The Project aims to research and publish key works in the development of professional, hobby and educational use of wargaming. It currently includes work from Donald Featherstone, Fletcher Pratt, Peter Perla, Phil Barker,Fred Jane, Charles Grant, Stuart Asquith and Terry Wise...
Friday 14 December 2012
Dungeons and Dragons - the return of Gygax
The late Gary Gyax was responsible for the ground breaking Dungeons and Dragons, the roleplaying game that spawned a whole genre of such games (and even laid the ground work for the next generation of computer based roleplaying games).
A new company, called TSR, is publishing a new magazine called table top role playing called Gygax (see http://gygaxmagazine.com/ ). The company is leg by Luke and Ernie Gygax, the sons of the late Gary Gygax. Assisted by some living legends from the world of D&D, such as the ex Dragon Magazine editor Tim Kask, the magazine is likely to be of high quality. However, what seems like a good idea is in fact a legal minefield.
Gary Gygax’s second wife, Gail Gygax (not the mother of Luke and Ernie) believes she and the firm Wizards of the Coast (a subsidiary of Hasbro) believe they own all the rights to Gary Gygax’s name, likeness and intellectual property.
I suspect the next battle in the world of Dungeon’s and Dragons will be in the courtroom and not on the table top.
Tuesday 4 December 2012
Comments on Reign of Missiles published by Foreign Policy Magazine November 2012
The game
portrays the military aspects of the Palestinians in Gaza firing rockets
against civilian areas of Israel and the Israeli military response including
bombing civilian areas of Gaza. It is an original attempt to engage the wider public
in a deeper understanding of the conflict by the vehicle of a simple wargame.
The idea of
using a wargame is not original. Such as the 1910 Invasion of England game that
aimed to demonstrate the vulnerability of England to a German landing. The
implication of that game was a large number of lighter Royal Navy ships such as
destroyers should be kept on alert in the channel ports to protect England from
a surprise attack. (See Early Wargames Vol 2, to be published in 2013). However,
the Reign of Missiles is almost certainly the first mass distribution magazine
to use a game in this manner in modern times.
The game
seems too complicated for public consumption. Perhaps it should have been designed
to be less complex, such as those in the Decision Games micro series games. The
latter are a ¼ of the size of a ‘quad’ game and play in about 30 minutes.
Physically the map might have been better produced to print on an A4(letter)
printer, rather than A3. More people have access to an A4 printer.
The game is
focused on the military options, with the solo Israeli player using their
assets to minimize the threat of the Hamas rockets produced by the game system.
This seems to miss an opportunity for exploring the options available to both
sides in terms of political manoeuvring. All the Hamas rockets in the world
are not going to bring down Israel, as the missiles perhaps kill one person per
hundred rockets. Conversely, the concept of an Israeli military victory is
equally flawed; no amount of bombing, commando raids or surface to air missile
defence systems are ever going to stop the low level of attacks by Hamas.
The game
inadvertently implies that the Israeli’s are defending against a mindless opponent
who is apparently striking out in a pointless and random manner. The game
system is also based on a game about V1 attacks against England in the last
days of the German Reich, but after consideration, I finally dismissed the idea
of an implied or hidden cultural comparison by the game designer.
The game design
seems to imply a particular military view of the conflict; but the Palestinian
v Israel conflict is one of a contested discourse, with both sides having their
own distinct view of recent history. To me a far more interesting (and
controversial) game would be to make the game two or more players and involving
each side having the full range of options available to them. Victory in such a
game would be determined by the terms of the final peace settlement. However, perhaps the world is not ready for
such a game in a mass distribution magazine, at least not yet.
Despite the
issues above, I salute those involved in getting Reign of Missiles into the public domain. At the moment, the game
has added a paragraph to the never ending history of wargaming; if their
original efforts meet with the success they deserve, they will add a whole new chapter
to the history of our hobby.
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