Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Thankfully now-a-days it is easier than ever! There are a myriad of ways to get your wargame to the market. To be a wargame designer, you really only need two things:

1. A wargame
2. People to play it

Now, most aspiring wargame designers' plans fall apart at step 1. Therefore, I have put together a handy-dandy blogpost that will get you from idea all the way to publication ready! It covers all the basic ideas you need in order to take your dream concept to reality! Does that sound like something that would help you "put down your toys and become a real wargame designer?"



lol :-* o_o I am sure no one gets that reference, but it amuses me! That's all it takes.

Anyway, this week go to my Blood and Spectacles Blog to see how to turn your game idea into reality. No subscription necesary and no refunds! Trust me, no one is getting rich off Blogs and indie Wargame Design anyway, so come to the best Wargame Design Blog on the internet!* lol

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2025/11/wargame-design-so-you-want-to-make-game.html


* = Note: May not actually be the best wargame design blog on the internet.

Cool, I will have to read it when I’m able to focus again.

But it’s always useful info to have!

Do you have tips on how to find sane, rational or thinking playtesters?

No, tips on that front. Usually I use my local game group but not everyone has that luxury.

I do recommend people that you can interact with face-to-face rather than random online folks.

 Easy E wrote:
No, tips on that front. Usually I use my local game group but not everyone has that luxury.

I do recommend people that you can interact with face-to-face rather than random online folks.

Random Online Folks is now the name of my Garage Band.

I think the most important aspect of game design is that you have to bring something to the table. If your design is merely a tweak to someone else's work, it's not really worth the effort.

This is why I never designed a "Conqueror: 40,000" because when I started looking at it, I realized I wouldn't change enough about 2nd ed. to make it worth my time. Actual Conqueror, by contrast, was a major departure from WHFB, and used more traditional historic wargaming elements, with a particular focus on the importance of morale and leadership. Creating just a couple of intermediate morale states between "normal" and "routed" makes the game much more realistic and enhances the player experience since troops will usually start to bend before they break, thereby creating dramatic tension.

One need not get into the weeds of principles of game design to do this because gaming is so open-ended.

Another great way to build wargame designer experience is to the join the US military and get yourself assigned to a higher headquarters with an indulgent command staff. Not only can you design cool simulations, you can also conscript players to test it out!

I don't want to be a game designer.

I'm forced to be a game designer because most games on the market are bad.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I don't want to be a game designer.

I'm forced to be a game designer because most games on the market are bad.

Really?! Yeah, statistically speaking most games/books/movies/songs are bad, but surely there's enough of others to fill anyone's lifetime. Which games from, say top 100 spots on BGG are "bad"?

Not to your taste, sure - not all are to my taste too. But "bad"? Objectively speaking?

Wargames.

Does BGG even list wargames? If it does, I imagine the top 20 or so spots are all GW and those are by and large bad

The tier 2 companies of yesteryear (Privateer, Battlefront...) have mostly new edition'd their games into irrelevance, some of them multiple times

Then there's Osprey's stable, which mostly are at least actual functioning games that one may or may not like

Then there's the New Indie scene (hashtag 28) pushed by influencers rather than traditional designers, that is mostly all vibe no rules

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Wargames.

Does BGG even list wargames? If it does, I imagine the top 20 or so spots are all GW and those are by and large bad

Of course it lists wargames. The highest ranking wargame is firmly in the top 10 and has been for a long time - War of the Ring, an extremely respected title. If you count Twilight Struggle as a wargame (many do, I don't know) a wargame even occupied first spot for many years.

You can list those by category, bgg currently lists thousands of wargames.

Cyel wrote:

Of course it lists wargames. The highest ranking wargame is firmly in the top 10 and has been for a long time - War of the Ring, an extremely respected title. If you count Twilight Struggle as a wargame (many do, I don't know) a wargame even occupied first spot for many years.

You can list those by category, bgg currently lists thousands of wargames.

Not long ago I sorted their games by rating, and I think I had to scroll through 500 non-wargames before I found any actual wargames. The vast majority of the site is what we used to call "party games" like Clue or Monopoly.

Modern wargames seems to be a mess, packed with busy graphics and lots of subroutines to keep players busy and also make the results more random.

It reminds me of a more upscale version of GW's 1990s offerings where you had a tabletop miniatures game with a card game grafted into it. I think this is a result of wargaming going mainstream and getting watered down. It's not so much about simulation as randomness, fiddly bits and call-outs to historic events.

I should clarify that "complex" does not mean "realistic." Thinking it does is a very 80s approach to wargaming. I think the pinnacle of wargame design is something that is simple to learn, easy to play but that conveys realistic decisions appropriate to the level of command. About a decade ago I designed a game that was "played" on a Power Point slide deck, with the players writing down their choices on a single sheet of paper. At the end, they handed them in and we tabulated the results. Really simple stuff. (The "game" was to play the role of an Air Force Combatant Commander, matching resources with operational planning requirements. The enlisted actually scored higher than the officers. Go figure.)

Since no post here is complete without my plugging my miniatures rules, I'll note that I've decided to publish a new revision of Conqueror, with improvements to the layout, better art and some expansions to army selection, sample lists and so on. I don't have a timeline in mind, but now that I'm able to game again, I'll likely knock out a few games and that will motivate me to push it a little harder.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:


Modern wargames seems to be a mess, packed with busy graphics and lots of subroutines to keep players busy and also make the results more random.
.

Interstingly this is my opinion on classic wargames (or TT games in general actually)- newer ones seem to concentrate more on offering more decision points and player agency while optimising UX/UI, old ones were about randomness and admin upon admin (roll dice, consult table, perform steps, adjust sliders, roll more dice, remove tokens, consult another table... when the hell will I get to make a choice and a move!?).