madaxeman wrote:Looking specifically at rules queries, over the past few months;
- the FoGAM forum seems to generate between 4-7 queries, almost all of which are resolved within 1 or 2 posts. Very broadly generalising, they are either where newish players can't find something in the rules, or where the long-established players are discussing a very unusual and complex situation that's come up in a game - both of which I guess are understandable, especially in a ruleset that has undoubtedly been very thoroughly playtested, but which also runs to quite so many pages. The FAQ is very stable, and is effectively now owned by the community
- ADLG runs to about a dozen queries per month (in the English language section of it's forum), and they are mostly resolved in between 1-6 posts. Again broadly generalising they tend to be new players asking some variation of "I used to be able to do this in DBM/FoG/etc, is it the same in ADLG?", to which the usual answer is along the lines of "not really, please RTFM". There are also a number of longer threads and queries, often where something obscure has come up, or more occasionally where subtleties in the French-English translation haven't worked quite right. The gnarly ones of these get referred to the author for inclusion in the next edition of the FAQ, which is updated every 3-4 months.
- MeG is routinely running to 20+ queries each month, some resolved quickly, some turning into multi-page debates. They are a combination of "why do the rules appear to work like this, this isn't how I think this interaction should work / this appears to unbalance the game?" debates, queries on things which appear to be either unclear, missed out or inconsistent in the rules & QRS, and a fair bit of "how does this work?" which again usually ends in "RTFM" - all what you might expect with a new ruleset with limited play time to date compared to FoG and ADLG. The author tends to have the final say, with some things going on to be be corrected in the rules or FAQ in real-time, some list updates being made, and others put on a back-burner for a planned subsequent update. If bahdahbum wasn't on the MeG forum there would also be far fewer queries there... and presumably more here.
I think FOG at least, and to some extent perhaps ADLG, benefit from not being the first version. For example, the index in v1 FOG was terrible but the v2 index is good. The issues with FOG tend to fall into two camps:
- most commonly, unusual situations where you have to refer to several sections of the rules and the wording is obscure. All rules tend to get these but FOG doesn't help itself. e.g. for a unit's first rout move encountering obstructions you end up looking at three different sections.
- contradictions in the rules. These are rare, and essentially need someone to say which section to use.
I'm sure you know Tim that there's a re-write of FOGAM to v3 rules going on (looks like the book will come out this summer), plus boiling down the absurd number of army list books into three books. This will allow for changes to the points cost of troops, which didn't happen in the V2 rewrite. Trying to fix some of the problems which have put people off of the rules. But also, I've suggested to Terry that he should take the opportunity to bake in the BHGS umpire clarifications to reduce the level of queries.
I have to say in the process of working up FOG v3, there have been a lot of comments on how the interactions work, whether things would be unbalanced or not, as you observe for MeG. Often they are contradictory. Quite often though, it's difficult to understand why people have those views, or it might be that it's a wargames myth.
As with any new rule sets or versions, the acid test for FOG, ADLG, MeG will be whether it's an enjoyable enough game despite any issues to maintain a viable number of players. DBM in my opinion was the best for that, despite impenetrable writing and numerous editions it had a very long shelf life.
. On page 49 it states what troops can interpenetrate. If they can't, then they must burst through - in which case pg 51 states "Move the evading or routing battle group the full extent of its move. If its move does not completely clear all friends, it is placed beyond any battle group(s) it is currently bursting through if there is room for it beyond, otherwise it is destroyed and removed from the table."
