Rogue Games Tabbloid -- March 26, 2009 Edition

26 March, 2009

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

ROGUE FEED

friends loved it and so I suffered in the name of friendship.

I May Not Be a Wargamer ...

• Squad Leader: I never played ASL, but I did play the original. I liked it for what it was. I liked the hex maps even more and appropriated quite a few of them for use in my D&D wilderness adventures.

MAR 25, 2009 05:57P.M. I readily admit that I’m not a wargamer. In general, I find wargames a bit too persnickety for my liking and, while I have a great deal of patience, I often find that playing most wargames taxes me greatly. That said, I still played wargames back in the day, mostly because my friend’s Dad and older brother had lots of them and we often enjoyed a change of pace from our various roleplaying campaigns. Later, as my circle of gaming contacts expanded, I met a lot of other guys who really mixed wargaming and roleplaying much more easily than I ever did, leading to yet more dabbling in the field.

• Starship Troopers: This was fun, especially if you got to play the Bugs. • Wooden Ships & Iron Men: I was never a big fan of naval games, but this one was enjoyable, even if it often felt very “game-y” at times rather than being a strict simulation.

The games I remember most strongly were almost all Avalon Hill games, which, apropos of the discussion going on elsewhere in the comments, could all be bought at the local Toys R Us and Kaybee Toys shops. Here are a few of them:

ROGUE FEED

What We Need

• 1776: I recall having a lot of fun playing the British.

MAR 25, 2009 04:03P.M. • Civilization: Not really wargame, I suppose, but it was published in the US by AH, so I’m going to throw it in here anyway. It’s a pity I never owned a copy, because I had a lot of fun with it.

I know this topic has come up before, but it bears repeating: the hobby really needs an inexpensive yet complete introductory game. Yes, yes, I know we already have several, most notably Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry. The problem with both is that neither is available in nonspecialty stores and neither looks like a game to the uninitiated.

• Diplomacy: One of the greatest games ever made in any genre, I played this game to death in high school. For some reason, I liked to play Austria-Hungary, which explains why I rarely ever won.

Here he goes again, blathering on about boxed sets. There’s a reason I do that and it’s simple: to people outside the hobby, you buy a game in a box, at least if it’s a game you’re going to pick up for kids to learn. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the best-selling RPG products of all time have been boxed sets. I understand that producing a boxed RPG is expensive nowadays; that doesn’t change the fact they’re a very attractive way to package a game.

• Dune: How I wish I owned a copy of this game! Many good times were had playing this. • Kingmaker: Like Diplomacy, I played the heck out of this game back in high school. It’s a bit more formulaic than Diplomacy, but I loved it just the same. • Magic Realm: It was a bit like a more complex version of Dungeon!, except that it mostly took place outdoors. I remember it took a long time to set up and play, but we had a lot of time on our hands in those days.

The other vital thing is getting those boxed sets out to places like Toys R Us and Wal-Mart. Having young children, I go to toy stores quite regularly and there are a lot of fantasy themed games and products out there. Lego recently started a very cool line of fantasy sets that include knights, dwarves (complete with tankards of ale!), trolls, skeletons, dragons, and wizards. How wonderful it’d be to see a RPG on the same shelves. I don’t really know why D&D is no longer to be found in such places. You’d think, given the tentacles of Hasbro, that it’d be an easy matter to ensure the game was sold in them, but I haven’t seen D&D outside of hobby and book stores since the 80s.

• NATO: The Next War in Europe: This was produced by Victory Games and I loved it to death. I think my friends and I enjoyed it mostly for the tactical nuclear weapons rules. • Rise and Decline of the Third Reich: I have no idea why I played this game. I don’t think I ever really enjoyed it, but several of my

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

26 March, 2009

I know full well that these aren’t magic bullets. They won’t turn back history and return roleplaying into the fad it once was. But I’d still like to see these games accorded the same opportunities that even collectible card games are (which you can get in Toys R Us). I recall Gary Gygax musing in the pages of Dragon that, one day, Dungeons & Dragons would achieve a steady state and become like Monopoly or Clue — a classic game each new generation could discover and play with previous ones because the game was forever in print, easily available, and largely untouched by time. I like the sound of that.

Though I haven’t lived in Maryland regularly since 1989, I still consider it my home. My formative years were spent in this lovely, quirky Midatlantic state and most of my blood relations still live there, including my parents. I remain a diehard Baltimore Orioles fan and miss steamed crabs and seafood that doesn’t have to be transported hundreds of miles to reach my dinner plate. It was a great place to grow up and I suspect that my love for “rough edges” comes at least in part from having grown up in a state whose identity has been a weird mix of influences held in barely coherent tension since the beginning. Maryland’s a southern state that never seceded and fielded regiments for both the Union and the Confederacy, though the state song’s lyrics curse Abraham Lincoln (“The despot’s heal is on thy shore,” a reference to the fact that the District of Columbia was established on land donated to the federal government by Maryland). Geographically, it’s both heavily urbanized in parts and extremely bucolic and wild in others. Our distinctive accent is like no other in the region and jousting is our state sport. And we boast a storied history of corrupt local politics of which perhaps only Louisiana can top.

ROGUE FEED

Happy Maryland Day MAR 25, 2009 01:23P.M.

Too strong an attachment to the place of one’s birth can be the source of much evil, as history has shown. At the same time, I can’t help but feel that a little parochialism might be a useful tonic against the depredations of this age of globalization. I like local oddities and quirks. I prefer it when everything isn’t the same bland pabulum no matter where you go. That’s probably why returning to the old school feels so right for me. Like my experiences of home, we’re a weird, confused, cantakerous bunch. It’s easy for outsiders to look at us and dwell on the individual trees without seeing the glorious forest of which we’re all a part.

This issue contains posts from between Mar 25, 2009 06:29a.m. and Mar 26, 2009 02:28a.m.. To change your settings, visit http://www.tabbloid.com/38172.0db5b9bf

On this day in 1634, 150 settlers from England disembarked from two vessels, the Ark and the Dove, onto an island in the Potomac River. They named the island after Pope St. Clement I, patron saint of mariners, in thanksgiving for having safely crossed the Atlantic Ocean. March 25 is also the Feast of the Annunciation (called “Lady Day” in England), celebrating the visit by the archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a happy coincidence, as the colony these settlers were to found had already been named Terra Mariae, or Maryland, by King Charles I, in honor of his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria. Though many of the earliest settlers were Protestants, the Calvert family, who sponsored the expedition, were Roman Catholics (as was the queen) and explicitly wished Maryland to be a place where all Trinitarian Christians could live together in peace, making it a model of religious toleration.

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