Simple Panzer Grenadier system (variant)

[larry marak]

Sounds like set ups for a miniatures game.  Which of the 114 maps are in play?

[JasonC]

Larry - I give the type of terrain to select rather than specific maps because many people have many more to choose from. Personally I play these scenarios using maps from the Kursk and Elsenborn and Road to Berlin modules, mostly, with the Kursk module maps (steppe with wheatfields and occasional ruined villages) getting the most use for most of the eastern front scenarios. Suit yourself, is the point.

[JasonC]

For the first scenario given, the infantry training one, the maps are 25 and 22 from the Elsenborn ridge module. The US sets up first on board 22. The Germans set up on board 25 in the road column, one unit per hex, from the center of the map road left edge stretching most of the way to the board to board boundary. This puts them behind woods on the eastern edge of board 25 where the road exits, and out of sight of the Americans in the village on board 22, and the wheat field just north of it.

[JasonC]

And the crickets chirp...

There is a thread over on Board Game Geek asking if Panzer Grenadier needs an overhaul. There are discussion areas on Consimworld dedicated to Panzer Grenadier. I can't make the case for my variant system in either place - the Powers That Be will not allow it.

In the latter case, I've actually been told by an employee of Avalanche Press that online game forums like that are "his living room" and I'm not welcome to propose changes to any of their games in them, lest the common people get the impression any of their games as anything but perfect, apparently. The common people being you, would be readers of this post or others like it. Who likely don't even know that what you can see about games you enjoy is being sensored on more than half the web (kudos to PG-HQ for being an exception to that, to date), by folks who don't want "their" games touched in any way.

(And here I thought that once I bought a game, I owned it and could do with it what I like...)

[Hugmenot]

You definitely can do anything you like with any game you purchase.

Avalanche have posted variants as Daily Contents before (Peter's double-blind system comes to mind) but nothing so drastically different as what you have here.

I am not sure if what you propose is the equivalent of the simple GBOH rules or a replacement of the latter. The former may draw some interest and new blood f it can be demonstrated it plays simpler and (especially) faster. The latter would not make sense from the business perspective (imho) because it risks alienating the current player base.

[JasonC]

What does GBOH have to do with any of it?  Maybe I am just misunderstanding you, to me that means "great battles of history", a Berg series of games from GMT, that has a "Simple GBOH" alternate rule set that lets you play the same games with less command system overhead and so forth.  If that is meant as an analogy, I am not trying to sell a rules booklet, but people can play any number of Panzer Grenadier games with my variant rules, can make up their own fights in the system, etc.  

I really don't care whether that competes with or compliments Avalanche Press's publications or business model or anything related.  Near as I can tell, they rely on interested third parties doing research on new areas to produce new game modules that they then print and publish, and they could do that if the game they were publishing were Panzerblitz or Squad Leader, and if the rules were written in Klingon.  Why it would affect them I cannot see, but I honestly could not care less either way.  Let them continue the unbroken tenor of their way, or enthusiatically support third party redesigns, or anything in between.

The only thing I'd object to in the matter would be trying to literally suppress public expression of opinion about their games, or revisions, or scenarios, to rules or anything else.  That strikes me as just completely out of line; publishers have literally no special rights in such matters.  I don't think corporately they've ever done anything untoward in that respect, but I have encountered that attitude from specific employees, who seem to think they own the power to determine what is said by other people about "their" games - which are not theirs in any such sense, to begin with.  I hope that is merely a misguided attitude by those folks as individuals.  As such it is merely annoying.

[Hugmenot]

Avalanche Press has two employees: Mike (who is also the owner of the company) and another employee whose name escapes me at that moment. I don't recall seeing Mike post anywhere other than on CSW and don't recall ever seeing a post from the other employee.

Mike, as per the CSW rules, is the moderator the Avalanche Press company and series folders on CSW and thus determines what is allowed and not allowed in these folders. Personally, I would never try to get a discussion going on CSW because, as you experienced, anything allowable foes in the folders and responses do not have to be on topic. I have answered a few rules questions in the past but not recently because I only check the Panzer Grenadier folders once every couple of weeks and the questions are usually answered before I see them.

So I am curious who you referring to when you say employees (plural).

[Matt W]

Jason,

I'll take a stab at why you are getting crickets.  

First, you have been unrelentingly critical of the game system.  That's fine as an intellectual pursuit but it sucks if your goal is to get people to try out your system.  Try suggesting that your reworking the system is the result of your opinion about some of the game systems and describe how what you have done "fixes" what, in your opinion, is broken.   Maybe then, others with similar thoughts might try it out.

Second, you seem to misunderstand the scale and approach of the game in the first place.  Your complaints, especially concerning weapons systems, focus on the technical and not the operational aspects of the weapons.  Training, doctrine and the experience of crew all combine with the technical aspects of a weapon to form the basis of the ratings that work within the Panzer Grenadier system.  If you want a game that replaces the actual armies with uncommonly competent men in order to see what would have happened had the weapons been used to their fullest potential I would go with your approach.  In this case, however, I enjoy working with what historically was there.

Third, what you term "simple" hardly looks simple.  What it does seem to be is bloody.  It wasn't enough to get me to grab some counters and give it a try. 

There is no one censoring your posts here.  This is an independent site.  Avalanche Press has no authority here.  There is no one trying to shut you down.  There just doesn't seem to be a lot of interest.  Maybe people are trying your system now and there will be a burst of discussion later.  Having spent a lot of time playing the system as it is, I enjoy it and know it well.  Reviewing your ruleset briefly was enough for me at this point in time.

Note that there are some game systems that have several rule sets coexisting.  The La Bataille series of tactical Napoleonic games is one.  Stuff in Flames is another.  In discussions with players of both systems I have found that sessions tend to begin with negotiation over the rule set to use for the game.  So there is nothing stopping your Simple PG from catching other's attention.  I wish you luck as you seem to have put a lot of thought and effort into it.  Unfortunately it just doesn't interest me.

[JasonC]

Hougemont - more's the pity; it was indeed on the Consimworld forums that I experienced hopelessly close minded outright censorship from the folder mod, who you tell me owns the company. Which means that complete indefensible stance is the company's, and I can retract all the things said above about hoping they were reasonable and that it was just some errant employee absuing the public.

[JasonC]

Matt - how do you know? You've never tried it. But I especially liked the part about my not understanding the game, its scale, or its thesis. Um, hardly.

As for critical of the game system, why wouldn't I be critical of what I want to change? On the other hand, would I bother trying to save something if I didn't think it was worth saving? You won't find any mods of Candyland in my outbox. Also, why wouldn't I be critical of what is clearly just flat out wrong, that plenty of other tactical WW 2 games at this scale and thos a step down in scale manage to get right?

"No, see, the reason a Panzer IV H gets a 5 armor rating is not that the designers thought it had better armor protection than a Sherman, they were just trying to account for the fact that according to Signal Magazine, the Ubermenschen rule because they eat their Wheaties" or something. Sorry, beyond hopeless, out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The panzer IV was a mediocre tank that did OK because it had a good gun and got it relatively early in the war by the standards of other country's tank upgrade cycles. It doesn't deserve a better armor rating than a Sherman, and a Jadgpanther doesn't deserve one no better than it; there is no way to justify such things. They are clearly just outright mistakes.

The Jadgpanther has 80mm thickness front armor, and the Panzer IV has 80mm thickness front armor on its upper front hull at least, and the game gives them both 5 armor ratings. But the Panzer IV armor was flat, no more than 10 degrees off the vertical, so it resists just like its thickness. But the Jagds armor is at an angle of 55 degrees from the vertical, so it resists AP penetration like *twice* its physical thickness, because a horizontally traveling shell has to get through twice the thickness of armor to get from the outside to the inside. To ignore this in giving out armor ratings is simply a mistake, not a matter of a different scale or focus or about doctrine or crews (from the same Panzerwaffe, in the same year) eating Wheaties if they have a turreted tank but not if they have an SP gun.

The designers clearly just didn't know, and they guessed, and they got it wrong. They may also have simply passed out escalating ratings looking at other vehicles in limit sets - this one is better than that one, and so one, ratcheting up marginal improvements on one side as full factor increases before shifting to another country. But the result makes nonsense.

Anyway, that is a separate issue from the redesign.

Why the redesign? Because the original games falsify all real combat arms relationships from WW2 tactical combat, but they can be saved and are worth saving, and are fun and a good realistic game after the modifications. More to substantiate the above in later posts; have to run.