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FFG Rulebooks

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29 Jul 2014 15:05 #183414 by JoelCFC25
Replied by JoelCFC25 on topic Re: FFG Rulebooks
Having just revisited Kingdom of Heaven recently, I was reminded of how aggravated I get leafing through the rules. They're bloated due to verbosity and several included historical factoids at the outset of new sections, presumably meant to justify the existence of the subsequent rules.

The same brown italicized text is used throughout the 32 pages to apply to: examples, exceptions, notes, play tips, historical notes, and general asides that probably ought not be there at all.

Finally, these rules MUST hold the all-time world record for the most parenthetical phrases stuffed into a 32 page document. Example below:


14.1 Retreat Procedure
The player who loses a battle (or the attacker in a draw) must retreat
his army up to two spaces. Each space the army retreats into must
be an empty space or a space he controls if possible. If no such space
is available, the retreating force will suffer additional losses (see
restrictions and penalties on retreats, below). If the moving/intercepting
army must retreat, the first space it retreats into must be the
space it entered the battle from (or the stronghold it attacked from
if besieged). If such a retreat is impossible (see below), the army is
eliminated. You may not leave behind any units or leaders as you
retreat, and any friendly units encountered along the retreat path
(if they don’t outnumber the retreating units) are swept up in the
retreat and must accompany the retreating force. (Exception: You
may always retreat part or all of your force into a stronghold you
control in the battle space and retreat the rest elsewhere)
.



Reading them gives you a glimpse into what it must be like to have the attention span of a gnat. Every few lines your attempts to process things come to a screeching halt as another set of parentheses presents you with a mental interruption.
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29 Jul 2014 15:25 #183415 by Msample
Replied by Msample on topic Re: FFG Rulebooks

Michael Barnes wrote: Guerilla was really bad too...we used to joke that it required both Robert and I to be there to play it because we each understood half the rules.


When was the last time you played it? Its been at least a decade; does it hold up well today?

Michael Barnes wrote: Ooh, another really really bad one. Age of Napoleon. Most Phalanx games from that period, actually.


I found both AoN and REVOLUTION to be pretty terrible as far as rulebooks go. The game play wasn't exactly inspiring either.

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29 Jul 2014 15:36 - 29 Jul 2014 15:43 #183417 by Sagrilarus
Replied by Sagrilarus on topic Re: FFG Rulebooks

JoelCFC25 wrote: Kingdom of Heaven . . . Example below:


14.1 Retreat Procedure
The player who loses a battle (or the attacker in a draw) must retreat
his army up to two spaces. Each space the army retreats into must
be an empty space or a space he controls if possible. If no such space
is available, the retreating force will suffer additional losses (see
restrictions and penalties on retreats, below). If the moving/intercepting
army must retreat, the first space it retreats into must be the
space it entered the battle from (or the stronghold it attacked from
if besieged). If such a retreat is impossible (see below), the army is
eliminated. You may not leave behind any units or leaders as you
retreat, and any friendly units encountered along the retreat path
(if they don’t outnumber the retreating units) are swept up in the
retreat and must accompany the retreating force. (Exception: You
may always retreat part or all of your force into a stronghold you
control in the battle space and retreat the rest elsewhere)
.




Compare that to Warriors of God's retreat section, which uses outline format instead:

A player who elects to run away must obey the following:
i. All friendly leaders from the battle area must run away.
ii. All leaders must run away to the same area.
iii. The leaders may not run away to an area that contains enemy leaders.
iv. The leaders may not run away to an area that is enemy-controlled.
v. No more leaders can run away across a border than could move across during an action impulse (e.g., only one leader from the area could run away across an obstructed border).
vi. If there are more leaders in the area than can legally run away, the player who controls them must now choose which will run away and which will stay. The leaders that must stay are placed in the enemy’s captured leaders box and any troops under their command are removed.
vii. Before the leaders run away, the enemy may conduct a final battle round against them. This is a normal round of battle, conducted exactly as in step 3, but with two terrible exceptions:
• the leaders running away may not roll any battle dice; and
• their enemies add an additional 1 to all battle die rolls. (Hey, nobody said running away was a free ride.)
viii. Any leaders that survived this far may now (finally!) run away.
ix. A leader that ran away is disgraced (place a Disgraced marker on the leader as a reminder).
x. The battle in this area is over. Go on to the next battle, or, if this is the last battle, to the next phase.


Night and day difference when prose is broken into atomic concepts that can serve as a checklist for any particular choice of action. There are only a few parenthetical phrases, one an example that relates directly to the item's core concept, two editorial comments that don't affect comprehension at all, one a reminder. It doesn't even have very many commas.

From a quick review I'd say both are about equally complex, but the latter allows you to ignore issues that don't apply to you easily, and paints sharp lines around the issues that do.

I was on the P500 for Kingdom of Heaven but pulled out during the interminable period between making its number and printing. I never would have gotten anyone to play it with me, and from the looks of it playing solo would have been a chore.

S.
Last edit: 29 Jul 2014 15:43 by Sagrilarus.

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29 Jul 2014 16:28 #183419 by word_virus
Replied by word_virus on topic Re: FFG Rulebooks

Sagrilarus wrote: ... I don't understand how people get confused when you can just follow along with the steps.


I'm with you; Arkham IMO has one of FFG's absolute best rulebooks. Everything's there in the exact order you need to do it, usually in bulleted steps. I had no idea so many people had problems with it.

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29 Jul 2014 16:31 #183420 by word_virus
Replied by word_virus on topic Re: FFG Rulebooks

JoelCFC25 wrote: ...Finally, these rules MUST hold the all-time world record for the most parenthetical phrases stuffed into a 32 page document


Ever heard of a little game called Star Fleet Battles?

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29 Jul 2014 18:23 #183426 by Dogmatix
Replied by Dogmatix on topic Re: FFG Rulebooks

word_virus wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: ... I don't understand how people get confused when you can just follow along with the steps.


I'm with you; Arkham IMO has one of FFG's absolute best rulebooks. Everything's there in the exact order you need to do it, usually in bulleted steps. I had no idea so many people had problems with it.


My problem with the Arkham rulebook is that it's not a bad rulebook; it's a dreadful reference manual. I had no problem walking through it to learn the game, but god forbid I need to go look something up again. It's also a game that desperately needs a single consolidated rulebook.

But Barnes brings up some real killers. Bonaparte @ Marengo is a great game--but god help you if you don't have someone to teach you the movement and retreat rules [and Nappy's Triumph is even more involved]. I desperately want to bring it up to WBC but it's been so long since I've played, there's no hope of me "refreshing" off the rulebook. I'd actually need to find some Wargamer Pimp who's hiring out "rules escorts" and probably pay for the full "Around the World" package from the rule'ho to re-learn that bloody game.

Other winners? I dare ya to try to play *anything* by Azure Wish. La Grande Guerre appears to be an amazing attempt at WWI grand strategy. But any game that breathtaking in scale and scope means the rules suffer a roughly equivalent What The Fuck-factor. Oh, and they also started life in French. And, no, they didn't all translate quite the same. (And how many of you remember/knew that Europa Universalis actually started life as a *boardgame*? That's another rulebook that can cross your eyes in a heartbeat. Think about all the shit that goes on in even the earliest iteration of EU that you've ever played. Now consider there being a half-inch marker, instead of a mouse-click, to track it. All of it.)

And then there's the GDW/GRD Europa series. A game with so many rules questions (and revisions between the 2 GDW editions and GRD's subsequent reboot) that it basically spawned a magazine dedicated mostly to arbitrating rules debates. I believe it managed a 10-year run and a lifetime worth of animosity between some gamers that you can STILL see playing out in the CSW forums. It also spawned at least 1 *ground-up system-wide* rules rework ("Master Europa") and a million other less grandiose attempts at the same.


To get back to FFG, I actually have a hard time with the "game-phase based" rules. Avalon Hill did something somewhat similar with their Programmed Rules approach in games like Up Front and I honestly have problems learning games that way. It seems counter-intuitive, but it just doesn't work for me. For complex games, I just much prefer the "contract" style of old-style wargames as I *know* I'll be needing to refer back to the manual during play. Unfortunately, that approach to rule-writing seems particularly prone to major problems with "hidden exceptions." If you have a 2-page block with all the land-movement rules, it's kind of criminal to note an exception to one of those rules in only 1 spot some 30 pages later. I know it's a big contributor to "death by parenthetical reference syndrome," but cross-references really are your friend....
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02 Aug 2014 13:29 - 02 Aug 2014 13:30 #183769 by rocketkiwi
Replied by rocketkiwi on topic Re: FFG Rulebooks
I'm coming in late, but as this was a recent frustration of mine I'd pipe in. As someone who didn't have any problems with the original Red November rulebook (I still don't get why people complained about it), or with Wiz-War's FFG rulebook, the one that really stood out to me is Gearworld for fine passages such as this one:

Each river area has two blue borders and is adjacent to both land areas to which it is adjoined. River areas are adjacent to other river areas and seas areas if they share a blue border. Additionally, each river area is a border between two land areas. As such, two land areas are adjacent to each other if they are adjacent to the same river area.


I get what it's saying, but what a way to say it! You could also just take a look at the rules for spearheads. They sacrifice readability in the hopes that all questions will be nipped in the bud and it's brutal. The whole rulebook reads like that and it's deeply unpleasant.
Last edit: 02 Aug 2014 13:30 by rocketkiwi.

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02 Aug 2014 20:01 #183798 by Colorcrayons
Replied by Colorcrayons on topic Re: FFG Rulebooks

rocketkiwi wrote: I'm coming in late, but as this was a recent frustration of mine I'd pipe in. As someone who didn't have any problems with the original Red November rulebook (I still don't get why people complained about it), or with Wiz-War's FFG rulebook, the one that really stood out to me is Gearworld for fine passages such as this one:

Each river area has two blue borders and is adjacent to both land areas to which it is adjoined. River areas are adjacent to other river areas and seas areas if they share a blue border. Additionally, each river area is a border between two land areas. As such, two land areas are adjacent to each other if they are adjacent to the same river area.


I get what it's saying, but what a way to say it! You could also just take a look at the rules for spearheads. They sacrifice readability in the hopes that all questions will be nipped in the bud and it's brutal. The whole rulebook reads like that and it's deeply unpleasant.


That rules quote was pretty painful to read. Seriously, the whole rulebook is like that? Mein Gott.

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