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Something I have been thinking about a lot lately. Do the mechanics you choose for a game really matter?

If you think about the process, you have the supplier, inputs, process, outputs, and the "customer". Of course, some processes just work better for somethings than others. However, does the result matter more? Therefore, if all you care about is the result does the mechanics you choose really matter for the outcome of your game? Isn't fulfilling the design goals more important?

Anyway, I have a very unsatisfying exploration of this topic below, but I think there is a lot more to be written on this subject.

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2024/03/wargame-design-do-your-mechanics-matter.html?sc=1710943742208#c7094998175890194637

I have not doubt that you fine folks will get my brain juices flowing on this topic. I look forward to being challenged and forced to think from you lot.

Game mechanics are probably the most important element of game design. If the mechanics are tedious, plodding, confusing, complex - no one will play, regardless of the aesthetic or subject matter.

To an extent, this is subjective because different people want different things. The key is to determine what type of player the game is geared towards, and building the ideal version of that. It's a lot like movies - action-packed popcorn films draw a different audience than film noir. Someone into action films would likely find film noir boring. Film noir fans would find action films shallow and loud. So you cater to the audience.

In my youth, I very much favored complex, detailed and "realistic" designs. I loved turn sequences that were as complex as pre-flight checklist, games where you can't possibly memorize all the steps in your turn so you need cards packed with dense type to remind you. I'm speaking of Imerivm Romanvm II by West End, GDW's Third World War series, anything by Victory Games. Not coincidentally, these often featured detailed rules for logistics, unit readiness, etc. One rarely sees that in gaming, but it's actually the heart of actual military wargaming.

Now I'm more into simplicity and meaningful abstraction. I also like common platforms that can be used in different settings, sort of a GURPS approach to wargaming. While in the military, I developed a couple of systems that emphasized speed and repetition of play, so we could build a sample size greater than one. These were popular and well received within the community, but Big Air Force hated them because they were too disruptive. Spoiler alert: bigwigs want wargames that confirm their ideas, not challenge them. Scripted wargames - which actual gamers would never play - are the rule in much of the military, and the results are obvious.

At some point, I'll do some commercial releases, but there's just no time at the moment.

One the subject of simple vs complex you also have to consider time and information presentation.

A bad presentation of information (GW are really good at this such as not putting units in codex in alphabetical or other structured order these days) can mean that even a simple rules set and mechanics can be hard to learn and hard to use in practice.

Reliance on support material is totally fine so long as customers can get it and so long as it can remain up to date with whatever pace you update things. Cards are great, but if you do 1 print run at the start of an edition and never do another or update them then they lose importance. Both Warmachine and GW suffered from this as they entered a more modern phase of rapid updating of rules.


Time is also a critical factor; younger gamers at school/unit might have more time to organise more events to play. Thus they get more table time and more hours to learn a game. This means there's more potential for a complex system because they've more time to learn it.

Older gamers might have fewer games a week or even a month. As a result the time to invest into learning reduces and that means they often favour simpler systems that are at least quicker to get going at the onset.

An ideal is a system that allows scaling; so you can run simple games but then introduce more complex systems and build the game up in layers. This can help any player learn the new game and reduces the barrier to entry. It also allows for gamers ot choose what works for them and they can go deep or keep things simple.



Finally you've pacing of the game to consider. If the game is complex that's great, but its not so great if its complexity means one player spends half and hour working out their turn and not doing very much whilst the other player has nothing to do at all. If you're building a deep complex system you need to have the option for players to keep engaged in the game and keep involved.

I think mechanics give a certain "feel" to a game which can really impact enjoyment.

A game where you roll a bunch of dice and the roll saves has a different feel to a game where you compare two numbers and perhaps do one dice roll to determine an entire engagement.

Even something like "one off" abilities (feats, strategems, whatever you want to call them) give a very different feel to a game, making it feel much more like a game and less like an immersive simulation.

Likewise, something like a morale mechanic where units are degraded massively in ability and run away, but could rally and come back feels quite different to a game where you just remove a unit once it fails morale.

Agreed, however for me I think a lot of that hinges on the impact those mechanics have on the game state.

My impression is that whilst many are happy to see an opponent take a huge hit; most don't like taking a huge hit themselves. So if the game mechanics are very swingy where one mechanic can suddenly change the whole game state in an instant; many might like that when it happens to benefit them; but might equally hate it when it happens to them.

My impression is that if you've got mechanics that swing in smaller hits and generally keep both players "in for the win" for as long as possible; those are the mechanics that really work to generate games that are the most engaging.

Add to that keeping both players active as much as possible.

A game where you're constantly playing; constantly able to influence the game state and where the win is up in the air for as long as possible - that's the kind of game that will hook people far more.

 Overread wrote:


An ideal is a system that allows scaling; so you can run simple games but then introduce more complex systems and build the game up in layers. This can help any player learn the new game and reduces the barrier to entry. It also allows for gamers ot choose what works for them and they can go deep or keep things simple.

I agree with everything but I will add a caveat that sometimes you can push a system too far. Adding optional detail to Axis and Allies is fine, but pretty soon you can have Third Reich with plastic figures. I would argue that the core failing of GW systems is to keep the game within certain design limits. Since game design is at best tertiary concern to them, they won't do it. (Top priority is models sales, secondary is edition churn for books and models. Game design is afterthought.)

There was a lengthy discussion about "engagement" and what it means and how it works, and in this context I will simply say that "long-turn" games have a place. Some players would find being idle for half an hour intolerable, but with some systems, that time is well spent not just with refreshing oneself, but also digging into deep planning for your upcoming turn.

To put it another way, "engagement" does not necessarily mean interacting with the opponent. It could mean going through your replacement pool, prioritizing supplies for the next turn, etc. There are also situations where the mental load of all of those things is such that your opponent's turn comes as a relief and you can relax for a bit, and just observe whilst mentally recharging. I recall a multi-front, multi-player game of Third World War where that was exactly what happened - after one side's turn was complete, they took a break - bathroom, snacks but also engaging in discussion about what we were seeing and commenting on the movements.

I think it important that game designers understand that conversation and companionship are also factors in game design and player enjoyment. Trash-talk across the table, attempts to influence moves by saying things like "Are you really going to do that?" are all part of the fun.

I personally enjoy clever, interesting and best of all intuitive mechanics and am irked by unintuitive "shortcut" mechanics even if they usually (but rarely always) give the desired result. I get that sometimes complexity isn't worth the trouble, but just saying "for simplicity, just remove the unit when it is caught by a pursuing enemy" leads to weird counter intuitive cases. I also *really* like "ergonomic" design, that requires fewer (but potentially cooler) markers, tables, references etc.

Yeah, good point on the markers and so on. I dislike it when a table is packed with various markers and so on, although I'll go along with it for stuff like pinning and so on, it's one of the things that puts me off Erehwon and Bolt Action, which I otherwise really like.

I think the markers depends a LOT on the way the game is laid out.

Eg if you go back to Warmachine 1.0 and 2.0 where you had cards for every model in the pack and you'd bascially have a hand of cards for your army on the side of the table. I'm happy for there to be more markers that sit on those cards as information.
It doesn't get in the way of the game itself and it lets you easily track things. I'm even surprised no one does this with magnets - a metal sheet with a printed overlay (or printed on metal) and then little light magnet markers to track info (better than card as magnets won't bounce around when the table gets bumped or get brushed aside when you lean over).


But if you're going to have lots of markers in the game area itself that's when it can get messy. Activation tokens, wounds and perhaps one others are fine to have; anything beyond that and it gets really messy to track things.

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, good point on the markers and so on. I dislike it when a table is packed with various markers and so on, although I'll go along with it for stuff like pinning and so on, it's one of the things that puts me off Erehwon and Bolt Action, which I otherwise really like.

Allow me to introduce you to the fabled Doomstack of boardgaming days.

Third World War was notorious for this. You could stack 10 brigade equivalents per hex, and each could carry a disruption marker, plus additional status markers (out of supply) and if someone launched an interdiction air mission, that went on top.

Jenga with 1/2 inch counters on an unmounted map sheet.

The aesthetics of markers matter, and Bolt Action appeals to me because it doesn't use many, and you can make them aesthetic, which is nice. I designed Conqueror to flow intuitively, simplified measurement and movement, and the only marker is some cotton to show when a unit is in "disorder." Shaken units are obvious because that's a morale state caused by overall losses, and routed units you just turn tail and leave a little jumbled.

Since cards were brought up, I do like using them in game design. You can do so many things with them that would otherwise require charts and tables.

Genre is what gets me to look at a game. Mechanics gets me to want to try it. Setting keeps me playing it beyond a couple of sessions.

The game is literally built out of the mechanics. They matter more than anything else. You can create a theme, art assets, whatever... and thats all great. But you are not producing a picture book. Or a movie. You are making a game. It doesn't matter if a movie is very pretty if it's a bad movie. And it doesn't matter how thematic your game is if it's a bad game.

The mechanics matter in their end effect, yes. But they, themselves, their implicit and explicit interactions are what shape the game play experience. It isn't SIMPLY the end effect. Or, it isn't the destination, but the journey. HOW you get to the end effect matters a lot. It can turn a period of drudgery into excitement.

IGOUGO is a turn structure like any other. The end effect is that each player gets to move their pieces. But it MATTERS that one player has a long period of downtime where they might as well check out because paying attention doesn't actually impact the game until the end state of all movement and attacks have started being rolled.

Mechanics matter. Underestimating how every single mechanic matters to the shape of the entire game play experience is a massive mistake. Understanding it is the most important thing you can learn if you want to be a designer.

For me, yes. I particularly enjoy game mechanics that allow me to interact directly with the game itself, rather than simply being a means of RNG.

IE - mechanics that boil down to "roll a die, on a 4+ you do your thing" kinda suck. Mechanics that allow me to make that 4+ a 3+, but in turn I have to skip my next turn because my model is exhausted from over-exertion? Yeah, that's fun. Now layer it with other mechanics that interlock like a set of gears and gizmos, like an actual engine, and give me levers, buttons, and dials to play with that tweak the way the engine operates. That's what I like.

Also agreed with what Da Boss, warboss, and Lance said.

Perhaps, the people who go into this part of the forum may have a biased view on the topic. I look at games like The Doomed and Turnip28 and I have a feeling if we asked their devotees this same question we might get different answers.

I mean, we have whole genres and even a large segment of people "into" 40K who don't ever play the games at all.

I don't know enough about the doomed or turnip28 (in that i have never heard of them) to speak to their designs.

I just know that there is the totality of the game play experience. And to design that experience competently you need to understand how the specific cogs in your machine interact to produce that output. Those cogs matter. Because when you switch them all out for a different number of cogs in different sizes it's a different machine.

The Doomed and Turnip, to me, are games that survive on their ambeance and the modeling opportunities they create, moreso than because of the quality of the gameplay itself.

 Lance845 wrote:
The game is literally built out of the mechanics. They matter more than anything else. You can create a theme, art assets, whatever... and thats all great. But you are not producing a picture book. Or a movie. You are making a game. It doesn't matter if a movie is very pretty if it's a bad movie. And it doesn't matter how thematic your game is if it's a bad game.

The mechanics matter in their end effect, yes. But they, themselves, their implicit and explicit interactions are what shape the game play experience. It isn't SIMPLY the end effect. Or, it isn't the destination, but the journey. HOW you get to the end effect matters a lot. It can turn a period of drudgery into excitement.

Yes, the mechanics are there to express the theme. In the early days of wargaming, the hex-sheet/combat results table/zone of control mechanic was forced into lots of places where it didn't work. What was appropriate for WW II divisional combat simply did not work in a simulation of the Battle of Gettysburg.

A good mechanic makes you feel like you are in the given role. West End's RAF is a solitaire game that has the look, feel and mechanics that place one squarely in Fighter Command's headquarters. It has a great fog of war mechanic, so that decisions have to made with partial information. Fully immersive.

Some mechanics function outside the "the game" and are actually part of the social experience. The Milton Bradley games of the 1980s were like this. The IGOUGO mechanic gave one a lot of downtime, which was part of the point. When it wasn't your turn, you could plan your next move, but also engage in side-discussions about whatever you want.

This social aspect should not be overlooked. For many people, a game is an excuse to get together and socialize, and game design can and should incorporate this feature. The old Avalon Hill Civilization games, for example, require players to barter for various commodities. Diplomacy famously has extremely simple game mechanics - the heart of the system in the negotiation.

As in so many things, there is no abstract perfect mechanic, there is only mechanics that are perfect for the purpose and subject matter.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Yes, the mechanics are there to express the theme.

Absolutely not. Taking this away from wargames into the broader just "games" there is no "theme" to the mechanics of tetris or foot ball or jenga. The mechanics exist to facilitate and craft the game play experience. That CAN include a theme. But the point of mechanics is not a theme. More the theme, like art or sound design, are layers of components that help build that net experience with the mechanics.

A good mechanic makes you feel like you are in the given role.

A good mechanic makes you engaged and builds towards or facilitates deep decision making.

Some mechanics function outside the "the game" and are actually part of the social experience. The Milton Bradley games of the 1980s were like this. The IGOUGO mechanic gave one a lot of downtime, which was part of the point. When it wasn't your turn, you could plan your next move, but also engage in side-discussions about whatever you want.

You don't need mechanics to let you have side discussions or be social. This idea that IGOUGO is gifting this to you is false. You can and always could, do this in any game with any kind of pacing. The downtime is a massive detriment to the whole game play experience. It's why a ton of people just end up staring at their phones. Because it's the opposite of what mechanics should be doing. It's disengaging. There is also no planning your next move. If we are talking 40k here (and there is a good reason to think we are) then there is NOTHING for you to plan until the last melee combat has been completed. You have no idea how many models you have in what positions compared to enemy units in whatever their positions will be until their turn is over. IGOUGO doesn't GIVE you anything. It FORCES you to sit idly for long stretches of nothing with zero game play.

This social aspect should not be overlooked. For many people, a game is an excuse to get together and socialize, and game design can and should incorporate this feature. The old Avalon Hill Civilization games, for example, require players to barter for various commodities. Diplomacy famously has extremely simple game mechanics - the heart of the system in the negotiation.

The vast majority of multiplayer experiences are social. None of them require the sluggish garbage mechanic of IGOUGO to get social interaction. Games like Werewolf (or it's many varieties like Resistance) are almost entirely composed of a social experience that is a part OF the game play experience. Some games are entirely composed of that.That doesn't mean every game needs it. It simply means that it is a tool in the tool box of game design to craft a particular type of experience.

As in so many things, there is no abstract perfect mechanic, there is only mechanics that are perfect for the purpose and subject matter.

Agreed. I just don't agree with some of the examples you are pointing towards or your idea of what mechanics are for.

Well put, Lance!

Agreed - a game mechanic that takes you out of the game moment and leaves you drifting isn't good.

I'd also argue that a mechanic which makes you sit there only rolling for saves and removing models and seeing your army dwindle constantly is also demoralising as a player. If your opponent gets a good turn they can wipe out a LOT of your army in one go. Yeah cool they got the cinematic experience of an insanely good turn so they are on a high - but the opponent isn't because all they've done for the last 30mins or so is watch, wait, roll dice for saves and take their models off the table.

Whatever battleplan they had at the start might well be totally torn apart. Worse they might even have lost the actual or potential chance to win the game in that one turn. Considering the fast movement tricks and more this could easily be in turn 2 or 3 of the game. Ergo they've "lost" (actually or in their own impression) more or half way through the game. There's still their turn and a whole other half of the game - hours of play - to go.


These are reasons why GW keeps trying to build in these reactive systems into the game. They are basically trying to bully an army level "I go you go" into an individual "I go you go" system. The problem is reactions end up being a tricky layer to learn because of how GW presents information and the range of choices on offer. Made worst as an edition grows because GW often adds more of these strategems/reactions/whatevers through expansion books

 Lance845 wrote:
A good mechanic makes you engaged and builds towards or facilitates deep decision making.

What if I don't want deep decision making? What if I want a 'beer and pretzels; game? Are those still allowed?

You don't need mechanics to let you have side discussions or be social. This idea that IGOUGO is gifting this to you is false.

Dude, I get it. I so get it. Your implacable hatred of that knows no bounds. That's fine. I promise I will never, ever, ever invite you to play a game with it. Ever.

But you can't tell me what I enjoy or what my friends enjoy.

Similarly, stop telling me that I don't plan during my opponents' turn. In games with production features, strategic movement, reserve allocation, that's what you do. You see where enemy forces are developing and you begin developing countermeasures. In multiplayer games, that's often where alliances are built.

"Wow, Matt's getting crushed. Maybe we should call a halt because if he's knocked out, Rob's gonna win."

"Agreed."

Side conferences (when it's not your move) are a common feature of those types of games. It's great that we don't have to stop everything to do them.

The vast majority of multiplayer experiences are social. None of them require the sluggish garbage mechanic of IGOUGO to get social interaction.

Again, your hatred is noted.

Agreed. I just don't agree with some of the examples you are pointing towards or your idea of what mechanics are for.

I think it's clear that you want that mechanic annihilated. That's fine. I think it has a place.

I'd like to explore another point you made and expand upon it: in-game psychology. You said that reducing another player to passively rolling saves can be demoralizing. I agree. I don't think that's the only way it can work, but I merely want to point out that whether you're rolling hits for Risk or buckets of dice for Axis and Allies, watching one's forces wither away (or triumphantly defy the odds!) is a legitimate part of the gaming experience.

How it's done varies, and I think it's most effective when you have a fog of war mechanic to bluff someone out of a position or attack.

The disadvantages of those systems are self-evident: they take time. One of the greatest weaknesses of 2nd ed. 40k is the painstaking tedium of hth combat resolution. In my fixes (link in sig) I was able to condense it to a single contested die roll. Still not ideal, but an improvement.

In some systems, the rounds of dice rolling serve a purpose because they allow players the option to break off the combat rather than losing all in one throw. This isn't a bad way to do it, particularly if combats are limited and consequential. Imperium Romanum II is an outstanding design marred by an all-or-noting single die roll for the culminating battle. Nothing like going to the trouble of recreating Actium and losing the whole game because you rolled a one.

There's also the fact that humans like rolling dice. GW has tapped into this primeval phenomenon and taken it to its logical extreme. I think there are places for its limited use, and as part of that, watching the rolls turn south as your position deteriorates does have value in terms of tension and historical accuracy.

Put simply, I don't think one can categorically say any given mechanic should be banished to the outer darkness. The issue arises where the wrong mechanic is used for a particular function.

It is certainly true that IGOUGO is often put where it doesn't belong. It's great virtue is that it is so simple. Everyone understands "my turn, your turn" which is why it endures.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
A good mechanic makes you engaged and builds towards or facilitates deep decision making.

What if I don't want deep decision making? What if I want a 'beer and pretzels; game? Are those still allowed?

Nobody is saying something is or is not allowed. "Games" (in quotes because there is no decision making in the following example and so is not even actually a game) with no decision making exist. Shoots and Ladders does not afford the "players" a single choice at any point. If THAT is the experience you want to craft you can do that. There are absolutely different levels of depth and complexity for different people. But DEEP decisions are engaging decisions. If you want the Shoots and Ladders of War Games you can have it. There is no wrong fun. Like what you like. Like it to whatever extent you like it. But you liking a bad thing doesn't give it merit in a discussion about how game mechanics matter.

You don't need mechanics to let you have side discussions or be social. This idea that IGOUGO is gifting this to you is false.

Dude, I get it. I so get it. Your implacable hatred of that knows no bounds. That's fine. I promise I will never, ever, ever invite you to play a game with it. Ever.

But you can't tell me what I enjoy or what my friends enjoy.

And I never did. See above.

Similarly, stop telling me that I don't plan during my opponents' turn. In games with production features, strategic movement, reserve allocation, that's what you do. You see where enemy forces are developing and you begin developing countermeasures. In multiplayer games, that's often where alliances are built.

Sure. And in a game with more than 2 players where those kinds of things can take place between turns, especially if supported or encouraged by the mechanics of the game then THAT is the game play experience. But I was using 40k as the example. And in 40k that doesn't happen.

The vast majority of multiplayer experiences are social. None of them require the sluggish garbage mechanic of IGOUGO to get social interaction.

Again, your hatred is noted.

This isn't my hatred. I am discussing the actual impact of that cog in that machine. You are trying to sing it's praises by attributing to it things it is not doing and is not responsible for. Instead of sucking the dick of IGOUGO as your favorite pet mechanic you should give an actual assessment of it's true impact on the game play experience? See? I can ad hominem at you too by just assigning you emotions about your position.

Agreed. I just don't agree with some of the examples you are pointing towards or your idea of what mechanics are for.

I think it's clear that you want that mechanic annihilated.

Then you were not paying attention.

I'd like to explore another point you made and expand upon it: in-game psychology. You said that reducing another player to passively rolling saves can be demoralizing.

You are mistakenly attributing the post by Overread to me but I am going to respond to it anyway.

I agree. I don't think that's the only way it can work, but I merely want to point out that whether you're rolling hits for Risk or buckets of dice for Axis and Allies, watching one's forces wither away (or triumphantly defy the odds!) is a legitimate part of the gaming experience.

I don't see losses as an issue. What I see as the issue is that your contribution to the game at that point is to be a human dice rolling app. This could be automated by a computer and it wouldn't make any difference. You have no decisions to make. You HAVE to roll your saves. So you do. You HAVE to assign wounds. And mostly, assigning them is meaningless, so you do. And you HAVE to remove models. So you do. The feel bad here isn't the removal of models because you got shot. It's that you are going step by step through drudgery while it happening with no meaningful contribution to what is occurring. And then you do it again. And then you do it again. And then you do it again. And then the shooting phase is over. Time for charges. Would you like to roll overwatch so that we can do all the drudgery of rolling dice so that the enemy can save and it won't make any difference? Cool. Time to do it again in melee.

THOSE mechanics.... shape the game play experience. And the experience is bad.

How it's done varies, and I think it's most effective when you have a fog of war mechanic to bluff someone out of a position or attack.

The disadvantages of those systems are self-evident: they take time. One of the greatest weaknesses of 2nd ed. 40k is the painstaking tedium of hth combat resolution. In my fixes (link in sig) I was able to condense it to a single contested die roll. Still not ideal, but an improvement.

It certainly cuts out a bunch of the mechanical complexity so you can get it over with and move on.

In some systems, the rounds of dice rolling serve a purpose because they allow players the option to break off the combat rather than losing all in one throw. This isn't a bad way to do it, particularly if combats are limited and consequential. Imperium Romanum II is an outstanding design marred by an all-or-noting single die roll for the culminating battle. Nothing like going to the trouble of recreating Actium and losing the whole game because you rolled a one.

There's also the fact that humans like rolling dice. GW has tapped into this primeval phenomenon and taken it to its logical extreme. I think there are places for its limited use, and as part of that, watching the rolls turn south as your position deteriorates does have value in terms of tension and historical accuracy.

People like rolling dice when it MATTERS. See above. Rolling 3 times to watch things dwindle while you have no choice isn't something that matters. You could do it. A computer could do it. The guy at the table next to you could do it. It's meaningless. You can walk away and do anything else because the only thing that actually matters to you in 40k is the end result. You are incapable of interacting with anything else.

Put simply, I don't think one can categorically say any given mechanic should be banished to the outer darkness. The issue arises where the wrong mechanic is used for a particular function.

It is certainly true that IGOUGO is often put where it doesn't belong. It's great virtue is that it is so simple. Everyone understands "my turn, your turn" which is why it endures.

Just about every game has your turn/my turn. Order of operations is important. In a Alternating Activation style game you would still have my turn your turn. Except the resolution of a turn would be drastically lower reducing down times, the choices would be higher resulting in more game play, and engagement would increase. Which hey. When you want to play a game actually playing the game is pretty great.

 Lance845 wrote:
People like rolling dice when it MATTERS. See above. Rolling 3 times to watch things dwindle while you have no choice isn't something that matters. You could do it. A computer could do it. The guy at the table next to you could do it. It's meaningless. You can walk away and do anything else because the only thing that actually matters to you in 40k is the end result. You are incapable of interacting with anything else.

It's clear that we are more in agreement than disagreement, and one of the sources of confusion is anyone thinking that I like 40k's last seven editions and will say anything complimentary about them.

I like 2nd. Just 2nd. It has flaws, but they are quirky and endearing.

But my example was one where dice rolling did [b]matter and the examples I gave (Risk, Axis and Allies) is where the sequence of rolling dice serves a purpose - as the losses mount, the attacker may break off the combat. It's not in any way analogous to rolling saves. Indeed, when I decided to do my "take" on WHFB, one of my top priorities was to dump all the pointless dice-rolling and to make the dice more meaningful. Thus, no "wound" roll, just hit and save. Also: higher hit probabilities.

The result: combat is faster and more decisive. All die rolls are consequential.

I also used an integrated turn sequence, so that players take actions within the other's turn - actions both scripted (shooting) and reactive (countercharge, routing).

So I think we are in agreement (in principle) that mechanics are important, that what works for one game does not work for others.

An example: Victory Games got into the alternating activation thing, even down to "activation points" so that units could launch major attacks and not move, advance to contact and make a hasty attack, or simply march move.

The issue was the same when people experimented with AA using linear warfare - piecemeal movement makes maintaining frontal integrity or creating truly strategic effects impossible. Everything was sort of a shoving match. Major offensives like Operation Bagration were impossible to duplicate.

I suppose there could be a way to do some sort of "activate by higher headquarters" the way the "block games" of Columbia Games work, and that would be an interesting take.

I will now bring up a mechanic of particular fondness for myself: simultaneous movement. It takes more work, often requires a referee, but the effects are spectacular.

AA multi unit manuevers have been solved in multiple ways. Literally years ago a 40k variant i worked on allowed you to activate 1 unit, 1 character, and 1 protector of either in conjunction.

A hive tyrant, it's tyrant guard, and some warriors.

Raveners, and the red terror.

Necron warriors, their cryptek, and some lychguard.

Tau fire warriors, drones, and a fireblade.

The last version of apocalypse treated detachments as units. You could have 1 large detachment giving you 1 activation a turn and making it powerful but inflexible or you could break it into 5 smaller detachments for more flexibility and mobility at the cost of over all impact of any one activation.

These are not problems without solutions. There are just bad games that refuse to adopt them.

I want to push back a bit on the idea that the only mechanics that matter are those that give deep and meaningful choices. Those are important mechanics, I fully agree, but I think mechanics that promote immersion are also very important. I much prefer games with some immersive elements, even if that leads to a couple fewer gamist mechanics.

There's certainly a balance to be struck, but as I get older I find my balance shifting more away from pure game and toward immersive experience.

 Da Boss wrote:
I want to push back a bit on the idea that the only mechanics that matter are those that give deep and meaningful choices. Those are important mechanics, I fully agree, but I think mechanics that promote immersion are also very important. I much prefer games with some immersive elements, even if that leads to a couple fewer gamist mechanics.

There's certainly a balance to be struck, but as I get older I find my balance shifting more away from pure game and toward immersive experience.

Well, let me clarify some things.

The goal is to create a engaging game play experience. The point of the mechanics, good mechanics, is in how they create that engagement. Either directly or in their interactions. When you are not making decisions you are not engaging with the game. Shallow decisions are simplistic. A decision thats so shallow that it has only 1 obvious answer isn't engaging. It starts to turn any other potential at that decision point into the illusion of choice. Conversely deep choices get you thinking. And that is straight up engagement.

Those decision points can be immersive. I would even argue that thats great. It help create that engaging net game play experience that is the output of the machine you are building. These things are not at opposite ends of a spectrum. You are not choosing one or the other.

But going back to one of my earliest posts here. You are not making a movie or a picture book or writing a novel. You are designing a game. The game should be a good game. You can make it immersive and on theme and all the other things all the live long day. But if it's a bad game then it doesn't matter and you probably should have made something else.

I'll give a specific example:
I recognise that SAGA is a good game, probably a great game. But the gamist design of the Battleboards kinda puts me off it.
If I want to play a dark ages skirmish, I'm more likely to go for something that has more intuitive rules, that try to make things work as they would in reality, even if that means less to think about during game and fewer cost benefit decisions. It doesn't particularly bother me if forming up into a shieldwall and clashing with the enemy shieldwall is what ends up happening most of the time, in fact, I prefer that, because it fits with what I expect from a dark ages wargame and helps to immerse me in the game.

Referring to the battleboards sort of jolts me out of the game and makes me aware that I am playing a game with counters.

That said, it's obvious that the point at which that jolt happens is quite different for different people, allowing for a fairly wide spectrum of games to be played.

Weirdly, I don't mind the battleboards as much in Void Admiral, where they seem to me to simulate the complexity of the huge crews of those starships. That seems to fit my imagination of how it would work better than for small groups of men in Saga.

 Lance845 wrote:
AA multi unit manuevers have been solved in multiple ways. Literally years ago a 40k variant i worked on allowed you to activate 1 unit, 1 character, and 1 protector of either in conjunction.

40k is not a game of linear warfare. I'm talking of both pre-industrial battles, where alignment and flank coverage are the primary concerns as well as 20th Century operational/strategic games.

Mechanics must be tailored to the simulated environment.

AA by its very nature cannot allow a general advance across the battlefield. If you allow tactical groupings and linked activations, you simply get IGOUGO by another means (and some games effectively do this).

I will remind folks here that 40k is not my primary point of reference in this discussion. I consider it an exemplar of one thing: how to extract money from customers via poor game design.

 Da Boss wrote:
I want to push back a bit on the idea that the only mechanics that matter are those that give deep and meaningful choices. Those are important mechanics, I fully agree, but I think mechanics that promote immersion are also very important. I much prefer games with some immersive elements, even if that leads to a couple fewer gamist mechanics.

There's certainly a balance to be struck, but as I get older I find my balance shifting more away from pure game and toward immersive experience.

I agree, and even if the mechanic in question has something of a housekeeping feel, it can further build that sense of "now you are there."

In some cases, these can be as simple as "did you remember to hit the dummy switch?" which usually relates to logistics. This was historically very important but modern gaming barely references supply chains at all.

The lesson the designer was obviously imparting was that the FIRST thing you do on your turn is check the logistics, because if you botch that, your sick flank attack is going nowhere. "Hit the dummy switch, dummy!"

For example, in the Brigade Series (Napoleonic and ACW), there is a simplified ammo supply system where you have to either rotate troops back to the supply trains or - for the bold - push them forward to ensure the troops/artillery have adequate ammunition. It's a minor detail, involves two or three pieces to push, but it can have huge effects if a critical portion of your line runs low. I've seen games turn on it - just as battles did historically.

The game uses limited fog of war, but those trains stand out (as they would in real life). A very tempting target for a cavalry sortie!

Some might suggest that a dummy switch is poor design, since it is something automatic and no one would ever forget it. Well, historically they did, and the idea behind such mechanics is that they marginally increase the stress load on the player and part of the designer's intent is to recreate what an actual commander feels. And to repeat - the element in question was a very important one.

This can (and has) been taken to extremes. I played a multi-player game of the 1930s a few years ago that had so many mechanics going on (a map, cards, other cards, counters) that really all you did was futz with them and hope for a good card draw. Zero interest in playing it again.

Yeah I mean pretty much every massively successful military force was successful because of logistics more than anything else.

Having at least some nod to that in a wargame is cool, imo.

AA can allow a general advance across an area; it just doesn't allow an uncontested general advance.

Considering the scale of 40K in general you are well beyond uncontested movement, you are right in the killzone and battlezone where contesting should be a thing.

Furthermore with the style of balance GW does in terms of damage output; moral; staying power of units and such. AA is far preferable because when damage is dealt its often pretty lethal very quickly. Which means that with uncontested advances you also get almost total obliteration of one side very quickly and very often.

I think alternate army activations would be fine if the boards were larger/models smaller to allow more manoeuvring room; but also if the damage was far less. Ergo once you were in combat you'd still have a lot of dice rolls; combat ability choices; target choices; and so forth.