RopeCon 98 Report

WARNING: Parts of this may not interest you... I decided to save my workload
and write only one con report.

FT list members: No GZG games were played at the con. Skip now if that's all
that interests you. (If you want to know why I didn't run any, read
on).

I *will* have photos online as soon as they come back from the shop.

FRIDAY:

Things start well as it appears that I've been booked to a table that does not
exist. Oh well, I claim another table and set my first game:

******** Surf Napoleon Must Die!!! **********

Surf Napo is a 4-way battle using Armorsoft's excellent, simple, fast,
and foremost FREE SciFi gaming system. I go about posting ads for the game
before the public really moves in, I set the terrain and the minis and
then I realize -- I need more d10's! I rush to the dealer area and buy
33d10.

Surf Napoleon, by the way, features a battle between Napoleon, DRS Earthies,
Alfs and Robots for freedom, liberty, suntan lotion and the right to surf.

Ok, I convince my first player that yes, the Napoleonic troops DO stand a
chance. He decides to play the Alfs anyway (and keeps calling them Eldar, for
some reason I can not fathom). I recruit three more players, one an
avid but open-minded Napoleonic gamer.

DRS Earthies decimate Napoleon's artillery in very short order. The rest of
Napoleon's stuff doesn't have much in the way of long range, so he must try a
sneaky approach. The Alfs sneak in a few potshots with their Atmo Fighters
before getting blown out of the sky. Robots move slowly but surely to
exterminate any opposition.

Alfs and Earthies clash, Napoleon is slaughtered and Robots take potshots at
people getting too close. In the end, Robots win by default since no one
really paid attention to shooting them.

I take my scheduled break to see the con and listen to the guests of honor,
and make a mental note to give Napoleon's artillery more cover for the next
game.

Ok, next time around I give Napoleon the cover he needs. His artillery does
survive the entire game, but the rest of the troops don't fare quite as well.
After rearranging the map, Robots and Earthies fight a bit and Napoleon
manages to rearend some Alf tanks. However, the scenario victory, marginal
though it is, goes to Alfs as they scoot away with their replenished supply of
suntan lotion. I make a mental note to give Napoleon even more cover if I ever
play this game again. Highlights of the game included the Alf player setting a
careful infantry ambush for the Earthies, only to be decimated by a couple of
Rabid Hamster APCs.

I was already preparing to go home when two players demanded to play. Ok, I
set up half of the scenario, Alfs vs. Earthies. The game proceeds pretty much
along the same pattern as the two previous ones, ending in a draw as the
remaining dregs of both sides decide to run away at the exact same time!

I had made photocopies of the rules and gave every player a copy. Some forgot
to take theirs, but every envelope found a home by the end of the con.

*** Modifications: To avoid the "all your troops ran away on turn 1" syndrome,
I divided the troops into units and rolled morale for each unit separately. I
also ruled that all the terrain was either normal or hard going (half move for
all troops).

*** Final verdict: Generic Legions is a good con demo game. It takes about 5
minutes to explain the rules, and generally you don't have to explain them
again. I could step away from the table to take a photo or peek at the other
games, and the game was rolling happily when I got back. However, it may be a
bit simplistic in the long run, it uses *far* too many dice rolls (too many
dice per roll, *and* too many rolls to resolve a single shot) to be truly "big
battle". It might be nice if there was more difference between infantry and
tanks (ie. so that infantry is not just weak slow tanks).

(Dave, if you want a copy of the scenario files, email me)

SATURDAY:

Things start even better: They don't have clue where my table is. After a bit
of haggling, I just take one beside the one I had on Friday (because I had
noted that the lights above that table were busted).

Saturday is the big day of the con, and I had a triple event planned for it:

****** Dawn of the Living Lead	*********
****** Day of the Living Lead	*********
****** Night of the Living Lead *********

Fantasy Rules! demo was the name of the game. I had planned to kit out 5
armies for the players to choose from, but unfortunately Chipco's "ConAid"
didn't cross the Atlantic in time, so I had to settle for 3 armies on somewhat
crummy cardboard bases.

The armies were:

Lord Helmet of the Undead

Lord Helmet as General Herbert West as 1st lvl Necromancer The Doom Guard as
Heroes (2) Will'o'Wisps as Traps (2) Skeleton Warriors as Undead HW (3)
Skeleton Spearmen as Undead Spears (3) Skeleton Archers as Undead Bows (2)
Skeleton Horsemen as Undead H.Cavalry (2) Mummies as Undead Small Monsters
Skeleton Dino as Undead Battlewagon Ghosts and Vampires as Minor Spirits (1)

Kleb Draak's Evil Conquerors for a Better Tomorrow

Kleb Draak as General Walpurgis as 1st lvl Wizard Jaek and Helwud as Heroes
(2) The Pit and The Pendelum as Traps (2) Chaos Warriors as Handweapons (3)
Chaod Halberdiers as Spears (2) Disciples of Red Redemption as Fanatics (2)
Chaos Knights as Knights (2) Balrog as Lesser Spirit Gargoyles as Minor
Spirits (1)

(Btw: Could we perhaps rename the spirits Major Spirit, Spirit, Minor
Spirit -- I always confuse Minor and Lesser)

The Feuding Feudals

Sir Bold as General St.Marlin as 1st lvl cleric Sir Sure and Sir Yes as Heroes
(2) Mr.Hood and his merry fellows as traps (2) Halberdiers as Spears (3)
Archers as Bows (2) Crossbowmen as Crossbows (2) Valiant Knights as Knights
(3) Cannon as Direct Heavy Artillery and... Moomin Attack Squad as Small
Monsters

As you can see, these are all low fantasy armies. I really wanted to avoid the
"boom, your general's dead on turn 1", especially with novice players.

First game pits Lord Helmet vs. Kleb Draak. I actually get two guys who tried
the system at last year's con to play. Having learned from last year, I
reduced the amount of obscuring scenery and provided a sample
setup for the forces. Going through the rules takes 10-15 minutes and
then they take on like real pros. Kleb's morale clock goes down notches as
Lord Helmet deals some minor damage from afar, but the nimble Spirits soon go
about cracking some bones. Getting the battlelines to clash for the first
time in a con game was a really satisfying moment -- this is the way
it's
supposed to play -- and the players got the idea of keeping their lines
together pretty fast instead of charging their units in piecemeal
WH-style. The spirits really annoy the Lord Helmet player, causing havoc
in his rear, but in the end the doughty undead prevail.

Both players were *extremely* happy with the lower magic level.

Next, it's the Feuding Feudals vs. Kleb Draak. I get two relative novices,
explain the rules and off they go. The Feudal player panics when he learns the
Fanatics are opposite his knights. He starts a crazy maneuver, trying march
his knights in column in front of his entire battleline to the other side. The
Kleb player quickly catches on and traps the frontmost unit of Knights. Not a
pretty sight... in the ensuing chaos the chaos warriors manage to slip in with
minimal missile casualties and the carnage begins costing the Feudal player
the game, largely because his knights never really got to do anything useful.
This game ends a lot quicker than the two undead games, as nearly every phase
someone's morale clock goes down a notch.

It's starting to get late, so I setup the night game -- Feudals vs. Lord
Helmet. This time the Helmet commander is a guy who's going to WFB tourny
finals. To his credit, he grasps the game very quickly. The opponent is a
novice to FR!

This game comes to a real close fight. A *real* close fight. The feudals ran
out of morale first, but managed to win on points. I'm getting ahead of
things... So, the lines start their approach again, there's a cavalry skirmish
on the flank as the feudal player invigorates his knights to charge. This
fight, however, doesn't go so well as Lord Helmet himself steps up to fight
the knights. On the other flank vampires disable the
cannon and mummies shamble along -- as the moomin attack squad is
trapped, things look grim for the feudals. However, the undead dino is felled
under a torrent of arrows and bolts and the Moomins clear their trap, smashing
the vampires. A moment later the battlelines splinter a bit and crash. General
melee ensues with troops dying like flies. The Moomins start wading through
enemies, putting down the mummies and capturing Herbert West who tries to
escape only to be eaten by the ferocious Moomins. The Feudal morale clock hits
4 and all seems lost as units lose resolve and vanish from the battlefield.
However Lord Helmet has lost almost all of
his better units and he's unable to pull his line together -- separated
undead foot troops are crushed one by one until it's the remaining few
humans (and their white-furred allies) against one undead cavalry unit
stacked with Lord Helmet himself and the Doom Guard. Both sides are so low on
morale clock that they dare not issue challanges and the fight goes on for a
couple of turns without result... finally Lord Helmet pulls his troops
together and demoralizes the Moomins, winning the phase and ending the game.
Unfortunately, his losses were higher than the feudal's, despite the 50 point
bonus.

Notes: All players liked the low magic system. Spellcasters had an effect
but it wasn't too pronounced -- and losing your mage wasn't the end of
the
game. I could think of taking an entirely no-mage force for a low magic
game without any special tricks like witch hunters, magic wards etc. Some
players didn't like the clumsiness of single units, but this was a minor
complaint. A couple of times the "turn to face the highest base factor" rule
caused funny results as it was actually counterproductive to rearend or flank
a foe.

I wish I had had something to display for Chipco (poster, banner,
rulebook, anything) -- my rules in an old office binder are not very
visual.

The most popular question by onlookers: "What are those Moomin trolls?" The
answer, ofcourse, was: "Why, they're Moomin trolls."

I'm going to think of something really wicked for next year.

SUNDAY:

I didn't even bother asking where my table was... I just took the one I had
last night. No one seemed to mind.

I had thought about which game to run, and I had finally decided to Sky
Galleons of Mars. I love the idea (maybe because I loved John Carter books as
a kid), but the rules are a bit cumbersome. Ok, so I had a small aerial battle
to remind me just how clumsy the rules were.

I took a lunch break and cooked up some new rules and the table was full of
players. Maybe it was because everything else was winding down in the
Sunday afternoon, but I soon got 6-7 players and cooked up a major
battle between free Martians and British imperialist pigs. We used playing
cards to determine initiative and I changed all boring crew hits to hull hits.

This seemed to work relatively well, but I still think the rules need a
complete overhaul...

The Brits tried to use their superior mobility to deal with a portion of the
martian force first and this might have worked if their Reliant had
been worth its name -- as it happened, a lucky hit caused a trim
critical immobilizing the Reliant and then followed by a lob gun hit the big
gunship was still long enough for the Martian ramships to catch it. What
followed was a very ugly boarding fight as two martians rammed and
grappled the lone brit -- in the end the British player was complaining
that his craft would not stay aloft with so many boarders on board...

Meanwhile, a British gunboat made the mistake of sailing over the crest of a
hill while being shot at. Damage that would have been mediocre over flat
plains caused a crash. The last British boat wasn't faring too well either
-- damaged in gunfight and unable to attain higher altitudes, it was
mobbed by two martian hullcutters.

Very exciting and despite the Brits' bad luck, everyone had fun. Definitely
something I want to bring back next year.

Closing notes:

Sky Galleons was close to ideal con game in my mind, because:

- I could explain ALL the necessary rules in 10 minutes or less
- It could accommodate many players without needing any special rules,
and players could come and go
- It's something DIFFERENT, and most importantly, it LOOKS different,
from a DISTANCE (eg. even though SG2 works rather differently, it doesn't
really LOOK that different from the dozens of other SciFi skirmish games)

Ok, why didn't I run a GZG game?

First of all, see above: The first ideal rules out DS2 and SG2. Ok, that
leaves FT. FT could be a good con game, but:

 - I had not promised to run it. No obligations.
 - I had a green felt on my table
 - My table was too narrow (last year I had bad experiences with ships
flying off the table)
 - I didn't have any new ship sheets ready :-(

> Sky Galleons was close to ideal con game in my mind, because:

Heretical though it may be, I am forced to agree. Much though I love DSII and
SGII, I have found that the ideal game to run for Shows and
shop demos is Demonblade's Shock force--it's cheap, quick, and very
simple. Even the dimmest bulbs in our gaming group have mastered the rules of
Shock Force after playing our first game, while DSII and SGII...manage to
elude most of them. It doesn't help that we can play a

game with some 90 25mm figure in half the time it takes to play an SGII game
with half the number of troops. It's depressing! I'm hoping that I will have
more time to spend on promoting the GZG games now, but FT is

the only one that has really caught on in my gaming group. What makes matter
worse is that, if I want to play SGII or DSII I have to run the game! Which
generally precludes playing. I'm the only one who really knows the systems, or
cares enough to do a scenario....

Tom spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Heretical though it may be, I am forced to agree.

"Mr. Elliot, fetch the faggots! Mr.Tuffley, the match! This heathen shall pay
for his heresies..."

Much though I love
> DSII and SGII, I have found that the ideal game to run for Shows and

Strangely enough, most people that we taught SG2 to mastered it first crack
(as long as we had a ref to just sort of 'keep an eye out' and offer reminders
of things like cohesion distances and when confidence checks were made). Maybe
I've been just lucky to play with people who play far too many games and so
learning a new one is just another momentary focus and not a major
undertaking.

It doesn't help that we can play a
> game with some 90 25mm figure in half the time it takes to play an

Now, OTOH, I find that funny because I'm used to 1/72 scale WW2 or
MicroArmour which used to take us a minimum of six hours to wade through, and
most SG2 I've seen, even with lots of units on the
board, will only take 2-3.5 hours, a normal Con slot.

It's depressing! I'm hoping that
> I will have more time to spend on promoting the GZG games now, but FT

> matter worse is that, if I want to play SGII or DSII I have to run the

> game! Which generally precludes playing. I'm the only one who really

> knows the systems, or cares enough to do a scenario....

Well, that just takes time and patience to change. And a continual eye to add
new people with like interests. I'm gradually sucking in my old AD&D group,
after my new gaming group I met through work introduced me to FT, EFSB and
SG2. It's networking:)

And the target audience is a factor - promoting 'gaming' by getting
non-gamers interested is something that such straightforward,
simplistic games are good for. Promoting gaming in games you enjoy to people
who may already have played some games but want a good game system with a lot
of flexibility and meat requires that you play something like FT or SG2. And
that is where (eventually) we gain more converts to the good cause of keeping
Jon, KR, and others in business.

Tom.

> On Thu, 30 Jul 1998, Thomas Barclay wrote:

> Strangely enough, most people that we taught SG2 to mastered it first

Well, I can only speak for my group, but I think I'm getting too old for
complex games. These days I have time for gaming only once or twice a month.
Some games get the "focus" every once in a while and are played
more -- others are played maybe once in 3-6 months.

With that frequency of playing I don't really memorize the rules and given
that e.g. DS2 lacks a cheat sheet and a good selection of pre-designed
vehicles, well, it failed to be a hit in our group which is a pity because I
really, really like the game (it just has too many%T$$#"%&$# counters
on the table -- if I wanted "sneeze-away" cardboard counters, I'd play a
%$%"$#%"$# boardgame). It's just a tad too complex for the time I have.

Last time we played DS2 the game felt somehow funny, and GEVs were zipping
across the table with gay abandon. Well, rereading the rules afterwards I
noticed I had forgotten about "under fire" markers and the limitations on
claiming "easy ground" movement bonus. Oh well, another precious gaming eve
wasted. Haven't played DS2 since... though I am planning to.

Notes: Large club with several players who own the rules? You gotta be
kidding, this is Finland. In our group I own ALL the rules and ALL the
minis and I also get to paint ALL of them -- this is the only way I ever
get to play anything besides GW and maybe Warzone.

> Now, OTOH, I find that funny because I'm used to 1/72 scale WW2 or

Well, I have a family and the wife insists the figs are off the dining
table by morning -- if I can't finish a game in roughly 4 hours
(including setup), it never gets finished.

> And the target audience is a factor - promoting 'gaming' by getting

Well, I must be the odd man out, but even with 15+ years of gaming, my
tastes are turning more and more into simple but elegant(*, fast games.

*) Simple but elegant is not the same as simple. It is perhaps best described
by the old cliche: "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master".

> Well, I must be the odd man out, but even with 15+ years of gaming, Lmy

tastes are turning more and more into simple but elegant(*, fast >games.
> *) Simple but elegant is not the same as simple. It is perhaps best

Precisely! And that's how the folks that I game with feel as well. I
am starting to give thought to doing some sort of DSII "lite"--something

a bit quicker and easier, that my group can play and enjoy as much as we

enjoy Shock Force. We only, after all, get to game once every other week for
about four hours, and leaving the figures set up for the next session is not
an option. Heck, I've reached the point where the simple

fact of being able to resolve a game in a single night leaves me happy as a
clam. No more have to adjuticate matters based on the way things were going
when we had to stop....

Hell, maybe I AM getting old.

Mikko spake thusly upon matters weighty:

> Well, I can only speak for my group, but I think I'm getting too old

Sounds about right. I've got a long running AD&D campaign that runs
about 4-6 times a year on a weekend, I play a boardgame or card game
about 1-2 weeknights a month, maybe 1 weeknight of minis a month, not
the same game twice usually. So I'm in about the same boat.

> Well, I have a family and the wife insists the figs are off the dining

We used to target MicroArmour or WW2 stuff for (at a minimum) 1 weekend and
more likely the game would stay setup. So SG2 seems like a breeze by
comparison. So does FT.

> Well, I must be the odd man out, but even with 15+ years of gaming, my

I'm more into SyE games as you described now than I ever was before. Usually
now I like to see rules added which don't compound too badly. (ie if you add a
rule like sniper spotters, you aren't likely to see it in every scenario so
its sort of not necessary to learn it until such a situation arises). But I
like the ability of a rulesystem to incorporate changes easily which allow
'flavouring' the world to ones particular bias (I'd say "to the right way of
doing it" but that would be entirely ridiculous!).

Maybe one day we'll get you over to one of our North Am conventions! (Can you
say GZG Worldwide?):)

Tom.

> With that frequency of playing I don't really memorize the rules and
I would have to agree. I find FT "elegant" but DS2 is definitely not.
Drawing chits--or much worse, drawing a different selection of chits for
different weapons and different targets--just isn't elegant.  Weapons
have different effects on infantry vs armor, granted, but this is not the way
to represent it. A cheat sheet and a vehicle list would improve things, but
not (in my opinion) enough. Drawing chits looks like a simple way to vary the
probabilities but in fact you need to a) keep track of the things;
b)
have a container; c) remember (or look up) what combinations are valid.
  The only other miniatures game I play with regularity is DBA/DBM.
Each troop type has a die roll bonus, which may vary by class of target. For
example, Light Horse is +2 against everything;  archers are +4 vs
mounted,
+2 vs foot.  There are about ten different sets of bonuses, some of
which are seldom used; the chart takes up a space perhaps 2"x3" and is easily
copied; for those of us who don't use a wide variety of troops (Light Horse &
Fast Knights, yeah!), it is easily memorized. If you lose your dice, you can
easily replace them and it doesn't change the probabilities.

> On Thu, 30 Jul 1998, Thomas Barclay wrote:

> Maybe one day we'll get you over to one of our North Am conventions!

If you foot the airfare :-) Boat trip to Sweden is within my finances,
but flying is just straight out of the question...