Cult Of Games XLBS: How Many Tabletop Rules Do We Need & Should They Be Simple Or Complex?
January 17, 2021 by crew
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up too late
But in earliest!
It’s the XLBS Show………..Happy Sunday fellow CoGs! . It just happens to be my dear old mother’s birthday. She’s 80 as of today. I’m going to broadcast this episode for her as she wanted to watch something that she’d never seen yet in her life and was guaranteed to make her laugh! Don’t let me down @warzan . (love the book club video) . I don’t think that I’d like to be restricted to just one rule set for every game. There are many sets that are cool and yet very different. I resist anything that asks me to be… Read more »
I’m glad you’re not only enjoying it but that you managed to get to the mail ahead of your wife
Yes indeed!
I lucked out Thursday when it arrived, as she was scheduled to work one and a half hours later than I.
Not that I’ve kept it hid from her, (it’s been in the hobby studio next to my 40k and Conquest figures when I’m not reading it). My Justin Puppet,(known here as ‘PJ’), has been keeping an eye on it. But that’s another story!
McCarthy’s Bar is one Mrs G’s favourites. When she finds it it’ll go on the to-read pile.
Up early. Drinking coffee, waiting for 3dprint to finish. Happy Sunday.
I feel the sudden need to change my name to Maximilien Robespierre
Pleased to meet you Max. I loved that Reign of Terror thing you did, it certainly brought people up short.
Destroy the Aristocracy
Happy Sunday COGs hope your all safe and well. I really think Warren is on the right track planning Waterloo with Quell Affair and Wofun. Not only will it look blooming amazing but it’s affordable but you can field forces closer to the number without having organise the giant Waterloo game held in Glasgow in 2019. I really enjoyed recreating the Alamo and it looked fantastic. I used the Deguello rule set which is a short simple reaction based rule set aimed towards a hour and half game. I was playing the game for and with my nephews so wanted… Read more »
Laser jizz out the bottom.
Isn’t it great to be a CoG? 😀
The best rules are simple … but elegant – as in almost “fiendishly” designed. Rules that, without charts or tables or cards or stat lines, encourage tactically realistic (or at least plausible, depending on your genre) behavior from the the commander. Rules that enable players to come to sensible tactical decisions on their own, reflecting that works in the game is also what worked on the actual battlefield. Such rules are usually simple, but deceptively so. Like chess … the rules can be explained in five minutes … but you’ll spend a lifetime mastering the game. The cornerstone upon which… Read more »
While I agree the turn sequence is important personally for me the command and control is the part of the rules I look at first. If I like that then I will look further into the game
Agree @torros – Command and Control is indeed a vital part of the game. I feel like something of a hypocrite saying that, since my favorite game of all time (Panzer Leader series) HAS NO command and control system whatsoever. But I’ve never claimed that game is perfect, and lots of people have published their own hose rules to bring that elements into the game.
A good ruleset for me is one where good players make decisions that mimic what good commanders would make in real life, the abstraction hasn’t lost the conceptual essence of reality that matters.
Indeed, @coxjul – some of my favorite historical games have put players in historical situations, the face the same problems, they counter the same threats, the overcome the same limitations, and for reasons that are “organic” (if not hit-you-over-the-head explicit) … they make the same decisions as the historical commanders did … the player finishes the game, WINS the game, and feels great. Then you open the history and show where the historical commander(s) made the same decisions for largely the same reasons … You wanna talk about immersive? You just played that game with that commander’s ghost behind your… Read more »
Happy *YAWN* Sunday!
I can imagine an open day at Castle Dunans turning into a scene from Spartacus (or LoB)… Warren ( a bit too loudly): I’m Laird of Chaol Ghleann. Other1: No I’m Laird of Chaol Ghleann Other2: I’m Laird of Chaol Ghleann. Etc. Not wanting to dampen the poor, wee Laird’s seat, here’s a quote from one of the sites flogging these for £25 a piece. “The term ‘Laird’ tends to be reserved for the owner of an estate in Scotland, occasionally referred by the owner themselves, or most likely by those employed by the estate. The term is used as… Read more »
An aspect to the ruleset discussion that wasn’t mentioned is competitive/tournament play. That only works well where randomness is minimised and a player’s ability to build and master a list flexible enough to cope with varied opponents and scenarios. That requires a level of complexity in the ruleset beyond a casual gamer’s needs. I only want to be getting my head around one system at that level at a time. An experienced club/group gamer then wants a handful of a variety of mid-complexity games that they can play semi-regularly or have a burst of play through a campaign for a… Read more »
sometimes I like elegant rules , sometimes I like to wallow in rules like a pig in $%$%, lettimg them wash into every nook a cranny. Short answer , there isn’t a short answer
A @warzan hilt… why do I feel love honey is getting a new sale…
Winter Book club ????? What I have to wait until JUNE !!!!
***** Glares in fake High Dudgeon ********
I am stil waiting for this blatantly Hemispherist language to be retratcted
****** Scowls darkly while seething in a surprisingly invogourating aura of righteous rage ************
It’s winter somewhere 😉
Had this very discussion the other day with my gamer crew and it hit simiar points. The idea certainly isn’t new. Back in the day the system was GURPs, more recently Pathfinder and now 5th Ed. One thing I do think helps is if the games have themes that are not too far apart, Game Designers Workshop did a pretty good effort back in the day aligning thier roles playing games Traveller-The New Era , Twighlight 200, Cadilacs and Dinosours, and Dark Consiparacy. It worked well because they were all adventure/Sci-Fi to some degree, with crossovers in themes and action.
There are WAYYYYY too many rule books in common usage (at least for historicals). Too many rulebooks that all employ there own specific basing system, there own figure ratio etc etc…. …and the end result in this is that it splits the playerbase, makes it harder to find games, and perhaps this (in part) is responsible for the drop in popularity of historicals in favour of sci-fi/fantasy. Sci-fi/fantasy is a bit different as usually it’s all about the IP (the rules are secondary) in the decision to purchase. But for historicals? Well first, are you going to play a grand… Read more »
Yay let the XLBS hilarity begin.
Asimov is a great sci-fi writer for quality book’s.
Justin is recovering from the water Warren gave him??? Lol
That black lightsaber one’s handle would make a good darkelder tower.
We’ll see Warren being chatted up by one of the Kardashians now?
You should have went for land near dyce then you could have been a Lord of dyce @warzan
I think, if I remember rightly, Plo Koon used an orange lightsabre in the old Jedi Power Battles videogame….
Gah, and @warzan just got to the relevant page in the video 😀
Another great show Guys loved the ender video.
I would hate to be restricted to the number of rule sets available. We enjoy reading and playing new rules, if a ruleset is bad then it won’t (with the exception of G.W.) get any real traction with gamers and will disappear. In terms of thematic rule systems Peter Pig is always a good one to look at and for army lists that don’t allow max/min By Fire and Sword. What really makes a good game for me is not the rules, but the people I game with. One issue I do have with rule sets and explaining them to… Read more »
I still use Legends of the High Seas which was based on the old LotR rules. I haven’t found a better set of rules for pirates. I like the idea of an open source rule set, it would make life easier switching games and genres. The problem we have these days is trying to remember all the different rules systems we play. By the way @warzan I’m called Bixia Shuai which is Chinese for Handsome Majesty or Handsome King. I get called that by friends and family in China………(My wife gave me the name after teaching her sarcasm…but I’m still… Read more »
@warhammergrimace I’d like to check out your ‘Legends of the High Seas’ rules for Pirate play. Who makes it? I’ve found more than one set of rules that use that name.
I’m curious to see the differences between it and Firelock Games ‘Blood and Plunder’ and ‘Oak and Iron’. Which I currently use and love.
There is always room for more rulesets in my hobby room! (I guess I don’t agree with Warren at all on this subject) ?
Legends of the high Seas is an old Warhammer Historical rule set.
I love SAGA and Age of Magic. My gaming group is not really interested in history while I am. With SAGA’s rules being 1 core set expended per universe. So my friends can make fantasy armies and I can do more historical stuff. In Age of Magic the factions are really archetypes and you can do what you want with. I’m getting into the more historical SAGA universes as well and I don’t think my gaming group will follow, but because the rules are so similar I think I can play an Age of Hannibal army against an Age of… Read more »
The moment he puts the nun chucks under his arms is the moment the arm gets chopped off XD