Good Crop Coming In This Year

 

I am but a humble meme farmer, tending to my memes.

Thanks for the Meme-eries

 Howzabout some light hearted fun using shortcuts to humor?

This one was somebody else's:

But it inspired me to make this:

Because sometimes it really do feel like this:

A Song of Fords and Shallows

 Mostly eye candy today with some thoughts on "A Song of Drums and Shakos".  It's just a reskin of Andrea Sfiligoi's "Song of..." series, but I'm really glad to have added it to my library.  Having the background and points lists for each army really makes it a snap for a Nappy neophyte like myself to throw a game down and get to rolling.

Here we see a veteran unit of French trying to hold a crossroads following defeat at Tres Verdes.  The Redcoats are in full pursuit, and if this French unit can do enough damage to a squad of British dragoons before they cross the table, they can save a lot of lives.  Unfortunately for the, the British have an equal number of green infantry on the way as well.  The British infantry hope to do enough damage or at least distract the French enough to allow the dragoons to slip past.

The French commander opts to split his forces.  He positions three men in the woods between the two fords with the bulk of his men inside the small hedged farm field.  Here you can see the larger unit of British as they advance in two waves.

Having disrupted the French a bit, it's time for the British Dragoons to begin their race northward...

Refusing to be distracted, the French quickly put down the first two mounted enemy...

To win, the British need to get four horses off the road on the north side of the table.  Here you can see that two of them are off, with a third just about to cross the finish line.

All that remains is for the British squadron leader to make his escape...

To find out how this fight ends, check out the full battle play over on "The Joy of Wargaming"!

Oooo, what a bait and switch.  Have I no shame?  Apparently not.

More Campaigning for the Best Campaigns

 Got another big blog for you fans of old school tabletop RPGs.  This time around we're taking a look at a longish game of ACKS, Autarch's excellent Adventurer, Conqueror, King.

This is another one of those new-old campaigns that takes advantage of certain lost secrets to present a style of gaming that fell to the wayside early in the hobby.  A constantly changing roster of active PCs.  Faction play.  Real time.

BDubs and Dragons is up to seventeen sessions as I type this, making now a good time to jump on board.  There's enough to help you kill a slow day at work, but not so much as to feel intimidating.

Written by one of my favorite Twitter follows, it features a rotating cast of characters, many of whom are inspired by notorious internetizens.

The Dawn Age Pervert.

The Dude but he's a cleric.

Hags.

You know, all the usual internet types.

He usually starts off each post with some little gem of observation about the game in general, what he tried that worked, and how he rolled with the punches thrown by his spastic and unpredictable - and all the more fun for it - players.

Here's a taste, gotta click for the rest:

Is prep a waste of time? I haven't ran my game for three weeks and spent some of that time preparing for the players to go off to a new dungeon. I thought about making a bespoke dungeon but instead chose a one pager I had lying around and will re-purpose its monsters and mise en scene as needed. This is because there's not a huge chance the players will go there any time soon. Why spend an hour or two drawing it up?

I also drew up the treasure map the players found last session, using my kids' crayons. The players never asked about it.

I also ran a two week mass combat military campaign with my dad which echoed into the region and the players hooks and options. Worldbuilding through wargaming! But this didn't come into play much this session either.

Games that cross the boundary into other games?  Are you allowed to to that? 

Honeybadger BDubs don't care.

Cleanup On Aisle Linkage

 Clearing out the chaff from the wheat of my link list this week, and it occurred to me that some blogs need more than a quiet pointer.

Around here, we believe that ACTUAL PLAY >> game theory, and today I've got one of the better AD&D session report blogs for you.  A lot of things are churning in the depths of the tabletop world, memes and ideas percolating their way up into the mainstream.  Within a few years, these thoughts and ideas will be commonplace and Johnny-come-latelies will be crawling out of the woodwork to sell you advice on "this great new playstyle that I just kinda thought up".

If you want to get ahead of the curve, you should be reading Waterdeep Session Reports.  It's already a long-running campaign featuring 21 sessions of thick and rich AD&D goodness, and one that incorporates a lot of the old ideas that have been rediscovered now that the serious thinkers have moved on from the OSR and turned their gaze upwards toward the heights of rules as written AD&D.  Even the OSRIC guys, bless their hearts, quailed before that challenge and produced a simplified and half-measures version of Gygax's masterpiece.

No spoilers - the Waterdeep Sessions are experimental, and go in some really interesting directions.  The best I can offer you right now is the promise of a campaign that is intricate and steadily grows from the ordinary into something very, very different.  Solid recommend!

Edit to add:  This madman has a second blog where he posts a "town cryer" style update on all the doings that are afoot in Waterdeep.  THE WATERDEEP WAZOO.  No spoilers, lots of extra bits, but a must-visit for his players, and a must-visit for anyone who wants to stay up to date on the campaign.  Good stuff, Maynard.

Hintervale: Gondor Calls for Aid

Will you answer?

In all seriousness, I need your help.  My latest project for The Joy of Wargaming can't go anywhere without you.  Check it out.

Help a brother out.

Let me know what you think the best option is here, would ya?

Now That's What I'm Talking About!

Bradford Walker steals a march on me by laying out in detail some thoughts that have only been drifting, half-gestated through my mind lately:

RPGs are a wargame derivative.

It's time to explain why this is so, and in so doing expose what the appeal of the medium is and why most RPGs utterly fail because they refuse to exploit that appeal and thus play to the medium's strengths.

Read the whole thing here.

Play the right way and you will experience something no other medium can achieve: supreme visceral virtual experience.

He delves into that murky skein that separates player from character, and why leaving that skein in place, acknowledging it, and working within the boundaries it creates can provide for a much richer and more meaningful gaming experience. 

Then go buy his book, it's space opera done right: