Tuesday night was D&D, following a number of missed Thursdays, for THE RITUAL followed by a hard fight against a variety of end of scene beasties and bad guys. There are a few loose ends to tie up but i'm fairly sure that the locals can sleep a little easier in thier beds...... at least for a while!
As far as the rules are concerned we're fairly old hands now. We know the sequences, what checks are required when and how to do / attempt certain things.
We're all used to our individual tasks and roles, something of a well oiled machine! It's only really during the tight combats and harder tasks that we have to pull out the special abilities and "tricks".
That happened on Tuesday with Charlie scanning the back of the rulebook whilst the rest of us metaphorically shoved Mr C's Paladinic "tank" towards the teeth of the Green Dragon we had unleashed.
"You can do X" says Charlie. "Oh...good!" says Mr C. Mr C did X. It helped greatly. Scratch one Green Dragon. The post battle heal and loot SOP was then engaged :)
On Thursday shaun and Rich came round for a run through Operation Squad a set of Italian written WWII squad skirmish rules being sold through Warlord Games.
Plugs over, once I got my head around the activation system I discovered that I really liked them. Basically you take turns to nominate one of your boys and state what they're going to do. Your opponent CAN respond by nominating a reaction activation. You CAN then nominate a reaction to his reaction.
Either side can nominate a maximum of three actions in this manner. Once all nominations are in you roll an intiative order and get on with resolving them.
It might sound confusing but in my first game I picked it up fine, even appreciating how it gives an otherwise straight forward set of rules a much greater depth whilst retaining fluidity.
I'm not getting into a diatribe about rules but wish to make another point. I grew up within gaming via GW and thier rulesets. Within that culture there has always been an idea of "veteran gamers", another can of worms that I don't wish to unleash. This seems to be defined merely by time and money invested.
To be honest I now find GW rulesets too basic, prescriptive and limiting to figure within my regular gaming. Like many I limit myself to a couple of GW's Specialist offerings.
So, to me at least, another and potentially better definition of a veteran gamer is one that is able to appreciate and deal with more open and intuitive rulesets to produce a better game. One measure we often use is wether proper tactics properly applied produce a realistic result.
Another thing for me is that to play with better, less prescriptive, rules you need to be a better, less prescriptive, gamer able to use rather than abuse the latitude offered all in the name of FUN for all.
Happy gaming to all :)
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