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I played with a group very regularly for several years that used a set of computerised rules. I became quite a fan. While limiting in some ways, it was truly marvelous in others. Main benefits to me were:

1) No need to know the rules in detail. The computer did the heavy lifting. You just needed to know how to write your orders and the (very) few modifiers such as flank fire, etc. We basically had one set of rules for every period from 1600-1900. All the differences were in the computer. All you needed to do was ask for weapons ranges.

2) Fog of War: What kind of shape is the 22nd in? With a computer you’d better have a feel for how long they’ve been in combat, casualties etc. Otherwise they’ll break becasue you didn’t pull them out of the line in time. No roster to check, no morale state to allow you to finely calculate the chances they’ll stand/run.

3) A more beautiful table top. With a computer you get rid of charts, chits, markers, dice etc. etc.

4) No “range cliffs.” The computer rules did not have range bands. Range was a variable. So closer was always better, but moving from 12.01 inches to 11.99 did not increase your shooting by 16% just because you crossed that 12″ line.

5) Fast. Once players knew how to “call” the orders we could play large battles (5 players per side, each handling a division). We could play 10 turns in 4-5 hours.

They are clearly not for everybody. And the game designer did modify them after discussions with the club etc. But I quite liked them.

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Sam:

 

I’d have to go back and re-read them, but Cold Steel and Cannister, a Napoleonic rules set, had a mechanism that had promise.

The game uses squares to regulate movement and combat so it is a bit “board game ish”. To attack you give a unit an objective. The objective is placed in a square. Every turn the unit must move toward its objective. Now in this game melee did not “linger” as you describe it. But you got just what you wanted to see: Unit A goes in to attack unit B. If neither breaks, A retreats. Melee over. But next turn if B is still in place A will have to move forward again. I played it a few years back and there was a real feel of ebb and flow to local fights (for the village or the hill, for example). Units fell back and then marched back in to the fray. Commanders added more units to the attack or pulled back, etc. While there was much about the game I did not care for, this one mechanism I thought was pretty slick.

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@Catalyst: If we’re looking for a painter, how do we contact you?

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Speak lightly of  Dagon the Mighty Fish God of the Phillistines at your peril. Peril I tell you!

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There is a local gent Bill who uses the “Battle Cry” and converts it for larger battles. He doubles the unit sizes and so on. Each side still gets a hand of cards and there are fun debates as players vie for cards (sounds like command friction writ large to me). It’s kinda short on “period feel” but there’s no doubt it’s a load of fun and easy to teach. Plus it can look quite good. I’m doing it for the SYW until I find a rule set I’m really sold on:

Here is how I made my mat (I marked hex centers instead of sides – this was REALLY fast):

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=326533

 

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The same is true in 6mm. When I get a new customer who asks for painting advice I always say: don’t think of it as painting 80 figures. Think of the 80 figures as a single “figure.” If it were a tank or a monster you wouldn’t necessarily paint every scale individually or every tread link.

These look great – I am more and more enamored of smaller scale figures as units look like units, instead of “the bridge club will advance to the heights!”

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“how a given mechanic simulates history”

One of the real problems here is that I think most game designers (me included) can’t necessarily defend a lot of choices historically. Why three morale grades and not twelve? Why not just two? How did you determine your combat system yields historically accurate results? Why do you assume morale is a function of casualties? In many cases there’s simply no real data. How effective is a musket volley at 100 yards? You can find examples of officers describing coming under the most galling fire, only to find te regiment took just 21 casualties that day. Other times a regiment will lose 50% and memoirs don’t really mention anything out of the ordinary. There are peace time attempts to determine how often a musket could hit at various ranges. But that’s on a parade ground, with a good shot (after all the generals are watching), no smoke, and no one shooting back. Now how effective is an M60 at 200 yards firing into the jungle at barely glimpsed VC? Chances to hit are what? Suppressive effects are what? How do you know?

There are some obvious areas where a design mirrors history or not – formations for example. You may exclude them as being below the commander’s notice (Altar of Freedom, Grande Armee, Volley & Bayonet). Or they may be a key in the game (Chef de Battalion, Johnny Reb III, Column Line & Square).

Usually in my designs I am trying to feature or highlight one aspect of the battle and am willing to let the rest go. I’ve never seen a game that gave a bonus for refilling canteens or cooking coffee during a lull in the sector, for example. So often my shooting systems are designed around “how many turns, on average, will a target last given average dice rolls?” If 1.5 shots will wipe out  a squad, it’s too deadly. If it takes 48 shots to do the same, combat is too weak.

And we often import “standard” rules in to periods where they have no business. I’ve seen Vietnam rules with rules for “routed” units. To see US troops running all over the jungle as they rout (to where exactly?) makes me chuckle. In my rules US troops do not rout. They simply go to a less aggressive order. Then they go to ground. They don’t run, but they are absolutely useless. All you can do is call for the choppers. The VC/NVA meanwhile do the same before they “melt into the jungle.”

In the end I think designs simply reflect your prejudgements. Toss in confirmation bias by picking the memoirs/accounts you want and there you are.

As for the fun vs. simulation – I agree. Some say “just for fun” as if any war game worth it’s salt must be tedious or serious. That may be true in the army, but they get paid to do it, that’s their profession. Out here for me the first test of a design is “Is it fun?” As I’ve mentioned before, in most horse & musket battles brigade commanders didn’t get to make too many interesting decisions. They largely ended up in”hold this line” or “go straight ahead and bash that line over there” mode. The interesting decisions are where to put the brigades and when. So I like a game that gives me more leeway than would historically have been “realistic.”

One last thought: since gamers never behave historically, can a design be “historic” unless it forces them to do so?

In general I think if you really want to design a good simulation, do it on the computer. Hidden movement, no 200 foot general, no knowing the enemy strength down to the second decimal, cantankerous subordinates, simultaneous action – no IGOUGO or move one unit at a time, no “turn phases” – you simply can’t come anywhere near that with miniatures. Heck in a computer game you can have morale ranked from 1-100 if you want…and “charts” can be as complex as needed because the computer does all the work.

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What about Jenkins Ear In Spaaaace? Or is that SciFi?

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Which is why so many rules put in “break points” so that regardless of what the player does, a division says “time to skedaddle.”

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The balance is always tough. Some places just have so many the overall site becomes dramatically less useful.

I think a policy about how and when you do this is a good idea. I think a board a century for post-renaissance might make sense. 19th century does seem like a nice addition because the following periods/genres don’t belong in “horse and musket” but seem to have nowhere else to go: Old West/Indian Wars, Many Colonial wars, FrancoPrussian. 20th century would cover Spanish Civil War and Korea (now WW2, not Modern). I also think if a given board is 50% one topic perhaps a split. I feel like “General” already has too many sub-boards.

I have suggested Mike might raise money by hosting forums (boards) for specific rule sets so their authors don;t have to set up their own. Mike gets traffic and so do they. Maybe they pay him a small fee for his services. So you might end up with a “Latest & Greatest Napoleonic Rules” board specifically for errata and rules questions on that rule set. Maybe that’s a bad idea….

 

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Here’s the issue I have these days. EVERY set of rules I read has an introduction that says “this is a fun fast game that still gives a flavor of the period” or words to that effect. Our hobby still has a blind spot for “simulations.” What was the last game published that said it was “detailed” or whatever code word we use now? I can’t fond one.

I once asked for WW2 rules with more “meat” that were more sim and less beery. The number one response was Tractics, a set that had been out of print for 30+ years. As fas as I know the most complex set of WW2 rules readily available today is Flames of War. Schwere Kompanie is very detailed but semi-out of print. Maybe Command Decision? But after you name those two I counter with Chain of Command, Bot Action, Disposable Heroes, Nuts, Battlegroup, Panzer Grenadier, etc. etc. all billed as “fast play.”

Ditto for Napoleonics. Aside from Empire and it’s various iterations, where is the last “simulation?” Grande Armee? Field of Glory?

It’s as if we have PTSD from Empire and Tractics, despite the fact no similar games have been published in 30 years or more!

Honestly, if you want to play a simulation these days you;re on E-bay looking for old and out of print games. So this “category” especially needs to go away. Which leaves us with what? Fast play and B&P?

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I assume you mean the UK and not the suburb of Chicago, USA?

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I don’t necessarily have a strict process for rules development. But there are a few thins I always do in some order or other.

First, I write a draft. Usually a new set is based on an old set. As I am a writer by inclination I can bang out a draft from brainwave to the page in a couple hours. When I write a draft I leave the charts blank. So I can tinker with just, say, firing without having to touch the draft. But if I change the rule obviously I start with a new blank chart.

Second, get outside play testers. I feel I can always spot a set of rules that was play tested by the author’s club. There’s just loads of ambiguity that would have been cleaned up had an outsider asked those obvious questions.

Third, keep it tight. Cover 99% of the situations (as I see them) in the draft. I think miles of gray area where you are supposed to just “wing it” is just lazy design work. Unacceptable when you sell the book like a business. If they are free – kinda like “my 2 pagers for the French & Indian Wars” – then I expect more of a crib sheet and expect I’ll make a lot of it up as I go.

There are some other approaches I have. For example:

• Exceptions, One Offs: These are not in the rules but should be elsewhere. The weapon example above should be in the army lists not in the rules. So a player might have a couple notes about his army’s special ability or special weapon or whatever. No biggie. HOWEVER if there’s something so outside the norm it changes the rules, then I rewrite. For example, if this one vehicle moves in a completely unique way that doesn’t “fit” the normal movement rules, I rewrite how it works. It  may be fast, it may move twice, it may always move first, but it will otherwise follow the normal rules. Another example is things that belong in a scenario. Maybe low ammo – each side gets a number of ammo points and every time a unit fires one gets “spent.”
• Minimal Modifiers: If you end up with more than a few modifiers for a chart/mechanic you need to rewrite it. I read a set of rules where the spotting chart started out easy enough. Cross spotter’s skill with distance and get a target score. Opponent calculated the result. But oh lord the modifiers. A few made sense – unit size and composition (a small squad or a 30 vehicle convoy)? But the chart had I think 25 or 30 other modifiers. That’s a bad mechanic.
• Pick the right dice: Use whatever dice you like but use just one kind. If at all possible, use all D10 or all D12 or all D6. I’m working on an Aeronef game that uses all D12 so you can “roll” the hours of the clock for directions. All the other mechanics are oriented toward the D12 as a result.
• Good Charts: Designing a good chart is an art all its own. A good chart makes the game go faster, not slower. The shooting in Johnny Reb III is a lesson in what not to do. Big chart, lots of modifiers, and some of them are only in the rule book, not on the chart itself.
• At Most One Marker: This is a personal preference. A unit should never require more than a single marker, and if you can eliminate that, all the better. My SciFi rules require an “order die” for each squad. My rules have two phases and three orders for 6 possible results. I use a small cube painted green to match the table. I prefer rosters to markers.

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It seems ammunition supply was not usually much of a problem. Occasionally you read of a unit running low but it was notable for being rare. Fire discipline has always been a major concern. Officers have always worried that guns that fire faster would lead to out-of-ammo situations that much faster. But otherwise I see ammo supply as more appropriate to scenario design than a standing rule. I seem to recall a Union quartermaster officer complaining that the army fired off what – 1.6 million? – rounds yet caused casualties with only a tiny, tiny fraction of them (ah, a true quartermaster indeed). The USMC estimated it took 100,000 rounds in Vietnam to yield one casualty.

As for the terrain issue, I use in my games what I call “ridgelines.” This is a line of flock or foliage or what have you. It represents gentle rolling hills. It has no effect on movement but blocks LOS across it. Tends to really break up that “battle of the 13th green” effect.

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Simulations, in my mind, can take many forms. For example I would never claim a wargame could “simulate war.” But an exercise or game played in the comfort of an office can simulate various aspects of war – certain kinds of decision making for example. There’s a famous experiment/exercise that was run on students. You were head of a Nascar team. You have to decide to race or not, knowing your car may break down. And you’re under pressure to deliver because you need sponsors. There is all kinds of data for you to look at and decide: do you race on Sunday? Of course, the exercise models the Challenger launch. The “reveal” was quite eye-opening to a lot of people.

Even a wargame like “Kriegspeil” can simulate a decision making environment. It can instruct you in the ways things can go wrong, it can teach you how to make decisions without complete information, etc. A simulation, after all, is the imitation of a real world event or process over time. That does not mean it is invalid of there is no noise or smoke.

It’s also interesting to note that, at least according to my father tho the info is 20 years out of date since he retired, for every wargame the army put on that was about the battlefield, they put on 20 that were about deployment and logistics. In general the thought was that tactical games were not that valuable. Strategic games were, but then you’re talking about freight capability, logistical tail, etc. What’s the old saying about “amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics?”

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If I have some real noobs I often create a fictional game (regardless of genre/period) where they control both a lost cause (isolated force) and the rescue mission that starts on turn 3. Thus they get 2 or 3 turns to learn the rules with the lost cause, where fatal mistakes won’t completely screw up the game. Then they get another chance with their reinforcements.

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Well now we’re beginning to bump into yet another issue with games – the players. I play with a crew that is very self-policing in terms of not allowing “gamey” moves. You know, the kind of thing where the cuirassiers change into column, and shoot the gap between two infantry units with just 1/4″ to spare thus reaching the limbered artillery behind. Saw this once with sword and the flames where zulus shot a 2″ gap and swarmed all over the inside of the perimeter and heated arguing ensued.

SWith regards ot the 4″ versus 24″ I’d say it has much more to do with game scale than absolute measurements. If a horse moves 24″ to reach the foot soldier, his reactions will be more about how much time elapsed. Did that turn represent 30 seconds (get one shot off) or 10 minutes? Whether that 30 seconds is represented by 4″ or 24″ is not really relevant in my mind. The bigger issue is having a table big enough to handle 24″ movement rates…

I don’t think of table size as a “problem” so much as a variable. I would argue that a significant percentage of gamers are limited to tables around 4×6′ so it is one variable for a game designer to keep in mind. I know a few rule sets that can’t be used (as written) on anything smaller than a 6×9 table. So right away a poriotn of gamers know they’ll need to reowrk charts and base sizes if they want to play that game.

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Johnny Reb II is kinda the same way. If half the players are judges/assistant GMs it flies right along. Assuming they agree with each other. Otherwise it tends to ruuunnnn sssllloooowwww.

 

The VLB is an interesting idea, I just don’t know any gamers it would work with (and I game with some pretty good guys).

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I’m just glad it has a good stereo and AC. I like the racing stripes too.

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I don’t think games break down into thee kinds of categories. Nor is it a single continuum. Each game lies somewhere along a variety of continuum. For example, your definition of “simulation” is not one I share. I call that a monster game that, in trying to account for everything, accounts for nothing. Some games attempt to teach, some merely to entertain, some to look good. But I think these categories don’t bear up under scrutiny. Why, for example, would anyone assume a simulation has lots of charts? You have assumed the answer before you asked the question, “what makes a game a simulation?”

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P.S. How about a Vietnam board?

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Thanks. I’m actually writing a post now that will help kick it off….

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@Bandit: Who said anything about wanting to learn how lines and columns functioned? I want to show how they looked. And maybe convince some people to buy the 6mm figures I sell. I assume most of the gamers who would play in my game would (think they) know how lines and columns worked. I also want to model a battery with all the caissons, limbers, wagons and horses – the entire tail. Then we can discuss why batteries can’t rotate like tank turrets too.

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Grizz:

For the moments my efforts consist of painting when I can and reading rules sets. The only rule set at this level (1:5) really is chef de batallion. Useful but boring. Since my goal is visual splendor and to drive home how lines and columns really looked, I’m thinking of may be adapting General de Brigade….not really much to follow “on line” yet except a few gallery photos like these:

 

 

 

 

 

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@All:

One of my Napoleonic projects is a small scale game. Maybe two brigades a side, played on a big table. Your basic French battalion will be 288 figures (6mm). It will occupy 19″ of frontage. A cavalry squadron will have between 60 and 100 figures. I’m looking for a rule set to adapt. And an immediate problem presents itself: at that ground scale unless turns are a minute movement rates will be huge.

I thought of having split tables – three parallel tables where the French table is farthest west, there’s a middle table, and the British are east. The gap between them allows players to reach, but units may freely “skip” from table to table as the gap isn’t really there. So I can get a 12′ deep table without having to walk on it.

But the rules will need to be fast and fun because a line up and go get them game (which this will quickly turn in to) has to really move along unless you want players pulling their hair out…

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@McLaddie:

In reading up on Gettysburg to work out a scenario I “re-learned” an important truth. Armies learn fast. At Gettysburg there’s a fence every 8 feet (well, it feels that way). Turns out the officers sned out pioneers to break down the fences thus “cutting a path.” They were quite good at it. So by itself a fence is not really a movement impediment in 15-30 minute turns. There are exceptions of course. For example the fences across the pike in the way of Pickett’s charge could not be taken down in advance. And there were much stronger and more substantial than you r average fence around a field. So they were a serious impediment (in my scenario only a handful of fences counted as obstacles, all the rest were just there for “flavor”).

It was suggested you take friends and try to march across a field. You;d make a hash of it sure. But now, spend 3 months practicing. Bring a bugle or a drum. Hang fanions/pennants/flags for guiding the flanks. Ever notice how many men in a battalion had the job of “keep the lads together?” How much effort was done to do just that? So now 3 months later, with a drum, a lot of practice, several NCO types keeping things organized, some pennants as guides, I’d bet you;d cross that field at quite a clip.

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@Bandit:

I was just talking about this issue with a friend today. Inside some distance – 1000 yards sounds reasonable – yes, I think units  pretty much move straight ahead or straight back out. So Grande Armee includes the 6″ rule (600 yards in that game). Inside 6″ you either move straight toward the enemy or back straight away. No oblique, no wheels. And if you have a rash commander inside 6″ he might charge even if you don’t want him to. So putting him in the front line carries a risk. In Grande Armee this works well. You are commanding multiple divisions. You can’t choreograph the advance of your brigades. You send 5th division to take the hill and hope for the best.

I played in a huge Wagram game at Historicon once. 90 million figures splayed out over 20 or 30 tables. I got a couple battalions and a battery. There was nothing to do but bash straight ahead. Troops to my right and left gave me no room to do anything fancy. In essence every single interesting decision had already been made. Where to send my battalions had been decided and I was on a front that was to “demonstrate.” How enemy troops from there could have been sent to the other flank I have no idea. But it didn’t matter to me. I just had to bash head on. INCREDIBLY BORING. But probably realistic. Most officers most of the time just marched where they were told, then either held or attacked pretty much straight ahead. Not much fun as a game though!

I have a friend who wants to play a game with multiple corps on the table but with individual battalions and skirmishers and formations. Most every set he tries ends up with the same problem: even with a big table all you can really do is move straight ahead and commit reserves.

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One factor in setting movement rates is practical and has nothing to do with “realism.” Simply put, movement rates are limited by table size. In a rule set with infantry movement at 2500 yards per hour (picking a number out of the air), a ground scale of 1″ = 50 yards and a 30 minute turn, one infantry unit will move 25″ per turn. Assuming each side advances if they start 50″ apart they will lock in melee turn one. You need a 10′ wide table to allow two turns of infantry movement. And don’t get me started on cavalry where the problem becomes infinitely worse. But let’s suppose you work in reverse. You want infantry to move 2500 yards per hour. Turns are 30 minutes. You want the armies to start three turns apart, and will set the ground scale accordingly. So armies need to be 7500 yards apart. If you have a 6′ wide table, and allow 6″ at either edge deployment space so that the armies are 60″ apart, you get a ground scale of 1″=125 yards. Note you have very little deployment depth, and you need a very wide table. Frankly a 6′ wide table is a challenge to reach the center of.

I might throw in a plug here for “Grande Armee.” Ground scale is 1″ = 100 yards. There is no set time scale as each turn represents a “period of activity.” However, each turn is comprised of a variable number of move/fight phases (normally 3 or 4). Units are brigades and generally move 6″ + 1D6 (7-12″ per phase). If we assume they move 9.5″ per phase that gives us up to 38″ per turn. So if a turn is “roughly” an hour more or less, you have a reasonable approximation of historical movement rates.

A primary reason for movement dice, at least for me, is to prevent the perfectly choreographed maneuvers we see so often on the table top that I’m convinced rarely, if ever, happened in reality. I’m sure you’ve seen them. The battery advances 4.5″ and unlimbers. This is just enough space – with 1mm to spare – for the Dragoons to pass behind them and work their way down the flank. Meanwhile the light infantry has just enough movement to occupy the space vacated by the cavalry…..

In addition I think random movement with some min/max works very well. You know about how fast troops move, so can predict rough rates. But the dice allow for unforeseen events (a couple low sequential low rolls means your commander got confused by the roads, or thought he spotted an enemy where none were supposed to be, or didn’t see a friendly unit where he expected one, or….). Meanwhile a couple sequential high rolls show a fighting general with his blood up driving his troops.

I use movement dice in almost all my rules, but always with a fixed + dice structure. In skirmish you can choose to roll one or two D6 but are -1 to your shooting for each die rolled. At Grand Tactical I go with 6″ + 1D6 most of the time….

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Speed Painting….if you are doing lots of the same uniforms (like a couple dozen French for SYW) I have some techniques. But if you;re talking unique figs (Pulp or Old West) not so much.

One reason I game solely in 15mm and 6mm now is how much easier they are to paint. Black undercoat, block paint on top, flesh wash, done. With a good neat paint job there’s simply no reason to do all the highlighting etc. in these smaller scales – at 2ft you can’t see it anyway.

Plus I find it incredibly funny that we actually paint shadows on 3D objects that have real shadows anyway!

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P.S. Plus they have limited cavalry, which always seems to be the hardest for noobs to know what to do with. Too many want to charge turn 1 without wearing down the enemy first…

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I have a natural love of the Peninsular War. Salamance and Vittoria both fit the bill. Plenty of troops to command, interesting tactical situations, easy to assign objectives to subordinate forces.

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What does “nerfing” mean? I play Soviet infantry and have done reasonably well with them…

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I would add Dark City, Gattaca and Until the End of the World to that list.

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Ah now you’ve opened a can of worms…..

Rule 3.4: A unit immediately behind a crest may be fired upon by artillery but is treated as concealed, and in hard cover.

Wellington: “I see units immediately behind a crest can be fired upon. Haversham, there’s a good lad, tell all our officers when they occupy a crest, make sure they lie 20 yards behind it so as to be utterly immune from enemy artillery.”

 

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Not sure where you are on this but I do like the idea for a game design board. I have some game design questions/topics/issues but currently the only place they make sense is general/general as they are not tied to a specific period (things like, pros and cons of IGOUGO or Better Way to do Saving Throws?).

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One issue I have with the tags is the little window where you can put them is below the bottom of my screen when I start a thread. So I don’t get that visual cue to do it. The other is the spelling and terminology challenge. Is it jager or jaeger or jäger? Color or colour? And you get differing results depending on whether you search kr 16 or KR16. Then you have the acronym issue. Is it Flames of War or FoW? 40K or Warhammer 40k or WarHammer 40 K? Tags can be a powerful tool but they require adoption of a certain lexicon and grammar to really work.

One other note about the TWW search box. It returns POSTS. So having just searched on “Naval” I got 51 results most of which appear to be from this thread. And it shows me each POST that contains Naval. I then have to go through these to identify each THREAD that contains naval.

I’m not trying to be difficult. But as currently configured it appears TAGS don’t actually add any functionality to the site. Whether I put naval in the body of my message, in the title of the thread or in a tag, search works the same way. Or am I missing something? Is there a way to search just tags?

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A quick note on using Google. You can do that from the main google window. Just add site:thewargameswebsite.com to your search terms. So looking for zouaves uniform you would search:

zouaves uniform site:thewargameswebsite.com

 

 

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Hi Mick:

I am doing this myself. It’s on the back burner right now because my terrain board fell apart and I haven’t had a chance to re-start it. I’m using my “Bitter Angels” which are currently in development. They use a 1″=100 yards ground scale. Brigades are represented by a single 3″ stand. But as I live in a condo I’m converting to centimeters. See the details here:

http://deepfriedhappymice.com/html/ht_gettysburg_pocket.html

Other possible rules are Volley & Bayonet (similar scope to Bitter Angels), Altar of Freedom (kinda DBA-ish but ground scale of 150 or 175 yards per inch). Then there’s the ACW variant for BDA itself which gives a surprisingly good game. And this may help. Here are summaries of a whole bunch of ACW rules:

http://deepfriedhappymice.com/html/rd_acw.html

You could also look there in the 19th Century section.

I guess the first place to start is really, how much room do you have?

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One aspect to gaming I think about is this: if you replaced all the names in a set of rules with generic terms, could you tell what period it was for? For example, this soldier has a ranged weapon that reaches out to 24″ and hits on a 4+ This is a transport that carries up to 12 figures and moves 12″ per turn, 18″ on the road. Could be medieval (longbow and wagon) or Old West (Spencer and Stagecoach), WW2 (bolt action and truck), SciFi (Blaster and hover-jeep).

There are a few things that set limits (aircraft, unit formations) but it’s actually relatively hard to find a SciFi rule set that won’t work for Vietnam, or a WW2 set that won’t work for SciFi. Because gaming imposes very tight boundaries: weapon ranges relative to table size for example. The need to have a “turn sequence” of some sort. The converting of the fluid in to the discrete.

Bolt Action, for example, you can use it, as is, for anything from 1700 onward (only because it focuses on ranged weapons not melee). My small unit rules work for anything from fantasy to Vietnam to SciFi.

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If it has lasers it’s SciFi, if it has magic it’s fantasy (not mutually exclusive I know). Date doesn’t matter, as noted above. All our games are a form of story telling and contain fiction. Just a question of how much.

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