Tabletop RPG & Wargame Memories and Thoughts

Flight of the Archaeopteryx (~1985?)

This is a scenario for Star Fleet Battles. I don't remember the year it was written or the original product in which it appeared. Chuck Algeo had hooked a number of friends on this game as he was a big Original Star Trek fan and a solid tactician. Keith Russ eventually got hooked too and he was brilliant. I was influenced by Panzer Blitz scenario victory conditions when I wrote it. Chuck and Keith play-tested it and it was fun, so we sent it in.

Adventurer's Club #21 (1993)

I don't have anything to add other than looking back what I wrote seems pretty silly. For some reason they liked a character I submitted. That article opened the door for later works...

Enemies For Hire (1995)

This was a collaborative work with James Davis and Greg Lloyd. We were all active in Haymaker (an apazine) at the time. I recall this was a lot of fun to work on with those two. I also recall the project was rejected by Monte Cook when Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE) was managing the Hero Games line, but when Bruce Harlick took over we were approved. The premise was simple, we knew GMs needed villains to supplement their home-grown plots, so we made villains who didn't have a big agenda of their own. For some reason Bruce Harlick let me do the page layouts.

Hero System Almanac 2 (1995)

This book was a collaborative effort between Marc R. Blumberg, Keith Hannigan, Bruce Harlick, Greg Lloyd, Steve LePrade, Steven S. Long, Phil Masters, Mike Malony, Steve Peterson, Greg Porter, David West, and myself. It is actually a collection of different articles. Greg Lloyd and I collaborated on "Running Cinema Campaigns" which was a fun game we were trading off running in Omaha NE. Your character was an actor, so you got a new role in a new movie each session.

Heroic Adventures Volume 1 (1996)

This book features adventures by Chris Avellone, Jim Crocker, and myself. It was put out by Mark Arsenault's Gold Rush Games. At the time I was living in the Sacramento CA area and playing games with Mark and his friends. Other than Champions, we were playing Bushido and he was getting ready to publish Sengoku.

I first started playing wargames when my parents gave me "Panzer Blitz" (from Avalon Hill) in late 1977. I found the Athens Wargamers, a local Ohio University gaming club, in early 1978, where I was introduced to the role-playing game.

I had always changed role-playing games to suit my tastes. It was just part of the early gaming culture. When I served in the U.S. Air Force I met Greg Lloyd and James Davis. All three of us talked about writing a supplement for Champions. I wrote an article for Adventurer's Club magazine, where I met Bruce Harlick. He had became the head of the Hero Games line. Greg, James, and I made a supplement proposal and it was accepted. Enemies for Hire was the result. James, Greg and I ended up collaborating on other things for Champions, like parts of the Hero System Almanac 2, and several issues of a fanzine Hero System called Haymaker. This was a fun time to write for Hero Games as there were others getting started, including Steven S. Long and Chris Avellone.

Years later I lived in the Sacramento California area for about six months. At the time I met Mark Arsenault who was expanding his Gold Rush Games efforts, including volumes of Heroic Adventures.

A number of other authors came from the Athens Wargamers. C. S. Barnhart developed the Ice Kingdoms setting for Mad Martian Games). Jon Bricker wrote for Adventurer's Club #24. Both of them are formidable Blood Bowl players, by the way. Several other Athens Wargamers have gone on to publish works of fiction.

I have never considered a professional author. Writing has never interested me a profession and I don't think I'm good enough to make a living at it.

My favorite roleplaying games have been: Champions, Privateers and Gentlemen, and I have fond memories of Dungeons & Dragons. My favorite wargames have been: Squad Leader, Harpoon, and Wooden Ships & Iron Men. I admire some games for their design (system), and others for the game setting. I have great admiration for those who craft a game (or product) in their basement as a labor of love without ever selling millions of copies.

These are only my opinions. In matters of taste, there can be no disputes. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Best to Worst D20 Systems:

D&D 3.5
D&D 3.0
Pathfinder 1.0
D&D 5.0
EverQuest RPG 1.0
D&D 2.0 / 1.0
Pathfinder 2.0
D&D 4.0

I find it odd that the Fantasy RPGs mimic a vague late medieval setting, when I think the stories told and the creatures involved better reflect something closer to a classical period with ancient Greece and before. Conan, for instance, is set at something like 10,000 BC.

There are times when I miss Dragon Quest (SPI 1980), Chivalry & Sorcery, and maybe even The Fantasy Trip.

There are times when I really miss Champions character generation. One of those times is when making a character for Pathfinder 2. I mean with Champions you envisioned a character and built the powers to express it. With Pathfinder 2 the process is (1) envision a character, (2) throw that concept away, (3) pick one of the predetermined character archetypes, and (4) adorn it with a gazillion conditionally-useless choices.

I don't have to have a game tied to history, but I sure do appreciate the effort and vision of those who go there. (I'm certainly not a historian, but I value and admire the research.) I just don't see games like Privateers & Gentlemen anymore and I miss them. I guess I'll throw Pendragon out there as a game that is historically-adjacent.

I don't know if there's a heaven or not, but if there is then there must be a regular Star Fleet Battles game going on with Chuck Algeo and Keith Russ. Maybe John Snyder will sit in.

One of the most disappointing games to sit in on at a convention was 7th Sea. I didn't think it captured the feeling of pirates at all. I suppose that wasn't the goal of that game, but I was lured to the game by the promise of a pirate setting and just found D&D by another name.

Its much more likely that I would play a wargame versus a computer, partly because you're not time-pressed to finish and setup is much easier, but I miss the games by Avalon Hill and SPI. I still have a few and I'm tempted to see if Claude or ChatGPT would play a game of Wooden Ships & Iron Men with me. Or, I wonder how well it might work out if I acted as the double-blind judge for a Harpoon game between a few of those LLMs.

Am I alone in thinking that books for an RPG are worthless unless the game's rules are pretty simple? I mean, if we're talking about these newer generation of RPGs, then just sell the application that knows the rules and lets the GM run a game. Books will just sit on a shelf; PDFs are nearly as useless. My gosh, people are using LLMs to speed up rule arbitration.

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