Sooner or later we all get to be "of an age" and wisdom, I think, demands that we take stock of visceral reactions to make sure they are not the product of some deep-seated prejudice, cherished ignorance, or wanting people to get the heck off your lawn. After all, we are the subjects of our own, weird interior story and our biases are just too dangerous to be let loose without reflection. Some of these wind up holding up reasonably well under scrutiny. Quinoa, for example, much like the Chicago Bears, can ruin a sunny day. Others, well, that is the point of the present exercise.
There was a question posted recently to one of the Facebook pages covering Black Powder of which I am a member asking about the optional rule, found in Clash of Eagles, that makes the movement distance allowed an infantry unit in line shorter than that in column. I knew about the rule, but, reading the query on-line, I was taken by how badly I responded to it. It elicited a response something along the lines of "oh, for heaven sake, play the game". At multiple levels, this is an irrational response, to wit:
*It is an optional rule and presented as such.
*I am at liberty to never use that rule.
*Upon analysis, the rule is a well-intentioned attempt to correct what the author perceived as a historical inaccuracy.
So, seriously, what the heck?
This led me to reflect on what I believe to be a fact: Black Powder in both its editions is one of the most optional- and house-ruled games in the history of our hobby. A quick search under the terms "Black Powder House Rules" bears this out. Part of this is certainly its popularity, viz., more players increases the likelihood of more house-rules. The other bit, though, and I think this is the root of my grievance, is that people want Black Powder to be something that it is not. Bear with me on this one.
I am not here talking about clarifying house rules relating to what a particular rule means. Heaven knows I have posted a video asking for assistance in interpreting the sometimes opaque prose. I am talking about rules intended to make Black Powder more [Insert Era Here]. In a measure, Warlord has contributed to this as it tried to give each nation it added in the supplements something "special". This is Warhammerism at its worst, although, if it be confessed, my Napoleonic brethren love doing this themselves. Surely, after all, the Marines of the Guard deserve some unique statistic? I will here also only note in passing the mess I think they have made, though imprecise version control, of "Pas de Charge". There have also been rules in each of the source books adding new formations, changing approaches to terrain, modifying the rules for forming square, &c.
This, in turn, has joined with the torrent of house rules from every corner of the globe to create a -- to overstate matters -- Gestalt in which there really does not seem to be any thing that is "officially" Black Powder 2.
I find myself un-moored. From the first time I began to understand the fun, friendly simple system at its heart, I really did embrace a game that was a welcome change from the pedantic nonsense that infests tabletop gaming. When I asked Prof. Pollard which rules he had chosen to manage his recent Waterloo extravaganza, he told me Black Powder because it was the only system capable of managing a game of that size. And its broad popularity made me think we had evolved a lingua franca for use in friendly games -- it confesses to being fairly useless for tournaments -- in a variety of settings; a game that Featherstone and others might have understood. I thought that the reviewers at Little Wars (those narrow-cast) simply did not understand it for what it was and have defended it since from similar criticisms.
And yet...
I, you, all of us, are at liberty. I will play with none of these rules -- all right, I do like the forest rules from Clash of Eagles -- and be quite happy doing so. Those who play with 12 pages of house rules will, clearly, do likewise. I trust we will all have fun.
Do you like house rules? I would be particularly interested in hearing from those that do not. Why do you not? And do you react this badly to them?
The next game, by the way, will be live-streamed commencing at 1600-1700 (working on that) CDT tomorrow.
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