by Keith Jordan
I'm no expert, but I've been trying this sort of thing for a while myself. I think there are a couple of things you should keep in mind any time you're writing some rules. First, what command level are you trying to model? If you want to be the platoon leader, then there's no reason you should have to concern yourself as to what each man shoots at individually. If you want to be the PFC in the trench, then it does matter what target you pick, but why have a bunch other guys around in the game who's actions aren't controlled or affected by what your guy does? Stuff like that. Just keep in mind the things that are controlled by the command level you want to model, then simplify the rules to reflect that. Second, try to really define what aspects of the action you are most interested in and which you think are the most important. For example, if this is an infantry game, is it really that critical to have the tank armor thickness correct down to the last millimeter, roll to hit, roll to find where the tank was hit, then roll for some random thing to see if the shell goes through? As far as that grunt is concerned, the tank is either a threat, or it is not, so maybe just one roll can determine whether it's killed or not. Then again, that sort of thing may be important to you and the guys, so keep it in. Third... SIMPLIFY. I have a set of Vietnam rules I've been working on for years. I'll not look at them for a while, then pick them up again and look through them with a fresher perspective. Every time I do that, I find some thing that is way more complicated than it has to be. For example, at one time I had the players keeping up with the altitude of the support aircraft coming in. Then I decided that was stupid. The guys on the ground have no control over the altitude that the planes use, so why worry with it? I once played a skirmish game that had you roll two or three times to determine exactly where your gren-ade lands, and that was pretty tedious. It either hits your target and hurts it, or it doesn't. I've also found that you should try to minimize the number of units one guy has to control. You want him to have enough to be in the game for a while, but you don't want him to have so many that he spends all his time rolling dice or moving with no time to think/watch/shoot-the-bull. And one last opinion (free of charge), if there's any way to make it work, it's nice if you can minimize the amount of time players have to wait on each other. For example, you might be able to have one player pick a target, then have every unit on the board that fires on that target do so at the same time. Those would be my suggestions. Remember, they're worth every dime you paid for them. Back to Strategist 312 Table of Contents Back to Strategist List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by SGS This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. |