One of the trends in game design that I appreciate is the movement toward trying to pump up game play by slimming down the rulebook.
There have always been ‘simple’ wargames around, but many of those were considered ‘introductory’ level or were just downright rudimentary. What I’m getting at here are designs that feature fairly deep game play, yet still manage to bring their rules in at somewhere between 8 to 16 pages.
Tactical games, in particular, for years trended toward fairly hefty rules presentations. I suppose the original PanzerBlitz rules folder wasn’t all that heavy-duty – but Avalon Hill soon made up for that with games like Tobruk and Squad Leader. Platoon-level games probably hit their greatest rules weight with titles like SPI’s Mech War 2 and GDW’s Assault series.
Ah, the good ol’ days of ‘process’ design. I’m not saying that it makes for bad games, but as my available gaming time has declined over the years I have to say that I’ve developed an affinity for shorter rulebooks.
In the Trenches: The Lost Generation hits a sweet spot for the moderate complexity that I enjoy. The rulebook clocks in at 28 pages, but it’s a very ‘breezy’ layout. I’m not a word-counter, but I’d say in length it compares favorably to the 16-page rulebook of a game like PanzerGrenadier — and may even be lighter than that.
Everything is pretty straightforward without a lot of clutter. There’s a bit of rules weight associated with the game’s treatment of artillery, but that’s not unusual for a game set during the Great War.
In the course of a game turn, players basically do their thing through alternating series of activations. To establish who acts first – and the number of ‘orders’ available – the players dice-off with 2d6. High-roller acts first, with the difference between the rolls becoming the number of orders available. The “initiative” player uses that many orders first, followed by his opponent – who receives the same number of orders. Orders can be used either to activate platoons individually (not very effcient) or to activate company-sized formations of 2-4 platoons.
Most of the combat units in the game can ‘act’ twice in a game turn. After the first action, they’re marked with an “Engaged” marker. After the second action they’re marked “Spent”. Machinegun sections firing opportunity fire are only marked “Spent” if they roll doubles – so defending MGs usually get to fire multiple times in a turn.
One thing I’ll note here is that the whole Engaged-Spent cycle does turn the game into a bit of a Marker Farm. Pretty much every unit on the map is destined to receive at least one marker in the course of a typical game turn. It’s difficult to avoid the use of markers, especially in a tactical game — although when a ‘status’ of some sort is going to touch everything on the map at some point in a turn, the more creative the solution, the better.
Just a quick note in a ‘house rules’ direction: When I began assembly of my counters for the game, the Engaged/Spent markers went first as my experimental models. In any game that requires an ubiquitous markers of some sort – Moved/Fired or Engaged/Spent – I typically use a couple of my bags full of cleverly color-coded tile spacers. I can plop one of them on top of a counter to indicate status and still see ‘through’ the marker to view the game piece beneath it.
Alternatively, since there are no facing rules in this game players can just keep track of the basic Engaged/Spent state of each unit by rotating it. Of course, this only works with players who are not “counter slobs” — you know, the guys who can barely keep counters near the correct hexagon and have pieces skewed in helter-skelter directions, sometimes within the same stack. Dammit! I hate that. Buy some tweezers or something.
But I digress.
The game system certainly focuses on ‘play’, rather than on rules lookups, math fiddling and chart-hopping. I truly appreciate that it flows quickly from action to action. In addition to allowing scenarios to be played to completion in a single sitting, the pace of play also helps players (even noobs) keep a running game narrative going without massive pauses or lengthy debates.
A few of the scenarios have some special rules fiddliness – typically something to do with initial prep fires or massive bombardments – but none of it’s too bothersome. I’ve only got a couple of games under my belt, but so far I’ve found it fairly entertaining.
