26 March, 2009
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
ROGUE FEED
I May Not Be a Wargamer ...
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.
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:
• 1776: I recall having a lot of fun playing the British.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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
1
friends loved it and so I suffered in the name of friendship.
• 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.
• 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.
ROGUE FEED
What We Need
MAR 25, 2009 04:03P.M.
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 non-
specialty stores and neither looks like a game to the uninitiated.
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.
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.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
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.
ROGUE FEED
Happy Maryland Day
MAR 25, 2009 01:23P.M.
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.
26 March, 2009
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.
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..
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