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Those of you who have been reading my blog, interact with me online, or heard some of my interviews know one of my key maxims as a Wargame Designer. Innovation is Over-rated. Therefore, you maybe a bit surprised to see a post about doing things different!

I often think of my own development as a wargame designer as Path A. I started with Dungeons and Dragons in the mid-80's. Saw an advert for Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader and got into that. Played that for a long time. Did time playing the Specialist Games. Then, eventually moved over to historical and other games at some point. I have heard this exact same story from so many gamers and wargame designers. Hence, why I call it Path A as it is so common.

Due to this Path A, there is a common Indie Wargamer joke that we all started out trying to build a better Warhammer. The first "published" rules I ever had were for a variant set of rules called "Jungle Fight" that was published in Firebase #7 a fanzine I found on the Old Warseer forum. I am pretty sure you can still track them down. Indeed, much of my early work was "Modding" Specialist Games to fit my campaigns and wants.



I have sad news for everyone though. No one actually wants a new Warhammer, well; at least not from you.

So, how much of variation from the comfortable mechanics are wargamers willing to stand before they reject a game? Certain games, and certain genres come with some expectations about what the game should do. How far can you vary from what they expect, and how much should you lean into it?

I explore this topic in a bit more detail on the blog, and posit a 80/20 approach to "new concepts". However, I would be interested in what you guys think? What is your personal limit? What games have gone "over-the-line" and which ones had the right amount of new shiny?



Oh yeah, if you want to read the blog it is here:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/11/wargame-design-we-dont-need-another.html

I've always found your "innovation is overrated" philosophy to be insufferable. Glad you're finally coming around!

I think you're on the right track with your 80/20 concept, but I think you're maybe off a bit on what those numbers mean. I don't think 80/20 should be "80% of this familiar game that you're inspired by, 20% of these new mechanics you're using to modify the game engine", I think it should be "80% mechanics taken from multiple games that your audience is familiar with, 20% mechanics taken from other genres or which you have created yourself", etc.

Its a minor distinction but an important one. 80% warhammer 40k with 20% other mechanics basically just gets you a warhammer 40k clone or something that might pass off as a prior edition of the game, etc. That is what Void, OPR, and Bolt Action are, basically - and yes, they have done well for themselves despite that, but with the exception of Bolt Action these games are actually minor players in the industry (and even then Bolt Action seems to be waning in popularity and declining in prevalence).

The "big games" in the industry are generally less transparently derivative of a single game than your interpretation of 80/20 would suggest. X-Wing was not simply Wings of War with a minor cosmetic facelift. Malifaux and Warmachine are both designs with little precedent in the tabletop wargaming space. Star Wars Legion pulls elements form basically all the above and more. etc.

I think the real key to avoiding rejection is less about how much "new" you put in there, and more about how relatable the new is. That relatability could be because the design/mechanic is intuitive (such as X-Wing, the maneuver dials and flightpath markers made sense, you could easily ascertain what it is that the design is trying to accomplish and represent, and visualize the game playing out "in real life" because they offer a high degree of verisimilitude), or it could be because the design/mechanic has some precedent or basis of reference so that a casual gamer can relate it to for purposes of sussing out how it works (this is why dice rolling is so commonly used when designing games, theres an almost universal degree of familiarity with it, playing cards are not that far behind but takes some adjustment to. If you used dominoes or a magic 8 ball for your RNG, or a slide rule for calculating combat results, you might alienate people from your game because its too out there unless your implementation happens to be in a way that makes these things more approachable).

Good thoughts Chaos.

Also, I think my 80/20 is more along the lines of what your wrote. Let's face it, there are very few NEW mechanics out there. However, there are new ways to apply those concepts.

 Easy E wrote:
Good thoughts Chaos.

Also, I think my 80/20 is more along the lines of what your wrote. Let's face it, there are very few NEW mechanics out there. However, there are new ways to apply those concepts.

Agreed, there are only so many ways to roll dice. How you combine various little different mechanics can be new and "innovative," though.

I think the appeal of "a reskinned Warhammer with a couple minor tweaks" is that it lends itself to essentially being some house rules that some groups may come up with, thus it's "easy" to develop in comparison to whole cloth. Cribbing off the setting likewise kinda gives a pre-built target audience. Neither of those are necessarily "bad," but I don't think either of those are necessarily going to lead to releasing the next blockbuster; it will always be seen as a "knock off" game.

Developing both new mechanics and a new setting is, in my opinion, risky, but that's where the biggest potential reward also comes. As some feedback I recently got regarding one of my games points out, though, it's important to remember that mechanics do not have any intrinsic value in and of themselves. Rather, they only have value as far as they support or promote the idea of the game, or the feeling or theme it's trying to evoke. Sure, there are gonna be some simple mechanical things that need to be dealt with in any game, but if it isn't furthering the theme or evoking the experience the game is really about, then it likely should be as simple as needed to resolve the game state needed by that situation. For example, a game that focuses on control and command and morale doesn't need incredibly detailed lists of weapons with highly complex melee and shooting rules.

No, we don't need another Warhammer, we need a better Warhammer.

The thread on Warseer that supported the development of Conqueror was actually called "Building a Better Warhammer," because I felt the the core elements of the design were never fully developed.

WHFB had the potential to be a fun, casual miniatures game with lots of potential depth that got lost in rules clutter and poor game balance.

Conqueror was therefore designed to be WHFB "friendly," and much of the discussion was built around how to convert existing armies to the system. The original version was just the rules and a section on building armies. The revised edition actually included sample army lists and was therefore more "player ready." You can buy the book, find a list close to yours, and play.

I feel two factors have held back its growth. The first was that I just didn't have the time or resources to do any kind of advertising. I had a family, day job and the joy of National Guard service with frequent deployments.

The other was that Warseer - which had been a going concern with lots of feedback, crashed and then died. What had been a promising portal that was building a player base (all the people who offered advice certainly wanted to buy it and play it!) vanished. The site is intermittent, and it's sad to go back and watch how much discussion there was before it died.

Anyhow, being derivative is fine if you offer clear product improvement. My understanding is that Pathfinder is a product improved D&D and for a time outsold it for that reason.

I think you are correct in your statement about "another Warhammer" because what we are likely to get is a game with the same problems with balance, Army of the Moment, expensive models and lack of proper development.

I think the main reason Conqueror died is because nobody ever heard of it. I haven't, and I have a library of several hundred rulebooks for various tabletop wargames.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I think the main reason Conqueror died is because nobody ever heard of it. I haven't, and I have a library of several hundred rulebooks for various tabletop wargames.

Yes, that is the primary reason - no marketing, no promotion. I was hoping to use word of mouth via forums, but they faded at a most inopportune time.

However, I don't consider it "dead" because in a sense, it's never been launched. Now that I'm done with military service, I'm looking forward to building out some marketing for that and my other books.

The primary reason is that it's not a product. Stuff like Warhammer is primarily about the miniatures. The actual game is vestigial compared to the people who just collect and paint and engagement in other, non-game aspects of the Hobby.

There's a bunch of historical, economic, and social engineering reasons why properties like Warhammer and BattleTech are the locus of someone's hobby and not someone's basement homebrew.

That's definitely true to an extent. Even then though there are some ganes that aren't "products" that have managed to last as things that people play for many years.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Anyhow, being derivative is fine if you offer clear product improvement. My understanding is that Pathfinder is a product improved D&D and for a time outsold it for that reason.

Well... its a LOT more complicated than that.

It wasn't particularly improved- it had some altered house rules. Some were better and some were worse. But the d20 SRD was in full swing, so they could just reprint most of the base game.

But Paizo had been the outreach arm hired by WotC, outsourced to produce Dungeon and Dragon magazine for years. They were D&D's de facto customer PR and outreach, that had already started producing 'adventure paths' for D&D. And WotC canned them. And then WotC also took D&D in a different direction and Paizo said, 'hey, we can do it old-style'

So Pathfinder already had a built-in audience of customers who felt rejected by the new edition, and a company they already turned to for 'official' materials. It was mostly a matter of adjustments, tweaks and new art (which is usually a big problem, but they had a stable of artists from doing the magazines for years).

Well that's a lot of Paizo context I never knew and explains a lot

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well that's a lot of Paizo context I never knew and explains a lot

Yeah. It was weird at the time when Wizards cut ties and killed the print version of Dragon and Dungeon (and I don't know if that really came from Hasbro or not), but it set Paizo up as an 'authority'

But the other important aspect is Paizo also had a huge pile of industry contacts (several of them including, iirc, the owner, were ex-WotC), and snapped up a couple more ex-Wizards designers and writers (though one was an iffy choice, as Sean K Reynolds was a controversial figure, who admitted post-WotC that a lot of things in 3rd, particularly feats, were intentionally designed as trap options and were deliberately not equal. Or even good. That rustled a lot of jimmies. He got caught up in the weeds shouting at people on the Paizo forums often enough that they eventually parted ways).

But at the start, that also added a lot to the legitimacy and promise to hold onto the 'authenticity' of 3rd edition. They were already a fully functioning company, had experience with getting printed material out regularly, and had editors, writers, artists and the ability to put together books as monthly products. That's a huge and over-looked thing, even now in the 'era' of digital media. A lot of people can't organize, layout and copy edit to save their lives and don't understand a rulebook (or reference book) is going to die if it isn't usable.


Future (current) irony, of course, is Pathfinder 2 caused a similar amount of disruption and abandonment for much the same reason as the shift from 3e to 4e, but none of the small Old School Rules crowd is in a similar position to catch. Even Paizo itself wasn't in a great position to reinforce PF2 with people deserting D&D after the whole snafu with attempting to repeal SRD last year. There's been a lot of splintering among companies vying for something new, but I don't know how well they'll do. Some are leaning hard on internet fame, but I think Kobold Press is the most likely to produce something meaningful (though I'm not real familiar with their work, so maybe not). But they do have existing infrastructure, writers, artists, etc. to draw on, which helps a lot.