TooFatLardies Advent Panto, Day 12

[@Bugsy58]

By far my favourite advent panto contribution so far 'Wolf Spider' Nick! Love all that you guys do to make our hobby fun and enjoyable. Keep up the great work. Feliz Navidad! 🍻🍻🍻👍

[@housecaldwell]

Well said, Nick! Although some people do enjoy the simulationist aspect of it, I'm not one of them. I'd rather play a fun game 9.9 times out of 10. I remember a WW2 sea combat game I played in which was like your Napoleonic example. Every shot was compared against armor, the speed of the ships down to the half knot, etc. and a number was arrived at. Then a 20-sided was rolled to see the impact. But a 1 was always a miss and a 20 always a hit. After 4 hours when the ships were finally in range, I suggested we roll the dice first as 10% of the time it would give us a result without running the calculations. I was regarded as crazy. The "battle" was ended shortly after due to time and everyone else seemed really happy and debated who would have won.

[@adamedwards1937]

Excellent explanation. To be honest, computer games have pretty much dealt with the technical aspects for us, taking away the need to look up tables and tracking far more factors than would be expected to maintain a smooth tempo of a game.

[@PatGilliland]

I have to agree. I played a fair bit of Harpoon on the tabletop back in the day. The crunchiness was thematically and mechanically necessary, but the later computer versions were so much less taxing to play. I know people did it, but I can't imagine putting a Carrier Group on the table.

[@robertmoffitt1336]

Good singing, great listen on design theory! 🍻

[@benitoverap]

Another great snippet. I agree that a designer needs to align the rule mechanism with the final outcome he's aiming to achieve. For many years "complex" was a synonim of "good" on the wargame table (anyone remembers WRG 6th ??) ... thank God, we had Toofatlardies to show this was not true.

[@Bugsy58]

'synonym'! 😆😂 Just joking using a rivet counting mentality. Faliz Navidad! 👍

[@steveholmes11]

In an adjacent hobby, the table top role playing crowd are now failing against "false precision". Things like: Roll over fifteen to successfully climb this wall. Roll over sixteen to climb the next wall (It's a bit smoother). They point at research showing humans perceiving risk in roughly 15% chunks. Maybe coincidence, but this seems very close to the one sixth increment of a +1 modified on one of God's own six sided number cubes. Don't get me started on average dice referencing tables that lead to tables. Calculating casualties to the man, but only removing a figure for every twenty.. And after all that effort, the bloody Romans wipe the floor once again. +1 for manhole drill, +2 for pila, enhanced saves for lorica, even more saves for big shields, an extra die for "wedge" because exrtra. I wonder how many enthusiastic beginners went along to a club, we're welcomed with "you can be the gauls" and spent the worst four hours of their lives getting modified to oblivion in another glorious game of "Romans can't lose".

[@Colin-sm2iq]

Gamer’s common sense argument and reasoning

[@StormofSteelWargaming]

That introduction needs a trigger warning.

[@benitoverap]

😁