Re: RopeCon 98 Report

Tom spake thusly upon matters weighty: 
> Heretical though it may be, I am forced to agree.

"Mr. Elliot, fetch the faggots! Mr. Tuffley, the match! This heathen 
shall pay for his heresies..." 

  Much though I love 
> DSII and SGII, I have found that the ideal game to run for Shows and 
> shop demos is Demonblade's Shock force--it's cheap, quick, and very 
> simple.  Even the dimmest bulbs in our gaming group have mastered the 
> rules of Shock Force after playing our first game, while DSII and 
> SGII...manage to elude most of them.

Strangely enough, most people that we taught SG2 to mastered it first 
crack (as long as we had a ref to just sort of 'keep an eye out' and 
offer reminders of things like cohesion distances and when confidence 
checks were made). Maybe I've been just lucky to play with people who 
play far too many games and so learning a new one is just another 
momentary focus and not a major undertaking. 

  It doesn't help that we can play a 
> game with some 90 25mm figure in half the time it takes to play an
SGII 
> game with half the number of troops.

Now, OTOH, I find that funny because I'm used to 1/72 scale WW2 or 
MicroArmour which used to take us a minimum of six hours to wade 
through, and most SG2 I've seen, even with lots of units on the 
board, will only take 2-3.5 hours, a normal Con slot. 

  It's depressing!  I'm hoping that 
> I will have more time to spend on promoting the GZG games now, but FT
is 
> the only one that has really caught on in my gaming group.  What makes

> matter worse is that, if I want to play SGII or DSII I have to run the

> game!  Which generally precludes playing.  I'm the only one who really

> knows the systems, or cares enough to do a scenario....

Well, that just takes time and patience to change. And a continual 
eye to add new people with like interests. I'm gradually sucking in 
my old AD&D group, after my new gaming group I met through work 
introduced me to FT, EFSB and SG2. It's networking :)  

And the target audience is a factor - promoting 'gaming' by getting 
non-gamers interested is something that such straightforward, 
simplistic games are good for. Promoting gaming in games you enjoy to 
people who may already have played some games but want a good game 
system with a lot of flexibility and meat requires that you play 
something like FT or SG2. And that is where (eventually) we gain more 
converts to the good cause of keeping Jon, KR, and others in 
business. 

Tom.