This game, as originally designed and played, did a great job in mimicing
the intellectual stresses placed on a Real World military commander.
There were 25 persons interacting in a complex and ever shifting manner.
There was an emphasis on the fog-of-war. The rulebook deliberately
contained errors, omissions and ambiguities. Boundries were few and the
horizon far away. The GMs were deliberately vague and usually/often
unhelpful. Games generally ran twice as long as present, so long-term
preplanning was rewarded. The decision making process could be as
complex or simple as the player chose.
As you know I like the game as it is. We can't go back to the fog of war because everything is know. Even if Harley develop a new map (none Tolkien) and new set ups etc this will soon be communicated to others and the fog will be lost.
I missed out on the early days and regret that. I would love to play with lots of unknows (but I can only see that Gunboat would do this to any degree). Other than getting rid of the Internet do you have any ideas how we could revert back to this fog of war that you like so much and I would love to take part in?
Cheers
John S
···
_________________________________________________________________
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Some stuff can be changed every game so that less certainties arise. Its like the first Diablo : The game was essentially the same each time u played it, but the quests differed....
Randomization of artifact numbers, or even a greater variation of their numeric powers ( Such as the possibility of EoW coming as a + 25 artifact ) could help achieve this. Maybe a minor customization of characters at game start could also improve this.
I believe that messing around with the characteristics that permeate most of the initial strategies, like artifact numbers and army placement, could do a lot to end the predictability of the first 4 turns.
Rodrigo Maia
···
----- Original Message -----
From: John Simpson
To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 9:03 PM
Subject: RE: [mepbmlist] Military Command and Middle Earth
Ed,
>This game, as originally designed and played, did a great job in mimicing
>the intellectual stresses placed on a Real World military commander.
>There were 25 persons interacting in a complex and ever shifting manner.
>There was an emphasis on the fog-of-war. The rulebook deliberately
>contained errors, omissions and ambiguities. Boundries were few and the
>horizon far away. The GMs were deliberately vague and usually/often
>unhelpful. Games generally ran twice as long as present, so long-term
>preplanning was rewarded. The decision making process could be as
>complex or simple as the player chose.
As you know I like the game as it is. We can't go back to the fog of war
because everything is know. Even if Harley develop a new map (none Tolkien)
and new set ups etc this will soon be communicated to others and the fog
will be lost.
I missed out on the early days and regret that. I would love to play with
lots of unknows (but I can only see that Gunboat would do this to any
degree). Other than getting rid of the Internet do you have any ideas how we
could revert back to this fog of war that you like so much and I would love
to take part in?
Cheers
John S
_________________________________________________________________
It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today! http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger
Take dragons, for example. There are a lot of mountain hexes on the map, yet
dragon encounters don't exactly seem to use most of them: so, you randomise
the dragon locations each game, distribute them across the eight mountain
clusters. Then shuffle up their powers a bit: make it risky for both sides
to try to interact with them (two of them kill anybody, two kill FP and two
kill DS, for example) but make it beneficial for those that succeed (joins
army, grants artefact, raises rank etc).
Change these settings for each game.
Within a game, knowledge can be passed between allies ("So-and-so is in the
lower Gondor range and raises mage skill by around eight points" or
"so-and-so is in southern Khand and killed my guy") so nothing is lost
there.
This also gives characters a reason to go places they currently don't much!
Thus, the "internet factor" is removed.
Gavin
John Simpson wrote:
···
I missed out on the early days and regret that. I would love to play with
lots of unknows (but I can only see that Gunboat would do this to any
degree). Other than getting rid of the Internet do you have any ideas how we
could revert back to this fog of war that you like so much and I would love
to take part in?
