Morschauser’s Wargame Rules

 “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

— Henry David Thoreau

I’ve enjoyed many of John Curry’s volumes in his History of Wargames Project, from republication of early wargame rules and historical wargames used for training and analysis to treatises on matrix games and other serious wargaming. I recently acquired one that had previously eluded me, Joseph Morschauser’s How to Play War Games in Miniature: A Forgotten Wargaming Pioneer: Early Wargames Vol. 3. I was initially lured to it by the claim it included an introduction of a gridded play surface into miniature wargaming, but I pleasantly found it filled with intuitive, concise rules, options for basing, and overall solid advice for miniature wargaming newcomers just as relevant and inspiring as when it was first published more than 50 years ago. It was a refreshing affirmation of many miniature wargaming elements I’ve come to enjoy over the years: concise simplicity; based units; flexibility between open battlefield and gridded surface; flexibility between eliminating units or keeping a roster for a multiple hit system; and an overall informative and welcoming approach to hobby.

Inspiration from Adventure Gaming Magazine

 “I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”

— Hermann Hesse

As much as I have rambled on over the years about missing print magazines like TSR’s Dragon, that periodical was not the very first adventure gaming hobby magazine to which I was exposed. Way back in 1982 I’d just finished eighth grade in junior high school. A few months earlier I’d received the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set as an Easter present and immersed myself in the game. But now school was out for the summer. I took my hoarded allowance and biked down to the Branchville Hobby Shop to purchase the D&D Expert Set to fuel my summertime gaming exploits. After I paid, the clerk tossed an old issue of Adventure Gaming magazine into the bag. My first experience with a print gaming magazine was purely by chance, a “wandering monster” kind of encounter that gave me a new avenue through which to explore the hobby...one that started me down a road into writing and publishing.

Remembering Al Leonardi

 “A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Al Leonardi, from his interview
in Adventure Gaming #4, Oct. 1981,
a few years before I met him.

Last week we learned Alfred Leonardi passed away on July 12, 2025. He was a history teacher who used games to engage his students, yet among gamers is perhaps best known for his innovative “combat picture book games” like Ace of Aces and the Lost Worlds series. Leonardi’s obituary celebrates a man who loved teaching, loved games, and loved bringing history to life through games. He reminds me how a passion for teaching and learning can manifest itself through games to both entertain and educate. I met him back in 1985 at my first-ever game convention. Leonardi took the time to talk with a socially awkward teenager who exhibited near-uncontained exuberance for the adventure gaming hobby at the time. I only met him that once, far too briefly, yet in his own way Leonardi’s enthusiasm lurked in the back of my years of hobby activity. His dedication to games and education has been lurking in my subconscious ever since, quietly reminding me that using games remains an entertaining and effective method for learning.

Games in Magazines

 “Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.”

— Marcus Aurelius

On a recent trip to the local used book store I found several issues of Game Fix magazine, a slim wargaming periodical published in the mid 1990s. Every cover sported a banner declaring “Complete Game Included!” And indeed every issue contained a wargame, many hex-and-chit-style games, but some including card sheets to cut apart. Nothing huge like the old Avalon Hill bookcase games, but satisfying morsels on a variety of historical topics. They reminded me both of the much-lamented heyday of gaming magazines in the late 20th century as well as the early practice of including scenarios and games in those publications. Both trends have since disappeared in the electronic onslaught of the 21st century’s Internet Age — with a deluge of similar material currently available for free online, if you know where to find it — but my wistful nostalgia still pines for those days...and celebrates when I find artifacts of that lost gaming culture.

My Favorite RPGs

 “In our leisure we reveal what kind of people we are.”

— Ovid

Goodness knows I’ve played a good number of roleplaying games over the years. Sometimes I dabbled by reading rule- and sourcebooks, drafting some characters, jotting down adventure notes, even writing entire scenarios. Other times, after all the preparatory play activities, I brought a game to the table with friends or even strangers at a convention. I’ve played one-shots and lengthy campaigns. Along the way I tried numerous rules systems in various genres, with varying degrees of success and satisfaction. Although I’ve enjoyed it all — and some stand out as pleasant memories of my gaming past — I’ve come to admire a few games, both systems and settings, I’d default to if I had more chances to run roleplaying games.

Finding Joy in the Past Year

 “Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

— Jane Austen

I’m slow in my New Year’s appreciations, given how numerous holiday preparations and celebrations in November and December consume my life. That said, I wanted to look back at 2024 to remind myself of the highlights that brought joy to me amid occasional heartache and disappointment...and in the face of the anxieties, hardships, and challenges I — and the world — face in 2025. The Jane Austen quote I used in my last blog post encouraged my usually pessimistic self to reflect on positive events that uplifted us throughout 2024. It comes as no surprise they’re mostly related to games, books, and history. I’m hoping these memories sustain and inspire me through the difficult times ahead.

Return to the Abbey of St. Leibowitz

 “So it was that, after the [Flame] Deluge, the Fallout, the plagues, the madness, the confusion of tongues, the rage, there began the bloodletting of the Simplification, when remnants of mankind had torn other remnants limb from limb, killing rulers, scientists, leaders, technicians, teachers, and whatever persons the leaders of the maddened mobs said deserved death for having helped to make the Earth what it had become.”

– A Canticle for Leibowitz

Time for me to read Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz again. It’s one of the books I reach for when I need a break...from my more serious non-fiction reading, from the news, from numerous stress vectors mercilessly bearing down on what’s left of my psyche. Like many, I find diversion and solace in books, an escape so we can (hopefully) find renewed strength and get up to face our toilsome, everyday challenges in reality.

Author Umberto Eco likened books in a good library to remedies a medicine cabinet:

“We understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment.”

Exploring Vonnegut’s Lost Game

 “I admire anybody who finishes a work of art, no matter how awful it may be.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

I was intrigued when I discovered Geoff Engelstein writing online about a lost strategy game by renowned author Kurt Vonnegut. At first glance GHQ looked like a chess-type game using artillery and infantry, reflecting the author’s experience in northwest Europe during World War II. The design had a pleasingly mid-century aesthetic to it which felt practical for such a game. I enjoyed reading Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five years ago and have re-read it once or twice since; but I wouldn’t call myself a fan, though I’m aware of his cultural impact. The more I read about GHQ, though, the more I wanted to explore it as a gaming artifact: a game a then-fledgling author designed, tested, and tried marketing to a publishing company, to no avail, setting it aside, abandoned, for decades until, after his death, someone discovered it and finally released it to the world. Engelstein and the production team at Mars International have revived a lost treasure and provided historical context to better appreciate the game’s origins.

Remembering Axis & Allies Miniatures

 “Success lasts only three seconds. After that, you’re the same as you were before you had it.”

— Robert Shaw

My recent missive on print magazines — particularly my efforts to clip the most relevant articles from years of WWII History — reminded me how much I liked Avalon Hill’s Axis & Allies Miniatures game years ago. (Mark Painter’s nose-art-inspired advertising artwork also reminded me how much I enjoyed the game.) I bought into it when it released in 2005 and purchased occasional booster packs for the original and subsequent sets. Using the point system to create forces consumed most of my time, as I imagine it would for any collectible game where one builds a deck or combat unit. I mostly engaged in solitaire play, commanding each side in turn. I don’t recall much about the mechanics, but I remember I liked numerous aspects of the game; though ultimately the randomized booster packs necessary to maintain the collectible aspect became untenable. Like many games, it’s come and gone, forgotten after the initial buzz and now difficult to find, either in the original starter sets and booster packs or as single figures with cards on the secondary market.

Twilight of Print Magazines

 “I don’t expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.”

— Isaac Asimov

I’m rearranging some shelves in the office — a periodic activity, given the volume of books I have and continue adding to my collection — and I’ve come across some racks with old copies of WWII History magazine. I decided to peruse them one more time, extract any articles that interest me to arrange in a binder, and recycle the rest. The process reminded me why I like (and miss) magazines along with a few other observations.

Willing to Wait for sha-Arthan

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Those who’ve followed James Maliszewski’s for a while know he’s quite knowledgeable about M.A.R. Barker’s Tékumel setting, having run a continuous campaign for nearly a decade and published a host of wonderful fanzines about the esoteric roleplaying game setting. But Barker’s creation — and its host of different game editions — carries the stain of his anti-Semitic novel Serpent’s Walk, published under a pseudonym in 1991 (as discovered through research by the Tékumel Foundation established to perpetuate his creative legacy). Fans have had to wrestle with this unearthed reality, some walking away from Tékumel, others continuing to embrace it, and many in between trying to find some acceptable balance between the creator and his creation. Maliszewski has discussed his betrayal at learning about Barker’s shocking past before, making many points no doubt shared with Tékumel fans grappling with this issue. Maliszewski has since channeled his creative energies into developing Secrets of sha-Arthan, a game evocative of Tékumel with his own interpretations and embellishments into a wholly original, more accessible setting. Who knows when it will be ready for release? All good things take time...and I am willing to keep my embers of enthusiasm burning as I wait however long to see it published.

Learning from A Classroom Game

 “All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door”

– Albert Camus

When I was in high school way back in the early-mid 1980s – and totally immersed in roleplaying games as well as a few wargames – I pursued an idea for a nuclear war themed card game. I’d never seen Flying Buffalo’s Nuclear War, though the advertisements for it in Dragon Magazine probably lurked in my subconscious. My junior-year English teacher encouraged me in my game-design endeavors, to the point where she asked me to prepare a master to photocopy and trim so everyone in the class could give it a try. Looking back on it all these years later, it reminds me of a few lessons about creativity, production, and a game’s intention; lessons I failed to realize at the time but issues with which I’ve contended throughout my involvement in the adventure game hobby.

Complexity Fatigue

 “Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.”

– Alan Perlis

I first immersed myself in the roleplaying game hobby through Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced D&D, games whose multifaceted intricacies helped occupy my free time in my youth. But as I graduated from high school, immersed myself in collegiate studies, and later endured the real-world job market, I discovered I had little time and hence a waning appetite for games with such intricate complexities. I tried in those early college years to maintain my involvement in roleplaying games with friends back home. It took a streamlined, cinematic rules system with a media property I loved – Star Wars – to rekindle my interest in and love for roleplaying games. Since that transition I’ve leaned more toward “simpler” games for two reasons: my own play style preferences for “easier” rules and my urge to introduce games to newcomers who might immerse themselves int the adventure gaming hobby.

The Lost Reference Library

 “I do love perusing the dictionary to find how many words I don't use – words that have specific, sharp, focused meaning.”

– Geoffrey Rush

Way back in second grade, after I had so much difficulty learning to read in first grade, I remember my teacher stressing to us the importance of using the classroom dictionary. The maxim seemed simple: if you saw a word you didn’t know, get up, go to the shelf, and consult the dictionary to learn its meaning. And we rarely bothered. Getting up, paging through the thickest book we’d ever seen, and rummaging around just for a word we didn’t know or to check spelling seemed like too much effort. These days, of course, we have online resources, spell- and grammar-check, and auto-correct. They’re great if we actively take advantage of them to improve our vocabulary and knowledge, but it’s far more tempting to simply rely on auto-correct to spell words properly (and reliance on that often leads to new problems).

Reconnecting with Tunnels &Trolls

I’ve been busy lately more with wargames than roleplaying games – both core elements of the adventure gaming hobby (along with board games) – but I recently took a break from various wargaming projects and dove back into an old yet renewed game I’d enjoyed in my youth: Tunnels & Trolls. At first I didn’t get very far, just reviewed the rules and rolled up a character, but soon I was perusing different adventure books and couldn’t resist running a solitaire scenario. For a short while I basked in a comforting feeling from my earliest gaming days, sending my character wandering through programmed adventures, stumbling around traps, and either fighting my way to victory and fantastic treasures or failing that one saving roll and suffering a seemingly arbitrary and undeserving death. The experience proved a refreshing change from my current activities and one I intend to return to when I need a bit of contrast to my usual gaming scene.

Gaming Artifacts: AD&D Deck of Encounters

I’m always on the lookout for interesting resources to inspire and enhance my solitaire roleplaying gaming. Most work just as well for group play, but some can form the basis for solo adventures when the gang just can’t coordinate schedules and you want to spend an afternoon immersed in an imaginary game world. Years ago I recall using the second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Deck of Encounters: Set One for a few weekend forays back into my favorite Basic/Expert D&D rules. I don’t recall much about the few play sessions other than they offered some satisfying entertainment and relief from stress at the time. Perusing the deck today I can see how they provide a range of adventure seeds one might develop into sole encounters or springboards for more involved adventures. It’s quite AD&D specific, but enterprising gamemasters can adapt most encounters to their favorite game setting or genre with a little work. Alas, it’s not cheap to acquire these days, especially when other resources exist today with a similar if not more effective inspirational impact.

Summer Reading

 “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”

– Ray Bradbury

My son started school last week. For one of his first English assignments he had to endure the obligatory “write about what you did last summer” exercise. Most of his summer consisted of sitting around playing Roblox, but he mentioned most of our various excursions (about which I recently blogged). Summer reading was, alas, conspicuously absent. His electronic-media-dominated generation rarely pays attention to books, preferring to stick their faces in screens all day long. That said, my son surprised me on a last-day-of-summer trip to the regional used bookstore, where he was particularly keen on getting a book he’d noticed on a previous visit: Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre. It gave me a small glimmer of hope that his generation won’t completely forget about books.

Star Wars: A Dead License

 “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

– Obi-Wan Kenobi

Today it’s hard to imagine a world without Star Wars. We’re awash in everything from that galaxy far, far away: numerous streaming cartoon and live action shows, novels, comic books, action figures, Lego sets, a host of new films in theaters, and even occasionally roleplaying games. It certainly helps that one of the word’s major toy manufacturers (Hasbro) has a license to make Star Wars toys and one of the largest (if not the largest) media company (Disney) owns Lucasfilm (and hence the Star Wars intellectual property) since buying it for $4 billion and change from George Lucas in 2012. But some of us old relics have been around long enough to remember a distant time toward the end of the 20th century when it seemed Star Wars – which for a time played such a huge part in our youthful culture of blockbuster movies back then – was fading into obscurity.

The Creative Magic of Office Supplies

 “Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.”

– Jules Verne

The world was quite different when I first discovered the adventure gaming hobby in 1982 with the Basic Dungeons & Dragons boxed set. We were emerging from the 1970’s energy crisis into an economy was plunging into recession and high inflation. Iran had recently released American embassy hostages imprisoned for more than a year. Britain and Argentina fought over the Falkland Islands. Ronald Reagan was president and we were still in the Cold War with nuclear annihilation hanging over everyone’s heads. My life, too, was quite different all those years ago. I grew up in a stable yet frugal household where money was often an issue. We didn’t live extravagantly, certainly not in the financially comfortable way I enjoy at the moment. My parents scrimped and saved so we could enjoy some choice presents for our birthdays or Christmas. We took a modest summer vacation every year. We kept busy with after-school activities, but nothing requiring too much additional spending. We didn’t have a video game console or VCR. But we managed decently enough, especially having a few friends from school and some neighborhood kids who also liked games. During high school the adventure gaming hobby dominated my leisure activities.

Memories of D&D Christmas

At this time of year I frequently look back with a nostalgic eye on the memories of my youth, particularly celebrating the winter holidays. As I’ve mentioned before (in seemingly ancient missives like “The Season for Fantasy”), the yuletide season seems ideal for indulging in fantasy media and games. Since I’m reading Alison Weir’s history of the War of the Roses at the moment, I am, strangely enough, thinking back on the first Christmas after I discovered Dungeons & Dragons: 1982. Having received the Moldvay Dungeons & Dragons Basic set as an Easter gift earlier that year, then purchased the D&D Expert set a few months later, I’d immersed myself in the game, spending most of my after-school time and the entire summer reading rulebooks and modules, creating characters, drafting maps, creating adventures, and running games for the neighborhood kids (from whom I’d first heard of D&D). That year began a tradition of receiving at least one gift to feed my adventure gaming hobby habit for Christmases and birthdays. That first D&D Christmas I got some D&D gifts, of course, but I also received Avalon Hill’s Kingmaker, a game that broadened my horizons and sparked an interest in history.