Non-elegant rule mechanics

I am a big fan of elegant rule mechanics. In our house rules, we always spend a large amount of effort on testing and polishing exactly how a mechanic should work, by boiling it down to its essence: remove unnecessary modifiers, remove clunky procedures, stick to a single resolution mechanic, design such that you can read results directly from the die rolls, apply modifiers related to troops to the die roll for those troops, etc.

It sounds easy, but it's not. Actually, it's much easier to design a non-transparant / difficult-to-use / lots of modifiers / ...  mechanic. The result is that the game slows down, and that players spend time just resolving combat, or shooting, or whatever. The fun activity in a miniature game is in manoeuvring troops, not resolving combat. The latter should be quick, elegant, and fun. Not tedious and time-consuming.

I recently read Horizon Wars (Osprey Games), a newly-published ruleset for 6mm science fiction games. Their shooting mechanic is what I would call very non-elegant.

Let me explain:

1. Attacker adds the Armour value of the defender to the range to the target. This becomes the effective range.
2. Attacker then rolls a number of D12.
3. Defender then rolls a number of D12. If any D12 scores the same result as the attacker's dice, that specific attacker's die is cancelled.
4. Attacker then puts remaining dice in groups, the sum of each group has to exceed the effective range to score a hit.

Why do I think such a mechanic is not very elegant? Let me explain ...

1. Determining the effective range requires the attacking player asking a stat about the target to his opponent. This slows down the game. Some players might even consider changing targets depending on the Armour value of the target. By constantly having to ask this characteristic, the procedure becomes tedious. Furthermore, it says nothing yet about your chances to score hit.
2. Rolling a number of D12 - fine. Nothing wrong with that.
3. This is what irks me. The defender rolls a number of D12 himself, trying to match rolls from the attacker. This requires comparing a handful of dice on both sides to each other. The cancelling is not related to the actual number rolled on the die. A "1" is cancelled with equal probability as a "12". So, although the attacker might have rolled some high numbers, it doesn't mean much, because roughly speaking, any roll made by the attacker has 1/12 chance of getting cancelled per die rolled by the defender.
   I understand what the idea is: more defending dice cancel on average more dice by the attacker. But comparing exact rolled die numbers is an unnecessary complication.
   A better option would have been to reduce the *number* of dice rolled by the attacker. That would require some rebalancing of stats, but would make for a smoother mechanic.
4. The attacker then has to group remaining dice into groups, each group exceeding the effective range. This is also weird. It requires a little puzzle to be solved by the attacker, because he wants to score as many hits as possible. Suppose the effective range is 10, and you roll a 6, 5, 3, 3, 2, 1. Then you should combine the 6 with a 3 and 1 (resulting in 10), and the 5 with the 3 and 2, also scoring 10, for a total of 2 hits. Natural reaction might be to add 6 to 5, resulting in 11, but then you only can total 1 hit, since the remaining numbers add up to 9. Perhaps a convoluted example, but why invent such a clunky mechanic? What's the added value? Why not simply add everything up, divide by effective range and rounding down? Much simpler.

What bothers me the most is that you will not get any excitement from rolling dice. You can't even shout "Yes, I rolled a 12!", because a 12 might be cancelled as easily as a 1. Then you still have to group the dice in hits. Once you've done that, excitement already has gone. A mechanic should be designed in such a way that you do the math (modifiers, determining numbers of dice, dice types, whatever) BEFORE YOU ROLL ANYTHING. Then, you do immediately see, based on the die roll, what the effect of your action is. If you require calculations AFTER the die roll, it results in a boring and tedious mechanic.

Also, the specific mechanic as outlined above is not consistent. Armour value of the target is added to the range, the Defensive value results in a number of D12 to be thrown in order to cancel attacking dice. The stats of the defender influence the procedure in two very different ways. A good procedure should be designed in a uniform manner. Either adjust range, or adjust number of dice, or use die modifiers, or adjust die types, but don't use combinations of these various options!

A much better mechanic would have been to adjust the number of D12 rolled by the attacker, by subtracting Armour and Defensive values. That has the same effect: lowering the total on the dice rolled, while you can still compare the total sum against the unmodified range of the attacker, and seem how many hits you have scored.

Anyway, if players like these procedures, they should use them! It's not for me to tell how others should enjoy their games. But I do think many mechanics in wargames can be made more elegant, resulting in better designed games.

Zones of Control - Perspectives on Wargaming

Zones of Control - Perspectives on Wargaming, is a new book about wargaming in all its different facets, with a strong emphasis on professional wargaming. I haven't read through all chapters yet, but I managed to read roughly 50% of the book so far (not the first half, but selected chapters throughout). The contents consist of 59 different chapters written by different people active in wargames design, or who have studied wargaming academically.

I must say I felt a bit depressed after reading a number of chapters. Not because of the content - which was excellent - but because I was asking myself "What the heck are we doing as hobby (miniature) wargamers - claiming to design wargames? There is this whole body of academic literature on serious wargames design, and we are busying ourselves discussing the relative merits of rolling a D6 over a D10, or whether a stone wall for cover should provide a +1 or a +2." My feeling after reading the book was that we as hobby miniature wargamers are a small freak sideshow in the spectrum of wargaming, and just noise in the bigger world of wargames.

Now, I am an academic myself, and I have published quite a number of academic journal papers to know the difference between "serious" academic work and "hobby" work (check out my Google Scholar profile :-)). My field is computer graphics, but in order to do some serious graphics research, you need to know about computer programming, algorithm design, algorithm analysis, integral and differential equations, numerical integration techniques, analytic geometry, applied algebra, user studies, perceptual psychology, etc. It is a far different world from the hobby enthusiast who is also doing computer graphics, drawing 3D models using a free 3D modeling program, using Photoshop to enhance his pictures, or perhaps developing a small plugin or mod for a game. Both activities are "computer graphics", but there is very little common ground between those activities. Academic research is a completely different beast, compared to the hobbyists who are discussing the merits of a specific feature in a graphics software package, as seen from a user's point-of-view. But the software package used by the hobbyists often is developed with insights and techniques developed in academic research. Ultimately, both spheres are interlinked.

So, after reading Zones of Control - Perspectives on Wargaming, I felt like the hobbyist who doesn't have a clue about the deeper understanding of wargames. This is not to say I didn't know about professional wargaming before. Years ago, I read Peter Perla's The Art of Wargaming, and I came into superficial contact with professional wargaming during my miltary service. I never bothered to read much about it after that, since I thought the aims are different, so there's not too much of a connection between professional and hobby wargaming. Hobby wargaming is a toy, an entertainment, a passtime for people interested in military history. Professional wargaming is there to train military officers, and is designed as a learning tool. Although both do share a common ancestry, ever since H.G.Wells published Little Wars in 1913, hobby wargaming has pursued a path of its own. Hobby wargame designers design games. Professional wargame designers design training tools.

But the book blew me off my socks. In some of the chapters, people make the explicit link between hobby wargaming and professional wargaming - although the hobby wargames mentioned in this context usually are the hex-and-counter type, not the toy soldier type. I have argued before in several discussions (e.g. on TMP), that there is not much of a link between both, exactly because the design aims are different. I never understood the wargamers who claim that a (board) wargame designed for entertainment actually is a serious tool to train for war. "Really? You can learn to command an army by playing Tactics 2?" Nevertheless, in various online discussion, this point is always made. I often think this is because the confusion people have about the name "wargame", and leave out the adjectives  "hobby", "training", "miniature, "board" or "professional". After all, when discussing football, isn't it important one specifies whether one is talking about European or American football, or mini-football, foosball, or a football computer game? Sure, it's all football, but why discuss it as if it's all the same thing?

So, if there is indeed a strong connection between professional and hobby wargaming, and if we have professional wargame designers who clearly know their stuff, then what the hell on earth are hobby miniature wargame designers thinking they're doing? Shouldn't we leave the game design to the professionals? Or should we as gaming enthusiasts all start reading the academic articles and use whatever insights the professionals have developed? Are those insights even transferable to hobby games to begin with?

I lay awake for some nights pondering this very question. I do like writing my own rules for miniature wargaming, testing the game out with my friends, or sending in articles about our games to the glossy miniature wargaming journals. I like playing with my toy soldiers. On the other hand, as an academic, I know there's this world of difference between tackling a problem academically or fixing it at the hobby level. So how is a hobby like miniature wargaming perceived by serious wargame designers? Simple child's play? Noise in the wargaming universe? Should we - as miniature wargamers - simply stop pretending we are doing anything more than just playing a simple game? (In fact, I do think we are just playing a game inspired by military history - but there's this neverending discussion that it's always something more, and people get confused ...)

After a couple of days, I started thinking about the unique assets of miniature wargaming, that I couldn't see being present in professional wargaming, and I became somewhat more relaxed:

• The visual spectacle! For me, *miniature* wargaming has always been about the toy soldiers. Moving toys around the table is a large part of the attractiveness of the hobby, as is the modeling aspect that is linked to this.
• Elegant gaming mechanics! Miniature wargaming is a game, and games design is focused around designing elegant and playable mechanics using dice, rulers, cards, ... as well as around producing plausible results.
• History, not training for actual war! Miniature wargaming most often is involved with historic subjects, not something wargames designed for training the military are really considering.
• Fantasy and Scifi and Imaginations! Many popular miniature wargames explore alternate universes, and care little about training or historic plausibility.
• Storytelling! In the end, a good wargame is telling a story inspired by military history. One could even make a point this is the most important point of our hobby.

So, I slowly reverted back to my original stance. Yes, there are many genres of wargaming - all called wargaming :-) But in the end, I do not see much similarities between wargaming as used by professionals and recreational wargaming as played by hobbyists. Sure, there might be the occasional game or gaming engine that can serve both audiences, but I think those are the exception rather than the rule.

To conclude, I do think the book is an interested read - I am still not sure whether the connection between the pro's and the hobbyists is real, or artificial. Anyway, I'll have to make a final judgement once I've finished all the chapters :-)

Visual Appeal is Everything!

Back in the day (late nineties), we adopted our motto "Visual Appeal is Everything". What we meant by that is no matter the rules, tactics, or the history; the visual appeal of the miniature battlefield is what really sets miniature wargaming apart from other wargaming genres. Even if your rules are simplistic, or the scenario not well thought-out, if you have a visual attractive gaming table, the game still can be entertaining.

In our gaming group, we always have put emphasis on good-looking gaming tables. This doesn't mean you have to spend lots of money, but you must have an eye for things that go together: type of figures, buildings, even the colours of the lichen :-). Things should fit together to provide that coherent visual look.

Apart from the props such as figures, buildings, hills, etc., there are a few other things that bother me now and then, and which I consider sins against the visual appeal of a well-laid out miniature wargaming table.

1. Place your soldiers in a plausible manner.
   This is often sinned against in skirmish games. Players just grab individual figures, and plop them down wherever they need to be. I remember one instance in one of my hex-based games, in which a player just scooped up a handful of figures in one hex, and placed them (although straight-up!), in whatever clump he had them in hand in the target hex.
   I believe that - even though it is irrelevant to the rules - figures should be placed in a believable manner. Kneeling figures in front and the standing ones in the back, the officer in the middle or towards the rear, one guy is hiding behind the tree, ... At least make them fire or face in the right direction, that's the least you can do for those poor little soldiers!
2. Use dice of the same colour.
   Over the years, many players have amassed lots of dice: different colours, different sizes, even different types of pips. Especially if you throw your dice across the table (but also when you use a dice tray), it is much more pleasing to the eye if you use all dice of the same size and the same colour. E.g. in our Black Powder games we have sets of D6's in a specific colour for each army. In our skirmish games that use polyhedral dice, all D10's are orange, D8's are yellow etc. Again, this is irrelevant to the rules, but more pleasing to the eye. "But it will cost me a fortune!" No, it will not. Besides, that's always a funny line to hear from guys who spend fortunes on their unpainted lead mountain.
3. Use fences of the same type.
   I have many types of fences, acquired over the years. When setting up a game some time ago, I instructed a friend to place the fences as instructed by the scenario. Guess what? All sections of fences of all types got mixed up. And there was no need for that - there were enough fences to make it look coherent and good.
   The same goes for trees. Put trees together in a believable manner: no conifers next to deciduous trees (unless the climate allows for that! :-)).
4. Use smallish scenery items.
   Next to the big scenery items, such as woods, hills, rivers, etc., which have a role in the game, it also helps the visual appeal of the game if you place a lot of little rocks, lichen, foliage, scrubs, civilians, animals,  ... I have a whole drawers full of such little thingies, sorted by period or theme: the "farm" drawer, the "city" drawer, the "fantasy" drawer. Such little things, which have no influence on the game, do make the battlefield come to life. I always feel very sorry for the game that is played on the proverbial billiard table with exactly one hill and one wood. Why bother painting your figures if you use the most simplistic terrain lay-out?
   We adopted the practice at the start of each game to define the game-affecting features, and then conclude with "And everything else is scenery" - meaning you can ignore it as far as the rules are concerned, and move it out of the way when troops need the space.
5. No cluttering of the table!
   Not always easy, but you should make an effort: no cheat sheets, drinks, etc. on the gaming table. Otherwise, why bother laying out an attractive battlefield?

I know that many will consider such efforts a waste of time or money. However, for me, they do help making a game much more attractive.

It's all fantasy!!!

On various internet forums, there's with regular intervals a discussion about the nature of fantasy wargaming. Usually the discussion starts with someone asking "What's fantasy wargaming exactly?". Then, invariably, the discussion veers off towards the following statements, also usually in this order:

• Fantasy is D&D!
• Fantasy has dragons and wizards!
• Fantasy is ancients with magic!
• Fantasy is ancients as the ancients themselves believed the world to be!
• Romans vs Aztecs is fantasy as well! (I blame DBA :-) )
• Actually, any non-historical army list is fantasy!
• If you invent your own orders of battle, it's fantasy!
• Any "what-if scenario" is fantasy!
• Operation Sea Lion is fantasy!
• Any battle that did not take place in history is fantasy!
• Since we are playing with toy soldiers, it's all fantasy!
• We are all playing fantasy!
• "I'm not!"

I always get very tired of this type of discussion, and I say that as a wargamer who does both like historical and fantasy wargaming. The latest reiteration of these arguments came in one of the columns of my favourite wargaming magazine (Miniature Wargames with Battlegames #399), and I was a bit taken aback. Not because of the particular author or column in question, but because it always seems as if fantasy wargamers still have to defend themselves against the idea of not being "real wargamers".

Let me explain:

1. Although I do understand people could be confused about the nature of fantasy wargaming when it gained popularity several decades ago, should we not all know by know that the "fantasy" in wargaming has the same meaning as the "fantasy" in "fantasy literature". To quote from Wikipedia:
   

   Fantasy is a genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common.

   Yet, many wargamers bend the discussion about fantasy often in the direction of a different meaning of fantasy, indicating anything that has not actually happened (see bullet list above). This is always weird - as if people do not know fantasy wargaming is based on an established literary genre. It's difficult for me to believe wargamers do not know that difference. Actually, I do think they do know, but enjoy bending the meaning to make some sort of point and cause confusion. Sci-fi wargaming, btw, does not suffer from this.
2. Fantasy wargaming has been a genre in wargaming since at least the 70s with rules and figures based on Tolkien's Middle Earth - although Tony Bath fought his games back in the 50s in the imaginary continent of Hyboria, based on the Conan universe. Perhaps Bath's wargaming was not fantasy as we know it today (we would call it imaginations these days), but anyway, it's not as if fantasy wargaming is the new kid on the block. Why does fantasy wargaming still evoke such emotions? Isn't it an established genre by now?
3. Fantasy wargaming became big in the 80s (Warhammer!), and many wargamers of my generation (I'm turning 50 later this year) have enjoyed fantasy wargaming tremendously as youngsters. Actually, I still like playing fantasy games, although I heve evolved beyond Warhammer. Fantasy wargaming is part of the DNA of many, by now "older" wargamers, and the Oldhammer phenomenon clearly illustrates this. I am therefore still surprised there is a faction of gamers that still want to question the validity of fantasy wargaming as being "real" wargaming.
4.  Usually, the sentiment is raised by historical gamers whose games are firmly rooted in historical research, and base their games on a methodological approach about the period in question. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that - I have done this myself for some of my favourite periods - but it is by itself not the "one and only true" approach to wargaming as many want others to believe. This particular brand of wargaming also only came to the foreground in the 70s. If you read the wargaming literature of the 60s, you see quite some liberal interpretation of history as well. Look at the writings by Grant and Featherstone. Although their wargaming is inspired by history, it does not try to replicate history. Grant is famous for his 18th century imaginations, and Featherstone was the one who condemned the "Staff and Command Boys" in War Game Digest in 1962, arguing against an "aura of pseudo-science of what is a pastime" (look it up - you can find info about this debate online!).
5. Although one's motivation might be different to play with toy soldiers (historical research vs exploring an imaginary universe), the end result is surprisingly the same: same props, same rules, same army lists, ... This is of course not surprising since much of fantasy literature is based on (often medieval) history. But - and this is not unimportant - the enjoyment or fun one gets out of it might be different. One wargamer enjoys seeing an historical plausible military encounter developing on his table (and perhaps gaining some insights in militory history), while the other enjoys seeing a military encounter in an imaginary world coming to live on his table (and perhaps gaining some insights in the fictional universe). Hmmm, perhaps not so different after all?
6. Many wargamers do not limit themselves to pure historical or pure fantasy. Almost every wargamer I know plays - or has played - various genres next to each other, and this even extrapolates to other gaming hobbies such as roleplaying games or card games or computer games ... So, if people switch with ease between different spectra of gaming, why insist on hard divides?

My take? In essence, I don't think there is much difference between various wargaming genres, since they have much more in common than they are different. I see gamers playing with toy soldiers rolling dice. And although the motivation to play a game might be different, that doesn't make it a different hobby.

Me playing a game of Warhammer - one of my earliest wargaming photos, probably late eighties. As a historical gamer, fantasy wargaming is a significant part of my gaming DNA.

It's the figures, not the rules!

This past weekend I spent some time cleaning up and repairing an old army of mine. The army in question are Oldhammer Orcs & Goblins (I will post some pictures later), but this particular detail is irrelevant for this post.

I almost never repaint miniatures - except visible damage - but I do rework the bases. More than the paint-job of the figure itself, it is often the base that provides a common look-and-feel of all the figures in an army. If all the bases are visually similar, it provides a much larger visual cohesion on the battlefield.

The bases for the models in this particular army were in a dire state. Initially, figures were based individually (most are Citadel slottabase figures, but not all), and the bases were painted black. Then, grey flock was added. Later on, figures were based in groups of 4 on 6cm by 6cm bases to adjust to a particular ruleset that we were using at the time. Since I thought this was the best ruleset ever, the bases were superglued to cardboard and given another layer of paint. When that ruleset fell out of favour (duh!), I removed the figures again, but now leaving glue marks on the slottabases, and some of the flock came loose in the process.

So, I redid the bases this weekend, all figures were left individually based. The bases were again covered in grey flock (not what I would today, but no choice given the history of these figures), and adorned by rocks, tufts of grass, etc. At last these figures are "showable" again on the tabletop.

What I realized (once again) is that if you are a long-time wargamer, rules do not really matter, but figures do.

As a starting wargamer, it is quite natural that you acquire figure that go with your ruleset of choice. Your budget might be limited, and you don't always know where to start. Hence, following the recommendations made by the ruleset, or buying the figures that are sold specifically for the ruleset, is the best course of action.
But of course, rulesets lose their popularity due to a myriad of reasons. Some of these are external: the ruleset is no longer "supported". As a wargamer, one develops different preferences over the years. Rules that seemed so clever and fun, might feel like a pure random engine several years later. Social reasons might also play a part. There's no use in clinging to a ruleset if all your friends hate it. And lastly, there is also innovation in the design of wargames themselves. Rulesets do become better over the years (but not always! :).

The turnover frequency of rulesets is often not matched by the turnover frequency of figures. It is quite easy to change rulesets; it is much harder to buy and paint a completely new set of figures. Hence, the figures in a collection often outlive the use of any particular ruleset, and it makes no sense to adapt the basing of figures to a particular ruleset.

I have been wargaming for over 30 years, and I have come to realize that the constant factor during all these gaming years is a good and solid collection of figures, not any particular ruleset. 10 years from now, I might use rules that don't even exist yet. But very likely, I will use figures of which a large fraction are already in my collection today.