My diceless gaming system

[Justin Swanton]

On the off-chance a few here don’t already visit TMP or the SoA forum, I’d like to burble about my gaming system, Optio, that’s been development for decades years.

Here’s an overview of the system (seems there’s a problem downloading from the link so the overview is reproduced in a separate post below).

And a few battle reports to give a feel for how it works, here, here, here and here.

Optio gives a very different playing experience from the other rulesets out there, in that there is virtually no chance and everything that happens depends on the decisions of the players. There is however plenty of the unforeseeable – there are too many options to make it possible to calculate even one move ahead: one has to apply general tactical principles and grab opportunities as they arise.

https://wargamingwithoutdice.blogspot.com/

[John Treadaway]

Hey Justin – this looks realy interesting.

With my editor’s hat on, do you fancy an email conversation on the subject?

John Treadaway

Editor
Miniature Wargames

[email protected]

John Treadaway

www.hammers-slammers.com
http://www.hammers-slammers.com

"They don't have to like us, snake, they just have t' make the payment schedule" Lt Cooter - Hammer's Slammers

[Andrew Beasley]

Unusual (but interesting) idea.

I cannot get into the Dropbox notes 🙁 so I am not sure if the notes cover my first thought of – If you are not recreating an historic battle do you end up with ‘I will place troop type A opposite to troop type X as they will win every time’?

Please take up the email offer – will make a great article as it’s significantly different to day to day games.

[Justin Swanton]

Hi Andrew, I’ve written to John. Which battle report were you looking for?

Re X will beat Y every time, it doesn’t work like that. Suppose that you set your superior hoplites with 3 firm and 2 shaken morale intervals against my average hoplites with 2 firm and 2 shaken. Logic dictates that you will rout me in 4 turns. But should one of your nearby units rout I will have my morale increased by 1 interval. Furthermore if I am uphill then one of my shaken intervals will be treated as firm, making me virtually equal to you. Should I have a commander or general with my unit and you don’t, I will win an otherwise drawn charge combat and you will lose a morale interval right from the start. And if one of my peltast units succeeds in getting on the flank of your hoplites, your hoplites’ firm intervals will all be treated as shaken and you will lose. If any of my missile units is within range to shoot your hoplites, they will probably lose at least one morale interval before my hoplites reach routing point.

This is what happens in the game. The circumstances keep shifting and change the dumb logic of the deterministic combat mechanism. It’s impossible to predict how a fight will go, even with small armies.

https://wargamingwithoutdice.blogspot.com/

[Justin Swanton]

Hi John, sure. Sending you an email now.

https://wargamingwithoutdice.blogspot.com/

[Olaf Meys]

Hi Justin, a bit late to the party, but I can’t access the dropbox files- “the file does not exist”. Any chance of a refresh?

http://mainly28s.com
wargames review site...

[Justin Swanton]

Sorry about the problem accessing the dropbox file chaps. It’s a short document so perhaps easier to just put it here in a post:

 

HOW DOES OPTIO WORK?

This is really brief because there are too many rulesets and people have busy lives, and those who don’t are retired and welded to their old favourite rulesets anyway.
So…

ARMY ORGANISATION
COMMAND AND CONTROL
MOVEMENT
COMBAT
VICTORY CONDITIONS (this is especially short)

 

ARMY ORGANISATION
The battlefield has a square grid, with square measuring about 10x10cm. Stands are grouped into units and one unit occupies one square. There can be one or more stands in a unit – usual number is 2 or 4.

Each unit has a counter base placed behind one of the stands. On the counter base there is a morale counter on the left, an order/disorder counter in the middle and a shooting counter on the right.

Morale counter

Units have a certain number of morale intervals, depending on the unit. Morale intervals divide into firm and shaken – shaken intervals inflict a minus modifier on the unit in combat. Combat results in a unit losing morale until it routs.

Order/disorder counter

A few things severely disorder a unit, at which point the order/disorder counter is flipped over from the green to the red side. Depending on the nature of the unit, order is restored back to green quickly or more slowly.

Shooting counter

This records shooting hits. The counter is rotates as hits are received. Each time it passes through the red triangle the unit loses one morale interval. The shooting counter also has a background colour that  indicates which command that unit belongs to.

 

COMMAND AND CONTROL

Each army has one general and several commanders. These can be represented by individual figures or long counters like this:

For a unit to be in command, it must be part of a battleline or battle column in which one of the units has a general or commander. Each general or commander has his own command indicated by the colour of the shooting counters on units – he can put only those units into command. Like this:

If a unit is not part of a battleline or battle column it is out of command and moves very slowly.

The general and commander has no command range: They must physically be part of a battleline or battle column to put the units into command. There’s more to it than that – there’s a simplified orders system for commanders for example – but that’s enough to go with for now.

 

MOVEMENT

Simple movement

Units can move one, two or three squares per turn. One for slow types like heavy infantry, two for light infantry, elephants and the like, and three for mounted units. Movement can be straight ahead or diagonally – a diagonal move counts as one square movement. Units may also rotate 90 degrees, but that severely disorders every class of unit. You don’t do it unless you have to.

Manoeuvres

In addition to simple movement, a unit may perform one manoeuvre per turn. There are three kinds of manoeuvre:

• Forming column from a line or line from a column,
• Rotating 180 degrees
• Splitting one unit into two or combining two units into one

A word about columns: a column may turn 90 degrees any number of times without incurring disorder and at no movement cost, and a column may move twice in a turn, as near to enemy units as the player pleases. However columns cannot charge and do very badly if charged, so they need to be used with caution.

 

COMBAT

Shooting

Shooting units of both players may shoot once at any time during each player’s move (so twice in a turn). There is no separate shooting phase. Turn sequence BTW is:

1. Player A moves all his units and executes charges
2. Player B does likewise
3. Units in contact with enemy units execute melee combat at the end of the turn

Four shooting hits inflict the loss of one morale interval. Generally, skirmisher types inflict one shooting hit on armoured targets and 2 on unarmoured, whilst massed shooters like archers inflict 2 shooting hits on armoured targets and 3 on unarmoured targets. Shooting ranges vary from the adjacent square in front of javelineers to 4 squares for heavy artillery. The usual things like trees block line of sight.

 

Charging

When a unit charges another unit it moves to overlap that unit’s square and contacts it, like this:

Charge combat resolution is deterministic. Unit A scores so many hits against unit B that scores so many hits back against unit A. The number of hits a unit can inflict are indicated on a combat table that is army specific. There are a few modifiers, e.g. terrain, disorder, shaken morale, etc.

I have a master combat table with something like 20 troop types and counting. It’s on an excel spreadsheet so if I need a combat table for two specific armies I just delete the unwanted troops types and print out what’s left.

To resolve charge combat just subtract the lesser number from the greater and inflict that many morale step losses on the loser. If charge combat is a draw nothing happens. Generals or commanders can be a tie breaker by inflicting an extra combat hit. In the case of both units having a general or commander, the general with the greater combat rating inflicts the extra combat hit. If both have the same combat rating then – you guessed it – nothing happens.

Melee

Melee combat happens at the end of the turn and is like charge combat except that in the case of a draw both units lose one morale. This means that a unit with a superior morale rating – e.g. it has 5 morale intervals and its opponent has 4 – will ultimately win melee even if both units inflict the same number of hits on each other.

In melee, generals and commanders are not tie-breakers, but they can enable one shaken morale interval to be treated as firm, nullifying the minus modifier for being shaken.

 

VICTORY

Units are rated resolute, average or brittle. if a third of an army’s stands (not units) are routed all the brittle units immediately rout. If half the stands are routed the average units immediately rout, and if two-thirds of an army’s stands are routed the resolute units immediately rout and it’s game over.

When a unit routs, nearby enemy units may have their morale boosted by one interval. This puts them ahead in the demoralisation race, so it’s important to rout enemy units as quickly as possible.

And that, for the essentials, is it.

https://wargamingwithoutdice.blogspot.com/

[MartinR]

These look really interesting. I’ve been trying to track down a copy of Phalanx without any success, and this seems to push many of the same buttons (dice less, grid etc). I’ll give them a go.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[MustPlayThat]

i remember being told about a wargame, that you just needed to say three reasons why something should happen, it went to and frow, and the winner  of the argument was who could think the 3 reasons up more than the oponant. the game went in turns until victory.

so the game was a historical discussion, kinda. it rewarded how well you knew about the battle, and had no movement rules or dice, or terrain effects, instead it was all argued out 3 reasons at a time. i think the concept was realy interesting.

[Phil Dutré]

The 3-argument game: it’s known as “matrix gaming”, a variant of free kriegsspiel so to say.

There have been many variants over the years, also quite some articles in the magazines in the late 90s/early 2000s IIRC.

The system works very well for gamesmastering campaigns. We have used it for tactical battles as well. But it’s a different experience, and all players need to briefed very well about the format.

[MustPlayThat]

im glad other people have known about it, i thought it was so obscure no one would know it

[Guy Farrish]

Chris Engle formalised the idea into its 3 argument format and gave it the name. It did/could use dice as the umpire weighed the strength of arguments to decide whether the proposition the arguments supported would work. and rolled a dice against the chance he allocated to success or failure. It has since broadened and sometimes lost the formal 3 argument structure entirely -for the better in my opinion as it often rewarded adherence to the structure and formal debating skill rather than any military probability.

Paddy Griffith had previously organised similar structured conversation wargames. His name for them was somewhat tongue in cheek –  Muggergames, because the umpire set up the scenario, forces and then left his ‘mugs’/players to discuss how and why and indeed what would happen next rather than tell them. They effectively built the game as they played it through consensus to meld their common knowledge, experience and analysis of the situation.

The umpire was sometimes a ‘Plumpire’ – the ‘player umpire’ who ran the opposition forces, while the players were all on the same side, but often it was a minimal role.

Paddy’s names were typical British self deprecating understatement and rather too twee to gain traction with players seeking a validation amongst a critical hobby and outside commentators who already thought wargamers a case of arrested development.

Matrix gaming had a formality and rules ethos and a much more grandiose sounding name that was easier to sell.

Fewer dice were used in a muggergame.

There are descriptions of both in the Wargame Developments Handbook –

or a more in depth description of the Matrix Game here 

Chris Engle has his own pages at Free Engle Matrix Games

 

[Justin Swanton]

To play Optio one needs the following:

 

1. Ruleset

2. Army specific reference sheets. These are generated from a generic template. I take care of that.

3. Unit counter base to hold counters.

4. Morale, order/disorder and shooting counters.

5. Long counters for generals and commanders.

6. General/commander orders counters. I’ll explain the orders mechanism soon. It doesn’t have actual orders but it doesn’t use dice for pips.

 

Thus far the options for anyone interested in trying the system out is for me to supply pdfs of all this which are printed out, counters stuck on cardboard and trimmed. It’s not actually that much – about two or three dozen morale counters, several dozen shooting counters and two dozen or so order/disorder counters, all measuring 10x10mm. A dozen, say, long counters for generals and as many general orders counters. One can make the counter bases easily enough with cardboard  – I can post a short tutorial and supply a template.

As a plan B I have created a VASSAL module for online play, with 9 armies: Achaemenid Persia, Greece, Macedonia, Seleucid Empire, Carthage, Numidia, Spain, Rome and Gaul.

https://wargamingwithoutdice.blogspot.com/

[Justin Swanton]

Guy Farrish wrote:

Chris Engle formalised the idea into its 3 argument format and gave it the name. It did/could use dice as the umpire weighed the strength of arguments to decide whether the proposition the arguments supported would work. and rolled a dice against the chance he allocated to success or failure. It has since broadened and sometimes lost the formal 3 argument structure entirely -for the better in my opinion as it often rewarded adherence to the structure and formal debating skill rather than any military probability. Paddy Griffith had previously organised similar structured conversation wargames. His name for them was somewhat tongue in cheek – Muggergames, because the umpire set up the scenario, forces and then left his ‘mugs’/players to discuss how and why and indeed what would happen next rather than tell them. They effectively built the game as they played it through consensus to meld their common knowledge, experience and analysis of the situation. The umpire was sometimes a ‘Plumpire’ – the ‘player umpire’ who ran the opposition forces, while the players were all on the same side, but often it was a minimal role. Paddy’s names were typical British self deprecating understatement and rather too twee to gain traction with players seeking a validation amongst a critical hobby and outside commentators who already thought wargamers a case of arrested development. Matrix gaming had a formality and rules ethos and a much more grandiose sounding name that was easier to sell. Fewer dice were used in a muggergame. There are descriptions of both in the Wargames Developments Handbook – or a more in depth description of the Matrix Game here Chris Engle has his own pages at Free Engle Matrix Games

Umpiring is good depending on who is doing the umpiring. Admiral Ugaki was a bad choice for the role.

Edit: actually, rereading the article, he wasn’t.

https://wargamingwithoutdice.blogspot.com/

[MustPlayThat]

Guy Farrish wrote:

Chris Engle formalised the idea into its 3 argument format and gave it the name. It did/could use dice as the umpire weighed the strength of arguments to decide whether the proposition the arguments supported would work. and rolled a dice against the chance he allocated to success or failure. It has since broadened and sometimes lost the formal 3 argument structure entirely -for the better in my opinion as it often rewarded adherence to the structure and formal debating skill rather than any military probability. Paddy Griffith had previously organised similar structured conversation wargames. His name for them was somewhat tongue in cheek – Muggergames, because the umpire set up the scenario, forces and then left his ‘mugs’/players to discuss how and why and indeed what would happen next rather than tell them. They effectively built the game as they played it through consensus to meld their common knowledge, experience and analysis of the situation. The umpire was sometimes a ‘Plumpire’ – the ‘player umpire’ who ran the opposition forces, while the players were all on the same side, but often it was a minimal role. Paddy’s names were typical British self deprecating understatement and rather too twee to gain traction with players seeking a validation amongst a critical hobby and outside commentators who already thought wargamers a case of arrested development. Matrix gaming had a formality and rules ethos and a much more grandiose sounding name that was easier to sell. Fewer dice were used in a muggergame. There are descriptions of both in the Wargames Developments Handbook – or a more in depth description of the Matrix Game here Chris Engle has his own pages at Free Engle Matrix Games

thanks for the links, really unusual stuff

[Olaf Meys]

Thank you- it looks interesting.

http://mainly28s.com
wargames review site...

[Steve Burt]

How do you track fatigue in your rules? Clearly a unit which has been fighting for a while is not going to be fresh; there are many historical examples of fresh troops causing a decisive impact.

I’m not sure I buy into the idea that chance plays no part in massed combat. Events like the one at Cynoscephalae where a junior commander did something unpredictable probably happened in most battles; we just don’t hear about them given the paucity of sources. For more recent (and better documented) periods, we know that such ‘unknowable’ events did play a part in deciding combats.

[Author]

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