Recently I was remodeling my office-writing-painting-wargame room, and in transferring stuff hither and yon I came upon my racks of PW REVIEWS and, as usually happens in these things, a loose one fell out and I read a few words of it before putting it back, and soon several hours had passed and I had not transferred any more stuff, but I had read through about two dozen issues. I had read these before, but not as well as I ought to have. In the course of a full time job, getting my Ph.D, and pursuing several other business careers, I don't have much time, so I frequently don't read as close as I ought to. Well, in going through these, I noticed something that will come as a shock to most of you, and no doubt, to Wally Simon himself. Wally, for all his obstinate 'curmudgeony-ness' and pigheaded sham-philistinism, is actually a rather perceptive fellow, and he, and the PW REVIEW, have done something very unique, and provided a vehicle and service not performed by any other institution in the hobby (or at least none that I've run across). Simply put, the PW REVIEW, among other things, acts like a laboratory that "tests to failure". For those of you not among the manufacturing cognoscenti, that is a place which will take your part, assembly, or product, and not only test it to see if it meets specifications, but tests it till it breaks and then tell you where it broke, and at what point. I say this is unique, because while all wargame publications to one extent or another will review rules, that is not at all the same thing as testing them, and quite another thing from testing them to failure. A reviewer simply reads and comments on the rules, comparing them to other rules in the genre, and what features they have or have not. It's kind of like going onto the lot, and simply comparing stickers of automobiles, yet never getting behind the wheel and driving them around. A few will actually test the rules, but this invariably means a oncethrough to see if they work (or even turn over, to use the automobile metaphor) and it is usually done with one person who knows the rules well to intimately, and by definition then, is invariably smitten with them (for he has taken the time to know them more or less well). Further, such a test will invariably be a non-strenuous one. The car will be turned over and driven in a nice, slow, leisurely circle around the lot. Wally, on the other hand, will roar out of the dealership at 80 mph into rush-hour traffic on the CBE, do a bootlegger turn in the construction zone, and then find the nearest brick wall to smash it against. You might not want to buy what's left, but if Wally walked away from the crash, you'd certainly put more stock, and look harder at, that model than the one that was just taken for a stroll around the salesman's table. In short, Wally tells you, when the hard questions and tough moments come, how and where the rules fail, and how they succeed. That Wally gets a lot of criticism from people who's rules he trashes is no surprise. After all, I Imagine, in our little metaphorical world, that after Wally sauntered back holding nothing but a steering wheel and a few odd parts he stuffed in his pocket, the salesman would be pissed. It's no wonder then, that Wally is often upbraided, for few of us like someone trashing our rules. On the other hand, if you can't take feedback and constructive critici I sm, then I don't know how you're ever going to make a good set of rules. Besides, rather than being defensive, the important thing is to note that the rules, have, in fact, in some way failed. Perhaps you ought to look at the design. Admittedly, Wally can be obdurate on certain things. Wally and I have gone head to head on certain things over many years. He, for one, is infatuated with command and control rules. At COLD WARS 99, after one of my demo-games, he asked my why I hadn't done more with them in the game. I replied "Because before the invention of the battlefield radio they don't exist... except in the overheated imagination of wargamers." I could tell he was knocked off his feet on that one ... because he was, in fact knocked off his feet. Actually... I think he was just sitting back down into the chair... it was, after all, Saturday at 11:30, but this sounds more dramatic. There are two sides (at least) to any issue. I don't think, by the way, that any sort of "balance" should be attempted by having matching or opposing articles, and by so doing, creating a sort of "Siskel and Ebert" review of rules. We can't learn anything from good reviews. Saying something like "Doorknobs and Downspouts" is a great system because it allows you to move your troops and there are rules for firing, doesn't tell me anything... it better have these. Nor does asserting that it allows for historical tactics, national variations, and realtime representation get us anywhere. We all like Mom and Apple Pie. Nor does saying "This is the most accurate and realistic portrayal of Warfare in the Ancient World ever made". How would you know? As my father would say "Vass you dere Charlie?" Yet for all of Wally's failings, they do form a predictable, consistent calculus of value. Further, if he points out something is wrong, and doesn't work, that simply means that that is where the rules have a failing. If that section is not important to you, or you don't care that it doesn't work at that point, then what's the problem? That's like a technician going to a Project Manager and saying "Well, we've tested the new model and we find that the metal on the axle, while it meets specifications, will melt if exposed to temperatures of 5000 degrees. To give a more germane example, if Wally says that "There are no command and control rules, or they don't function well at all", given my already stated disposition, I couldn't care less! That in fact makes the rules more attractive to me. AN EDITOR'S NOTE TO OTTO'S COMMENTS I had never thought of my rules reviews as the equivalent of destructive testing, in the manner suggested by Otto. It's an interesting simile, and, in the main, I have to agree with it. My 'curmudgeony-ness' factor, the threshold of which seems to get lower each year, stems from an acute irritation with rules authors who must immediately see their products in print. The pages of MWAN are full of these authors... the same guys who present, issue after issue, the same set of rules... "a 4,5,6 hits at short range, a 5,6 hits at medium range, a 6 hits at long range." These guys, of course, are the amateurs. The pros go them one better... "Give me $20 for my rules, and I'll give you a published copy which states..."A 4,5,6 hits at short range..." That's the reason I bash away at the holes in what I term incomplete sets of rules... wherein the author, knowing of the gaps in the system, still passes them along as the 'real thing'. Back to PW Review July 1999 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com