I'm a big fan of FT and SG, but every time I try to read DS I long for the
elegant simplicity of FT and SG. In contrast DS just seems too cumbersome and
detailed. Now I haven't actually played DS yet, and it doesn't seem like Jon
can write a bad set of rules, so my question is, what am I missing? Do the
rules actually play clean and fast, despite appearances? Are there any sizable
chunks of the rules that could be ignored easily (like ECW)? Jed Docherty
I have found that to be not true at all. We have done Regiment scale
encounters complete with Artillery, Dropships, and Ortillery in 4 hours
including set up.
Michael Wikan Game Design Slave Zero Accolade, Inc.
http://www.slavezero.com
"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night
to visit violence on those who would do us harm."-George Orwell
> -----Original Message-----
Yes, they are very clean and capture the ebb and flow of battle quite well.
The simple fact is. naval battles are much easier to abstract meaningfully
than are land battle. Dirtside combat has many more variables represented
because many more variables are required. Dirtside and Star Grunt are fine
playable games - try them.
I was intimidated by DS (and SG) when I first read them. However, the rules
necessarily cover almost any eventuality, and these rarely occur in one game.
The basic mechanics are quite simple, and the addition of one or two addition
elements (Orbital insertion, EW or whatever) doesn't slow things down at all.
If you add things in a little bit at a time, soon you'll be playing with every
rule in the book, not using it for reference, and playing several games in an
evening...
At least, that's what happened to me.
Paul
> > -----Original Message-----
> At 04:31 PM 12/7/98 EST, you wrote:
Actually, by the sounds of it, it seems as if you aren't missing enough
;)
If you've played and liked SGII, you should know that they are _very_
similar. The quality, control and morale are essentially identical. Most of
the apparent complexity is helped a great deal by vehicle data cards. Once you
have vehicles designed, you can figure out most of the ranged fire from those.
Some sizable chunks of rules that can be avoided would be basically everything
in the optional sections, as well as the aerospace and artillery sections
(although you will most likely want to incorporate them once you've played a
couple of games).
Of course, the easiest way to learn is by playing. I find similar things
with almost all rule sets. SGII is, IMO, no easier or more difficult to learn
that DSII (and vice versa). If you've played one, the other will likely come
very easily and naturally.
> On Mon, 7 Dec 1998 JDoch226@aol.com wrote:
> I'm a big fan of FT and SG, but every time I try to read DS I long for
Do the
> rules actually play clean and fast, despite appearances? Are there
I'm a frequent DS2 player and occasional SG2 player (no FT yet) and find that
they're similar in speed of play. I also don't have a problem with
the chit system - I know people moan about it but it's no slower than
SG2's buckets-of-opposed-die-rolls system.
Far from ignoring rules, we've added a few house rules to cover what we
see as holes/oversights in the original ruleset; check the URL in my
.sig for those.
As for ignoring ECM, I don't see how you can, unless you also ignore GMS
systems. Unlike the fullblown Electronic Warfare systems of SG2, DS's ECM
is solely an anti-missle system...get rid of the missles, and you can
get rid of the ECM. Otherwise, your GMSs are going to eat tanks for
lunch...
Most of the other 'special' rules are things that happen once or not at
all in most games - orbital drops, nukes, that sort of thing.
Another post to this thread mentioned that the various aspects (direct fire,
artillery, aerospace, etc) of DS2 seemed 'tacked together', not working from a
single system. Given the widely varying modes of attack &
operation of these various systems, I'd be surprised if you _could_ come
up with a single, simple & realistic mechanism for dealing with them all well.
SG2 actually goes into far more detail on nearly everything than DS2 attempts.
There's also a large overlap of concepts and systems. If you're
already an SG2 player, DS2 is fairly easy to pick up - I certainly found
the reverse to be true after buying SG2, having played DS2 for a while.
My $0.02,
Funny, I must admit that I am reluctlant to play DS much for the same reason.
FT and SG I play quite a bit. Now, I am used to some complicated types of
mini's rulesets; anyone played WRG 7th Ancients?? DS has me a little daunted
as I get the feeling that it is quite 'clunky'. The use of chits is not the
difficult part. I get the impression that the rules for vehicles, infantry,
artillery and air support were written separately to each other and don't
quite mesh together. Strange I admit, but there it is.
I might add that at Western Suburbs Wargames (Melbourne) we play regular games
of FT and SG but have seen only 1 DS game in the last 18 months.
Owen G
> -----Original Message-----
> Jed Docherty <JDoch226@aol.com> wrote:
A list of chapter to read to get you started:
1 Introduction
2 Forces and Technology
4 Sequence of Play
6 Movement
7 Fire Combat
Reading the above will get you started with vehicle to vehicle direct fire
combat. Reading the remaining chapters will add additional capabilities. There
are some more simplifications at my site here:
http://members.xoom.com/AndrewMartin/DSII/
> On Mon, 7 Dec 1998 16:31:12 EST, JDoch226@aol.com wrote:
> I'm a big fan of FT and SG, but every time I try to read DS I long for
Hmmm... I played DS2 a few times before playing SG2. My thoughts were the
other way around: I found in the games that I played that DS2 was a little
more smooth than SG2. The games seem to finish quicker, though I think that's
because I've been playing big sized SG2 games versus smaller sized DS2 games.
Even still, I found DS2 no harder to get into than SG2 and maybe slightly
easier.
The daunting part of DS2 is that the vehicle design rules are right up front
and more complex than the same rules in SG2. They aren't difficult, but they
are kind of "in your face" right away. A book of already generated vehicle
stats would help, I agree. So does a spreadsheet, which several of us have
created.
In play, though, I found DS2 to be just as smooth as SG2.
> JDoch226@aol.com wrote:
Do the
> rules actually play clean and fast, despite appearances? Are there
They do take some getting used too. My experience (taught it to several
of current gzg-mcg members, and ran it at a con) is that if you have an
experienced umpire, all the players will catch on to the core rules after a
couple of turns. I've even finally got weapon validities largely memorized.:)
You'll never really be able to run a full game without consulting the rule
book occasionally, but it does flow smoothly once players have basic concepts
down. We've done batallion vs. 2 batallion games in 4 hours.
The positive responses on the playability of DS are great to hear. I'm
encouraged to strip it down to a really simple scenario and give it a shot. As
several said, it would definitely help to have an experienced player run the
game, but it looks like the most experienced player will be me! Unless anyone
knows of players in LA? I'm sure there are many, I just don't know of them.
Jed Docherty
> In a message dated 12/7/98 10:03:51 PM, you wrote:
<<The simple fact is. naval battles are much easier to abstract meaningfully
than are land battle. >>
I think it's just that for some reason most gamers are more willing to accept
abstraction in naval/space battles then they are in land battles. Sure,
terrain is usually less of an issue, but the variety of weapon types, the use
of fighters and ships defenses, the integration of ship design with tactical
formations and usage, blah, blah, blah, can generate any level of detail
you're willing to wade through (see some current WWII naval rules for
examples!). Jed Docherty
> The positive responses on the playability of DS are great to hear. I'm
Unless
> anyone knows of players in LA? I'm sure there are many, I just don't
Also, there's an excellent utility available on the Web that will help you
create your own vehicles and prints them out on cards.
> The positive responses on the playability of DS are great to hear. I'm
Unless
> anyone knows of players in LA? I'm sure there are many, I just don't
Well, not sure 'xactly what's all around LA there, but there are a handful of
players in Calif listed on my Player Location Page:
> At 04:55 PM 12/8/1998 EST, you wrote:
Unless
> anyone knows of players in LA? I'm sure there are many, I just don't
There are a few of us who play StarGrunt and DirtSide in the San Jose area. If
you are interested in playing, let me know. I grew up in the Los Angeles area
and will be visiting soon. Phil P.
Gort, Klaatu barada nikto!
Speaking of which, I just finished moving into the new digs and unpacked my
Slavering DSII, SGII, and FT legions (Including my Kryomek army...)
Michael Wikan Game Design Slave Zero Accolade, Inc.
http://www.slavezero.com
mwikan@accolade.com wikan@sprintmail.com "We sleep safely in our beds because
rough men stand ready in the night
to visit violence on those who would do us harm."-George Orwell
> -----Original Message-----
> In a message dated 12/8/98 10:16:17 PM, you wrote:
<<Also, there's an excellent utility available on the Web that will help you
create your own vehicles and prints them out on cards.
> [quoted text omitted]
Where is it?
And is there an archive anywhere for already-built vehicle stats? I'd
particularly like to see some Star Wars vehicles, AT-ATs, AT-STs,
repulsor tanks, speeder bikes... Jed
> JDoch226@aol.com wrote:
> The positive responses on the playability of DS are great to hear.
I'm
> encouraged to strip it down to a really simple scenario and give it a
My feeling on this?
1)Armor vs. armor, no VTOLs, Artillery, Infantry, no urban areas or any other
screwy terrain.
2)Add infantry
3)Add artillery
4)Add VTOLs
5)Add air support
6+) Go nuts! Add things like mines, or urban combat, or rivers, or
whatever.
> John M. Atkinson wrote:
> 6+) Go nuts! Add things like mines, or urban combat, or rivers, or
I meant "Riverine craft" not "Rivers".
Doh!
> On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, John M. Atkinson wrote:
I'm
> > encouraged to strip it down to a really simple scenario and give it
i second this! i add the following suggestions:
cook up some standard designs. i don't have ds2 to hand, but the following
sound reasonable:
MBT - size 3, armour 3, slow gev, ecm/enh, hkp/4 in turret, fcs/sup,
pds/enh, apsw
IFV - size 3, armour 3, slow gev, ecm/enh, 2 teams, rfac/1 in turret,
fcs/enh, pds/enh, 2 apsw
you might want to drop the ifv armour to 2 or give the mbt armour 3R to make
the mbt tougher than the ifv.
then pit, say, four troops of mbts against four troops of mbts, then two of
mbts, 1 of mech gms infantry and 2 of mech rifle infantry against an
identical force, then four troops of mbts with a battery of off-table
medium artillery with six missions of mak against an identical force, then
the tank-and-inf force with an off-table battery firing hef or mak, etc.
it is important to get your players to use artillery as an anti-tank
weapon. by this stage they should be familiar with how things work, and you
can try adding vtols, missile vehicles and ads, powered infantry, engineers,
mines, smoke rounds, infantry with apsw, etc.
Tom
> In a message dated 12/9/98 12:22:34 AM, you wrote:
<<There are a few of us who play StarGrunt and DirtSide in the San Jose area.
If you are interested in playing, let me know. I grew up in the Los Angeles
area and will be visiting soon.
> [quoted text omitted]
Phil, I was just about to write to you anyway, since you were recommended to
me by Don Hawthorne when I asked him a question about Dirtside! In fact, we
have already met, though briefly, at a game con in LA some time back when I
joined in a FT game you were playing with Don.
I'm definitely interested in playing - let me know if you have time for
a game next time you're in LA. I live in Venice, and have a 6x8 table and lots
of terrain. Not enough figs and vehicles for a DS game, yet, but I'm working
at it. I do have some nice FT fleets, some 25mm SF stuff, and a bunch of
historical stuff. Jed