Sooner or later, just about every truly enthusiastic solitaire board-wargamer decides to fool around with the notion of designing his or her own game. In the overwelming majority of such cases, the intent is almost never to try to sell the finished game to a company or in any way go into the business of design. Rather, it would seem that the more typical case is simply that the solitaire gamer has a favorite topic (or several) which he loves to play and feels frustrated for one or more of the following reasons:

A. the existing professional games he owns or has access to have lost their appeal after numerous plays;

B. the talked-about new games from the companies have not been released yet (as usual);

C. the components (OB, rules, map etc.) of his old games seem out of whack with what he has read;

D. the newer games have reached such a level of complexity that he longs for a beer-and-pretzels bit of fun that nevertheless transcends the milk-and-cookies of Tactics II or Strike Force One.

As a result, the hobbyist secures a few blank hex sheets, some blank counter sheets, a collection of colored pin-point markers, and a notebook. Chances are, if he is after an historical simulation, he will also grab hold of a few books on the subject and a period map or two. Now this may not sound like professional research, but that may very well be the extent to which the individual wished to devote time to this project. Secretly he hopes that, if he gets a good start on it Friday night, the game will be ready to set up and play by the first of the week. Insofar as he is mainly a solitaire player designing for his own recreation, there is no need to worry about the derisive remarks of comrades.

The map will probably structure the game design more than any other single factor, and will probably be the first component tackled. This too may sound like insanity, but there is an overwelming compulsion to see what the battlefield will look like on a hex sheet. In addition, I have found that the predominantly solitaire player tends to be more artistically endowed that the would-be Pattons and Rommels on the prowl for another neighborhood opponent to slay.

The solitaire player is often pretty decent at deciding on color schemes for roads, towns, airfields, etc., and he likes a map where he can tell an objective at a glance. The likelihood that he will pick a land battle over a naval or aerial one may be prejudiced by the fact that history has given us more of them.

The map, once completed, will help to set the tone for the rules. Usually these rules will be only marginally innovative, instead prefering to incorporate concepts that he has particularly liked from a host of professional games. Some rules are more strongly prefered than others, however, in a beer-and-pretzels design. Hard zones of control are favored, as are bloody CRTs. Few if any exchanges are used on the CRT (who thought of excanges anyhow? Everybody has always hated them), although contacts are fun, and there is a fondness for doubled defensive terrain.

Movement is generally straight-forward also, with roadways speeding things up and rough terrain slowing units down. Supply is almost always included in these rules, but once again simplicity is the order of the day, with such frequent practices as tracing supply free of enemy units or their ZOCs to a road leading off of the map edge. Especially enjoyable, though, are replacements. (I have never encountered a gamer who disliked a game which provided a replacement capacity. I would guess that this is because everyone likes to receive more troops later on in the conflict to help save the day.)

The designer of such games does not even consider optional rules (or variants and scenarios), although, if the basic game works well enough, he may tack on some additional chrome extras to spice things up and maintain his own interest level. Again, the urge to get it going and to play it overrides professionalism and realism (i.e., historical authenticity).

Crunch

The real crunch invariably comes with the order of battle. Here the novice has a choice; he can either try to find an OB (or compose an educated guess from what he has read) or he can put together a purely hypothetical one which vaguely offers the types of units which saw action, their approximate number, and their approximate strength. Whichever route he selects, the only real variety will be in the approximate number of units given to each side. The combat factors will not vary too much per unit type, and the movement factor will vary even less per unit type. If he likes attrition, he may use both sides of the counters for factor levels (provided that they are not purely cardboard-colored on the reverse side) or make separate step- reduction counters.

One of the reasons for keeping the OB and counters simple and relatively uniform is the fact that handprinting symbols and numbers on the counters is only enjoyable for about the first dozen. After that, it becomes a chore to keep it neat and a problem if there is too much diversity and informatin to handle. Some gamers I know even go so far as to send to the bigger companies for a set of counters from an existing game (ex AH's Blitzkrieg) and incorporate them into the design. It does save a lot of time, the costs are minimal, and you get first-rate unit counters that will not smudge under the perspiration of table-top combat.

By this point, those readers who are state-of-the-art devotees of the hobby are probably gagging at such rank amateurism still being rampant in wargaming. Obviously a willingness to put more effort and ingenuity into the project could result in a vastly superior design. It should be noted out of fairness to the more dedicated wargamers that there are many solitaire players out there who enjoy devoting endless hours to the pursuit of the absolute OB for the Battle of New Orleans or the Seige of Sevastopol.

Most of the better variants have come from such enthusiasts, and the third-world gaming companies are, to a large degree, their creation also. But while the vanguard elite of board-wurgamers set off into the ozone layer of matrix RTs and twenty-sided dice, the novice goes about his heretical business of playing wargames for the thrill of it, regardless of dogma.

The point of all of this is not to criticize the genuinely talented, innovative designers (after all, where would the hobby be without Tom Oleson, John Hill, etc.), but to comment upon the thousands of mere afficionados out there who never get to go to the conventions. They are just as deepiv enamored with the hobby in their uwn way, and my guess is that these folks might just be the underpinnings of the entire hobby.