Weekender XLBS: Taking Prince of Persia To Salute & Recycling Game Mechanics
October 11, 2015 by dignity
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Happy Sunday!
I have been awake all night building my lovecraft monsters for a film project, so it’s nice to be up this early to catch the XLBS, great way to relax!
Happy sunday!
Hi, great show yesterday , looking forward to todays.
One question springs out , is PoP the marquee name that it once was , no game for a while , a old film ( now relativly).
Wouldnt something maybe a bit more modern and relevant be in vogue?
Considering the time of Salute , maybe supers game or a game like Battlefield/modern warfare/call of duty , small squad based urban conflict , that runs small squads against each other.
Nix the above. I just rewatched the first bit , and thr guys ideas are good….
Use a bookcase for the PoP board ? It has your levels and stack it agaist a wall in Excel?
I will shut up now
…too much coffee!
Well I feel partly responsible for today’s discussion due to bringing the subject of game mechanics up in that thread on the Warpath 2.0 demonstration, and I want to put in my tuppence worth on this – but I’m late for work now because I watched this! Great video as usual!
How about a stretched ‘U’ shape? Ten foot run,90 degree turn, four feet, 90 degree turn and then another ten foot run back. Then you could brace between the two long sides for stability.
Happy sunday! time to glue some KD:M monstrosities together and relax with BOW
just want to say Mishka is a bear in war and peace who is tied to a police officer (who wants to arrest the drunks for having a bear in their carriage) and they are both thrown in a river.
Happy Sunday!!!!! Indeed for me mouhahaha!!!!!! Thanks guyz that will sort me out for a couple of months painting.
huzzah, well done on the win.
The ArcWorlde rulebook starting arriving as of yesterday. It’s an A5 (or a bit bigger) 200 page hardback and having had it in my hands, I think it’s the perfect size for a rulebook. The usual size rulebook isn’t convenient for reading or using at the gaming table, and the usual small softback rulebooks are good for gaming but not as nice for reading or keeping on the bookshelf. This looks great, is easy to read, and easy to use at the gaming table.
I’m a total convert for gaming mats. I’ve got four Deep Cut mats, the Relic Knights mat, and Guild Ball mat. They look great, are easy to set up, and set the dimensions of the table without any folding or fiddling. The first few Deep Cut mats I got were the original vinyl material but the most recent are in the mouse mat material which is much superior. The RK and GB mats are already in this material.
I think a new genre just got created – ‘Warrenstorical’
He’s not that old!
Warren’s idea is a bit left field but good ol’ Ronnie (Reagan, not Renton!) always did think he was in one of his cowboy movies. What the heck, M1 Abrams in the open will be a lot easier to pick off for my hind’s and T72’s. Roll on the boot camp!
Like @redben says, I’m also massively into gaming mats. I was very sceptical until I saw the mat for infinity by micro arts. So long as your buildings aren’t using a completely different colour pallete, they seem to settle right in.
The other thing I’ve been realising is that the more “scatter” stuff on the board, the more natural it looks. Stuff like lamp posts, rubble, dustbins and stuff like that. Without that stuff, it looks too artificial. Well, more artificial than it needs to be anyway.
Bought a Microarts gaming mat for Infinity – awesome bit of kit! Worth every penny. Happy sunday everyone!
Happy Sunday! great show guys!
HappySunday!
Thanks for picking some KS that I won’t be tempted by for a change 😉
Am I the only one who hears someone playing ‘Pong’ in the background on the soundtrack, particularly during the discussion of game mechanics?
I was hoping to bid for a place on the boot camp but it was sold out before I even saw it. In future where should be looking for boot camps to appear. I was watching events is that the wrong place?
Weekenders and Vlogs are usually the best places to hear Boot Camp announcements.
I heard the announcement but never saw anything for signing up
For the Prince of Persia boards, do they HAVE to be vertical? You could do an A frame like this:
https://relaxshax.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/another-project-my-micro-scrap-wood-a-frame-garden-trellisdeck-house/
This has some additional benefits beyond being stable and sturdy.
1) You could use both sides as play surfaces or have the back as shelving for monster storage.
2) The levels on the play surface would angle in slightly the higher you go giving a bit more room for getting hands in and making access a bit easier than it would be in a vertical wall.
3) You would have all that negative space between the boards so that you could build some larger rooms into the interior of the structure.
4) You could put lights inside the frame and cover the ends but have opaque surfaces in the rooms/tunnels that would be lit up from behind. Things like lava pits or glowing crystal walls can be done with some clear colored plastic.
All game mechanics have parents as that’s how human creativity works. The ARO is the child of overwatch. You could trace all mechanics up through their family trees until they all converge on single-celled dice games in the Archean era.
As a non-Infinity player, I instantly thought on the Rogue Trader overwatch from the old Compilation book from 1991 as Warren explained it. It feels like the whole industry has just been one huge refining process since the 70’s, but I wonder if the loss in detail is a good thing? Comparing Laserburn to a modern game of Bolt Action, we’ve gone from a percentage based shooting system that takes into account a large number of factors, to everyone having a 4-in-6 chance of hitting modified by a narrow range of situational modifiers. The quest for quick and easy is also seeing a loss of individualism.
The trend in minis game design is usually from complicated to achieving the same or a very similar result in a simpler way. Sometimes it can result in a loss of granularity, the combining of Cool and Leadership into one stat in 4th ed WFB is an example, but it many cases nothing is lost except the complexity, and in most of the rest the loss of granularity is more than off-set by the loss of complexity. In still other cases, the loss of complexity results in pointless mechanics. Age of Sigmar abandoned the comparative aspect of the ‘to hit’ and ‘to wound’ rolls and replaced them with static numbers but retained both rolls, which introduces unnecessary complexity in the name of simplification.
And just to build on the point about Cool and Leadership. The loss of granularity caused by combining them resulted in the widespread use of special rules like Immune to Fear designed to achieve the same effect.
Totally agree with all of this – I actually thought about this when Age of Sigmar came out. So now, you have the same roll to hit regardless of what you’re trying to hit. So a model has the same chance to hit a goblin as it would to hit a bloodthirster. Which makes no sense at all to me.
I’m actually getting annoyed with all these gamers who go “Wohoo! No more tables! It’s simplified!” as if this in itself is progress. To them I say, go and play SNAP! You’ll love it.
The static number to hit isn’t a problem in and of itself. You can model the variation by doing something like giving the targeted unit a static defence roll. So a goblin could have a 5+ or even 6+, which represents that whatever attacks do hit have more chance of doing damage. It’s much simpler than going through three sets of dice rolls, two of which are comparative.
What AoS has done is retain both the ‘to hit’ and ‘to wound’ roll, but make both of them static numbers that aren’t affected by the unit they are hitting. From a game design point of view one of those rolls is completely superfluous.
I too was thinking that each new release of a game seems to be a further refinement and streamlined derivate of what when before. Personally I’m not sure that aiming for super streamlined rules is a good thing I want some.depth to my systems.. Do we think its a symptom of modern life?? People have less time to game, set aside to learn systems etc so we end up with streamlined rules??
We may be headed into territory where there are ‘games’ and ‘simulations’ (or potentially modes by the same writers)
It’s to do with the natural evolution of games design rather than a commentary on modern society. The natural tendency is to create more efficient ways of doing what has already been done.
I dunno, part of me thinks that we’re all pushed for time and have maybe a few hrs a week where we can get our army’s out and play. So naturally people want to get as many games in as possible, that and tournament play is also driving the trend in super fast rule sets. I don’t necessarily have an issue with streamlined stuff to a certain extent but I also need some meat on the bone so to speak else I get distracted by a mote of dust in the corner or the next shiny thing that glints at me..
Did we have more time in the 90s, or did we want to play fewer games in the time we had? There are modern rule sets which are complex, such as Infinity and Malifaux, and they evolved out some of their complexity as they changed editions because the designers were able to figure out where the complexity was unnecessary. In Malifaux’s case, that’s a game with a handful of minis a side but which could easily take three hours to play, so it’s not necessarily about speeding things up.
Well in the 90s I was a teenager so I certainly did have more spare time than I do now but that’s life for you. Never played Malifux so no idea on anything about the game mechanics. I know infinity is complex but can have quick games too, I dunno maybe I’m just over thinking it. The warpath mechanics walkthrough the other day certainly seemed the right mix of simple game systems allowing tactical depth…which is ultimately a good benchmark to aim for Imo..
I remember in the late 80s/early 90s there was a role playing game which came out which had used statistical analysis to create the most accurate model/rules for combat to that date. But it played like a dog, so that was that.
A good combat system represents some key factors to an extent, but in a simple way that it’s also playable.
Infinity’s “roll high but under” dice mechanic is pre-dated by the VPS system of the Fading Suns rpg.
I’m familiar with Monsterhearts which is one of the games cited in the Masks trailer. That is very definitely a game of teenage angst. From the MH blurb – “When you play, you explore the terror and confusion that comes both with growing up and feeling like a monster.” I suspect Masks will probably cover similar territory for superheroes.
@warren one note on grafiti in the 80s. It was a thing you would only find in the west. All your pictures of grafiti from the wall are from the western side. if you got that close from the east you got shot.
pre 1988 there would have been little or no grafiti anywhere in eastern europe 🙂
33 minutes in the first matt is actually the swamp is it not?
Best xlbs in months imo !!! Happy sunday people 🙂
seeing those mushroom monsters and the prince of persia concept, how about making a ‘gritty reboot’ mario bros game?
Re new tech in tabletop gaming: I hate the idea of being able to touch a unit and get “tactical advice”. If I lose a game, I want it to be because my opponent beat me. Not because the game itself told him or her how to beat me. All this new tech sounds like some bright spark is trying to market tabletop games to video gamers by turning tabletop games into video games.
What I love about tabletop gaming is the thought process. You have to be actively engaged. Whereas with video games, I found that I would “zone out” all the time, and I hated that! What is this modern obsession with making EVERYTHING zero effort and zero thought? It’s hideous.
Warren, my blood does indeed run cold at the thought of this!
Great show as usual, loving the great dinosaur rush so much so i backed it. It reminds me a bit of Evolution by North Star Games which i also backed.
Happy Sunday!
I like the gaming mats. I really do. Easy to store is as you said their biggest asset.
Apart from that I cannot wait any more for Team Yankee.
Happy Sunday,
I have to say the encroachment of “new tech” into wargaming leaves me cold, if I wanted to play a video game I’d play a video game, I enjoy moving minis and rolling dice and that’s precisely why I’m not dragging and dropping on a screen or using an app, although to be fair I have no idea how to use apps or indeed if my phone can use them, or where exactly my phone is at this moment in time.
I don’t mind new technology making it easier to sculpt and cast, or print HD resolution mats, I have a game mat from gamemat.eu and it’s lovely, but I’d prefer my new tech to come in at the production level and not at the game level. wargaming is an abstraction and trying to augment it does nothing for me, it would in may respects be a barrier for me, and I dislike barriers in my hobby.
Old xcom and the new one have a ARO in it
@ Lloyd, if you like mushroom men you might want to look at this
http://www.songofblades.com/category-s/100.htm
The Great Dinosaur Rush must have, looks like an excellent fun game, any idea when there will be a release date in gaming stores? Again thanks for a fun and informative show.
Happy Sunday guys.
I could have that Prince of Persia board printed up in a day for you the only problem is I’m in Australia and it would cost a tonne to ship.
I would make the whole board out of 3 layers of 20mm foam. One layer for the background with the windows and the other two would pop out from that to make your platforms. That would give you 40mm thick to run along.
A. A is for Apple.
Happy Sunday guys.
Thanks for the heads up on The Great Dinosaur Rush, just backed it. Cool little game.
Happy Sunday. Warren I think you need to take better care of yourself, a couple of weeks ago it was the clap and today it’s crabs!!!
I had already backed The Great Dinosaur Rush, but thanks for spotlighting it! I can’t wait to play it with the grandsons.
The kickstarter spotlights are becoming my favorite portion of the show. I’m not interested enough to go looking for the best projects on my own, but I am very interested.if you show them to me.
Also, I like how Kickstarter allows a game whose audience is a niche within a niche to see publication.
Now I’m not sure it’s new but things that impressed me was the blind bidding mechanic in Spartacus and the complete game changing board in risk legacy.
happy sunday!
i have just got a gaming mat from tinywargames service and communication poor plus long delays, if i had not reminded them of my order id still be waiting, their process for tracking orders was not the best or most professional.
Deep cut studios seem a whole different kettle of fish compared to them, i approached them for a discount for the ex services community and they said if i bought the three i was after they would throw in one for free, a variant on their club offer of buy 5 get one free.
not only did they take the time to reply to a cheeky request but they did so in a nice manner and seeing their mats in use at my local club im now sold busy saving.
I’d like to see technology (specifically AI) used for game balancing. Both with designers during the initial design phase but also when gamers come to play. You enter your armies and the AI might suggest mission criteria, terrain setup, table sides, first player or even grant abilities to generals in order to balance a game out. Stuff that wouldn’t change chosen armies and could happen quickly before a game started. Also it could look at player win loss ratios in tournaments.
@warzan: if you’re going to have your daughter running around a dungeon chasing the griflings, then you need to play the theme song from ‘Catch the Pidgeon’ but redubbed as ‘Catch the Griflings’ ;p
On your Prince of Persia game – if it works out, how about adapting it at some later point to do a Legend of Zelda game?
On your X-wing over Endor game – how about having it on Yavin 4 instead? I’m thinking post ep4 when the Rebels are evacuating the planet. Would allow for a nice centrepiece terrain feature in the form of one of the Massassi temples.
On the applications of the hololens – how about Fog of War? Don’t know if it could actually work, but it might be interesting to have it block out anything your army can’t see, increasing the tactical side of things as sometimes you won’t know where your opponent’s units are (and possibly even have a transition period where you know where a unit is, but not what it is).
Is there any reason you couldn’t just make a column? The “map”, so to speak, could just wrap around it. It cuts down on space, makes it transportable, and allows a larger audience to get involved.
My favourite mechanic which feels fresh and innovative is cheating fate in Malifaux. Being able to change the outcome of a dual with cards in your hand is brilliant. Overall mechanics wise as long as the game feels consistant and fun I don’t mind if another game uses it.
Sounds like the same system that TORG used some years ago
Happy sunday!!!!
those gaming mats would be ideal for me!!!
i like the ones over at miniwargaming.com also those guys use some great mats!
The only new dynamics apart from ARO and the Bolt action dice drawing mechanics I can think of would be the “Scene it” games where DVDs are introduced. That said this is not inherently a new dynamic, because asking trivia questions by reading them out, or asking questions by pressing play are not a dramatic change I guess.
I guess people into board games don’t need or want technology imposing on their card and paper based hobby, because we often play these games to remember a past where computer games and smart phones did not dominate our downtime.
For me, developers offering us innovative and fun worlds to roll our dice in is enough for me to remain engaged. Recycle the best dynamics in a variety of ways, that fit the world we’re playing in, and I will keep spending and be content. Innovation via technology would create new mechanics, but I’m not sure our imaginations have been fully exhausted when it comes to working within the hobby as it is today.
I think the Dinosaur bones kickstarter game looks brilliant.
The play mats look awesome.
@Warren
Can you do a segment on how people can bridge the gap from ideas to production for wannabe game developers?
I have no idea about costs, where you would turn for producing a game, whether there are companies that help develop and complete ideas and BoW’s experience, input and understanding of that side of the industry would be really cool.
I forgot an innovation that was quite cool – The idea of photographing your miniature with infiltration and camouflage, to prove where you placed it to your opponent later, during the deployment phase of infinity was cool during a demo Carlos and Killian played out between Nomads and Panoceania.
That isn’t necessarily part of the game, because the rule book does give you a lower tech way of playing this aspect out in the game, but it is a way that tech is creeping into our gaming.
I thought for a moment that the Fog of War effect being acted out better on the table top would add something to the experience and if tech helped with that it would be welcome. That troop of Hussars waiting around the hillock to burst out and strike the infantry strung out in skirmish order is not likely to occur, because your opponent can see your beautifully painted miniatures behind said hillock. You will never know whether your opponent was a really sensible, cautious general by in forming his men in square just where he did, or whether he is just adjusting to having a perfect view of your cavalry and all areas of the battlefield in fact.
Then I realised if you want that experience there are dozens of computer games that have the Fog of War aspect heavily entrenched in the game and maybe there’s no need to get that facet of war on the table top.
While there is some truth to that, a computer game doesn’t perfectly replicate the experience of a table top game. Yeah, sure you can just go play a computer game if you want FoW, but it’s not the same experience. Using tech to add FoW into a tabletop game on the other hand is using tech to enhance the experience (provided it’s not mandatory for all games of course) by allowing you to do something that’s not practical without it, just like how the guys were talking about it helping you to better work out what happens when you shoot someone off a roof or to map out the arc of a grenade/mortar/etc.
Depending on how it could be implemented, an outgrowth of it could be allowing you to have hidden deployments without you having to note down on paper secretly what’s where or on an impartial third party being told where they are, or allowing you to use cloaking devices/invisibility spells without the other players having to consciously avoid metagaming.
I’m kinda with the blood run cold thing tbh, technology used right can make the boring bits of a game go away, but when you replace the wrong thing I end up wondering why I can’t play on my ps4 in my pants instead getting dressed and going to the games club…
The issue with a vertical board of any type is a combination of the thickness of said board versus the height. Now, I am speaking without know the shipping method you plan to use, but coming from an engineering background I would recommend the following:
Have the bottom part of the board (where you want to store the monsters) be two foot deep, to help offset the weight of the four foot upright. You could install drawers for cards, dice, etc. This will give the board a very stable base. Slope the sidewalls of each wall section until your top is one foot deep. This will allow you to design portcullis and doors to hide the transition between each section. This profile will make the board itself very stable.
With a two foot base, you should have minimal backward loading. Basically any support on the back would be if someone leans too heavily on it or trips into it. For attaching it to the table, it depends on the types if tables you will have at the show. If it is a standard folding table, I would suggest using “C” Clamps to attach poles to the back edge of the table and connect them tot he back of the boards. An alternative, would to use Unistrut (or the UK equivalent) to make a frame to support the backs of the boards. Unistrut can be torn down for shipping and assembled on site easily.
Just my two cents.
Just to make things more complicated could the Prince of Persia board be perspex so that spectators can see what’s happening through the back, kind of like a worm farm?
The sword fighting mechanic that your thinking of reminds me of the Highlander CCG, I can see if i have a copy of the rules in PDF.
Also you might want to add wall running mechanic and the stop time mechanic based on the sands of time.
Awesome news about the 50 / 50 split for Team Yankee. I had a feeling most people would pick the US so I picked Soviets. When I heard that most European players picked US and most American players picked Soviets – THAT part didn’t surprise me. People always like to try something “new” – that’s half the point of gaming. 😀
And I’m warming to the idea of NATO invading vs. Warsaw Pact instead of vice-versa. Of course it was impossible. NATO planning at the time precluded any ideas of even a “preemptive strike” – And yes, we can poke fun at ole Ronnie Reagan but such a war would have required the consensus of NATO member states, so that means political debate in the capitals of Western Europe and there goes the element of surprise . . .
BUT . . .
There is definitely the possibly that Warsaw Pact struck first, was contained, and now NATO is counter-invading into Warsaw Pact territory. Such scenarios are postulated by Sir John Hackett (former commander of NATO) in his “Third World War – August 1985” – which formed the bases of Team Yankee anyway.
This was especially likely in the south, where US VII Corps was deployed in Bavaria. Nothing against the British and West German forces in the north, but those open plains on the way to Hannover, Bremen, and Hamburg are just made for Soviet tank armies. in the south, however, more American forces, money, reserves, aircraft, and MUCH easier to defend terrain . . . was usually predicted to result in the best chance for a successful NATO defense, and then an invasion into southern East Germany and even Czechoslovakia. In fact, this IS what happens in Hackett’s novel (and Team Yankee, which was based on the war presented in Hackett’s novel).
Long story short, this is where we could conceivably find US on the offensive against Warsaw Pact forces in Eastern Europe.
But enough about “conceivably” . . . 😀
As crazed as the idea of NATO striking first actually is, I’m starting to warm to it. I’m playing the Soviets, and the idea of Soviet “good guys” has always appealed to me. So @johnlyons , @commodorerob , and my fellow comrades . . . Looking forward to standing beside you to hurl hack the imperialist menace!
Highlander TCG rules from 2010
http://www.mleccg.com/HL2E/HLType1Rulebook2010.pdf
New game mechanics –
ARO – PanzerBlitz / Leader had what they called “opportunity fire” as early as 1969 (when the games were first published in a serialized form in “The General” magazine by Avalon Hill). It was always your turn, especially when you were on defense. In fact, on a real “defensive” game, you always killed enemy units on the ENEMY turn, at least until you committed your reserves (you . . . ahem . . . DID leave something in reserve, didn’t you?)
Draw from a Bag – I’ve seen similar systems back to 1987 for the “Platoon” game based on the famous Oliver Stone Vietnam movie. However, these were just counters. What Bolt Action improves on (I think) is the dice, which allows you to put the specific ORDER on the table next to the unit that has executed it. This creates a feeling of battlefield balance, momentum, and flow. “Okay . . . he seems to be holding on his left, pushing forward on his right . . . what’s that element in the center up to?”
Orbital drops in a tactical sci-fi game: Renegade Legions did this on both a ground combat level (Centurion) – a space level (Leviathan) and finally tying it all together on an operational level (Prefect) – late 1980s.
Troops in a building on different levels or floors – AH Advanced SquadLeader did this in the early 80s I think for some of their Stalingrad scenarios . . . but I ‘m sure they weren’t the first.
In fact, I’m sure none of my examples above were the “first.” They’re just the first I saw.
Also, later games totally ENHANCE and EXPAND on these earlier concepts, and like @lloyd says, put them together in new ways.
I never played Prince of Persia, but love the idea of a platform-style game. Here’s a couple of ideas for how you could build it @warzan
Firstly, instead of building it as a long, tall, unstable wall, you could build it as a square or cube, so that as you played from left to right (I think Lloyd is on the right lines here), you would complete one ‘face’ of the board, turn a corner and do the next one, turn a corner and do the third etc. This way the walls would be supporting each other.
The second suggestion is to build the levels onto a solid plastic shelving unit, like the one you’ve got in your new ‘Warran’s Dark Hole’ room. That plastic shelving is pretty sturdy as long as it’s leaning against something – and you could tie it to some tables or boxes to give the combined set up a much larger and more stable footprint. And then you could model plug in levels that would rest on (or be attached to) the shelves, so you don’t have the entire thing hanging off a frame.
Having written the above I’ve unpaused the video just as Justin suggests making an ‘L’ shaped board instead of a straight one. Sorry, my idea isn’t so original after all!
so who’s turn is it to play with their bone behind a screen?
I’ll get my coat…
Hey, sorry no first this week.
Prince of Persia…. eh… not what I would have went with but I’m interesting to see what you guys come up with 🙂
Eden looks like an awesome game, at least the miniatures do. I might actually pick some up
Happy Sunday!
Don’t worry Justin, I near spat up my coffee at that R and D joke, so don’t feel like it was wasted.
Can you just rent a drywall jack. They are meant to hold 4 x 8 sheets of drywall at almost any angle?
Guys you should deffo do more terrain than just Eastern Europe. Variety is the key :3
TEAM YANKEE IN EASTERN EUROPE (US STRIKES FIRST)
It occurs to me that the secret to alternative history is to back up significantly from the point in which your setting takes place. So if you want NATO to strike first into Eastern Europe – don’t start in the 1980s with a crazed Ronnie Reagan launching an impossible war. That’s just crazy. HOWEVER, if you back up to, say . . . 1945 and create a different ending to World War 2, you can create a different Cold War in which a US-led invasion of Eastern Europe actually becomes chillingly possible.
In an effort to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem =) (putting on my nightmare cap) . . . I submit this:
КОМАНДА ИПCИЛOH (Team Upsilon, or “Y”)
ALTERNATIVE HISTORY FOR 1985:
1945: Tougher resistance during the last days of the Third Reich, highlighted by a series of brilliant counteroffensives in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland in 1944-45, all lead to the Germans holding out later into 1945. The two effects are as follows: The Soviet Union ends up at the end of World War 2 in a significantly weaker position than they did historically (especially in Eastern Europe) and the US has to use the A-bomb for its originally intended purpose, dropping it on BERLIN in October, 1945. WW2 finally ends.
1945-50: The Marshall Plan kicks off on schedule, committed to fighting the spread of world communism. The Soviets, weakened significantly by our alternate end of WW2, starts to falter on the international scene. Communist uprisings in Malaysia and Greece are swiftly defeated, resulting in destabilized Communist holdings in the Balkans and a still-born Communist movement in Southeast Asia.
1950: Stalin dies three years early
1950-51: The Korean War lasts only one year instead of three, with a decisive UN victory. Basically, Truman never yanks MacArthur’s reins at the Yalu River, and North Korea is crushed before a Chinese intervention is possible. When the Chinese threaten invasion, the Soviet Union (already led by Khrushchev instead of Stalin) does not back them up. Then, MacArthur’s threatening with nuclear weapons further back China down. China never invades into North Korea, and the UN scores a decisive victory in this first big clash of the Cold War.
1950-1960: Checked several places on the geopolitical front, the Soviet Union tries even harder than they did historically in the Space Race. Their early lead with Sputnik, Gagarin, and other successes is expanded further while the US takes a much more militant posture (bolstered by their victory in the Korean War), building nukes instead of investing in NASA.
1956: The Hungarian Revolt catches international attention. NATO puts tremendous pressure on the Warsaw Pact, and matches the Soviet invasion with mass mobilizations along the Czech border. The Soviets back down and Hungary is reestablished as a neutral, socialist democratic republic.
1960: Richard Nixon defeats John F Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential Election.
1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis ends in a decisive US victory when President Nixon authorizes the invasion of Cuba. Soviet threats to invade Berlin come to nothing, intimidated by the huge lead by the US, Britain, and France in strategic (nuclear) weapons.
1964: The Vietnam War never begins. Earlier communist defeats in Malaya have stalled the rise of the Viet Minh and the French have maintained a more peaceful hold over Vietnam (no Dien Bien Phu in 1954). The US military never enters the confidence destroying quagmire that will hobble its policies through the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s.
1968: The Czech Uprising follows a pattern similar to the Hungarian Revolt in 1954. The end result in a breaking of Czechoslovakia into its component states (as it is today) into a pro-NATO Czech Republic and a pro-Soviet Slovakia.
1975: Encouraged by the success of the Hungarian and Czech revolts, an East German revolt begins, demanding reunification with West Germany. The Soviets actually hold the line on this one, but the Warsaw Pact is badly, badly weakened as states like Poland and Romania start rumbling to break loose as well.
1982: Yugoslavia explodes (much as it did in 1990-92). Croatia and Bosnia go to war against Serbia, which (as they did in 1914) – appeal to their historical allies for help – Russia. The Soviet Union responds with a military intervention in Yugoslavia. The US demands they back off, and a hard-line Soviet government refuses. Mobilizations begin.
1983-84: The War in Yugoslavia expands through the rest of the Balkans, with escalating violence including the use of chemical weapons by desperate and weakening Soviet forces.
August, 1985: NATO, spearheaded by the American VII Corps in Bavaria, launches a full-scale invasion of East Germany and Poland (using new NATO bases in Czech Republic). Soviet Forces, while holding together, are initially pushed back, and the war rolls deep into Eastern Europe. However, rumors persist that the Soviets may be building up a powerful series of counterattacks . . .
That’s excellent!
In a lot less detail and without going so far back, I was going to suggest something along similar lines: a NATO invasion in support of Solidarity uprisings in Poland (and possibly similarl / simultaneous ones eleswhere in Central Europe).
Probably the two hardest historical facts to overcome in making any NATO first strike remotely believable are the western inferiority in terms of military power on the ground (or at the very least the perception that ground forces weren’t strong enough to mount an invasion of the Warsaw Pact even if they were strong enough to resist attack) and MAD.
You need a way to establish Western confidence that a ground invasion had some chance of success and a way to explain why both sides could see a reason not to turn a ground war into a nuclear war.
In the same way that the USSR’s limited ‘only Germany’ declared objective used by Tom Clancy in Red Storm Rising as an explanation as to why both sides could see an end to a ground war that didn’t result in mutual destruction, a NATO policy of ‘only non-USSR countries in outright revolt’ could perhaps both explain why NATO would feel strong enough to take on the weakend / fragmenting Warsaw Pact _and_ why both sides could see that the war could end without the total defeat of either superpower.
An upraising in Gdansk where my 1st idea as well when reading it, it might even be the catalyst for the NATO strike
Definitely a good idea, @rasmus and @angelicdespot . We could add an additional flashpoint on top of the Yugoslavia thing. No matter how carefully you set up a war, you always need a big enough spark to set off the powderkeg.
Angelicdespot – I definitely see your point about MAD – but didn’t take a swing at this problem in the timeline. After all, dozens of writers have “burned down West Germany” in Fulda Gap scenarios. Escalation to nuclear war is always a risk in these scenarios, and in many of them some nukes do indeed get popped (as in the actual novel Team Yankee). But it never goes all-out nuclear. I’m not saying that’s realistic. But that’s how others have done it, so who am I to argue?
As far as NATO confidence, I totally agree. This is the main reason I had the Vietnam War never take place – to keep American military confidence high and never cause the “break” between the American public and trust in our government that took place in the late 60s and early 70s. Also, in this timeline, the Korean War was a clean victory, which means that America is still on an unbroken winning that runs back to “saving the world” in WW2.
To add even more confidence, I may have an answer. I was in the USMC during Desert Storm, and after all those Iraqi T-55s and T-72s were effortlessly wiped out by heroic M1A1s and Challengers . . . everyone was crowing about how inferior that “Soviet-pattern” army was and how “it’s a good thing the Russians didn’t start any shit” in Germany. Please. Those weren’t even the same tanks, ammunition, crews, doctrines, tactics, etc etc . . .
Maybe a Desert Storm-esque war could have taken place somewhere in the Middle East in the early 80s, where a US/NATO army utterly smashes a Soviet-supported / equipped army. This gives NATO (and especially the US) the idea that Soviet armies aren’t nearly as capable as they look and can be destroyed relatively easily – not unlike our military’s genera; attitude in the early and mid 90s historically.
@oriskany – yes, I got that’s what you were doing with the various other US victories… Very clever! I wasn’t berating you for not going into MAD – I was asuming you’d get round the problem the same way others have – just sort of musing to myself that you, I or anyone else approaching this had to deal with it somehow.
History happened the way it happened, so any alternative history is going to have holes in it, but the trick is to have something credible enough that you can suspend disbelief – and have a good novel / game, etc.
. I absolutely cannot stand the idea of the “virtual tabletop”. Why would you take the time to paint miniatures and assemble armies? Why would you build terrain pieces? you could just have a token with a chip on it that says “render a a big red dragon” and tell the program “Here’s a dense forest”. In my opinion this hobby is about spending time collecting, painting, and modelling as well as gaming (or even more so).
Hi guys happy Sunday
I know you can get graphiti decals from amazon in HO scale
Hey the Egyptien were not playing Infinity with the 20 sided dice ………. They were playing AVP they were the first one to receive their Kikstarter 😉
A is for Apple. its a conspiracy !!!
I like the idea of a hobby weekend, I would love to get some help with painting.
You guys need to play more Kings of War! The game is ‘you go, I go’ It’s not unit by unit but being streamlined it play nicely. Kings of War might not be full of new ideas but packages a bunch of tried and tested ones nicely, it’s the game I like most at the minute. You also get to roll loads of D6s it’s the simple pleasures for me no need for fancy augmentations 🙂
Video locked Firefox up just after an hour, so it’s getting better.
hi
using cards by turning them sideways – MtG. Does that count as a mechanic I think they have copyrighted it.
Although I am interested in original mechanics, I think you’re right that what really matters is original and effective ways of using mechanics that immerse you in the game.
In recent years mechanics I’ve seen and really liked have included: using a timer (Space Hulk, Kings of War), the ‘hand in the bag’ turn order (basically this sold Bolt Action to me), orders (the original EPIC First Fire/Charge/Advance orders, but later versions of the game too, as well as BFG and Bolt Action and I’m sure many others) and the use of ‘custom dice’ to give you multifaceted results (e.g. Fantasy Flight’s Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, later refined for their Star Wars RPG).
I think many of the most interested innovations in recent years have come from board games – including ones which use miniatures. I love the way ‘Level 7: Escape’ uses fear and addrenaline to shape your abilities and influence the way the aliens’ ‘AI’ reacts to you. I don’t have, but believe the follow on ‘dungeon crawl’ type combat game took this idea even further.
I’m also really interested in the way that games designers have tried to make rules mechanics more rounded, inclusive and characterful. I’m thinking particularly of semi-cooperative board games which give you ways of interacting with other players that aren’t completely friendly but which fall short of total war. Games which involve secret objectives and betraying the other players really interest me!
Great show as always. About game mechanics how about the battle boards that are used in SAGA. And The Great Dinosaur Rush I good and some aspects reminds me of Ticket To Ride.
RE: Tech in gaming
I really enjoyed your discussion about bringing new tech into tabletop gaming. We have been working on a project to bring a tablet companion app to a wargame for more than 3 years now. There’s quite a few things to consider when trying to join tech and tabletop.
Some things to consider when bringing tech to tabletop gaming:
What is the role of the technology?
1) We’ve seen few attempts to bring tablets and computer to tabletop gaming before. All of them seem to run to the same problem: the tabletop part becomes irrelevant. Having the miniatures on the table on in many of these games doesn’t add anything.. You could as well just play the tablet game. We don’t want that! There’s a reason we play tabletop games and not tablet games with friends.
2) What does the tech actually add?
You shouldn’t add technology just to add technology. You should have a goal to improve the game in ways that wouldn’t be otherwise possible. I’ve already heard you, the BoW guys, mention many of our central design aspects in your videos which, to us, definitely validates our approach. We wanted to bring down the complexity of learning a wargame without dumbing it down or having to remove interesting mechanisms. In our case, the tablet takes care of all the calculations, tracking and stats as well as all sort of hidden actions. Dice rolling is still done by people and as Lloyd mentioned last week we do show the target number before rolling so the excitement is still there.
AI is an interesting discussion as well. Adding a complete AI opponent is very difficult as it requires levels of tracking that is not possible without additional (expensive) tech. However, there’s an alternative. In our case we added AI controlled Zombie-like characters. Their AI instructions can be much simpler than human characters’. This allows the tech to bring a real opponent to the players and even allowing single player games without having to create AI to play as a human.
3) Does the tech get into way of gaming experience?
If the companion app on your tablet / PC of Google glass becomes the central point of focus I think the design has failed. The main focus needs to be on the table and on the opponent. A miniature wargame is a social experience and the table and the minis are the central aspect of the hobby.
I think this is the key aspect. Creating a game that incorporates new tech that still feels like a tabletop wargame is a balancing act. There’s a reason why most wargames are very similar to the popular ones on the market. It’s because many of the popular games are very good *games*.
Anyways, I’m rambling and I doubt anyone actually read this far. I think tech is going to come to parts of the gaming while other parts remain tech-free. When done well tech can really add to the experience we all know and love. I think the next 10 years is going to be very interesting in this hobby!
Cheers,
Juhani
Regarding the next advances in tabletop, have a look what a 3d camera (kinect in this case) and a projector can do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9JXtTj0mzE
Now imagine the possibilities a setup can do in our hobby, from truly dynamic terrain to a new levels of interaction between the models… now just need someone to step up and kickstart the thing
It’s each tontheir own if course. But apart from using a VHS video camera and walkie talkies many years ago to simulate air recon and commanders conversing with their subordinates in a huge modern game that’s been about it
Personally I like playing on terrain with figures and I like playing turn based Wargames on the computer when no games are on. I don’t feel the need to mix them together
I would say the same, I work with a PC 8 hours a day, I even restarted in the hobby to have something “analogue” to do
happy sunday!
Great show guys.
Love the game mats especially the second one would be good for a space hulk. The reaction rule sound like an upgraded version of the hulks overwatch rule. I think games are hard enough at the moment without it learning how to beat you. The fluff is to get you in to the game and to immerse yourself in to the world so you want to save the hero/ be the villain. @dignity the captain caveman of BOW? Chronicles the game? The bone collector game sounds good and is sort of based on the real museums collectors rushing around trying to get the best skeletons for their collections in the 50/60s I think.
The Apple/Alphabet war of 2020 just doesn’t sound as cool as any of the cyberpunk novels led us to believe the dark future would be.
@warzan
Prince of Persia. Love the sidescroll concept, but there may be an issue of putting a 4 foot vertical board on a table that is typically two and half feet tall. I would not have a problem at 6’5″ with playing.. Others may be a bit challenged. If you could hang it on a wall shelf system that gets used at the cons, that may be stable enough and allow for interaction you are looking for.
ARO seems to be a concept that has been around for a while. There is a WW2 game that uses ARO but I forget the name and it is out of print. It did not use measuring mechanics, but in-sight. The other is Two Hour Wargames with the In-Sight and Reaction mechanics. Its one of those systems that uses similar mechanics across multiple genre.
For the game mats, use a dowel or card board tube to roll up and keep stable. I have a cloth mat with similar handling. One thing I would be interested in seeing are streets in the mouse fabric.
Great show as always.
@warzan @lloyd Talking about Tech in gaming here is another hobby that has been unchanged for years that just got a major upgrade due to tech – Slot car racing.
https://anki.com/en-us
Having slot cards that could drive like real cars was always a dream when I was little but now it’s a reality. This set has a sci-fi theme to it but it wouldn’t be to hard to give it the Mad max treatment either.
I just ordered one of these sets, now i just need to wait for it to arrive. 🙂
@warzan Blue unction is what you want for those crabs you picked up on the beach, well that a better excuse as to where you caught them.
I kind of love the idea of Team Yankee – mainly the idea of bringing my old residence of Lobeda onto the tabletop (you’ll have to Google it guys).
There are a few game mechanics that seem fresh to me, as you mentioned in the show the Bolt Action hand in the bag activation is amazing but I also really like the pinning rules in BA, maybe not be 100% original but really make the game seem really thematic.
I think another one would be the whole Deck Building thing started by Dominion that has been done to death now really, I think the best game that uses it though is Star Realms, what a perfect little card game.
I really like the whole “exploding 6’s” thing as well, not sure who did it first, maybe Savage Worlds RPG, but its so simple and makes some amazing cinematic moments in Dreadball and Firestorm Armada and the like!
@testsheepnz
You thinking of Living Steel?
Or Phoenix Command?
Wow – yes, that was the one. Great idea, but remember it being really dull. And also WAAAY too lethal for a role play game. 😎
[Living steel was the one – Googled it, and yup]
Oh damn, @testsheepnz and @torros – I still have a few Phoenix Command books. great detail, but way too complicated for an RPG.
Complicated usually means sloooooow.
This has made me think of an add on, “letters from the battlefront” – you play out a 2 hour wargame, then use tables to determine if for each soldier you lost – their age, married/single, plus number of children. You then get to spend the next 10 hours writing letters how on how they died.
“At last, a realistic depiction of war”, Mr J. Corbyn, Islington.
I’ve been a big fan of gaming mats since I’ve never had a house before and therefore been working with limited gaming space and no space to really make terrain in an apartment.
And about Masks, the teen hero genre is really about trying to figure out who you are when everyone else is trying to tell you who you should be. I don’t think it’s a uniquely American thing, otherwise there never would have been Punk rock.
“Too many problems
Oh why am I here
I need to be me
‘Cos you’re all too clear
And I can see
There’s something wrong with you
But what do you expect me to do?”
— Sex Pistols, Problems
Love the game scapes terrain !
Eden has some similarities to the Amtrak wars books, interesting concept
I do like the mats you had on show. My only concern would be the usefulness for the the one you showed with all the gantry’s etc on it. Wouldnt it be better to have a blank canvas industrial type theme then you could place what you want on it rather than playing on the same terrain game after game or could you ignore what was there in the way of building
For new mechanics all I could think of was a game challenge that was put to Arty Conliffe for him to design a game with no measuring in it whatsoever and flexible system that didnt use turns at all. What he came up with was Crossfire which is still one of the best WW2 games out there even after all this time
Put metal sheet in the wall and magnets into the bases then you can do wallruns for real.
Sorry, but you lost me with the Prince of Persia? Really? Did someone with an open head wound make that decision?
That be me lol 😉
For me the two most mindblowing mechanics I was confronted with in the last years were these:
1. Flames of War: You hit on the skill of your opponent, not your own, the worse he is in hiding, the better you hit him. As an almost only 40k player up to that moment I was stunned and amazed.
2. Freebooters Fate: You have 6 hit zones on cards. The attacker picks two, the defender three. (The amount can be modified by skill of the mini and cover and such). If the attackers has one the defender hasn’t its a hit.
No idea if these are inventions or originals, but they changed my way of looking at games.
Technology: Actually (and I’m an IT guy) I don’t want ANY technology in my games. I’m already not the greatest fan of tablet or browser tools to create your army. One of my favorite moments of the bootcamp was, when I was forced to sit down with the book, a pen and a piece of paper and create an army list. Suddenly I felt 15 years old again with the new 3rd Edition Orc Codex in my hands creating army lists. Naming the units and characters, creating insignia and flääääägs for them and stuff like that.
Of course you can support a lot of a game with technology. Especially with hololens and such. But then you never learn the rules. Once you understand the strength vs. toughness matrix of GWs games you NEVER have to look it up again. If a tool on some smart device calculates this for you you won’t learn it. It’s like navigation systems. When you found a route by looking at a map you will find the same route again even after 10 years. With a navigation system you can’t remember it the next day.
I can 100% follow where you are coming from
Totally agree with the technology comment… I hate the idea of taking the thought out of game-playing.
Anyone know where I can pick up the Eden rulebook?
Only place I can find online is Battlefield Berlin and the shipping is silly money.
Actually, ignore me. taban’s own website is working again.
Thanks for showing some Kickstarters. I just picked upThe Great Dinosaur Rush Board Game. My girls are super excited.
Have to say, so excited to hear we’re going with Prince of Persia. Sands of Time are one of my favourite game series of all time and I love the original 2D side scrollers. Cannot wait to see how this goes.
Oh! As a special card that the Prince could perhaps gain after finding a treasure in the level, maybe they could get the Dagger of Time and get a limited number of take backsies.
By take backsies are you thinking of rerolls (representing the prince ‘having another go’) or the player being able to take back part/their entire turn if they don’t like how it went?
From the sound of it I doubt this would be a dice heavy game. Possibly allow a redraw? It would of course be down to the game designer.
However, I do hope there is plenty of room for all the different corrupted sand creatures and zombies from the Sands of Time. There is such a huge variety and they used to freak the hell out of my 12 year old self.
I actually brought my copy of the game over to Japan with me for my PS2. Well, I guess I know what I’m doing before work today.
Redraw sounds good. Could also have another artefact that lets you ‘stall’ playing a card in a duel so that you can see what the monster is playing representing precognition maybe?
Don’t know if it’ll fit, but following the sands and time theme, maybe also have an hour glass artefact? Gives a boost to stats, but reduces health over time (ie turns). You can flip the hourglass at any point to stop the health drain, but lose the buffs at the same time (or possibly flipping regens health, but has a penalty).
Gamemat.eu make great mats as well.
Yep good show.
Not sure if it was mentioned elsewhere but gaming mechanic wise the Spartan Games rule for an exploding D6 was new to me. The infinity rule mentioned was used in a World War 2 Game from about 20 years ago called Crossfire.
Best tech used in a board game right now is stuff like XCOM or Leaders: A Combined Game.
No new game mechanics under the sun, the newest game mechanic I can think of is deck building and I am not sure someone cannot trace a line to something older.
The point of making a great game is not to have innovative game mechanics, it is to merge your rules, gimmicks and restrictions in such a way that the game flows nice.
As far as innovation, I am not looking at technology for innovation, so far technology is not organic enough to be merged with tabletop gaming, board gaming or wargaming, the only good example according to people so far is xcom, I have not played it yet, but from what I have seen in play through and reviews, I am yet convinced it is necessary, or why this was not released as a plain app.
These mats are faboulus!
I just ordered mine and received it just one week after I ordered.
Definitely looking forward to getting more of that Deep Cut mats.
Check out the new wargame Giant Killer Robots , from weta work shop . It combines tabletop wargame and a tablet . Looks pretty cool
not sold on prince of persia yet, think you are missing a trick if you are going to do any computer game in tabletop by not doing Doom, you could do mood lighting leds in corridors teleports, secrets, mutant demons etc etc. but we shall see how things look going forward in this build
Nice 3d terrain https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1679800548/dragonlocktm-28mm-scale-dungeon-gaming-terrain/description