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Given the choice what would you rather play?

A game where the figures and terrain look great and the playability is just ok
A game where the figures and terrain are just ok and the playability is great

Author Topic: What's more important - Looks or Playability?  (Read 4969 times)

Offline Dan55

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #15 on: March 07, 2019, 09:52:16 AM »
Either I have not understood the question, or some other people haven't.

Assuming it's not about the rules, I would have trouble choosing.

The looks of the table & terrain are central to the idea that you're watching a story unfold.  If the table looks like you slapped some felt down, then it's hard to believe you're looking at anything but some toys on a table.

But if the fabulous terrain is getting in the way of the game play, and you can't place your figures where you want them, then you're not going to get a great experience anyway.

So I think the game is paramount.  After all, if you want great visuals you can always watch a movie.  So I vote for game.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 09:58:41 AM by Dan55 »

Offline Daeothar

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #16 on: March 07, 2019, 10:40:35 AM »
Interesting question; it delves into the root of why one became involved with this hobby in the first place.

I myself am first and foremost a modeler and painter. It's because I had been building plastic model kits for almost a decade before I actually got involved in miniature gaming. So that was my basis, so to speak.

Therefore, I feel a good looking table and (well) painted miniatures are important for me to really immerse into the game and narrative, but I fully get the idea that beautiful terrain ought to be playable as well.

To be honest, I've not come across any instances of beautiful terrain that was hampering gameplay (and I really tried to come up with examples), but I do recall many a situation where bad or mediocre terrain actually did.

Which lead me to the following thought; when creating beautiful terrain, most people will give it a lot of thought beforehand, taking all kinds of factors into consideration, because they want to go the whole nine yards, and playability is one of those factors. Whereas quickly thrown together terrain, made just because it's required in the game, will most likely not have had that much thought put into it.

Personally, I do not like to play on terrain that is populated just by monolithic blocks of (barely) painted foam (even though I did many times, at tournaments). Especially when laid out to make the games as balanced as possible (by mirroring the terrain for both players).

This takes all the narrative out of the game, making it more and more abstract, until we end up playing Go or Chess. Nothnig wrong with either of those great games, but they do not pretend to be miniatures games; they have abstracted warfare down to mathematical levels, and that has nothing to do with miniature wargaming as we know it.

So; (to me) nice terrain is an essential part of the hobby, but playability is also a must. I therefore am withholding my vote, as I am so solidly on the fence, I can almost taste it.

But I would not want to withhold you the joys of this one table I played on last Poldercon; Assassino. It was also present at Crisis 2018, and it is a shining example of combining both points of view into one coherent whole. The table is simply beautiful, but also ultimately playable, as the builder took a lot of care to keep a balance between both requirements. All the houses have interiors (most on multiple levels), the joining of parts of the table are cleverly hidden in terrain features, and the icing on the cake, even though it was not within the scope of this discussion, the (homegrown) rules were really enjoyable too.

A true masterpiece which shows that the two points are absolutely not mutually exclusive...
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 10:45:18 AM by Daeothar »
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Offline jon_1066

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #17 on: March 07, 2019, 10:44:49 AM »
I would vote C.  Get the look as good as I can in the limits of storage, budget, ability, time, etc.  If I was designing a piece of terrain it should take into account how it will be used in the game.  eg I built a castle but made sure the walkways were wide enough to place figures on.  It didn't have doors that could open as that was too difficult so I have to use markers to indicate smashed in doors.  It is modular so there are noticeable joints between towers and walls but that means I can use it for many different set ups.

Things that jar the most to me are hills too steep to place figures on and movement tray full of troops perched on top of a building.

Offline Hammers

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #18 on: March 07, 2019, 10:59:05 AM »
This is a bona fide false dichotomy if I have ever seen one.

Offline jon_1066

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #19 on: March 07, 2019, 11:49:33 AM »
I would say it's not.  Take a wood.  Sometimes what looks best is worst for playability.  eg lots of densely packed trees that are fixed in place but you are limited in where you can place figures in it.  How do you solve that problem but still look good?  Where you lie on this spectrum will guide how you approach it.  You could mark the wood with a flat piece of card or show the extents with a piece of cloth with a few trees.  Or do you have movable trees that are then fiddly and subject to damage.  There is no one solution.

Offline gweirda

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #20 on: March 07, 2019, 12:25:54 PM »
Quote
To be honest, I've not come across any instances of beautiful terrain that was hampering gameplay...

An example would be a (28mm)model of a wall with a well-flocked/modeled base that may be 10-15mm wide: A very nice piece of terrain to look at for sure.  Put a few figures on the usual 25-30mm bases (also beautifully flocked) with it and each look fine.  Unfortunately, the closest they can stand to the wall is (for this example using the CoC ground scale of 25mm=10ft) around 6 or 7 feet, which expands the footprint of all the terrain (like blowing up a balloon) which -because of the ground scale influence on movement, weapon, command ranges- impacts the size of the area being represented on the tabletop. Before rolling a single die the beautiful terrain and figures have warped the battlefield. The impact is not as great on a mostly open landscape, but adds up quickly with a lot of features on the table.

Now add a game where you want your men behind the wall to gain cover from MG fire. Because of the bases only 3 or 4 can fit behind a 40ft section of wall. Does the terrain dictate that the other men of the section simply stand in the open?  You can cram/overlap the figs to fit and/or simply state that the entire section is gaining cover (ie: the tabletop does not represent the action) which hinders/diminishes the gain of using terrain/figs in the first place.


Quote
...nice terrain is an essential part of the hobby, but playability is also a must... the two points are absolutely not mutually exclusive...

I agree completely.


As posted earlier: For me the issue hinges on what is being modeled on the gaming tabletop.


Quote
Where you lie on this spectrum will guide how you approach it...There is no one solution.

Agreed. Whatever spot chosen should make the game fun for you, that's all that really matters.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 12:30:08 PM by gweirda »

Offline Daeothar

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #21 on: March 07, 2019, 01:24:11 PM »
An example would be a (28mm)model of a wall with a well-flocked/modeled base that may be 10-15mm wide: A very nice piece of terrain to look at for sure.  Put a few figures on the usual 25-30mm bases (also beautifully flocked) with it and each look fine.  Unfortunately, the closest they can stand to the wall is (for this example using the CoC ground scale of 25mm=10ft) around 6 or 7 feet, which expands the footprint of all the terrain (like blowing up a balloon) which -because of the ground scale influence on movement, weapon, command ranges- impacts the size of the area being represented on the tabletop. Before rolling a single die the beautiful terrain and figures have warped the battlefield. The impact is not as great on a mostly open landscape, but adds up quickly with a lot of features on the table.

Now add a game where you want your men behind the wall to gain cover from MG fire. Because of the bases only 3 or 4 can fit behind a 40ft section of wall. Does the terrain dictate that the other men of the section simply stand in the open?  You can cram/overlap the figs to fit and/or simply state that the entire section is gaining cover (ie: the tabletop does not represent the action) which hinders/diminishes the gain of using terrain/figs in the first place.

Oh, absolutely; I'm not stating there is no beautiful terrain that is not hampering gaming, just that I've not had the (dis?)pleasure of playing on it. And the example you sketch is obviously tipping the scales to the side of looks, as opposed to playability.

With the rules set you used in your example that is...

Because even though rules were not in the equation originally, maybe we can now state that a chosen rules set is of import, when it comes to determining playability. Taking cover for instance; many modern rules will state that a miniature is in cover when in X range of a certain intervening piece of terrain (of Y height). With those rules, the described wall, with its base, will create an issue. But there are older rules sets, which use true line of sight, when determining if a miniature is in cover yes or no. With those rules, the base of the wall may have a lot less impact on game play.

So just as much as we cannot see the looks of the terrain separate from the setting of a game, the construction of the terrain cannot be separated from the rules set the terrain is constructed for.

Possibly meaning that using universal scenery pieces might actually create game play issues, if the rules sets used with them are too far apart in their use of terrain...

Offline Harry Faversham

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #22 on: March 07, 2019, 03:52:07 PM »
These days we tend to play more skirmish games than anything else. So i clutter up the table with plenty of terrain pieces and cover. It looks great and you can always find a space to roll a one!

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Offline Bergil

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #23 on: March 07, 2019, 03:59:18 PM »
Both!

But if it came down to it, I'd rather play a good game with bits of fluff than a bad one with pieces of art.

Offline FramFramson

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #24 on: March 07, 2019, 05:40:33 PM »
You can always have both, it just requires more of an investment of time per game, whether that's because you personally have to spend more time creating terrain or painting figures or simply have to work more hours to afford a nicer product.

Just don't ask me how much I paid to get an all-in pledge for Anno Domini 1666...  ::)


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Offline gweirda

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #25 on: March 07, 2019, 09:12:30 PM »
Quote
...or simply have to work more hours to afford a nicer product.

Just don't ask me how much I paid to get an all-in pledge for Anno Domini 1666...  ::)

...or what you did to earn the money?   ;)

Offline Dr DeAth

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #26 on: March 07, 2019, 09:16:03 PM »

But if the fabulous terrain is getting in the way of the game play, and you can't place your figures where you want them, then you're not going to get a great experience anyway.


Ah, no,  I didn't mean games where terrain was hindering the placement of the figures, I was just curios that if one had to make a choice (and I do understand that it's possible to do both) between

1.  A great looking game that was tedious to play
2.   A table full of felt squares for terrain that was exciting and interesting to play

Which one would people choose.

Kind of binary really.  :D

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Offline gweirda

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #27 on: March 07, 2019, 10:12:34 PM »
Oh...

Offline Mindenbrush

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #28 on: March 08, 2019, 02:22:28 AM »
I run games at home, at our local gaming shop and at Historicon, I try to make the games pleasing on the eye and enjoyable so attention to detail and playability is important.
I have friends who have well painted figures witt basic terrain but enjoyable rulesets so for me I can overlook the terrain and have a good game.

I have 2 worst evers - a small convention in a north American state where terrain was the packing from tv sets and unpainted plastics, the second was my favourite convention where Picketts Charge was represented by a green sheet laid over plywood sheet and the forces represented by blue and grey fluff balls.................. :?
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Offline warlord frod

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Re: What's more important - Looks or Playability?
« Reply #29 on: March 08, 2019, 07:31:22 AM »
At the end of the day playability is the thing. However I think that care should be given to the look of the game. I have played great games on felt covered foam blocks that still looked good. I have also played games on tables that looked like movie sets that were zero fun. We are gamers after all so fun interesting games are as I said the whole point.