Donald Bailey

The Wargame Library Speaker Series continues with Donald Bailey, designer and author of Paper Tigers. The original 2008 rules, as well as the 2012 second edition are both available for free thank to his generous contribution.

What was the original inspiration for the game and how long ago did you start developing it?

The original inspiration was the “papertigerarmaments.com” paper modeling website; sadly now defunct. I have designed and built paper tanks and airplanes since I was ten years old and I loved the models that were available there. I became friends with the owner, and around 2007 he asked me to design an easy yet entertaining game for folks who had never played a wargame before. The idea was to get them building models and playing the game.  So, over the next year I designed Paper Tigers to suite that need.

The playing card system feels like the heart of the game. where did this mechanic come from?

The core concept of the card mechanism is, “You can act quickly with a smaller chance of success or more slowly with a greater chance of success.” The concept of using the card value to determine both initiative and difficulty came straight out of my geeky engineer’s brain though it took years to gel into the form I used in Paper Tigers.

I also wanted to use the card color in some fashion. The idea of red cards being more oriented toward firing and black cards being more oriented towards movement was just a visual thing for me. In my experience, using separate, exclusive fire cards and movement cards just ends up slowing things down while frustrating players. With the 2 dice/3 dice mechanic for firing and movement based on card color, the player gets to choose what to do on any card, but there are trade-offs to be made. This represents the tank crews and infantry squads encountering difficulties that you as the overall commander don’t have much insight into. You just have to consider the situation at this moment and decide how best to use your resources.

The option for solo play makes Paper Tigers quite unique. Why do you think so few miniature games have solo-friendly modes?

There has been an emphasis on competitive play ever since wargaming began — it started as a social activity after all. I think there is also a false assumption that a good solo game can’t also be a good two-player or multi-player game; that somehow the two are mutually exclusive.

I believe that a well designed game with an effective command control mechanism can be equally good for competitive, solo, or cooperative play. The key seems to be to take just enough control out of the player’s hands that they are forced to choose between a few simple yet agonizing options each turn. The more difficult the choice the more enticing the game.

The other difficulty in designing solo games is answering the question, “What does the non-human opponent do?” There have been some very clever solutions to this, but it’s not an easy challenge to overcome. Yet, by always offering some clear-cut decisions, with limited intelligence and uncertain outcomes each turn, it’s not too hard for the solo gamer to assume an alternate ego without requiring much automation.

When you originally designed the rules, was solo play something you had in mind from the start or did it come about as a happy consequence of the card mechanics?

From the start, I purposefully wanted a game that would play well solo, because that’s how I often play. I knew it was also likely to be how most beginners would too. This influenced my decision to not allow players to see their cards until they had already assigned them to units or had decided to save them for a following turn.

Allowing players to look at their cards before deciding how they are used has already been done many times, and it’s not easily solo-compatible. I wanted something different that would give both the solo and competitive player some uncertainty to contend with, yet still allow them to decide which units get the most command emphasis. A player can still look at a card’s value before playing it by simply saving it for a following turn. This is balanced by the opponent getting to see what the card is as well. If you’re playing PT solo, you ARE the opponent, so this mechanism suits that condition as well.

What inspired you to return to Paper Tigers for the second edition?

From the very start, there were ideas I wanted to include in Paper Tigers. Time constraints and the need to keep the initial version extremely simple won out in that first version. My solution, when I later found time to return to PT, was to offer a second version with a few new essential elements along with a bunch of optional rules.

By far the additions I desired most were “defilade” (probably more properly termed “seeking cover” or “going hull down”), flank shots on armor, and close assault. They could be implemented simply and add a whole lot to game play. The other most important additions were lots of scenarios for people to try. This is the best way to get people to actually play.

I also knew eventually someone would want more granularity for the different vehicle types so I added those as optional rules.

If you were designing Paper Tigers from scratch today, with everything you've learned since the original release, what would you redesign? Where could the system go next?

I think I would experiment with ditching the “dice result equals inches moved” mechanic in favor of a straight 6 inch move for infantry and 12 inch move for vehicles. The old mechanic seems to needlessly complicate things and often leads to disappointing results for a player who has already successfully passed a difficulty roll to move.

I also regret that, due to limited time, I never adequately play-tested all the optional rules and scenarios. I just took my best guesses at how to balance things, tried them out a few times, and figured folks could let me know if something was really broken. I hate doing this, even for free rules, but the amount of time and effort required to get the rules as far as I did was already past my limit at the time.

I think the core mechanisms in Paper Tigers could be applied to nearly any topic where speed must be balanced against effectiveness. One idea I’d really like to explore is skirmish combat for small groups of individual characters. Think cowboys, gangsters, or even fantasy adventurers. Paper Tigers itself could stand more cleanup. I think the idea of doing some really well-tested historical scenarios has a lot of merit, and it’s certainly fun doing the research.

The last project I left off with was a modern supplement to PT entitled “Paper Leopards”. Now there was a challenge — including some 21st century weapon types and tactics while still keeping the whole thing accessible to beginners. I got caught up with other projects and never finished.