Orcs in the Webbe

Is a game designer a leader? Not obviously so, although he certainly fulfils Napoleon’s criteria as a dealer in hope. Perhaps a dealer in delayed disappointment is more accurate. My merry little band of gamers have decided that our collective energies for recreational gaming will be focused on Napoleonic warfare for the coming year. Despite my experience with Flintloque (the raison d’etre for my appearance on this site, after all), the collective view is that they don’t want to play an experimental set from me but would prefer someone else’s commercial efforts (the barbarians!). So we’ve spent a few hard earned groats on a variety of rules sets to see what appealed to us.

The initial games have proved something of a trial. We’ve had all sorts of problems with unclear rules and bizarre outcomes. It is quite amazing how badly written (and proof-read) commercial rules are. At this point I will admit that not all of my sets have passed before the critical eyes of the game-playing public without queries being raised. However, despite having  a number of Yahoo groups to support my rules, I don’t have even as many as one query a month between them. Now this could be because frustrated buyers have given up all hope for the sets once they have read my rules and are unwilling to invest the time in complaining, but I would hope not. As I’ve noted before, wargamers are a pretty surly bunch and not backward in coming forward with negative comment.

Perhaps Patton has something for frustrated wargamers with his observations. Perhaps we all gain a better understanding of what it is we want out of a game as a result of figuring out what we wanted to do and then figuring out our own way of doing it. Ultimately though, this is a positive spin on being sold a slightly (and in some cases more than slightly) duff product.

As I write this I’m coming to the end of a half term beset by ill students and ill colleagues, so playtesting of new rules has been somewhat limited, although working through fixes for other people’s rules sets has been rather more apparent. I do however face a week of homeworking – the popular misconception that teachers have long holidays should be discounted immediately – where perhaps the Astronef campaign system will finally be laid to rest and I may be writing a new scenario for Flintloque for Craig’s Countdown to Christmas Advent Calendar 2009. Hopefully neither will be a source of disappointment, however long delayed.