Why Size Matters: Designing at Scale

When designing a game it is essential to set out sensible parameters. In a war game, one of the fundamental parameters to get right is the scale. 

3mm = 1/600th scale
6mm = 1/285th or 1/300th scale
10mm = 1/160th scale
12mm = 1/144th scale
15mm = 1/100th scale
20mm = 1/72nd scale to 1/76th scale
28mm = 1/64th scale

Wargame 'scales' tend to be denoted in millimeters; although not technically a scale, the number refers to the size of a model representing an average man. Ignoring the debate about how tall an average man is, war game millimeter scales can be converted into proper scales according to the table to the right:

Some test figures to illustrate scales (left to right): 6mm GHQ, 15mm Peter Pig, 20mm Elhiem, 28mm Games Workshop.
(Links to manufacturer's websites at the bottom of the page.)

But which is the best?

Well, that's a matter of perspective. A better question is: which scale is right for the game and the players? Spoiler: The Stack was designed as a skirmish game and written with a 20mm scale in mind, but Pocket Conflict was intended to be played at 2:285 to 15mm.

When designing Pocket Conflict, one of the key things we wanted to represent on the battlefield was space. We wanted players to have room to manoeuvre and not be forced into throwing all their units into a single fight. Many skirmish games suffer from this problem and every battle turns into a game of '5 year old football' where everyone runs towards the ball - (which obviously isn't what happens in real life).

We also wanted to represent a good number of units on the table while ensuring that each model of tank represents a single tank, rater than a platoon of tanks for instance. At a larger scale this would result in units being cramped or forced into unrealistically close proximity to each other. 

There is also the issue of ground scale vs figure scale to consider. In most war games, to ensure the game can be played on a reasonably sized table, the ground scale will be much smaller than the figure scale. For example a game could easily have a figure scale of 1:100 (15mm) but a ground scale of 1:2500, where one centimeter equals 25 meters. However, the bigger the disparity between the two scales, the more jarring players often find it. In pure skirmish games, designers can get away with using larger scale figures and keeping the two scales quite close, however, when representing a larger engagement, this becomes difficult.

In Pocket Conflict, we have striven to keep the two scales as close as possible but have had to make compromises to make the game playable - notably with the size of an area affected by an explosion or artillery. It's probably not a good idea to get too hung up on ground scale though, distance is intimately related to speed and time, and as soon as we ask players to take turns, any ambition to accurately reflect time goes straight out of the window.

There were some other factors that lead us to choose 1:285/15mm for Pocket Conclict

Cost: In general the larger the scale, the more expensive it will be to build two forces and have a battle. The cost increases again if you want to have additional troops to add variety to your unit selection. At 1:285, you can have quite a large battle without breaking the bank and a perfectly decent battle with each player using a few units of infantry or a handful of tanks. At current prices, this would cost around $20 each rather than many times that for larger scales.

Availability of models: At 1:285 there are a vast number of units available from a range of manufactures. Most are of excellent quality (notably GHQ) and they're not too difficult to paint, (especially if you just spray them olive green and get on with gaming).

Playing area: At 1:285 you can have a good game in a relatively limited playing area. The other day we played a very satisfying urban extraction scenario in a playing area of 18x18 inches. Two units of US special forces had to escape from multiple enemy militia units that were closing in on their position. Conversely, if you are lucky enough to have a large area to play in, at 1:285 you can have some excellent sprawling combined arms engagements.

Time: Smaller models are faster to paint/assemble. The same goes for terrain.  

Storage: Smaller models are easier to store and take up less space. Again, the same applies to terrain. 

There are lots of advantages with going small so why not smaller? Two reasons:

• Any smaller and it can get quite fiddly - painting, modelling and playing at this scale becomes more difficult; and

• The availability of high quality and distinguishable models is significantly reduced when you go below 6mm.

That being said, there is nothing that stops you from playing Intervention using 3mm or even 15mm or 28mm figures... you might have to suspend disbelief a little when a unit has to be almost on top of the enemy to receive a close range bonus.  

Links:

GHQ. Peter Pig. Elhiem. Games Workshop.

Conflict Simulation: Design Principles

Each year I attend a session of Kings College London's conflict simulation course as a guest to provide advice on how to design, develop and build a working conflict simulation.

The King's College London Conflict Simulation course, tasks participants with accurately modelling a historic conflict using a manual system (ie design a board game). The game must:

• be playable within two hours;

• have less than 100 counters; and

• have a board no bigger than A3 (11.7 x 16.5 in)

All of which is relatively challenging for a particupants who have limited to no game design experience.

Conflict simulation design is a little different from pure game design; not only has the design to work as a mechanical construct, but it also has to accurately portray the conflict being modelled. This creates a whole new set of challenges that you just don’t have to worry about if you are creating a party game.

When we design games, we don't strive for a 100% accurate portrayal of the theme of the game, instead we aim to paint a faithful impression of what is going on. We endeavour to create systems in which players should still be able to gain an understanding of the dynamics, incentives and dilemmas relevant to the scenario being modelled.

So what are my top five tips for designing a good conflict simulation?

1. Understand the conflict being modelled. This can be quite a struggle as it involves a lot of research, but to make a good simulation you need to really understand your campaign or battle on a fundamental level. There is a crucial difference between knowing your conflict and really understanding it - a good simulation designer needs to achieve the latter.
   

2. There are no sacred cows. When designing a game or a system, there will be mechanics or concepts that, for whatever reason, you really love and are desperate to include. However all too often they just don't work within the overall mechanics of the game. Snipers are a good example of this; designers often seem to include rules for snipers in scenarios where they just aren't a critical factor or appropriate to the simulation/game. For example, when I designed 'Afghanistan 1980', I was fairly ruthless with the rules, however I failed to cull a mechanic around Soviet intelligence operations. Had I done so, I would have freed up additional counters from my allowance of 100, cut down the rules and ended up with a more streamlined system.
   

3. Playtest lots. You really need to playtest your game a lot, and do it with a range of people from a range of backgrounds. You don't need to do a full run through every time you playtest and you may decide that, for certain elements, you can test small parts of the game in isolation. Similarly some things you may be able to 'test' using a spreadsheet or other tool. In both Intervention and Manifesto, we did quite a lot of work using spreadsheets to test game balance - for example when designing the Intervention's rules for crossing a minefield we created a small spreadsheet to calculate the likely outcomes, given different input variables, and then experimented. While this limited or selective testing is encouraged to save time, you will still need to test the whole thing multiple times over. When testing it is also essential to experiment at the extremes. For instance, what happens if I mass all my forces in this one location? What happens if I pursue this resource goal exclusively? On average, how many of the worst troops does it take to knock out the best? A lot of early versions of games work well when players all play in a certain expected way - if someone does something odd then the whole thing can fall apart.
   

4. Edit Positively. When you go from the alpha version of the rules to the beta version of the rules, or do a really significant update, start a new document. Rewrite and/or copy/paste in the rules you want to keep, section by section. This 'positive editing' minimises the chance for unwanted artifacts from previous versions to sneak into the more mature version of the rules.
   

5. Finally: Have fun. While, according to the King's College design brief, it is not essential for your game/simulation to be 'fun', it helps if it is. Game design is an extended process, requiring hours of work, you will enjoy the design process and the playtesting much more if your game is fun and you are interested in the subject matter.