Looking for something new

[aramis erak]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. Tiny Dungeon 2e seems to be the winner. Lots of genres to choose from, seems super easy.

Since someone else necro'd the thread...
So, a year on, how did it go?

 

[piper909]

Howard Thompson followed his own drummer. I have some photos from my Metagaming days but not as many as I'd like, and only taken on a cheap Instamatic. Most were taken at the HIA show in Dallas in January 1981, he was making the big push to sell the Unicorn Gold treasure hunt game and wore a ball cap with a yellow unicorn horn sticking out as he schmoozed with visitors to the Metagaming booth.

One time he wanted to thank Norm Royal (the art director and graphics guru, the only other staffer who worked on games during my stint) and me for getting some project done under deadline and so he said we could knock off work one afternoon early and then took us to -- a strip club. I think he bought us some beers or something. It was fairly embarrassing to me. Seemed so tacky. He thought this was a reward?

His marriage was on the rocks at the time but we didn't know about it -- one of the secretarial workers did know, but kept it to herself, we found out later from her. She was one of the chief administrative workers, there were about four full or part-time, all women. Plus some part-time fellows working the mail room and warehouse. Tommye (sp?), Howard's wife, apparently confided things to that lady, she was the most responsible and dependable of the office worker bees and privy to more personal goings-on within the Metagaming office.

 

[piper909]

Other highlights from that era -- getting to visit Forrest Brown's Martian Metals business, it was located in the rural Hill Country fringes northwest of Austin proper (at that time), seemed very slapdash, centered in old wood buildings from some abandoned farming settlement I want to say. I was not surprised to hear later that it burned down, it seemed to be in a vulnerable spot for wildfires. Forrest once hosted a massed Fantasy battle in his house's garage and that inspired me to write my own massed Fantasy rules a few years later (unpublished, alas), using a couple of his combat mechanics that I liked very much.

I see on the web a reproduction of the surprise April 1, 1982 memo that Howard presented to Norm and me basically saying that our jobs were ending and we would henceforth only be paid for piecework, which was in effect a big reduction in salary as well as totally unpredictable. (Separately, he also placed ads in some local high school newspapers looking for playtesters and other piecework labor on the cheap!) This came as a bolt out of the blue. I told him, "I can't live on this," and set to work looking up other possibilities. Luckily there were other ex-TSR guys out there and Lawrence Schick got me an interview at Coleco, where he had gone to just months previously. Paul/Jennell Jaquays was assembling a new games division for the ColecoVision and other systems and products. Howard really blindsided us and I had no contact with him after completing our two-week severance period. That was a low-down deed and I wasn't surprised when the company folded its tent the following year. It seemed that Howard gave in to his cheap-ass instincts and maybe thought he could keep his profit margin high by cutting production costs. We saw how well that turned out. I don't think Metagaming was in financial straits -- but I don't know for sure -- I think he just got tired of role-playing being a game publisher for whatever reason.

 

[piper909]

I had Fury, but not Alamo.


I have to say, generally speaking, that I respect the skills required to design a game…and how to apply them properly.

I tried solo designing a wargame one time, but abandoned it after one playtest period. For whatever reason, it kept resolving into stalemates.

Lots of classic board games have equally matched forces that can result in ties, but only with effort. My game seemed to be geared to create standoffs, and I couldn’t figure out why.

I worked on the first four TSR MiniGames a lot and playtested some of the later batch. Revolt on Antares and They've Invaded Pleasantville I basically co-designed and wrote the final rules drafts but my credit is as "developer". At Metagaming I did development/playtesting on some games and edited rules drafts for a bunch of the later ones. My earlier freelance gigs there involved evaluation and reviews of the "slush pile" -- unsolicited game submissions that Howard wanted to know more about, were they worth pursuing? That was also one of the Development sections' responsibilities at TSR.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Most were taken at the HIA show in Dallas in January 1981, he was making the big push to sell the Unicorn Gold treasure hunt game and wore a ball cap with a yellow unicorn horn sticking out as he schmoozed with visitors to the Metagaming booth.

Is that the one that never got found, or am I thinking of the Treasure of the Silver Dragon? Both were such weird gimmicks, I assume meant to increase sales, which I doubt worked very well. They seem like such a break from his usual skinflint behavior.

One time he wanted to thank Norm Royal (the art director and graphics guru, the only other staffer who worked on games during my stint) and me for getting some project done under deadline and so he said we could knock off work one afternoon early and then took us to -- a strip club. I think he bought us some beers or something. It was fairly embarrassing to me. Seemed so tacky. He thought this was a reward?

Understandably awkward. I have never worked for a boss that I would want to go to a strip club with, and I don't ever expect to.

Reminds me of the time back in...1999? 2000?...when I worked GW's big Games Day con in Baltimore as an "undercover" Outrider (the old name for their local fan reps, who ran in-store events and were paid in credit - pseudo-employees at best). I wasn't actually part of the program but they were so sloppy about checking I accepted an invite from one the two local sibling Outriders to go in his place so he didn't get in trouble. It was an interesting experience seeing the show from behind the curtain, particularly the briefing/motivational meeting before it started. They had ~60 people jammed in a meeting room at the GW HQ with a slide presentation, and a few minutes into it the slides shifted to softcore nudes of some local gal. It was obviously pre-planned (the guy running it not only lingered, he went back to it once) and overall there some wolfish howling - but a lot of people were obviously uncomfortable, including the three women in the room. Even ~25 years ago I don't know how HR wasn't firing people over it, because I know there were complaints afterward. I'd have filed one myself if hadn't been there under false pretenses.

Other highlights from that era -- getting to visit Forrest Brown's Martian Metals business, it was located in the rural Hill Country fringes northwest of Austin proper (at that time), seemed very slapdash, centered in old wood buildings from some abandoned farming settlement I want to say. I was not surprised to hear later that it burned down, it seemed to be in a vulnerable spot for wildfires. Forrest once hosted a massed Fantasy battle in his house's garage and that inspired me to write my own massed Fantasy rules a few years later (unpublished, alas), using a couple of his combat mechanics that I liked very much.

I was a few years away from really getting into miniatures (at that point I was still mostly playing with loaners) but it was still really sad to see them go. Assume they didn't have proper insurance to rebuild, or maybe they were just reliant on what had to be fairly cheap (or free) workspace to use. But man, those upside down Martian ads on the back cover of Space Gamer used to make me smile.

That was a low-down deed and I wasn't surprised when the company folded its tent the following year. It seemed that Howard gave in to his cheap-ass instincts and maybe thought he could keep his profit margin high by cutting production costs. We saw how well that turned out. I don't think Metagaming was in financial straits -- but I don't know for sure -- I think he just got tired of role-playing being a game publisher for whatever reason.

So strange, considering he probably could have almost doubled his retail price and still done okay in the early 80s. He must have at least sort of liked gaming and game design...WarpWar proves the guy could design a rock-solid game, and while I may poke fun at Starleader Assault it wasn't actually bad, just disappointing compared to Melee/Wizard/TFT...which makes me wonder if it was yet another spite-driven game like Fistful of Turkeys.

Also makes me wonder just how much of his overall sales came from Ogre and GEV.

I worked on the first four TSR MiniGames a lot and playtested some of the later batch. Revolt on Antares and They've Invaded Pleasantville I basically co-designed and wrote the final rules drafts but my credit is as "developer".

Revolt is and always will be a personal favorite, it's one of those rare games that just oozes character somehow, putting it up the same strata as Divine Right, Dragon Pass, Swords & Sorcery, and Bloodtree Rebellion in my book. And it does it in such a tiny format with a less-than-generous budget to boot.

Pleasantville, well, not so much. The theme is great, gameplay is fine, but man, that one's really held back by the components, especially that map.

My earlier freelance gigs there involved evaluation and reviews of the "slush pile" -- unsolicited game submissions that Howard wanted to know more about, were they worth pursuing? That was also one of the Development sections' responsibilities at TSR.

Both companies must have been flooded with submissions from hopefuls trying to get their games on the market. In fairness to Howard, Metagaming did give a lot of people their shot at that. Very diverse list of designers for a relatively small catalog compared to places like SPI or AvHill or TSR.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Revolt on Antares was probably one of the most played non-Metagames mini games played from my collection.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Revolt on Antares was probably one of the most played non-Metagames mini games played from my collection.

While it remains my favorite of the TSR minigames and has seen far more play post-2000 than any of the others, I'm not sure it even edges out all its siblings based on plays in the 80s and 90s. We played a weirdly large amount of Saga back in the day, which I credit to it being incredibly frustrating to do well in - very common to get mangled by your first monster or three, long before you managed to improve your character much. Viking Gods was something of an obsession with one guy so that led to me playing a lot. It was a very basic game but had surprising replay value because so much of it came down to positioning in the early clashes, which (along with luck) determined who lost their strong 4 or 5 pieces early and left the enemy's big survivors free to rampage. Even Attack Force might edge out Revolt for table time - it wasn't worth playing two-player but there were so few real choices involved that it made a decent brainless solo game, so it became my old-fashioned equivalent to time-waster phone game. Almost entirely decided by how soon Darth Vader Vaj Korsen gets shot down every game IME.

Moving to other companies I played way more of the early Starfire trilogy than Revolt (and evenmore after it moved beyond a baggie), a little Starfleet Battles while it was still a baggie game, and Valkenburg Castle saw a lot of table time for us as well. The Dwarfstar games saw a lot of play too, and I still revisit them regularly thanks to the pdfs. Only ones that weren't real popular were Outpost Gamma and Goblins, and even those got some play.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have my own copies of Starfire, and damn near everything for SFB.

Oddly, I got into it living in Manhattan, KS- home to K State and a 30 minute drive from Fort Riley (home of The Big Red 1). There was a large thriving SFB community there.

Then I moved to Irving, Tx, and somehow found a small group of SFB and Federation & Empire superfans. We played some very cutthroat games, and each of us specialized in mastering 1-2 races. One guy rocked the Federation and Klingons, another guy usually ran Romulans & Kzinti, I was primarily into Hydrans & Tholians.

But one of my greatest wins was in a duel between a Federation Dreadnought and my Gorn Dreadnought. I suckered the Fed player into trading alpha strikes head to head at short range. We had both overloaded weapons, and reinforced our front shields; both ships lost their front shields and suffered some modest internal damage. The next turn, I risked a 180deg high energy turn (successfully!) and took off, with my rear shields as reinforced as possible. And he followed right after me…into the field of nuclear space mines I’d dropped in my hex through my completely absent rear shields while photons, phasers and plasma torps were going off. All his ship could do was run away after that.

I’m not 100% sure, but it may well be sessions like those that really refined & honed my instincts for developing and using unexpected tactics. I really like to innovate. Over the past 30+ years, I’ve earned surprise victories (or forced improbable ties) in chess, SFB, M:tG and other board games in private, public, club and small tournament play. Some of what I did in local M:tG tournaments showed up in later rounds of tournaments- including a couple wins- for players who’d seen my decks.*






* Note: I never won any major tournaments due to a combination of bad draws and bad play on my part. I once got knocked out of a tournament because I didn’t adapt to my opponent’s deck, despite having a sideboard 2/3 devoted to counteracting his deck’s design because I had foreseen his deck’s existence. I realized my error when I had walked about 15 feet away from the table after my loss.

 

[piper909]

Is that the one that never got found, or am I thinking of the Treasure of the Silver Dragon? Both were such weird gimmicks, I assume meant to increase sales, which I doubt worked very well. They seem like such a break from his usual skinflint behavior.

Understandably awkward. I have never worked for a boss that I would want to go to a strip club with, and I don't ever expect to.

Reminds me of the time back in...1999? 2000?...when I worked GW's big Games Day con in Baltimore as an "undercover" Outrider (the old name for their local fan reps, who ran in-store events and were paid in credit - pseudo-employees at best). I wasn't actually part of the program but they were so sloppy about checking I accepted an invite from one the two local sibling Outriders to go in his place so he didn't get in trouble. It was an interesting experience seeing the show from behind the curtain, particularly the briefing/motivational meeting before it started. They had ~60 people jammed in a meeting room at the GW HQ with a slide presentation, and a few minutes into it the slides shifted to softcore nudes of some local gal. It was obviously pre-planned (the guy running it not only lingered, he went back to it once) and overall there some wolfish howling - but a lot of people were obviously uncomfortable, including the three women in the room. Even ~25 years ago I don't know how HR wasn't firing people over it, because I know there were complaints afterward. I'd have filed one myself if hadn't been there under false pretenses.

I was a few years away from really getting into miniatures (at that point I was still mostly playing with loaners) but it was still really sad to see them go. Assume they didn't have proper insurance to rebuild, or maybe they were just reliant on what had to be fairly cheap (or free) workspace to use. But man, those upside down Martian ads on the back cover of Space Gamer used to make me smile.

So strange, considering he probably could have almost doubled his retail price and still done okay in the early 80s. He must have at least sort of liked gaming and game design...WarpWar proves the guy could design a rock-solid game, and while I may poke fun at Starleader Assault it wasn't actually bad, just disappointing compared to Melee/Wizard/TFT...which makes me wonder if it was yet another spite-driven game like Fistful of Turkeys.

Also makes me wonder just how much of his overall sales came from Ogre and GEV.

Revolt is and always will be a personal favorite, it's one of those rare games that just oozes character somehow, putting it up the same strata as Divine Right, Dragon Pass, Swords & Sorcery, and Bloodtree Rebellion in my book. And it does it in such a tiny format with a less-than-generous budget to boot.

Pleasantville, well, not so much. The theme is great, gameplay is fine, but man, that one's really held back by the components, especially that map.

Both companies must have been flooded with submissions from hopefuls trying to get their games on the market. In fairness to Howard, Metagaming did give a lot of people their shot at that. Very diverse list of designers for a relatively small catalog compared to places like SPI or AvHill or TSR.

Hola! Some responses and further chit-chat:

My recollection is that the Golden Unicorn was found, altho' not as quickly as the Silver Dragon. I felt at the time these were both just silly gimmicks. Garnered some publicity, but was it worth it in the long run, and could you sustain a line of games on the concept? But neither was anything I was involved with during my time at Metagaming. I was at TSR during the Silver Dragon launch and the Golden Unicorn was already published by the time I was back in Austin.

I have to assume all the Martian Metals molds and masters were lost in that fire, since none of the figures have been reissued to my knowledge. I still have a bunch of the pirates and a few other things.

I haven't played Revolt on Antares since it was published, I don't think! But I thought it was a nice bit of work at the time. Those microgames had very hard production limits imposed on the designers -- only so many counters, so big a game map, so many pages in the rules booklet. The design had to be shoehorned into those dictates. That explains a lot about the compromises made. Tom Wham's "Icebergs," for instance, in its playtest prototype was a lot bigger game than the final product. Things got shrunk.

I have been reworking They've Invaded Pleasantville off and on in the past years -- I invited Mike Price to join in but never heard back. But on my own, I wanted to expand the game board so I've added a whole new town section and blown up the map, a few more characters, rewritten the rules to add clarity and include the revisions, and want to make it miniatures-friendly. Use 3-D components instead of those bland counters. I have all the townspeople painted up in 25mm (and a few alien types) but what I need now is to line up a professional printer to make some markers, cards, bases, whatever to use to distinguish when a townsperson is under alien control or not. And it would be nice to have the enlarged and expanded map redone professionally. I'll be looking into that sometime in the next year I hope, if we're not caught up in another house move (which is quite possible).

I'll see if I can attach some photo files from those Metagaming days -- I have scans of some photos of Howard at the HIA show, and Norman Royal and myself (Norm's on the left), and the warehouse. This will be my first attempt to use the "Attach Files" tab here. Fingers crossed --

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I have all the townspeople painted up in 25mm (and a few alien types)...

I did the same thing a couple of times for Awful Green Things From Outer Space, albeit in 15mm.

Those microgames had very hard production limits imposed on the designers -- only so many counters, so big a game map, so many pages in the rules booklet. The design had to be shoehorned into those dictates. That explains a lot about the compromises made.

Yeah, it's a tricky format to design in, especially the really tightly constrained ones from TSR and some of Metagaming. Task Force and Dwarfstar had a little more wiggle room in terms of size and component quality.

Just makes the occasional gems all the more remarkable. Like, how is Ice War a better game than SPI's "bookshelf box" War In the Ice?

Tom Wham's "Icebergs," for instance, in its playtest prototype was a lot bigger game than the final product. Things got shrunk.

It shows. My least favorite Tom Wham game by a fair margin, and I usually love his stuff, even super-light stuff like Elefant Hunt.