Re: Age and Complexity

Adrian Bruce <adrian@rinc.or.jp> wrote:

> Age and Complexity...

<snip, snip>

> So here comes the main part of  post folks. My own wants as a
> customer. There is lots of  talk on this list about generic rules and
> stuff, ( not supprising, as it GZG's approach)  but I really want
> defined ships and vehicles and a whole bunch of scenarios,
> including easy to hard solo play. The backstory, fiction and setting
> is also something I rate rather highly, and makes the whole
> package an 'entertainment' form in itself, as well as 'just' a game
> system.  With out this stuff, it is easier to watch a movie or read a
> good book,  rather than work out some playable scenario, which
> I've discovered isn't doable without experience, CATCH 22.

   Well, I'll add my 2 cents.  These comments are about Full
Thrust only, I don't have time to play the other GZG games.
In short I'm amazed at how much material for Full Thrust exists.

   "Defined ship and scenarios" - there are a lot of ships and
scenerios available on web sites.  A good starting point to
finding them is The Unoffical Full Thrust WWW Page which can
be found at <http://www.uwm.edu/~cthulhu/FT/index.htm>.

    "Backstory, fiction and setting" - the main source for this in
Full Thrust is the various adpation to various settings, such as
Babylon 5, Star Trek, Honor Harrington, etc.  In these cases the
programs or books provide all of the background you need.  And
the web pages provide ships and scenerios.  In the case of Babylon
5 there is also the rules down for the rpg, The Babylon 5 Project,
by the author of Full Thrust which is simply an adaptation of Full
Thrust.  The material for the role playing game itself can provide
the background, though so far no scenerios.

    There is also a couple of new settings that can be found on
web pages, though there is not a lot of info. about them.  One of
these is to provide a setting similar to the World War II in the
Pacific.

    "Solo play" - I have seen nothing for this.  In fact I suspect
that there is very little material for solo play in wargames in general
other than a few games that were designed for solo play.  There are
no spaceship combat games that I can recall for solo play.  I do a 
lot of playing by email instead of solo play.  Too bad your ship didn't
last longer in our current email game, but there will be more email
games sooner or later.

    "CATCH 22" - well the best way I know of to get around this is
to design scenerios anyway, try them out, and next time you'll do a
bit better.  It won't take too long before you get decent at it.
If you have a thick skin, post the scenerios and you'll get a lot of
useful feedback.

<snip>

> I realise that many may disagree with this, but are you 40, with kids 
> yet?

    I'm 49 with 2 kids.  Yes "real life" can get in the way of game
playing.  How old are your kids?  My son while in high school, he is
now in college, enjoyed playing the games with me.  My daughter, age
11, also enjoys playing games though she tends to prefer Robo Rally and
The Great Kahn Game to my favorites of Full Thrust and Go.  Actually
you can't predict what kids will be interested in.  If they like the
same games you do, great.  If not, oh well.

     Good luck.  If you want to play a one on one email game of Full
Thrust, I'm interested.

Enjoy,
Tom Granvold			<thomas.granvold@eng.sun.com>