Designer’s Cards-or-Tables Dilemma

 “Random chance plays a huge part in everybody’s life.”

— Gary Gygax

To use cards or not to use cards? That’s a question some designers might consider when developing mechanics for a particular game. Cards can deliver a similar infusion of effects we get from rolling dice on random tables. Differences exist in the two systems, but the result — generating a randomized element from a thematic list — remains the same. I’m debating whether to use cards or tables for a game I’m in the early stages of developing, a solitaire simulation focusing on supplying the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. As a player I love cards: the tactile nature, the space for illustrations, blurbs of lore, and stylized icons for values and functions. But at this early stage, and from a designer’s perspective, I’m leaning toward random tables as an expedient to focus more on concepts and system rather than give in to my urge to obsess over physical components.

Thoughts on Star Wars: Battle of Hoth

 “My lord, there are so many uncharted settlements. It could be smugglers, it could be....”

— Admiral Ozzel

Last week, on its Facebook page, Days of Wonder released information and photos about a Star Wars: Battle of Hoth board game based on Richard Borg’s venerable Commands & Colors (C&C) game system. The news rapidly spread across the adventure gaming hobby internet landscape. Although stodgy old former reporters like myself might prefer to wait for some official press release on a website, I could not ignore this news (though one might argue such announcements on social media are now more acceptable or reliable than any official communication on something so antiquated as a corporate website). My production manager at West End Games uttered some colorful sayings in appropriate circumstances. The buzz surrounding this announcement brings one to mind: “Opinions are like [DELETED]; everybody has one.” (You can fill in “[DELETED]” with your imagined appropriately common and arguably vulgar body part.) I’m sure everyone concerned will debate the game with every teased bit of news until well after it’s released. Normally I wouldn’t wade into forum discussions — and I won’t — but I thought readers might care for my opinion with some perspective from a longtime Star Wars fan, a veteran gamer, and a gamer dad, all in the context of the business of making money in these uncertain financial times. I’m very excited about Star Wars: Battle of Hoth, but, like any game consumer, I take into account many factors, including personal ones, when considering whether I would ultimately purchase the game. For those few who wonder or care, I’m still undecided, but leaning toward passing on this one.

The Ephemeral Nature of Games

 “Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”

– Napoleon Bonaparte

All things must pass...and so too with games. Despite the wonders of the internet helping to produce, disseminate, and preserve PDF games and a host of websites helping gamers to obtain those hard-to-find treasures, many games still pass into the dread territory of “out of print,” becoming difficult if not impossible to find. Consider the ages of different aspects of the hobby: miniatures wargames 110 years (by far the oldest, based on H.G. Wells’ Little Wars); board wargames 71 (based on Charles S. Roberts’ Tactics); roleplaying games 49; collectible card games 30; Euro-style board games 28. All relatively recent as history goes, and most within our lifetimes (okay, my long, increasingly weary lifetime). Some live, legally or otherwise, in PDF on the internet; but many fade into memory, tossed into the trash or sold at flea markets, their mark on our gaming culture out of reach of future generations. Few, if any, archives actively seek to preserve a record of adventure gaming hobby materials, most notably the Strong National Museum of Play; regrettably our nation’s venerable Library of Congress does not (a subject I’ve wanted to blog on for years now but just can’t given our volatile political climate). Each of us enters the adventure gaming hobby at different points in its history and our own lives. Our interests can wander or change across genres and forms. So when we discover something “new to us” that engages our interest, finding it can prove challenging in our increasingly disposable, capitalist society which cultivates a “fear of missing out” (or FOMO) on the “new hotness” of the moment.

Behind the Publishing Curtain

 “I hate and love. And why, perhaps you’ll ask. I don’t know: but I feel, and I’m tormented.”

– Catullus

History of gaming scholar Jon Peterson’s latest book releases in October. Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons, from The MIT Press, promises to turn Peterson’s meticulous research onto the early years of TSR, up to Gary Gygax’s forced departure from the company in 1985. I’ve read several books claiming to document the history of the game industry and the evolution of games, including Peterson’s groundbreaking Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games. I enjoy reading behind-the-scenes accounts of my favorite game companies – having worked professionally full-time and freelance in the hobby – but I also loathe them for their constant, often explosive struggles between creative personalities and ruthless business motives.

West End Memoirs: Scott Palter

On Monday, February 17, 2020, Daniel Scott Palter passed away. He was best-known as the founder and owner of West End Games, yet also infamously known as the person who sent the company into bankruptcy, losing the license for what was the groundbreaking first Star Wars roleplaying game. I’m sure some people – particularly those who lost jobs and opportunities with the company’s bankruptcy – hated him and never forgave him for what he did to West End in those final days. Over the years I’ve had to reconcile my feelings toward him. I have the natural animosity over West End’s demise. But I also realize he provided me with an opportunity to have my dream job: working full-time as a designer and editor at a roleplaying game company, and with the Star Wars franchise, no less. Despite all the frustration and drama, they remain the most fulfilling, productive five years of my professional life.

Trapped in the Museum 20 Years Later

I just published the 20th anniversary edition of Trapped in the Museum, a solitaire adventure gamebook I first released back in 1999. Back then S. John Ross gave me his kind permission and much-needed encouragement to use his Risus: The Anything RPG game system for the brief pulpy tale of a college student who suddenly wakes up in a dark, locked museum. Another mutual friend, Shawn Lockard – who for a while hosted the WEDGE West End Games fan website – maintained a site for me where the free solo gamebook lived for a while. At one point I even printed copies to give away at the few convention appearances I was making at the time. It was all in an effort to keep my name and game design reputation in the public eye in the hopes it might attract some freelance writing work. It was the unintentional launch of a 20-year independent publishing career.

Limitations of Programmed Solo Adventures

I’m wrapping up work on two programmed solitaire adventures, a 20th anniversary revision of my Trapped in the Museum free adventure and a much more substantial science fiction scenario, The Asturia Incident, each using the OpenD6 system. I enjoyed working on them. They offered a break from more traditional roleplaying game writing and allowed me to have fun exploring elements within each genre. Both serve as tutorial adventures walking players through the skill-roll process in numerous situations, though this proved a bit more difficult to adjudicate thoroughly in the longer scenario. And while I’m thinking about developing a substantial pulp-themed solo adventure (a sequel of sorts to Trapped in the Museum), I feel I need some time to cleanse my palate from the rigors of programmed solo scenario writing. As entertaining as I hope the final product might seem, writing a programmed solo adventure takes a great deal of creative effort and has limited appeal in the roleplaying gamer market.

Do I Need that New Edition?

Seems like everyone’s releasing a new edition of our favorite games these days through regular hobby distribution channels, online, or Kickstarter campaigns. Some are genuinely updated and overhauled, others are classic games in spiffy looking refurbished packages with enhanced contents. Each time I see one of these I mentally undergo a quick evaluation – did I enjoy an earlier edition, do I like the setting and mechanics, will I play it, can I afford it? – and almost as quickly dismiss it. (Exceptions exist: see below.) I expect most gamers employ a similar cognitive subroutine whenever the prospect of any game purchase arises; but new editions often add an extra factor, that we already have a version of the game, one we most likely enjoy. Can it rekindle the love we once felt for this game? Can this new edition encourage and enhance additional gameplay? Is it simply a money pit to cash in on our nostalgia?

Beyond First Edition RPGs

The release of subsequent editions of roleplaying games carries different significance for publishers and gamers. Professional publishers often develop subsequent editions to further refine the game system or setting, but usually with the core motivation of launching a new product or product line to stimulate sales. As consumers, gamers have the prerogative to invest their money in what they like; some love new editions of their favorite titles, others try one edition and either stick with it or move on to something else (just as some gamers find everything they need from a game’s core rulebook while others need every published supplement). Do gamers really need subsequent editions, or would publishers’ efforts be better spent on developing and releasing innovative new rules and settings?

DIY Licensed Games

Last week I talked about professional publishers releasing licensed roleplaying games based on popular media properties, particularly in the context of West End Games’ often ambitious licensing designs in the mid-1990s. But in a hobby often infused with a do-it-yourself spirit nothing prevents individual gamers from running their own adventures in their favorite film, television, novel, and comic book settings. The roleplaying game hobby has always cultivated an informal tradition of gamers doing their own thing, taking established games or settings and developing them for their local player groups. Reading Jon Peterson’s Playing at the World one realizes how the entire adventure gaming hobby evolved from people taking someone else’s ideas and modifying them to varying degrees into something different. In the same vein fans sometimes unofficially channel their enthusiasm for a media property into their roleplaying games, often in a more timely manner than professionally published licensed games delayed by the production and approval process.

WEG Memoirs: Licensed Games

West End Games offices, 1993.

I’ve wanted to talk about games based on licensed media properties for a while, both from the angle of professional publishing companies and hobby enthusiasts. During its final few years (1993-1998) West End Games focused a great deal of its energy on acquiring licenses and publishing games based on them, to the point some considered it the leader in licensed games. My experience working for West End sheds some light on issues facing professional publishers in producing game product based on popular media franchises. Like many aspects of West End, this endeavor involved a lot of scrambling behind the scenes and a great deal of risk.

Persistence & Professionalism

Several factors came together last week to remind me of two important elements from my own game-writing experience: persistence and professionalism. I’m puttering around tidying up parts of my office (along with other bits in the house long-neglected in my fight against the Lords of Chaos and their glaciers of clutter); I stumbled upon some letters and materials from my earliest game submissions in my high school days, embarrassing tidbits from a time when I didn’t quite know what I was doing. My brother-in-law’s family got me Stephen King’s On Writing for Christmas, in which I’m finding some inspiration and re-affirmation. It’s all reminding me how much persistence and professionalism have played a role in my growth as a writer.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

I recently discovered a resource of adventure gaming historiography at the regional used bookstore that – besides providing an interesting and critical glimpse into the state of the hobby in 1980 – struck me by its relative lack of acknowledgment to individual game designers for their creations. I’m thankful that over the hobby’s more than 40 year history giving designers their due credit has become more the rule rather than the exception in today’s hobby gaming community.

Every few months I make a pilgrimage to the regional used bookstore with some (often futile) hope I’ll find a few books or even games catering to my varied interests at affordable prices. In the past few years the store has thankfully included a section for used games, ranging from vapid party games and kids fare to hardcore chit-and-board wargames and Eurogames. I also check out the hobby gaming shelves to look for adventures and supplements for games I’ve enjoyed in the past, newer fare to help me explore more recent games, and books about gaming in general. Alas, most of the choice roleplaying or wargame books and most of the interesting boxed games come with prices more suitable for exclusive collectors on ebay than average people browsing the shelves in used bookstores. I chuckle sadly to myself when I see a “Free RPG Day” release marked at $10.

The Subscription Model for The Infinite Cathedral

Photo by David Schweighofer

I’ve been developing a medieval fantasy roleplaying game setting – The Infinite Cathedral – on-and-off for longer than I care to remember. It’s undergone refinements, revisions, and expansions as I’ve worked on different portions throughout the years. I’ve drafted and reworked various chapters to one degree or another. I have sections ready for publication and others consisting of sketchy notes, ideas in my head, and good intentions. But over time my expectations for the project’s format have evolved in line with my more recent reflections on publishing and my personal aesthetics about game material. What’s the best method – from the perspectives of both publisher and readers – to release this grand opus? Do I spend time building a vast sourcebook in the traditional publishing model or do I release bits as the inspiration energizes me and smaller portions reach completion? How can I establish the setting and expand upon it within the parameters of these forms? The conventional publisher part of my brain leans toward the standard sourcebook format, but the player within me (and the one seeking more timely remuneration) seeks a route that allows me to release short-but-sweet morsels on a more immediate schedule.

WEG Memoirs: Player to Publisher

When I first began working at West End Games in 1993 I had to rapidly transition my mindset from that of a Star Wars gamer fan to that of an editor for an established Star Wars game line. I had experience on both fronts, having played roleplaying games since 1982, including the Star Wars game since its publication in 1987, and having worked for almost three years as a reporter and then an editor at a hometown weekly newspaper with a particularly exacting editorial mentor. My newspaper experience prepared me for various aspects of working at West End’s editorial department, yet my adventures with the Star Wars Roleplaying Game didn’t prepare me for managing with and in fact relying on the greater “Expanded Universe” that, even in those early days of Star Wars’ resurgence with fans, was rapidly growing out of hand.

WEG Memoirs: Star Wars Fleet Game

The Little Guy and I attended a wargaming convention in Williamsburg this past weekend, where he won a copy of Star Wars: Armada in the charity teacup raffle. We weren’t home long before the box was open, he was checking out the pre-painted ships, I was reading rules, and we both started popping out and organizing perforated cardstock game components. We gave it a try on my old three-foot-square felt starfield I painted years ago for West End Games demos and had a blast. It’s the kind of game West End could never have produced, though it did consider publishing a Star Wars tactical fleet-level game.

WEG Memoirs: The Schedule Boards

Back when I first started working at West End Games the company maintained a schedule board listing all the products set for publication in the coming months. The board displayed an impressive array of products, often two or three each month. The board was sacrosanct. Moving or, gasp, dropping a product plunged everything into chaos. Yet it enabled the company to efficiently produce and publish product to a distribution system and retailer network – and ultimately to customers – whose revenues enabled the company to persist. The schedule board demonstrates to me one of the differences between today’s throng of small-press, independent, and often single-creator publishers and the few remaining, well-established, corporate game publishers; one creates for love, the other for money.

West End’s offices occupied the second floor of an unobtrusive warehouse on Route 191 north of Honesdale, PA; the infamous Bucci Imports shoe business used the downstairs offices. Owner Scott Palter maintained his office on the first floor, but it is here where the schedule board first resided when I started working there as an editor in the summer of 1993. The oversized bulletin board contained an index card for every project in production, arranged beneath the upcoming 18 months. After a while – I don’t recall how long – something happened that necessitated the board migrating upstairs into the West End conference room, where everyone could check it when needed and passionately debate what titles needed to move for various reasons that seemed important at the time. No doubt it made more sense to put it in the meeting room to accommodate the growing ranks of West End’s editors instead of constantly cramming into the owner’s office. Staffers hastily covered it up with a sheet when visitors came to the offices, an extremely rare occurrence.

Introducing Newcomers to Games: Theme & Mechanics

Last week’s post about “Attracting Newcomers to Roleplaying Games” inspired me to consider two factors that might influence people in trying new games. A game’s theme and complexity are usually topics discussed from the design standpoint: does one start with a theme and build game rules around it, or does one begin with a play mechanic and build a themed game around that? Yet theme and the complexity of mechanics also figure into the conundrum of how best to introduce people into any games within the adventure gaming hobby. For beginners – especially complete newcomers – I find an attractive theme can best engage their enthusiasm to try a game, while good mechanics (with light yet intuitive complexity) can provide an enjoyable play experience and bring them back to the table for a second try.

For many people a game’s theme initially interests them. Theme gets players to the table, understandable and engaging mechanics help transform that theme into a rewarding play experience. For instance, if I asked a five year-old if he wanted to play a game about hunting dinosaurs or one with a “push your luck” mechanic, he’s going to want to play something with dinosaurs; as it happens, these elements both describe Steve Jackson Games’ Dino Hunt Dice, yet new players hone in more on the enticing theme than the game rules.

Attracting Newcomers to Roleplaying Games

The recent discussion over at Tenkar’s Tavern and blog posts like Sword Peddler’s about the effectiveness of Free RPG Day started me thinking once again about how we as gamers, designers, and publishers can draw newcomers into the adventure gaming hobby. It’s a tricky gambit considering roleplaying games are still a very niche hobby, despite popular culture’s general acceptance of Dungeons & Dragons as a permissible geeky pursuit. Most people still associate roleplaying game exclusively with D&D without realizing how many amazing games exist from both established publishers and innovative individuals, in game stores and online, for sale and for free. How can we do a better job of sharing our hobby with curious newcomers?

Free RPG Day is an organized event meant to promote roleplaying games. Since it’s run by a game distributor it has the understandable bias of supporting sales at brick-and-mortar Friendly Local Game Stores (FLGS) that give them business anyway. Just as a distributor can’t force a store to conduct business a certain way, it can only offer unenforceable guidelines on what to do with the “free” loot provided for this event. Free RPG Day is, as its organizers freely admit, no longer about introducing newcomers to the hobby but more about rewarding the hobby’s ardent supporters with free gaming materials. This effort remains highly dependent on the FLGS whose facilities and enthusiasm in hosting these events vary immensely (as well as publishers providing appropriate material). I’ve heard of stores charging for the free items, hoarding them for later sale or giveaways, and not participating at all (like the two closest to me). I’ve also heard great reports of stores with busy play areas, gatherings of avid fans, and attempts at introducing newcomers to the hobby with demo games.

WEG Memoirs: The TORG Map

West End Games' offices, Honesdale, PA, 1993

When I first began working at West End Game as the Star Wars Adventure Journal editor in the summer of 1993 I passed the massive TORG map every day. It sat in a windowless inner office in the second-floor offices (with the infamous shoe company and “management” downstairs). Someone had somehow acquired a huge, wall-spanning world map (possibly from National Geographic, it’s so long ago I don’t recall) and pinned on it different notations to show where each TORG cosm had invaded, such as triangles of yarn or construction paper circles. This was the map, the place where the game-designers could chart the progress of storm knights from across the gaming landscape. And it was already too late.

I never got into TORG, the game in which multiple dimensions or “cosms” of various genres invaded a near-future earth and the characters – heroic “storm knights” – had to foil their plans for world domination. But in its heyday in the early 1990s it tried charting new territory for roleplaying game campaigns...certainly new for West End Games. It launched in 1990 after an aggressive and enticing ad campaign. I remember seeing the color advertisements in Dragon Magazine, then perhaps still the best “pulse” of the gaming industry. They warned that a storm was brewing, with dark clouded, lightning-streaked backgrounds and ominous in-universe quotes from characters spanning several genres. The “Possibility Wars” were coming. It was going to be “A New Roleplaying Game Experience.” And it did pretty well initially. Several novels developed the setting from a literary perspective. The boxed set came with a slew of rule- and sourcebooks, three decks worth of cards, and two speckled 20-sided dice. The game line churned out an impressive slew of sourcebooks and scenarios, along with an occasional newsletter. I’d daresay it is one of the more notable creations from Greg Gorden and Bill Slavicsek.