I was recently re-reading V1.#5 of The Dragon and noticed a fascinating list of games in their opening editorial about the direction of the magazine. In short, the editor said it was time to expand the magazine's scope, reaching out to the broader gaming community beyond D&D. Here is the list of games they named as particular examples for which they'd like to receive material:
STELLAR CONQUEST
THE YTHRI,
GODSFIRE
STARSHIP TROOPERS
OUTREACH,
SORCERER
STARSOLDIER
GREEN PLANET TRILOGY,
OGRE
MONSTERS-MONSTERS
VENERABLE DESTRUCTION
Most of these are so obscure as to almost look made up. That was the gaming community ca. 1977.
Nice:) I recognize a three things from that list. Would be great if there were some folks who had tales to tell about some of those games.
You wonder how many piles of rpg's were printed and either stapled or comb-bound with love that never reached beyond the small community from which they were created.
Very cool, thanks for posting that.
Quote from: Larsdangly;940620I was recently re-reading V1.#5 of The Dragon and noticed a fascinating list of games in their opening editorial about the direction of the magazine. In short, the editor said it was time to expand the magazine's scope, reaching out to the broader gaming community beyond D&D. Here is the list of games they named as particular examples for which they'd like to receive material:
STELLAR CONQUEST
THE YTHRI,
GODSFIRE
STARSHIP TROOPERS
OUTREACH,
SORCERER
STARSOLDIER
GREEN PLANET TRILOGY,
OGRE
MONSTERS-MONSTERS
VENERABLE DESTRUCTION
Most of these are so obscure as to almost look made up. That was the gaming community ca. 1977.
Played all but three.
How many of those are actually RPGs?
I looked up Venerable Destruction, and it is apparently a wargame parody.
I've seen six and played two.
Quote from: Trond;940625How many of those are actually RPGs?
I looked up Venerable Destruction, and it is apparently a wargame parody.
Its 1977; D&D is just a type of wargame. It would be years before "RPGs" became a separate hobby.
Don't know, right off hand.
Of this list I had and played Starship Trooper, Outreach, and Ogre. All board games. no RPGs. In 1977 I owned, played, and ran only two RPGs, D&D(which was an RPG even back in 1977), and Traveller, and had a very large collection of wargames, and boardgames.
Starship Trooper was an Avalon Hill Board Wargame that was about the adventures of the Mobile Infantry in their fight against the bugs. It was a splendid game that stuck closely to the original story in the book (Unlike the movies). Robert Himself had a house up in the Broadmoor on Mesa Drive, that included a fully stocked nuclear fallout shelter, along with a bunch of other "Hi-tech" conveniences he put in himself. It was a really good game to play, and you could make up your own scenarios for it as well. I owned a copy and liked it alot.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/670/starship-troopers
Outreach was an SPI Boardgame. It was about humanity, and their kin, and alien races expanding and conquering the galaxy. There was war in it, but there was also peace, exploration, colonization, and trade negotiations featuring on a galactic map. I'd call it one of the First Civ games, a civilization simulator. It was part of a trilogy, Starforce (ship-to-ship combat in 3000 A.D.), and Star Soldier (Tactical Future Wargame). They were all very interesting to play, but I only owned Outreach.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3663/outreach-conquest-galaxy-3000ad
Ogre of course, was Steve Jackson's $2.95 Metagame, that feature a futuristic army fighting ginormous supertanks known as Ogre. Had several copies then, and got the Designer Edition Kickstarter that SJG games did like three years back that has already doubled in value. Fast play, loads of fun, still in my collection and and awesome game to play. New expansions for this, and new minis, coming out very soon!
http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/
Robert A. Heinleins House
http://www.eastofborneo.org/archives/a-house-to-make-life-easy-robert-a-heinleins-colorado-springs-home
Featured in the June 1952 Popular Mechanics issue
http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/pm652-art-hi.html
Ok, for those who have played some, list them you fuckers! :) I crave knowledge!!!
I've only heard of Starship Troopers (chit & hex wargame), Ogre (steve jackson wargame) and Monsters, Monsters (T&T side thing). What things about the rest?
GameDaddy- awesome! Thank you!
I've only ever heard of four of those: OGRE, Starship Troopers, Monsters! Monsters!, and Godsfire.
Godsfire was some sort of scifi war game by Lynn Willis, later of Chaosium fame. Don't know anything more about it than that.
Stellar Conquest was awesome. The game is the literal grandfather of the Master of Orion computer game. It four players game with a board comprised of a small region of stars. You start off just achieving interstellar flight and go from there.
Quote from: estar;940633Stellar Conquest was awesome.
Yeah it was. I only played it twice - a friend owned it - but
SC and the original
Battlestar Galactica were a big influence on my first attempt at a homebrew
Traveller universe.
Played the hell out of
Starship Troopers - both my parents were huge Heinlein fans so I read it when I was about ten years old. Beating the Skinnies is easy - beating the Bugs takes the willingness to expend a lot of cap troopers.
Played a lot of
Ogre and
GEV as well - awesome solo game for whiling away the odd lazy hour that we didn't know was quite so precious when we were kids.
Quote from: RunningLaser;940631Ok, for those who have played some, list them you fuckers! :) I crave knowledge!!!
I've only heard of Starship Troopers (chit & hex wargame), Ogre (steve jackson wargame) and Monsters, Monsters (T&T side thing). What things about the rest?
GameDaddy- awesome! Thank you!
Okay, Been meaning to do it anyway, I'll put up a review of
Strategy I, Published by SPI games in 1971. I think this was the second best wargame I ever owned, ranking second only to
Squad Leader, the unrivaled WWII squad level war game published by
Avalon Hill in 1977
Strategy One @ boardgamegeek
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8362/strategy-i
I'll post my review in the reviews section, but do have a few choice comments for this quickie 1977 flashback thread.
I lucked out just before Christmas and managed to pick up a very good condition copy of
Strategy I off of eBay for only $45. Been actively looking for this for over a decade now and haven't been able to find a copy for less than one hundred dollars. There were not many in the original print run I gather... and it is a very rare game.
It was one of the first monster war games, featuring a two panel 28"x42" continental map for providing almost eight square feet of gaming space. It was one of the first multi-player wargames which featured eight factions each having 112 counters including infantry, mechanized infantry, cavalry armor, artillery, headquarters, supply units, aircraft (fighters, and bombers, and tranports, as well as airfields, and factories. The rules included plenty of variant rules, there is rules for recreating battles ranged from the ancient period of the Greeks/Romans all the way through to the modern age which was the 1960's. The Modern rules includes rules for combat, supply, manufacturing, biological weapons, and nuclear weapons including ICBMs.
Everything about this game is scaled big. The rules book was printed with typewriter typed 10 point font on sheets which were 21.5" x 10.75" which were then folded and stapled to produce an oversized 10.25"x10.75" rules book. Included were (see photos) also blank 11"x14" Strategy I conference maps, so the players could form up teams when it wasn't their turn and discuss strategy and tactics and mark out their military campaigns and battle plans that they were attempting to defeat their foes with. This alone gives this game uber massive geek cred. A multi-player wargame where you could host secret battle strategy sessions when it wasn't even your turn!
The game featured two sets of battle results using d6's and the popular combat results tables. The tables are labeled 1-10, but that is because there was plenty of modifiers included in the rules, penalties for terrain, and bonuses for terrain and combat style. No one even used d10's when this game was published. Finally there is an Errata table.
A few photos for you real quick tonite, and I'll include even more detail in the official review that will be posted here on the RPGsite in the next few days.
Imgur Archive for Strategy I
http://imgur.com/a/OJYbH (http://imgur.com/a/OJYbH)
Quote from: Larsdangly;940620STELLAR CONQUEST
THE YTHRI,
GODSFIRE
STARSHIP TROOPERS
OUTREACH,
SORCERER
STARSOLDIER
GREEN PLANET TRILOGY,
OGRE
MONSTERS-MONSTERS
VENERABLE DESTRUCTION
Most of these are so obscure as to almost look made up. That was the gaming community ca. 1977.
Lets see. Stellar Conquest, if its the same one Im thinking of. Was well known at the time or after.
Godsfire got alot of mention for a while and still has a following I believe.
Starship Troopers was another well known wargame of the time and even today. Pretty solid rules and theres some magazine articles expanding it further.
Ogre just chugs along and has a huge fanbase and has seen many a reprint and that huge kicksarted a a year or three back.
Monsters-Monsters still gets talked about but was eclipsed by T&T.
OGRE is a must try game. It's design genius.
Monsters! Monsters! is a Tunnels & Trolls variant where you play the Monsters! It is lots of fun, but needs a rewrite for 2017. I have run several one-shots of M!M! over the years at cons, especially my "Mordor: the Morning After" adventure where the various beasties who survive after Sauron gets whacked have to decide WTF to do now. I have played in a few M!M! games and they have mostly been run for laughs, AKA "Monster Toon"
Wow, am I the only one that played SPI's Sorcerer!?
It was a strange game, clearly influenced a bit by Titan (or maybe the other way around?). The board was a dazzle-happy inducing hex grid, with 7 colors, and grey (non-magic) hexes where humanity still dwelled. You played a sorcerer (specializing in one or more colors), summoning monsters. Combat was based around your color of monster, the color of your enemy, and the hex you were (eg, a yellow monster in a yellow hex was brutal good).
There were a number of scenarios (par for the course for games of that era), and they were pretty good, including a "solo" scenario where you had to run around from city to city and not get squashed. Good times.
This list makes a lot of sense as they are all Sci-Fi or Fantasy, which the wargaming community had some problems with. At least my reading of Playing at the World suggests the enmity was larger than I had imagined.
Cool thread!
I remember that the AH Starship Troopers game had really decent "Mainstream penetration"- i.e I would see it for sale in stationery shops, non-geek book and toys stores, and other places that didn't usually carry wargames. Despite this I somehow never owned or played it.
The only one of those I have played is Stellar Conquest, a really fun strategic board game.
But, I only started playing RPGs in 1982, so missed the 1977 boat.
Quote from: GameDaddy;940642Okay, Been meaning to do it anyway, I'll put up a review of Strategy I, Published by SPI games in 1971. I think this was the second best wargame I ever owned, ranking second only to Squad Leader, the unrivaled WWII squad level war game published by Avalon Hill in 1977
Strategy One @ boardgamegeek
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8362/strategy-i
I'll post my review in the reviews section, but do have a few choice comments for this quickie 1977 flashback thread.
I lucked out just before Christmas and managed to pick up a very good condition copy of Strategy I off of eBay for only $45. Been actively looking for this for over a decade now and haven't been able to find a copy for less than one hundred dollars. There were not many in the original print run I gather... and it is a very rare game.
It was one of the first monster war games, featuring a two panel 28"x42" continental map for providing almost eight square feet of gaming space. It was one of the first multi-player wargames which featured eight factions each having 112 counters including infantry, mechanized infantry, cavalry armor, artillery, headquarters, supply units, aircraft (fighters, and bombers, and tranports, as well as airfields, and factories. The rules included plenty of variant rules, there is rules for recreating battles ranged from the ancient period of the Greeks/Romans all the way through to the modern age which was the 1960's. The Modern rules includes rules for combat, supply, manufacturing, biological weapons, and nuclear weapons including ICBMs.
Everything about this game is scaled big. The rules book was printed with typewriter typed 10 point font on sheets which were 21.5" x 10.75" which were then folded and stapled to produce an oversized 10.25"x10.75" rules book. Included were (see photos) also blank 11"x14" Strategy I conference maps, so the players could form up teams when it wasn't their turn and discuss strategy and tactics and mark out their military campaigns and battle plans that they were attempting to defeat their foes with. This alone gives this game uber massive geek cred. A multi-player wargame where you could host secret battle strategy sessions when it wasn't even your turn!
The game featured two sets of battle results using d6's and the popular combat results tables. The tables are labeled 1-10, but that is because there was plenty of modifiers included in the rules, penalties for terrain, and bonuses for terrain and combat style. No one even used d10's when this game was published. Finally there is an Errata table.
A few photos for you real quick tonite, and I'll include even more detail in the official review that will be posted here on the RPGsite in the next few days.
Imgur Archive for Strategy I
http://imgur.com/a/OJYbH (http://imgur.com/a/OJYbH)
Woah... That is cool! It is like a strategic scale Panzer Blitz
The same issue's introductory editorial also notes that The Dragon is not for war games - those are supposed to go to TSR's house magazine on that subject (Little Wars). So, based on this list, the implication is that they thought of tactical and strategy board games involving any element of fantasy or science fiction as being in The Dragon's wheel house. That gives you some insight into where roleplaying games sat in the broad spectrum of games in general.
Quote from: Spinachcat;940655OGRE is a must try game. It's design genius.
Monsters! Monsters! is a Tunnels & Trolls variant where you play the Monsters! It is lots of fun, but needs a rewrite for 2017. I have run several one-shots of M!M! over the years at cons, especially my "Mordor: the Morning After" adventure where the various beasties who survive after Sauron gets whacked have to decide WTF to do now. I have played in a few M!M! games and they have mostly been run for laughs, AKA "Monster Toon"
I picked up Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls recently, and have been loving it tons. Notably, it has rules baked in to it for running monster PCs of all sorts; from kobolds to dragons! I've never read M!M!, so I'm not sure how much other stuff there is in it aside from the game rules and rules for playing monster PCs. Does it go into stuff like setting up lairs and traps for killing humans?
Quote from: Settembrini;940657This list makes a lot of sense as they are all Sci-Fi or Fantasy, which the wargaming community had some problems with. At least my reading of Playing at the World suggests the enmity was larger than I had imagined.
Jon doesn't tell the half of it. I got out of historicals because of the way Dave and Gary got crapped on by the 'real' gamers for their work.
Really, gate keeping and one true wayism are nails in the coffin of any hobby community. They need to go.
Quote from: Herne's Son;940701Does it go into stuff like setting up lairs and traps for killing humans?
Sadly not much, if any. That would be great stuff for a M!M! reboot.
Quote from: Spinachcat;940785Sadly not much, if any. That would be great stuff for a M!M! reboot.
Apparently they re-released M!M a year ot two ago.
Quote from: chirine ba kal;940776Jon doesn't tell the half of it. I got out of historicals because of the way Dave and Gary got crapped on by the 'real' gamers for their work.
Quote from: David Johansen;940778Really, gate keeping and one true wayism are nails in the coffin of any hobby community. They need to go.
^^ This pretty much. I used to go to
Ghenghis Con from the late 70's thru the early-mid 80's to play wargames competitively, and RPGs were secondary, but by 1982, I was playing far more RPG games at conventions than wargames. It wasn't that I didn't like wargames, because I did. However, I liked playing with a group and having us all survive and win the game together, even better.
The hardcore wargamers took that the wrong way though, and took that as a personal attack on wargaming. They responded by attacking RPGs, being rude to RPG players, and playing groups directly, not locally, but at the regional and national game shows. While there were plenty of award categories for new wargames, there seemed to be none for RPGs at the Colorado regional game shows. When D&D and AD&D split in 1980 that was a big blow, just like what the wargamers had done to D&D So I stopped going to conventions entirely in 1985, even though I did attend
Ghengis Con in 1983 and 1984. After that I just played RPGs with my friends.
Even at
Ghengis Con in 83 and 84 I didn't win any RPG awards because there were no running or playing in D&D games, and no rewards for playing AD&D or other RPGs. I always managed to rank in the top ten players for
Squad Leader in the state, and finished my best year in 1980, ranked 3rd. The last
Ghengis Con I attended in 1984, Also won the
Civil War Miniatures tournament by winning two of three battles of the
1865 Appomattax Campaign, the
Battle of Five Forks and the
Battle of Amelia Courthouse in April of 1865 (Robert E Lee, did win at
Five Forks, however didn't win at
Amelia Courthouse), I managed to win both battles playing as
General George Pickett under Lee. I remember this well, because a single charge from one of my understrength Alabama Infantry regiments destroyed a Union battery that had been shelling the entire main battle line at Amelia Courthouse, and then routed the Yankee Cavalry reserve regiment that was equipped with Henry Repeating Rifles, that was moved up to stop my flanking attack. By the end of the Battle both union flanks had been turned, and the Army of the Potomac was forced to withdraw because they were almost completely encircled. Had Lee won, The Civil War might have continued until the Union settled for peace because people were getting weary of a war that simply continued with super high casualties. Instead what really happened, less than three weeks later, Robert E. Lee surrendered the
Army of Northern Virginia to Grant, and effectively ended the Civil War.
I didn't win any RPG awards that year (don't remember there being any), but I did play
Rolemaster for the first time, and liked it quite a bit. It would be fifteen years before I would attend another gaming convention because of all the Grogtard RPG hating, and even moreso because the RPGA wouldn't allow me to run D&D gaming events, and were being as stupid as the grognards.
Quote from: Omega;940789Apparently they re-released M!M a year ot two ago.
Was it a new edition? Or a reprint of the older version?
Quote from: Herne's Son;940811Was it a new edition? Or a reprint of the older version?
I think it was a reprint. Which to me is a good thing. Im really sick and tired of the idiotic incompatible edition treadmill.
Quote from: Omega;940855I think it was a reprint. Which to me is a good thing. Im really sick and tired of the idiotic incompatible edition treadmill.
Well put. Can we inaugurate you at the end of this week?
Quote from: Doom;940656Wow, am I the only one that played SPI's Sorcerer!?
It was a strange game, clearly influenced a bit by Titan (or maybe the other way around?). The board was a dazzle-happy inducing hex grid, with 7 colors, and grey (non-magic) hexes where humanity still dwelled. You played a sorcerer (specializing in one or more colors), summoning monsters. Combat was based around your color of monster, the color of your enemy, and the hex you were (eg, a yellow monster in a yellow hex was brutal good).
There were a number of scenarios (par for the course for games of that era), and they were pretty good, including a "solo" scenario where you had to run around from city to city and not get squashed. Good times.
Nope. I've played it and actually own two copies. As much fun as the actual game is, I had even more fun mixing the units with historical armies from PRESTAGS since the unit scale seemed to match up well.
I'm fascinated that all the vitriol and useless dismissal of other people's fun goes all the way down.
Thanks for sharing the stories. I had no idea.
Quote from: Settembrini;940657This list makes a lot of sense as they are all Sci-Fi or Fantasy, which the wargaming community had some problems with. At least my reading of Playing at the World suggests the enmity was larger than I had imagined.
The Games Hobby has always been like that. Back in the 90s, RPGers in my area were all getting bent out of shape about how popular Magic: the Gathering became, and looked down on Magic players like they were lepers or something.
Or on this site, look at all the butthurt "real RPGers" give to "Storygames" (whatever they are).
It's one of the primary reasons I no longer make much of an effort to interact with the gaming hobby at large, and mostly just play with friends, and friends of friends.
Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;940882I'm fascinated that all the vitriol and useless dismissal of other people's fun goes all the way down.
Thanks for sharing the stories. I had no idea.
Oh you havent seen the half of it. Board and Wargamers sometimes make RPGers and Storygamers look downright friendly in comparison. Wargamers in particular.
Mmmm, I think the animosity between wargamers and tabletop roleplayers is overblown. Sure it existed but for most it was all grist for the mill. People forget that the late 70s were a golden age for wargames. In my small rural northwest PA town, we freely switched between tabletop RPGs and wargames. For the most part wargames occurred when there was just the two of use. There were only a handful of really good multiplayer board/war games at the time.
Like I said it was all grist for the mill.
Quote from: estar;940905Mmmm, I think the animosity between wargamers and tabletop roleplayers is overblown. Sure it existed but for most it was all grist for the mill. People forget that the late 70s were a golden age for wargames. In my small rural northwest PA town, we freely switched between tabletop RPGs and wargames. For the most part wargames occurred when there was just the two of use. There were only a handful of really good multiplayer board/war games at the time.
Like I said it was all grist for the mill.
I think that this is a pretty accurate and realistic summary of the situation. Locally, here in the Twin Cities, the gaming scene was just like what you had; we went from any game to any game all the time. It was when we started getting involved with the HMGS people at that time, primarily in what's now HMGS East, that the vitriol started flying fast and furious. Gary and Dave, who were both big supporters of miniatures gaming, got called all sorts of nasty things and more or less drummed out of 'the hobby' for being "traitors to the hobby". As you point out, it was - all in all - a tempest in a teapot; we're still here, and still playing what we like. I just stopped playing with people like that.
On the other hand, both of them were pretty hurt by what was being said to them by people that they had considered friends. It did leave a mark on the both of them.
Quote from: estar;940905Mmmm, I think the animosity between wargamers and tabletop roleplayers is overblown. Sure it existed but for most it was all grist for the mill. People forget that the late 70s were a golden age for wargames. In my small rural northwest PA town, we freely switched between tabletop RPGs and wargames. For the most part wargames occurred when there was just the two of use. There were only a handful of really good multiplayer board/war games at the time.
Like I said it was all grist for the mill.
This is a good point. My memory is that two staples of 1977 were Panzerblitz and Holmes D&D. Basically everyone I knew owned and played them both.
Quote from: estar;940905Mmmm, I think the animosity between wargamers and tabletop roleplayers is overblown. Sure it existed but for most it was all grist for the mill. People forget that the late 70s were a golden age for wargames. In my small rural northwest PA town, we freely switched between tabletop RPGs and wargames. For the most part wargames occurred when there was just the two of use. There were only a handful of really good multiplayer board/war games at the time.
Like I said it was all grist for the mill.
Strangely enough, the same sort of thing was happening in my neck of the woods (SF Bay Area) in the 90s. Most of the guys I played RPGs with got their start with RPGs. When Warhammer and 40K became popular, we started fiddling with them (I initially bought Warhammer Fantasy to use the world as a setting for RuneQuest, when I'd grown bored of Glorantha). Over time, this led to us branching out to other games, and I recall a few years where minis gaming was pretty much equal to the RPGing. We could only get the group together every few weeks to play an RPG, but whenever two of us had a free evening and wanted to play a game, we'd bust out a war-game. Mostly it was fantasy and scifi, but there was at least a year or two when we were really having fun with various historical games (WGA, Tactica, etc.).
Quote from: Herne's Son;940888The Games Hobby has always been like that.
Every hobby is like that. Back when I was into model trains the only thing the N scale and HO scale guys could agree on was that the G scale guys were all pansy-ass casuals.
Quote from: chirine ba kal;940908I think that this is a pretty accurate and realistic summary of the situation. Locally, here in the Twin Cities, the gaming scene was just like what you had; we went from any game to any game all the time. It was when we started getting involved with the HMGS people at that time, primarily in what's now HMGS East, that the vitriol started flying fast and furious. Gary and Dave, who were both big supporters of miniatures gaming, got called all sorts of nasty things and more or less drummed out of 'the hobby' for being "traitors to the hobby". As you point out, it was - all in all - a tempest in a teapot; we're still here, and still playing what we like. I just stopped playing with people like that.
On the other hand, both of them were pretty hurt by what was being said to them by people that they had considered friends. It did leave a mark on the both of them.
I think a lot of it stemmed from the 1976 Origins D&D tourney drawing 250 people and no other event drew more than a dozen to 20, and similar scenes elsewhere.
There's always been space for all kinds in RPGs. The weak-minded and morally lax, the milquetoasts and throat-clearers, have their D&D, while intelligent and virile men have Runequest. Nothing wrong with this natural division.
Quote from: chirine ba kal;940908I think that this is a pretty accurate and realistic summary of the situation. Locally, here in the Twin Cities, the gaming scene was just like what you had; we went from any game to any game all the time. It was when we started getting involved with the HMGS people at that time, primarily in what's now HMGS East, that the vitriol started flying fast and furious. Gary and Dave, who were both big supporters of miniatures gaming, got called all sorts of nasty things and more or less drummed out of 'the hobby' for being "traitors to the hobby". As you point out, it was - all in all - a tempest in a teapot; we're still here, and still playing what we like. I just stopped playing with people like that.
On the other hand, both of them were pretty hurt by what was being said to them by people that they had considered friends. It did leave a mark on the both of them.
The long interview with Maj. Dave Wesely made it sound like the Twin Cities wargaming scene was untypically open to SciFI and Fantasy, hence Braunstein -> Blackmoor.
But then I was not there.
Quote from: Settembrini;941014The long interview with Maj. Dave Wesely made it sound like the Twin Cities wargaming scene was untypically open to SciFI and Fantasy, hence Braunstein -> Blackmoor.
But then I was not there.
It's accurate; a lot of us 'gamers' were also F/SF fans and suchlike, and there was a lot of cross-pollination. See also "Playing at the World", 'Mn-stf Dungeon'. Looking back on it, we were pretty insulated from what was happening on the East Coast. For which I think I am pretty grateful.
Quote from: chirine ba kal;940908I think that this is a pretty accurate and realistic summary of the situation. Locally, here in the Twin Cities, the gaming scene was just like what you had; we went from any game to any game all the time.
Quote from: chirine ba kal;940908It was when we started getting involved with the HMGS people at that time, primarily in what's now HMGS East, that the vitriol started flying fast and furious. Gary and Dave, who were both big supporters of miniatures gaming, got called all sorts of nasty things and more or less drummed out of 'the hobby' for being "traitors to the hobby". As you point out, it was - all in all - a tempest in a teapot; we're still here, and still playing what we like.
I dealt with a lot of gamers with "quirks" and when enough them get into a group it becomes one hell of a quirk. It unfortunate that happened. In my experience the situation results from a confluence of factors. The first one is an extreme interest in the topic that the game is about. In this case I believe it was historical wargaming. I associated with plenty of gamers who are nice people but just not interested in tabletop RPGs. However were pleasant company on the days we played board/war games
The second one is a rigid attitude about the topic they are interested in. For me this is where the red flags start popping up. The mild cases can be tolerated if you are playing a particular game by the rules. But in general I avoid the extreme cases as they are invariably unpleasant to game with. These days I only encounter them at X night at game stores. X being the game in question. Oddly I can't remember the last time I met somebody that anal retentive at a convention. Probably too social of a setting even in the smaller ones.
Quote from: chirine ba kal;940908I just stopped playing with people like that.
That why strategy guides for this topic don't sell. The solution really boils down to that. :)
Quote from: chirine ba kal;940908On the other hand, both of them were pretty hurt by what was being said to them by people that they had considered friends. It did leave a mark on the both of them.
Yeah it can get tricky and it sucks when it happens. One of my best friends of 30+ years, has distinct quirks about RPGs. Basically he was a big GURPS fans and gravitates towards RPGs that have no levels and allow free-form character generation. Around the time the OSR became a thing, we started playing various edition of D&D. Something he did not like, after a campaign, he dropped out of the RPG campaign although we continued to do one-shots and boardgames with him.
Recently that was "fixed" when we tried Dragon/Fantasy AGE from Green Ronin. It has levels and D&D style hit points but it uses 3d6 and despite the levels had a lot of flexibility in how you could make your character. So he started to play RPG campaign again with the main group.
Another thing I've noticed as I've been re-reading OD&D and the first ~10 issues of The Dragon is how quickly people started cranking out material that would be fairly criticized today as 'grade inflation' (e.g., the first version of the samurai class), un-play tested nonsense that probably no one ever used (the hit location damage rules in Grayhawk), or stuff that reads like a pet writing project that hasn't seen a gaming table yet (most of Gary's first pass at the planes of existence). What is it about this hobby that makes people re-write the rules, usually for the worse, every time you crack out the pen and paper? It seems to always have been the case!
Quote from: Larsdangly;941047What is it about this hobby that makes people re-write the rules, usually for the worse, every time you crack out the pen and paper? It seems to always have been the case!
Well maybe it because RPGs tend to encourage DiY gamers especially referees. Remember the point is to run a campaign. No company can hand you a campaign on a plate. There is some amount of work a referee has to do by himself to make it work for him and his players before the first session is run. What sucks for you and appears to be total nonsense is what works for that referee.
The magic doesn't happen on paper the magic happens at the table. Whatever allows the referee to make that leap from idea to practice is what works. Where there is a problem in RPG Writing is not bad writing or good writing but not writing about how that piece of paper helped in refereeing or playing in a tabletop RPG campaign.
Jeff Rients' Broodmother Skyfortress has some utterly stupid shit in it. But what makes it a great book is the care and thought he puts into explaining how he used it in his campaigns. Which turns to the book into a great RPG resource especially you like to run crazy off the wall gonzo stuff like he does.
Quote from: The_Shadow;941009There's always been space for all kinds in RPGs. The weak-minded and morally lax, the milquetoasts and throat-clearers, have their D&D, while intelligent and virile men have Runequest. Nothing wrong with this natural division.
* punches you in the nuts so hard your brains squirt out your ears *
lol
The oldest rivalries are always the deepest.
I liked many things about Runequest but Glorantha and the Magic System were never among them.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;941008I think a lot of it stemmed from the 1976 Origins D&D tourney drawing 250 people and no other event drew more than a dozen to 20, and similar scenes elsewhere.
Which was mirrored nicely by MTG tournaments at conventions in the 90s...
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;941071Which was mirrored nicely by MTG tournaments at conventions in the 90s...
Not really. MTG drew a different sort of player and still does. Theres very little crossover between. Too different animals to compare. What Magic did though was draw players from other board games AND wargames. The money sink that is any CCG siphoned funds form other board game endeavors. And when the CCG bubble burst, it burst hard.
Quote from: Omega;941081Not really. MTG drew a different sort of player and still does. Theres very little crossover between. Too different animals to compare. What Magic did though was draw players from other board games AND wargames. The money sink that is any CCG siphoned funds form other board game endeavors. And when the CCG bubble burst, it burst hard.
Can't speak for anyone else but down here, M:tG all but killed RPGs. The tables at the local venues were swarmed by M:tG players, most of whom were familiar faces from the same tables, as RPG players a few months prior. I suspect it was the same etiology as the whole MMO thing: far easier to set up a game + network externalities.
Quote from: Omega;941081Not really. MTG drew a different sort of player and still does. Theres very little crossover between. Too different animals to compare. What Magic did though was draw players from other board games AND wargames. The money sink that is any CCG siphoned funds form other board game endeavors. And when the CCG bubble burst, it burst hard.
Quote from: The Butcher;941100Can't speak for anyone else but down here, M:tG all but killed RPGs. The tables at the local venues were swarmed by M:tG players, most of whom were familiar faces from the same tables, as RPG players a few months prior. I suspect it was the same etiology as the whole MMO thing: far easier to set up a game + network externalities.
Yeah I don't know where Omega was living, but Magic put a massive hurtin' on RPGs due to ease of play. You get the deck, you sit down you play, boom done. No muss, no fuss, no other human beings you have to interact with other than in a boardgame opposition way, and if you actually like talking to people, they're all over the place but you don't have to convince them that kicking in the front door isn't a way to avoid TPKs.
It's exactly like how the boardgame resurgence is hurting RPGs today, especially among a crowd that either due to age or the modern internet has much less free time they want to file under "social gaming", except to a much larger degree, mainly due to the extremely low cost of entry (the real cost was completely hidden of course because any Collectible Game by definition is Pay to Win).
Quote from: The Butcher;941100Can't speak for anyone else but down here, M:tG all but killed RPGs. The tables at the local venues were swarmed by M:tG players, most of whom were familiar faces from the same tables, as RPG players a few months prior. I suspect it was the same etiology as the whole MMO thing: far easier to set up a game + network externalities.
Its still like a weird parallel universe to me, people playing RPGs in public or at a store with strangers.
Hmm I've never really cared much what the fad level was. It only takes a handful of good players for a good game which can last for years. The masses of people who get into games I don't want to play, well, I'm glad they have something else to play. ;-)
I know people who say they "left TTRPGs for MMOs," but in every case that I personally know the person's interest in TTRPGs had already dwindled. I think a lot of people are simply neophilic. I personally can't imagine how either MMOs or CCGs would come anywhere close to filling the niche of a TTRPG for me, unless the niche is "vaguely gamelike thing you do in a social setting", which is so broad as to be useless.
I played City of Heroes and World of Warcraft a bit. Even got to 50th level in WoW after five years. Yes, I know people who could do 50 levels in a week. I have a job, a family, hobbies, and a life. Anyhow, I always found the format incredibly limiting and frustrating. Nothing you do has any lasting effect, nothing, not even that new bauble, a level or two now you'll have another.
I think the appeal of a lot of computer games comes from the little rewards you get every ten to fifteen minutes. There's a sense of accomplishment but none of it will matter a week from now, you'll have move on to bigger and better things because bigger numbers are better. There was a Simpsons where there's a teacher's strike and Lisa is begging to be graded like a crack whore begging for a hit. It's like that, I think.
It's also important to remember that table top rpg's were going through a really shitty period just as computer games made a leap forward in quality and complexity, and simultaneously the trading card games appeared on the scene. I never got into either of the latter two hobbies, but I could see at the time that they were where the innovation and action was. This was ca. 1995, in the last death throes of 2E, when game stores were filled to over flowing with super shitty splat books. D&D still sucked most of the oxygen out of the room, but wasn't delivering in any way as a game system.
Quote from: David Johansen;941126I think the appeal of a lot of computer games comes from the little rewards you get every ten to fifteen minutes. There's a sense of accomplishment but none of it will matter a week from now, you'll have move on to bigger and better things because bigger numbers are better. There was a Simpsons where there's a teacher's strike and Lisa is begging to be graded like a crack whore begging for a hit. It's like that, I think.
Oh, absolutely! I've spent a fair bit of time over the years creating all manner of half-finished computer games, so I've read a lot of articles on designing them, including many specifically on the psychology of reward scheduling and how to use it to make your game as addictive as possible. It's backed by a substantial body of formal psychological research and a vastly larger body of empirical data derived from game companies' experiences. When you start digging into it, it's a little disturbing to see just how carefully crafted every aspect of the MMO experience is, in order to maximize "engagement". But, then, I suppose that's no different than any other form of marketing these days...
Basic Skinnerian conditioning. Our brains find small, frequent, irregular reinforcements to be almost irresistable.
Quote from: nDervish;941160When you start digging into it, it's a little disturbing to see just how carefully crafted every aspect of the MMO experience is, in order to maximize "engagement".
And that "knowledge" has become the basis of "gamification" being used in many other arenas. It's deeply disturbing.
Quote from: Tristram Evans;941112Its still like a weird parallel universe to me, people playing RPGs in public or at a store with strangers.
How do you build your home groups?
Most groups I've known from the past two decades originated because the core players met at either a convention or FLGS and then brought in their friends. I've been part of four groups build from RPGA players who wanted to play something not-D&D in a home setting as they got their D&D fix via the FLGS events and I've been the non-RPGA friend of a friend most of the time. My last Gamma World campaign started with two guys at a Living Forgotten Realms event talking about GW and being bummed there was no living campaign for it when one brought up my name as a DM and the other said his friends would love to play.
And that's been normal for me since the early days. Back in middle school, the FLGS had no play area, just retail. But it was the place where you could meet other gamers from other local schools and cross pollinate groups, especially as most FLGS back then had tack boards on the wall where people posted about looking for players or DMs.
Quote from: Spinachcat;941229How do you build your home groups?
I started one with friends that I already knew.
Quote from: Tod13;941232I started one with friends that I already knew.
But then what?
Has it stayed stable? Has it been your only group? How do you deal with turnover?
Quote from: David Johansen;941126Anyhow, I always found the format incredibly limiting and frustrating. Nothing you do has any lasting effect, nothing, not even that new bauble, a level or two now you'll have another.
That was how playing MMOs got me back into playing TTRPGs after a long dry spell. I enjoyed COH and WOW but kept finding myself comparing them to TTRPGs and how MMOs fell short in comparison.
So I sought out a local group via the Pen & Paper Games Registry.
I've never played in stores... but I did long ago put up a corkboard at a local store for folks to put up LFG notices... still with the intent of playing in someone's house, not the store.
QuoteI think the appeal of a lot of computer games comes from the little rewards you get every ten to fifteen minutes. There's a sense of accomplishment but none of it will matter a week from now, you'll have move on to bigger and better things because bigger numbers are better.
Is the story true that Blizzard consulted with behavioral scientists when developing WOW? I'd heard than from a few different sources over the years... it certainly felt like that when playing it... and FAR more than COH did. COH was a game my friend and I could drop into and play for a mission or two and then quit... with no pangs. WOW created this feeling that you HAD to keep playing... and kept it up from different angles of the gameplay.
I don't recall looking down on MtG players for liking the game... but I did think the whole CCG thing was a bit of a scam. But most all the RPG players I know were big on it at some point.
Meanwhile, I still sense animosity coming from a number of historical wargamers regarding anything smacking of fantasy or scifi.
Quote from: Spinachcat;941226And that "knowledge" has become the basis of "gamification" being used in many other arenas. It's deeply disturbing.
You see hints of it in 5e. You get a widget about every level now. And some people bitched that this wasnt enough. They wanted to
fix the "dead spaces" in classes and
stat progression.
Quote from: Spinachcat;941229How do you build your home groups?
Call up friends. Invite them over to try a game. Some take to it, some don't. Pretty much been the same way since junior high.
Quote from: Spinachcat;941237But then what?
Has it stayed stable? Has it been your only group? How do you deal with turnover?
Generally there's a core of 2-4 friends that are always up for a game, others come and go. Synchronizing schedules gets trickier with age, but once a fortnight there always seems to be a time enough people can get together for a game, and in between those times there's wargames.
QuoteSTELLAR CONQUEST
THE YTHRI,
GODSFIRE
STARSHIP TROOPERS
OUTREACH,
SORCERER
STARSOLDIER
GREEN PLANET TRILOGY,
OGRE
MONSTERS-MONSTERS
I own and have played all of these. Some, like The Ythri and the Green Planet series only once or twice. Others like Orge, Starship Troopers, and Stellar Conquest were played a lot. I just played a game of Sorcerer a couple of months ago -- first time in many years. I've never seen Venerable Destruction. Monsters, Monsters is a lot of fun, BTW.
I keep picking up groups on the rebound from bad DMs. Or in one case a dead DM. I inherited all his stuff simply because I was a DM. :eek:
Quote from: Spinachcat;941237But then what?
Has it stayed stable? Has it been your only group? How do you deal with turnover?
Stable, no turnover yet. One might be going off to grad school soon. We'll probably invite another friend to replace her.
But this isn't a one time thing. I've always played with groups of people I already knew, even when I was a player rather than GM.