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Monday 7 March 2011

Using the right term

I began the process of reviewing and redrafting the twentieth century version of the rules I am developing for my portable wargame this evening ... and very quickly realised that the term 'activation dice' was not really the right one to use to describe their function.

The dice are used to determine how many Units a player can move each turn, not how many they can activate. I have, therefore, replaced the term 'activation dice' with the term 'movement dice' as this seems to be a more accurate reflection of their function within the rules.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Bob,

    As ever, the devil is in the detail! Changing the word does make the effect of the dice seem different rather than the implication of activation - that suggests that a unit can carry out a variety of tasks. Good call methinks!

    All the best,

    DC

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  2. David,

    You have grasped my point about the name change; 'activation' does seem to imply something very different from 'movement'.

    This has reminded me to always be as clear as I can when writing wargames rules. The opposite of clarity is confusion ... and I don't want players to be confused.

    All the best,

    Bob

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