What are the Top Things that Attract You to a Rules System?

[ChrisBBB]

Now what game could possibly have those three present? 

I'm waiting on my order to arrive having been introduced to your rules at a club night last week.

As Clausewitz might say, these are just universal principles that should apply to all games, even if these principles are based on experience of real-life examples (he said piously) - including experience of far too many games that failed to observe them ... 

Thanks for your order and I'm glad you must have found some things about the rules system to attract you to it. My compliments to whatever enlightened person introduced you to it. Which club, may I ask?

Chris

[DivisMal]

Now what game could possibly have those three present? 

I'm waiting on my order to arrive having been introduced to your rules at a club night last week.

If you’re looking for skirmish games SoBH and its offsprings are very close to that ideal.

[Easy E]

- Fast-moving enough to present significant tactical decisions every turn and to finish a game in a 3- to 4-hour club night

- Plausibly representing whatever combat it is supposed to represent

- The right mix of luck and skill so that chance can create surprises (unpleasant or otherwise), while still rewarding good plans and tactics

As you know, these concepts are simple.... but not easy to make happen on the tabletop for the majority of players.   

[nou]

Many good points all around and it’s interesting how totally different expectations there are. Personally, I’m into wargaming for three reasons - the spectacle, mental fitness and manual hobby. So, my three cents:

- Interesting setting and aesthetics. I don’t play historicals, so your game must stand out from the crowd of samey fantasy/sci-fi/cyberpunk tropes. Either with the story, models or both. If you don’t intend to release your own model line, you should still show me compelling vision via conversions, so I can spend unreasonable amounts of time building myself a pair of armies and fully fledged table in proper aesthetics. Turnip28 is a great example of how to do it.

- Interesting and efficient math. I’m a long time Bridge player and my brain has been deeply formatted to take pleasure from reading the „battlefield” well enough, so that my predictions about the flow of the game are spot on. So no gotcha mechanics of any kind, no special abilities that break common rules (they may bend them however, if your game does not have 8000 unique units in it to memorize). But on the other hand, if all your units are just rehashes of the same pool of basic stats, then I’ll quickly become bored. Resolution mechanic itself should at the same time have the capacity to handle full range of input-result pairs and be quick enough to resolve. So no buckets of dice rolled 6-8 times for a single event, but also no single d6 rolls of X+.

- Last, but not least, it has to have replayability aimed at small and closed groups. Let’s not fool ourselves - if you are not a fully grown company that has the money to invest heavily in marketing and logistics, your game will be niche of a niche. There will be no tournaments, no widespread playerbase and no pick-up culture. Just isolated pockets of friends here and there. If your replayability must come from large pool of different armies, playstyles and opponents, then it is only good as a one-off on a convention for me, not worth the trouble of building armies and terrain for it.

So here it is. I would also take this opportunity to say hi! to everyone, as this is my first post on this forum.

[tikitang]

So here it is. I would also take this opportunity to say hi! to everyone, as this is my first post on this forum.

Welcome, nou.

I dig your Nox Arcana Necronomicon album cover avatar!

[nou]

Welcome, nou.

I dig your Nox Arcana Necronomicon album cover avatar!

All credits for that go to whomever set up this forum, as it is one of the many, many, many standard ones available when signing up.

[jon_1066]

As Clausewitz might say, these are just universal principles that should apply to all games, even if these principles are based on experience of real-life examples (he said piously) - including experience of far too many games that failed to observe them ... 

Thanks for your order and I'm glad you must have found some things about the rules system to attract you to it. My compliments to whatever enlightened person introduced you to it. Which club, may I ask?

Chris

The Lost Legion in Hitchin.  A very friendly bunch who meet every Sunday.

[ChrisBBB]

The Lost Legion in Hitchin.  A very friendly bunch who meet every Sunday.

Sounds very civilised. 

[Aethelwulf]

These 3 things are what make me want a rules system.

1. Solo rules.

2. Campaign.

3. Miniature agnostic.

4. Skirmish.

[tikitang]

Those are four, but I agree!

[Aethelwulf]

Those are four, but I agree!

If a rules-system has 3 out of the 4 I listed, then I want to try it.

[Daeothar]

A bit late to the party, but here's my €0,02

First off, I need to establish that I am mostly a Scifi and Fantasy player with a strong emphasis on skirmish gaming; the big battles have grown out of fashion pretty much in my local scene.

* So, with that stated, for me, rules need to be simple and concise, yet granular enough to give enough variety between units. 

A game that I think does this well: Grimdark Future (Firefight). A game that I think does not: Infinity.

* This also means I'm a big fan of opposed dice rolls with as few modifiers and ways of calculating as possible. A kind of bluffing system is also very fun.

A game that does this very well is Bushido. A game that I find is not so good at this: Infinity.

* Special rules are what often give flavour to games, but I absolutely abhor games that stack abilities, combo's and synergies between units to pull of some kind of miraculous effect that completely alters the whole game.

A game that I think does this well: Bushido. A game that I find failing horribly at this: Warmachine/Hordes.

* I like it when abilities are clearly stated on character cards, with easily trackable health, ammo/magic etc, and all special rules for that particular unit/miniature. Additional cards with equipment are also great, as are tokens to track the above. I'm less enthused by tracking health by striking off dots with whiteboard pens.

A game that I find does this very well: X-Wing. A game that obviously does not: Warhammer 40K 3rd to 6th edition (I haven't played any of the later ones).

* I like the option in a game to add an additional faction or encounter(s) to the game using a sturdy AI system.

A game that I find does this well: Frostgrave. A game that I find is not so good at this: The Drowned Earth.

* And obviously, a game needs to be fun; as someone stated in this thread before: it's a game, and games are supposed to be fun. What's the point of playing a game otherwise? It's not a job after all. (This reminds me of the very old starter box of the 'Oog des Meesters' roleplaying game, which boldly stated on the box lid 'Professional Edition', and I've always wondered just how many professional OdM players there actually were. And how one went about becoming one! ).

So yeah; these are all just my experiences, preferences and opinions: please take them for what they are...