Game design
For the past three decades I have been playing, reading and analysing rule sets in the search of the ever elusive ‘perfect game’. As I could not find a set of rules that ticked all the boxes for me, I did what many gamers do; I wrote my own set of rules. I tried to start with a clean slate and a clear understanding of the mechanisms and statistics involved. I collected ideas over several years and finally brought these together in ‘For Reign or Ruin’. I have no illusion that it is perfect, as every system has its weaknesses and no two people will agree on what is perfect anyway, but all this notwithstanding, I made my choices aiming at my personal vision of that perfect game. Therefore, In a series of blogs I would like to express some of my thoughts on wargames, game mechanics, how I think they influence a game, and my assumptions and choices for designing these rules.
Game concept
When writing any game the first thing to do is to pick a topic and set some goals and boundaries to help make the necessary choices and decisions. When looking at wargames, these come from a desire to simulate or recreate some experience of a real world conflict...