The library in the last city I lived in had this really cool old Wargaming/Rpg book. The cover had a wizard and this little demon thing on it. The rules seemed rather Byzantine from what I recall and covered both roleplaying and wargaming.
Anyone have any idea what the game in question might be? I have a mind to track down a copy.
Is it possible you're looking for this one?
http://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Wargaming-Highest-Level-All/dp/0812828623/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433020739&sr=8-1&keywords=fantasy+wargaming
That's it exactly! Thank ye kindly.
It is always THAT one!!!
I've seen several threads over the decade on various forums asking the same question. Apparently, those Fantasy Wargaming dudes did a great job getting their hardcover into libraries across America. I've found it in at least six libraries over the years, and also a couple battered copies in Friends of the Library book sales.
I wonder what happened to the authors. Anybody know?
The book is an odd duck from Way Back When. There is an SJW review on Amazon that pleads for no one to buy it, or even read it...because reading is the Devil! Oh wait, wasn't that the Mothers Against D&D diatribe?
Quote from: Spinachcat;834071It is always THAT one!!!
I've seen several threads over the decade on various forums asking the same question. Apparently, those Fantasy Wargaming dudes did a great job getting their hardcover into libraries across America. I've found it in at least six libraries over the years, and also a couple battered copies in Friends of the Library book sales.
I wonder what happened to the authors. Anybody know?
The book is an odd duck from Way Back When. There is an SJW review on Amazon that pleads for no one to buy it, or even read it...because reading is the Devil! Oh wait, wasn't that the Mothers Against D&D diatribe?
Huh, didn't know that. I wonder has anyone around here ever played it? Was there any follow up to it?
I didn't think it was playable. Instead, our crew stripped it for parts like we did to Arduin and various bits showed up in our AD&D games, especially with the one GM who ran a "Fantasy Europe" campaign. But that's who we treated lots of late 70s and early 80s products. Essentially everything was a grab bag to be used for D&Ding.
The historical realism promoted by Fantasy Wargaming didn't enter into my D&D campaigns, but I stole lots of chunks from it for my CoC games, aka weird medieval stuff showing up in the 1920s.
I found some followup on the game online somewhere. Salient points that remember were that the game as written was never playtested, and that Bruce Galloway, or one of his friends closely involved in the project, tragically died not long after the publication.
In spite of the "not playtested" bit, I think the game might be reasonably playable if it more of its info was presented in tabular rather than paragraph form.
This is probably my source: https://mikemonaco.wordpress.com/bruce-galloways-fantasy-wargaming/
Quote from: Arkansan;834064That's it exactly! Thank ye kindly.
Glad to be of help.
Some interesting commentary on this thread I hadn't heard before. I've only thumbed through this volume once or twice. Found it interesting but not so much I had to have it for my personal library.
Quote from: Arkansan;834073Huh, didn't know that. I wonder has anyone around here ever played it? Was there any follow up to it?
I still have my slightly water damaged copy in a box somewhere. It was completely unplayable, but had fun subtitles for chapters like "A poignard in your codpiece!"
There was also a random "bogey table" for character creation which included things like bisexuality, a stammer, lycanthropy, and being jewish.
It's a very eccentric product. I would love to know the story of who was behind it and how it would up getting distributed through the book trade while bypassing the game world entirely.
Despite the fact that there are so many copies of this game out there, often in places where no other RPGs reached, I have never heard of anyone ever actually playing it.
EDIT: Checked out the Swords & Dorkery blog post mentioned above. Very interesting and sad (That the two main creators died young).
I had it back in the day. I keep thinking about picking up a replacement copy, as they tend to be cheap on Amazon, etc.
It was sort of an oddity amongst friends of mine; somehow all us 14 year old AD&D nerds had copies of it, and would threaten to run it one day. But not a single one of us could make heads nor tails out of it. Mostly we'd just crack it open to random pages, and try to figure out what the hell it was all about.
I think on some level, we felt we were too dumb to understand it. Like, maybe it was a game like Chivalry & Sorcery, that was just too subtle and too dense for us to understand, so instead of trying we just made fun of how dumb it was.
From what I've read recently, I gather that maybe we couldn't figure it out because simply it made no sense...
Also, I do have to say the cover illustration for FW was one I've -always- liked. I think part of the reason it didn't just fade into obscurity was simply because the cover was so great, and people feel like it really should have a good game inside...
I've read it through end to end at least twice over the years and treasure the copy a friend of mine got me.
It's largely a reaction to Tunnels and Trolls and Chivalry and Sorcery, by a wargamer. It got published through the book trade somehow and was a pick on the sfbook club adds for years thereafter.
There's also Martin Hackett's Fantasy Wargaming which never quite decides whether it's a homebrew wargame and campaign system or an overview guide to the hobby in general. It's actually a fun book and eventually got a second edition with the rpg rules and less hobby overview.
Quote from: Spinachcat;834071It is always THAT one!!!
I've seen several threads over the decade on various forums asking the same question. Apparently, those Fantasy Wargaming dudes did a great job getting their hardcover into libraries across America. I've found it in at least six libraries over the years, and also a couple battered copies in Friends of the Library book sales.
I wonder what happened to the authors. Anybody know?
The book is an odd duck from Way Back When. There is an SJW review on Amazon that pleads for no one to buy it, or even read it...because reading is the Devil! Oh wait, wasn't that the Mothers Against D&D diatribe?
hah! I have a pretty skathing review of it here and on RPGG. It is purely a RPG and has nothing to do with Wargaming. It was called that because that is what RPGs were called in the UK at the time.
The writers are either dead or at some point worked for Games workshop.
Its a nasty little book which oozes snobbery at near everything. The game itself is actually ok. But it flat out tells the GM to take control of the characters and force them to act certain ways if the players dont.
And yeah. Seems it was in libraries all over. You also will see it oft enough in bargain bins at book stores because no one wants it. Gee. Wonder why?
Quote from: David Johansen;834113I've read it through end to end at least twice over the years and treasure the copy a friend of mine got me.
It's largely a reaction to Tunnels and Trolls and Chivalry and Sorcery, by a wargamer. It got published through the book trade somehow and was a pick on the sfbook club adds for years thereafter.
There's also Martin Hackett's Fantasy Wargaming which never quite decides whether it's a homebrew wargame and campaign system or an overview guide to the hobby in general. It's actually a fun book and eventually got a second edition with the rpg rules and less hobby overview.
The real gem of the book is the historical real world setting it details. Really good stuff buried in all the spiel.
And yes. I had Martin's Fantasy Wargaming and it is a good book. Actually the first wargame book I ever read. Also seems to turn up in libraries everywhere.
The history was good, and so was the basic idea framework: magic is a two-step process of forming an ethereal link followed by up to three spells or seven commands, you have to raise mama by study, sacrifice, ecstatic dance, song, or meditation, and religion is more thoroughly defined. The problem was the mechanic used to implement the framework. It was the first game to prove that a math-centric approach does not produce a playable game.
A lesson, sadly, no one learned.
I had the magic lion that had 2 bodies and 1 head show up in a D&D game once.
my players felt so sorry for it, their characters cried as they killed it.
Who the hell wants to play a hobbit anyway! :p
Quote from: Exploderwizard;834145Who the hell wants to play a hobbit anyway! :p
God that condescending "Youv'e been doing it all wrong and we are here to enlighten you with out brilliance!" and "Who would want to play a dirty hobbit or elf?" and "All those fantasy novel writers got it all wrong wrong wrong!" really ground my gears. Moreso because it drags down what otherwise was a viable idea.
Quote from: Arkansan;834073Huh, didn't know that. I wonder has anyone around here ever played it? Was there any follow up to it?
We played a little, but it was a pretty mixed (and mostly not so great) bag of stuff. The real standout area of interesting ideas was magic, but the implementation in detail didn't grab my gang. The man-to-man and battle rules were fairly well done, as one would expect from those fellows, and easy enough to use, but nothing to crow about.
One little bit of interest is the bestiary, if you want more examples of the sort of monsters medieval folks imagined -- but you can probably find some better collections (associated perhaps with more worthwhile rules sets) for free online. The "more truly medieval fantasy" thing seems pretty perennial.
best D&D game I have ever been in was one where we 3 players had to bring peace to the waring kingdoms of the ogre, and the kingdoms of man (human, dwarf, and elf). We started the Olympics. but THAT wasn't why it was the greatest game.
it was the greatest game because we ecologically destabilized the planet by exterminating all the halflings in the world. (or at least enough to prevent there being a breeding population.
now before you complain, let me say in our defense. they all looked like the Oompa-Loompas from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. (the Gene Wilder one not the Johnny Depp one)
orange skin, green hair, white bib overalls, maroon shirt, and they all spoke in song.
we took one look at these and decided that they were too stupid to live.
we got no experience points for killing them but we didn't care.
the GM just let us, reluctantly, run with our chosen goal.
it was a hoot.
It seems to me as though this unplayable piece of lunacy was in every public library ever. In Canada, at least. I wonder if there was some kind of mass sell-off or donation?
Quote from: RPGPundit;834873It seems to me as though this unplayable piece of lunacy was in every public library ever. In Canada, at least. I wonder if there was some kind of mass sell-off or donation?
I think Fantasy Wargaming was sold primarily through standard book stores rather than game stores, and perhaps with a large print run typical of mass market hardbacks rather than most RPG products of the time (other than D&D.) And keep in mind the time period: D&D was in the 1e era. D&D looked way better than most RPGs, which were mostly all paperback and stapled through the spine. But the PHB or Monster Manual still didn't look like mainstream hardbacks. Fantasy Wargaming was thicker, and one version had a dust jacket. I believe that version was also sold through The Science Fiction Book Club.
Being sold through the sfbc meant a lot of people including me got it for 1 cent as part of the introductory offer, then quit the club after buying the minimum # of books.
Quote from: RPGPundit;834873It seems to me as though this unplayable piece of lunacy was in every public library ever. In Canada, at least. I wonder if there was some kind of mass sell-off or donation?
Well it originated in the UK. Hence why it is an RPG is called a Wargame. So it would have filtered into Canada probably via orders and more likely donations. Seems like the game was more prevalent in libraries in the northern US than in the southern. But could be coincidence.
I have been to a couble of libraries across the US. Some in really obsure towns and found one of the Star Fleet Battles hardbacks on the shelves. Also the other Fantasy Wargaming book, which was at least actually about Wargaming.
But as someone else pointed out. It was a common sight in Book Club offers. Considering how cheaply it is printed it is possible they overprinted it. Considering the authors egos. That really wouldnt surprise me at all.
http://www.trimboli.name/fwcharacters.html
Not exactly unplayable...but reading it takes me back to grad school seminar and endless journal articles pontificating about subjective crap. I forced myself to read the whole thing and it ranks right along side Role-Playing Master and Master of the Game by Gygax for entertainment value.
Very good. Looks like you got it all right if I recall correctly. Been a while since ground through it for that review.
Quote from: Omega;834915Well it originated in the UK. Hence why it is an RPG is called a Wargame. So it would have filtered into Canada probably via orders and more likely donations.
Canada got tons of RPG and similar books in the 80s from the UK. I think the Fighting Fantasy books (and Dungeoneer books), and things like Sorcery, and Maelstrom, were far more common in canada than in the U.S.
Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;834062Is it possible you're looking for this one?
http://www.amazon.com/Fantasy-Wargaming-Highest-Level-All/dp/0812828623/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433020739&sr=8-1&keywords=fantasy+wargaming
Yeah, that book was *everywhere*. I love the overblown title (1). A friend of mine has it. It's...not a playable system. How bad is it? Well, there's a solo adventure in the back, and the first thing the solo adventure does is *remove the entire combat system you're supposed to use in the game*. When the author tells you right up front that he doesn't find the combat system viable, that's a problem.
There are actually TWO books, and I have the second one. It has 3 good adventures in it, and some other stuff. The adventures are very good, not that I can remember them in detail (books around here somewhere...).
There's one where you go on a major quest to get two artifacts (axe and shield, in a complex built in the skeleton of a titan/200' humanoid). Another is a take-off of "Red Nails", where you go to temple that's been isolated from the rest of the world for a century, and devolved into three factions that fight over a few square feet of stone floor. Another is set in a nice castle (well laid out, one of the few semi-credible castle floorplans I've seen in a fantasy game). I think there's one more adventure, and then some bad mass combat rules.
Still, if you can get that second book, cheap, it's worthwhile, because it's tough to get multiple really playable adventures that veteran players don't already know about.
(1) note this is hyperbole, and only opinion on my part, that a book calling itself "the highest level of all fantasy wargaming" is a bit pretentious.
Sorry, Doom, I think you've mixed up FW with High Fantasy, by Jeffrey Dillow.
Derp. My bad...hard to keep track of unplayable 80s RPGs, I guess. ;)
fwiw I played High Fantasy and I thought it was very playable. The combat system was unusual but fast. Overall the game is probably too simplistic for most tastes--barely more elaborate in terms of character differentiation and action than white box D&D.
* * *
About FW, via the blog I linked earlier, there's a bunch of pages that tabulate the various systems and modifiers. Start here: http://www.nettally.com/gldearman/gaming/fantasy_wargaming/rules-handouts.html
This is one of the few "classic era" RPGs that I have never seen. It just wasn't distributed in Australia.
Quote from: Arminius;834094This is probably my source: https://mikemonaco.wordpress.com/bruce-galloways-fantasy-wargaming/
Real RPG history research there, and knowing about its genesis (and the sad premature passing of 3 of the 5 authors) makes you more inclined to forgive the blemishes of this notorious game.
Quote from: The_Shadow;835318Real RPG history research there, and knowing about its genesis (and the sad premature passing of 3 of the 5 authors) makes you more inclined to forgive the blemishes of this notorious game.
Being dead does not excuse being a dick when you were alive. Loraine williams did some pretty nice things while running TSR. She also left a larger legacy of problems and lined her own pockets massively in the process. Problems that are still plaguing D&D 15 years later. When she does finally pass away that is not going to excuse the bad things she did and the legacy she left that she built herself.
Fantasy Wargaming is tiny in comparison. But it still doesnt excuse their bad behavior. It is a legacy they wrote themselves. If you have to stop and piss on someone elses works in your own product then that says nothing good about you and drags down your own product. Hell we have to warn new designers not to pull that stunt at least once a year even now. Possibly moreso now.
Interesting game. Bad designer attitude. Not like that is anything new.
Unfortunately see so very very much worse.
If you can find the game give it a glance through. Make of it what you will. I thought it was playable. Others totally disagree with me.
Quote from: Omega;835390Being dead does not excuse being a dick when you were alive. Loraine williams did some pretty nice things while running TSR. She also left a larger legacy of problems and lined her own pockets massively in the process. Problems that are still plaguing D&D 15 years later. When she does finally pass away that is not going to excuse the bad things she did and the legacy she left that she built herself.
Fantasy Wargaming is tiny in comparison. But it still doesnt excuse their bad behavior. It is a legacy they wrote themselves. If you have to stop and piss on someone elses works in your own product then that says nothing good about you and drags down your own product. Hell we have to warn new designers not to pull that stunt at least once a year even now. Possibly moreso now.
Oh,
come on.
Their crime was that they wrote some things people disagreed with in an arrogant and annoying manner, probably deliberately for entertainment value. Either you are entertained, whether you agree with their opinions or not, or you are not entertained. They didn't say something insensitive, they didn't encourage horrible practices, they didn't embezzle anything, steal anything, maim or murder anyone, or even just suggest something that was widely adopted and produced aesthetically displeasing results. They are just some relatively obscure writers who wrote some stuff.
Calling that "bad behavior" is kind of silly.
Quote from: Brad;834933http://www.trimboli.name/fwcharacters.html
Not exactly unplayable...but reading it takes me back to grad school seminar and endless journal articles pontificating about subjective crap. I forced myself to read the whole thing and it ranks right along side Role-Playing Master and Master of the Game by Gygax for entertainment value.
Hee ha...I have both of those Gygax books and assume you are being sardonic. Interesting curios, though. A look into Gygax's view of roleplaying, which is very different even from what was common among players at the time they were published. At least among those I knew. Some might charitably call it laughable.
I like to think I have enough detachment to find the early 1980s pontifications of some snobbish Cambridge-educated gamers amusing without getting into a rage about their character deficiencies. Likewise with Gygax's atrocities such as "Master of the Game". Hilarious, but he's like a nutty and sporadically brilliant uncle who you love to death.
Quote from: The_Shadow;835477I like to think I have enough detachment to find the early 1980s pontifications of some snobbish Cambridge-educated gamers amusing without getting into a rage about their character deficiencies. Likewise with Gygax's atrocities such as "Master of the Game". Hilarious, but he's like a nutty and sporadically brilliant uncle who you love to death.
Damn you! Now I am going to have to read that thing one of these days. :jaw-dropping:
Quote from: Omega;835494Damn you! Now I am going to have to read that thing one of these days. :jaw-dropping:
Just don't pay too much for it :-) The sporadic brilliance I mentioned is found elsewhere in his ouevre...
I had High Fantasy first edition, which didn't have the skill rules in it. Mind you the skill rules were a list of skills that you rolled percentile to find your rating in them but even so. They weren't in the original book. Nor was the solo adventure and setting material.
The system was interesting if oddly structured. Very much in the "a different rule for every subsystem" mode, combat resulted in direct losses in attack bonus, defense bonus and armor defense bonus. It made for a scary chart but it was an interesting notion. I think it was the first fantasy game I saw that gave alchemists firearms. Really it did a great job of giving the classes meaningful stuff to do with their downtime and treasure. Top notch stuff in there.
The setting was more in the line of Empire of the Petal Throne than Tolkien. Aztec / Indian inspirations and fairly wild adventure concepts for the time. At the time that put me off, I wanted more Tolkien in my fantasy not less. But next to Fantasy Wargaming, High Fantasy is clearly written and interesting and, as best as I can remember not particularly bad about proclaiming its superiority to other rpgs.
I think Master of the Game wasn't all that bad. But then I like that kind of behind the scenes author's thoughts type of thing. Asimov on Science Fiction and Ursula K LeGuin's The Language of the Night are two of my favorite books.
On the other hand first edition probably still has the worst cover in the history of gaming.
Quote from: David Johansen;835499I had High Fantasy first edition, which didn't have the skill rules in it. Mind you the skill rules were a list of skills that you rolled percentile to find your rating in them but even so. They weren't in the original book. Nor was the solo adventure and setting material.
It had a heck of a cover that got my attention, and a glance through it was intriguing. The later edition looked even more so to me with more material, and reviewers praised the scenarios especially.
I never actually got around to buying it, but I suspect I'd like it better than many other folks.
QuoteThe system was interesting if oddly structured. Very much in the "a different rule for every subsystem" mode, combat resulted in direct losses in attack bonus, defense bonus and armor defense bonus. It made for a scary chart but it was an interesting notion. I think it was the first fantasy game I saw that gave alchemists firearms. Really it did a great job of giving the classes meaningful stuff to do with their downtime and treasure. Top notch stuff in there.
The setting was more in the line of Empire of the Petal Throne than Tolkien. Aztec / Indian inspirations and fairly wild adventure concepts for the time. At the time that put me off, I wanted more Tolkien in my fantasy not less. But next to Fantasy Wargaming, High Fantasy is clearly written and interesting and, as best as I can remember not particularly bad about proclaiming its superiority to other rpgs.
I think Master of the Game wasn't all that bad. But then I like that kind of behind the scenes author's thoughts type of thing. Asimov on Science Fiction and Ursula K LeGuin's The Language of the Night are two of my favorite books.
On the other hand first edition probably still has the worst cover in the history of gaming.
Quote from: Arkansan;834073Huh, didn't know that. I wonder has anyone around here ever played it? Was there any follow up to it?
I tried to play this when I bought it as a kid in middle school back in the day. I think it exceeded my "esoterica" expectation that had been previously set by the 1E DMG....by a wide margin. I recall staying up for several nights trying to decipher how to design characters, then running them through some test cases, tying to figure out how the combat rules worked (or didn't) and being utterly impressed at the "feel" of medieval antiquity the book exuded (put another way when you're 12 it feels pretty authentic).
In the end I couldn't figure it out enough to run it, but it was a hell of an experience. This is definitely one I'd pick up again just for the nostalgia factor.
Quote from: camazotz;835712I tried to play this when I bought it as a kid in middle school back in the day. I think it exceeded my "esoterica" expectation that had been previously set by the 1E DMG....
Kind of how I felt about SPI's Universe RPG. Except that the 1e DMG was absurdly easy to grasp by comparison. But once things clicked Universe was fairly easy. Some games just never do for some reason.