THE FOUNDRY MANIFESTO: WARGAME RULES
OVERVIEW
All our rule systems must be completely open for access and enjoyment by all wargamers and potential wargamers, whatever their level of experience, commitment, historical and military knowledge, preferences for scale of model, size of base, and whatever size of army they are willing to commit themselves to building.
PROVIDING A CONTEXT
Each rule set must assume that their audience are intelligent people, with absolutely no experience of wargaming, the vaguest knowledge of history and geography, and no knowledge of military history. All this has to be explained before we start, and if we can't manage that for our chosen period, then we have no business trying to write a rule system for it!
So, we need to do a section on the general historical background, the specific military background, what happened on the battlefield and why, troop types, weapons and organization.
Then we must do a section on "what is wargaming, and why we do it".
Each system and sub-system in the rules, each chart and test will need a sensibly chosen name that actually describes its function in simulating the battlefield experience. This should not be an acronym, a jarringly modern-sounding term, a technical gaming term or anything that does not directly seek to explain in a straight forward manner what is supposed to be going on. Ideally the chosen names should reflect the character and spirit of the period, avoid the clumsy, pretentious and over-wordy.
Each technical term, gaming or military, must be properly explained. Your reader does not know what a squadron, battalion, regiment, brigade, musket, rifle etc. are!
When you provide the rules for a game mechanic, you must describe what you are simulating. Any aspect of the rules where you present a mechanic, or a modifier within a mechanic, where the aspect of warfare that is being simulated is not immediately apparent, must be explained, either in the main text, or in designers notes.
The important thing is that the reader feels that they are working their way through a series of systems that simulates a battle or skirmish, and that they understand the process, rather than being presented with an impenetrable, abstract construction to puzzle over.
Some discussion of tabletop tactics will also be required.
STRIPPING IT RIGHT BACK!
Once you have written your rule set, and you're happy with it as a system, take another look, and strip out any rules that aren't absolutely necessary for playing a balanced game. These rules can be moved into an "Optional Rules" section in the back. If you feel that some of them are particularly valuable, in terms of giving a more enjoyable or realistic game, then you should say so. But go ahead and strip them out anyway!
When newcomers to wargaming first try your rules, we need them to be able to fight their first battles as simply as possible. Experienced gamers will be able to mix and match from amongst your optional rules to create their own house system, or to accommodate different sizes of battle.
Even experienced wargamers would sometimes prefer something quick and simple, but would not think of stripping back their usual rules.
Whenever we write a set of rules, we always have to strike a balance; we want to cover as many aspects of the warfare of the period as we can, but we know that we can only include so much without overloading the system. This way, you do not need to self-censor, let the purchaser participate in building the rules that suit his/her self.
With my own rules I have been looking at each mechanism and modifier and asking "does this add anything significant to the game? Is it actually fun to roll on this chart, does it create laughter, tension, cries of rage or victory?" Because if it doesn't its just getting in the way, its just so much crap.
Then, having hopefully disposed of the crap, I've looked at the rules again. This time I've asked "is it possible to play the game without this mechanism?" And if it is, I've moved the mechanism to the Optional Rules section. Wargamers can make up their own minds whether they need it or not; whether they'll enjoy it or not (though I have made recommendations).
BASE SIZES
The rules must be useable with any base size.
They must be usable with singly based 28 mm models, for people who also want to skirmish game with their collection. Tell them about movement trays.
We will be manufacturing models on the basis that infantry go on 20 mm or three quarter inch bases, and cavalry on 25 mm or one inch. We may eventually produce die-cast bases of ingenious design to fit them on, and this may, one day, become the standard size; like Slottabases in fantasy and science fiction, but even then, it will be important to leave it completely open to gamers with every possible base size to use their army with our rules.
Obviously, it must be possible to use the rules with any figure scale. This doesn't necessarily mean adjusting the ground scale of course, in fact as people generally play on the same size table, giving smaller move distances to smaller scales can just produce a tedious game.
My intention is that all our rules should be usable with bases of any size whatever. This really means that all bases, infantry and cavalry, must be the same unspecified size. You can tell the customer how many soldiers a base represents, then it's up to him what size he makes them and how many toy soldiers, and in what scale, he chooses to stick on them.
Of course, a cavalry base can represent a smaller number of real men than an infantry base, and a light cavalry base a smaller number than a heavy cavalry base.
You then have two ways to approach movement distances: You can either say that as long as bases are within a fairly generous range of sizes (say between three quarters of an inch and one and a half inches square) you use the distances in the text, but for bigger bases use the revised tables at the back of the rules. Or you can treat all distances as multiples of the standard base size. You could call this a "span" or something. Where this is a simple distance (like an inch) players could use standard rulers, otherwise you could suggest that they make up special rules for their base size.
UNIT SIZES
The gamer must be able to use whatever number of models he likes in his regiments, within reason of course.
This means that if you have a system that deals with the number of individual models in a regiment, it has to be playable using 12 models. If you use group bases, then you just have to make sure that the reader feels comfortable about using one model per base while he gets on with building his collection.
Let them know that its OK to start with very small units, and that they can build up later if they like.
And you don't get to print your own ideas about unit sizes and base sizes out front in an authoritative manner, and hide the options in the back somewhere either! Too many people are put off from starting new periods, or wargaming at all, because they are daunted by the number of models most rules systems demand that they must field before they are "allowed" to participate.
DICE
Unless you have a particular rule mechanism that absolutely requires it, only six sided dice will be used.
RECORD KEEPING
Record keeping must be kept to an absolute minimum! It won't necessarily be possible with every set of rules, but ideally no writing should be necessary during the game.
PLAYSHEETS
Each set of rules must include a set of playsheets, which, under normal circumstances, are all that are required to play the game once a gamers are familiar with the rules. This allows us to be fairly verbose in the main text.
ARMY LISTS
With their army, our rulebook, some six sided dice and a ruler, the gamer has to be able to get on with it without further purchases. Even if we plan to do specific supplements lavishly detailing armies of various theatres or sub-periods separately, we must print all the army lists we reasonably can in the main volume.
COMPREHENSIBILITY
This is the tough part for many authors.
I will be the final arbiter as to whether your rules are sufficiently accessible and easy to understand. We will keep working on them until I am convinced that there is no room for misunderstandings or confusion, and that a reasonably intelligent newcomer to wargaming will be able to build an army and fight a battle using them, and come away with a rewarding rather than a frustrating experience.
I will do the final text edit anyway, so you don't have to worry too much about the final polish, but everything will have to be properly explained in a clear, straightforward manner, without contradiction, confusion or omission.
Wargames rules do not have a very good record in this regard, they tend to assume that their readers are gaming veterans who can cope with any problems they encounter and "fill in the gaps" from their previous experience.
This may be rather more work than the authors expect, especially if they are eager to see their work in print as soon as possible, but in the end I think most people will find that the effort involved will more than reward itself when the final product becomes a reality.
PLAYTESTING
You are going to have to organise your own playtesting, our contacts are committed to playtesting our own stuff, though we can help you make new contacts. We will certainly give your rules a try ourselves a few times at least. But before they are published, we have to be confident that they have been extensively playtested, including a substantial number of games in a "blind", unsupervised setting.
Thirty games is an absolute minimum, additional playtesting is required after any revisions.
The authors of rules know exactly how they are intended to work, they inevitably play the game without having to rely on the exact content of the written rules. The customers who ultimately buy the published version will not have the advantage of an author standing by the table, so we have to ensure that they are properly tested without interference from the authors!
There's no getting round this one: no full playtesting = no publication!
Bryan Ansell.
Return to Free Rules
Return to The Foundry