In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, there is only war!
Necessary Tropes
- During the War: Well... yeah... hard to avoid this trope when you've decided to write a wargame. Sometimes these wars are gang wars or even wars between corporations, depending on the setting.
Choices, Choices
You are going to need to determine the scale at which the wargame is going to be at:
- Skirmish vs Wargame - Yes the terminology isn't great, but if you need to decide whether the players control individual models or squads. Usually Skirmish sized games are between 4 - 15 models on the field whereas Wargame sized can be any size larger than that.
- Activation Based vs Turn by Turn - You need to decide if there are player turns where one player makes all the decisions for their side or if play swaps between players until every unit has activated.
- Historical vs Fiction, historicals are based on real life battles, but Fiction based games typically live in the Alt History, Fantasy, or Scifi genres.
- Scale - Determining scale is more of a cost measure than anything else. The industry has fall into two main types of scales 32mm for budget Skirmish games and expensive Wargames, and 15mm which is typically used for large scale wargames.
- For Historicals pick a War, typically choose one that is prior to the modern era to avoid controversy.
- Narrative Focus vs Combat Focus - Determine if you are making a Tournament style wargame. Tournament style games usually have tournament rules put out by a publisher with a focus on game balancer, whereas Narrative games typically focus on asymmetrical play, but can still be played with tournament rules if both players agree.
- Pewter vs Plastic vs Resin - Originally models were made in Pewter, but due to costs that turned into Plastic, and now plastic and resin are the main two types. Plastic and Resin benefit from being able to be highly detailed. The only downsides to resin is that it can be pretty brittle and is toxic if not cured.
Pitfalls
- Alpha Strike is common in Turn by Turn games where a player can reduce their opponent's forces so much that the opponent doesn't have enough bodies to fight back. This leads to a snowball effect where the person who plays second is at a significant disadvantage.
- New Car Smell - When a game's balance is thrown off by a new army or unit that is too overpowered compared to the ones currently out.
- That Guy - When a game requires some level of Strategy there is typically a That Guy player who is attracted to play.
- The Mascot Sucks - When a game advertises using a particular model, but in actual gameplay the model is terrible. This was true of Warmachine Mk2 when Warjacks were the iconic mascot of the setting, yet the meta revolved around infantry aside from some niche strategies.
- Mr. Too heavily into Nazis for Comfort - When a fascist faction attracts people who legitimately believe they are the good guys. In WW2 historicals, this can literally happen.
- Real World Photos - Don't use historical real world photos, even if its historical unless its non-combat photographs. At least one game caused controversy by using Holocaust photographs for their wargame.
- All Space Marine are Men - When you try to give an in-universe explanation as to why an entire army looks identical due to production limitations, but when your production can allow for say Female Space Marines the fans are so adamant that it breaks canon that you can't fix it. All-male armies can usually be gotten away with in historical games (although keep in mind the many historical examples of warrior women - Bad Squiddo Games
, for example, produces miniature lines for Viking shieldmaidens, feudal Japanese onna bugeisha, and WWII Soviet female soldiers), less so in a modern one, and just don't do this in a fantasy or sci-fi setting (especially a new IP rather than one that's been around for decades) unless it's a One-Gender Race or the like.
Potential Subversions
- Social Combat - Instead of focusing on war zones the focus is on social maneuvering.
- SportsBall - The wargame is actually a sporting event such as football or rugby.
- Cards - Instead of using dice use cards.
Writers' Lounge
Suggested Themes and Aesops
- War Never Changes - Setting wise you'll usually find that into the far future war is being fought like back in the old days with swords, even though guns are available.
- Grimdark - The setting is full of violence that there seems to be no hope. It doesn't help that the only focus is on locations that are active combat zones.
Potential Motifs
- Technology vs Magic
- Democracy vs Insert other government type here.
Suggested Plots
- History Repeats - Take a real world conflict and update it to a fictional encounter to help create realistic scenarios.
Departments
Set Designer / Location Scout
- Cardboard and MDF wood terrain. Plastic or resin if you can afford it.
- Boxed Canyon - Typical standard deployment is two factions on either side of the board running towards each other.
Props Department
- Objective Marker - Usually a coin or casino chip that represents an asset the armies are after.
- Dice - Typically 6 sided dice, but any die type is fine.
- Carry Tray - A tray players use to move their armies between tables.
Costume Designer
- I paint his pants blue - Painting miniatures is a big part of the hobby. Some games do come with pre-painted miniatures, but those typically are for newcomers to the hobby.
- Power Armor - Scifi Games this is how you denote the elite army.
- Impractical Clothes - Often the rule of cool outweighs the battle effectiveness of their armor.
- Commanders Don't Wear Helmets - Painting faces is difficult, as such only really important characters typically have helmetless variants.
- Masked Army - To keep uniformity and to cut on modeling budgets, a lot of models wear identical headwear such as masks and helmets.
Casting Director
- Identical Faces - Miniatures are expensive and usually come with a very limit supply of head variations.
- Humans - Likely the poster boy for the entire game.
- Elves/Space Elves - When you need a glass canon intellectual army that utilizes "Knowledge is Power" mentality.
- Orc/Warrior Race - Your basic savage army that is meant to believe in "Might is Right".
- Undead/Hivemind - When you need a swarm army that is meant to be a faceless horde. Typically either legions of robots or insects.
- Giants/Mecha - When you need something giagantic to stand out in the middle of a battle.
- Leader Model - A unique, usually named, character that is the leader of an army and gets a lot better gear than everyone else.
- Showpiece Model - Usually a large model like a mecha or dragon that is so big it intimidates the opponent.
Stunt Department
- Reroll - When a player fails a check they get to reroll because of a special ability.
- Command Points - Points generated each turn that can be spent on an effect such as rerolls.
- Deploying from Reserve - When a model gets a non-standard deployment onto the board such as coming from a different board edge or starting outside a certain distance from the enemy army instead of in the normal deployment zone.
- Run - Taking two movements instead of the typical one.
- Stomp - A model is so big it does damage when it walks into another model.
- Base to Base - When the bases of two models touch each other.
Extra Credit
The Greats
- Warhammer 40k
- Malifaux
- Warmachine/Hordes
- Bolt Action - One of the more popular historicals with a low barrier to entry.
The Epic Fails
- Inquisitor
- Through the Breach - Wargame sized version of Malifaux, but with more confusing mechanics.
