
>This will be based on his knowledge of the period, and his priority’s as to
>time of play.
BJ: A truism-but still accurate!
>
>I think we should do a better job of admitting to ourselves that both ends of
>the spectrum contribute to the hobby. The main point should be, lets look at
>how the game any game portrays the period. If it is a simple beer and pretzel
>game judge it on how it portrays the period being gamed not whether you can
>play Leipzig in three hours. And on the other end lets do the same for the
>complex games and judge it on its portrayal of the period in question. This
>whole augment on simple is better because it is quicker is dumbing down the
>hobby. The discussion should be does this game portray history or is it just a
>game with lead/pewter figures on the table.
BJ: No, I don't think that both ends contibute equally to the hobby. One
position draws people into the hobby and is inclusive; one drives people away in
droves and is exclusive. One view consistently makes claims of qualitative
superiority; the other only judges wargame on two central qualities. Is it a
game you want to play? Is its' portrayal of history accurate in YOUR
estimation? One is the realm of anal-retentive introverts, another of social
and enjoyable people
Elegance of design is an art to be encouraged. It brings out the best in
wargaming. Note the result of 'purist' Simulationist's efforts in the boardgame
world! It's Dead! Very Dead!
I hope for better with historical miniatures wargaming.
BJ
Bobbyg
in the "Complex" vs. the "Simple" game system. Noe will there ever be a
winner. People are going to play what they consider fun. To me it is as
simple as that. For Napoleonics the group I presently play with uses
VtW. I enjoy the games we play and if all the players know the rules the
games go quickly enough. However I would avoid large cavalry actions
which bring that rules set to a screeching halt. I also play and enjoy
Empire but only now get my fix at Kevin Combs' games at conventions.
Such is the life of compromise. I however will not play any computer
assisted rules sets anymore. After a very bad experience at Historicon a
year or so ago where the KGL shot Wellington off of his horse I bagged
computer assist rules.
I enjoy complex rules sets as well as simple rules sets. DBM is a fun
game. It is not probably a great
simulation of ancient tactics. But after playing WRG 7th in tournaments,
Tactica and other rules sets I can finally dust off some of the old
ancient lead and play. IMO the real reason we play miniatures is to have
a social experience with our friends, learn about military history and
tactics, and have a good time. Whether one likes "simple" or "complex"
should not matter. We do this great hobby to have FUN!
Regards,
Bob Grosse
rjo...@henge.com
>
>rjo...@henge.com wrote:
>
>>
>>As usual, incomprehensible...but Bill, trust me, consorting with women with
>>dragons on their forehead and rings through parts of their body will give you a
>>whole new meaning to a needing a saving roll. Don't ever fly anywhere with one
>>of them because it'll get you strip searched at every airport. Stick with the
>>women in simple black dresses and pearls- long term, a more expensive choice,
>>but she won't impair your career, and you won't wake up facing dragon face as
>>well as dragon breath.
>
>and frankly one that I can see no call for.
>
>
>Jay
>
BJ: You're right. I can see no call for that woman with the Dragon tatoos and
rings through her body, either. On the other hand, I don't live in Ottawa, who
knows what I'd do after five months of Arctic chill? You're a very strong and
upright fellow, Jay!
BJ
rjo...@henge.com
>
>rjo...@henge.com wrote:
>
>>As usual, incomprehensible...but Bill, trust me, consorting with women with
>>dragons on their forehead and rings through parts of their body will give you a
>>whole new meaning to a needing a saving roll. Don't ever fly anywhere with one
>>of them because it'll get you strip searched at every airport. Stick with the
>>women in simple black dresses and pearls- long term, a more expensive choice,
>>but she won't impair your career, and you won't wake up facing dragon face as
>>well as dragon breath.
>
>anonymous factor? Are you really closet prick? Is it some desire to
>have a disgruntled player like me take you outside at Historicon and
>provide you with a lawsuit?
>
>What drives you Bob? The "Amway factor" of PK? The fact that your
>rules really can't "simulate" 5k years of history? The fact that
>someone out there is really pissed off because you're acting like a
>juvie prick? The fact that not every one will fall under your
>evangelical spell? Are you a product of your environment? (Unlike you
>I have no Sgt Preston films to provide colour)
>
>I forgive you Bob, though Bill Keyser may not. I understand the
>difficult sexual tensions that may cause your deviation. I realise
>that your compulsion to reduce others to insignificance is not
>voluntary. I hope for your recovery.
>
>Build your myth Bob.
>
>
>Jay
>
BJ: Gee, Jay, after your calm reasoned response-I REALLY feel bad. :-)
Let's see I'm called an Amway salesmman, whose rules don't work. I evangelize
people (those easy,malleable, wargaming sorts) to play my game. I have sexual
tensions (Boy, at my age I'm not unhappy about that!) and I'm called a prick
(Lots of sexual allusions in your note ol' boy!) And you threaten to take me
outside to settle things(you're watching too much hockey!)
But I'm at fault because I said that Bill is often incomprehensible (I note in
reading his last e-mail he's acquired an editor for his copy-much improved!) and
somewhat of a pedant.
Have your second contact Jeff Valent. My weapon of choice is Brandy and cigars
at three feet. Bill can hold the matches and cigar cutters.
I await your reply.
BJ
Andy O'Neill
<dlav...@ix.netcom.com> writes
>> Top down:
<<>>
>> ( Frankly, I have seen no rules sets that look like this approach has
>> been taken. Spearhead might do, but I've not read em ).
>
>I know one!
>
>My all-time favorite set of WWII rules, CD notwithstanding, has to be Clash of
>Armor. While the original rules are unplayably buggy, the errata I've seen (and
>used) makes unit and leadership quality far more important than ironmongery.
>Unfortunately, I can't seem to convince anyone else of the virtues of this great
>system. Has anyone seen CoA II, rumored to be out this year?
Hmm.... perhaps I wasn't clear.
Note that a top down approach to design does not mean that you have to
take into account the things I wrote as an example.
You look at the 'whole thing' and figure out what's important.
Troops quality *might* be one of these, but you may decide it isn't.
You list all these things to be incorporated.
Then you figure what sort of effects each might have.
Then you consider how the whole lot could fit together.
Once you have a good understanding of what effects you want, then you
decide mechanics.
Conversely, the bottom up deigner grabs mechanics for things a bit at a
time and whacks em together. When they don't work, more twiddly rules
are added to fix the problems.
Often the end result is a big bunch of twiddly rules.
Maybe these could have been represented by a nice elegant set of
mechanics if a top down approach had been taken, but from a bottom up
approach elegance was unlikely since only a few factors are (by
definition) considered at the time mechanics are invented.
Andy O'Neill
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/index.htm
Liverpool Wargames Association
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/LWA.htm
Andy O'Neill
<bcol...@worldnet.att.net> writes
>World War II games
>involve a bit more number crunching than ancients, but the rules generally
>leave things like doctrine and fog of war up to the player.
PoW have an interesting idea for fog of war, with the large card
counters used until formations are seen... and some dummy cards.
But best of all is split table games, with a referee, 2 rooms and a
duplicated table in each.
See our club site.
>
>My experience is that the spirit of the player is always more important than
>the rules. And, that players fall into two categories, ones who want to
>play, and ones who want to win. The ones who want to play, smile at
>adversity and try to overcome it; while, the ones that want to win tell me
>why the rules are wrong, the scenario is skewed, and tries to beat the rules
>rather than the enemy.
The latter is a very bad sign in a player, IMO.
The former need to be carefully considered, but discussion left until
after the game, in the Pub.
Andy O'Neill
<mjma...@joker.igs.net> writes
>I think the new Warhammer Ancients rules will go a long way to
>converting them. One of our club members has recently been appointed
>co-ordinator of historical miniatures for our local con. His objective
>is to ensure that all Warhammer players have to pass by our tables on
>the way to their games.
... riot sqauds armed with baton and shield pressing wargamers towards
designated tables.....
Ummm
Perhaps not.
Andy O'Neill
<?@?.?> writes
>Try "Grey Storm Red Steel", the point you just made is the major factor
>in the armour rules,
Sorry, but that point wasn't my point.
The example was there merely (perhaps badly) to try and illustrate the
approach.
Jay
>
>As usual, incomprehensible...but Bill, trust me, consorting with women with
>dragons on their forehead and rings through parts of their body will give you a
>whole new meaning to a needing a saving roll. Don't ever fly anywhere with one
>of them because it'll get you strip searched at every airport. Stick with the
>women in simple black dresses and pearls- long term, a more expensive choice,
>but she won't impair your career, and you won't wake up facing dragon face as
>well as dragon breath.
Precisely the sort of response that I've come to expect from you Bob,
and frankly one that I can see no call for.
Jay
Ottawa, Ontario
Jay
>Jay I would have to disagree with you on that point. I have played Rivoli at a
>convention with all beginners we played the game until 3 of the Austrian
>columns had routed, it took about 4 hours, we played Castiglioni at a
>convention it took about three hours for the Austrians to collapse.
Rivoli and Castiglioni are not what I would call large battles.
We have
>done Wagram twice at Historicon the first time I was over ambitious and we only
>played for 6 hours and we did not finish the second time I slotted two days it
>took about twelve hours to play from the 8am turn to the 2pm turn. At the end
>of the 2 pm turn Davouts Corps had pushed the Austrian up the hill and 1/2 the
>opposing Austrian units had routed. The rest of the Austrian were engaged and
>the French still had reserves, Charles called the battle and said he would
>issue a General retreat order to his troops. This game had 30 players the table
>was close to 40 feet long, three gamers knew the game well five or six others
>had played at other conventions and the rest where beginners.
Still, it's not the best scenario for the game. In fact Iwas
dissapointed in the scenario run at Historicon this year (Mike
Ruttle's short notice fill in) because of the difficulty handling the
game at that level.
> We have played
>Eylau (a really boring battle by the way) a number of times to a conclusion in
>6 to 10 hours. I run games at various conventions and most of the games are
>played to a conclusion in from 3 to 6 hours, in this setting I usually run the
>tables for the first couple of turns and then I make a point of wandering away
>so the gamers are forced to learn the cheat sheet book. I play with a number of
>people in my area on a semi regular basis and we finish games with about a
>division per person in about 3 to 6 hours. The game is played in numerous clubs
>in the US, Britain, France, Italy.
6 hours is about our limit. The problem is that VtW can only handle
limited 6 hour games. One of our most important criteria is to fight
to a conclusion.
>From Valmy to Waterloo is not a beer and pretzel game, you can not play Leipzig
>in 4hours, however, it can and is played on a Division to Corps level by 2 to 4
>players who know the rules (played from 5 to 10 games previous) in from 3 to 6
>hours. If you get a group of dedicated gamers who know the rules larger battles
>can be played in what I and many others seem to consider a reasonable length of
>time.
I'm well familiar with the rules, and our club has enough players who
are familiar that we can run a corps level game in an afternoon. 3
hours is very rare though.
Jay
>As usual, incomprehensible...but Bill, trust me, consorting with women with
>dragons on their forehead and rings through parts of their body will give you a
>whole new meaning to a needing a saving roll. Don't ever fly anywhere with one
>of them because it'll get you strip searched at every airport. Stick with the
>women in simple black dresses and pearls- long term, a more expensive choice,
>but she won't impair your career, and you won't wake up facing dragon face as
>well as dragon breath.
Why are you nothing on line like you are in person? Is is the
anonymous factor? Are you really closet prick? Is it some desire to
have a disgruntled player like me take you outside at Historicon and
provide you with a lawsuit?
What drives you Bob? The "Amway factor" of PK? The fact that your
rules really can't "simulate" 5k years of history? The fact that
someone out there is really pissed off because you're acting like a
juvie prick? The fact that not every one will fall under your
evangelical spell? Are you a product of your environment? (Unlike you
I have no Sgt Preston films to provide colour)
I forgive you Bob, though Bill Keyser may not. I understand the
difficult sexual tensions that may cause your deviation. I realise
that your compulsion to reduce others to insignificance is not
voluntary. I hope for your recovery.
Build your myth Bob.
Minadmiral
?????????????????????????????????????????
The next sound you hear is Chuck choking on the Mother of all HAIRBALLS!!!!!
Chuck
AYEYEYEYEYEYEYEYEHACKHACKHACKCHOKECHOKECOUGHSPUTTERSPUTTER ARGH!!!
John D Salt
Dean Klein <klei...@erols.com> wrote:
[snips]
>P.S. There is nothing "elegant" about DBA anyway.
If you really think this, I'd suggest that there's a massive
source of wargaming enjoyment that will remain closed to you.
All the best,
John.
--
John D Salt Dept of IS & Computing,| Barr's Law of Recursive Futility
Brunel U, Uxbridge, Middx UB8 3PH | [BLORF]: If you are smart enough
Disclaimers: I speak only for me. | to use one of these... you can
Launcher may train without warning.| probably manage without one.
John D Salt
[snips]
>BJ: You know Bill, History and its record are hard to be innovative with-the
>facts, what little hard data exists, are, and have always been, the objects of
>many conflicting interpretations-some more insightful than others.
Exactly. There is, let's face it, bugger-all wargamishly useful trustworthy
historical data available for any period. Anyone who is really a
simulationist -- by which I mean someone who produces simulation models
professionally -- will know how big a problem the "data collection"
phase of a simulation project is. The objection to complicationist
approaches to wargaming is not that we are too lazy to try to understand
the rules. The objection is that all these complications are founded
on sand. All those procedures, tables and modifiers aren't really
based on any hard data, y'know -- they are _just_making_it_up_.
>BJ: I am not surprised you think this-pedants always see themselves apart from
>the hoi polloi.
Mr. Picky says: No "the" is needed with "hoi polloi", as "hoi" is
the article. ;-) (well, if we're going to suffer pedantry,
it should at least be accurate).
[snips]
>BJ: Bill, are you really trying to say that Grant, Featherstone, and Bath 'just
>don't measure up?' Did it ever occur to you that they are probably better
>historians than you,
...and, at least in the cases of Don Featherstone and Peter Young, had
first-hand experience of the real thing.
>>reasons. The camp that I call the "paranoid die rollers" are attempting to
>>tell me that anything can happen (even if the events they say can occur,
>>never happened)
There's some chance of rescuing an interesting point from this. Should
rules permti things that never happened, or simply rule them out? As
an example, during the research for a set of WW1-WW2 Naval wargames rules
our group developed some years ago, it became apparent that there was
no (count 'em, zero) historical case of a Dreadnought-type battleship
being sunk by gunfire other than as the result of a magazine explosion.
So, we had a rule: BBs cannot be sunk by gunfire, other than as a
result of a magazine-explosion roll. Is this historically accurate?
Superficially, yes. Is it reasonable? Arguably, no.
OutlandOH
Now, would it not be nice to have more of this discussion at Historicon? We
could have dinner, and a beer, and set up ground rules (like the defense of a
Thesis debate at a Univeristy) to debate all this. We need this sort of
thing... we all can learn from each other (even the one or two namecalling is
educational, but not always repeatable).
Are not conventions a place to do such a thing? Chris von Fahnestock
TYGHOCK
>????????????????????????????????????????
>The next sound you hear is Chuck choking on the Mother of all HAIRBALLS!!!!!
>Chuck
Gee, this sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I can see the realism
now....Tigers HT(S) eliminate unentrenched Bazooka teams HW(O) on the alternate
player's bound, if the pre-adjusted die roll is greater than half, but not more
than, the adjusted opponent's last total, during the counter-move phase only.
Ahhh, you can just FEEEEEEEL the drama of history unfolding...........!
- TYGHOCK
Steve Burt
John Salt wrote:
> There's some chance of rescuing an interesting point from this. Should
> rules permti things that never happened, or simply rule them out? As
> an example, during the research for a set of WW1-WW2 Naval wargames rules
> our group developed some years ago, it became apparent that there was
> no (count 'em, zero) historical case of a Dreadnought-type battleship
> being sunk by gunfire other than as the result of a magazine explosion.
> So, we had a rule: BBs cannot be sunk by gunfire, other than as a
> result of a magazine-explosion roll. Is this historically accurate?
> Superficially, yes. Is it reasonable? Arguably, no.
>
Indeed.
Here's another example. Wellington only ever lost guns on one occasion, and
he wasn't actually present at the battle concerned.
So 'obviously' a set of rules should never allow British guns to be
captured if Wellington is present, because it never happened.
If people want to play complicated rules based on lots of statistics that's
fine.
But please don't try and make out that the rules are 'better' than simple
ones.
The only valid 'realism' criticism one can make of a set of rules is if it
consistently produces outcomes which are not historical.
Notice the word 'outcome' there. I saw some rules criticised because they
got the right results by the 'wrong' methods.
The DBx series is often criticised for this. IMO this is nonsense. If the
outcome is right, and the flow of the game historically plausible, what do
the details matter? Obviously the details matter a lot to some people, or
we wouldn't be having this discussion, but I suspect they are in the
minority, and that most wargamers would rather play a fun game which gives
historically plausible outcomes.
Isn't that after all what miniature wargames are?
Jay
>Have your second contact Jeff Valent. My weapon of choice is Brandy and cigars
>at three feet. Bill can hold the matches and cigar cutters.
>
>I await your reply.
I lost it Bob, and I apologise. However, a duel such as you suggest is
still to my liking, though my preference is whiskey, pure malt.
Perhaps Dave Lavictoire will be my second?
Daniel Dionne
> draws people into the hobby and is inclusive; one drives people away in droves and
> is exclusive. One view consistently makes claims of qualitative superiority; the
> other only judges wargame on two central qualities. Is it a game you want to
> play? Is its' portrayal of history accurate in YOUR estimation? One is the realm
> of anal-retentive introverts, another of social
> and enjoyable people
Bob,
Your little dichotomy assumes that popular is better. Lousy assumption.
You've set up a nice straw man throughout this discussion, and you've dressed him in
very stark colors. I understand your feeling under attack from those who claim your
rules are part of the "dumbing down" of the hobby, but you're not portraying the
side you claim to be on very fairly. Here are the arguments of the stereotypical
"modern designer":
1. I didn't want to slow the game down
2. Troop quality (or any other factor--fill in the blank) just isn't important
at this scale
3. Ground, troop, and time scale are abstracted
4. I factored that in
5. Play balance!
6. It's a game, not history. You want history, read a book.
Unfair? Probably, but no more so than the picture you've painted.
As for "elegant" rules designs (read, innovative mechanics): As I've said before,
these are risky. They can greatly simplify a game and put in a new perspective, but
they can also dominate the game and lead to exactly the kind of annoying
rules-lawyer nonsense you've often complained about. I'm not talking specifically
about your rules, because I haven't played them enough to judge.
As a dedicated anal-retentive introvert myself (did you think of that as an
insult?), I will continue to insist on my own peculiar criteria for any game I
play. Among those criteria, just in case anyone is interested:
1. Troop quality must be an integral part of the system
2. Armor and equipment must matter
3. Morale must be reflected
4. Chariots aren't cavalry in disguise
5. Flanks are real
By the way, your rules pass.
--Dan Dionne, ddi...@us.ibm.com
Jay
>There's some chance of rescuing an interesting point from this. Should
>rules permti things that never happened, or simply rule them out? As
>an example, during the research for a set of WW1-WW2 Naval wargames rules
>our group developed some years ago, it became apparent that there was
>no (count 'em, zero) historical case of a Dreadnought-type battleship
>being sunk by gunfire other than as the result of a magazine explosion.
>So, we had a rule: BBs cannot be sunk by gunfire, other than as a
>result of a magazine-explosion roll. Is this historically accurate?
>Superficially, yes. Is it reasonable? Arguably, no.
Actually it's very superficial. An analysis of battle damage to the
few battleships that suffered major gunfire damage simply shows that
it requires a great deal of hist to sink one, not that they cannot be
sunk. Take the best-known example, Bismarck. She was in a sinking
state due, primarily, to gunfire. Her end was hastened by the
torpedoes or scuttling charges (depending on who you believe) but not
determined by those factors.
So, I suppose the conclusion is that one has to take care when using
historical examples to support wargames rules. For many years
Napoleonic rules used "National Characteristics" to define different
armies. It worked, sort of, but was based so much on Oman and Napier
(as well as letters from British attaches in Vienna, St Petersburg and
Berlin) that many wrong conclusions were drawn. "Modern" wargaming
has, correctly IMO, emphasised command and morale. "Soft" factors such
as those two are hard to define, and may be defined very subjectively.
A game system that boils it down to dice rolls (or random card draws)
is likely just as accurate a "simulation" as one that introduces a
plethora of variables. However, from my seat, the one that boils it
down to dice rolls boils all of the flavour out of it.
Maybe wargames are like cheese. Some people like it old and sharp,
others like it processed so much that it's tasteless. I would suggest
that the majority like it somewhere in between.
rjo...@henge.com
>
>rjo...@henge.com wrote:
>
>>Have your second contact Jeff Valent. My weapon of choice is Brandy and cigars
>>at three feet. Bill can hold the matches and cigar cutters.
>>
>>I await your reply.
>
>I lost it Bob, and I apologise. However, a duel such as you suggest is
>still to my liking, though my preference is whiskey, pure malt.
>Perhaps Dave Lavictoire will be my second?
>
>
>Jay
>
select one's label of choice? I would suggest that the Cigars be paid for by
you, since the enlightened Canadian Government realizes that a good Cuban cigar
is far more important to discussions than any grief one can cause to Fidel. I
will pay the the Scotch(My preference is Cragganmore-yours?).
You may "simulate" interest in my remarks which I will, of course, make sure are
"simple." I will "randomly" listen to you while you attempt to "complicate" my
historical perceptions. Last man standing wins!
Cold Wars or Historicon?
And they think wargaming is declining! Hogwash! If this isn't a case of elegant
combat resolution rules, I don't know what is!
BJ
Useless_Gonzo
> consistently produces outcomes which are not historical.
> Notice the word 'outcome' there. I saw some rules criticised because they
> got the right results by the 'wrong' methods.
> The DBx series is often criticised for this. IMO this is nonsense. If the
> outcome is right, and the flow of the game historically plausible, what do
> the details matter? Obviously the details matter a lot to some people, or
> we wouldn't be having this discussion, but I suspect they are in the
> minority, and that most wargamers would rather play a fun game which gives
> historically plausible outcomes.
> Isn't that after all what miniature wargames are?
Perhaps we should call ourselves "WARgamers" or "warGAMERS"?
Dean Klein
<If you really think this, I'd suggest that there's a massive>
<source of wargaming enjoyment that will remain closed to you.>
All the best,
John.
John,
I've played DBA more times than I care to remember, and still do when
I'm playing with people new to the genre. It's a great starter set of
rules. However, when I'm playing against experienced players I find it
totally unsatisfying. I'd rather put in 4 hours of sweating the tactical
details against an experienced player on another game system than to fight a
battle in 30 minutes that is determined often times by who rolls better.
A few months ago there was a geat line of posts covering times when
people have had incredible periods of good or bad luck rolling dice. It was
filled with stories of incredibly unhistorical outcomes created by the roll
of the dice. These unhistorical outcomes are created in a large part by
oversimplified rules. Roll a 1 in DBA with your super heavy knights
fighting peasants (an extreme example), and there is a chance that you will
be destroyed. Is this historical to you? Granted, it is not commonplace in
DBA, but still happens MUCH more than it should.
When I game, I want to win or lose based on how I think, not how I roll.
IMHO, games like DBA leave too much room for the "totally unheard of"
results to consistently appear.
My two cents,
Dean
John Davis
itneresting to read (and far less negative) than some of the other ones that have
been on here.
John Davis
rjo...@henge.com
>
>>BJ: No, I don't think that both ends contibute equally to the hobby. One
>>position
>>draws people into the hobby and is inclusive; one drives people away in droves
>>and
>>is exclusive. One view consistently makes claims of qualitative superiority;
>>the
>> other only judges wargame on two central qualities. Is it a game you want to
>>play? Is its' portrayal of history accurate in YOUR estimation? One is the
>>realm
>> of anal-retentive introverts, another of social
>> and enjoyable people
>
>
>Your little dichotomy assumes that popular is better. Lousy assumption.
BJ:Well, yes and no. In areas of engineering, science, or sometimes in
politics-popularity may be a non-issue(it really doesn't matter to a scientist
whether Einstein's or Darwin's theories are popular, but do they fit the known
facts and can objective evidence be martialed to support the hypothesis?) or a
misleading issue as in politics, where the correct political choice may be
unpopular (Ending segregation in Alabama) or too damn popular (Tearing down the
Berlin Wall) in a dictatorship.
However, in movies, television, literature, art and, yes, wargames, the foremost
goal is to entertain, which requires popularity and sales. It is obvious that a
movie with high-box office, a tv show with high ratings, a book,artwork, and
game with high sales is successful in terms of the marketplace. It is a good
product.
Now, in all of these areas, a higher goal of a social statement, a breakthrough
concept, a new pardigm, may also be set by the director, writer, painter,
artist, or designer and this possibly will increase the value of the work to
society-maybe not.
Critics attempt to point this out. You often hear," It's too bad that this film
has been seen by so few people as it is a fine statement on modern urban
living!" or the reverse," This Swartzenenegger Film is doing great boxoffice,
but unless you're a 14 year old adolescent-there's nothing here!"
But, one man's art is often another's trash....
Assuming that no one wants to claim that wargames are natural receptacles for
social issues, nor will they ever be in the running for a Pulitzer or Nobel
Prize for literature-they are the simpliest form of art-an entertainment. They
are created to allow history buffs to exercise their imaginations, play with
history, socialize with others with a common interest, and while away a few
hours free of concern about mortgages, college tuitions, and mother-in-laws.
Entertainments are generally judged by how many people use them-is it a popular
play? A well-watched TV show? A Best Seller? If they are not popular, they
wither and blow away-soon forgotten. How do we judge popularity and
use?--Sales. Low sales mean that few people used it and there will be no sequel
to this work; High sales mean Halloween XXII is due out this next October.
Tastes may change making some works(particularly highly innovative or original
works) popular well after their initial release, or,conversely, take a best
seller down to minimal sales.
Is there such a thing as a good entertainment that no one went to see? Yes!
Are there real doggoes that have great boxoffice? Sure. But what other
objective measure can be suggested? In many cases, the popular taste is not
altogether wrong. I guess it's the Jeffersonian Democrat in me, but the public
is often more right than mistaken.
Some would portray wargames as having a higher mission than a "mere"
entertainment and speak of teaching history, or learning new insights into
military endeavors-of "simulating" a period's warfare. I'm sure that gives such
people a greater sense of self-importance, but if it isn't popular, if it
doesn't sell, then it can't teach or impart new concepts. It is a tree falling
in a forest no one hears.
I truly have reservations about the claims of the simulationists. I think that
they have failed to make their case that they are designing games that
accurately illustrate warfare of a given period in an objective, scientifically
valid manner. I believe that they are no less, or more, interpretive and
conjectural than many of the "simple" games they deride. They are certainly more
process heavy! I also believe that they often give a VERY misleading impression
of war because of their ornately structured procedures, perfect intelligence,
and stately pace. I must mention that Matt Delamater stated in the WI article
that he believed the first generation of simulationists failed-his concerns
revolved around command and control-which I, also, believe resides at the heart
of the problem.
Incidentally, the very act of researching uniforms, OBs, and battle histories
encourages learning and insights which may be reinforced by a good wargame.
This far more likely than some wargamer suddenly slapping his head in the middle
of a game and saying "Oh, now I see the great flaw in the Italian Army's Armor
units!"
>You've set up a nice straw man throughout this discussion, and you've dressed
>him in
>very stark colors.
BJ: Geez, I thought I put that strawman in a clown suit! Red and Yellow aren't
very stark!
<<snip>>
>
>As for "elegant" rules designs (read, innovative mechanics):
BJ: Actually, I'm using it a a math/engineering sense-the simplest, cleanest,
mechanism that delivers the desired result. Innovation is often required to
achieve this end, though!
<<snip>>
>
>As a dedicated anal-retentive introvert myself (did you think of that as an
>insult?), I will continue to insist on my own peculiar criteria for any game I
>play. Among those criteria, just in case anyone is interested:
> 1. Troop quality must be an integral part of the system
> 2. Armor and equipment must matter
> 3. Morale must be reflected
> 4. Chariots aren't cavalry in disguise
> 5. Flanks are real
>By the way, your rules pass.
BJ: Thanks, Dan! :-)
Steven M Goode
Conventional Wisdom by "Dean Klein"@erols.com
> people have had incredible periods of good or bad luck rolling dice. It was
> filled with stories of incredibly unhistorical outcomes created by the roll
> of the dice. These unhistorical outcomes are created in a large part by
> oversimplified rules. Roll a 1 in DBA with your super heavy knights
> fighting peasants (an extreme example), and there is a chance that you will
> be destroyed. Is this historical to you? Granted, it is not commonplace in
> DBA, but still happens MUCH more than it should.
Question: how often should it happen? What is the basis for your
evident belief that DBA produces such results more often than happened
historically?
From the reading I've done about late medieval Europe (principally
Hungary and the Balkans) such results were not at all uncommon. To note
a couple instances from the Hungarian-Ottoman wars:
in 1444, at Varna, a 20,000 man Hungarian army was winning against a
60-100,000 man Ottoman army when the Hungarian king spontaneously
charged the enemy, only to be cut down by lowly infantry.
in 1456, at Belgrade, a huge (probably 100-200,000 man) Ottoman army was
unable to withstand the charge of ....30-40,000 untrained and
poorly-armed peasants, and routed off the field.
Additionally, I would point out that, particuarly in the ancient and
medieval periods, we don't really know that much about what happened in
many battles. To claim that we know the frequency with which events
such as peasants killing knights took place seems a bit dubious, IMHO.
rjo...@henge.com
>
><<snip of much that is seditious and dangerous>>
> On a last note, I would be interested
>in a response to my leading question - how would this group rate the various
>rules out there.
>
>Kip Trexel
>
BJ: And so Young Kip threw away his half finished cigar and unknowingly lit a
fuse to the many kegs of gunpowder stored in the cave............
RUN...RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!!!!
rjo...@henge.com
>
<<snip of terms of combat>>
>But this is actual combat resolution. No dice or lists of factors
>anywhere. much like true battle. The only thing elegant is our choice
>of resolution, which still hasn't been truly determined. Do we go with
>first one sick on a $5 cigar, or first one unable to articulate after
>several glasses of Scotch?
>
>
>Jay
>
I'm afraid I am the equivalent on the Imperial Guard, Circa 1805, on both the
Cigar and Scotch CRTs-of course, I could always roll a one!
BJ
PS If Cubans are $5 in Canada (Canadian $ ???) Will you accept a large check? I
would like to make sure we don't run out of ammunition! A Box of Montecristo
#2s and I will loudly denounce the United States' churlish behavior in the War
of 1812 in public, at the Lancaster Bar!
Andy O'Neill
<css...@brunel.ac.uk> writes
>There's some chance of rescuing an interesting point from this. Should
>rules permti things that never happened, or simply rule them out?
Just make them highly unlikely.. like cavalry breaking formed square.
You have the choice of dice to use when designing a system, make the
mechanics such that they can allow sufficient shifts to give a less than
1% chance of something happening.
Andy O'Neill
<ddi...@us.ibm.com> writes
>As for "elegant" rules designs (read, innovative mechanics): As I've said
>before,
>these are risky. They can greatly simplify a game and put in a new perspective,
>but
>they can also dominate the game and lead to exactly the kind of annoying
>rules-lawyer nonsense you've often complained about. I'm not talking
>specifically
>about your rules, because I haven't played them enough to judge.
Whilst innovative mechanics could be used for an elegant rules system,
they are not absolutely necessary.
eg
Once one person thinks of (say) using alternative activations, no new
game could be elegant and use the mechanic.
Elegant systems are more likely to use innovative mechanics because the
designer actually took time to think things through before he chose his
mechanics, and he was aware of what he wished to incorporate so he
didn't need the heap of twiddly bits which characterises the poorly
thought out, inelegant rules which comprise a high proportion of what's
on offer ( and played for that matter ).
I would define elegance as using mechanics which are simple in play,
easy to recall, yet encompass all relevent factors.
Thus the doubling, equal and comparing troop types aspect of the DBM
competitive roll are (IMO) elegant, the buckets of dice, wadges of stats
used in warhammer are not.
TYGHOCK
>>him in
>>very stark colors.
>
>BJ: Geez, I thought I put that strawman in a clown suit! Red and Yellow
>aren't
>very stark!
Sounds like the strawmen posing as Lansknechts in my last Band Of Brothers
game.
Turns out they wuz colorful, but got the...uh...'straw' knocked out of them.
- TYGHOCK
ktr...@my-dejanews.com
simple vs simulationist rules in the audience's view?
I doubt any of this discussion will change anyone's preference for the type
of rules they gravitate toward. I like Fire and Fury, Le Petit Empereur and
Empire. That might run the course within Napoleonics. I cannot force myself
to play NB - primarily because it doesn't seem Napoleonic to me (and perhaps
the rules look more like a boardgame to me). Doesn't mean NB is bad; but its
not for me.
I have never been attracted to Ancients. I guess I have a nagging feeling
that any rule set for this period is more complicated than the actual
fighting.
What is happening out there for innovation? Anyone working on something
different? Even though I've been at this for a long time (Tactics II and
visiting Jack Scruby in the early 60's) I find myself painting 6mm Adlers. A
friend of mine in France and I have been working on a set we call Serrez Les
Rangs! 20:1 troop scale; infantry mounted in 3 ranks (2 for Brits and
Portuguese); cavalry in 2 ranks and all with file closers. We use the file
closers (varying numbers for the battalions or squadrons based on troop
quality) to represent unit cohesion.
We remove stands for casualty losses and file closers (FC) for cohesion
losses. Skirmishers only target FC's. The rules have, as an Advanced Rule
option, ammunition rosters, smoke and dust. Cavalry attacks with a first
line, supports and a reserve (close combat continues until all are used up or
there is a decided advantage on one side).
Is this complicated? Only if you don't know the rules. Will it be harder to
learn than Le Petit Empereur? Yep. Will it "simulate" Napoleaonics better?
That's a matter of opinion. Are we having fun writing and testing it? Sure
are.
The goal of our rules, believe it or not (and many say this), is to simplify
larger actions (define larger - maybe Corps level) but keep the historical
flavor and maybe some of the "chrome". A French division commander gives
orders to three elements within his division - each of his two brigades and
his divisional artillery.
Anyway, enough rambling. To each his own and if he or she enjoys playing a
particular rule set, happy wargaming. On a last note, I would be interested
in a response to my leading question - how would this group rate the various
rules out there.
Kip Trexel
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Jay
>BJ: Sir, I accept your terms-Single malts it shall be- I trust one is allowed to
>select one's label of choice? I would suggest that the Cigars be paid for by
>you, since the enlightened Canadian Government realizes that a good Cuban cigar
>is far more important to discussions than any grief one can cause to Fidel. I
>will pay the the Scotch(My preference is Cragganmore-yours?).
Cubans it is. My malt of preference is Lagavulin (one can almost taste
dirt. "Peaty" is how a friend describes it).
>You may "simulate" interest in my remarks which I will, of course, make sure are
>"simple." I will "randomly" listen to you while you attempt to "complicate" my
>historical perceptions. Last man standing wins!
My interst in your remarks will hardly be simulated. I will be
attacking with vigor (or Viagra, or something).
>Cold Wars or Historicon?
Remains to be seen. It's not looking good for Cold Wars though.
>And they think wargaming is declining! Hogwash! If this isn't a case of elegant
>combat resolution rules, I don't know what is!
But this is actual combat resolution. No dice or lists of factors
anywhere. much like true battle. The only thing elegant is our choice
of resolution, which still hasn't been truly determined. Do we go with
first one sick on a $5 cigar, or first one unable to articulate after
several glasses of Scotch?
Jay
Ottawa, Ontario
Jay
>Additionally, I would point out that, particuarly in the ancient and
>medieval periods, we don't really know that much about what happened in
>many battles. To claim that we know the frequency with which events
>such as peasants killing knights took place seems a bit dubious, IMHO.
It's reasonable to claim that such events didn't happen with a 1 in 6,
or 1 in 10, frequency though. As well, merely looking at the end
result doesn't provide a good base on which to construct a thesis. Why
the Ottomans routed against a "better" army is probably hidden in
details that aren't immediatley obvious.
Jay
>... riot sqauds armed with baton and shield pressing wargamers towards
>designated tables.....
I was thinking more of cattle-prods gently guiding people to the
correct area.
Jay
>However, in movies, television, literature, art and, yes, wargames, the foremost
>goal is to entertain, which requires popularity and sales. It is obvious that a
>movie with high-box office, a tv show with high ratings, a book,artwork, and
>game with high sales is successful in terms of the marketplace. It is a good
>product.
That argument plays into the hands of those who front the "dumbing
down" theory. If the goal is popularity, in the case of wargames, it
must be tempered to the audience. If design is done for sales (i.e.
polularity) then Milton-Bradley produces the best wargames.
>But, one man's art is often another's trash....
Which applies, in spades, to wargaming.
>Entertainments are generally judged by how many people use them-is it a popular
>play?
Certainly, and by that criterion Axis and Allies is the best wargame
ever made.
>I truly have reservations about the claims of the simulationists. I think that
>they have failed to make their case that they are designing games that
>accurately illustrate warfare of a given period in an objective, scientifically
>valid manner. I believe that they are no less, or more, interpretive and
>conjectural than many of the "simple" games they deride. They are certainly more
>process heavy! I also believe that they often give a VERY misleading impression
>of war because of their ornately structured procedures, perfect intelligence,
>and stately pace. I must mention that Matt Delamater stated in the WI article
>that he believed the first generation of simulationists failed-his concerns
>revolved around command and control-which I, also, believe resides at the heart
>of the problem.
My reservations are with any designer that has the temerity to claim
that his game is more "realistic" than the actual article, war. I do
go by feel though, as I've expressed so often as to bore you. If the
game doesn't read like something written by Segur, I have to ask about
it's method. Sure, the details of die rolls and chart lookups (a
feature of any game, and if I read this discussion the argument is
over how many of each is best) the details don't feel like war, but
the results should.
Results is also a point of contention. My opinion is that the correct
results should happen at the basic tactical scale of the game. If the
end result is accurate to history, but the means of getting there is
weird, the game won't be satisfying. Striking that balance is very
personal, and one should avoid piss-taking those who don't agree. For
example I think DBA are excerable, but it's still in the definition of
miniatures wargaming, so who am I to take down those who play it?
>Incidentally, the very act of researching uniforms, OBs, and battle histories
>encourages learning and insights which may be reinforced by a good wargame.
>This far more likely than some wargamer suddenly slapping his head in the middle
>of a game and saying "Oh, now I see the great flaw in the Italian Army's Armor
>units!"
A truism. The same tendency also results in critical analysis of
rules, which may result in some not getting the acclaim their
designers would like.
Dallas Gavan
conventions) here. Blaming the decline on the rules used, or the figures or any
other single factor is too simplistic and sounds suspiciously like sour grapes in a
couple of cases.
The rules we use vary from DBM to Clash of Armour to a set I wrote that needs a
computer to work (or almost work). But it's not the rules that are important.
What is important is having a good group of people, reasonably painted figures for
loan (supervised of course), nice terrain and, above all, a great atmosphere where
we're all mates and enjoy the hobby together. This atmosphere has brought in new
players, a lot of interest at cons and other events and means we enjoy our gaming.
Most importantly is that someone can guarantee they'll find a game (regardless of
whether a minis, board or computer game is on offer) and that for a few hours
they'll enjoy themselves with friends. It may get frustrating trying to fathom a
new rules set, but we either sort it out or put it in the locker with other "maybe
later" rules, boardgames and computer games. That's what's important at our club,
enjoyment. Finishing the game, rules lawyering and "historical accuracy" run a long
way second. We'll try any historical period in any medium- computers, boards or
minis- without looking down our nose at it. If you're interested in trying new game
or rules set, someone else is willing to have a go as well. This socialising, with
the attendant stirring, ready acceptance to talk to new-comers and a total lack of
formality (in an Army-based club, as well) has attracted about 6 newbies this year
alone (4 of them in their teens/early 20's).
Maybe if more groups placed the emphasis on this aspect, rather than "historical
accuracy", victories or being pretentious about their "serious hobby" then there
wouldn't be a feeling of decline in some quarters.
I think there's a touch of "people don't buy my rules so the hobby's failing" here.
Maybe, instead of tolling the death-bell, some people should take off their blinkers
and see what really is going on outside their own, introspective little worlds.
Dal.