Saturday 1 August 2020

Rules and Rule Changes

I have been musing for a while about how wargamers treat rules. When I returned to historical wargaming after a break (the usual reasons – role-playing games, young ladies whose interest in battles was limited, getting a job and so on) I found that the terrain (so to speak) had changed. Before historical wargaming was Ancient Rules 6th edition by WRG, Renaissance rules by George Gush (also WRG, of course), Tercio and the like. After it was all DBA, DBM and the impact was spreading.

It took me a while to get my head around what was going on. This probably was not helped by my lack of interaction with other wargamers. As a long-distance commuter I could not manage a club evening, and weekends were spent doing things I could not do of an evening, such as spending time with my family. Still, slowly I got my head around what was going on and joined the DBM email list.

What was going on there rather surprised me. The content related to competitive gaming was high, which I had never encountered before, but the arguments generated over the rules and the interpretation of the rules were, shall we say, intense. This, to me, was a rather remarkable observation, but reflection upon it suggested rather strongly that it was linked to competition gaming and gamers, some of whom were trying to wring every ounce of advantage for their chosen troops that they could, despite such aspects as common sense, historical accuracy and what the rule actually said being pointed out to them.

This whole set of arguments went rather against my grain. I had never, so far as I could recall, really read any rules in such detail. I regarded (and still regard) rules as being a guideline as to what can happen on the table. If you will, a set of wargame rules is a grammar of wargaming, yielding a sort of playing field upon which the concepts of a particular wargame can be played.

I dare say that in a competitive game rules have to be much tighter, and interpretations much more closely regulated. I do recall a set of such regulations being circulated which, if I am any judge, were as long as the original rules. It does rather, in my view, point to a problem and that problem is not just my total lack of competitiveness.

The problem is that, just as a grammar can only provide guidelines, so a set of wargame rules can only provide the framework for a battle. It is impossible to write a rule set which covers every possible contingency on the table. Under pressure, it seems, from competitive gamers, DBM attempted to do so, but it was a thankless task. Changes to the rules were made, of course, each of which caused howls of rage from those who felt themselves hard done by and demands for more from those who benefitted.

Thus, when I came to write some rules myself, I rather reacted against the whole idea of comprehensive and precise rule sets. We relied on the common sense of the players and the friendly and non-competitive aspects of wargaming. These are, I think, much more widespread than the ‘rules lawyer’ approach I had encountered. That is not to say, of course, that it does not come with its own problems.

I am still a bit surprised that users of wargame rules tend to stick to what they see as the letter of the rules, rather than the spirit. As noted, a wargame rule set cannot (I think it is a logical cannot) cover every contingency and the user of the rules will have to interpolate a set of interpretations between what the rules say and what is on the table. This, of course, will vary from player to player and is usually where arguments start (an advantage for us solo players, of course). But the writers of rule sets can only go so far in specifying what happens. Even DBM, which tries to do so, lands up with convoluted sentences which say something like ‘X’s recoil from Y’s unless supported by Z’s or flee unless condition A or B pertains.’ At which point the wargamer realises X is fighting a Y and a Z and condition C applies which is not covered.

Overall, I reacted against such rules and just gave general outlines of what was to happen. This meant, of course, that the rules were deemed unsatisfactory by many who were used, perhaps, to the apparent comprehensiveness of other rule sets. So be it – we did not write Polemos for comprehensiveness or competitiveness. We did write the rules to provide what we thought was a reasonably historical game, putting the players in the position of historical generals. Whether we succeeded is, of course, a matter largely of taste.

The other point pertains to changing the rules. I have recently had reason to rethink the skirmishing rules in my Counter-Reformation rules (I am still pondering, by the way). Having recently been reading Oman, the point has recurred that horse archers went down to steady infantry archery, as the range of the latter is longer. Under the rules as they stood, horse archery skirmishing range was 4 base widths while foot archery range was 2. The horse archers were pretty well immune from foot archery.

This does not seem to be a problem in the ancients’ rules (because foot archery was not a great feature of the armies of the time, I suppose) but it does seem to be one in the later period. So I have reduced horse skirmishers range to two base widths so the archers can shoot back. On the other hand, I have reduced mounted charge ranges as well, as, as you might have seen in one of two of the Reconquista battles, the gendarmes can charge (3 base widths) and can catch unwary horse archers. So that has been reduced to 2 base widths as well.

There may well be unexpected consequences of this, which I am only just starting to explore. But the rules do seem to be fairly modular, so tinkering with one of the models should not have too much of an impact on others. But isn’t tinkering with rules more fun than arguing about them?


10 comments:

  1. I participated in a good number of WRG 7th Edition competitions as both a player and umpire. The main problem that I saw was that the rules writing was poor. I never took to DBM, but do like DBA and its derivatives. I favour historical games for Napoleonic, ACW and WW2, but I am happy with point based competition games for Ancients/Medieval although I do find games between armies from the same epoch work best.

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    1. I did find that reading WRG rules out loud, in an English accent with due respect for commas did help. not solve everything, but it did help.

      There is of course a case for arguing that all wargames are fantasy anyway, so historical match ups are also a fiction. On the other hand, the more historical the match up, the better the game seems.

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  2. The main problem with DBA and its ilk was that Phil would never use a chart when long run-on sentences would do, not did he understand what a semi-colon was for! I expereinced a player trying to charge me with his prone Pathans because the "rules didn't say that he couldn't"!!

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    1. I suppose that everyone has their tastes in writing as well as playing rules. And everyone tries to win a game (except solo gamers, I suppose, and I'm not sure about them!).

      I recall a review of WRG 1685-1815 (or whatever the era was) where a Russian infantry formation was within however many moves of French cavalry. the French commander claimed the Russians should be shaken, even though they didn't have line of sight. Rule sets cannot cover everything, I think.

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  3. "The problem is that, just as a grammar can only provide guidelines, so a set of wargame rules can only provide the framework for a battle. It is impossible to write a rule set which covers every possible contingency on the table. Under pressure, it seems, from competitive gamers, DBM attempted to do so, but it was a thankless task."

    I guess that Chess and Go have rules which cover every possible contingency. I expect that some of the hybrid games (Commands & Colors, Space Hulk, the Portable Wargame) would make very good competition rules. Maybe the problem is in trying to make competition-tight rules from rules which have to be more like guidelines because of the complexity of possible interactions between figures and terrain without grids.

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    1. Yes, chess has a limited number of options and outcomes, so can have water tight rules - however, official chess tournament rules are quite lengthy, and I'm old enough to remember arguments about the colour of yogurt delivered to world championship contestants...

      The problem is exactly in the free form and flow of a wargame, I think. Chess, after all, is extremely complex but much more tightly defined than a wargame.

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  4. Your last sentence hits the nail on the head, I think. Competition rules lawyers arguing over the text presumably only want to 'win' at all costs, and aren't really concerned with the history ( especially if leading Macedonians against Vikings or whatever ). Surely the fun and interest should be 'does this feel plausible, and if not, what do we need to tweak?'

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    1. I suppose that there are people who want to win at whatever, and some who simply like the history, or the army. One of the most successful competition gamers I was aware of also liked his medieval French and knew a lot about them. It can work I guess but often becomes competitive. At least competition gamers probably wouldn't gain by taking drugs....

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  5. Wargaming had Kriegsspiel as a forerunner and along with the use of umpires meant "rules" were just guidelines. I don't think it was ever thought as a competition game except as what occurred with a single game.

    My interest has always been wargames as a simulation 60% and game 40% and also a way to use figure/model collections and learn a bit about history, geography and leadership.

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    1. I think it is a matter of taste. I have two main areas of play - early modern and ancient. I know a bit about the former due to years of reading, and am getting a bit more familiar with the latter. I seem to spend most of my time reading and painting rather than playing, however. I'm trying to rebalance that.

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