Another GenCon Review, FT Dice, and the GZG games

Here's my GenCon review. I'll try to emphasize GZG (and FT in
particular).

GENERAL COMMENTS

I had a blast at GenCon this year. It seemed a bit smaller, probably as
a
result of the near collapse of TSR. There was less (but still present)
interest in CCGs, but miniatures looked a bit more popular this year.
The
RPGs that I play were at about the same level of interest as previous
years.

My wife, Leann, and I played a number of different games. I played two
RPGs,
one board game (Kremlin, which I won) and miniatures. Leann played
nothing
but RPGs. Leann had a wonderful time, voted as the best roleplayer in
each
game that held a vote (including a Vampire scenario set in Casa Loma, a
mansion twenty minutes from our real life house).

I got to meet a number of FT players, finally putting some names to
faces. I
met Mike Miserendino, Dean Gundberg, Mark Siefert, Chris Pratt, Jeff
Guillion, Rick Rutherford, Bryan Miller, and several others I'm sure I'm
forgetting. Jeff Guillion and I had a very interesting discussion about
the
future direction of the various GZG games. We both agreed that we'd like
to
see a fleet book, campaign rules, and a fix of the FT point system even
more
than we'd want to see a FT3. We also felt that adding the SG2 command
system
to DS2 should be a priority. I saw Mike Miserendino several times. On
the
Sunday, I found a bag stuffed into one of my bags. It contained Mike's
t-shirt, mug, and game tickets. It appears that someone threw them into
my
bag sometime on the Thursday when I first dropped by the FT tables. I
talked
to Rick several times, and got to play against him in Mike's Dark Star
game.
I took some photographs and hope to have them on the net sometime after
they
are developed.

DEALER'S ROOM/NEW GAMES

There was a lot of free stuff given away this year. The deal of the con
was
at the Atlas Games booth. For about 45 minutes of your time, you could
walk
away with 900 cards for the _On The Edge_ CCG (suggested retail price
was
over US$140). Both my wife and I did this. We also scooped some booster
packs for US$5 (I got 36 packs, Leann got 32). The dice suppliers
(Chessex,
The Armoury, Koplow) all had cheap bins of dice to scoop and most were
giving away a die or two. Chaosium had a "wheel of fortune"; I somehow
missed it, but Leann got the golden Cthulhu and received a mess of stuff
(including two Call of Cthulhu supplements, a Mythos standard pack, and
a
bumper sticker). I bought over $80 worth of stuff at the Pagan
Publishing
booth (half was a pendant for Leann) and got a free copy of the first
Halloween movie (the good one) on video. WOTC was giving away a fair bit
of
stuff at their booth. On the Sunday, Heartbreaker was giving away
starter
decks for Doomtroooper. If you didn't walk out of the con without at
least
$10 worth of free stuff, you weren't trying.

There were a number of new games shown at the con. _Babylon 5 Wars_ was
available for sale. I liked the Minbari cruiser, but echo the criticisms
on
the detailing of the Starfuries. At US$50 it seemed a bit too pricey for
me,
though that was mostly because I didn't know how many ships were in it.
I'll
probably just continue to wait for the larger ships to be released on
their
own and use, though the game still piques my curiousity. The Earthforce
Sourcebook was NOT available at GenCon (big disappointment) though Dean
Gundberg told me about a demo he played. It looks good and should be out
later this month. The _Deadlands_ miniatures game (_Deadlands_ is a Wild
West/Horror RPG) looked fine but--again--it was US$50 and included
miniatures. I thought these companies had learned from _Silent Death_.
I'll
buy a set of miniatures rules on spec for $25 if it looks interesting,
and
either use my own minis or buy them separately. I will NOT buy a $50
(that's
$75 Canadian!) on spec. I'll have to wait for a review on this one.

Although not a new game, Chessex had a big display for _Flintloque_. I
admit
I was tempted, but I decided to pass on this game as I'm already into
too
many games. ICE had a good selection of _Silent Death_ ships, including
some
Mike Miserendino used in his Dark Star game. I bought some more of their
hex
bases and a pack of plastic missiles/torpedoes (for SD and FT use). They
also had large resin cast figures for some of their more popular
fighters.
These looked to be 25mm in scale and work well as fighters for SG2. They
were a reasonably good buy at $12 each, but I didn't get any.

GeoHex's booth was once again well stocked. I saw their Dungeonscape
product
and it looked good. Unfortunately they only had the full version
available
for US$120 but they plan to release it later in smaller chunks. My local
game store is very interested in this. I got some of the river, dirt
road,
paved rooad, and farm field packs that GeoHex sells for use with their
terrain products. These are the cheapest road and river sets I've found.
I
recommend them for SG2 and DS2 players. I also recommend terrain from
Terrain Creations. They sell a number of hill sets, as well as a 2' x 2'
board. Their terrain is not styrofoam but apparently some super dense
version of the foam you find in cushions or pillows. It's pretty stiff
but
it has some give and it doesn't chip or dent like the GeoHex stuff. I
prefer
the look of the GeoHex terrain, but Terrain Creations stuff is far more
sturdy and quite a bit cheaper (a basic set of 9 pieces is $25). I've
bought
something from their booth for the last 3 years (this year it was
Irregular
Hill set #2) and can recommend them to all SG2 and DS2 players.

One last thing: dice. Chessex makes a new set of 6-siders. It's made
with 1,
2, and 3 in one colour and 4, 5, and 6 in another colour. They were
giving
one or two away as a free sample. I thought they were interesting but
drew a
blank on what I'd use them for. In the mailing list game, though, Dean
Gundberg pulled out a bunch he'd bought. He pointed out that they were
excellent for FT. Since a beam can only hit on a 4, 5, or 6 anyway, the
colours made it easy to weed out dice rolls that couldn't even be
POTENTIAL
beam hits! I was sold and ended up buying 16 of these dice. I found that
they speeded up my dice rolling during the mailing list game. Thanks
Dean!
They will be generally available this fall. You might want to consider
them.

GAMES I PLAYED/RAN

First, the none GZG stuff. I finally got a chance to play in the Call of
Cthulhu masters tournament. I did very well, with some of the best
roleplaying I've ever done. I came in third in the voting in the first
session and didn't advance. The other two guys were just too damned
good.
The scenario was excellent (the author was one of Chaosium's writers)
and
the atmosphere was fantastic. I had a ball. I also got to try out the
new
Cthulhu live action rules. This was great! Live Action games are done
more-or-less in real time with a "what you see is what you get"
attitude. If
you want to search a room you don't roll the dice, you simply search the
room. I had a chill run up my back when I got to a room marked "surgery"
and
could hear chanting behind the door! It only went on for an hour and a
half
but I'm hooked. I plan to run a scenario later this year. Let's see, I
won a
game of Kremlin, and lost in a multiplayer game of Ogre miniatures. The
game
was played in 25mm with scratch built vehicles. The game was fun, but I
had
forgotten just how beer-and-pretzels Ogre really is.

Okay, the GZG stuff. I ran 2 games for GeoHex and played in Mike's Dark
Star
game. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that GeoHex was giving a 30%
discount
to its judges until after I had spent most of my money and already
dropped
$25 on GeoHex terrain. Oh well, I'm happy to support a worthwhile
company.
Mike did a pretty good job of describing his Dark Star game. I agree
that it
should have been labelled Intermediate and that ditching the fighters
would
speed up the game. Mike's models were well painted and the scenario was
a
lot of fun. I'd play it again; hopefully next time we'd have time to
complete it.

I ran two FT games myself. The first was Operation Brimstone. A NAC
fleet is
above an ESU planet in geosyncrhonous orbit. Coming just over the
horizon is
a NAC bombardment monitor with some other ships in tight formation. The
ESU
have a fleet of system defense boats coming in from the other end of the
table as reinforcements, with a small FTL fleet warping in. The NAC
bombardment monitor has to hit a "window" above the target, a 4" strip
at
one end of the short table edges. A win is based solely on the number of
bombs that hit the surface. The bombardment monitor enters on turn 2 in
tight formation. Every ship in the formation (4 ships) is moved as if
they
were one ship. Hits are spread randomly amongst the ships in the
formation
unless the firer was within 12". If a ship is killed in formation it
does
damage to the others right next to it. However, a ship can peel out of
formation, thus destroying the tight formation. At that point, all of
the
ships are placed on the table and treated as different vessels. It's an
ingenious scenario rule, actually. Finally, a set of 3 gun emplacements
on
the planet (essentially A batteries in bunkers; 10 damage points kills
them,
they are considered to have one shield level, and the range to the
target is
equal to the range from the ship to the table edge plus 12") give aid to
the
ESU.

This is a fairly tough scenario for the NAC, made harder by the fact
that it
was playtested on a narrower table. We increased the speed of the
monitor
group, but they were really still too far away from the window by the
end of
the game. The ESU FTL fleet was too conservative and jumped onto the
middle
of the table on turn 2. If they had jumped further "down field" they
would
have been more decisive. They concentrated mostly on the other NAC
escort
ships, almost to the point of ignoring the bombardment monitor! However,
time was on the ESU's side. A wing of ESU fighters rose from the planet,
through the "window," and did some damage to the NAC bombardment
formation.
A squadron of ESU ships flew through the NAC fleet and engaged the
bombardment monitor while it was still a turn away from the window. It
was
destroyed and the ESU won (though the NAC, I felt, deserved a mission
win as
the ESU fleet was mostly wiped out).

It was a good scenario hampered by the extra wide table at GenCon. I
would
suggest that for the wider table the bombardment monitor should enter on
the
first turn. Also, I'd like to see the victory conditions changed so it
isn't
an all-or-nothing game for the bombardment monitor. The monitor should
gain
the NAC the most victory conditions, but if the ESU destroy themselves
trying to stop it the NAC should still be able to win on ESU fleet
destruction. Finally, this was the last of a bunch of linked scenarios
that
also tied in with some SG2 games. The results of one scenario were never
carried over to the other scenarios due to logistic difficulties. Some
of
the players liked the idea of linked scenarios with scenario results
carrying from one game to the next, so we should maybe try this next
year.

The second scenario I ran was a Star Trek scenario called "Klingons at
Large". I was expecting a number of novice players who were more into
Star
Trek than FT. Instead, I got a number of SFB players most of whom had
played
FT before. The ships were mostly taken from SFB. Classic Constitution
class
cruisers, a dreadnought, a carrier, and a bunch of destroyers versus a
similar smattering of Klingons. The only new, non-official weapon was
the
Klingon disruptor. It worked like a beam weapon, doing 4d6 up to 6", 3d6
up
to 12", 2d6 up to 18" and 1d6 up to 24". Both sides lined up on the long
table edge and the game ran as a free for all.

I've never met such a bunch of whiners as the guys in this game. We were
using the basic fighter rules in this game (as opposed to the rules
where
fighters move before ships) and so I stupidly disregarded the fighter
endurance rules. At one point I had the Federation players whining about
the
over powerful Klingon fighters, while at the other end of the table I
had
the Klingons complaining about the over powerful Fed fighters. These
were
the same guys who did NOT like the optional rules of moving the fighters
before ship movement! Few Fed ships had ADAF or PDAF but the Feds could
use
their A batteries against fighters exactly in the same manner as C
batteries. I got some more whining when they were told that they
couldn't
use their A batteries to shoot down fighters attacking OTHER ships. They
asked, "How can we beat these fighters when they get into our rear arc?
We
have no PDAFs." I answered, "Speed. Fighters are slow and an only move
12
inches." They said this was "unrealistic." They kept using analogies to
WW2
combat, explaining that it was realistic for "battleships" to outrun
fighters. Guys, this is Sci-Fi! No, worse, it's STAR TREK! Then the
Klingons
started whining about how their disruptors sucked (bear in mind that
they
had A beams as well) compared to the Fed photon (pulse) torpedoes. It
was
all a bit frustrating.

In the end, the Feds won what was a pretty close battle up until the
last
couple of turns. They might not have won had one of the Klingons not
been
mildly drunk during the game. They all seemed to enjoy the game, but the
continued to diss the scenario afterward. I would suggest that to even
up
the disruptors, that they should remain as they are but ignore shields.
This
would balance the scenario a bit. The forces should be smaller, too. The
only reason there was enough time to get anything approaching a decisive
victory was because I split the table in half and let the two halves
play as
if they were separate battles (the side with the drunk guy was slower
than
the other side of the table). At one point the one half of the table was
a
full turn ahead of the other half.

In retrospect, most of the scenarios should have been listed as
Intermediate. For novice games, the format should be very simple: set up
two
forces on either side of the table and let them go at it head-to-head. A
set
of victory conditions should be created for killed vessels (i.e. 1 point
for
escorts, 5 for cruisers, 15 for capitals). At the end of the scenario
total
the number of ships killed and declare a winner. Novice players are
concentrating enough on learning the game that they don't need to worry
about victory conditions. I noticed this in each game I played or ran.
The
novice players got confused with what we veterans would consider
"interesting" scenarios. In 1996 I played in a scenario called "Helm,
Full
Thrust" which was basically two fleets slamming into each other. This
was a
simple game but a lot of fun, even for a veteran like me. I think the
best
way to do it is to give a player 3 or 4 ships (not the 5 or 6 more
typical
this year). For novice games, there should be no fighters or only a very
small number of fighters. Fighters slow up the game for novices.

The more complex games should be Intermediate or Skilled. These games
should
have the victory conditions explained and nothing else. In these games
the
scenarios can be more intricate and the fleets can be larger.

Finally, to draw in new players I suggest that other genres be used. For
Star Trek games, more emphasis should be placed on the TV universe than
SFB.
I would suggest dropping the fighters entirely. The Klingon disruptors
can
be "fixed" by leaving them as they are except that they ignore shields.
I
would like to see a novice game based on ST:TNG, DS9, or Voyager. An
idea
might be to enlist a second GM as an NPC. Have the players go up against
an
NPC run Borg cube. The slow pace of the alternating player firing could
be
ignored since the one side, run by the second GM, only has the one ship:
the
cube. The cube can jink around (maybe even moving randomly) while the
players concentrate on firing and maneouvre. If you want to have
fighters,
set up a Star Wars scenario. Give each player a Star Destroyer or a Mon
Calamari cruiser and one or two fighter squadrons. I suspect that this
could
be a fun novice game.

For SG2 and DS2, I'd like to see some games using the GW background. I
think
that an SG2 game using 40K figures or a DS2 game using epic figures
would be
very popular. This would be particularly funny since the FT and SG2
games
were generally right beside the GW games!

If I seem critical of the FT games, I'd like to point out that they were
very good scenarios. A lot of work went into them, and it showed. Even
when
they didn't end by the alotted time, everyone seemed to enjoy the games.
I
just feel that they were maybe a little too ambitious for novice
players.
However, as intermediate games, they would be well received. I had to
turn
people away from my games (five in the case of the Klingon game). I do
believe that there are now enough FT players at GenCon to justify two
tracks
of FT games. 

In closing, GZG and GeoHex were well represented at GenCon. The game
tracks
were agressive but--from what I saw--competently run. Everyone had a
good
time, and that's the most important thing.

On the Sunday, I played in the mailing list game. I'll describe it in a
separate message as this one is already too long.

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage