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Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Greetings Designers,

We all have our own design preferences and quirks when it comes to evaluating a new game system. What are some of the key mechanics you look at first to determine if a game is something you would be interested in playing?

For me their are two major points I read over and consider....
1. Activation/Turn sequence
2. Campaign system

Activation/Turn Sequence- I am always interested in how the game models the interaction between models, and I think activation/turn sequence is the heart of any system. This will dictate how players and models act within a game. Therefore, it is the first part i try to wrap my head around.

I like to tell stories with my little metal/plastic/resin toys. Therefore, I am interested in how the game facilitates that, and allows me to link multiple games together into a cohesive storyline. I know many gamers could care less about this aspect, but it matters a lot to me.

So, how about you?

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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





Outer Space, Apparently

If we're looking at wargames only (pretty sure we are) I look a lot at how attempts to deal damage to your opponent work, and how your opponent deals with incoming and resolved damage.

Perhaps a weird one to look at first, but I feel so much hinges on how much that mechanic in particular is down to chance, and how much of it can be manipulated by the player. The more of the latter, the better, although there should always be a little chance.

I am also someone who plays a lot of things for story, however I find a campaign is easy enough to set up on my own with a couple of rules.

G.A

G.A - Should've called myself Ghost Ark

Makeup Whiskers? This is War Paint! 
   
Made in gr
Thermo-Optical Spekter





Greece

I am not sure I have things I look for as far as mechanics go, I care more about clear and consistent writing, streamlining and game balance than individual rules.

I did realise though now that you mention it that campaign rules are something I instinctively avoid, I care too much for game balance and campaign rules usually destroy it, I am not saying it cannot be done it can be done, but, mist just go for fluff and end up with a runaway leader effect.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

I look at the following:

1. Scale and Time. I need a game with a consistent notion of physical scale and time-motion. If it's too far out of whack, and there's no obvious reason, then that's an immediate turnoff.

2. Overall rules volume, preferring things under 30 pages in length. The more concise the ruleset, and the fewer (but more important) the distinctions, the better. OTOH, if it's a bloated, unedited mess, then I'm not bothering to decipher it. Too many rulesets are far too fiddly right now.

3. Combat resolution complexity. I want a game that resolves quickly, without any cross-referencing nor calculations required; any math using small numbers. When playing, I want the focus on the tabletop, not the rulebook.

4. Scenarios. I like variety of play, so scenarios that mix things up are nice.

Ambivalent.

- Campaigns. Limited time means I generally can only play one campaign at a time, and it takes months to get through. The presence of a campaign is nice, if the game is good.

   
Made in gb
Lieutenant Colonel




I look at the game turn mechanic to see if it is an intuitive fit with the type of game play the game generates.
I then look at the number of resolution methods used.Any more than 3 and I just walk away.

Then its down to the level of clarity and definition in the rules , and my opinion of the the game setting really.

I am not really bothered about campaign play, as you can make up your own narrative scenarios with your friends and link them if you like.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






One thing that puts me off is stat cards. I'm not keen on them in Warmachine, in Malifaux or Bushido. To me, they are too much of a temptation for games authors to add a thousand and one fiddly special rules that only affect one unit and that I can never remember. And then they replace perfectly functional words that are instantly clear in their meaning with symbols that ... aren't.

I play Warmachine despite this because I like the miniatures and setting, and the basic mechanics. I gave up on Malifaux when the first supplement for 1st edition came out, because I wasn't so invested emotionally in the game to overcome the fiddliness.

X-Wing I can just about tolerate because, well, it's Star Wars, but even there, my preference is for flying wing pairs, triples or flights of four identical fighters, with perhaps a hero in amongst them, than for tricking out three or four ships with wild and wacky combos of upgrades.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

I am totally OK with stat cards, when those stats and rules, etc. fit entirely on the face of the card, using normal-sized fonts, keywording to a minimum of universal special rules & types. IOW, a MtG approach.

If the designer starts kitchen sinking the thing, that's a sign that the design itself has bloated and nobody is doing editing.

   
Made in jp
[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

I am more interested in the period and style of game than specific mechanics.

I don't pick a game just because it has Mechanic A or B. I might reject a game because it has Mechanic X or Y that I dislike, but I might not if other aspects of the game are appealing.

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
Made in gr
Thermo-Optical Spekter





Greece

That is an interesting point, are there mechanics that are an automatic rejection or would a game that has an interesting period and time would keep you even if it included mechanics you don't like?
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

I think that genre, etc. are a higher level than mechanics. So, for example, if we are talking about WFB-ish Napoleonics 1:1 skirmish game, that's going to be the first cut, whether one wants to play such a game at all. I'm not hot on the notion, myself. If I wanted to play ranked battles, that's what fantasy is for. And skirmish seems out of place, when it should be block battles, not 1:1 men. So in the case of not-Warhammer Napoleonic Battles, it never really got on my radar as a thing.

OTOH, rework it to a pure block battle game at the 4mm scale, well, now I'm interested to the point that I'll start to consider mechanics. Whether it's a wound vs morale break system. Whether it's throwing d6s or a 3d6 curve or Xd6 resulting in successes or MoS resolution.

   
Made in jp
[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

Well, I played 40K from 4th to 5th edition despite in general disliking the mechanics of the rules, because other aspects of the game were appealing.

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

Have you looked at 7E? It's very different from 4E/5E.

   
Made in jp
[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

Yes, 6th/7th E is why I stopped playing 40K.

The massive price increases were also a factor.

I basically have always thought the core rules of 40K are clunky and flawed, and I tolerated them because the game offered a good selection of relatively balanced different style armies that allowed a lot of modelling opportunities. It wasn't too complicated.

It became more and more complicated, so whacky that it go completely unbalanced by introducing tons more options, and more and more expensive.

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

Thanks for clarifying. I totally get it. 6E/7E is awful, and I'm fortunate that we only play 40k a few times a year as a sideshow to shooting the breeze. Whereas 3E was pretty good and 4E/5E was tolerable. So yeah, 40k 7E and WFB 8E are both good examples of where mechanics kill an entire game for people.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/10/19 22:59:46


   
Made in us
Bonkers Buggy Driver with Rockets






I look for a few things:

Intended use: How do the game designers expect the game to be played? What examples of gameplay do they use to explain the rules? If it's a generic system what are the applications the authors recommend?

Core mechanics: what makes the game's mechanical base? Core mechanics determine what you will spend a lot of the game working with, so how do they work? Is it intuitive and does it get bloated when the game adds more layers to it?

40k drinking game: take a shot everytime a book references Skitarii using transports.
 
   
Made in ie
Veteran Wolf Guard Squad Leader





Dublin

1) As you have mentioned yourself OP, activation and turn sequence are paramount. Specifically I favour simultaneous game turns with actions and reactions, and am increasingly leaning away from IGOUGO systems like 40k, which make you feel like your guys are standing around getting shot at before they can react.

2) Balance. It's Impossible to implement more than a rough level of balance between units and armies as points values are skewed by many situational factors. That's acceptable. What isn't is units that are near unplayable or unbeatable due to gross neglect on part of the designers.

3) Army flavour. I want to see significant disparity in units' stats and overall army strengths and weaknesses i.e. this disparities should be enough to neccessitate different play styles between different forces.

4) Campaigns are very important to me. But having analysed many different rulebooks, there's a lot of common ground between campaigns and scenarios. Once you've read a few rule sets, I think its pretty easy to create scenarios and campaigns for any battle game, so I don't tend to need them in a games rules.

I let the dogs out 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

Templates are a no-go for me.
Against WAAC players they are a never-ending argument.
Against even well-meaning players they can still be an issue.
They slow down the game and just generally suck.
I'd rather template weapons have a set die roll for potential casualties/hits/whatever.

Thread Slayer 
   
Made in us
Incorporating Wet-Blending





Houston, TX

I would think that templates are essentially just a variant of measuring, so WAAC gamers arguing about that likely argue about everything related to measurement. For example, the simplest template would probably be a circular one, which is the same as saying every model within X of a given point is affected.

I do agree that odd shapes cause problems, though, and can usually be simplified. The Teardrop (which seems to be borrowed from D&D cone effects) is a perfect example. It could easily be simplified as just using a line and saying every model within an inch (or whatever) of the line is affected.

-James
 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

I don't understand the issue with templates - a round template is good for clarifying blast diameter.

   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I don't understand the issue with templates - a round template is good for clarifying blast diameter.

Templates delay the game unless both players are willing to take the other player's eyeball without question.
I've seen it come up enough in casual and tournament play that I'd much rather have it based on a dice roll for a template effect.
I agree that WAACers will argue just about anything and cheat on other measurements but I've seen even casual players bark just enough to sour the game as a whole.

Thread Slayer 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

OK, so what's your preferred mechanic for resolving an explosive blast radius?

   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

I like Bolt Action (1st edition's approach). They use dice.
The larger the radius the more dice.
A small radius might be d3 possible hits while larger is d6 or more, for example.

You measure range and then roll the appropriate dice.
No jockeying over whether the flame template covers the machine gunner versus an ordinary grunt and counter mechanics that allow the other player to shift the template around in search of the perfect minimum/maximum pain to the unit.

Thread Slayer 
   
Made in ca
Posts with Authority




I'm from the future. The future of space

The first thing I look at is how long wait times will be. Does the turn sequence (however it works) have short periods of waiting, long periods?

One thing I like to see is the inability to do everything you want in a given turn. Some sort of system that will leave part of your force having done nothing in a particular turn.

Something intelligible in terms of the ground scale and weapon ranges.

I also like it when you don't reach up or down through the levels of command too much. If my force is a company, I shouldn't really be making too many decisions that a brigadier general might make. Or if I've got an entire army, I'm probably not going to want to reach down through corps, division, brigade, battalion levels to position a single company as a regular practice.

Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better. 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

 privateer4hire wrote:
I like Bolt Action (1st edition's approach). They use dice.
The larger the radius the more dice.
A small radius might be d3 possible hits while larger is d6 or more, for example.

You measure range and then roll the appropriate dice.
No jockeying over whether the flame template covers the machine gunner versus an ordinary grunt and counter mechanics that allow the other player to shift the template around in search of the perfect minimum/maximum pain to the unit.


So... Converting from 40k, 3" blast = d3 hits; 5" blast = d6 hits. But you're still measuring range, which both sides have to agree upon.

And why shouldn't there be a penalty for clumping up to maximize hits?

BTW, in a 40k-like game, the correct process is to:
1. mandate that all area-based attacks must maximize the number of hits possible;
2. the owner must always maximize the total number of models removed as casualties;
3. the owner may choose which models are removed (grunts first, Sergeants & Specials last), regardless of range / LOS / coverage.

   
Made in ca
Posts with Authority




I'm from the future. The future of space

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
 privateer4hire wrote:
I like Bolt Action (1st edition's approach). They use dice.
The larger the radius the more dice.
A small radius might be d3 possible hits while larger is d6 or more, for example.

You measure range and then roll the appropriate dice.
No jockeying over whether the flame template covers the machine gunner versus an ordinary grunt and counter mechanics that allow the other player to shift the template around in search of the perfect minimum/maximum pain to the unit.


So... Converting from 40k, 3" blast = d3 hits; 5" blast = d6 hits. But you're still measuring range, which both sides have to agree upon.

And why shouldn't there be a penalty for clumping up to maximize hits?


The game designer (and the player who chose the game with the approach) prioritized the removal of jockeying for hits and the delays and problems of templates and view angles from other sides of the table over representing that?

Game mechanics require a price to be paid. Not everyone is going to want to pay the same price. You don't want to lose the penalty for clumping up, privateer4hire doesn't want to pay the price of jockeying over which models are covered.

And measuring range as being something you still have to agree upon? If the implication is that if you have one thing you have to both settle on you may as well have all things be agreed upon by both sides, then that probably needs rethinking. If the priority is to minimize it, saying "but you still have it here!" is pretty pointless as minimize does not equal eradicate. As well, privateer4hire seems to have found the issues come up with templates but not rulers/tape measures. Probably has something to do with attempting to measure something completely vertically but with both people at an angle to the template.

I'm not sure what I think about templates. They're not on my list of deal breakers but I see the strength of the dice roll alternative if units are attacking units. As well, I see a modelling issue with them as the casualty zones for fragmentation grenades are actually huge. Having something between you and the point of blast seems to be more important than being a little bit further away. Dice rolls abstract this into the roll, which is alright, I guess.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/02/24 20:04:49


Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better. 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

A template is just a fixed ruler...

   
Made in ca
Posts with Authority




I'm from the future. The future of space

 thegreatchimp wrote:
1) As you have mentioned yourself OP, activation and turn sequence are paramount. Specifically I favour simultaneous game turns with actions and reactions, and am increasingly leaning away from IGOUGO systems like 40k, which make you feel like your guys are standing around getting shot at before they can react.


Yeah, that's probably why I don't like long wait time games. Not only does not playing a game while you are playing a game suck, usually stuff is happening that you wish you could be making decisions about.

4) Campaigns are very important to me. But having analysed many different rulebooks, there's a lot of common ground between campaigns and scenarios. Once you've read a few rule sets, I think its pretty easy to create scenarios and campaigns for any battle game, so I don't tend to need them in a games rules.


Best scenario sourcebook I've found so far is One-Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas. The rules are relatively simple but the scenarios that make up most of the book's rules sections are great. It also covers a wide variety of types of warfare with the same basic rules and talks about the small changes needed to represent very different types of battles, so it's good as a design learning tool as well. Though as you said, if you've analyzed many different rulebooks and seen the common ground, there might not be anything new here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 JohnHwangDD wrote:
A template is just a fixed ruler...


And yet people find more wrangling about them then doing a linear measurement with a ruler...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/24 20:19:31


Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better. 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

I tend to see facing as a red flag. It creates a rebuttable presumption that the rules are not for me.

   
Made in us
Incorporating Wet-Blending





Houston, TX

I do not like rules which require me to place my painted models on its side. I would prefer a marker to potential scratching. I also do not like rules that create lots of dead time for one player. I have grown to dislike buckets of dice games as well. I also am disinclined to games with multiple dice sizes.

-James
 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Cheltenham, UK

I look for two things in new games (and try to put them into my own designs):

1. Elegant sophistication. This isn't about whether the rules lift their little finger when they drink their tea. Nor is it about either simplicity or complexity. It's about striking a balance between these two things.

2. A compelling narrative. This doesn't mean a great setting (although that doesn't hurt), or even an elaborate campaign system. Rather, I like rules from which interesting narratives emerge organically in the course of a battle. 40k, unfortunately, forces the issues with their idea of "forging a narrative" by introducing rules specifically to create this effect. A game with elegant sophistication (see above) should see them grow organically from the central principles of design.

R.

   
 
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