Topic: Wargame Design Musings
Agreed...
Where did you look? It has a large number of fans which is not the same thing.
So, is the point that fans do not know what "good" is and only know what they like. Interesting perspective...
Indeed, a classic war between populares and optimates (or so they like to believe).
Are these mutually exclusive sets or do they intersect?
There is a school of thought that the whole Impulse, Trumping, Momentum mechanic is a gamey mechanic that has nothing to do with the reality of what happened on the ground
I have always been amused by the 'gamey' criticism as all rules are 'gamey' by definition, but I understand what is meant. I'll be the first to admit that any game system is not perfect. I also know that a good game has to take a focus. A literal interpretation of the GBOH command system was never intended. In fact the system would work for any tactical system as what it is trying to portray is a deep abstraction and independent of era.
What was in my mind was to create an interactive sequence of play that acted as an extension of the player, through his leaders, to seize and dominate the timing of a battle. In the abstract the two players are trying to time their blows in such a manner as to win the battle. This historical perspective that I am taking in this system is there is a cognitive battle going on as to when you maneuver your various force elements. The superior general controls the tempo of the battle to his advantage. Taking the system literally misses the entire point.
The reason that you go from lowest to highest leader is it forces the poorer led force to show their tactical plan first and give the better leaders the ability to move in relation to their opponents plan whenever they see the time is ripe to do so. The superior generals, ala Alexander, can basically move whenever they want (first, second, last whenever). It allows a player to create complicated sequences of moves where the superior led force tends to gain the tempo and initiative advantage. Of course the dice love no one and there is always a small element of surprise (captures a host of friction of war types of events) that can waylay even the best plans.
As far as the momentum concept goes. How active an element is when it does get going? How well does the leader keep his forces under control? How a player answers these questions through his actions (as represented by dice versus leader capability) deterimines the extent of how effective a given maneuver can be. So a Companion cavalry charge under Alexander can sweep all before it, whereas a lesser light will have difficulties maintaining control and alignment forcing a slower pace and effect of a move. I have seen the criticism that forces once set in motion did not stop etc. However, I designed the entire GBOH system around the idea of relative motion. A force that misses a move is not actually stopped, but its relative motion to the other elements around it is much slower. It is an example of how one can treat time-space relationships in a design without a lot of rules. If one sees the world through a literal lens this is very unsatisfying and there is no way to convince someone with that view otherwise. But the idea that I designed this system to represent what the crtiques state it represents is just incorrect.
The line commands allow the system to give an army some basic capabilities relative to their doctrine, e.g., Roman, whereby any political hack can make a Legion do some basic stuff, but if the battle gets away from them, they have a limited set of options to react.
As I said, no game system is perfect. The GBOH command system is an abstract concept and by definition "gamey" as it is a game that in the aggregate captures the choreography of an ancient battle. It gives advantage to the side with the historically better leaders, but with the opportunity for the player to demonstrate superior gaming skills.
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to throw down some thoughts on what I was trying to do when I designed it this way. I'm sure there are much better Igo-Hugo systems or impulse systems that capture some of these elements in a more palatable manner for some. The notion that popular equates to low brow is a concept that I cannot support, I will leave it to others to make their case on why so many people for over 15 years can be so wrong.
Mark
PS: It would be nice if we can agree up front that neither side will persuade the other that they are right and avoid the part of these discussions where it has to get personal before the discussion can end. I like to think that honest men can disagree.
