Wargaming Rulesets: Chess, Warhammer, Doom And Myst

Without rules, you can't really play games. It sounds like an obvious statement when discussing gaming. Like life, without rules and laws, people don't know what to do. Thus, when playing a game, there has to be rules which must be obeyed in order to finish the game. These rules are known as the wargaming rulesets.

A ruleset is a collection of game rules printed in a rule book. One of the earliest recorded rule set books was H.G. Wells' Little Wars book in 1913.

Wargames themselves, plus their accompanying rulesets, have a wide range of time periods in which the games are set. As early as the time of the Samurai with the game "Senso;" the Napoleonic wars with "In The Name Of Glory" and "Shako;" and Colonial-era games such as "Eight Hundred Fighting Englishmen," "In the Heart of Africa," "John Company" and "Patrols in the Sudan.& quot; There are also games that take place during the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, Vietnam and Science Fiction and Fantasy games such as Lord of the Rings, Dwarf Wars, Warhammer and Warmaster.

In an article on the origin of his ruleset for the colonial-themed game "The Sword and the Flame," Larry Brom explains how his interest was sparked in the early 1960s by Holgar Ericson's 25 mm war game figures. Then, in the early 1970s, Brom discovered that after wargaming for ten years, he wasn't having any fun. He was cross referencing game mechanics using several rule sets from both the United Kingdom and the United States. For Brom, there was no definitive ruleset book that satisfied his needs. Therefore, Brom wrote his own rulesets.

The factors that Brom took into consideration when writing his rulesets are as follows: Enjoyment, Playability, Drama, Excitement and Historical Flavor. His first ruleset manuscript was submitted in July 1978. The second draft was finished in August 1978. The third and final draft was finished in January 1979. The rulesets were produced and released later to the gaming community.

After Brom released his rulesets in the late 1970s, James Dunnigan wrote the first edition of his "Complete Wargames Handbook," published in 1980. The second edition of Dunnigan's book came out in 1992 and went out of print in 1997. The third edition of the Wargames Handbook was published in paperback in early 2001.

Dunnigan considers Chess to be the oldest surviving ancient wargame. Further, Dunnigan considers Chess to be one of the more accurate wargames of its time. Though his handbook was republished repeatedly, mostly due to military organizations buying copies of his handbook to teach wargaming, Dunnigan contributes the slump in board wargaming to the popularity of computer wargaming programs.

Computer wargames include Doom, Myst and its sequel Riven, Deer Hunter, SimCity, Rainbow Six, and Command and Conquer. Dunnigan says that there is one significant difference between computer games and manual games: computer games cannot be "tweaked." Players cannot change game procedures to suit their own interests, "Once the code is closed and the gamma version is shipped, the users cannot further tweak the game."

Eric Hotz maintains a web site that boasts over 90 game rule systems and expansions that are or were in print, in PDF or HTML format. Hotz's game rules are divided into three sections: Wild West Wargame Rules, Free Wild West Wargame Rules and Wild West RPG for role-playing. Some of Hotz's games cover Wild West theaters such as The Alamo, Old West Gold Miners, Wild West Gunfights, Barroom Brawls, Cowboys and Indians, and even "Fistful of Honey," a wargame featuring teddy bear miniatures dressed as cowboys.  

Along with providing Old West game rules, Hotz provides a humorous list entitled “Rules for Going to a Gun fight." The first five rules of Hotz's list are:

• Have a gun. Preferably have at least two guns.
• Bring all of your friends who have guns.
• Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice.
• Only hits count.
• If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough or using cover correctly.
  
  

 

About.com. "Miniature Wargaming." About Inc. 12 September  2006. http://experts.about.com/e/m/mi/Miniature_wargamin g.htm

 

Brom, Larry. "The Birth of Some Rules." zeitcom.com.1999. By Jingo! 12 September 2006. http://www.zeitcom.com/majgen/927tsatf.birth.html< /p>

Dunnigan, James F. "The Complete Wargames Handbook." Strategy Page. 1997.12 September 2006. http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents .htm

Whitewash City. Eric Hotz. 12 September 2006. The Ghost Town Webring. 12 September 2006. http://www.erichotz.com/whitewash.html

Wild West Game Rules.  Eric Holtz.  12 September 2006.  The Ghost Town Webring.  12 September 2006.  http://www.erichotz.com/game_rules1.html

Rules for Gunfighting.  Eric Holtz.  12 September 2006.  The Ghost Town Webring.  http://www.erichotz.com/gun_fight.html.