Re: What points systems are worth looking at?

On Fri, 25 Apr 1997, David Brewer wrote:

> What relatively good point systems do people know of that could 
> provide a useful reference... for writing point systems for our 
> beloved GZG games? Or games in general? What have you seen and 
> liked (in part if not in whole)?

Ogre has a simple but working system (but it's a simple game too). It
also
has a number of "generic" scenarios. 

Car Wars point system (dollars) takes another approach -- it's not 
supposed to be balanced, optimization is the name of the game. This can 
work as long as the players are experienced enough and like this sort of

thing.

Bidding systems are good (even Space Hulk used to have one), as long as 
BOTH players are reasonably exprienced. If one is not, this is just 
another way to bash newbies. It presents a problem with pre-design
tough. 

It would be useful to pay for tactical flexibility. Not just sum of all 
units, but extra for each independent unit. Thus you could go the soviet

way and increase manpower at the expense of flexibility.

> Also useful would be any system that spruces up a pick-up game 
> where players can bring a pre-generated force to an unreferee'd 
> game and arrive at something less than wholey bland.

There are big problems here:

Part of predesign's idea is the surprise factor.

Army lists can be too long and complex to fully comprehend in limited 
time anyway. 

I think you'd need a working point system as a base anyway... but this 
could be made work.

Possibly a selection of pre-generated generic scenarios. Players would 
then bid away troops for the right to choose the scenario and the side
to 
play. Several variations can be thought of. 

Or the agreed scenario could designate point ratios.

Simply swapping armies and playing it both ways is good a way to balance

the results, but could end up wasting twice the time in pointless 
battles. 

Buying tactical advantages with points? E.g. I have a 300-pt force, you 
have 500pts. I get 200pts. to buy terrain, victory conditions etc.

> ...Also, since Stargrunt currently has no points system, maybe we 
> could start writing one for that...

IMHO, it's not as important, as at this level, well a grunt's a grunt. 
A simple mancount gets you pretty far.

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