_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lMorning, all,
Just an FYI. Charles S Roberts, who, among other things, designed the first
modern board game, *Tactics,* and was founder of the company Avalon Hill,
passed away this past Saturday. Most all of us got our start in gaming through
board games. He would be the man who brought us here to where we are now.
And he hailed from right here in Maryland. Baltimore, Maryland, to be exact.
Article in the local newspaper:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-08-28/news/bs-md-ob-charles-robert
s-20100827_1_b-o-halethorpe-railroads
Article written by Roberts in 1983 which covers the early history of board
gaming and Avalon Hill:
http://www.alanemrich.com/CSR_pages/Articles/CSRspeaks.htm
Mk
(tried sending this yesterday but it didn't get passed along; resending today)
Thanks, Indy. I hadn't heard.
I suppose it's an example of my geekness that I'm surprised that his game
company, its name continues as a major branch of Hasbro, isn't mentioned. Of
course, HIS name continues as a industry award of excellence.
I actually have a game from the forties that looks very like Tactics, with
many elements that would be recognizable. However, in the interview, a
defining characteristic of the game's genius is in the simple 'table of
varying results'.
Cycles of board gamers have gone to sleep to nightmares of three mundane
letters: CRT.
...with strong gratitude.
Thank you, Mr.Roberts.
Doug
From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: 08/31/2010 06:19 AM
Subject: [GZG] Game designer Charles S Roberts passes
Sent by: gzg-l-bounces@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Morning, all,
Just an FYI. Charles S Roberts, who, among other things, designed the first
modern board game, Tactics, and was founder of the company Avalon Hill, passed
away this past Saturday. Most all of us got our start in gaming through board
games. He would be the man who brought us here to where we are now.
And he hailed from right here in Maryland. Baltimore, Maryland, to be exact.
Article in the local newspaper:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-08-28/news/bs-md-ob-charles-robert
s-20100827_1_b-o-halethorpe-railroads
Article written by Roberts in 1983 which covers the early history of board
gaming and Avalon Hill:
http://www.alanemrich.com/CSR_pages/Articles/CSRspeaks.htm
Mk
(tried sending this yesterday but it didn't get passed along; resending
today)_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lMy first
experiences in this line were with some games I'd have to go look in my closet
at the folks place even to name now. I now Air War figured into the mix and I
think it was AH. I had fun with some of those games, back int he day when all
you could find in the local hobby store was some early Grenadier D&D minis
(like the fat knight in plate mail and the peasant with
padded armour and a pole arm - how useful for dungeoneering....). I
recall 3rd Reich as well, always wishing I had secured a copy. AH and SPI did
a lot of good work with these sorts of games.
On the other hand, I recently walked through the boardgame section at Origins.
It was an amazing contrast to the miniature games areas and illustrated why I
now prefer the latter and eschew the former.
The miniatures games were hosted by people who were enthused to have people
see their games. They were enthused to have new people participate or spectate
and ask questions. They were welcoming and the games all seemed to have a
social atmosphere.
Contrast this with the chit-pusher zones. Each table was two (generally
older men) battling it out in one-on-one style combat over a board with
chits. Their focus was intense, like chess masters. They also radiated a
casual antipathy for anyone that might distract them from their focus, even
quiet spectators. The whole place had a combative, bitter feel to it. It was
quiet, but just radiated a vastly anti-social vibe.
At least that was my experience of it. I felt unwelcome and intrustive, like
some sort of pest, even without voicing a single question. The complete
ignoring of anyone not in their games short of an occasional tense look
convinced me this was not the sort of environment I'd enjoy spending much time
in.
Miniatures games with teams on each side are inherently social - they
involve dice most of the time (fickle and treacherous) and have team dynamics.
They also have a visual element that everyone can appreciate, even those
receiving a brutal drubbbing at the hands of the other side.
Chit-games tended to have more rigid rules with stodgy layout and formal
grammar. Have you went back and read any old AH game rules and compared them
to rules from a modern board-based wargame? No comparison!
And chit games are litterally a game of one-upmanship - two men, locked
in combat with rules that tend more towards chess for tactical complexity than
to the chaos of dice. There is no one on your team. Win or lose, you are the
only one to blame. And there isn't a lot to look at, so there isn't even an
aesthete's joy of miniatures gaming.
Yes, I started back in "Basic D&D" or "Blackmoor" (the little book) and in AH
wargames. But that age is passed and I don't regret it. The few times we do
hall out the old games, we recall how clunky the mechanics are (even for group
games) and how far games design has come (or tastes have evolved).
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 12:10 AM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
A decent generalization but I don't think it goes far enough. If you can
believe it I've seen some pretty intense DBA game play at the various HMGS
cons. Some of these people get VERY MUCH INTO their 12 stand army of Mongol
horsemen army...
Jerry and I will normally play a few impromptu games of HOTT at the various
HMGS cons and the looks we get are nothing short of astounding. I remember
this one fellow who gave us the LONG, rather condescending, look. Shook his
head and walked away. Soooo sorry we tainted your 15mm hardcore DBA experience
with our 15mm Orks vs.
Undead not-tournament HOTT game. We did manage to play two games in
the time it took them to play one.
So what this really may mean is just a segmentation of the miniatures
world -- "competitive" or tournament vs. friendly gaming. I've played
several games with people who were quite nice in group games but became rank
one arseholes in a tournament setting.
Where are you Indy? j/k
D.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Wed, Sep 1,
> 2010 at 12:10 AM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
Tom, if you go to the second link in the email I sent earlier, Roberts
describes the origin of the name Avalon Hill. :-)
Mk
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l"Roberts named
the company after the town where he was living at that time: Avalon, in
Maryland,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_Hill
Michael Brown mwsaber6@msn.com
From: Tom B
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 10:10 PM
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: [GZG] Game designer Charles S Roberts passes
My first experiences in this line were with some games I'd have to go look in
my closet at the folks place even to name now. I now Air War figured into the
mix and I think it was AH. I had fun with some of those games, back int he day
when all you could find in the local hobby store was some early Grenadier D&D
minis (like the fat knight in plate mail
and the peasant with padded armour and a pole arm - how useful for
dungeoneering....). I recall 3rd Reich as well, always wishing I had secured a
copy. AH and SPI did a lot of good work with these sorts of games.
On the other hand, I recently walked through the boardgame section at Origins.
It was an amazing contrast to the miniature games areas and illustrated why I
now prefer the latter and eschew the former.
The miniatures games were hosted by people who were enthused to have people
see their games. They were enthused to have new people participate or spectate
and ask questions. They were welcoming and the games all seemed to have a
social atmosphere.
Contrast this with the chit-pusher zones. Each table was two (generally
older men) battling it out in one-on-one style combat over a board with
chits. Their focus was intense, like chess masters. They also radiated a
casual antipathy for anyone that might distract them from their focus, even
quiet spectators. The whole place had a combative, bitter feel to
it. It was quiet, but just radiated a vastly anti-social vibe.
At least that was my experience of it. I felt unwelcome and intrustive, like
some sort of pest, even without voicing a single question. The complete
ignoring of anyone not in their games short of an occasional tense look
convinced me this was not the sort of environment I'd enjoy spending much time
in.
Miniatures games with teams on each side are inherently social - they
involve dice most of the time (fickle and treacherous) and have team dynamics.
They also have a visual element that everyone can appreciate, even those
receiving a brutal drubbbing at the hands of the other side.
Chit-games tended to have more rigid rules with stodgy layout and formal
grammar. Have you went back and read any old AH game rules and compared
them to rules from a modern board-based wargame? No comparison!
And chit games are litterally a game of one-upmanship - two men, locked
in combat with rules that tend more towards chess for tactical complexity than
to the chaos of dice. There is no one on your team. Win or lose, you are the
only one to blame. And there isn't a lot to look at, so there isn't even an
aesthete's joy of miniatures gaming.
Yes, I started back in "Basic D&D" or "Blackmoor" (the little book) and in AH
wargames. But that age is passed and I don't regret it. The few times we do
hall out the old games, we recall how clunky the mechanics are (even for group
games) and how far games design has come (or tastes have evolved).
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Tue, Aug 31,
> 2010 at 11:10 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
> My first experiences in this line were with some games I'd have to go
Nope. Air War was SPI.
> I had fun with some of those games, back int he day when all you could
3rd Reich was AH. I had a copy. Tried to play it solitaire a few times, but
never completed a game. They came out with an advanced version in the early
90s.
My first AH game I received when I turned 13. It was *Panzer Leader*. I
still have it, along with the 1940 add-on that I mail ordered for. I
picked up a used copy of *Panerblitz* about 8 years later (even though it
predated PL by about 3 years).
I still haul *PL *out every now and again, usually as a nostalgia thing. There
are no command and control rules to speak of, but it still plays reasonably
well. There's a Canadian scenario that's a bitch to win as the Canadians...
> Contrast this with the chit-pusher zones. Each table was two
It was
> quiet, but just radiated a vastly anti-social vibe.
At GenCon, I didn't see many miniatures events being played. I remember a
decade ago we had something like 24 GZG events with games running in the
evening. Not so these days. Most of the miniatures games seemed to be things
like *Dust Tactics*, with pretty figures and introductory rules. (Not that
there's anything wrong with that, if that's what you're into.)
On the board game side, I didn't see very many wargames. In fact, I don't
recall seeing any "chit" wargames at GenCon at all. I saw *Diplomacy*, *Tide
of Iron*, *Memoir '44 *and *Battlelore* (the last three could almost be
miniatures games) but no hardcore wargames. The rest were generally Eurogames
(*Settlers* and the like) or Fantasy Flight (*Death Angel, Twilight
Imperium*).
Interestingly, the gamers were all pretty positive about their games and happy
when someone stopped by to ask questions. The ones who looked like they were
having the most fun, though, were the folks playing on the half dozen or so
Crokinole boards that were available in the "board game library" room.
> Chit-games tended to have more rigid rules with stodgy layout and
Worse, go back and read some of the SPI rules. *shudder*
AH's rules started off not bad. Read *Panzer Leader*, *Richthofen's War* or
*Luftwaffe*. They aren't hard to read. By the late 70s that had changed. The
rule book for *Magic Realm* was so bad they ended up releasing a redone
rulebook. I still shake a little at the prospect of reading the first sections
of *Gunslinger* or *Up Front*, and neither are particularly difficult games.
Last weekend we played our first game of the *Great Campaigns of the American
Civil War *series (these were AH games prior to the Hasbro
buy-out,
now Multi-Man Publishing). 24 pages of rules, which is huge for me these
days. However, they didn't seem all that bad. Certainly not what I feared.
Now, compare that to the game I'm learning right now, *Combat Commander* by
GMT. Full colour rule book with plenty of examples and lots of pictures to
break up the text. It looks more like a Eurogame rule book than a wargame.
One thing I hated about the GCACW Standard Rules was a lack of an index.
WTF??? Luckily, you can download them for free. I resorted to doing a search
of the PDF.
Free downloadable rules are a huge benefit. Both of us were able to learn the
rules simultaneously, and I had a copy printed off so both of us had a rule
book during play.
> There is no one on your team. Win or lose, you are the only one to
While true of most chit games, not true of all of them. One of the things
that makes the old *Gunslinger* game a classic is that it's multi-player
and most scenarios are over in 45 minutes (or less).
And some of the more recent games are very pretty. The GCACW maps are some of
the best ever produced or a wargame. The chits in *Combat Commander* are very
attractive, coupled to good looking maps. *CC *is a card game, primarily, and
the cards are full colour and appealing.
> Yes, I started back in "Basic D&D" or "Blackmoor" (the little book)
and in
> AH wargames. But that age is passed and I don't regret it. The few
AH had a number of non-wargames, though, that are classics. One of the
reasons Hasbro bought AH was to get *Acquire*, the AH "business" game. And, of
course, there's *Civilization* and *Advanced Civilization* that inspired Sid
Meir and a whole computer game series.
I don't recall the AH games being altogether clunky, at least not the ones
that I still have. The pre-mid 70s games were pretty lean, rules wise.
My two favourites (the aforementioned *Gunslinger* and *Up Front)* played much
better than they read.
By around 1982, AH was starting to experiment with better rules presentations.
*FirePower*'s basic mechanics are taught on 4 pages. The advanced rules are in
a bigger book, but you could cherry pick the rules. They used the same
approach in several games in that era.
SPI, on the other hand, oh boy...
> Q: Anyone know where the name Avalon Hill came from? I admit to being
One of Indy's links explains it.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI started with
Gettysburg, then Waterloo, Anzio and Panzerblitz and many more. This last
summer I played Civilization to completion with my teens (which they said
taught them more than their history classes).
Charles Roberts will be missed
Michael Brown mwsaber6@msn.com
From: Allan Goodall
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 3:08 PM
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: [GZG] Game designer Charles S Roberts passes
> On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 11:10 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
My first experiences in this line were with some games I'd have to go look in
my closet at the folks place even to name now. I now Air War figured into the
mix and I think it was AH.
Nope. Air War was SPI.
I had fun with some of those games, back int he day when all you could find in
the local hobby store was some early Grenadier D&D minis (like the fat knight
in plate mail and the peasant with padded armour and a
pole arm - how useful for dungeoneering....). I recall 3rd Reich as
well, always wishing I had secured a copy. AH and SPI did a lot of good work
with these sorts of games.
3rd Reich was AH. I had a copy. Tried to play it solitaire a few times, but
never completed a game. They came out with an advanced version in the early
90s.
My first AH game I received when I turned 13. It was Panzer Leader. I
still have it, along with the 1940 add-on that I mail ordered for. I
picked up a used copy of Panerblitz about 8 years later (even though it
predated PL by about 3 years).
I still haul PL out every now and again, usually as a nostalgia thing. There
are no command and control rules to speak of, but it still plays reasonably
well. There's a Canadian scenario that's a bitch to win as the Canadians...
Contrast this with the chit-pusher zones. Each table was two
(generally older men) battling it out in one-on-one style combat over a
board with chits. Their focus was intense, like chess masters. They also
radiated a casual antipathy for anyone that might distract them from their
focus, even quiet spectators. The whole place had a combative,
bitter feel to it. It was quiet, but just radiated a vastly anti-social
vibe.
At GenCon, I didn't see many miniatures events being played. I remember a
decade ago we had something like 24 GZG events with games running in the
evening. Not so these days. Most of the miniatures games seemed to be things
like Dust Tactics, with pretty figures and introductory rules. (Not that
there's anything wrong with that, if that's what you're into.)
On the board game side, I didn't see very many wargames. In fact, I don't
recall seeing any "chit" wargames at GenCon at all. I saw Diplomacy, Tide of
Iron, Memoir '44 and Battlelore (the last three could almost be miniatures
games) but no hardcore wargames. The rest were generally Eurogames (Settlers
and the like) or Fantasy Flight (Death Angel, Twilight Imperium).
Interestingly, the gamers were all pretty positive about their games and happy
when someone stopped by to ask questions. The ones who looked like they were
having the most fun, though, were the folks playing on the half dozen or so
Crokinole boards that were available in the "board game library" room.
Chit-games tended to have more rigid rules with stodgy layout and
formal grammar. Have you went back and read any old AH game rules and
compared them to rules from a modern board-based wargame? No comparison!
Worse, go back and read some of the SPI rules. *shudder*
AH's rules started off not bad. Read Panzer Leader, Richthofen's War or
Luftwaffe. They aren't hard to read. By the late 70s that had changed. The
rule book for Magic Realm was so bad they ended up releasing a redone
rulebook. I still shake a little at the prospect of reading the first sections
of Gunslinger or Up Front, and neither are particularly difficult games.
Last weekend we played our first game of the Great Campaigns of the American
Civil War series (these were AH games prior to the Hasbro
buy-out, now Multi-Man Publishing). 24 pages of rules, which is huge for
me these days. However, they didn't seem all that bad. Certainly not what I
feared.
Now, compare that to the game I'm learning right now, Combat Commander by GMT.
Full colour rule book with plenty of examples and lots of pictures to break up
the text. It looks more like a Eurogame rule book than a wargame.
One thing I hated about the GCACW Standard Rules was a lack of an index.
WTF??? Luckily, you can download them for free. I resorted to doing a search
of the PDF.
Free downloadable rules are a huge benefit. Both of us were able to learn the
rules simultaneously, and I had a copy printed off so both of us had a rule
book during play.
There is no one on your team. Win or lose, you are the only one to blame. And
there isn't a lot to look at, so there isn't even an aesthete's joy of
miniatures gaming.
While true of most chit games, not true of all of them. One of the things that
makes the old Gunslinger game a classic is that it's
multi-player and most scenarios are over in 45 minutes (or less).
And some of the more recent games are very pretty. The GCACW maps are some of
the best ever produced or a wargame. The chits in Combat Commander are very
attractive, coupled to good looking maps. CC is a card game, primarily, and
the cards are full colour and appealing.
Yes, I started back in "Basic D&D" or "Blackmoor" (the little book) and in AH
wargames. But that age is passed and I don't regret it. The few times we do
hall out the old games, we recall how clunky the mechanics are (even for group
games) and how far games design has come (or tastes have evolved).
AH had a number of non-wargames, though, that are classics. One of the
reasons Hasbro bought AH was to get Acquire, the AH "business" game. And, of
course, there's Civilization and Advanced Civilization that inspired Sid Meir
and a whole computer game series.
I don't recall the AH games being altogether clunky, at least not the
ones that I still have. The pre-mid 70s games were pretty lean, rules
wise. My two favourites (the aforementioned Gunslinger and Up Front) played
much better than they read.
By around 1982, AH was starting to experiment with better rules presentations.
FirePower's basic mechanics are taught on 4 pages. The advanced rules are in a
bigger book, but you could cherry pick the rules. They used the same approach
in several games in that era.
SPI, on the other hand, oh boy...
Q: Anyone know where the name Avalon Hill came from? I admit to being curious.
One of Indy's links explains it.
Allan
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI once played a
few games of PanzerBlitz and Panzer Leader using the Squad Leader turn
sequence. I probably did violence thereby to the designer's intent, but it
made a pretty interesting game.
One thing PanzerBlitz/Panzer Leader got right is the scale: the company
as the tactical quantum of mechanized industrial warfare. I didn't realize
that until much later, when I started reading more serious operational
histories. The game maybe could have used HQ units, and some
sort of reaction phase letting the non-turn player move and fight a
reserve company or two from a battalion whose other fighting companies were
under attack, provided the parent BN HQ wasn't destroyed or cut off.
Best, Ken
> --- On Thu, 9/2/10, Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
From: Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Game designer Charles S Roberts passes
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 5:08 PM
> On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 11:10 PM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
My first experiences in this line were with some games I'd have to go look in
my closet at the folks place even to name now. I now Air War figured into the
mix and I think it was AH. Nope. Air War was SPI.
 I had fun with some of those games, back int he day when all you could find
in the local hobby store was some early Grenadier D&D minis (like the fat
knight in plate mail and the peasant with padded armour
and a pole arm - how useful for dungeoneering....). I recall 3rd Reich
as well, always wishing I had secured a copy. AH and SPI did a lot of good
work with these sorts of games.
3rd Reich was AH. I had a copy. Tried to play it solitaire a few times, but
never completed a game. They came out with an advanced version in the early
90s.
My first AH game I received when I turned 13. It was Panzer Leader. I
still have it, along with the 1940 add-on that I mail ordered for. I
picked up a used copy of Panerblitz about 8 years later (even though it
predated PL by about 3 years).
I still haul PL out every now and again, usually as a nostalgia thing. There
are no command and control rules to speak of, but it still plays reasonably
well. There's a Canadian scenario that's a bitch to win as the Canadians...
Â
Contrast this with the chit-pusher zones. Each table was two (generally
older men) battling it out in one-on-one style combat over a board with
chits. Their focus was intense, like chess masters. They also radiated a
casual antipathy for anyone that might distract them from their focus, even
quiet spectators. The whole place had a combative, bitter feel to
it. It was quiet, but just radiated a vastly anti-social vibe.
At GenCon, I didn't see many miniatures events being played. I remember a
decade ago we had something like 24 GZG events with games running in the
evening. Not so these days. Most of the miniatures games seemed to be things
like Dust Tactics, with pretty figures and introductory rules. (Not that
there's anything wrong with that, if that's what you're into.)
On the board game side, I didn't see very many wargames. In fact, I don't
recall seeing any "chit" wargames at GenCon at all. I saw Diplomacy, Tide of
Iron, Memoir '44 and Battlelore (the last three could almost be miniatures
games) but no hardcore wargames. The rest were generally Eurogames (Settlers
and the like) or Fantasy Flight (Death Angel, Twilight Imperium).
Interestingly, the gamers were all pretty positive about their games and happy
when someone stopped by to ask questions. The ones who looked like they were
having the most fun, though, were the folks playing on the half dozen or so
Crokinole boards that were available in the "board game library" room.
 Chit-games tended to have more rigid rules with stodgy layout and
formal grammar. Have you went back and read any old AH game rules and
compared them to rules from a modern board-based wargame? No comparison!
Worse, go back and read some of the SPI rules. *shudder*
AH's rules started off not bad. Read Panzer Leader, Richthofen's War or
Luftwaffe. They aren't hard to read. By the late 70s that had changed. The
rule book for Magic Realm was so bad they ended up releasing a redone
rulebook. I still shake a little at the prospect of reading the first sections
of Gunslinger or Up Front, and neither are particularly difficult games.
Last weekend we played our first game of the Great Campaigns of the American
Civil War series (these were AH games prior to the Hasbro
buy-out, now Multi-Man Publishing). 24 pages of rules, which is huge for
me these days. However, they didn't seem all that bad. Certainly not what I
feared.
Now, compare that to the game I'm learning right now, Combat Commander by GMT.
Full colour rule book with plenty of examples and lots of pictures to break up
the text. It looks more like a Eurogame rule book than a wargame.
One thing I hated about the GCACW Standard Rules was a lack of an index.
WTF??? Luckily, you can download them for free. I resorted to doing a search
of the PDF.
Free downloadable rules are a huge benefit. Both of us were able to learn the
rules simultaneously, and I had a copy printed off so both of us had a rule
book during play.
 There is no one on your team. Win or lose, you are the only one to blame.
And there isn't a lot to look at, so there isn't even an aesthete's joy of
miniatures gaming.
While true of most chit games, not true of all of them. One of the things that
makes the old Gunslinger game a classic is that it's
multi-player and most scenarios are over in 45 minutes (or less).
And some of the more recent games are very pretty. The GCACW maps are some of
the best ever produced or a wargame. The chits in Combat Commander are very
attractive, coupled to good looking maps. CC is a card game, primarily, and
the cards are full colour and appealing.
Â
Yes, I started back in "Basic D&D" or "Blackmoor" (the little book) and in AH
wargames. But that age is passed and I don't regret it. The few times we do
hall out the old games, we recall how clunky the mechanics are (even for group
games) and how far games design has come (or tastes have evolved).
AH had a number of non-wargames, though, that are classics. One of the
reasons Hasbro bought AH was to get Acquire, the AH "business" game. And, of
course, there's Civilization and Advanced Civilization that inspired Sid Meir
and a whole computer game series.
I don't recall the AH games being altogether clunky, at least not the
ones that I still have. The pre-mid 70s games were pretty lean, rules
wise. My two favourites (the aforementioned Gunslinger and Up Front) played
much better than they read.
By around 1982, AH was starting to experiment with better rules presentations.
FirePower's basic mechanics are taught on 4 pages. The advanced rules are in a
bigger book, but you could cherry pick the rules. They used the same approach
in several games in that era.
SPI, on the other hand, oh boy... Â Q: Anyone know where the name Avalon Hill
came from? I admit to being curious.
One of Indy's links explains it.
Allan
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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThanks for the
name info. I had figured AH was a place localized name. I wasn't sure if it
had been some sort of historical battleground in the past.
I played Gunslinger, Third Reich, Civilization as well and Richtofen's War as
I recall (maybe others). I don't really think of Gunslinger as a class
chit-wargame because of the multiplayer aspect. I'd have to go check who
did Source of the Nile and who did Merchant of Venus.
My condemnation of old chit-games and their hardcore players isn't
directed so much at any MP games or in any way at modern boardgames (I quite
like Napoleonic Wars, Halls of Montezuema (if you can understand the rules),
and Twilight Struggle). And games like Carcassone and others are a whole
different ballgame and attract a whole different crowd of gamer.
I suppose, to be fair, if I'd played a lot of GW miniatures games (shudder),
I'd probably have hit some pretty competitive minis gamers. Or maybe DBA. Both
gave me the same bad vibe and I avoided them. It's the thing I liked
least about SFB in the old days - it spurred players on to being real
rules-weasels because of the competitive aspect.
I don't mind a serious historical game (board or miniatures), but I want to
play it with folks who are happy to win or lose and who aren't going to make
the experience painful.
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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Thu, Sep 2,
> 2010 at 7:04 PM, Ken Hall <khall39@yahoo.com> wrote:
> One thing PanzerBlitz/Panzer Leader got right is the scale: the
Technically PB used platoons for Germans and companies for Soviets. The German
infantry chits seemed underpowered but if you did a "multiply by
3"
they weren't that bad off. Problem was the German player didn't normally have
this kind of parity.
There are a few modern rule mechanics you could graft onto PB to help it out
(alternating movement, etc.).
D.
Wow so many dropping off the perch, I hate getting older and hearing of my
gaming hero's passing on, yes they are hero's to me, and just as relevent as
any sport or movie hero! Gaming is what we do, Charles passing is very sad as
he helped create so many games that all of us that played them, remember
fondly.
I think i'll break out the old panzer leader.
R.I.P.
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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Fri, Sep 3,
> 2010 at 5:06 AM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't mind a serious historical game (board or miniatures), but I
And this is one of the reasons I enjoy playing in Tomb's scenarios at GZG.
:-)
Mk
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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Fri, Sep 3,
> 2010 at 4:06 AM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd have to go check who did Source of the Nile and who did Merchant
Both of them were AH.
> I don't mind a serious historical game (board or miniatures), but I
That's what I like about Mark, my new gaming friend. He enjoys the experience
more than anything.
> PS - Air War was way too complex a modelling of reality to be a fun
It's infamous for that. It came out during SPI's phase of wanting incredible
realism. I remember the ad for Air War, where they describe a dogfight and
list the rule number that went with what happened in reality. It was supposed
to instill you with a sense of, "Oooo, though thought of everything." It just
instilled a sense of dread in me, as one of the rules numbers was in the 40s.
Their earlier game Foxbat and Phantoms was well received. I suspect they
wanted to take F&P and make it *really* advanced.
This is in the same period where they did a game called "Scrimmage" for
Strategy and Tactics magazine. "Scrimmage" was an American football
simulation. The football field was overlaid with a hex grid. There as a chit
for each player and, if I remember correctly, the ball. I kid you not: it
could take an hour to resolve a single play!
> On Fri, Sep 03, 2010 at 10:43:08AM -0500, Allan Goodall wrote:
It was watching a game of that, and then picking up Air Superiority,
that made me realise that wargames _didn't_ have to be
hyper-complicated...
(Air Superiority had a 12-second turn length IIRC - like role-playing
combat, focused on advantage and disadvantage rather than each individual
sword swing.)
R
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Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l On 03/09/2010
> 16:43, Allan Goodall wrote:
> in me, as one of the rules numbers was in the 40s.
Was it that well-received? From memory of an article in /Moves/, SPI
didn't seem to think so at the time. F&P was felt to be too coarse in its
basic scale (hex size and turn length) to model complex manoeuvring properly
(not to mention the rather clunky mechanics used to represent vertical motion;
what might have worked for WW1 and even WW2 aircraft didn't translate well to
jet fighters), so they went to the opposite
extreme for /Air War/, coupling it with a morass of decidedly odd rules
to cover 3-D flight (plus one "special manoeuvre" -- the infamous
"Lateral Rudder Roll" -- that no-one, including military and aerobatic
pilots, has ever been able to tell me exactly what it is supposed to
be).
JD Webster neatly split the difference in scale with /Air Superiority/
and came up with new mechanics for an air game that made playing both easier
and much more fun; they also translated well, with a change of
scale, to WW2 in the /Fighting Wings/ series.
Phil
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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Fri, Sep 3,
2010 at 4:59 PM, Phillip Atcliffe <atcliffe@ntlworld.com>wrote:
> Was it that well-received? From memory of an article in *Moves*, SPI
I don't know if I still have my old S&Ts from that era. I don't think so. But
I seem to remember that it scored fairly well on their feedback reviews. (That
was something I thought was excellent: SPI had feedback cards with their
magazines, asking questions about the magazine, the game in the mag, and
recent games.)
I may be remembering wrong, which is entirely possible. We're talking between
30 and 40 years ago. Also, when F&P came out, I don't think there were any
other jet fighter games on the market.
> JD Webster neatly split the difference in scale with *Air Superiority*
I kept hearing that Air Superiority was good, but i never got a chance to play
it.
It came out a bit later, didn't it? I remember it being for sale at Imperiums
to Order, which would have been the early to mid 80s.
On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Phillip Atcliffe
> JD Webster neatly split the difference in scale with Air Superiority
Air Superiority was good. Speed of Heat was better. Based on my admittedly
limited experience, Birds of Prey is really good. It takes
some practice to get fast at working the play-aids, but I believe that
the payoff is worth it. It uses a similar method to Attack Vector: Tactical to
represent a 3D volume on a 2D hex grid, which I really like, but YMMV.
Once I read the rules of Air Superiority, I was at a loss to figure out what
should be done with my copy of Air War, as selling it only threatened to make
some poor soul with being turned off Jet Age aircraft combat. I have not even
lifted the box lid in about twenty years.
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Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lA friend loaned
me a copy of Air Superiority but I haven't had a chance to try it yet. He
thought highly of it.
Air War... yeah... sitting in the box since the early 1980s. Moved several
times. Not opened.
It did only two really useful things for my knowledge of air warfare:
a) explained the importance of maintaining energy and having energy advantage
b) demonstrated very clearly that all-aspect missiles are far better
than
rear-arc-only missiles
Other than that, it was mostly just vexatious.
> From a computer game PoV, the most fun I've had in flying games has
a) WW1 Combat in biplanes and triplanes
b) Flying an A-10 in various games (love that plane with its odd
nose-heavy
plunges, low speed passes, great tank busting tools, and ability to take
ground fire) c) Comanche or Apache flying against Soviet tanks
I think my heart lies in the mud, or at least flying over it low enough to
suck leaves into the intakes. I leave the dogfights to the jet-jockey
wannabees.:0)
Tomb
PS - Has everyone checked out Sikorsky's new helo that is trying to
break a
speed record (trying to get 480-490 kph)? It's a wierd one that should
inspire a 1/300th VTOL design from Jon T. It has a coaxial counter
rotating rotor system along with a pusher prop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIgUV1wAs5g&feature=related
Just wanted to point out that Avalon Hill often bought up other games that
were started by smaller companies, but couldn't get the production or exposure
AH had at the time. Source of the Nile was such a game, but I can't recall the
original company. Several AH titles, such as Alpha Omega, started at
Battleline.
Always seemed like cheating to me as a younger man, but I've come to realize
it brought about higher production values, including spelling and grammar
which can be a pain when missing, as well as a larger audience to 'diamonds in
the rough'.
Other times, the gem is lost in the chrome and simplification.
Now AH > TSR > WotC > Hasbro.... ;->=
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Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lMr. Evans is
absolutely right. Some of my favorite "AH titles" -- Flat Top, Air
Force/Dauntless, and I believe even Frederick the Great -- were released
by other publishers before coming to AH.
They certainly did fine work in-house as well, though -- the old Squad
Leader/Cross of Iron is as good a boardgame as I've ever played.
Best, Ken
> --- On Sat, 9/4/10, Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
From: Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Game designer Charles S Roberts passes
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Date: Saturday, September 4, 2010, 6:07 PM
Just wanted to point out that Avalon Hill often bought up other games that
were started by smaller companies, but couldn't get the production or exposure
AH had at the time. Source of the Nile was such a game, but I can't recall the
original company. Several AH titles, such as Alpha Omega, started at
Battleline.
Always seemed like cheating to me as a younger man, but I've come to realize
it brought about higher production values, including spelling and grammar
which can be a pain when missing, as well as a larger audience to 'diamonds in
the rough'.
Other times, the gem is lost in the chrome and simplification.
Now AH > TSR > WotC > Hasbro.... ;->=
Doug
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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Sat, Sep 4,
> 2010 at 5:13 PM, Ken Hall <khall39@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mr. Evans is absolutely right.
Definitely. It was often hard to tell which ones were bought from other
companies, though. Flat Top and Air Force/Dauntless were by Battleline.
Diplomacy is the most famous example, as it had been around pre-AH, and
was licensed to different companies in different countries. I still have my
Waddingtons' version.
> They certainly did fine work in-house as well, though -- the old Squad
They had quite a few excellent in-house games. I believe Up Front was an
AH
in-house game, and one of the best they ever created. It presaged more
modern wargames in many way. Did they ever have a real clunker? Other than
Powers and Perils, I mean...
> Definitely. It was often hard to tell which ones were bought from
> They had quite a few excellent in-house games. I believe Up Front was
Buying the games from other companies often lead to in house games.
Craig Taylor (IIRC) designed AF/Dauntless (and many other titles) for
Battleline, then was hired to do Up Front for AH.
I guess my point is that Battleline was often buying games from Independent
designers then in turn selling them to AH usually for better
production value and larger print runs.
Another interesting example: the Mini game "Gladiators" (FGU) was released by
FGU from an Independent designer ~1974 then reworked into the Gladiator
portion of Battleline's "Circus Maximus" ~1978 then split out again when AH
bought Circus and decided to release the two component
games: Circus Max and Gladiator ~1981...
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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lKriegspiel was
kind of a clunker.
Best, Ken
> --- On Sat, 9/4/10, Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
(snip)
They had quite a few excellent in-house games. I believe Up Front was an
AH in-house game, and one of the best they ever created. It presaged
more modern wargames in many way. Did they ever have a real clunker? Other
than Powers and Perils, I mean...
--
Allan Goodall      http://www.hyperbear.com
awgoodall@gmail.com agoodall@hyperbear.com