Above: An in-progress picture I took of a well thought out and innovative 30 Year's War game I was running at a local convention. Among the players at the table were veteran gamers who were versed in the arcane knowledge of 17th Century Warfare (you may notice some distortion in the lower right hand area of the above image).
Where am I going with this? Patience, dear reader. For those who have been following this blog, you may recall the posting I did reporting on the major club game that I ran, Ramillies 1815, that had 20 players, a 20 foot main table flanked by 2, 18 foot approach tables, and enough 28mm Napoleonics to fill them....
...one novelty that I included in that game was toy telescopes. These were the only means for players to spy out the opposing forces approaching from across the room...
...and they were next to useless. Nevertheless, this was half the attraction, and they were a hit. In an email exchange after the game, I joked that the game had actually been an elaborate setup just to get 20 or so middle aged men to peer through toy telescopes on a Saturday morning....
...the more I thought about it, though, the more I came to realize that in my jest...
...I had stumbled upon an essential truth...
...and that truth is that we are playing...
...even though we may be engaged in a sophisticated, provocative tactical problem, on a table strewn with historically accurate figures governed by rules systems that fulfill our demanding understandings of a historical period...
...underneath it all, this is what we're still really doing--if we are fortunate.
Such insight, Ed! You have clearly demonstrated that if we are fortunate, we can remain with the joy, enthusiasm, and discovery of a kid at heart. I wish I was the lad on the table!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this!
Yes Toy Soldiers are what it's all about (don't think that table would stand my weight!)
ReplyDeleteI had a game of toy soldiers with a bunch of friends last night... I have known most of them for over 30years... there were no grownups in the room!
ReplyDeleteMaking ,painting and playing with toy soldiers... so much fun... we are very lucky people.
All the best. Aly
Game? Fun? Look at that 20mm Napoleonic game with all that math! and banter and ..oh wait, scratch that..... Look at the seriousness on my face as I prepare to make a saving throw. That was no game that was life and death for my brave little gunners. (and damned lucky for them I was having a reasonably on dice day!)
ReplyDeleteYes, let the record show that the game pictured in the 2nd to last in this post was not an intense affair (far from it), but you might not know that from the image, and its composition made it a good pairing with the final picture--And I thought it might get a rise out of Ross :) (perhaps we do a bit of playing in our blogs, too)
DeleteI always make sound effects when I wargame: tanks go vroom and guns go bang, I’ll sometimes make a brief motivational comment to the ‘men’ before a charge. Pretty playful overall and kid like. 😀
ReplyDeleteNice post!