Actually only first place has to be on the winning side. Just like The Olde Days.
Bernard, you are getting the wrong message from the posting. For some time I have tried, unsuccessfully, to point out there is more to this game than meets the casual eye. What can I do to encourage you to review a 15 year old preconception?
Edward, there is more than meets the eye in almost everything, even in a filled donut 
I have no preconception. All I have is experience, which tells me that successful methods become popular very quickly. So if your “old time” methods are so successful, why aren’t they more popular?
Probably because his “old time” methods relied on poor communications between players (the fated Fog of War). By doing some sneaky stuff you can probably create havoc amongst players who don’t have full information. Once the age of full information arrived (with the heralding of the Internet and universal email) the whole tactics become next to useless.
Lets move on.
Gavin
International relations are not a team game. The GSI-Miami game, although a fantasy, was very ‘realistic’. Some years ago French agents, in a New Zealand port, placed a limpet mine against the USS Greenpeace sinking it and killing a crew member. In the GSI game you could take covert actions against a ‘friendly ally’ on ‘tolerated’ territory. This was ‘realistic’. In the Harley game, with the exchange of pdfs (and Harley willingness to provide them to ‘team-mates’) this ranges between the impractical and the impossible.
Let me propose this: You two gentlemen dust off your old 124 page GSI rulebook and reread the first two pages. What are the goals of the game designers (not players)? How are they going about achieving those goals?
France and New Zealand are on the same team, Greenpeace is a Neutral, so a French Agent in a New Zealand pop centre is allowed to attack a Greenpeace character.
So you have a bad example. But coming from your experience and nation of residence, I’m sure you can come up with lots of examples of States issuing various “offensive” orders against Allies. But how did GSI reconcile the State vs it’s own people…? I mean, if we’re going to insist on “realism” we have one heck of a slippery pandora to slide down here, don’t we…?
What Ed might not grasp is that the web-app only game, played under an alias, is the only way to get the “game” back to GSI’s supposed roots. Ed’s on my side here, whether he knows it or not, and whether I’m on his or not… 
Well Ed my rulebook is a sixth edition rulebook, but I doubt it has differed that much. There’s nothing on the second page of any use except talking about sending game cards (which was a necessity in the dark ages). On the first page the only quote of note is “Although the Free Peoples should co-operate together in order to combat the Dark Servants (and vice-versa), only one player can win the game.”
I’m failing to see how this helps you.
And by the way if your tactic is to sabotage players on your own side so that you get the individual win then remind me never to play on the same side as you Ed.
Gavin
Truely, some things are easier to victimize than to modify. At least, Gavin, you understand that the here-and-now is different from the there-and-then. Many people do not get that. From that base you can meditate on the differences and make gain/loss comparisons.
Yes Ed we can definitely agree that the game has changed over time. The reason is the onset of fast and easy communications - which incidently has also happened in real life war situations with the advance of technology. As to whether it is better before of now - that really depends on what you are looking to get out of the game. If you are looking for a really great team game then it is better now that before. If you are looking for a game which is primarily a challenge in information gathering and disinformation then it was probably better before. I’m in the former camp here btw.
It is not something that I think you can blame on MEgames, since the advent of the internet and email happened beyond their sphere of influence and they have just reacted to make the game easier for their customers to avoid losing market share to those games that have gone with the times. Had MEgames not made information sharing easy (like XMLs) then I fully beleive that they would have lost a large player base to those games that did. The PBM market has shrunk comsiderable since the 1990’s due to the influence of the internet and I think that Middle Earth PBM has done very well to maintain its player base in such conditions.
Gavin
Thanks Gavin for inserting a concept that I’ve missed entirely, not a marketing major over here… But, I can now more clearly explain the direction of my thoughts and illustrate a frustration I feel here.
I’m not talking about the PBM market. So whenever Clint replies to me and defends MEGames position in this market, he and I are not talking about the same thing:
Brad: “Nice blue sky today”.
Reply: “The Titanic sank in the Atlantic”
“The PBM market has shrunk considerably …Middle Earth PBM has done very well to maintain its player base in such conditions.”
That’s like telling me your antenna still gets good signal…but they’re going to stop sending that signal soon, no matter how clear your TV is now.
So leave the PBM market alone - neither the game nor the players in that bucket are going anywhere (well, besides “away” but there nothing more to be done there that isn’t being done already…). The question is how to bring the existing game to other markets, isn’t it? And if that also helps maintain it’s player base in the existing/shrinking market, bonus.
Or another way: Create New. NOT Change the Existing. So, the ‘afraid of change’ crowd - no change, nothing’s going away, stay in your seat. For the ‘loves new/change’ crowd - to the edge of your seat, things are on their way. For the new crowd we haven’t met yet - well, the whole point is to make them a seat to join us at the table.
Brad
Right on. Gavin. With some shoehorning: “The Harley game IS a good team game. But that is all that it is. The GSI game COULD be a good team game. It could also be more.” You should be a happy camper, Harley has five team games with an apparent sixth in the pipeline.
It is understood that many people can not function in cut-throat/ambiguous/chaos-style environments. They need things to be neat and tidy. But then, some people can function and thrive in such environments. In fact, they have.
One of the nice things about the GSI game was that you could make negative moral choices and not actually hurt anyone. In fact, the GSI game forced you to make moral choices, even if that was not widely understood. Criminals, cops, army officers, prison wardens, Wall Street options brokers and others who make frequent moral decisions would have the Real World background to understand what was going on. "Realistic’? You bet. Instead of stealing lives/careers (with resulting damage to individuals and families) you are only simulating the theft of victory points.
An individual might be personally brilliant and a skilled gamer. But their own assumptions and preconceptions would defeat them and they could never quite figure out what caused it.
Ed, why do you say “you could make negative moral choices and not actually hurt anyone” when you really mean “you could make negative moral choices and still win the game”?
you don’t hurt anybody today with amoral choices any more than back then. you just don’t get away with them that easily, because they are easier to trace within the more transparent stuctures. most people don’t like to be backstabbed. and most people see to it that they don’t get fooled twice. so I really don’t see a large player base for your concept of the game.
so I really don’t see a large player base for your concept of the game.
Basically that’s it. I’ve tried to get games for Ed and it’s been very difficult. GB is somewhat there, and the Alliance game is also somewhat there. To win, with the advent of email, invariably the best Team-playing team wins the game and therefore individuals within that Team win.
Reducing communication slows the game down, but I’m not convinced that it makes a better game. That’s for you guys to decide really - if you enjoy that then ask for such games, if you don’t then we’ve got plenty of formats for you to play. As a player I like full information to make full choices and infer where the FoWar is and work from there but appreciated and support the fact that others like other formats of games.
VCs - well we’ve not see a lot of support for these over the years. It’s something that we can hope to address (see UW for that) in the future.
KS - well yes it’s a team-game as I’ve basically looked at what the majority of players have claimed to like, based on my experience of what I think they like and tried to put all elements of that together in one game. We’ll see how that goes uh?
Clint
I have a difficulty Ed when you talk about the GSI game and the Harlequin game as (bar a few minor policy updates) essentially the same game. The main thing that has changed is the advent of the internet age and thus easy information. If Harlequin hadn’t taken over running it then GSI would have been in the same position as these are external factors.
The only way to try and play the old way you like is to create an artificial barrier to information flows (like the Gunboat games or limited notes games), so I can’t really see where else MEGames can go to please you. As Clint says the demand for that is low - as it is a small subset of the full player base.
Gavin
As a player in the Alliance game, I’d say that it’s as close as possible (given modern communications that Gavin, Bernd, etc mention) to recreating the mirky intelligence gathering & communication imperfections of the early PB(postal)M game.
GB is a bit different. It’s not about recreating the wild-west format of the early PB(posatl)M game as much as it is about allowing creative play that deviates from the “chess move” play of the grudge games. The huge fog-of-war in GB allows nation pairs to do a lot of different things than are impossible in a grudge game (where you have to assume perfect communication & coordination within the enemy team).
Dave
Well, here is an alternative: Stop the pretense this is a Tolkien simulation. Tolkien could imagine ‘tricksey hobbits’ and Stassun and Feilds could simulate that. Some persons, despite reading the epic and the first page of the Rulebook, can’t grasp the concept—despite years of attempted explanations. Then there are persons who think the nations of ME were some sort of federal republic—never mind Gandalf’s diplomatic efforts show to the contrary.
Change several hundred personal and place names. Stop paying, directly or indirectly, fees to the Tolkien estate. We can now call this “Colin’s World”. The cost of games would go down and Harley’s profit margin would go up.
Ed, you forgot your sarcastic smiley face on that post…
you know, this one:
I don’t understand why everyoneattacks Ed so much… it’s not as if what he says is incorrect.
My recollection of the Tolkein books… and I’m no expert (read years ago)… is that the FP allied with each other more through the common threat of the DS than anything else… they weren’t best buddies… even the Steward of Gondor didn’t want his rightful King back.
I recall the fellowship was filled not by a bunch of friends all wanting to work together but by people not wanting others to be accompanying the ring bearer without being watched… so Boromir joined because of Aragorn, Legolas joined because of Gimli (or the other way around)… it is only through life events that they developed a friendship.
I may recall this wrong, but in the Hobbit, the Dwarves and the Elves did not get on either… pretty sure the Elves locked up the Dwarves… and in the build up to the final battles the Dwarves and Elves were facing each other and only joined forces when the Goblins/Wargs arrived…
All of this is not captured in the game we now play… I can’t be sneaky in an age where everyone expects to share all turns, whether FP or DS… neutrals are considered highly suspicious from the get go… not complaining about the game now… but it is not the game I started… different likes and dislikes.
its a shame that VCs couldn’t be incorporated into the game more prominently but made more tolkeinesque than random… so that you couldn’t actually win unless you fullfilled or neutralised them… eg Dwa start as Dislike to all Elves with a VC to reclaim some pop centre or artifact owned by Sin or Nol… and its hard to change relations… so armies get in each others ways etc etc…
I don’t understand the arguements for a realistic team game based on current communications… I’m not playing WW4… I’m playing a game where I guess riders would have been sent out to call allies for help…
We can’t go backwards, but equally there must be ways - like Gunboat - to recreate some of the feel of the way the game used to be played… just needs enough players dedicated to trying a scenario with set limits to communication and a desire to not just win as a team but to win individually, including VCs… so if you find 25 people up for it… you could find yourselves with a recreation of sorts… a “Good Old Days” game…
I doubt I’d be up for it now though… it was much harder work to put together a team newsletter etc etc… I’m too hooked on email
Michael
Michael - I have a go at Ed as he is constantly claiming that
a) MEGames have changed the game and
b) There is widespread support for a Fog of War style game and that its a better game.
The only thing that MEGames have changed are a few house rules that are not significant to the game itself. The core game is unchanged. The first change to the game will be a fix for the OBN problem, which I suspect that once found would have been fixed by the original designers. I respect the fact that Ed would prefer to play a game more like that, but get a little irrated by the constant posts stating that this is all ME Games fault.
The take up for Gunboat games shows that there is a demand for the FoW style games, but that it is low compared to the main game. Its not as though Clint has not tried to create variants to keep Ed happy (Alliance and Gunboat).
Yes I agree the way the game is played has changed (due to the widespread nature of communications now) but the game itself has not.
As you admit yourself Michael you do not have the time or patience to do what is needed to play in the old style way, so I think your defeating your own arguements.
Gavin
Gentlemen,
let’s not confuse two totally different questions:
-
did the game change, and if so why and what should/could be done about that?
-
does the game fit into the tolkien universe?
Question 1) has been answered quite thoroughly in this thread: Yes the game has changed, not by the rules but by the way it is played, due to improved communication and superiority of teamplay and there are GB and alliance games for those who like to bring back some of the old time style.
- this is another box of pandora, but I can’t resist to take a little peek inside. It is true that Tolkiens Free People nations were no perfect team. far from it. But there are so many differences between game and book it’s impossible to name them all. Few examples:
- all of the “neutral nations” were indeed allies to Sauron.
- the amount of troops and population centers in the 1650 and the 2950 scenario have no foundation in tolkiens works
- the book ended with a FP “one ring victory”, need I say more?
so the discussion about how “realistic” or close to the books this game is won’t get us anywhere…