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I'm not saying QA in software isn't a huge part of development and a massive expenditure of resources, time, and energy. I actually do work in the games industry on a dev team and QA is always crazy expensive and time consuming, at all of the companies I've worked at.

We need to hire quality testers who have lots of experience, deep knowledge of efficient testing methodologies, and generally unusually curious or inquisitive personalities. They put in crazy hours testing our products and even then cannot manage to capture every single little thing that could potentially cause problems before we open up a closed alpha.

The closed alpha and subsequent public beta provide orders of magnitude more thorough and reliable feedback and bug testing than our army of internal testers ever will, even if they were working 24/7 for months or years, even with all of the speedhacks and QA tools we give them to simulate test environments and speed up game processes. It will never compare to the power of simply releasing a test build to 10,000 people over the Internet to play the thing for a few hours. That is an insanely powerful tool that GW or any tabletop company won't ever have access to.

Given a hypothetical nightmare scenario where our company doesn't do beta testing, and leaves our internal QA team solely responsible for the entire testing cycle leading up to product launch, I cannot imagine the kinds of horrible, game-breaking bugs our players would complain about upon receiving their games. It doesn't matter how hard QA works, it will never really compare to real world usage.

Tabletop game design exacerbates this issue. Not only is testing slow and completely manual, but you will also never really get a sample size large enough before release that will be as thorough as a software beta. It is simply a matter of digital scaling far more efficiently than analog.

When I compare a tabletop design pipeline with the tools, processes, and data that our designers have access to while designing video games.... yeah tabletop guys got it pretty rough

 Lance845 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Except, that isn't true at all. GW's rules are no worse than any other ruleset of comparable complexity.

Yeah? Find me another games whos shooting rules just don't work as written. Find me another game with 8 pages of core rules and another 10 in FaQs and errata to make them functional. Find me another game that requires, for clarity of the players, other 30 pages of faq and errata in addition to 3 army books and 1 core book in order to play a single faction.

By comparison, dungeons and dragons PHB has over 300 pages of rules and no FAQ errata and just works while allowing the player significantly more freedom of action within the game. That 1 300 page book is all that required (along with paper and pencils and dice) to have a group of any size play the game.

Or hey, Beyond the Gates of Antares where the rules are written clearly and concisely and don't require a small novela of faqs and errata to play.

If it's not true, provide me some more examples.

ITT a person brings up oranges and bananas and grapes for comparison with an apple.

D&D is a refereed co-op. It's not a competitive head-to-head game. FAIL

BtGoA is not complex, it probably doesn't even have a third the models, nor a tenth the playerbase trying to break it. FAIL

If you want to counterpoint, you need to find a competitive miniatures battle game with as many units and scale of units (Grot to Titan). Saying "refereed co-op works" is obvious. Same with "simple game is clean".

I guarantee if D&D were a head-to-head game between parties, the rules would collapse pretty quickly, because D&D just wasn't written for that. D&D is a narrative game that gets filtered through the DM, and the default result is that the players eventually succeed at some level. The real question is to what extent the players succeed, how quickly, and whether anything special happens while doing so. The social contract is completely different from 40k, and it is a poor comparison point.

In the discussion of software, computer games, a lot of them have errors and bugs and glitches, many of which are exploitable. There doesn't exist a "flawless" non-trivial program - not when the complexity gets high enough. Many are very close, but not provably so, and even so, it's ridiculous amounts of money trying to make them "right".

Rules writing, like programming, is hard, and it's obvious that the current iterations of 40k and Fantasy are about as airtight as GW has ever been. The rules model of having all of the unit rules on one page, and a streamlined core engine is a vast improvement over what came before.

Yup, so let's suppose your QA is as good as it'll get and move on. I don't mean to hand-wave it away, but I mean more about how you would connect QA to audience UX. Plenty of testing scripts include stuff like "what if audience was dumb enough to..."

Another technical writing trick I learned was that the manual didn't need to be all things to all people, just that subset of users that were actually intended to use the product. We could assume, for example, that our audience was literate. We couldn't always assume they were sober or easily capable of turning pages, but we could assume they could read.

 Nurglitch wrote:


I think you need a hook or unified mechanic or something to get players into the rhythm of the game

This is absolutely true. I am not sure it is relevant to designing for Bad Players, just more of a "relevant to ALL players" point. However, you would be amazed how often games and their designers miss this point.

barboggo wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

barboggo wrote:
Apples and oranges.

The big limiting factor with designing something like 40k is testing your design at scale. Computer games (especially the big, complex ones) don't suffer from this problem. With 40k you can't really effectively run simulations, closed alpha, public betas at scale in short time frames. Not only that but collecting good data from things like the Matched Play beta rules is a much slower and arduous process compared to collecting data from a video game. Outside of the VERY limited handful of highly controlled internal test scenarios you have, the data you collect from public sources and things like tournaments is subject to a lot more variables and potential bias. Unlike digital games, tabletop games aren't very good at keeping a thorough/organized record of player input.

What?

Computer game companies hire a small army of game testers who play the game none stop over years hunting for bugs and fixing them. GW maybe had a couple dozen guys doing it for maybe 6 months without it being their 9-5 job.

GW COULD run extensive play testing and have editors and actual game rules writers working on their products to ensure quality control. They just don't. This isn't a question of limitations of one medium to the other. It's just what GW is willing to do to make a product.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

barboggo wrote:
That's why I'm asking if there is another tabletop company that does it better.

Because you can't just say "well video games are more complicated and have less bugs" when the dev tools associated with them are clearly far more powerful and efficient.

The dev tools are NOT more powerful and effecient. It's far easier to change a few words around in a word doc then it is to hunt down lines of code and rewrite everything in the string of codes that it might be referencing and might be referencing it.

The more abstract the game the easier it is and less expensive, to make sweeping changes.

Obviously it's perfectly simple and straightforward to change words in a word doc and spend money to hire testers to play your game and provide you with detailed feedback. The difference is the quality of feedback you get when doing those things digitally vs non-digitally is not even close to being comparable.

With a video game, you can literally change some code, hit compile, and within a few seconds know if your code is broken or not. You can run a public beta over a weekend and collect the precise input and player experience data of thousands or tens of thousands of users in just a few days, with all of the relevant information organized and compartmentalized for your needs.

With tabletop games that's simply not possible. When you change the specific phrasing in a core rule, you literally have to manually cross check it against every other rule in every other possible scenario that it could possibly relate to. Do you understand how having a script do this or having thousands of beta testers do this over a weekend is easier than doing it manually? That digital feedback is a lot more reliable, sortable, and easy to interpret than things like written testimonials?

It doesn't matter how many people GW hires for their internal QA team, it will never be as robust or thorough as a single day of public beta testing for an online video game. Testing a complex tabletop game system at scale is never going to be as efficient or effective as is the norm for PC games. The two are not even remotely comparable.

With a video game you cannot just hit a magic compile button and k ow if it works or not. Thats why some video games get released with crash bugs. Sometimes it requires very specific circumstances to trigger errors great and small in code and you need reproduction of those errors to track down what code is actually causing the problem.

Public betas dont find bugs. Public betas are to stress test server code and load. Its too much data otherwise for anyone to sift through.

The rest of what you are saying is nonsense based on the idea that they are using public tests for something they are not doing.

 Nurglitch wrote:
We could assume, for example, that our audience was literate. We couldn't always assume they were sober or easily capable of turning pages, but we could assume they could read.

Hence, the reason why my unit references are a single sheet, and the playing rules are on two facing pages. No page turning required!

But do they know there is a back page! It better have a little over arrow in the corner just in case!



Now I am thinking about if an all pictorial rule set is possible for a decent wargame?

 Nurglitch wrote:
Yup, so let's suppose your QA is as good as it'll get and move on. I don't mean to hand-wave it away, but I mean more about how you would connect QA to audience UX. Plenty of testing scripts include stuff like "what if audience was dumb enough to..."

Another technical writing trick I learned was that the manual didn't need to be all things to all people, just that subset of users that were actually intended to use the product. We could assume, for example, that our audience was literate. We couldn't always assume they were sober or easily capable of turning pages, but we could assume they could read.

The way to do it is to really just talk to your audience and take detailed notes on how they behave when you're teaching them the game. You should ask them for direct feedback, but you should also pay attention to how they actually behave while playing because often times they're not fully aware of why they're making the decisions they're making.

In PC games our designers spend a lot of time talking with the QA guys as well as with fresh players from selectively chosen test groups in order to find out where the major hang ups were and what is and isn't working. I have no experience in developing a tabletop game but I can almost guarantee that talking with testers (especially the ones who were least successful/most frustrated) about what their experience was like learning and playing the game is going to be just as important for tabletop as it is for PC games. The worst players in our test sessions often provided the most invaluable feedback, as long as we were generally assured that they were the audience we were designing for. Obviously if your test subject has nothing in common with your target demographic, then they're probably not someone worth taking feedback from and not worth designing for.

But, If you have a bunch former 40k players who are actively interested in pursuing a new tabletop experience such as yours, ie. they want to learn how to play and they want to enjoy a new game, but they're bad and/or frustrated with aspects of the game experience, then most likely there is something real there that is causing a problem. They might have suggestions on how to fix things (which will most likely be wrong because it's not their job to think about design day in/day out) but they will likely help illuminate some aspect of the real underlying issue that can help you identify the problem and address it.

If 3 people in our private test session complained that page 3 of the tutorial UI was confusing then it's probably an issue worth noting. If we don't address it and 15 more people post about it on the public beta feedback forums, then it's probably a pretty big issue that we need to fix. We can also correlate that with statistics on exactly where in the UI flow did the game session end and precisely where, when, and what percentage of users gave up or hit the skip tutorial button.

With tabletop of course you're just going to have to sit there and watch them play and take as many notes as you can. But yeah, if your target demographic isn't able to grasp your game or get good enough at it to enjoy themselves, then there is likely something wrong. The trick is not to take their suggestions as actual solutions, but instead use them to identify the real underlying design problem.

At my old studio we had a motto to "find the fun". As simplistic as it sounds, it really does highlight the primary role of the game developer which is to establish the correct boundaries for the player to be able to get enjoyment out of the game on their own, without having someone sitting next to them explaining to them how to "reach" the fun. That's the equivalent of explaining a joke to someone who didn't get it. Assuming you're sure that this is your target audience, it's the designer's job to figure out what is fun about a particular game system and trim away all the fat and deliver it as quickly and efficiently as possible to the player. Don't make the player have to work for it. Or if there is work involved, then at least the incentive of potential fun down the road must be communicated very quickly to the player before they get frustrated and lose interest in putting in effort to better learn the game.

Also your last point there is really funny . You really do have to assume your audience is kinda dumb, or at least when they're "game" mode many people do prefer to turn off their brains and relax. The moment it starts to feel like work is the moment you lose your audience.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

With a video game you cannot just hit a magic compile button and k ow if it works or not. Thats why some video games get released with crash bugs. Sometimes it requires very specific circumstances to trigger errors great and small in code and you need reproduction of those errors to track down what code is actually causing the problem.

Public betas dont find bugs. Public betas are to stress test server code and load. Its too much data otherwise for anyone to sift through.

The rest of what you are saying is nonsense based on the idea that they are using public tests for something they are not doing.

You seem to have a lot of secondhand assumptions about how game development works so I'm not even going to try and argue with you.

 Easy E wrote:
I am thinking about if an all pictorial rule set is possible for a decent wargame?

GW's intro pamphlet's can be pretty close, but I think it's a tough challenge. As the game complexity rises for "decent", I'm not sure. I do think it's possible for a small, simple game. KOG light could probably do it.

barboggo wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

With a video game you cannot just hit a magic compile button and k ow if it works or not. Thats why some video games get released with crash bugs. Sometimes it requires very specific circumstances to trigger errors great and small in code and you need reproduction of those errors to track down what code is actually causing the problem.

Public betas dont find bugs. Public betas are to stress test server code and load. Its too much data otherwise for anyone to sift through.

The rest of what you are saying is nonsense based on the idea that they are using public tests for something they are not doing.

You seem to have a lot of secondhand assumptions about how game development works so I'm not even going to try and argue with you.

No, I have first hand experience with programing, game design, and running tests internally and in "public betas". Internal teams who know how to write an actual bug report are far more reliable for catching actual bugs then 10,000 kids who have no idea what to look for or how to tell you about it in a useful way. On the other hand those 10,000 kids can bombard a near finished product for you and push your hardware and software to a limit for free that's not worth paying 10,000 people to do. Yeah, you give them the option to submit bug reports and yeah something useful might come out of it. But it's few and far between when "professional" testers are so much better organized and it's their actual job.

It's not unlike getting feedback for a piece of art. You have 100 viewers who say something more or less along the lines of "I like it" or "I don't like it" which is great but not especially useful. Or you can get someone who is actually trained for constructive criticism that can tell you how good or bad your composition is, use of negative space, use of color, balance, etc etc...

It's nice to hear from the 100 their general consensus. But I am only really learning what I did wrong and how to improve from the 1.

OMG this game no work I uninstal this company scammers!


Anyone who lurks on steam forums or even steam reviews can read that line and very similar over and over again from gamers - and they are not all young people either. Even just basic info like their computer system or what happened is missing; there's no self troubleshooting (drivers, settings) no mention of any specifics. Heck half the time even when you make a post in the thread requesting that information or that the person at least posts in the tech-support section they don't.


Plus even those who are better at giving info don't go into the game taking notes as they play or keeping a strong mental track record so tis very easy to end up with an error and not actually be able to fully recreate how they got there.

Quick question; using an alternating unit system for a table top wargame would help trim back the impact of alpha striking and bad luck (or good luck) yes? I’ve lost count of the amount of games I’ve played where it’s over by turn 2 and I’ve done nothing but just stand there and take it.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Quick question; using an alternating unit system for a table top wargame would help trim back the impact of alpha striking and bad luck (or good luck) yes? I’ve lost count of the amount of games I’ve played where it’s over by turn 2 and I’ve done nothing but just stand there and take it.

Typically yes its one big reason many people like that type of combat. What it enables is the ability to be very reactive and proactive at the same time since each thing you do your opponent can counter or move to adjust to and vis versa. It reduces the impact of a single good turn alpha strike because its broken up and you give the opponent a chance to react to the strikes.

In contrast the whole army turns mean that one player can end up having a turn where they take off a huge portion of the enemy - this hurts hard because it means the opponent has now lost a lot of options all in one go and is playing against an uphill struggle. It's not too bad in a game that relies on grinding attacks - ergo where you strike hard but won't kill a huge amount - but in a game whre you can kill a lot it hurts badly.

In Age of Sigmar it can be worse as its possible to get a double turn which can mean an alpha strike player can have two concurrent turns going first and beating the daylights out of their opponent.



The downside to alternate unit activations is often organisational. It often requires a token or counter for each unit to help keep track of what has and hasn't acted in that turn so in larger games it can get a little confusing working out which units you have and haven't used. Whilst with alternate armies its easier for a player to keep track of what units they have and haven't yet used - mostly because the actions run one to the next without a pause for their opponent to take action.




For this reason you often see alternate army activations in larger games and alternate unit activations in smaller skirmish games

Great summary, thanks Overread.

I was once considering a sort of hybrid of the two; think of the way combat works in AoS but for shooting too. Player who’s turn it is picks a unit to shoot with, then the other player does the same and so on and so forth until everyone has shot. It would try to bring the strengths of both systems together (cut down on alpha striking and bad luck, making it quick and easy to do) whilst keeping their weaknesses at a minimum. But I don’t know if it could work.

You could think of it from the other direction. Imagine if, for every choice a player makes, the other player gets to play a counter-move.

My son brought home a little card-game involving Iron Man and Warmachine, where you play three cards face down, and then left-to-right (or right-to-left). If you score the highest card, then you win, lowest you lose, and draw means you can play more cards. Most of the cards have a value from 1-5, and some other cards have a value of 0 and do stuff like multiply your score, or let you keep the cards in the pile if you lose, and so on. Winning 2/3 means you score a point, and all 3/3 means you score two points.

I've played a similar game called Combat Cards (by Tactical Assault), where players had cards with an Action you can assign to a unit, a situation you can play the card in, and a combat result you can draw as the result of an action or situation. If I recall it had the neat effect that you could lower the combat result drawn by one level if you moved an attacked unit directly away from an attacking unit.

The latter really got me thinking about the ways you can tie resources together. The other nice thing about cards is that they can be used to organize and summarize information. They can crunch down a lot of information into a play/pass decision.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Great summary, thanks Overread.

I was once considering a sort of hybrid of the two; think of the way combat works in AoS but for shooting too. Player who’s turn it is picks a unit to shoot with, then the other player does the same and so on and so forth until everyone has shot. It would try to bring the strengths of both systems together (cut down on alpha striking and bad luck, making it quick and easy to do) whilst keeping their weaknesses at a minimum. But I don’t know if it could work.

That's literally how GW's new Kill Team works. Shooting and Fight phases are alternate unit activation, while movement phase is still "I go, you go" meaning whoever has initiative moves all their models first, then the other player(s) move theirs.

There are some extra wrinkles where a model can give up its movement to "Ready", allowing it to shoot first in the shooting phase (before non-Readied models). Likewise, models that charged - charging happens in the movement phase, by the way - get to fight before other models that are within 1" of enemy models (aka "in melee combat").

There are additional details and nuance, overall it's a very fun and interesting system that departs in a meaningful way from regular 40k. I'm loving it.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Quick question; using an alternating unit system for a table top wargame would help trim back the impact of alpha striking and bad luck (or good luck) yes?

I’ve lost count of the amount of games I’ve played where it’s over by turn 2 and I’ve done nothing but just stand there and take it.

No, the reduction in game size/density, along with an increase in meaningful terrain would trim back the Turn 1 "problem". If players were still playing 40k 2E model counts, alpha strike wouldn't be an issue. Even at 3E model counts, probably still not an issue in most cases. By 7E / 8E, it's out of control. Dial back to 1000 points, and increase the terrain, and most of it sorts out.

If you are consistently losing on turn 1, you need to rethink your deployment strategy.

Alternating activation is a bandaid that doesn't scale well to something like 7E / 8E model counts, either. You end up with very slow rounds, and a lot of bookkeeping to know what has/hasn't activated each turn.

Within the 40k construct, some form of simultaneous combat, or reaction fire is sufficient to "solve" the problem - turning shooting into something a half step closer to melee.

In KOG light, I incorporate the AoS double turn, high lethality, and unlimited range, but I also scale at a small skirmish, with an emphasis on LoS-blocking terrain a la Infinity, and there are opportunities to shoot back as reaction fire. It's fast and furious, and the game has a very different texture than 40k.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Quick question; using an alternating unit system for a table top wargame would help trim back the impact of alpha striking and bad luck (or good luck) yes? I’ve lost count of the amount of games I’ve played where it’s over by turn 2 and I’ve done nothing but just stand there and take it.

How units interact via activation and turn sequence is one of the most interesting and important aspects of wargame design to me. There are so many ways to do it! The only way to really get a good grasp on activation mechanics is to go out and read about and play lots, and lots of games. There is so much more out there than alternate activation.

I remember first reading the Action/reaction mechanics in Force-on-Force and my mind was asploded! It opened my eyes to a world of so many possibilities. Then Infinity and others kept pushing the idea of action/reaction forward. I don't know which came first but I know which ones I have read and in what order.

Off the top of my head, for activation there is:

IGOUGO
Alternate Activation
Alternating Phases
Initiative Order
Act/React
Act by Turn Order
Push-your-luck
Act based on unit type
Random draw
Initiative by bid
Interrupts

I am sure there are many more. However, there is also variations that combine one or more styles or mix the two. Such as IGOUGO with an Overwatch mechanic.

So much flavor and style you can add to your game by seriously thinking thorough your activation and turn sequence mechanics.

It's really a question of how you want your game to play. What should it feel like. If you want the feel that AA provides, go for it. Just recognize that each mechanic has strengths and weaknesses, and select accordingly.

Zodgrim Dakathug wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Great summary, thanks Overread.

I was once considering a sort of hybrid of the two; think of the way combat works in AoS but for shooting too. Player who’s turn it is picks a unit to shoot with, then the other player does the same and so on and so forth until everyone has shot. It would try to bring the strengths of both systems together (cut down on alpha striking and bad luck, making it quick and easy to do) whilst keeping their weaknesses at a minimum. But I don’t know if it could work.

That's literally how GW's new Kill Team works. Shooting and Fight phases are alternate unit activation, while movement phase is still "I go, you go" meaning whoever has initiative moves all their models first, then the other player(s) move theirs.

There are some extra wrinkles where a model can give up its movement to "Ready", allowing it to shoot first in the shooting phase (before non-Readied models). Likewise, models that charged - charging happens in the movement phase, by the way - get to fight before other models that are within 1" of enemy models (aka "in melee combat").

There are additional details and nuance, overall it's a very fun and interesting system that departs in a meaningful way from regular 40k. I'm loving it.

Kill Team's an interesting example because it often seems to favor going 2nd in as many scenarios as going first. Going first helps if your dudes are well within shooting range or if you are in near-guaranteed charge so you can kill them first, while going 2nd helps if you're just barely within shooting/charge range and can use your extra bit of repositioning to gain an advantage.

I need to think about it more, but I distinctly remember the feeling of often not wanting to win the roll off every turn in a lot of scenarios. Having an initiative roll at the beginning of every turn was certainly a good change of pace. But we did often feel that each turn was largely decided by whether or not the initiative corresponded with what your KT was planning to do that turn. Alternating activations is definitely fun and more engaging, and probably less "swingy" too, but even then whoever got the more useful initiative roll (either going 1st or 2nd depending on what you were trying to do) always seemed to come out on top after combat.

I was mucking around with Into the Breach, a turn-based roguelike where you can practically hear the computer-gnomes rolling dice, and it occurred to me that it both really rewards successful play and punishes weak play. I was thinking about it the other way around, since that would be friendlier, but I can't figure out whether that would be fun since (a) roguelike games are supposed to be punishing, and (b) how much razzmatazz would you need to make up for such a squishy gaming experience?

I looked up Into the Breach - is it Roguelike? At least, it doesn't look like Rogue / Nethack / Moria ... Diablo / Gold Box.

From what I see, ItB is a pure strategy campaign, where you're effectively solving Roborally puzzles with Syndicate / Xcom agents.

Anyhow, the reason it strongly rewards success and punishes weakness is a near total lack of randomness when you make your moves in reaction to enemy plans. The campaign cascades each little thing onward.

As I noted earlier, GW's 40k Maelstrom is opposite, where high randomness mitigates skill. If you want newbies to win, you need to be more Fortnite (where lucky Crits insta-kill), than PUBG (where you need to manually compensate for bullet drop and recoil).

What is defined as a "bad player"?
To whom do we measure the standard of a "good player"?

It's not a great definition, but I think defining 'bad players' as those that will somehow make bad moves it a good enough definition. A bad player will look at a game, make a boneheaded move, and then be annoyed when the results of that boneheaded move become more apparent.

So far solutions are making the game simpler (so fewer boneheaded moves), the rules more transparent (so boneheaded moves are easier to spot), and the resolution squishier (so boneheaded moves aren't so painful).

So, basically I have to design games for people like me!

 Easy E wrote:
So, basically I have to design games for people like me!

Actually, you need to design games for people who are less than yourself. Less time to learn and master the game, less memory and familiarization. Blind playtest with new players is fantastic, watching them try to puzzle through the process of setting up a game, defining strategic objective(s), and playing complete rounds with full turns.

As I find myself with less free time to devote to various things, I appreciate simple games far better than I used to, which is why I've been on a huge streamlining kick for the past several years. I'm simply unable to play something like 40k competitively, to say nothing of the previous version with its myriad of rules. Make the game simple and clear, and the complexity can come from decision-making with clear results. "Chess-like" is what I aspire toward.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
So, basically I have to design games for people like me!

Actually, you need to design games for people who are less than yourself. Less time to learn and master the game, less memory and familiarization. Blind playtest with new players is fantastic, watching them try to puzzle through the process of setting up a game, defining strategic objective(s), and playing complete rounds with full turns.

As I find myself with less free time to devote to various things, I appreciate simple games far better than I used to, which is why I've been on a huge streamlining kick for the past several years. I'm simply unable to play something like 40k competitively, to say nothing of the previous version with its myriad of rules. Make the game simple and clear, and the complexity can come from decision-making with clear results. "Chess-like" is what I aspire toward.

That's even more depressing. That there could be people who would make bigger mistakes and more bonehead plays! :(

Interesting reaction, and not at all what I had intended. It's just a bigger challenge, and the way I'd frame it is "a game a child could learn, but for an adult to master"

 Nurglitch wrote:
Lately I've been involved in discussions about how to address bad players in games.

I think you decide it's too much work and make them play something else by themselves.

bmmm-tissss

 Nurglitch wrote:
I've noticed, particularly in tournaments (maybe because I'm concentrating on the winning conditions), that players will forget about winning the game and just try to destroy the opposing army. So maybe the rules can be explained, but there's too many steps in the game between players doing something and players scoring points.

Interesting example, because I had a friend who would do this. He would never capture points and would reliably lose.

I would point out, after he lost, that the game doesn't reward destroying units as a win condition as much as he seemed to think that it did. So, perhaps the scenario rules can make that more clear what win condition is.

 Nurglitch wrote:
It's not a great definition, but I think defining 'bad players' as those that will somehow make bad moves it a good enough definition.

So...everyone is a bad player.
Because everyone makes bad moves...everyone makes mistakes. It's how humans work.

So "good" players is a self imposed mythical statement?