Gaming Away The Hours
I have played many fantasy and wargames over the years, and thoroughly enjoyed myself each time. Here are a few stories from my gaming days.
One day during the height of winter, I invited my friend Dan over to my house to play some games. It was very cold and windy out, and the sky was overcast. It was the perfect day to sit around the house playing games, drinking hot chocolate and talking.
Dan was also bored, so he agreed to come on over. He arrived a few hours later, and we took a few minutes to choose a game to play. I owned over fifty miscellaneous wargames, most of which have never been played.
After a few minutes, we settled on a game called "War of the Ring", which simulates the battles that occur in the book "The Lord Of The Rings". This game attempted to not only simulate the military action, it also tried to allow for the spectacular events that caused the downfall of Sauron.
There are two sides to the game: The good guys (whom I will refer to as Frodo), who start with a large military which cannot do anything for ten turns or so. (This simulates the events in the book: the good guys were paralyzed for a while by the deceit of Sauron.) The other side is controlled by the supreme bad guy, Sauron, whose armies get larger and larger as the game progresses. By the fifteenth turn, the armies of Sauron are more than three times more powerful than the armies of Frodo.
The game had two possible outcomes … you could win militarily (it was virtually impossible for Frodo to win militarily) or you could recover/destroy the ring (Sauron needs to recover the ring, Frodo needs to destroy it).
So while Frodo and Sauron are attempting to win militarily, they are feverishly trying to gain possession or destroy the ring. Frodo must carry the ring to the mountain of Doom in the heart of Sauron’s kingdom. Sauron can attempt to search for the ring bearer each turn by drawing cards, which indicate which province may be searched.
Dan and I began playing this game in the early afternoon that day. The electricity was off, so we had to set up flashlights and candles to see the game board. We wrapped ourselves in blankets to keep warm while playing the game.
Since I had played wargames for much longer than Dan, I took the weakest side. I played Frodo, while Dan controlled the armies of Sauron. For the next five hours, we played out a simulation of one of the greatest fantasy battles of all time.
To make a long story short, I split up the fellowship (a group of nine people, including Frodo, any one of which can carry the ring) into three parts. Dan became convinced that the ring was in one of the parts, and concentrated all of his efforts there. While he was attempting to find that group and destroy my cities with his armies, I succeeded in destroying the ring. Thus, I won the game.
I met Bob because he was one of the student aids in the computer lab at school. He was a very nice guy, except that he loved to talk. He’d talk about anything, to anyone, for as long as he was allowed to continue.
Bob was in love with two things: Dungeons & Dragons and AlphaMicro computers. Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game. This means each player creates a fantasy character (such as an Elf, Dwarf, and so on) and pretends that character is living in a fantasy world. The world is created by a person known as the Dungeon Master (or Game Master), who also narrates the story.
An AlphaMicro computer was an obsolete, ugly looking computer which Bob just happened to sell. He had a job in a store which sold that brand of computers. He used to drive me crazy because he’d talk endlessly about how wonderful those computers were.
Bob liked to write up things about his Dungeons & Dragons fantasy world (he was a Dungeon Master). He often passed these out to anyone who was interested, and I managed to get quite a bit of interesting information about fantasy role-playing from him. I’ve included one of his shorter essays at the end of this section.
The essay below was given to me by Bob just before I left college for a career in computers.
Featuring: 1800 traps and situations where it pays NOT to save.
It has come to my attention that many 18+ characters that are being played now-a-days. To combat this many D.M.’s have made their monsters more studly, thus the game gets to be a stand up drag out fight where the level of skill drops as the grossness rises. However one should try situations where that 1800+ will be a detriment to the player; thus my creation of the 1800 traps.
The object of these traps is that only 18+ in the stat designated can set them off. Using the % roll after the 18 system (you can adapt-19=1801, 20=1851, etc.) you roll %dice under the % of the 18 to set it off. Example: 1850 needs a roll of under 50 on the %dice.
1800 strength:
A door with the words - ‘DO NOT ENTER THIS IS A TRAP!’ on it. The normal 1800 warrior will of course try to break it down thus tripping the trap (only 18+’s can open it). The trap could be anything from a falling 2 ton block to -the first door is an air lock to vacuum with the second door propped open.An illusion of a door with a D-door in it. Only an 18+ strength can activate the D-door and he is transported to a room with a table on which is a potion with a label saying ‘DRINK ME’. The only way he is going to escape is to drink the potion, dropping to a 17 strength, and being ejected backed to the party. Or-a kobold with a ground zero wand (6D8 cold ball followed by a 6D8 fireball) telling his to strip or he will commit suicide.
Door knobs that come off of the door and explode when an 18+ strength is applied are fun also.
1800 Dexterity:
A room 10’ feet in diameter with a 1’ diameter disk in the center. The disk has a frictionless field and the edges are very sharp. Only an 18+ dexterity can balance it well enough to pick it up. When it is waist high it becomes 10’ in diameter for an instant. This tends to make the other players who had characters in that room ticked off at the 18+ player.A room with a ball bearing floor and treasure at the end. Only 18+ dexterity has a chance of staying upright. He is then distracted by skating kobolds and after 4 melees a waist high cutting field slashes out (pays to fumble here).
A reverse gravity room where everyone falls onto threatening nurf spikes except the ones with 18+ dexterity who try to catch ropes hanging conveniently close. The ropes will not let go of them as they are pulled up to be stripped of everything they have.
1800 Charisma:
This one’s simple. You have a room fill of 1 charisma orcs of the opposite sex bent on rape. After that I guarantee his disposition will have soured down to a 17.1800 Intelligence:
Use any writing that will hurt or lead to something that the D.M. wants the party to see. Then make it so that only a genius can figure it out.The above are only a few ideas that can be used. Your imagination will furnish you with more.
Save situations where it pays not to save:
I have a room with one opening and a chest at the far wall. Neither the chest or the room is trapped. However in the chest is an eye of panic and anyone who gazes on it must make his save (verses wands) or will run out of the room in blind fear. That and inanimate objects are the only way to leave the room. The only other ways to leave the room is as an inanimate object (i.e., dead). This way low levels with no pluses have an advantage over a 10th level hobbit thief who saves on a 5. (note: this is a good time to have a party of kobolds arrive and state that they will raise the shield if the party throws out all their gear).There are always situations where making your save can hurt. Use your imagination and try to make them. I consider reverse saves as a cop out but if you can convince them that this is happening then they can mess up even more by playing out of character.
Favorite items and happenings:
Magic land mines: Magic runes on coins. Spread liberally on floor with 50% chance the rune side is up. I have a mage that uses these on silver coins as sling stones. It will do a D4 silver damage +3D6 explosive rune 50% of the time. Also if the rune doesn’t go off another 50% chance that it landed face up at the targets feet. He figured this out so that fumbling would do him a little damage (he blew part of his foot off with a magic missile as a 1st level in Androlock’s Abode).Ethereal arrows: When the contact magic they enter into the real plane. You need a +1 bow with arrow clips to use these. They hit as AC9 but if there is no magic armor encountered they never hit but ‘pass through’ in the ethereal plane. This a 1st level dressed in leather wouldn’t even know that he was under attack while the man dressed in +5 plate, +5 bracers, +5 shield would find an arrow appear out of nowhere in his chest.
Magic reflective walls: You would be surprised how devastating and demoralizing magic ricochets are. (Combined with Mazes can be quite deadly).
Overland: To discourage fireballs, have the surroundings be a prairie filled with grass 5’ tall during the summer. So far there have been 3 total burnouts (where you got out with just what you have on) and one total destruction. It is also a good ambush spot and a ‘see invisible’ if moving.
Set up some if-hit-will-die monsters (my favorite are 1 pop giant spiders) and throw some into the middle of the party. Then just sit back and watch themselves kill themselves off. Insist on rolling or EVERY magic missile attack to hit -- machine-guns are never sharp shooting weapons.
Set up automatic doors that self open on touch and watch the surprised thieves listen to an opening door.
The art of the con, the real life mage, the guerilla fighter will best the powerful anytime. One last time I will stress the outlook of finding the situation to fit your goal in a skillful way and not the opposite.
Use your imagination and ----- HAPPY HUNTING!
While in college, I fell in with a group of extremely knowledgeable and intelligent young men who just happened to be interested in wargaming. Not the fantasy garbage that seems to be very popular today. No, this was serious stuff. Board games that took many hours, days or sometimes even weeks to play. These games recreated, as precisely as possible, wars and battles from history. Everything from ancient times through hypothetical simulations of World War III.
We spent many long weekends playing games such as Alexander The Great, Panzer Blitz, Fortress Europe and European Theater. I was pretty good, and was widely respected as a skilled "general" and warlord. I usually played the underdog, and more often than not, I won.
For some time I had been interested in World War II. I was of the opinion that we (America) had won that war mostly through luck and a good, solid, untouchable economy. I believed that Hitler and Japan had made some very basic, unforgivable errors early in their careers. Had they made some different decisions while building up their military and economic machines, I thought they might have won the war.
So I challenged my friends with this thought. They were intrigued, especially after I explained what I wanted to do.
"I want to design a game that duplicates the political and military situation in the world up until just after the fall of France. I will control Germany, and the rest of you will each control one country in Europe, as well as America. We’ll limit the conflict to Europe, only worrying about simulating the economic effects of the Asian theater."
"The game will begin with the fall of France. I’d like to make some changes to the types of forces built up by Germany before that time. These changes are central to my theory."
We spent the better part of a month designing the game and writing up the rules, which we kept relatively simple. We were not interested in fighting entire battles. Rather, we wanted to simulate the course of the entire war involving Europe.
We set up rules to allow the subjugation and control of neutral countries, as well as the effects of various economic and military decisions. It was a very complex, but highly rewarding task.
We appointed a referee, who would decide the outcome of various battles, operations and other areas of conflict. This allowed us to begin playing the game without designing rules to cover every possible situation. We all agreed to abide by the decisions of this referee.
Finally we were ready to play the game. We had purchased a large map which included Europe, western Asia and North Africa, the various theaters of the war in which we were interested. We set this out on a large table in a unused garage. Realizing that the game would probably take months to play, we made sure that it would remain undisturbed while we weren’t around.
I controlled Germany and her allies, including Italy. I altered the mix of forces available at the time of the fall of France, in accordance with my theory. Since I assumed the same limited resources and industrial output as was available at the time, I was required to increase some forces at the expense of others. This fit in well with my plans.
Basically, I made three modifications to Germany’s armed forces. First, I scrapped all plans to build a large, British style surface fleet. My Germany never built a Tirpitz or Graf Spee. Instead, I concentrated my naval resources on U-boats, E-boats (we call them PT boats), destroyers and small, fast cruisers. After reallocating the resources from the surface fleet, I had over 400 U-boats, 1,500 E-boats, 100 destroyers and a dozen or so light to medium cruisers.
After that, I changed the makeup of the air force. I concentrated on tactical support planes, entirely removing the long-range strategic bombing forces. I also built up a very large fleet of transport planes and escort fighters.
Finally, I concentrated resources on the production of tanks and tracked troop transport. I built extremely large numbers of light artillery pieces, light and medium tanks, and half-tracks to carry troops.
This gave me an extremely mobile force, although it was quite a bit smaller in actual numbers than those troops available to Hitler.
Unlike Hitler, I seized control of the entire country of France in 1940. I did not bother to set up a Vichy government on French soil. The referee ruled that the French colonies surrendered to me rather than attempting to continue fighting.
After France fell, I began negotiations with Spain. I wanted them to help me blockade the straits of Gibraltar. My efforts were in vain (as were Hitler’s). So, less than a month later (in the game time-line) my armies attacked Spain. It was a quick and easy victory.
With that out of the way, it was possible to effectively blockade the Mediterranean. I set up airfields and naval stations and sunk over 50% of the ships that attempted to pass through. Of course, Britain still managed to get troops and materials through the Suez Canal, but that was a much longer and more costly trip.
In the meantime, my U-boats were decimating the British merchant marine. I managed to sink so many ships so quickly that Britain was knocked almost forced to surrender on that basis alone. They managed to hold out a little longer, however.
The next phase of my plan involved concentrating on capturing or controlling North Africa and the Middle East. This was relatively easy. I transported thirty German divisions to my Italian colonies, and struck out toward Egypt. With that kind of power, and with a very effective air and sea blockade, I took Egypt very quickly.
The other countries of the mid-east fell quickly to my armies. Palestine, Syria and Turkey came under my control almost without a fight. The referee ruled that, under these conditions, they would have come under the control of Germany.
With the fall of Egypt, and with the threat of mass starvation from my blockade, Britain was forced to sue for peace. This left me free to pursue the third phase of my plan: the attack on Russia.
I did it entirely different from everyone else, however. Instead of attacking from the west, I came in from the south. Twenty-five German divisions, combined with seventy-five Turkish, Arab and other allied divisions attacked toward the Caucuses mountains in southern Russia. At the same time, over one hundred and fifty divisions struck from the west in a diversionary move.
It was all over in a matter of six weeks. Russia was forced to sue for terms as soon as the Caucuses oil fields fell to my armies. I forced them to cede everything west of the Urals, leaving a vastly weakened Russia alive in Asia to serve as a buffer between myself and a potential Japanese enemy.
Thus, by the end of 1942, I had done what Hitler had failed to do - I had conquered the entire continent of Europe! I had control of sufficient industry and resources to fight off any exterior forces, should anyone be foolish enough to try.
The simulation took us three weeks to play, consuming virtually all of our after-school and weekend time for that period. Everyone was fascinated, all were astounded by the ease at which I won the war. I think I really impressed these people, which was not an easy thing to do.