Top 5 Pet Hates

[Martin Smith]

Thanks. Has been reduced in effect in DBA v3. If there's so much as 1mm of recoil available, the recoiler moves said distance and stops (no longer instantly destroyed). Less nasty than before.
'No mooning allowed' may be the new catchphrase 

[steve_holmes_11]

It's ultimately down to personal taste.

1st Ed DBA was a superb ruleset - Revolutionarly but in a way that cut effort, play time and page count.

Alas it soon succumbed to the competition crowd finding ways to exploit semantics and nano-manoeuvre.
This led to a string of rulings, interpretations, revisions.

DBA's efficiency came with a large dollop of abstraction - something that, for me, required some suspension of disbelief.
I'm afraid all the legal and geometric shenanigans combined to shatter that disbelief.


On the plus side, it left me hungry for other games with simple implementations of command friction.
It also made me aware of the benefits of a grid on the playing surface.
Indirectly that led me to the Rules for the Common man.

[mellis1644]

Mine is the person who says they will be out for game on gaming evening but then cancels 10 minutes before or many hours later - with an excuse around work or something.

I know things come up but if you commit to a game with someone be considerate of their time as well as your own.

[martin goddard]

Happened to me a couple of times.  Bit annoying.

[Leman (Andy)]

Happened to me today when one player cried off with a cold (after I'd already travelled into the club. Fortunately another player turned up so we were able to conclude the game.

[steve_holmes_11]

New number zero to add to my list.

Apparently smart people who write stuff in their blogs like like "Over a few rolls the luck will even out".
It's often cited as a lame defence of games prone to snowballing.

Let's review this again:

Rolling 30 dice at once - the sheer number means you're more likely to roll a total  near the median.
This is the basis of the well traveled 1d10 is more "swingy" than 2d6.
This crops up in a lot of game reviews. (See also 1d20 Vs 2d10, and various other combinations)


However we gamers rarely consider the total when we're rolling "buckets".
We're usually looking at pass / fail events - or occasionally more states like fumble / fail / pass / critical.

In this situation there's no memory in the dice that will compensate your terrible or great luck from another part of the game.
It won't even out.

[Leslie BT]

We constantly remind Martin (a maths teacher and war gamer) of this phenomena.

[Mike6t3]

Well said Steve Holmes 11 

[Sean Clark]

Also, some rolls are more important than others. A successful roll out on a flank where not much is happening balanced against a poor roll in the centre of the fighting that may or may not turn the tide in the game means the two rolls average out but one is more important than the other.


I'm quite good at the former but not great at the latter!

[martin goddard]

Some thoughts that might contribute to the discussion.

RFCM rules are built around the assumption that if it goes horribly wrong 4x for a force then all is lost. 1,2,3 x horribly wrong you should  be Ok to fight on. Horribly wrong should only rarely result in that part being lost from the game. Thus a part will contribute to future game events.
e.g A Hammerin iron ship should be able to suffer a devastating broadside and still be an active part of the game.

This means that the rules usually have about 9 moving parts per player. Each horribly wrong will lose 1 part from the game.
This is also the reason for long list of victory points. Therefore various ways to succeed. Thee are always options.

The problem arises when parts are despatched too  easily and lost from the game.
Another problem is the "blue flag scenario" wherein the  game hangs on one simple and exclusive condition.  e.g. whomever holds (is on) the bridge has won. No matter at what cost or the strength of the "hold". Thus the bridge holder is surrounded and wounded, but is on the bridge. Thus  blue flag planted , a win!