Wargamers and RPers

[Blue Ghost]

PBI; rules-lawyering comes in when someone starts digging through the books simply to gain an advantage or save his skin, even if said rule could have been used but hadn't been the entire session. Looking up obscure stuff for the sake of it I think is OK with most people. It's when the obscure stuff is suddenly wrangled out of the blue to counter a player's poor judgement that gets under peoples' skins.

I've got loads of war stories about gaming sessions that just went bad because some guy's competitiveness got the better of him. That is he whipped out the the rulebook and insisted that we used interpretation Y of obscure rule X

That kind of petty stuff really grates on my nerves. And when someone gloats about being succesful at it... it's just poor sportsmanship in my book. I don't find that too often with an RP group, but I do encounter it quite a bit with a wargaming group, particularly with the more complex games.

Example; years back in Car Wars there used to be rules for spoilers and airdams to improve the performance of the vehicle. The intent of the rule was to add to a vehicles handleing class. But the way the rules were worded meant that a vehicle's HC didn't go up, rather the difficulty of a maneuvre went down. Meaning that if a maneuvre was a difficulty of two, and a player had both a spoiler and airdam on his vehicle, then he could perform that maneuvre all day long, and it wouldn't detract from his car's handleing.

Our group got into a few arguments over that one, but since everyone built their cars with spoilers and airdams (the day the rule was made public) it really didn't bother us too much.

Traveller doesn't have too much of that in the CT rules, though if I understand the MT rules correctly (rather some of the gripes about them) there were a couple of blank areas. But our group was usually pretty accomidating with unaddressed areas. The concept of the players wanting to achieve a common objective was unifying, and I think kept a good sense of spirit among the players.

Don't get me wrong. I like wargames. But I lean towards the good spirit fostered by a good RP session, than the sometime ultra competitiveness that's fostered by a certain breed of wargamer. Of course the same can be said about a certain breen of RPer. I guess on reflection it's all about persona.

Just my musings

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"there are no shops I know of in NZ that sell traveller stuff anymore (sob)."

These guys do (I can see T20 on the shelf!). They're even in Christchurch!

http://www.comicscompulsion.co.nz/pages/roleplaying.htm

 

[jasper]

NO PBI there are rules guru who know the rules the former in your example. And rule lawyers the second who should be dump into a land fill with most of other lawyers and buried deep so our great grand kids can have oil too.

 

[TKalbfus]

Has anyone tried to use the D&D minitures handbook to hack out a system of mass combat for the T20 game?

 

[PBI]

Originally posted by jasper:
NO PBI there are rules guru who know the rules the former in your example. And rule lawyers the second who should be dump into a land fill with most of other lawyers and buried deep so our great grand kids can have oil too.

Heh I sit corrected

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

As a longterm grognard (longer than a RPGer), I've seen rules lawyers in both the wargaming and RPG communities. Both are simply munchkins wearing different hats.

In the minis rule set DBM, each player chooses a historical army that strikes his fancy, purchases and paints figures, and sets them up against any and all opponents. DBM strives to allow a players to take any armies between 3000 BCE and 1500 CE and let them fight it out. It's a laudable goal and one that cannot be realized. All or near total cavalry armies usually prevail, just as the various horse peoples did.

Munchkins playing DBM always paint up cavalry armies, no combined arms for them, nothing but Kn(F) all the way. The only way to 'win' against such opponents is not to lose. You simply refuse both flanks; pin them to either side of the gaming table, hunker down and let the cavalry army come to you. Advance against him and you'll have an open flank which he'll exploit. It may not be much fun. The munchkin usually stooges around trying to draw you out, but you'll at least cause a draw and get to advance up the competition ladder.

Althogh you may 'win' in this case, you definitely didn't have any fun.

As for winning... While 'winning' in a RPG is difficult to explain - Is it merely surviving? Completing the adventure(s) as planned? Getting all those gold pieces? - the concept of winning in a wargame is far easier to grasp. Winning in most wargames means you do better than your side did historically, and that might mean you actually don't win at all!

Face it, very few battles in history were near run things. One side or the other normally got the snot hammered out of them, especially after morale broke and they ran. 'Winning' the wargame while playing that side may mean not losing as badly as your historical counterparts did.

The two genres use different measuring sticks to determine winning.

 

[jappel]

Like the estimable Mr. Whipsnade, I too am a longer-term grognard than RPGer. I don't have the breadth of experience he does, but then ASL (Advanced Squad Leader) sucked up most of my gaming time and energy for a number of years, and that 3" rulebook binder is a big reason ASL is a "hobby within the hobby", like Diplomacy.

I used to use a fair chunk of my vacation time to go to several ASL tournaments a year (think 3- or 4-day mini-cons, ASL bop-til-you-drop).

Larsen remarked:

Face it, very few battles in history were near run things. One side or the other normally got the snot hammered out of them, especially after morale broke and they ran. 'Winning' the wargame while playing that side may mean not losing as badly as your historical counterparts did.

This reminds me of Mark Nixon's famous analysis of the old Squad Leader scenario, "Silent Death", where a company of Finnish Sissi ski commandoes torch a Russian-filled village in the middle of the night. Mark's assessment of the Russian advantages in this scenario: "The Finns have really tough victory conditions, and the scenario is mercifully short."

Wargaming may have a competitive element, but one of my fondest memories of my ASL career was hanging out late one night at ASL Oktoberfest in Cleveland, sharing a bottle of excellent single-malt with folks from the UK, France, various US states, and some Kiwis who were living & working in Japan (one guy was calling in sick every day to his boss in Tokyo!) No competition here, except maybe in whomever had the most outlandish war story to tell.

You can also have a blast but lose, especially in games that are close, but more often in games that just have Cool Thing Happen. The little squad of conscripts that holds off 40 elite paratroopers, the time you drew disaster cards 5 turns in a row in Civilization, the building that swallows three T-34s into the cellar (and what's the stacking capacity in there, anyway?) - those make things fun, even when you're getting your head handed to you.

The distinction between rules gurus and rules lawyers is a good one. My experience has been that most gaming communities are small enough that these people are identified quickly. The sad problem is that some communities are too small to make avoiding these scum problematic. Still, sometimes these people find themselves one day without any opponents, as they've managed to tick off everyone.

Back to the original topic: every segment of society has its share of cranks, prima donnas and just plain headcases. I'm not sure if there are fewer in Traveller than in the RPG hobby as a whole, or just fewer of them on this forum, or if it's just easier to bypass them here. I agree though that CotI is by and large a pretty friendly and helpful place to be!

John

 

[jfwking]

Originally posted by jasper:
NO PBI there are rules guru who know the rules the former in your example. And rule lawyers the second who should be dump into a land fill with most of other lawyers and buried deep so our great grand kids can have oil too.

What have you no regard for the enviroment. All those dumping and polution laws you violate by non licensed disposal of toxic waste (dead lawyers)

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
In the minis rule set DBM, each player chooses a historical army that strikes his fancy, purchases and paints figures, and sets them up against any and all opponents. DBM strives to allow a players to take any armies between 3000 BCE and 1500 CE and let them fight it out. It's a laudable goal and one that cannot be realized. All or near total cavalry armies usually prevail, just as the various horse peoples did.

I won't comment on whether or not "All or near total cavalry armies usually prevail, just as the various horse peoples did".

But I will comment on the set-piece nature of most DBM games (and many other miniatures games): this is unrealistic.

The answer to it, and a potential fix for munchkinism, is to run campaign games.

When the munchkins have economic limitations on the armies they can raise, and have to worry about besieging cities as well as hammering your field army, one of three things will happen:
(i) Their heads will explode, and you will never see them again;
(ii) They will prove to be hopelessly inept, and you will run rings around them;
(iii) They may even grow a brain.

And if you include leadership characterisation and diplomacy in the game, they can enjoy a bit of roleplaying & power tripping that they would really like.

Hmm. Actually... you could probably set up miniatures campaigns with a PBEM roleplaying element attached to them. A local group (or two) could actually lay lead on the table, while any old punter from around the world could engage in the diplomatic and political side. I'll have to think about this a bit more.

 

[Whipsnade]

alanb wrote:

"But I will comment on the set-piece nature of most DBM games (and many other miniatures games): this is unrealistic."

"The answer to it, and a potential fix for munchkinism, is to run campaign games."


Mr. Bradley,

Which is why I also wrote: The munchkin usually stooges around trying to draw you out, but you'll at least cause a draw and get to advance up the competition ladder.

Any wargame is set-piece in nature. None of them really take things like economics, politics, diplomacy, and the like into consideration. If any of them did, they'd be far too clumsy to play.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[kafka47]

I have always found that Wargamers in Traveller tend toward power gamers. They are always trying to gain a superior advantage.

Munckinism in Traveller was usually those who never bothered to learn the rules and just play it like AD&D in Space.

eg. what do you mean my character cannot come back, isn't Earth a TL F civilization? (his vacc suit ruptured in space when he took on a platoon of Imperial Marines)<sigh>

 

[kaladorn]

Oddly, I found the exact opposite. RPGers from the Hero Games, AD&D of late, and other similar systems where min-maxing your character was a serious advantage were more likely to be concerned about 'getting the best of it'. I've found most wargamers are more used to the ebb and flow of battle (depends on the games you play I guess) and tend to rely more on good tactics and strategy than on a particular game mechanic.

 

[Blue Ghost]

kaladorn I've actually come across similar mindsets with the Hero system. I think that's largely because the Champions framework is such that there's a lot of "engineering" of characters to create combinations of attributes and powers that you'd never see in any comic book. But are assembled for the sole sake of gaining some combined advantage.

I think that's true with the new D&D rules. I've not played the new 3rd edition (or 3.5, or whatever the newer version is called these days), but if I understand correctly the old class system was tossed out the window in favor of a skill based system. I find that troubleing because part of the justification for the class system was that if you chose to be a wizard or warrior, then your character's spare time was spent reseraching spells or sparring in the court respectively. The skill system trashes what I think is the core of what the old D&D system was based upon. And I think there's going to be more rule-lawyering in that system now than ever before.

Myself, I don't play either system anymore because I don't have the time nor interest in them. But even if I did I might veer off for the aforementioned reasons.

 

[Straybow]

I started out as a wargamer, getting into RPGs a couple of years later. I don't think that's unusual (RPGs grew out of wargames originally).

I think most of us grizzled wolves who predate D&D itself got into RPG after testing the wargame waters, whereas the young pups tend to jump into Evercrack and other forms of RPG first (if they ever stumble into real wargames at all).

I think there's a little Munchkin in all of us.

Yes, but in Traveller we can mask it behind unalloyed greed.

All or near total cavalry armies usually prevail, just as the various horse peoples did.

Munchkins playing DBM always paint up cavalry armies&#133; You simply refuse both flanks; pin them to either side of the gaming table, hunker down and let the cavalry army come to you.

Ahhh, Agincourt

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Straybow:
Ahhh, Agincourt

Feh. Taginae, buddy.

Especially since Citizen Whipsnade has told us about all the munchkins whose armies consist of nothing but Kn(F).

But what was I thinking about? Until I remember, I will mention that there is a DBM army list that quite literally "has my name on it". I mean really. If you were named Frank, wouldn't you decide to play Early Franks' army? Or some other bunch of Franks later on? Well, I have this problem with an army called "Alan's"...

My attention span hasn't returned. I mostly play WWII. I rarely put tanks on the board. As a result, I am a fairly good Panzer killer. Hunting tanx with infantry and artillery is fun. You just have to be prepared to lose a time or seventeen. And you do.

I play some of the most boring WWII games you can possibly imagine. Basically, if you are on the offensive, artillery is your friend, and if you are under fire, the time to advance is at night... Any variations from this are called indecisive skirmishing.

Ah! My other window has provided the quote I wanted to respond to!

From Citizen Whipsnade:
Any wargame is set-piece in nature. None of them really take things like economics, politics,
diplomacy, and the like into consideration. If any of them did, they'd be far too clumsy to play.

Ah, now this is not correct! All the economics, politics and all that are worked out by the time two armies get down to a battlefield. (Except, of course, for the forces that defect, run away, hang about dithering, or change sides - that is, behave like DBM allied contingents.) All this stuff has happened - it's just been abstracted.

If you really insist on generating battles where all this stuff has been abstracted before the battle, create a random generation system to vary the sizes of the forces, and maybe convert some of your sub-generals to ally-generals. You might want to ensure the forces are of a vaguely comparable size, so that you don't have to play the situations where one side is overwhelmingly stronger than another.

But still, that's what happens when you slap down two forces on the table without playing in a campaign. In a well-designed campaign, you are trying to hold your enemy back until your reinforcements arrive. Until then, you are monstrously overwhelmed. Can you avoid defeat for ten turns? Is your enemy really coming this way, or are you just skirmishing with a few of his scouts or foragers?

That's the kind of thing that establishes the difference between a decent commander, a munchkin, or Pyrrhus of Epirus. (Pyrrhus is second only to Charles the Bold of Burgundy in terms of being real historical munchkins, IMHO. Other nominations are welcome.)

Oh, but none of this has anything much to do with Traveller, does it? Well, blah blah blah. I can run rings around _your_ battle fleet, anyday, clever person!!!

It's your turn to organise how you want to prove otherwise. Remember, thousands of people are watching....

 

[siefertma2]

I primarily started as a role player and worked my way up to miniature wargamer when I got into college. I only got back into RP-ing a couple of years ago, and have only started playing Traveller within the last year.

Even during my wargaming-only days, the group of players I was with preferred to play the more "rules light" wargames rather than the overly-detailed rules that where favored by the grognards. Our philosophy was: If your rule book's dwarfed the NYC Phonebook or required a PhD to play, then they weren't worth the trouble. If you needed a referee, it only meant that the rules were too complex for the players to understand on their own.

This is mainly the reason I prefer Power Projection over the other space combat games created with the Traveller name, far less minutia to wallow in. It's also the reason why I'd like to see Striker translated into a simpler format such as Dirtside II or Stargrunt II. I think that as it stands, Striker is weighed down by details that take away from the enjoyment of the game... unless you LIKE waiting 10 turns before your army can react to your meticulously written orders or figuring the cubic volume of your vehicles before adding on EVERY component right down to the toilets.

I want to play the GAME, not the rules.

Now, does that make me some sort of dullard who spoils the pure "simulation" that these games are supposed to provide? I'm sure to many hardcore grognards and Traveller gear-heads, it does. However, to my mind, Traveller is more of a rules setting than a set of rules. Indeed, it was Traveller's "rules-heavy" reputation that kept me from actually trying it until T20 was released. The rules, be it for role playing or wargaming, should not get in the way of the players having a good time.

 

[jasper]

What have you no regard for the enviroment. All those dumping and polution laws you violate by non licensed disposal of toxic waste (dead lawyers) .. oh they would be NOT dead in the beginning...

I remember my first squad leader teacher. He told me flat out I would lose the first game (american squad has to either kill all the german squad or have people in a certain building at end) because he had game for x years but he would not try anything fancy and explain my mistakes after made them and one thing I could did to correct. And he would explain the terms, movement and some better choices. If you hit the road here you still make it with a little bit more cover but use up all the moves.
You guess he nearly wipe me out. the machine gun nest wipe out alot of my men as I cross the street from open door to open door. (then explain the tap back. Thou I want to move from x to y and up the stairs the way the game was step up he orginially fired as i was crossing.) He started to add up victory conditions making me follow along. He got slightly mad when I had gotten my officer with just a pistol into one of the victory rooms.
We play a couple of more games but never got pass the third set up.

Compare to the person who tired to teach me ping pong in the army. After 8 pionts we agreed no back hands to me. And it continue to go down from there. The goober was more concern with keeping the table and winning than having a worthy opponent.

Thing is I still come across theses people. In hero, dungeon clix. the game with clicking bases on young adult was boasting how he cheated a 14 year old out of a rare piece in a random pack. He and others were sorry when I suddenly recalled I had to help my wife out at half hour from now.

how win at the d&d make the dm cry, quit, scream, etc

 

[siefertma2]

Originally posted by jasper:

Thing is I still come across theses people. In hero, dungeon clix. the game with clicking bases on young adult was boasting how he cheated a 14 year old out of a rare piece in a random pack. He and others were sorry when I suddenly recalled I had to help my wife out at half hour from now.

I have that same trouble where I game, but it's mainly with the GW players who hold court there Saturdays. They are the most annoying pack of bores I've ever had the displeasure of gaming with. Click-base games and Game$ Work$hop tends to bring out the lowest common denominator of the gaming community.

No, they don't think much of my Traveller fandom, either.

 

[DaveChase]

Just a note on the miniature gaming side.

Not all of us are like the ones you have mentioned above.

I, for one, will go out of my way to show you how to beat me if you are a new player.
I want you to have fun and learn the game so that you will want to play the game with me later.

I too grew weary of the attitude and money hungry, money first, we are not making enough money that happened (is happening with) WizKids and the combat dial (clicky base) game.

Players attitude (?) Nope, Wizkids the company.

And I speak from the prespective that I use to be an employee of them. Players, Envoys(Volunteers) venues out of line, tell me and I will fix it (or incentisize them to change). (Former volunteer coordinator for WizKids)

Disruptive attitude during play, better not let me hear about it. Of course, I have not been in charge of that program since Jan 2003, and no longer with WizKids since Jun 2003.

But back on point, yes flashy big prizes bring out the (pick one or all: arogant, rude, obnocious, boastful, I got more money than you) people that you will ever want to have to deal with.
I considered it a challenge and sometimes fun to try and work with them to show them that games can be fun and you can win too.
But once you lose the backing of those who are there to support you (whether the company, store or motivation) it becomes an extreme pain in the ass to deal with both sides of the coin.

Anyway, pleaaaassseeee try to remember the few of us who do play all those games for fun and not just for winning bragging rights.

(and please ignore the spelling errors. Thanks)

Dave

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Mark A. Siefert:
Even during my wargaming-only days, the group of players I was with preferred to play the more "rules light" wargames rather than the overly-detailed rules that where favored by the grognards.
...
I think that as it stands, Striker is weighed down by details that take away from the enjoyment of the game... unless you LIKE waiting 10 turns before your army can react to your meticulously written orders or figuring the cubic volume of your vehicles before adding on EVERY component right down to the toilets.

Well, after thirty years of wargaming and twenty-five of roleplaying, I'm as much a grognard as anyone else...

I prefer rules-lite games. My favourite WWII rules are Rapid Fire, not Command Decision.

On the other hand, I really like Striker (I)'s command and control system. The "waiting 10 turns before your army can react" thing is one of the best ideas ever, even though it is inevitably clumsy.

I can deal without the finer details of vehicle design.

On the other hand, I appreciate the solo play aspect of "building things", so being able to design vehicles is a good thing. Unfortunately, being forced to do that, and not being able to choose stuff from off the shelf, is a weakness.

I also like the Hero system - my perpetual quest for the ideal character has come up with some very strange, but non-munchkin, designs. I design completely differently from what I did a year ago. I'm not entirely sure my current characters are actually tougher than their predecessors, but they certainly are more interesting.

This is another solo game, when you get down to it.

I also fiddle with point based forces for miniatures games. Sometimes I even put these forces down on a table and see how they work in reality...