Saturday, December 24, 2005
GNS & Miniatures
This started out as a post on the Game A Day Project, but turned into a real blog post. The post there is the result of these thoughts.
Today, I'm going to talk about a miniature wargaming system that I think would be cool.
This thought arose out of my ponderings on what I enjoy about Warhammer, as a hobby and as a game. As a hobby, I enjoy painting miniatures (though I am now at the critical mass - as in, I have enough for whatever armies that I can field decent-sized ones to actually play, but not nearly all of them are painted. At the rate I've been going, I won't need to buy new miniatures for 10 years. That's a good thing). I also enjoy putting together army lists, reading the Codex's, and thinking about how my army fits into the overall background of the capital-A Army. I also enjoy coming up with little backgrounds for officers and character models, and sometimes I keep track of their exploits over a series of games and give them promotions.
As a game, I enjoy seeing them all on the table. I like the strategic challenge of playing against someone at or slightly higher than my own skill level. If it's a reasonably close game, with ups and downs, I enjoy it, whether I win or lose. If it's a total crushing loss or victory, I feel kinda gipped.
Now, this is total contrast to many people I've played with - that is, the ones that min/max the army list to get the best (most effective) units for the least cost, the ones that load up on invincible characters and skimp on "core units" as much as possible, and the ones that are happiest when they are dominating the table. Not only do I usually lose to these people, I find the game itself unpleasant.
This screams Sim/Gam clash to me, in a way that makes total intuitive sense to me. So, maybe it's an example to store in the memory banks when trying to explain the difference, in actual play terms, to roleplayers that also miniature game.
Now, on Game A Day, are my thoughts for a Sim-supporting miniature game.
Today, I'm going to talk about a miniature wargaming system that I think would be cool.
This thought arose out of my ponderings on what I enjoy about Warhammer, as a hobby and as a game. As a hobby, I enjoy painting miniatures (though I am now at the critical mass - as in, I have enough for whatever armies that I can field decent-sized ones to actually play, but not nearly all of them are painted. At the rate I've been going, I won't need to buy new miniatures for 10 years. That's a good thing). I also enjoy putting together army lists, reading the Codex's, and thinking about how my army fits into the overall background of the capital-A Army. I also enjoy coming up with little backgrounds for officers and character models, and sometimes I keep track of their exploits over a series of games and give them promotions.
As a game, I enjoy seeing them all on the table. I like the strategic challenge of playing against someone at or slightly higher than my own skill level. If it's a reasonably close game, with ups and downs, I enjoy it, whether I win or lose. If it's a total crushing loss or victory, I feel kinda gipped.
Now, this is total contrast to many people I've played with - that is, the ones that min/max the army list to get the best (most effective) units for the least cost, the ones that load up on invincible characters and skimp on "core units" as much as possible, and the ones that are happiest when they are dominating the table. Not only do I usually lose to these people, I find the game itself unpleasant.
This screams Sim/Gam clash to me, in a way that makes total intuitive sense to me. So, maybe it's an example to store in the memory banks when trying to explain the difference, in actual play terms, to roleplayers that also miniature game.
Now, on Game A Day, are my thoughts for a Sim-supporting miniature game.
Wanna buy a game? 