Rule Heresy

[fsn]

I hate modern rule sets. They're unnecessarily complicated and to my mind illogical in some respects. Here are three things that I don't like about rulesets.

Saving throws
Yes, the Blessed Featherstone had saving throws, but they're just a sop to the attacked player and slow the game.

For example "I need to hit on 4 or over. 5! You're hit." "I need to save on a 5 or 6!" 

Odds of throwing a 4 or more = 50%.
Odds of throwing a 5 or more  = 33%
Odds of hitting is therefore 50% x 33% = 16%.

Odds of throwing a 6 = 16%. Same effect but fewer dice rolls.

I would rather a set of rules that incorporated the saving throw into the to hit. As a corollary, there is a difference between "saving" and "effect" rolls. For example, the Firefly hits the PzIV with a 17pdr AP shell. What effect? This could be anything from totally destroyed to pinging off the armour, by way of immobilise, crew killed, turret jammed etc.   

Randomised movement
Yer average person moves at 3.1mph. There are many reasons why this is an average. Moving up hill. Moving down hill. Moving through undergrowth. Being tired or having to keep in line with companions.  On flat ground for the duration of a wargames, yer average person can maintain a constant speed, and a trained unit is trained to maintain a standard - watch the Trooping of the Colour.

So it may throw an element of uncertainty into a game, but ... no. It's a silly concept.

Activation
Take Napoleonics, 'cos that's what I'm doing at the moment. You are the colonel of an infantry battalion. Your have been ordered to hold that hill. There's a regiment of Dragoons threatening your flank, but oh no! Although you've been observing their movements for 3 moves, your incompetent dolt of a general hasn't drawn a Spade. So you stand in line and get massacred. 

Foolishness! Any colonel worth his salt would form square. It's his job to form square in the face of cavalry. Granted, his orders are to hold the hill, so I don't expect him to suddenly decide to take that church, but he should be expected to fight his unit.

I was watching a video of a Team Yankee game and a M1 tank was unable to blaze away at a column of BMPs ... because ... reasons. Unless that M1 was told to stay quiet, I'd expect it to start picking off those APCs.


So there you go. Three things I don't like about modern rulesets. I appreciate I'm a solo gamer, but seems to me some rule concepts have little merit. I'd be interested in (sensible) counters.

[Norm]

Playing Devil's advocate and opening up the point for discussion, Some aspects of modern rules bring definite improvements, for example you want to do a formation change - march column moves to square. One base stays in place and the rest are simply lifted up and moved to make the new formation ... older rules would prescribe exactly how that deployment should be made, with the flanking companies getting a move bonus so that they could reach their correct position!

I also rather like the command chaos that modern rules seek to create, whether that be randomised movement, activations, reactions or whatever. It loosens what has been described as the God-like control that players have over their armies, that allows deployment and reaction to bend to the players wishes and which is in truth far removed from reality.

There are plenty of instances in which units have been caught on the hop, such as the regiment at Quatre Bras (can't remember which one) which suddenly had enemy heavy cavalry upon them, because the high rye grass (seldom replicated in games on the subject) allowed the cavalry to surprise the infantry.

At 2nd Bull Run, 5th New York (Zouaves) came under murderous attack from Confederate Texans. The 5th NY commander ordered his unit to fall back, but under the thunderous noise of battle and the chaos of intense fighting, his order was mostly unheard by the formation, so they stood and suffered for it. Without chaos systems, players would never allow such things to happen and would move their armies with a precision and intention that as pretty much impossible in reality.

For solo players in particular, chaos enhances play by loosening the players grip on both armies, forcing each to do the best with what they have. I think the point is that some players just cannot give up any form of control and so for them, chaos rules just spoil their game, so it is not that the rules are wrong or bad, it is just that they are a mismatch to the players natural inclination towards play, balance is everything. Boardgames have exactly the same issues, especially those that use card decks.

Black Powder has randomised Command, in a single turn a unit could move once, twice or three times depending on command roll or they might fail their command an not move at all (5th New York Zouaves mentioned above). Bonnie Blue Flag rules has a basic movement allowance plus a D6 in inches,which is just another way of doing similar to what Black Powder is doing, though a bit less blunt! In Black Powder under the Glory Hallelujah rules, if a unit can and does move more than once, it will not be able to fire in the same turn, so that movement chaos comes with its own checks and balances.

Old rules allow cavalry to move around the battlefield at a higher rate than everything else for the whole game .... they didn't do that, they moved at walking pace except when they had short bursts of activity with high movement, but then the horses were blown. Black Powder through its randomised movement, does by abstraction, a better job of showing that, than many 'older' rule sets.

Whatever wordage is used in the rules to 'dress up' an action, the designer will have worked hard at getting the maths right to make it work, that is equally true of Save and Hit systems as much as single dice resolution systems, you have to ensure that the pace of the game is moderated to give a feel for action.

I'm not saying that I am a huge fan of Black Powder, but it probably serves well as the 'example' of modern rules. Sometimes I am in the mood for buckets of dice and other times not. But taking something like General d' Armee (napoleonic) or Picketts Charge (ACW) by Dave Brown, which is more reliant on opposed 2D6 and also using the bell curve of 2D6 on the game charts, then the maths underpinning the system is quite obvious. Hits and saves have a more random spread per use but a statistical average over the course of play or several playings.

Modern sets do have more verbage ... is that better explained rules or all eventualities covered or tight rules for tournament play?

I have just picked up Shadow of the Eagles (Napoleonic) by Keith Flint. It is a gorgeous production, just a pleasure to own, but as you read through it, the strongest ethos that comes through is that the designer is looking at removing things that are a barrier to smooth play and encouraging gamers to actually get a game to the table does seem to be a design objective of the modern rules writer, Absolute Emperor (Osprey) and La Salle 2nd edition being recent notable efforts in that regard. Do these systems move us away from accuracy / Sim towards play value, perhaps, but every design sits on that line and at least with the plethora of rules out there for what is a niche hobby, whether old or new rules, there is something for everyone.

[fred.]

Saving Throws
I'm quite happy with these in games, probably because most games I have ever played have them in. I think there are a few reasons for saving throws
1) keeping both players involved
2) letting the dice do the work - it is possible to combine the effect of saving throws and to hit rolls into one roll, but to do this you need a table to work out the likely results, and then have to roll against this and consult it for the answer. Being able to roll a set of dice find the 4+ ones then re-rolling these as saves is pretty straight forward.
3) It makes it clear to the players whether its the unit being hard to hit that is stopping wounds, or if its the units protection (probably a minor reason) but does help to know if you need to bring up something that is Armour Piercing or something that is better at hitting to attack a unit.

Variable Moves
I play very few games that use these - the only ones that I do use it to represent the effects of rough terrain, which seems reasonable enough - you don't know who dense the woodland will be until you get in to it.

Combing variable moves with activation rolls can really take things to far though!

Activations
I'm a big fan of games which have some friction due to activations - it really helps to break up the 500' tall general effect of the player. But I also dislike games were the activations are too random and disrupt the game too much.

Games like Lion Rampant and Warmaster fall into the too random camp - in LR whilst units can activate about 70-80% of the time any failed activation ends the turn. In WM units can fail around 40-50% of the time which can lead to some brigades sitting around for turns, also the multiple activations can lead to some units/brigades dancing across the table. The WM system has good and bad parts, it can lead to dramatic actions but it also leads to player frustration.

In our home-brew fantasy rules activation is d10 based, a 1 is a failure, a 2-6 is a single order and a 7+ is a double order. The split between single and double orders varies by fantasy race. This seems to work well for us - gives some friction but avoids the doing nothing for turns problem.

I like the card activation in If the Lord Spares Us, which has a card per unit, a commander card, and the Tea Break (turn end) card, along with a few extras. The commander card and the rule that any unit that hasn't activated gets to shoot at the end of the turn, work well to stop the problem of units not activating turn on turn.


As a closing point, I don't play any Napoleonic games so the above isn't about that period in any way at all!

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

I have written a fair few sets of rules so I am aware of the possible problems :-

1) Gods eye. We as players can see all of it, but troops on the ground would not be able to. So we have observation tests, but these are less than perfect particularly if the random is a D6. Also the are few sets of rules outside the modern period that have one, despite all the smoke on a Napolionic and earlier gunpowder periods.

2) Subordinate incompetance. We as players can see everything but our on-table subordinate commanders can't They should only react to what they know, and the orders die is a way of reflecting this so we give low CV scores to armies which have poor command control values, requireing low values for poor armies, such as Napolionic Auistrians or Italians.

3) Saving throws. Yes I can see these as being contentious but again represernt the randoms that occure in warfare. Depite paper stats it's not a garentee that a gun will penetrate a given thickness of armour, or cavalry will break that infantry in line.

Cheers IanS

[Leman]

And this explains why I don't play modern games.

[Ithoriel]

I love modern rule sets. They're not remotely complicated nor, to my mind, any more illogical than their predecessors. Here are the things that I like about modern rulesets.

Saving throws

Keeps all players involved in the game. reduces the risk of,"that's my turn over, I'm off the the bog, then the bar, then I'll chat to half a dozen folk, don't expect me back for the rest of the game."

The more dice you roll the nearer the average they should roll.
 
Randomised movement and Activation

I'm not a big fan of randomised movement and haven't seen a rulebook that includes it in thirty or forty years. Different rates for certain terrain for certain troop types, fair enough.

Activation, however, I'm a big fan of.

This can subsume the variable movement element into the general buggeration factors that disrupt General's plans.

Yer average person moves at 3.1mph. On the flat, when not having to stop to check if the unit on the left is friend or foe, if not needing to dress lines, if not forming square because they sight cavalry then back to column because the cavalry turn out to be friendly, or because the colonel is a Nervous Nelly who sends light infantry to check every bush and gully for an ambush ... and so many more non-terrain reasons.

Wargames tables may be flat but the terrain they represent won't be.

So it may throw an element of uncertainty into a game, but ... that's the idea.

I can deal with the uncertainty. Yes sometimes it is frustratingly difficult to execute your master plan. It's like life, "sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you"

Loads of elements making up a unit

I loathe rules where you are supposed to be a divisional, corps or army commander and are also expected to shuffle ludicrously small components of a unit into shapes to represent some formation or other. At that level I have subordinates to take care of that. The combat factors should take account of formations. If the infantry roll a 1 and the cavalry a 6 then the infantry were caught still forming square - or whatever. Modern rulesets seem to increasingly use elements as units.

[sultanbev]

The biggest problem with modern rules for me (modern as in currently written, not just modern period) is combat resolution by single D6.

Real warfare wasn't measured in 16% intervals. Period. If you had a mere 5% advantage over your enemy, you'd probably win most of the time.
The advantages and disadvantages of differing circumstances are far more subtle than can be conveyed in a single D6 system. Any alleged wargame that uses a single D6 for combat resolution all the time is merely a game, not a wargame.

Most rules writers seem intent on converting real world probabilities to fit they dice they have fixated on. I do the opposite, I pick the dice type to the probability outcomes required, so use everything from D4 to D100, and get a much more nuanced game. D&D players are used to using multiple dice types, so it's not a problem for historical gamers. The other trick is to use the dice inversely for some circumstances, like BKC command rolls, where lower is better. That beats the cheaters who use loaded dice. Doesn't stop lucky gamers being lucky though  

Using dice in pairs is also good for probability representation.

I do hate saving rolls though. The player doing the damage should get to roll for the damage, it gives agency to his shot/firing/charge. And this is an important part of rules writing, giving agency, if you like, to players rolls. Then if you fail the damage roll, it's your own fault, eg your 88 bounced off that Sherman, for whatever reason, and the luck/probability hasn't been taken out of your hands.

The I-go-u-go methodology where one side moves everything then the other side moves everything is clearly past it's time, and rules like BKC, Black Powder, MeG, Bolt Action, Piquet? that have some kind of randomness is far better, even if in some cases the combat resolution suffers the single D6 disease.

It is a realilty that in battles at least a third of the troops were doing nothing at any one time, whilst others may be making herculean efforts (the so called impulse system in Napoleonics, or what is now multiple activations in some rules sets). So while it may be frustrating for wargamers with their god-like drone recce observation, the grunts on the ground had far less situational awareness. And a lot of these mechanisms are roundabout ways of achieving that.

[Raider4]

. . . The other trick is to use the dice inversely for some circumstances, like BKC command rolls, where lower is better.

Ahh, my personal bugbear. I love Warmaster and it's descendants, but that is just wrong.

Roll high for success, roll low for success. Don't care which is used in a game. But pick one. And stick to it.

That beats the cheaters who use loaded dice.

Oh, hadn't thought of that. Is that really a problem?

[mmcv]

Interesting discussion, something I've been thinking about a lot while developing my own rules.

I do like activations and the potential chaos they bring but dislike the arbitrary nature of them at times. I've gone with a bit if a hybrid. The number of activations you get is unknown, but when you do get one you can choose which commander to activate, so can focus on the important areas. Each unit in the activated command may move freely, but then there's a random element on top that allows for extra movement or bonuses, again making the player decide how to focus their attention to get the most out of their forces.

I'm also in the consistent highs good, lows bad camp. I don't mind the context switch too much, but do prefer if it's all one way.

I've also gone with a 2d6/1d6 system to allow a bit of variety. 2d6 are used for things like loyalty and melee to allow a greater probability curve while single d6 used for things like charging and shock, where a much more "aggressive" result is needed. There's no saving throws as such, melee is an opposed roll with the victor getting to roll for shock impact that will weaken or rout the enemy making close combat pretty brutal.

I certainly find I like the idea of systems where your decisions are meaningful but they're tempered by the chaos of battle.

[fred.]

On the d6 for combat resolution - a lot of games vary this be varying the number of dice thrown. Whether or not this gives enough nuance probably depends on the rules and what they are trying to represent

In our home brew rules we moved to d10 to give more range for modifiers, but you end up being in danger of having so many modifiers no one can remember them.

There is one guy in our group who really struggles with polyhedral dice - he has no background in D&D - and really can't tell d8s and d10s apart. To the degree we always give him d8 of one colour and d10 of another.

[fsn]

Of the three issues I mentioned, my least favourite is activations. Mostly because it takes the illogical view that subunits are incapable of independent action, and subunit commanders incapable of independent thought.  I may be the most thick-headed Royalist general, but Prince Rupert ain't gonna stand still for no-one.

Make it interesting. Units have their orders, or they do what they think they should because they have no orders. This depends upon their commanders, and the character of their commanders.


Take my example of a colonel defending a hill. His orders are to keep the enemy off that hill. If he sees an opportunity to take that church would he? Well, if he was a hothead or a glory hunter or just incredibly green he might. If he were cautious he may pass up that opportunity to possibly take a key position and so swing the course of the battle. His "activation" is affected by a number of things. The presence of a brigadier effectively take activation out of the colonel's control. the General, some distance away exerts remarkably little control.

The fact that the General is concerned about his other flank being attacked by Cuirassiers would have little bearing on the Colonel viewing that church. On this basis the general 5 activation points is, IMHO,  meaningless.    

How about a rule that allows the opposition to attempt to activate a unit? The enemy could choose to tempt the Colonel into attacking the church in the hopes of his attack failing and so tearing a hole in the line?

[sultanbev]

Ah, I must admit, I do activations slightly differently. I roll for a unit, in effect, to see if has received orders, rather than to see if a HQ has sent an order. Slightly different. So, in essence each unit commander has a rating against which he can roll. This then represents them having their own initiative, or not. It could also represent the alacrity with which the unit responds to a higher command order. So we don't bother with the -1 per 20cm or whatever distance from the commander. If the unit succeeds in it's activation roll, it gets another go at the -1, and so on. However once that unit fails it's roll, the play then switches to the other side. If two players fail their first rolls in sequence, or one passes and the other fails, the turn ends.

So we have the chance that you can activate every unit, with the added 'pressure' of neither side will know when that turn will end, so you don't actually know if you will get to activate all your units in a turn, and yet you have the chance of a unit doing something spectacular occasionally; and play alternates by unit during a turn, but units have the possibility of doing multiple activations. This is for WW2/modern. but could be applied to your scenario.

For our Napoleonics we have 3 levels of randomness. THe total number of commands you have (brigades, divisions, corps, armies) determines how many playing cards you get, starting from 2 aces and 2 twos. Each pip is a brigade activation. However, you shuffle your deck, and place your cards face down next to the divisonal, corps and army HQs. SO you could load heavily a lot of cards into one division, or spread them evenly across the force, but you don't know that turn how much you'll get to activate. The total number of pips allows you to move each brigade 1.5 times on average. A Joker is included in each deck, which allows you to activate a whole division.
The 2nd level of random is generated by a second full deck of cards, a control deck shuffled and face down, one side is red, t'other black, and that determines who goes next. Runs of 3-6 cards in one colour are not unknown!
The 3rd level of random is we use Fire & Fury rules to dice individual movement, so sometimes you'll get a unit that is slower than the rest, or one that refuses to budge.

When it's your go determined by the control deck, you pick a command card from one of your piles, and that's how many brigades you activate that phase within that division. A corps or army card allows you to activate brigades from across their force, for example to carry out a combined attack by parts of two divisions, but we limit them to two cards per Corps or Army HQ if they are average, one if they are poor, three if they are exceptional. DHQs can have unlimited number of cards. But you D10 under the F&F system each battalion to see if it does what you want. This is a particular attribute of the F&F system as morale and disorder is factored into the roll in a neat way, there are no separate morale tests.

[fsn]

When it's your go determined by the control deck, you pick a command card from one of your piles, and that's how many brigades you activate that phase within that division.

That's the mechanism I don't understand. I have a brigade of three battalions. I order them to advance. Two do, the other one doesn't. Why? Let's shoot that colonel and the major can move his unit. Even if I am with the right hand unit, I would expect the left hand unit to advance in line with the other two. Again, if it doesn't shoot the colonel and get the major to take control.

There is a certain logic in units not receiving orders up until WWII-ish, but the thought of an M1 platoon not being able to communicate with the squadron commander would be a rare exception.     

[Westmarcher]

What is a "modern" ruleset? Are they rules that have been released after a certain date? Given that I've been wargaming for over 50 years, perhaps we could categorise them into "old school," "middle school" and "new school?" I'm also puzzled by some comments on so-called "modern" rules - e.g., some rules that I would consider "modern," actually allow the actions that "modern" rules are being criticised for not allowing. To help focus the discussion further, perhaps it would be better to define what a "modern" rules set is first or simply confine the discussion to features from quoted, specific rules to criticise or praise?

[p.s. I don't like Saving Throws. That would be "old school." (Simultaneous movement may also be considered as such?)
I don't like complicated rules - the type when it was the rage to write rules that sought to portray the most accurate simulation of warfare ever. That would be "middle school."  Slick, fast play but in keeping with the features of the period would be what I would consider "new school."]

[sultanbev]

The lack of movement might be a morale thing, the regiment being slow to pick up their packs, or the ground is muddier or rougher than expected, or they all have dodgy engines or the crews are famished. or the regiment is tired or reluctant, or the colonel of the regiment has to explain his orders twice to his dimwitted major, or his O-group has too many questions asked, or the company captains are having trouble keeping the ranks dressed.

Whatever, it reflects the random variables of war, which according to most participants is chaos interspersed with moments of clarity rather than the other way round.
No doubt the slow unit will catch up next activation/next turn.

In the F&F version, if your unit is fresh, in command radii of competent brigadier and DHQ the worst you can do is move half rate for that phase. But then the movement rates are generous compared to most other rules, so racing off at full speed isn't always a good idea anyway. Unsupported units generally get punished in F&F.

As for moderns era, the CV rating is as much about the OODA loop i think it is called, reflecting how quickly units react to changes of circumstance as it is about technology of the comms system.