Great comments on the previous post, which I agree with... but I should say that I do cut people some slack in terms of learning styles. Some people need lots of examples, or spelling out rules step by step; some have a more visual style and want to see diagrams. Some learn best when the learning material is presented in the form of a story; others just want the barebones, bullet-points version.
I see nothing wrong with saying "I don't get the rules in the LBBs the way they are presented; I would like more examples (diagrams, story, bullet-points.)" But what I think is happening instead is that people who don't get the LBBs as presented feel they need to "shift the blame".
"It's not that I don't get the rules, it's that the rules are bad."
The rules to Chainmail and the LBBs are sufficiently hard to read that only an experienced wargamer could have made any sense of them.
ReplyDeleteHistory shows that experienced wargamers became irate - at each other and at TSR - because the rules sparked angry disputes as to meaning.
So if the definition of "adequate" includes "comprehensible to wargamers," then the historical record shows failure.
If, on the other hand, we assume that the rules are innocent until proven guilty, and that they worked perfectly for the small group of gamers who understood them correctly, the next question is what defines that small and happy band of brothers, and whether their insights can be communicated to the wider world.