for those not sure what to do or just interested in scenario design, here's some scenario design suggestions and ideas that I posted to our club to get folks started:
to get the party started, check out the article "have your own scenario published?" in the old AH General 20#6 which can be found here:
http://www.vftt.co.uk/ah_mags.asp?ProdID=PDF_Gen. I also recommend Michael Dorosh's Scenario Designer's Handbook but price is a little steep (but usually on sale around Christmas). There's a cheaper book by Mark Pitcavage but I don't think it is as useful to the first time designer.
my advice is:
*find an engagement that YOU think is interesting;
*research the units (find cool weapons or forces to include as this makes players more interested) and terrain (so you know what boards work best to "simulate" the engagement);
*both sides have opportunity to attack and defend;
*multiple avenues of approach;
*defender has options, not static;
*playability & fun over slavish accuracy;
*Goldilocks - not too big, not too small, just right (so not less than 7 squads or more than 16,1-5 tanks, 2-4 guns, 6-8 turns). This is standard "tournament-sized".
*ASL is "design for effect" meaning you read 10 Tigers took part so do you need 10 if maybe 3 represents the tank fear in the defending side or maybe a side was a crack unit but beat up recently and reports of low morale so still give them German 548s but probably less and lower quality leaders and lower ELR than Chapter H table representing this low morale.
*playtest, playtest, playtest. This part sucks and takes a while to balance both sides. If one side is too strong, if you add forces to the weaker side the scenario starts getting larger. If you want smaller tournament scenario, weaken the stronger force for the balance;
*final playtest - can you break it? do weird stuff like charge all the armor towards the VC building - is it an automatic victory the defender cannot win? can you hid forces in rear forest so attacker can never get CVP victory?;
and,
*after playtest, was it fun? yes, submit. No, into the wastebasket or wait until later boards or units are released that better represents that engagement. Sometimes more creative VC or SSRs might be needed to bring it back to life.
below is an interested article and walks you through scenario design:
How to Design a Scenario
by Rudy Marmaro
One of the greatest aspects of the ASL game is that it is not just a game, but rather a game system. It has all of the mechanics and flexibility to be able to portray any company level conflict in WWII as a scenario to be played using the ASL rules and theories.
What this does is not only give the players the ability to enjoy the predefined scenarios that come with the modules, but to also design a scenario themselves, using any historical account on a company scale. This allows an almost infinite number of scenarios to be played out, using any nationality, unit or vehicle of the era.
By designing your own scenarios, you not only take advantage of the wonderful complexity and completeness of the ASL game system, you also ensure that the game will be around for a long time. The more people use this system, and the more people create scenarios for it, the more appealing this will be to newcomers. They have a virtually unending supply of games to play using the same rules and counters.
I have been playing Squad Leader/Advanced Squad Leader for over 25 years, in one form or another. I have had the wonderful enjoyment of creating my own scenarios from time to time, either randomly or from an historical account.
This article will attempt to guide people through the process of creating an historical scenario. This will in no way be the only way to do this, but rather this is a guide to
one way of doing this. Feel free to do it any way that serves the purpose.
Of course the first thing to do when creating an historical scenario, is to find that historical battle which captures your fancy and which promises to lend itself well to the venue of ASL. Keep in mind that any action that is either too large (including too many units, or is not on a company or squad level) or is too small (not tactically sufficient to be represented in a way that will challenge the players) then it may not work well. Try to find an account that will be well represented using the scale of the units found in ASL.
As far as sources go, there are almost as many sources as accounts. There are many books written by veterans of the war that give good accounts of the various actions their individual units partook in. Most of these accounts also give an idea of the scale of the units involved, and which units were represented in the action. For an illustration of the procedures of creating a scenario, I will use the scenario I am currently creating, taken from accounts from the veterans of the unit in question. The name of the book is “The Men of Company K”, by Harold P. Leinbaugh and John D. Campbell. This book details the exploits and actions of Company K, a rifle company in the 84th Infantry Regiment.
While reading this book the account of their first combat action in Germany, assailing the Sigfried Line seemed to me to have all of the elements that make a good scenario. It gave good detail as to which units were involved, on both sides. It also gave an exciting account of the unit’s baptism into combat, and the results of that.
| It is always good to get both sides, it adds realism and also makes it easier when choosing the Order of Battle . . . |
So, once you have determined which action you would like to re-enact, you need to determine which units were involved. It is always good to get both sides, it adds realism and also makes it easier when choosing the Order of Battle. The scenario I chose details the first real combat the unit experienced after a mopping up action in Geilenkirchen, Germany.
K Company was using a large home, the Chateau Leerodt, for a base of operations. They had to probe the surrounding countryside for the locations of the enemy, which were placed in well-camouflaged pillboxes and bunkers. They set out into the surrounding woods and found the enemy, the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Division, which were battle-hardened and not willing to give ground easily.
One of the first things to determine for your scenario is the type of terrain that was involved in the action. Most of the time, you will read a sparse description of a small area of the combat area. Every now and then you can get hints as to the larger terrain that was in existence. You may need to generalize the terrain type for your board selection. For example, if there were woods, you may need to select some boards that contain a high ratio of wood hexes. Is there any water or streams? Are there a lot of buildings or is it in the countryside? Those kinds of questions will need to be answered and most of the time the answers are evident in the accounts.
For my scenario I tried to choose boards that depicted the actual terrain as was described in the accounts in the book. I knew there was a chateau, and I know that the company went through a lot of woods to find the enemy. I also knew there was a stream or river and some marshy ground. I am sure a certain amount of fudging is required to select the appropriate terrain. I chose boards number 6,5, and 32. Board six has a large building surrounded by orchards and stone walls, so that can appropriately be the chateau. Board 5 is mostly woods with a little open ground, and board 32 has woods, a stream, some marsh and a few small buildings, which is fairly close to the original terrain. The only thing missing is a little elevation, but that is no problem. Things of a small nature can always be addressed by Special Scenario Rules. For example, I have only the chateau as a stone building, all other buildings are wood, (even though a few of the small buildings on board 32 are stone).
Once the boards have been selected, you must choose the orientation of the boards to make sure that the terrain as closely matches the accounts as you can. Normally, that is not a very hard decision, just choose the board configuration that will balance the historical accounts with playability.
A word on merging historical accuracy with playability. It may be determined that there will be conditions and situations in the historical accounts that will not be much fun in actually playing the scenario. That is an issue that all scenario designers will have to deal with in one fashion or the other. The optimal balance between historical accuracy and playability is a somewhat subjective one. To illustrate this, I will again reference the scenario I am designing, Chateau Leerodt. The Chateau was a central item in the historical account, as that was the CP for the company, but no action, outside of some artillery and mortar fire, took place in the chateau. The company set out from a line of foxholes into the surrounding countryside to find the enemy salient. However, all the accounts figure the chateau prominently. Additionally, the Americans, at first, were poorly equipped to fight the Germans, and were actually pretty well thrashed. The British did help some, but they got whooped for the first day or so. Now, how do you portray that without making it absolutely no fun for the American player?
You will have to try to portray the uphill fight without making it too hard for the American. I have chosen to not let the Germans use mines, even though these were in plentiful supply in the historical account (I may add those if playtesting shows the American side has it too easy).
So making a scenario historically accurate, and yet ensuring that it will play well is as much an art as it is a skill. That is where playtesting comes in.
When you playtest the scenario, you will come across many little things that you may have overlooked or not known that are actually very important to the scenario. Did you include the ELR (Experience Level Rating) or SAN (Sniper Alert Number) numbers? Are the victory conditions actually doable? Is the board configuration too hard to achieve the victory conditions? Did that tank or support weapon skew the balance too far one way or the other? Is the Order of Battle sufficient to achieve the victory conditions?
These are a few of the many questions you may want to ask when playtesting the scenario. At the end of this article, I will include a checklist that will cover the most commonly needed items to decide when playtesting.
Once you have settled on the boards, you will need to determine the Order of Battle, (OB). The OB is the force from both sides that participated in the battle. This also can be a trick to determine, unless the accounts you are using for reference are very explicit. Also, this is a point where you may have to adjust or ‘stylize’ in order to represent forces that are fun and feasible to play with. You may have to fudge a little on the OB so that the scenario gives a chance to both sides.
In addition, when choosing the OB, you need to determine the types of units involved, (this will also help to determine the ELR of the force). Are the units battle-hardened? Are they green, just out of boot camp? Are they conscripts? These are the questions you will need to answer in order to determine the types of units you will be using (i.e. front line, elite, conscripts, etc.)
Also you will need to determine which types of support weapons and vehicles were present in the conflict. For example, the Germans usually had a lot of support weapons, Light Machine-guns, Heavy Machine-guns, panzerfausts, etc. The Russians usually had more infantry than other nationalities. The Americans had a lot of equipment, usually had a lot of ammunition, and had a lot of leaders. Most of this information can be determined by the historical accounts. Whatever needs to be filled in, can be decided by knowing the different characteristics of the nationalities.
In the case of the scenario I am designing, I read that the American units were green, and that this was their first action. So, the question arises, do I use the green units or the normal units at a lower ELR? I chose to use 6-6-6 units, with a lower ELR than the green units 5-4-6. That was strictly for a playability issue. It is a little more fun to use 6-6-6s than the green units.
So, once you have the battle you want to portray, the board selection, and a good idea of what the Order of Battle is for the units participating, you can then translate the battle into ASL terms. You need to write a short synopsis of the situation leading up to the battle. Give the historical perspective of what let these two opposing forces to collide. Then, in the Victory Conditions, you will need to succinctly state what the objective was.
| Writing the Victory Conditions can be just as tricky as determining the Order of Battle . . . |
Writing the Victory Conditions can be just as tricky as determining the Order of Battle. Of course the objective of any battle is to destroy the enemy. But Victory Conditions (VC) can be very subjective as well as obvious. VC’s are usually separated by the Attacking side and the Defending side. Most battles are comprised of an attacker and a defender. In the rare cases where both sides are attempting to attack, you would still need to differentiate between the two and assign one side as the aggressor and one side as the defender. Then, writing the VC, you will need to state what the objective was for the attacker, and you may or may not need to state any objective for the defender. Many times, the VC for the defender is just denying the VC for the attacker.
The VC may be controlling of a building or buildings, a bridge or maybe some area of ground like the ridge of a hill or a village. Or it may be the accumulation of Victory Points, calculated by the system detailed in the Rule Book, or the exiting from the board of a percentage of units. Whatever the VC are, you need to make it both playable and obtainable for both sides.
After the VC you will need to incorporate any Special Scenario Rules (SSRs). Here is where you can alter some basics to both make it more playable and to better represent the historical aspects of the battle. You will want to include any Environmental Conditions (EC), any information on off board artillery modules, give any special instructions as to play, set up and calculating Victory Points.
Having written the setup and the VC, you will want to write the aftermath. While this feature doesn’t really effect the scenario and its playability, it is nonetheless a fun part, giving the players an account of how it really went, so that they can compare themselves to history.
Then once the first draft of the scenario is done, you will need to play test it. This is the hardest part of creating a scenario. By playtesting it, you will invariably discover issues that did not make themselves apparent during the design phase. You might discover that it takes too long for your units to make it to a particular part of the board. Or you may find out that you need a lot more men to attain a certain VC. What ever you do, make sure you take careful notes and play it from both sides. This will give you a great feel for your scenario and if you have a good, tight little action, or you need to make major revisions.
Once the playtesting has occurred, and you have gotten it to where it is mostly done, you can discern what factors would help each side fare better. Then you create the balance situations and can finish the scenario.
All of these steps and ideas are just one way to create a fun scenario, and the only thing, which really limits you, is your imagination. Being able to create new scenarios is one of the biggest reasons that this game system is conceivably the best game system ever devised. With this functionality, you will be able to create scenarios for years to come. So, go out there and start designing and have some fun!
by Rudy Marmaro
13 October 2003
