I may have learned something at the HMGS March convention. Normally, it doesn't take more than 5 or 6 solid thwacks on the side of the head with a 2x4 to draw my attention. But, somehow, over the years, I had never given much thought to the problems inherent in designing a scenario to properly set off a new set of rules. It simply never occurred to me that the presentation might unfavorably influence the participants in their initial reaction to the rules themselves.
I had the opportunity at the convention, to demonstrate, via a series of games, a set of new rules to several sets of gamers. I also had the occasion to observe how other rules authors demonstrated their own products. There appears to be three lines of approach.
On the one hand, there is the Simon method. On each baseline, I set out 6 or 7 units, plop down a half dozen or so hills, several clumps of woods, and simply tell the participants: "Go to it!"
Invariably, one erudite scholar, a trouble maker, will ask: "What's the objective? What are we supposed to do?"
Invariably, I answer: "You are supposed to charge madly forward, banners streaming, to test the movement rules; you are to fire your muskets or Lee-Enfields or bows and see how many enemy fall down to test the firing rules; you are supposed to close with the enemy and whack him with your musket stock to check the melee and hand-to-hand combat procedures; and you are supposed to rally your men to test the morale rules."
And that, in a nutshell, is my own simplistic approach, the "go for it, you-only-go-around-once" approach.
The other extreme is typified by a demonstration put on by Craig Taylor and Bob Coggins to display their new Seven Years War rules. These are grand tactical in scope and so each side was given a full size army of four divisions of 15mm figures.
Eack division consists of about 10 regiments of infantry, 4 regiments of cavalry, plus an assortment of artillery pieces... more figures than I normally game with all year.
After we gathered our forces, Bob and Craig then told us to take 20 minutes out for a conference to discuss our tactics... or more properly, our grand tactics. The various terrain objectives were valued: 35 points for a town, 60 points for the enemy camp, etc., and we were to work out our plan of attack.
All this is well and good, but I thought it detracted from the rules ... which were what I had come to see. I wasn't interested in how to secure the enemy camp or how to encircle Hill 107, or how best to march on the town of Glotz; I was interested in movement rates, casualty rates, firing procedures, and rally rules. To me, therefore, rather than focusing on the nitty gritty of the grand tactical game, I would have preferred a simple head-on confrontation.
I found that the Coggins/Taylor rules were good, were quick, and might be termed "elegantly simple", but I also found that there was too much to do during the demonstration.
Dick Bryant, incidentally, is apparently in the Coggins/Taylor camp. He feels that a massive planning effort is an essential element in the test procedures ... if you do the right thing, employ the right formations, use the right deployments, engage in the right tactics, then, if the rules are on target, the outcome will be historically correct.
Having looked at both extremes, one employing few units for a quicker grasp of the basic mechanics of the rules, the other using swarms of troops to encompass all the tactics, all the mechanics, all the interplay between the game design and the historical period under consideration, let's look at a third approach.
Pat Condray seems to have an eye for scenario design, i.e. the knack of being able to translate an historical encounter into a fairly balanced game. I've played in several of his presentations of late 19th century warfare, and I watched for a while at the convention while he demonstrated his new efforts in the age of Marlboroughian warfare, and all the set-ups I've seen had one thread in common: there were just the right number of troops, the proper amount of terrain, and a reasonable set of objectives.
This may be accident or it may be design, but the player is never overloaded during the scenario with tactical considerations that, in effect, distract from the basic intent of the demonstration, that is, to view the rules in action. Note that I haven't said anything about the rules themselves; I've merely noted that the setting for their display is pretty near optimal.
The point of all this is that I finally learned that there are people Out There who don't think as I do. Evidentally, scenarios are important when a gamer is introduced to a new set of rules. The unfavorable bias produced by the lack of a proper setting may influence the participant negatively in his consideration of the rules themselves.
And so, as the Lion of 0stlandt enters his second childhood, there is a new focus, a new area of endeavor. We're off to scenario-design land.
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© Copyright 1985 Wally Simon
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