Reply To: Is it time for some more critical analysis of rule sets

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

Well that’s the point Joe was making, we are just used to this convenience of buying in one go (perhaps to the point where we automatically don’t look at other options as they are just “too much hard work”). It’s prevalent in most aspects of life (not just wargaming), but is this option always the best option (and do we even get to see what the other options are, as marketing drives what we see more than anything).

One of my favourite set of rules is the Postcard rules for Ancients by Irregular armies, it’s printed on six pieces of coloured cards with the rules/charts on one side and examples on the other. You just advance through the phases by putting the card you just used at the back of the stack, and move onto the next (so not all rules have to be 200 page tomes).

“Never mind the added complications of not even knowing what this wargame thing is like at all.”, and that’s the crux issue. We don’t get to see very often what this wargame thing is about before we buy. Most of the time the urge to buy a starter set is driven by the minis (the rules are almost secondary). But the reviews we see on-line are usually all about the minis, and not a lot about the rules themselves (hence the OP). Perhaps reviews need to place equal focus (if not more) on the rules themselves rather than the minis. Too often I have bought systems/starter sets, and ended up with a load of minis but a rule set which is barely serviceable. Rules back in the card bound black and white A5 Tabletop Games era where £6 a pop, and gamers would take a punt on them as they were cheap and if they didn’t work you just moved on to the next one. But these starter sets often range from £30 to £100 a pop (so gamers are more invested in their purchases and tend to self justify their purchases). Starter sets are fine, but before the advent of the “big box” starter sets most mini companies offered starter sets for different rulesets anyway (and perhaps sold the rules anyway. The difference is the rules development moved “inhouse” over the last 20 years or so, and as many have said for miniature companies, the rules aren’t their main focus.

I’d argue that for historical gaming, doing the research is all important for you to really enjoy the game. Researching the uniforms, equipment, organisation and battles of the day is the “fluff” of historical gaming and is just as inspiring for gamers to collect armies and any GW fluff for 40K (but you can buy many books from many publishers rather than the “convenience” of the one stop shop at GW. “Hollywood Movie” or “cinematic” aare terms that have crept into rules lately to describe unrealistic things happening on the table top, sometimes due to the brevity of the rules themselves (or by design), and it’s a term I’m not fond of hearing (again we see it used a lot in skirmish level wargaming). “Realistic rules” can be just as evocative (eg suppression rules, you don’t see that very often these days as it’s “too complicated” or spoils the fun as your units don’t do what you want.

“Good” rules are different things to different people, but perhaps the issue is we usually only get to hear about one design philosophy these days (simple/quick/hook mechanic) rather than the whole spectrum of what rules can do and how we as gamers can explore different ways of gaming. These days nearly everything released is skirmish level gaming (partly driven by the dominance of 28mm), but the idea of other kinds of miniature wargaming (such as rank and file) don’t often get the coverage to the same extent.