PET PEEVES

[Scolty]

Happy New Year Folks,

I have been thinking what, if anything, annoys you about our wonderful hobby.

I will begin by saying that my main 'pet peeve' is the increasing lack of proofreading in PUBLISHED articles in magazines and rulesets. It seems that lately I cannot read any of the above without several glaring, to me anyway, errors leaping out from the page (Full disclosure - I'm a retired teacher!).

I have no issue with errors in posts to forums as most would be written fairly spontaneously on a variety of handheld devices and I admit that I'm frequently guilty of crimes to grammar/spelling, etc. However, when I'm expected to pay the guts of £6 from my pension for a magazine, or £25-£30 for a ruleset, that contains increasing numbers of errors I do get increasingly peeved.    I guess that these are not the fault of the author, but are the result of a lack of proofreading at the publishers.

I look forward to reading other 'pet peeves'

[Orcs]

Its not just rulesets, My wife and I regularly see grammatical errors in the Telegraph, that should not have got passed the editor. (My wife does write for a living), I am (was) an engineer.

[fred.]

Proof reading generally seems to be on the decline - I notice it in main stream news articles a lot. 

I have to say I've noticed it less in wargames rules. But I'm sure it happens. 

I used to work for a publisher, and we had a multi-stage proof-reading process, and even with this in place, it was pretty much guaranteed that on the day we got the print run delivered from the printers, that someone would open a book at random and spot an error!

[jimduncanuk]

In my former employment I used to proof read text written by a number of Professors (no names) relating to IT circumstances. It was shocking to see.

[steve_holmes_11]

I'm quite fussy about rules.
I find a lot of mechanisms really annoy me for different reasons.
Some are obviously bad rules, others are very personal preferences.
I'll list a few.

Distractions from the table.
I'm not a boardgamer, and don't see much interest in the "tableau" approach to gaming.
It always seems like a bunch of people playing solitaire sharing one table.
In miniature wargaming, the "Battleboard" (Saga) takes me away from the action on the tabletop.
For me it drains all joy and interactivity form the game.
I appreciate that Saga is hugely popular, so know I'm in a minority.

Bidding to go first.
If you've not seen it, you get so many actions, but bid to sacrifice some in return for going first.
I've never seen a satisfying explanation of whats happening here.
It feels like another boardgame mechanic borrowed, and inserted with no military equivalent.
Better generals tended to do things first AND get more done.
I'd add that if going first is that important, your rules may be broken.

Blocking special rules.
Each side applies effort to reduce the enemy.
When you're fighting at a disadvantage, and finally manage a hit, hearing "I'm elite, so ignore the first hit" or "My fanatics ignore demoralisation" makes you question how you spend your time.

Excessive rallying.
Similar to blocking.
I understand that units can regroup given a bit of peace, and efficient officering.
But if you're in a firefight (or even melee), and rallying is a better choice then fighting back, there's something badly wrong with your rules.

Time wasters.
Parts of the game that burn a lot of play time, but accomplish very little.
Skirmishing (in some rules) is a classic example, slow to evaluate with lots of measuring and modifiers, but hardly causes any hits.
Generally a sign or poorly tested rules.


I try to avoid playing rules with these features.
I'm sure there are others that also irritate me.

[sunjester]

People!!

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Spell checkers that dont recognise the CORRET Engilsh spell and insist on the Bastardised Webster American version lacking "U" etc. Almost as bad as Welsh.

[Gwydion]

Almost as bad as Welsh.

?
There is only on 'c' in cywir, but two in 'correct'.
(And there is no 'u' in lliw).
I concur with your thoughts on the creeping (galloping?) Americanisation of English via the web however - my son talks of some strange letter known as zee!

[d_Guy]

The tips of 00 brushes are a lot bigger than they use to be.

[Orcs]

The tips of 00 brushes are a lot bigger than they use to be.

This is the same for  young ladies chests, I am sure they are all bigger than when I was young! - and yes this makes me very peeved 

[fred.]

Spell checkers that dont recognise the CORRET Engilsh spell and insist on the Bastardised Webster American version lacking "U" etc. Almost as bad as Welsh.

If you are looking for the CORRET spelling, that may be your problem. 

I'd also suggest its very much in your control to set the language of your computing device to British English. 

[fred.]

This is the same for  young ladies chests, I am sure they are all bigger than when I was young! - and yes this makes me very peeved 

From your archery photos I feel there may be some sampling bias, and perhaps some recency bias. I'm not sure if more research would be helpful, or will just make you more peeved (I'm wondering if that last word should have an 'r' in it)

[paulr]

I concur with the proofreading peeve but having done quite a bit of it recently I also know how difficult and time consuming it is to do 
And yes, I have spotted errors in the printed work I've proofread

I also concur with Steve's list of rules peeves

A couple of my own peeves include:

• Players who reject points systems out of hand rather than use them as a useful guide
• Rules that have players making decisions at too many different levels, if I'm commanding a Corps I should not be deciding if that company is in skirmish order

[fred.]

Bidding to go first.
If you've not seen it, you get so many actions, but bid to sacrifice some in return for going first.
I've never seen a satisfying explanation of whats happening here.
It feels like another boardgame mechanic borrowed, and inserted with no military equivalent.
Better generals tended to do things first AND get more done.
I'd add that if going first is that important, your rules may be broken.

Blocking special rules.
Each side applies effort to reduce the enemy.
When you're fighting at a disadvantage, and finally manage a hit, hearing "I'm elite, so ignore the first hit" or "My fanatics ignore demoralisation" makes you question how you spend your time.

Time wasters.
Parts of the game that burn a lot of play time, but accomplish very little.
Skirmishing (in some rules) is a classic example, slow to evaluate with lots of measuring and modifiers, but hardly causes any hits.
Generally a sign or poorly tested rules.

Some snipping of the above  (mainly to keep the ones I agree with)

Finding good rules is very much a personal thing - and it also needs the agreement of your opponent on what makes a good set in their personal view too! To me the rules have to give the feel of the period and type of game you are trying to create/recreate.

I find WWII rules some of the most contentious, mainly as most gamers are pretty well read on WWII, so all have very different views of what is right. Let alone the scale of representation that game represents.

Going First - I think this is often tied into rules where there are fairly few turns, and where shooting or charging is very powerful.

Blocking Special Rules - some of this is about knowing what counters what - but it can be very annoying when this is sprung on you mid game, especially if you play a number of different systems, so don't / can't recall all the options for your own troops, let alone those of the enemy.

Time Wasters - this is a biggie for me too - and is often only visible in retrospect. The example that really stands out for me was the magic phase in Warhammer (probably 5th or 6th edition) - we played a big multiplayer game, and the magic phase took 20-30mins each turn, and often resulted in very little happening in the end after much pondering, measuring and dice rolling. Either because the spells weren't very effective, or they were countered / dispelled by the opponent. One that currently annoys me is the multiple weapons on units in Legion Imperialis - each with slightly different special rules and ranges - it takes an age to roll as you need to do several small batches. It does add quite a bit of flavour to units, but really does slow the game down. For our home brew take on epic, we majorly combined weapon stat lines to streamline the game - it lost a bit of the granularity but given the general brutality of Epic games it didn't seem too important - and it let us get more toys on the table!

[steve_holmes_11]

People!!

Them too.