Of how I joined OPR Game Jam No.2

You know that stupid idea. You read something on the internet and decide to click "join" just for the kicks. And that is how I bound myself to write a miniature wargaming rules.

Joined What?

    OPR - One Page Rules organized Game Jam is a cool event.You got 48 hours to write a game on one page (you can use page two for armylists or special rules). You must follow a theme that is announced at the beginning the jam. Last time it was Asymetric Warfare. Who the hell knew what's coming...

    I was thinking I could prepare the base mechanic in advance. But how can you make mechanic specific for a game when you don't know what the game will be about? I had a few design goals prepared and some ideas about the setting. I wanted to write the game for our gaming group. We play, fantasy, sci-fi, crusades, wild west and Napoleonic. Because I think it's pointless to write a game you wouldn't play in the long term. I had multiple notes of what I want to do and how I want to do it.

    In the last Game Jam, some of the games were more like boardgames with very specific miniature needs. I was confident to write a real wargame.

    I have made plans to write and test all weekend. My wife did let me work and went to see her mother for weekend. At friday 9pm I have been sitting in wait in front of the monitor, impatient to see the theme.

                                                               SYNERGY

Choo-choo of thoughts

    I quote here exactly my train of thoughts when I saw it: "BAM! Oh, wait... synergy, what the f*ck?! Okay, I will write sci-fi! You'll have spaceships and ground battles and one will compliment the other. You can play orbital bombardment and ground-to-space cannons! I go for it! Wait, you would need to separate tables for that! That's nonsense! Shit, synergy, no way to work medieval here! Synergy, synergy, synergy... Napoleonic. Cavalry, Infantry, Artillery synergizing with one another! I go for it. And it will be skirmish for about a batallion of troops as we play in Over the Hills and Black Powder to supplement our Russian campagne for next year!"

    And I started thinking and writing. I came up with the base mechanic quite quickly. I like systems where the result is given by adding dice together. D6s provide quite stable, yet occationally chaotic results. So, the synergistic mechanic has been build. You roll 1d6 per unit and if units work with one another, you not only add d6 but also fixed bonus depending on the formation. Line shoots better then column and column charge better then line. Everyone knows that. So the formations are important.

    I wanted to add example to everything that might not be clear. I am not native english speaker, so it might be difficult to chatch my meaning. When I started testing, I have found out, that there is a lot of text that needs to be written. Like, you need to explain this and that. Also, the game's idea is that formations are powerful. Two units in formation are more powerful then two units loose. That was the whole point! That is the synergy in my rules. 

    But then again, it would be boring to make two big formations and clash in the middle. So the small units must have their own use. So I made them slightly faster. I also scratched cavalry as impossible to fit on the page. The more I thought about it, the more I knew this is just first step in larger world. This will be the platform, on which a lot bigger game will be build.

Help me elder brother, you're my only hope

    By then, it was saturday afternoon and my bro came testing. We have played several games, with ongoing rules updates and changes. He had several great points and I have noted down everything we came up with.

    And then, somehow we got wasted. It was natural. Just me and him, with enough beer and our lovely wives far enough not to be bored by our mutual discussions. I needed to think of something else for a moment so we have proceeded with systematic massacre of my brain cells.

A nice dinner added to some 8l of beer

Day 2 - this is the way

    The next morning I started writing early. There was a lot to write. I wanted to change the "tone of voice". I needed to fill in all the details and notes I have made yesterday with Dalibor. Good that I don't suffer memory-wipes when drunk. At least this time it was good, I can't say it's good in all instances.

    So I have finished the base game, with examples and bonuses and stuff! Perfect. Except it's almost two pages. Okay, I say. Let's cut down the fat. I have removed extensive examples, something moved to armylists (such as Regimental Gun) and something got generally deleted. Some descriptions got shortened. Finally I managed to make it one page. 

    I read it several times and started working on armylists. I wanted to make historically accurate and yet somehow balanced lists and I wanted at least two options from every nation. Some are better, some are worse depending on my "knowledge at hand" in time of writing. To be honest, I have been sick and tired with this game as it turned, mutated, evolved and devolved in my head. Then my wife came home. I asked her to read it. She did and even helped with some formating. I read it again. And again. And again. My head searing. It was like mental equivalent of giving birth. I really wanted to publish it finally. No errors it seems, I thought, reading the text for about hundredth time...

    I published. Rest of my brain cells died, demanding sleep. I watched new episode of Mandalorian with blank stare. In the 48 hours I have slept about 8-10 hours.

Outcome

    The next day morning, I saw I got new comments on Itch.io. Most of these basically said, that I left something out. There are lot of information missing. The most important is, that I somehow accidentally deleted the article with removing units... Some details are hard to understand (where I removed examples) and some typos have been made.

    As soon as my mind starts working properly again, I will expand and edit the ruleset. I would like to implement it in our gaming groups portfolio. In the expansions I want to re-include cavalry, Guard and scenarios, just from start. I will return some of the examples and maybe clean it up a little. The activations might evolve to something even better. Now we will have enough time, space and players to make Battalions at War a good, worthy game.

Dalibor's Russians - about the size of the game

    I would like to say thank you to OPR for hyping me into it, my RPG group as we cut off the session right before 9pm, my wife who supported me on the phone with some valid points and my friend FP who introduced me to Napoleonics few years ago. And most of all, thank you Dalibor for your support, for your testing abilities and for lots of beer you can take. All of you are hidden in the WASP I mention as co-author.

Stay tuned for rules updates and see you at the gaming table.

                                                                                                                        Jiron