Yet another shameless excuse for a post ... we recently played the old 'Descent' boardgame, the DNA of which helped build Imperial Assault in latter years (but without the massive Disney licence issues - and thereby added expense).
An excellent game using superb little floorplans - and Stephen's excellently painted miniatures (we chose these over the plastic figs that come with the game). Dice pools with pre-marked D6, nice initiative sequences and missions whose success (or lack thereof) affects what happens next and on subsequent missions - with recurring campaign enemies - a bit like D&D but without the Ham acting and need for DM caffeine tablets.
I bet he drinks Carling Black Label
...speaking of which...I've also been running a lot of D&D 5e with the younger group - 1st segment of that campaign is finished - it only took 12 months :O - pics at the end.
Lovely floorplans
Character sheets are streamlined to make it play faster - but great components
1960s Woodstock style headband...cue Hendrix
The thief and her dwarf companion - who umm is clearly not to scale
Goblins who are angry about Brexit
A large black monstrosity which only looked scary because it had been undercoated
goblins who are angry about Biden
'the Final Conflict' in the D&D game now - the evil snake god Zargon tries to snack on the magic princess - can the characters save her from stomach acid?
...ok she can't..oops
the Dragonborn barbarian dives inside the snake - knowing that he has to do at least 40 points of damage in turn 1 to get out...ummm which he does
'It's behiiiind youuuu!'
A return to normal transmission should resume soon ... :)
There has been a distinct lack of actual wargaming posts in the last year - I'm not proud I know...which of course begs the question, what have I been doing?
Now, it's not the end of the blog - far from it, though I do have to mention that term, which makes even the most steadfast of Grognards quake in his boots, that makes even the most hardened of wargames tabletop generals make the -3 morale check, that creates discord in the ranks of even the hardiest Napoleonic (simulated) line - that of the dreaded, and most foul curse to wargaming, that is...'role-playing games'.
Gwen, Marduk, Jolene and Alric...hangin' out
Though I have a vast and (un)impressive experience with 'RPG's since my initial forays into D&D at age 11 - whilst simultaneously discovering wargaming, (which of course got me into Swords & Sorcery literature - R.E.Howard and the 1982 Conan movie, Ah'm lookin' at youuu!)
'It can't be my fault...nooo...i even get accused of being a modern pro Nietzschean, anti woke, pro fascist classic these days...I mean ok...well actually yeah, but surely the movie is about the dangers surrounding the abuse of power...an allegory if you will...uhh...da riddell of steeeel.' So Conan might have an Int score between 5 and 18 , depending on which story you read...
Now I could wax lyrical about the absolute and complete saturation of RPGs in the 'market' (let's not call it an industry), but what actually put me on board with this was (1) my nephews and (2) my friends' kids - who, in the post pandemic, post 'Stranger Things' Dungeons and Dragons frenzy - all became interested in playing, and understanding 'D&D'.
So as 'DM' and a bit of an old school hack, I started here:
Original 'Mentzer', which defined a lot of early stuff in the 80s, but wasn't the eponymous 'AD&D' which seemed to matter when I was 12, but not so much now...
...and ended up graduating to '5e' (just to keep things current for them)
The current edition, well this week, well as long as corporates can make millions from it, well...uhh...whatever works
NOw i also play in a game composed of old wargamers like me - in fact wargamers from that same era of the 80s, and here is what I noticed...(get the popcorn ready)...
Wargamers are obsessed with rules, because without rules, we don't have a 'fair' game, and that sense of 'simulation' is nothing more than playing Monopoly...uhh...without said rules.
Hence we become fixated with the rules in 5e - because that makes it serious fun (uhh) and thereby we don't (always) have our basis for the game based upon Sword and Sorcery (or Fantasy?) fiction that the originals were very closely fixated upon.
Younger people, who have never played before, want a 'story', a hook, excitement, characters they can feel a part of. Now this amazed me; and it should not have. They want interesting characters, in interesting situations, like the books they still read (now and then when not videogaming and panicking about World War 3 or something).
...and the clear thing that hit me like a brick, is that they think 'outside the box'. They don't want the simulated fight - though they like the dice; they want to do 'sneaky stuff' - VERY reminiscent of the original games. They would rather talk their way out, or at least get advantage in a fight.
They want to imagine their own worlds - not have it all dictated to them, having no hesitation in suggesting things for the game and the world and the characters, and to be honest, I would bend or break a rule to let this happen...this suggestion matrix also helps because i am a lazy bastard that does very little prep...
Now that...becomes very refreshing for a guy who stopped RPGs many years ago because people were taking it far too seriously...so this is set to continue (though wargaming will return with a vengeance), and with an interest in some umm 'books' i have suggested, we might see these in future:
A more modern OSR version and Stormbringer above it
'Index Card RPG' might also get some traction
Now that said, D&D has also been in the news recently, and citing Conan and its pastiche in terms of scriptwriter John Milius's allegory referring to the abuse of power by 'corporations', D&D is going through its own trials as we speak:
And to wrap up, I hope you all had a great Christmas, and may I be the first to wish y'all a Happy New Year....here's three movies we watched over Christmas, which all beat the pants off that Napoleon crap :) (and all of them are funnier)
