REPLIES TO THE "TROUBLE WITH RULES"
In #55 Mike Kelley wrote an insightful letter describing his view on present day miniatures rules and the advances of the last 20 years. this elicited a lot of comment of which we present two.
Bravo Mike Kelley!
Having read your letter, I can't but more than agree with you. We all want the idealistically pure wargame, but like everything else in real life, we can't have it every way at all times. I agree even more with the concept of bad scenarios.
Last Historicon, I tried running two games based on GDW's Command Decision rules. One was based on Korea, 1950, and the other on Indochina, 1954. Having played a number of CD games, I felt assured that I had formed two basic well rounded scenarios. I felt the game was balanced, but boy was I ever wrong!
As a referee, I was definitely inexperienced; as a scenario designer, I was horrible. The first and greatest mistake was appointing two overall commanders who knowing the game far better than I, became tyrants to the others. Each side whined that I didn't balance out the forces, thus leaving no given advantage to their respective forces. The games degenerated into shouting matches, and despite assurance from some of the players postgame, I felt like the loser. It was a very enlightening experience.
I felt the rules were simple enough, thus precluding the possibility of real conflict. Yet as Mike says, the rules were not the blame, I was. I expected too much, I overprepared and in the end, simplicity became complexity, and no game is worth that.
Hence, we should all expect that all rules are imperfect, no matter how many updates, errata, and addendum are conceived. The best rule of all is that which is unwritten: The facet of compromise. That in itself should suffice for all the reams of correctional reform that lead to nothing.
It seems to me that you were the victim of two members of the thankfully small and decreasing fraternity of the "show off my superior knowledge and to hell with my fellow gamers" club. In my experience most people who enjoy a set of rules and know them well want to see their use spread and will help a referee out. As referee you should have declared that these characters' unit's supplies had not come up and that they had to go back to the rear to organize things - Read kick them out of the game, or t hreaten to! I have had to on a couple of occasions - DICK BRYANT
AND A NOTE FROM PHIL BARKER
Tell Mike Kelley that I'm listening. Of his requirements:
Historically accurate? I love research and love to be proved wrong.
Playable? With our DBA you can play Gaugamela in an hour and a new set entitled "Horse, Foot, and Guns" will do the same in late 92 for Blenheim, Leipzig and Gettysburg.
Simulation resolution? Sorry, with our sets you are either a C-in-C or Sergeant, not both.
Figure scale and mounting? If Michael used the same bases as me 17 years back, he will do alright. I don't like rebasing either. Some of our new rules will go from 15mm to 54mm some from 2mm to 25mm, none the whole way.
Price? We are already cheap and provide free updates. This may be a little obscured by the 300% mark up some importers apply. However, you can phone a credit card order in to us and get air mail delivery in 4 days for rather less if you want. You will NEVER EVER find our rules padded out with color photographs and pretty boxes to up the price. What you buy is the sweat of our brow.
Point System? We use them when appropriate, but equal points alone do not give balanced games, and DBA manages without. deliberately un balanced baffles derived from a scenario or a campaign are usually more fun anyway.
I believe very strongly that the details of the rule mechanisms should not in future be allowed to get between the player and the battle, there are two answers:
One is to stay with complex rules and have a computer on the table. This can have its disadvantages. You can't check the assumptions behind the rules in the machine, and as one gamer said on a recent memorable occasion "Jeeze. If my old rulebook had been struck by lightning, at least I could have tried to stamp the flames out". 6
The other is to provide simple memorizable rules which in combination produce subtle effects, and that is the way WRG is now going. One thing we are finding is that simple short rule books take the same or more work than long complex rules, so prices may not drop proportionately.
l agree with Phil - the trend to color photos, covers and boxes is unfortunate to say the least. Its main purpose is to get distributors and stores who know nothing about the hobby to buy many copies, most of which moulder on stockroom shelves. The content - the rules - is the same, and often not as good, as if they had been done as a cheap offset printed rulebook where you provide your own dice. Worse the whole thing has become a self-fulfilling prophecy! Those distributors versed in the hobby now feel that they can't push enough copies unless they have color or boxes as the stores don't buy as many - this is why The Courier went to full color covers, tell me - do you think our content is any better than when we were using single color covers? There must be a way to start a groundswell of opposition to this trend and get rules into the $10 or less range again where they belong. The trend, impelled by printers who stand to make more money by printing color works, is keeping many new rules ideas out of print. Who knows what we are missing?! - DICK BRYANT
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