Re: GZG DS2 Mikko: Genres for DS2.

On Thu, 3 Sep 1998, Andrew Martin wrote:

>     Design both sides! Have Rebel and Imperial forces. Kilrathi and
Earth
> forces. Bugs and Starship troopers. etc. Pick randomly which side you
take.
> After playing the scenario once, swap sides!

I don't know if I'm alone in this, maybe it's a leftover from my Car
Wars
days, but I really like composing a force against an *unknown* foe,
guessing what he might have, figuring countertactics etc. Scenario games
with predesigned forces are ok, but they completely ignore this side,
which is maybe 30-50% of the enjoyment I get from the game. 

>     Possibly. But then, I can't wait for ever! I've been waiting for
DS2
> long enough! So now I make up my own genres, settings etc. to suit my
self
> and my friends. Besides what if the game publisher gets it wrong? Why
not
> get in the action by publishing your own conversion on the 'net?

Well, properly playtesting rule changes is very tedious work. Frankly, I
*really, really* doubt any game company on this planet does enough
playtesting to gather statistically meaningful samples. Given my sparse
gaming schedule, it'd take literally years to arrive at a good solution.

Long, long time ago I played AD&D. We didn't really like it, but it was
one of the few things widely available. So we made changes. And changes.
And more changes until the thing resembled AD&D only barely (and it
still
didn't quite work). Finally I started wondering why the %&#&#%& I'm
paying
them money for a product I need to spend this much time fixing? Since
then, we've played GURPS...

Frankly, if I want to play something vanilla DSII doesn't cover too
well,
I'm much more likely to buy a product that does (from ANY company) than
try to fix DSII. 

>     Just disallow it. But be sure to have a good reason for it and you
> should say why it's been disallowed before the game starts.

You don't need to disallow NON-viable choices. You may have to disallow
everything *else*, though, to make them viable.

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