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Breaking a leg off a table and using it as a club sounds pretty thematic to D&D. However, in 3E/PF thats an action eating, round taking, improvised weapon getting method that sucks mechanically.
Thats system mastery or "rules are the game" perspective. What would the rules as tools perspective be?
Generally the difference impacts whether or not you'd even try something like this.
This situation is one where "rules as tools" gives me more options in handling this, such as choosing to shorten the action depending on the strength check result. For example, if the check was low, it might take a full round action, but if it was really high, it might be a move action.
With "rules as tools" I'm not limited to having it be the same action every time nor having it fit a predefined action (i.e. depending on what the situation is I could even include it as part of another action, or break it into multiple actions)
That still doesnt account for the -4 to use a table leg as a weapon the character will have. Or do you just waive that away too? Eventually, it gets to the point were you have this crunch heavy system to stave off vagueness in mechanics, to just go back to rulings over rules vagueness.
It sounds like you want combat as war, not combat as sport, but also only with Nerf products. You are asking for a lot of trust from your players and im not sure you are worthy. I mean you did after all trick them into a "sorry Mario, you just murdered the princess" scenario.
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Do you all think it'd be helpful to pull an action like this, compare it across systems and use it to help illustrate the points you're all making about player mindset based on mechanics?
I believe you just did. What we found out is that using the rules in 3E, its a mechanical liability unless the GM steps in with fiat. System mastery has taught a lot of gamers that you just stick to what works in the 3E/PF system. Rules lighter or, rulings over rules, systems like 5E and OSR, allow players to think about and try actions like these because they will at least have a chance of working out depending on GM ruling.
In Traveller, it would be a full round to flip the table and bust off a leg. After that, you have yourself a club that does 2D6 damage. (The circumstances around doing this might be dire because often combatants will have firearms but...) it's easy to adjudicate for the referee (GM) and explain to the player. This can be extrapolate to numerous examples of how much lighter it is compared to 3E/PF.
I'll let someone who is more familiar with story games to explain how things work out there.
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Here is a great thread going on over at Enworld about a 3E era player looking at the rules cyclopedia. The perspectives and comparisons are great for D&D systems.
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Upthread someone said that breaking the leg off a table is a potential staple of D&D, I think it was Pannycakes. My apologies if I'm not crediting the right person but here's what it made me think:
How would this action translate across the mechanics in multiple different games? In turn, how would players perceive this as a "good" or "bad" use of their "round" or whatever term is used for the amount of time they get to act during their part of a scene.
In the games I'm going to talk about, the fictional positioning of what's happening in the barroom is very important to how effective this tactic would be. Let's assume there's a huge brawl already underway, with bottles and mugs being thrown, as well as combatants beings tossed or knocked about. In other words, going to break off that table-leg is going to put you in danger of getting sucker-punched or clocked in the head with a flying beer stein.
Dungeon World: Breaking off a table leg and entering the fray with it would be a decent strategy. Given the above scene, I'd ask how they were trying to avoid getting struck by something (or someone) and call for a Defy Danger to get the table leg without taking a hit. I'd give them the table leg regardless of how the roll went, but depending on whether it was a strong hit, weak hit, or miss, there may well be consequences. For example, on a weak hit, I might say they have the leg, but there's a big crack down the middle of it, and it's going to shatter on the first solid hit. Or on a miss, maybe they got the table-leg just as a drunken half-orc gets thrown into them and they both go sprawling. As for the effectiveness of using a broken-off table leg in combat: In Dungeon World your choice of weapon usually doesn't affect your chance to land a blow or how much damage it does: Weapon damage is based on your character class.
Swords of the Serpentine: Also a decent strategy. Let's assume the same set-up. On the character's turn, I'd tell them that they probably would need either to make an appropriate Investigative spend or an Athletics check to get the table-leg without something bad happening, but I'd let them immediately smack someone with it. I'd say a broken-off table leg would do reduced base damage of 1d6 (rather than standard damaage of 1d6+1). Attacking with it would resolve normally: Tell me whether you're striking to hurt your opponent or trying to demoralize them, and then make either a Health or a Sway attack as appropriate.
Trophy Gold: TG would likely resolve the whole brawl in a single roll, so I'd ask what the PC's goal would be for the scene. For example: Are they looking to crack so many skulls they're the last man standing? Are they looking to fight their way out of there? Are they trying to make themselves look like a badass that nobody else wants to futz with? If they're looking to defeat their opponents in combat, I'd just say they have the table-leg and would call for a Combat Roll. Otherwise, I'd ask what could go wrong and offer Devil's Bargains, and then call for a Risk Roll, requiring inclusion of a Dark Die because life and limb is at stake.
Mörk Borg: Also an effective strategy. On the PC's turn, I'd rule that breaking off the table leg would be a move and require a normal (12) test of Strength to break it off. I'd then say there was a brawler in range to take a swing at for a normal attack. I'd consider the table-leg to be a club (d4 damage).
So...Star Wars has never been my cup of sci-fi gaming tea. I have tried the FFG system in a one shot. I did enjoy the stages of success and failure mechanics tied to dice results. Was an interesting change up to the often binary results of D&D systems. Anybody got experience with this?
Im also curious about West End Games D6 SW game. The reason im curious is a lot of folks have a deep love for this game. Im curious if it has to do with the system working well, and being a great fit for SW, or if its just nostalgia for first SW RPG experiences?
I can't speak to FFG Star Wars or the related GENESYS RPG system: I've never played them, and upon reading the rules, I thought the mechanics were too complex for their own good. (I'm also in general not a fan of the custom dice with weird symbols/colors on the faces.)
I really, really like degrees of success mechanics, but just from reading them, I think other systems effectively do the same thing with less wonky/fiddly dice mechanics. (e.g. Mophidius' 2d20 system, Free League's Year Zero Engine, Green Ronin's Adventure Game Engine or "Powered by the Apocalpyse" systems) That said, I haven't actually played FFG's GENESYS system, so it may well work really well at the table and my judgement based on a casual read could be dead wrong.
I can speak to the West End Games' "d6" Star Wars: The Role-Playing Game (first edition released in 1987). I played that game a whole lot in the '80s and '90s... and again for an 8-game session back in 2019. While my original copy of the rulebook was lost in the Great Cellar Flood of 1998, I picked up the FFG's "30th anniversary edition" reprint of the 1987 WEG rulebook and Star Wars Sourcebook.
The system still holds up! This is a skill-based game, where your ranks in various skill are rated in a number of dice; that's the number of d6 you roll for a given skill check, and you're looking to hit either a specific target number, or to beat an opposed roll. (I prefer using static numbers for all rolls, as that makes the game flow better at the table.) All skills are in a skill family, so you have a base rating for the entire family, plus extra dice for specific skills you specialize in.
My beef with the game is that some of the target numbers for basic tasks are set too high. We realized that even with maxing out our pilot character's "Pilot" and "Astrogation" skills at start, there was still a nearly 20% chance of catastrophic failure any time we'd jump to hyperspace. And flying right through a star or bouncing too close to a supernova ends your trip real quick.
Our GM for our 2019 game was an old pro at WEG Star Wars and used some later supplements that reset the target numbers of a lot of basic checks, which made the game run a lot more smoothly.
So...Star Wars has never been my cup of sci-fi gaming tea. I have tried the FFG system in a one shot. I did enjoy the stages of success and failure mechanics tied to dice results. Was an interesting change up to the often binary results of D&D systems. Anybody got experience with this?
Im also curious about West End Games D6 SW game. The reason im curious is a lot of folks have a deep love for this game. Im curious if it has to do with the system working well, and being a great fit for SW, or if its just nostalgia for first SW RPG experiences?
I've run a lot of FFG's Star Wars and their generic system (Genesys.). It takes awhile to get used to it, but once you and your players have it down - it can be an incredibly nimble system. Setting Difficulty, upgrading Challenge and applying Setback dice becomes second nature and it becomes very easy to adjudicate whatever the player decides they want to do - whether there is a rule for it or not.
I have a great deal of nostalgia for WEG Star Wars, but I will acknowledge it isn't the most robust system - nor the most balanced. While the system was a great fit for the scum and villainy side of Star Wars, it begins to break down a bit if you want to run a more focused Rebel Alliance vs Empire campaign - and the Jedi just aren't balanced with the rest of the game.
I would honestly say that WEG performed best at sort of ground level - Smugglers and Bounty Hunters; D20 performed best at the Jedi level; and FFG really levels the playing field out nicely.
I can't speak to FFG Star Wars or the related GENESYS RPG system: I've never played them, and upon reading the rules, I thought the mechanics were too complex for their own good. (I'm also in general not a fan of the custom dice with weird symbols/colors on the faces.)
I really, really like degrees of success mechanics, but just from reading them, I think other systems effectively do the same thing with less wonky/fiddly dice mechanics. (e.g. Mophidius' 2d20 system, Free League's Year Zero Engine, Green Ronin's Adventure Game Engine or "Powered by the Apocalpyse" systems) That said, I haven't actually played FFG's GENESYS system, so it may well work really well at the table and my judgement based on a casual read could be dead wrong.
Yeap, FFG likes to sell lots and lots of plastic minis and dice so this is something I wasnt overly fond of either. Its basically just tiers of a D8. 1-2 = Bab/Bad, 3-4 = Bad/good, 5-6 = good/bad, 7-8 = good/good. It was pretty easy to convert and just use the dice we had laying around.
My one shot was pretty fun until the hilarious end. The GM was using an entry module and mistook a swarm of 8 storm troopers as 8 individual storm troopers. Our hapless adventurers were surrounded by 64 storm troopers mechanically, who did eventually hit...a lot... :)
I can speak to the West End Games' "d6" Star Wars: The Role-Playing Game (first edition released in 1987). I played that game a whole lot in the '80s and '90s... and again for an 8-game session back in 2019. While my original copy of the rulebook was lost in the Great Cellar Flood of 1998, I picked up the FFG's "30th anniversary edition" reprint of the 1987 WEG rulebook and Star Wars Sourcebook.
The system still holds up! This is a skill-based game, where your ranks in various skill are rated in a number of dice; that's the number of d6 you roll for a given skill check, and you're looking to hit either a specific target number, or to beat an opposed roll. (I prefer using static numbers for all rolls, as that makes the game flow better at the table.) All skills are in a skill family, so you have a base rating for the entire family, plus extra dice for specific skills you specialize in.
My beef with the game is that some of the target numbers for basic tasks are set too high. We realized that even with maxing out our pilot character's "Pilot" and "Astrogation" skills at start, there was still a nearly 20% chance of catastrophic failure any time we'd jump to hyperspace. And flying right through a star or...
Does the DC target shift? Like doing something easy is a 6 and tough is an 8 and really tough is a 10? Then, you took your dice pool XD6 where x=skill points and roll? Seems like an interesting idea, I do love me some skill focused RPG systems.
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As an aside: I've mentioned that I'm a member of The Gauntlet RPG community. One of our prominent members is a HUGE Star Wars fan, and he's been running an ongoing series for years called "Star Wars Saturdays". In that series, he re-skins a non-SW TTRPG to play in the Star Wars universe.
Some examples he's had a LOT of fun with...
"Hutt Cartel": Playing in the criminal underworld of Jabba's crime syndicate using Cartel, an RPG about Mexican narcofiction.
"Bounty of the Week": PCs are bounty-hunters after elusive quarry in a hack of the modern-day monster-hunting RPG Monster of the Week
"The Droids": PCs are several of Jabba's droids still guarding Jabba's palace after his death at the end of Return of the Jedi... a hack of Jason Morningstar's RPG The Skeletons
"Rogue Squadron": The PCs are a group of misfit Rebel fighter pilots living on a remote base and their troubled interpersonal relationships, crossed with the terror of raiding Imperial shipping lines in a hack of the semi-historical WWII Soviet bomber squadron RPG Night Witches.
"Jedi Kids": The PCs are young padawans at the Jedi Academy getting into hijinks in a hack of Kids On Brooms.
"The Dark Side Beckons": Near the end of the Clone Wars, a group of Jedi seek answers about the Sith in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban. The place is not nearly as abandoned as they'd expected. A Star Wars-themed incursion for Trophy Dark.
The system still holds up! This is a skill-based game, where your ranks in various skill are rated in a number of dice; that's the number of d6 you roll for a given skill check, and you're looking to hit either a specific target number, or to beat an opposed roll. (I prefer using static numbers for all rolls, as that makes the game flow better at the table.) All skills are in a skill family, so you have a base rating for the entire family, plus extra dice for specific skills you specialize in.Does the DC target shift? Like doing something easy is a 6 and tough is an 8 and really tough is a 10? Then, you took your dice pool XD6 where x=skill points and roll? Seems like an interesting idea, I do love me some skill focused RPG systems.
Exactly!
The general Difficulty Chart lists targets as...
Very Easy - 5
Easy - 10
Moderate - 15
Difficult - 20
Very Difficult - 30
Most characters have 2D or 3D in their base skill families, and the skills they're really good at are rated at 4D or 5D... or higher.
Characters also have a number of Force Points that they can spend to double their skill on a given roll... for when you only have one shot to get to point-blank range and fire your proton torpedoes at a secondary exhaust port.
You pretty much have to spend a Force Point to hit that 30: It's rare to get a skill at 6D or higher.
As an aside: I've mentioned that I'm a member of The Gauntlet RPG community. One of our prominent members is a HUGE Star Wars fan, and he's been running an ongoing series for years called "Star Wars Saturdays". In that series, he re-skins a non-SW TTRPG to play in the Star Wars universe.
Some examples he's had a LOT of fun with...
"Hutt Cartel": Playing in the criminal underworld of Jabba's crime syndicate using Cartel, an RPG about Mexican narcofiction.
"Bounty of the Week": PCs are bounty-hunters after elusive quarry in a hack of the modern-day monster-hunting RPG Monster of the Week
"The Droids": PCs are several of Jabba's droids still guarding Jabba's palace after his death at the end of Return of the Jedi... a hack of Jason Morningstar's RPG The Skeletons
"Rogue Squadron": The PCs are a group of misfit Rebel fighter pilots living on a remote base and their troubled interpersonal relationships, crossed with the terror of raiding Imperial shipping lines in a hack of the semi-historical WWII Soviet bomber squadron RPG Night Witches.
"Jedi Kids": The PCs are young padawans at the Jedi Academy getting into hijinks in a hack of Kids On Brooms.
"The Dark Side Beckons": Near the end of the Clone Wars, a group of Jedi seek answers about the Sith in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban. The place is not nearly as abandoned as they'd expected. A Star Wars-themed incursion for Trophy Dark.
Thats great. It models the feel of different SW media. Like the space opera films, and the pulpy action series Mando, and the various comic books.
I like the idea of doing that, I'm just not a big SW guy. The Jedi and force stuff tends to get in the way of the stories I want to tell. Which are more like Mando than Skywalker. One of the things that drove me away is all the ego-tripping Jedi wanna-bes always trying to one up everyone else. Thats my experience baggage though.
As an aside: I've mentioned that I'm a member of The Gauntlet RPG community. One of our prominent members is a HUGE Star Wars fan, and he's been running an ongoing series for years called "Star Wars Saturdays". In that series, he re-skins a non-SW TTRPG to play in the Star Wars universe.
I had a friend who ran a Star Wars pastiche version of Earthdawn. It didn't last long, but it was fun.
Of the Star Wars systems I've run all but the Saga edition D20, which I'm told played a bit like 4e but didn't "feel" like 4e. I've spent the most time running WEG and FFG, having bought Edge of the Empire when it released in 2013 and running three separate multi-year campaigns.
I'd say between WEG and FFG it's about equal on the amount of fun we've had playing the game (same players for the most part at our aging table) where D20 Star Wars never quite satisfied everyone at the table.
I'm a casual Star Wars fan... I've only watched the theatrical movies plus The Mandalorian.
Honestly, the scifi universe that really calls to me is Star Trek.
Has anyone played any of the various Star Trek RPGs, official or otherwise?
When I was in college back in the late '80s, I played a little of FASA's Star Trek Role-Playing Game... maybe 5 or 6 sessions. Our game was set in the Original Series era, specifically not long after the events of the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. We were the bridge crew of the Enterprise-class starship USS Lexington. I recall we had a run-in with the Tholians and explored a planet run by an AI run amok. The books were already out-of-print at the time, so I never owned a copy (and this was pre-Internet), so I don't really remember the rules too well.
In the mid-'90s, I played in a GURPS: Space campaign that was set in the Star Trek TNG era, but our characters weren't Starfleet: We were Maquis freedom fighters working to other other planets on the Federation/Cardassian border from Cardassian rule. It was kind of fun, but the GM was a bit too railroad-y for my tastes and regularly told PCs what they thought or felt.
In the early aughts, I played in a short campaign using Last Unicorn Games' Star Trek: The Next Generation Role-Playing Game. We were the crew of the Nebula-class starship USS Essex, and we ran through some of the adventures published in the Planetary Adventures module anthology. I really liked this game, and was sad when LUG lost the license.
I've picked up a copy of the current 2d20 system game Star Trek Adventures RPG by Mophidius Entertainment. I've only played it once, and that session consisted almost entirely of character creation. It looks like a great system, although it has a heavier ruleset than I'm usually comfortable with. (The Gauntlet just published a blog post by community member Lowell Francis about how he cut down the rules significantly but kept the basic feel of the game for a version he calls "Star Trek Adventures Express".}
And, of course, the one-page RPG Lasers & Feelings by John Harper is at its heart a loving, light-hearted Star Trek pastiche!
Anyone else have Star Trek RPG gaming under their belt?
Haladir, does the Gauntlet have any C'thulu horror type games? I've been going through old notebooks and such and nostalgia kicked in. Reread a couple short stories from HP and reminisced with a friend online about a CoC game we played.
Yes! While Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu isn't really The Gauntlet's jam, there often are games that explore cosmic horror, whether Lovecraftian or not.
Recently, I've seen sessions on the game calendar for Trail of Cthulhu (Pelgrane Press), Cthulhu Dark (Graham Walmsley), Fate of Cthulhu (Evil Hat Productions), Lovecraftesque (Black Armada Games), and other cosmic horror games.
If you would like to play Call of Cthulhu online, I can recommend another online gaming community that I'm loosely affiliated with. Gehenna Gaming is a horror RPG community, both online and off. They're based in the Boston area, but have groups all around... and since the pandemic, they've really been beefing up their online presence. Gehenna plays mostly CoC and World of Darkness games, but they're branching out into other horror gaming.
Back in December 2019, I attended PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia. I had volunteered to run some sessions of Cartel, Zombie World, and Bluebeard's Bride for Magpie Games... and the Gehenna Gaming people were sharing the same game-room. I ended up having a long chat with one of their co-founders, and ended up joining in a game of Call of Cthulhu with them. They are really nice people! I haven't played an online game with them yet, but I'm hoping to sometime soon.
BTW, Gehenna Gaming is running an online convention this weekend: Virtual Horror Con 2021. Alas, I have other things on my calendar and will not be attending.
I'm a casual Star Wars fan... I've only watched the theatrical movies plus The Mandalorian.
Honestly, the scifi universe that really calls to me is Star Trek.
Has anyone played any of the various Star Trek RPGs, official or otherwise?
I've gone down that road more than once, but I've sadly never quite been satisfied with the results. I think Star Trek is a perfect example that system mechanics can't always get around issues of tone and style. The play groups I've tried Official Trek with over the years have almost all grown tired of the chain of command pretty quickly.
I've a little experience with FASA and a little experience with LUG-Trek, some extensive experience with Decipher's Trek from the early 00's (which was wonky to say the least) and was one of the playtesters for Modiphius' STA.
The best experiences I've had running Star Trek have been in limited run stories rather than ongoing campaigns.
FFG Star Wars and Star Trek Adventures share a little design DNA given that Jay Little was the lead designer for FFG's SW before being hired by Modiphius and taking the role of lead designer of the 2D20 system.
I've toyed around with the notion of reskinning Genesys' space setting (a little less space opera-y than SW) and attempting to run Star Trek within it.
Zero Star Trek RPG experience here. I did grow up watching TOS, TNG, DS9, and of course the films. So I like the franchise, but I also like my sci-fi a little on the harder side. As an adult the only Trek I appreciate anymore is DS9. I haven't seen Discovery or Picard yet.
That said, I do incorporate a lot of TOS into my Traveller games. Much of the space my games take place in is charted, but there is a two tier aspect to life in the Third Imperium. First there are the Travellers and spaceports. These folks are soldiers, traders, diplomats travelling around conducting business. The second tier, are the folks who live in the systems themselves. Each system has its own unique culture and quirks. Its often adventure itself having the Travellers navigate the sea of mores and political intrigue. I borrow a lot from Trek in this respect.
I almost got into a one shot demo of Star Trek Adventures by Mophidius, but it never materialized. I would love to get some experience with the 2D20 system.
I am a big fan of The Expanse series. Though I have not tried the Modern Age system yet either.
I'm a casual Star Wars fan... I've only watched the theatrical movies plus The Mandalorian.
Honestly, the scifi universe that really calls to me is Star Trek.
Has anyone played any of the various Star Trek RPGs, official or otherwise?
I've gone down that road more than once, but I've sadly never quite been satisfied with the results. I think Star Trek is a perfect example that system mechanics can't always get around issues of tone and style. The play groups I've tried Official Trek with over the years have almost all grown tired of the chain of command pretty quickly.
I've a little experience with FASA and a little experience with LUG-Trek, some extensive experience with Decipher's Trek from the early 00's (which was wonky to say the least) and was one of the playtesters for Modiphius' STA.
The best experiences I've had running Star Trek have been in limited run stories rather than ongoing campaigns.
I wonder if it would work better to play non-Federation Navy in the setting? Avoid the chain of command issues, that I agree generally don't work well in rpgs, by being a private research/exploration ship or something like that.
Might be too far away from what people expect out of Trek though.
Honestly, I'd love a game where the GM was the Captain of the ship and the crew the players. The players solve the problems and have to convince the captain on occasion to change or disobey their Fleet command orders. Deal with the fall out accordingly.
Then again, political intrigue is my jam in gaming.
I've gone down that road more than once, but I've sadly never quite been satisfied with the results. I think Star Trek is a perfect example that system mechanics can't always get around issues of tone and style. The play groups I've tried Official Trek with over the years have almost all grown tired of the chain of command pretty quickly.I'm a casual Star Wars fan... I've only watched the theatrical movies plus The Mandalorian.
Honestly, the scifi universe that really calls to me is Star Trek.
Has anyone played any of the various Star Trek RPGs, official or otherwise?
The FASA game from the '80s got around the chain-of-command issue by recommending that the ship's captain be an NPC. That sometimes created more problems than it solved.
The folks I've talked with who've run STA for campaigns of 8-12 sessions say one thing they do that works is to lean in to a given session being an episode of a Star Trek TV show, complete with a "Previously on Star Trek" flashback montage; special guest stars (illustrated with images of known actors Photoshopped into Starfleet uniforms); budget constraints (i.e. limiting scenes to two or three episode-specific sets on the soundstage); or even commercial breaks (set up a minor cliffhanger, call for a break, then come back to resolve the cliffhanger with time to think about it).
I am a big fan of The Expanse series. Though I have not tried the Modern Age system yet either.
I have a copy of Green Ronin's The Expanse RPG (I was a Kickstarter backer), but I have yet to bring it to the table. My only experience with the Adventure Game Engine was a 4-session run of Blue Rose a couple of years ago. (My verdict: Loved the setting, but thought the system was just OK... I thought PbtA would have handled the Aldis campaign setting better.)
Back in 2016 or 17, we ran an Expanse campaign using the PbtA RPG Uncharted Worlds. Yhe game was fun but the system wasn't really firing on all cylinders for the setting. UW is designed more for a Traveller-style experience... still hard scifi, but at a much larger scale than The Expanse. Another critique for UW is that it attempts a "generic scifi" approach to setting, while PbtA shines brightest when it the rules can dig into a specific subgenre... leaving UW to fall a bit flat.
On my backburner are some thoughts of hacking UW to build in more specificity to make it really shine for The Expanse. But other game design projects have a higher priority.
Honestly, I'd love a game where the GM was the Captain of the ship and the crew the players. The players solve the problems and have to convince the captain on occasion to change or disobey their Fleet command orders. Deal with the fall out accordingly.
Then again, political intrigue is my jam in gaming.
I've tried the GM Captain angle, and the immediate reaction was that it took away some player agency when we got into ship board actions like combat.
What ended up working best was creating a conceit where a group of department heads of equal rank are left in charge after an accident sidelined the Captain, XO and the Lt. Commander without anyone being clearly given the conn.
Only Star Trek I've really played is the Fleet Captains board game from Wizkids. I have the Romulan and Dominion expansion packs. I've heard good things about Ascendency too.
Did you guys ever play Star Fleet Battles? I think that's what it was called. Essentially it was just car wars but with space ships.
I tried to play SFB a couple of times with the college gaming club when I was 19 or so. The other players were very into it and also cutthroat. They gave no quarter to people trying to learn the game.
It wasn't fun at all, and my interest in the game never returned.
Also in college, and with a different group of wargamers, I tried playing one of those Avalon Hill modern-day strategic naval wargames. I think it was 7th Fleet or maybe Harpoon (it was 30 years ago). I thought I was making decent decisions, but I couldn't roll dice to save my life... or my fleet. I was playing the Americans (vs. the Soviets) in the 1980s.
At one point, it was my turn to move the USS Nimitz Carrier Battle Group. I rolled the "Detection" phase to see what I could find out about the enemy fleet that I knew was somewhere nearby. Satellite detection: Botch. Radar: Botch. Air patrol: Botch. SONAR: Botch. SIGINT: Botch. Visual detection (i.e. guy with binoculars): Botch.
The Minsk carrier battle group snuck up on me, and hit my battlegroup hard-- only my air recon craft and their escorts were airborne, so the large majority of my F-14s and F-18s were still on the Nimitz. Air defense: Botch. AEGIS missile defense (3 Ticonderoga-class cruisers) botch, botch, and one hit, taking out one ship-to-ship missile. Point defense: Botch, botch, botch, and hit, taking out one other ship-to-ship missile. The other four slammed into the Nimitz. Damage control roll: Botch, botch, botch. And the USS Nimitz and most of her aircraft sank to the bottom of the Pacific.
With the loss of nearly all air cover, the remaining ships (the battleship USS Wisconsin, the three guided missile cruisers, a bunch of destroyers, and three Los Angeles-class attack subs) attempted to make a fighting retreat. On the next round, my ships took out a few Soviet aircraft and damaged one of their cruisers... and on their turn they shot down all of my remaining aircraft (which would have died in another round anyway because they had nowhere to land), the USS Ticonderoga and two destroyers were crippled, and one sub was badly damaged by depth charges. We surrendered.
And that was the last time I played a strategic wargame.
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Somewhere upthread several folks were saying that players' initial experience in an RPG can color the way they play, regardless of system. I think this is also true of HOW they were brought in and taught to play, not just how things went once they were at the table.
Like for me, it was my older brothers inviting me to hang with the "cool" kids and my brother David was the DM for AD&D. He's been either a TA, teacher/professor, lab lead or trainer at every job he's held and in general he's a very patient, inclusive guy so that definitely colors the way I view D&D and a lot of RPGs.
Ironically I had the same experience that Haladir had with SFB, except with several strategic board games. Risk, Axis and Allies, and Settlers of Catan all leap to mind as games I was thrown into, little to no education on, with folks that absolutely played to win. I have had little to no desire to play such games most of my adult life, except in instances where I know the players very well.
That's something interesting to me in terms of "systems as journey." How we START that journey can make some or all systems, regardless of the amount of crunch or story, either engaging or off-putting.
Agreed 100%.
When I first started playing D&D, I was 11 or 12 years old. The kid that invited me into his group was 15, and his group consisted of his 18-year-old brother, and two of his brother's friends who were themselves college students. They were all super-nice to me, and did a great job of not just teaching me the rules of the game, but also gave me positive feedback for being clever, and encouraged playing in-character and thinking about the game as both a world to be explored and a story to be told.
I only played with those guys five or six times: the age gap was kind of weird, and they all lived way over on the other side of town and it was too far to bike. But they really showed me how to bring new players into the hobby: With patience, kindness, and encouragement. 40 years later, those are all things I still strive to bring to any group I'm a part of. (And when that's not part of the table culture, I'm out.)
And it's one reason I have absolutely no patience for gatekeeping.
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Somewhere upthread several folks were saying that players' initial experience in an RPG can color the way they play, regardless of system. I think this is also true of HOW they were brought in and taught to play, not just how things went once they were at the table.
Like for me, it was my older brothers inviting me to hang with the "cool" kids and my brother David was the DM for AD&D. He's been either a TA, teacher/professor, lab lead or trainer at every job he's held and in general he's a very patient, inclusive guy so that definitely colors the way I view D&D and a lot of RPGs.
Ironically I had the same experience that Haladir had with SFB, except with several strategic board games. Risk, Axis and Allies, and Settlers of Catan all leap to mind as games I was thrown into, little to no education on, with folks that absolutely played to win. I have had little to no desire to play such games most of my adult life, except in instances where I know the players very well.
That's something interesting to me in terms of "systems as journey." How we START that journey can make some or all systems, regardless of the amount of crunch or story, either engaging or off-putting.
Agreed 100%.
When I first started playing D&D, I was 11 or 12 years old. The kid that invited me into his group was 15, and his group consisted of his 18-year-old brother, and two of his brother's friends who were themselves college students. They were all super-nice to me, and did a great job of not just teaching me the rules of the game, but also gave me positive feedback for being clever, and encouraged playing in-character and thinking about the game as both a world to be explored and a story to be told.
I only played with those guys five or six times: the age gap was kind of weird, and they all lived way over on the other side of town and it was too far to bike. But they really showed me how to bring new players into the hobby: With patience, kindness, and encouragement. 40 years later,...
You both were lucky to have guides and teachers. I never did as a kid but always wanted one. Even in my adult years, I learned the hard way how to teach, run, and have fun with TTRPGs. I look forward to my nephew growing up and introducing him to things like HeroQuest and such to see if he has appetite for gaming.