tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487413006559113471.post4294372056948626439..comments2024-03-14T07:11:37.650+00:00Comments on Porky's Expanse!: Meet the new boss?Porkyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00604351052444947490noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487413006559113471.post-40309754023737546942011-02-22T18:09:49.592+00:002011-02-22T18:09:49.592+00:00Throw myself on a grenade to save the whole squad?...Throw myself on a grenade to save the whole squad? Not bloody likely. Go over the top to defend my country? The same response. <br />I had an interesting discussion the other day.<br />You have to imagine that we live in the now...but it´s the exact same situation as 1914-1918...whole droves of people taken from thier home towns to be slaughtered on the fields of France. <br />Would it be possible?<br />Two reasons..<br />The attitudes are completely diferent...too much to "loose" of lifes comforts...why cut short a life that could (theoretically ) be 80 plus years long??<br />The make up of the populations these days...how many indigineous 5th or 6th generation people live in thier "Own" country anymore? I don´t.<br />Look at the pictures of any european regiments from that period...the colonial regiments. The difference is not hard to spot. <br />The mixing up of populations is in my mind a bloody good thing...(just to make sure that no-one thinks this is any way a right wing polemic from me) <br />This aspect of modern life could well be brought into a wargame...the reasons for fighting in the first place or not as the case may be...why should a squad hold out against massive odds ?? (like the 300 spartans fighting for thier homeland)The fleeting bit of fame they would get??? Not likely. The feeling of doing it for thier country?? Not me matey. <br />Money? With the training and the gun in thier hands, virtually every bank would be open to them. <br />Cheers<br />PaulPaul´s Bodshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894821198907112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487413006559113471.post-73817970047720812842011-02-22T10:36:23.044+00:002011-02-22T10:36:23.044+00:00@ ArmChairGeneral - Existing card sets have been a...@ ArmChairGeneral - Existing card sets have been a guide in how I visualise this. I had in mind when writing most of all the strategy cards from second edition 40K and the secondary objective cards for Kill Zone. Thinking about the expanded Kill Zone set had an impact on my thinking about games in general, and the suggestions I put in for it were aimed at breaking the mould a little, bringing in aspects of a warzone that wouldn't necessarily get used in a normal game, things that usually appear only in campaign description. The idea I'm putting in the post is in some way an extension of this. It would probably be a little like using both types of card together, and whole decks at once, but tightened up to work as a coherent system, and with the division into themed categories.<br /><br />With the random deployment, I'd say the inaccuracy is surely all the more reason to try it. On variability in general, I think we could gain a lot by waking ourselves from our daydream that scope can be limited and events controlled to the degree they usually are in games.<br /><br />@ The Angry Lurker - For me those are very valid reflections. Games can easily be reduced to mechanisms and the emotion lost. Psychology rules often cover morale and fear, but not necessarily the factors influencing morale and fear, or other factors again. I'm very interested in the relationships between subtlety and complexity in games, and how more subtlety might be introduced without increasing overall complexity, this kind of subtlety especially.Porkyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00604351052444947490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487413006559113471.post-12540267942375660332011-02-22T10:28:16.373+00:002011-02-22T10:28:16.373+00:00I don't know wether this is relevant to this o...I don't know wether this is relevant to this or not but my main passion has always beeb Samurai around the Age of Wars era 1550-1615 and the loyalty of samurai and the honour of the bushido code where they would fall on their sword (seppuku)and the family would follow at the word of their Lord, another scene that affected me was in a book by the late David Gemmel (forget the title) set among the Drenai stories and was when an African warrior king had built a large bonfire and asked his bodyguard regiment to put it out with their bodies which they did and that has always left me with a sense of the passion of troops or soldiers can have for a leader, a cause or a country.<br /><br />It just brings me to the quality of those troops or rearguards (now and back then but especially now) in wargaming and roleplaying and how hard it is to represent without going too far to the quality of the grunt as opposed to the hero or command figure.<br /><br />I suppose it comes down to the sacrifice of the guy who is willing to throw himself on the grenade for the squad but I'm talking about whole units or regiments and would it happen today.<br />I don't know.The Angry Lurkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01227314379603418332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4487413006559113471.post-80838727981497877272011-02-21T22:24:17.783+00:002011-02-21T22:24:17.783+00:00Interesting. When I GM a RPG I always do it sandbo...Interesting. When I GM a RPG I always do it sandbox style unless I am running a completely new party that is new to gaming. I like the idea of sandbox as it relates to the campaign part of miniatures wargames but actual sandbox on the battlefield would create chaos. If you like you can develop a card based system. Something we're working with in WTNW Skirmish & Small Unit Tactics that gives a randomness to the game. Want to move your automaton but you aren't sure if your mechanic put on the correct rivets? Draw a card and see what happens. Could be interesting.<br /><br />Another nice thing about sandboxes when RPGs are considered is that every dungeon is not layered in fact from level 1 to level 20. The red dragon might like to live on level two for instance and he might have a small army on level one. The players might know this and decide to not go or they might go anyway. For me, the point of an RPG is the STORY. Sure the combat is fun but if I want strict combat all the time I will do miniatures with a light campaign.<br /><br />As for random deployment in real life - look what happened to nearly every paratrooper in WWII.Game Master Rob Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08198920658123610173noreply@blogger.com