"Generic" rulesets vs "complete games"

[Gabbi]

Wait. I need to make a step back, now. It seems to me that the discussion has moved from debating the pros and cons of the two approaches (hope term is appropriate) to wargaming to bashing the "closed" systems cause they're the paramount of all evil. Putting me, who like to discuss, in the role of defending them, to keep the discussion rolling. While I'm in the process, as stated in the very first post, to add more and more "generic" rulesets to my gaming nights. So I'm not very comfortable in this role, as I've said I'm growing tired of the restrictions imposed by closed systems.
 That the replies would have been in favor of open systems is something I would had expected (just look at any section would make evident that the community is almost entirely focused on open systems). Nonetheless, some statement seems a bit unfair to me.

This said, keep comments coming, lots of stuff and points of view to consider. Even if now I'm replying with my current view, your points will remain with me. I will eventually review them again in the future.

I have no problem holding to a specific game-verse aesthetic. I want a consistent look and feel to my games. (I also insist on painted miniatures and terrain) Then again, I'm always delighted when someone achieves that visual consistency and tone using a variety of seemingly disparate models. Or scratch-builds "unofficial", but compatible terrain. I recall someone modding Frostgrave to an Arabian-style desert setting. I thought that was fantastic. It captured my attention way more than the 'Frozen City' backdrop.  Then there was the HoTT army (DBA maybe?) made entirely out of rocks with painted faces.

I have already discussed this. If a coherent a easily recognizable army of alt models (also with a different theme) would be made I would have no proble to play against. Even more, I will be very delighted to do so. And, just to move from me to "general consensus", I think everyone will be. But this kind of project require a great amount of commitment. The majority of the games are played with official models.
Also, as I said, no problem with the occasional proxy (again, if it's fitting with the style and theme of the army).

Regarding 'Special Faction-Specific Rules': It's only a matter of time before Power Creep sets in, right? To keep the factions competitive and sell more and more of an ever expanding miniature range, eventually every army either gets a unit/leader/monster with a parallel ability, or some counter-feat that negates the opponent's special ability. This arms race grows exponentially until the first edition rules break under the weight of exceptions and the company forces a reboot with cool new 2nd edition. Oh and some snazzy new models/factions/leaders to go along with it. Lather - Rinse - Repeat.

This is true, but not entirely true. Let's talk Warmachine, ok? Is it true that with time every major faction is getting every option (everyone but Circle (atm) received one artillery piece, everyone got one Battle Engine and two Colossals/Gargantuans, two other Hordes factions (Skorne and Minions) got lesser warbeast, once exclusive of Legion, and so on... I'm amazed that Khador has not got light warjacks already).
BUT. But there are factions that has entirely new rules that are exclusive of their gameplay. Convergence jacks can pass focus from one to another, use MAT and RAT stats of their Warcaster and get one special ability from him. So their profile is actually changing depending on who leads them. Grymkin warlocks have no feats, but choose 3 "mini-feats" from a deck of cards. Infernals must sacrifice one trooper to refill Essence (ie Focus), their Horrors (jacks) can keep it from one turn to the following, but have to spend one each turn to remain in this plane of existence, they can bring new horrors into play (basically they're GW Daemons done better than GW Daemons, as their rules actually reflect their backstory).
These are things that I don't think you can achieve with "generic" rulesets (that in most cases don't have this level of detail to begin with).
Regarding balance, Warmachine is a weird beast. It is a very balanced and at the same time a very unbalanced game. Its factions (major and mini) are all balanced and can achieve victory, but within a single faction some builds/warcasters are widely better than others. This is inevitable with the catalog bloat, I fear.

I agree no one with access to a rule set would deliberately handicap themselves - in a competitive setting. But that's not the only kind of game, and even then players accept restrictions that are consistent with their models/faction. You choose Dwarves/Forge Fathers, a reasonable player expects they'll all be slow. That's more like flavoring than a hindrance.

This is lead to another discussion. Choosing who you play is way more important to choosing what to play in giving you a fun gaming experience (with "fun" acting as placeholder for exciting, pleasant, engaging, satisfying, whatever you look for into you games). And with the "right guy" every ruleset is the best one you can play. I deeply dislike Warmachine community, with his extrem focus on maximizing your list,  winning and possibly "steamrolling" the opponent. Ah, and the reject for 3D terrain in favor of flat shapes. But with a friend who likes to play as I like to, Warmachine is one of the best game I can play. Really love the rules and "attitude".
This said, even when we decide for a "for fun" game (shouldn't every game be for fun?*) and "we" is a small group of friend I keep close because they're the best I have met in the years, there's always someone who restricted himself less than others, because "this army plays this way" or any other reason. This to say that the separation of hindrance from flavoring could be at different points for different people.
*With "for fun" (literally, we say it in English) we mean casual games, backstory first.

[Coenus Scaldingus]

Beyond commercial strategies (and to an extent tournament play versus just doing what you want in your own home), I feel there may be a difference in immersion between the two approaches.

While it's probably not true for all cases, I might have a tendency to be more interested in games with a strongly defined aesthetic and setting for one-off games (including tournaments). You can come typically come up with reasons why the two warbands or armies are fighting each other; the known imaginative history and geography creating the backdrop for your game. In games that are played in whole campaigns, the former still works great (sometimes better, with map campaigns, in some cases perhaps worse if the progression makes it feel less like the setting), the characteristics of individual forces may not necessarily be as important in a campaign. Here, the story told over the series of games are enough to become attached to your fighters, having lost friends, defeated monsters and discovered treasures along the way. The fact that your force consists of WHFB High Elves, an opponent's of steampunk vampires and another's are ancient Macedonians may not make for much of a coherent setting, but you nonetheless have a real involvement in the games. With seemingly random factions, an enjoyable one-off game would require a particularly good set of rules to remain interesting, and even then I would likely switch it to become some specific setting. Vice versa, somewhat less interesting rules might be acceptable for games played for the setting, as long as they represent said setting well enough.

[Dentatus]

Sorry if it felt like I was jumping down your throat. I was only relating my preference for open systems and experiences/perceptions of closed ones.

TBH, I stopped paying much attention to closed games years ago for those very reasons, so I'm not qualified to make an informed comment on their current state. I certainly wouldn't/didn't say they were the 'paramount of all evil'. They're just not my thing. Lots of people play them, they certainly seem to sell - or the models do at least -  so what do I know?

It would be interesting to see a survey of long term gamers: What did they start with? What did they shift to? What do they play now? What games to they still play or play consistently through the years?

I wonder if we don't learn the bones of the hobby in a specific, closed system, then eventually - if we stick with it - move to broader accommodations.

[mcfonz]

I think in truth, there is no real such thing as a closed system. It just depends how you want to look at it.

I think the issue is that some companies want you to think their system is closed so you only use their product. But that is a bit different.

Depending upon where you are playing and who you are playing, you can use whatever miniatures you want to use.

However, if I am honest, I tend to prefer systems that cater for that a bit more. I like Necromunda as you can pretty much use any model you like as a hired scum or bounty hunter etc. You can proxy gangs easily enough, I use the Heresy miniatures trenchcoat gangers as Delaque for example.

I do find it tends to also go with genre's. Historical sets tend to be more open, but I guess that's because a WW2 US GI in late war gear isn't going to be massively different across companies. Though Bolt Action is a game by Warlord Games intended for use with their miniatures.

[jetengine]

I have to contest the ops notion that "Complete games" are better playtested. Gw is notoriously shabby at playtesting with some supplements requiring faqs days after release or even BEFORE release, Warmahordes is broken fairly quickly in each release cycle (when you foster a competitive attitude in your players then you better ensure your game is airtight), Malifauxs new edition is pretty much designed to deal with the last edition having multiple issues whilst Infinity is in a similar position.

[Gabbi]

I feel kinda of harsh tone of your post (but can't be sure because post on the internet and non native speaker) so will reply pretending you're interested into a discussion: the point is that publishers of "closed" games usually take into account that (some) players would try to maximize their army lists and put an effort in keeping their games balanced (yes, even GW), with various degrees of success. Most of "generic" rulesets don't have this kind of care, some don't even try, trusting that their players would not try to stretch the army building system and "break" the game.

That a player "should not" or that you play gentlemen only is not relevant. Putting more efforts in balancing and revising your game is a feature. And "closed" games usually are on a better spot in this aspect.

[Dentatus]

To be fair, noting balance weaknesses in some open rules sets - while true- doesn't negate the points jetengine raises.

But... side-stepping possible contention, I go back to the notion that while I firmly believe a company should put out a working, cohesive, coherent product, it's on me the gamer to have fun, to make it enjoyable. If a particular product is genuinely out of whack I can either exploit it, defend it, ditch it, or tweak it so it works for me and my group.

This is probably why I either tweak/house rule a few commercial games (or "improve" them as mentioned in another thread) or write my own - which I know aren't perfect and fully expect to be adapted. 

[Gabbi]

To be fair, noting balance weaknesses in some open rules sets - while true- doesn't negate the points jetengine raises.

Yeah, the point was they're usually more. I better worded my reply, now, to better express the concept.

[Hobgoblin]

First of all, you're making me willing to give HotT a second chance, that's not good: I already have too many projects running

I'd definitely recommend it! The fact that it uses frontages that are widely shared by other rulesets makes it a low-cost investment. I often base large RPG monsters for HotT so that they can be used as behemoths, dragons or gods in that game as well as for their primary purpose.

Regarding the Farrow-Orcs debate, sure they're similar, but Immoren (Warmachine setting) doesn't have orcs, so they will break the magic. As fantasy orcs in Flintloque would break the quasi-napoleonic setting, with chainmail and weapons built out of bones. It's not a wysiwyg issue (pretending savage orcs are armed with rifles would make things worse, of course), it's a matter of wanting to play in a given setting. Would you like to have the goofy AoS orcs in a LotR game? Or would you consider to play against an army of greek hoplites equipped with roman shields?

This is the bit I'm struggling to grasp. I mean, real Napoleon-era troops fought armies armed with primitive weapons, so having imaginary beings in pseudo-Napoleonic gear fighting monsters with primitive weapons seems fine to me. I think it would be easy to cook up an interesting scenario background for the game - and games that pit different technology levels against each other are lots of fun.

As for Middle Earth games, I was thinking a while back about creating some HotT armies for the Battle of the Five Armies. If you were to restrict yourself purely to the descriptions in The Hobbit, there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't use AoS orcs for that - and keep it 100% accurate to the book. The only real descriptions of the orcs there are "big" and "ugly", so the AoS orcs could work out fine. I'd enjoy seeing it done.

Regarding the "why do matching styles of figure matter in Infinity but not in SBH?" question, I never said it doesn't. Infinity has, along its rules, a defined look that I like and I would like it is kept in my games, in SBH we can choose whatever models we like, but I'd like there will be some consistency among them. I don't see me playing a realistic proportioined warband against a "chibi" one anytime soon.

Regarding your warband in WH:U, there's quite some difference in proxying 3 models, that have different stats but near no special rules (in Shadespire most models have none and some have just one) or in Warmachine where you field dozens of models and even the lowliest of trooper has a couple. Again, it's a matter of who play with. In may group we have some proxy / alt model, but they are few, we play often together and know these. So it's not an issue. A Warmachine army of proxy models would be a nightmare to play against.
For Shadespire I've seen warbands of beastmen used to proxy Bloodreavers, and Nurgle to proxy Stormcast. They're fine. Even more they're cool.

Regarding the Emperor's New Clothes part... I don't see the point. I mean I agree with you. I myself use models across different games, and change not only equipment: what in a game is a rat-ogre, in another could be a huge wasteland mutant.
Regarding the differences between MDRG and Infinity, Infinity has more "granularity". More different kind of weapons for example, and each one has a different and well defined look (as for bolters, shuriken pistols or plasma weapons in 40K). So using official models make easier to tell at a glance what a model is armed with.

I haven't ever played Infinity (though I have read through the rules), but surely the "telling apart" aspect is no different from any "open" system where you clarify what units are before the game: "These are spears and these are warband" or "these are heavy foot and these are bellicose foot with shiny armour" or "the ones with bolters count as auto-rifles and the shuriken catapults count as laser rifles". I don't think any real difficulty is likely to arise.

I mean, I've played MDRG, Rogue Stars, Fubar, Kill Team and Galactic Heroes doing exactly that, with no problems. So I can't see it's a practical objection rather than an aesthetic one. And if it's purely aesthetic, it's not really any different from preferring nicely painted miniatures to indifferently painted ones.

Putting more efforts in balancing and revising your game is a feature. And "closed" games usually are on a better spot in this aspect.

I don't know how you'd quantify this, but is it really true? Certainly, my experience is that the best-balanced games are the ones where everyone has access to the same troop types. There are lots of those games: HotT, Dragon Rampant, Saga, Sword & Spear, Battlesworn, FUBAR and Frostgrave, to name a few. Saga and Frostgrave have some differentiation through the battleboards and magic schools, but 'special effects'/magic aside, everyone chooses from the same troop types.

I'd say the defining feature of those games, relative to the 'closed' ones, is that their rulesets are very stable. I don't think there are any plans for new editions of any of the Rampant series, and HotT has had just two editions (with almost no rule changes) in its lifespan of nearly 30 years. Saga has a second edition, and Frostgrave is getting one, but they're still considerably more stable than their 'closed' competitors. I think that's because the closed systems are driven by the commercial imperative and almost inevitably mutate and 'break' under the weight of (commercially driven) add-ons.

Now, I'd agree with you that certain build-your-own-profile skirmish games with lots of abilities can have balance issues. An entirely Savage warband in SoBH can be hard to deal with, for example, which is why that trait was limited to personalities in ASoBH. But I think that's less an 'open vs closed' thing than down to the difficulty of accurately accounting for possibilities in a 'build-your-own' system. The number of potential profiles in SoBH must run into the hundreds of thousands at least (certainly if you include the extensions), so it shouldn't be a surprise that some combinations can be more value for points than others.

But I'd make two points about that. First, SoBH and FoL and the like are designed for fun. They're not tournament games (in the way that HotT can be). So the fact that their points systems can be gamed is neither here nor there. When I play those games, I typically design all the warbands and let my opponent(s) choose which one they want to play. I think that's what Andrea Sfiligoi does too. It works really well. So the fact that they allow for an almost infinite range of unit types is a strength, not the weakness it could be in a competitive game.

Second, the real test of open vs closed is with games that are designed to be watertight rulesets suitable for tournament play. And here, I think, the open games (like HotT) tend to do better. I don't think I've ever seen people complain about combinations that 'break' HotT, and armies fielded in tournament tend to be highly heterogenous. If there's a winning combination, no one's worked it out in 28 years. But in the 'closed' games, there seems to be lots of complaining about 'game-breaking' combos or 'overpowered' troop types. And there do seem to be optimal choices from certain army lists. And I assume that's why those games seem to be in constant flux (as others have said above).

Again, this is a really fun discussion - so many thanks for starting it!

[jetengine]

I feel kinda of harsh tone of your post (but can't be sure because post on the internet and non native speaker) so will reply pretending you're interested into a discussion: the point is that publishers of "closed" games usually take into account that (some) players would try to maximize their army lists and put an effort in keeping their games balanced (yes, even GW), with various degrees of success. Most of "generic" rulesets don't have this kind of care, some don't even try, trusting that their players would not try to stretch the army building system and "break" the game.

That a player "should not" or that you play gentlemen only is not relevant. Putting more efforts in balancing and revising your game is a feature. And "closed" games usually are on a better spot in this aspect.

Except they dont. Matt Ward himself admitted GW asked him to make Grey Knights broken (obviously for sales reasons). Generic rulesets dont do that because they dont have a figure range to support so dont manipulate rules and stats for sales.

[mcfonz]

Most of "generic" rulesets don't have this kind of care, some don't even try, trusting that their players would not try to stretch the army building system and "break" the game.

That a player "should not" or that you play gentlemen only is not relevant. Putting more efforts in balancing and revising your game is a feature. And "closed" games usually are on a better spot in this aspect.

I don't agree. I think there are more variables at play than that. A lot about a game can depend upon who you play, what group you play with.

For example, my Necromunda group has several house rules we all discussed and agreed on. That said, where does Necrmunda fall within these two 'camps'? Is it closed or is it open? I would say it's bang in the middle. It's an RPG wargame so it is intended to be a starting point you can create stuff from.

Then there is SAGA. It's open. You can use any miniatures you like, the company that produces the rules doesn't sell miniatures. It's arguably one of the most balanced systems out there.

I think the variable I think is missing more than anything else in this discussion is the intent of the game. 'Balancing' only really matters if you are wanting 'competitive' games rather than narrative driven games.

[Gabbi]

Except they dont. Matt Ward himself admitted GW asked him to make Grey Knights broken (obviously for sales reasons). Generic rulesets dont do that because they dont have a figure range to support so dont manipulate rules and stats for sales.

Oh. The same Matt Ward that fu**ed up 40K background, wrote the worst codexes in 40K history and was the main cause for GW decided to stop putting codexes author's name in books? What an authoritative source. Also, I believe he said so only once he left the company.

Seriously, that was a terrible period for GW. It's when they (deservedly) earned the fame of industry's a**holes, by dispensing C&D letters like confetti. An image that still persists in many hobbysts' heads, notwithstanding the efforts in changing this attitude by quite a few years now (I'd say sometimes after the first release of AoS).

Also, I find quite amusing the claims that the new stuff is always the better: the average GW fan would buy in anyway the new shiny stuff, so why bother?
Maybe I'm naive, but I think that the lack of balance in their games is due to the fact that they're a model company before than a game company (they always refer to "the hobby" in their communication, not to "games"), but it seems to me they actually try, with faqs twice per year and one major revision per year.

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Balance is not achieved by the system, but by the players. Any rules system is susceptible of being broken. It is only a matter of how hard powergamers try to break it. "Open" systems have, usually, smaller followings than "closed" systems —which have the support of dedicated miniatures and a company that cares to expand their system as much as they can. In "open" systems the critical mass of powergamers devoted to break the system is insufficient to achieve that goal, except if the system itself has such a glaring potholes that even a blind man can find them! And even if they do, it is locally —in a gaming club— and the word rarely spread (see exception above, though.

To be more clear: few, if any, players that select Beneath the Lily Banners as their rules of choice would bother to read the rules so thoroughly as to find any hole in the rules that they can use in their benefit. On the other hand, for example, Warhammer 40.000 has a mass of followers that it is big enough to create the critical mass of powergamers that will squeeze the rules until they reveal their point of rupture, and then will proceed to diseminate the information in the Internet.

It is about scale, not internal balance. In my opinion.

[Hobgoblin]

I think the variable I think is missing more than anything else in this discussion is the intent of the game. 'Balancing' only really matters if you are wanting 'competitive' games rather than narrative driven games.

That's an excellent point. Many of the most enjoyable games I've in played have been deliberately unbalanced. That's why I see the points systems of SBH, etc., as as much a means of achieving an unbalanced game as of achieving a balanced one.

And, as I argued above, 'balance' is a virtual impossibility in an RPGish system with thousands and thousands of potential profiles (maths isn't my strong point, but SBH gives you 36 combinations based on the C and Q traits alone, even before you start multiplying those by the potential combinations of dozens of traits).

I know I'm labouring the point somewhat on HotT, but it's an open system that works well for competitive games yet seems to produce zero complaints about 'game-breaking' combinations. And it also offers the potential for (I guess) thousands of differently structured armies. And (barring the warband/shooter movement swap), its rules haven't needed to be changed over almost three decades. Which a 'closed' game offers the same degree of stability and resilience?

[Hobgoblin]

Balance is not achieved by the system, but by the players. Any rules system is susceptible of being broken. It is only a matter of how hard powergamers try to break it.

I agree with your general point, but what's the game-breaking army in Hordes of the Things? In a game that's still widely played in tournaments almost 30 years after its publication, I'd have thought that the "killer combo" would have emerged by now if there is one!