Looking for something new

[velkymx]

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

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

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

It is indeed super easy, and generally well-written with distinctive artwork.

If you want some extra content for the Tiny Supers book, there's a writeup for the Syracuse Seven homebrew team over on my blog - which got ported over to the Sentinel Comics RPG with some added content over here when I shifted systems.

 

[Longspeak]

Howard then printed a spiteful little "game" called Fistful of Turkeys that parodied SJG stylings (particularly One-Page Bulge) and was marked as being from a faux company called Some Turkey Games.

Wait, what??

I bought and played that. No idea it was a Thompson spite piece!

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Wait, what??

I bought and played that. No idea it was a Thompson spite piece!

Oh yeah, the "separation" was still pretty fresh at that point. Thompson was clearly unhappy about everything from losing Ogre/GEV (two of his best sellers, and which he attempted to imitate with Helltank/Helltank Destroyer) to Space Gamer taking off bigtime after it was under Jackson's control (leading to the short-lived Interplay trying to compete after the original sale of SG was because Metagaming didn't want to waste resources on magazines). Post-1980 was not a great period for Metagaming in general, while SJG was a rising star throughout the decade.

There were definitely some bad feelings over The Fantasy Trip (the wiki article has the story right from what I recall hearing in the pre-internet days) that led to both Jackson's departure and Thompson playing dog-in-the-manger with the game for over 35 years until Jackson finally reclaimed the rights. Hard to say who was in the right there - Thompson had the right to make unilateral changes to TFT without even telling Jackson, but it certainly wasn't polite to do so. At the same time, going by GURPS it's possible that Thompson was right and draft TFT was too complex for its own good and his changes might have improved it - but of the two of them as designers, Jackson's track record even stopping back in 1983 is a fair bit more impressive than Thompson's, whose major claim to fame will always be the microgame format rather than any single game (although WarpWar is still really good, and could have been expanded into something that competed with TFG's Starfire).

Jackson also took the mostly-complete One-Page Bulge with him, and used that format for Raid On Iran and Kung Fu 2100 so it was kind of an "SJG thing" for a while before the pocket boxes came along (thank goodness). It's possible that Thompson may have had the idea for that format originally (formats being his thing) and despite never using it saw it as more "theft" by SJG, or he might have just used it with Fistful of Turkeys to make the parody more spot-on (and keep the costs of a spite project down). The Space Gamer (with Jackson as editor) ran a review in issue 41 that flayed the game pretty badly (deservedly so IMO, it sacrificed too much playability to parody no matter how you feel about the company feud) but beyond that SJG has never really said anything about it AFAIK. Worth noting that Space Gamer reviews extensively used the word "turkey" to describe games the reviewer didn't like, which is so 70s/early 80s it's cringeworthy.

 

[CleverNickName]

We're really liking "The Old Gods of Appalachia RPG," from Monte Cook games. (We're fans of the podcast, so we are probably biased.) It uses the Cypher system, which is lightweight and easy to learn.

 

[piper909]

There's probably more to it than what's publicly known, but it's hard to guess at the details. Howard Thompson is still something of a mysterious figure in gaming circles and there were all sorts of rumors about why he shut down Metagaming so suddenly and has held on to the rights so tightly for as long as he did. There was also some apparent bad blood between him and Steve when SJG was starting up, which led to legal proceedings where Steve wound up with Ogre/GEV/One-Page Bulge. Howard then printed a spiteful little "game" called Fistful of Turkeys that parodied SJG stylings (particularly One-Page Bulge) and was marked as being from a faux company called Some Turkey Games. He also started up a new Metagaming house organ digest mag called Interplay, and this not long after selling The Space Gamer to SJG because Metagaming didn't want to expend time and effort on producing a magazine any more. Interplay felt very much like another spite play aimed at Steve, who'd turned TSG from a modestly popular mag under Metagaming into one of the top ten (and arguably to four or five) mags of its era.

If nothing else, Metagaming was a historically important company for creating the microgame format, which was quite the craze well into the 80s and has seen fitful revivals ever since. The original Cheapass Games stuff might be the ultimate expression of the "clever rules, cheap components" philosophy, but Howard Thompson started it way back when. And then he packed up his toys and more-or-less vanished, leaving most of the company's work in perpetual licensing limbo. There are probably some former Metagaming staff and freelance designers that could tell us more (Steve being the most obvious) but none of them have come forward yet, and a few (eg Lynn Willis, designer of Godsfire, Olympica and Holy War as well as a bunch of GDW, WEG and Chaosium stuff) have passed away at this point.

SJG's really the only company that's bothered to put real effort into reviving those old games, and even then it's only been the ones Steve authored himself. Other creators (or their estates, for deceased ones) could presumably use the same legal process Steve did to recover TFT/Melee/Wizard/etc. but none have been inclined to do so. Avalon Hill did get the rights to Stellar Conquest and Hitler's War before they collapsed themselves - which is kind of ironic, given that Howard wrote Stellar Conquest and started Metagaming to publish it after having it be rejected by AH in the first place.

I and Norman Royal worked at Metagaming back in the day and could tell you more. I'm not sure if I need to register on this site first before posting this reply.

Ah, hey, I'm in! Kevin Hendryx. Both Norm and I are also on Facebook. Norm has been out of gaming professionally for decades; I worked as a freelancer for Metagaming in the late 70s, then on staff at TSR Hobbies 1980-81, then back to Metagaming on staff until Howard dissolved the company effectively in April 1982; then a year at Coleco in the home video game division, and then I left the hobby game biz as a professional but am still an active and avid gamer. I sold a lot of Metagaming documents and memorabilia via eBay to collectors in the later 90s -- decluttering and house moves -- and there used to be websites displaying bits of this ephemera (maybe still are). Last I saw of ol' Howard was in the Austin newspaper decades ago -- he was living in Georgetown or Round Rock to the north of the city -- and was pictured and named in an article about a local atheist group he was active in. Nothing to do with games! He always was a dogmatic atheist. I recognized him at once despite the baldness. I believe he also returned to work at a state agency post-Metagaming, as he had done before he started the company. And presumably retired in due course. (He always bad-mouthed state workers at Metagaming but that didn't stop him from going back to stable employment.) His marriage busted up shortly after Metagaming folded, or even during its folding. Whether or not he's alive today (April 2025), I couldn't say.

 

[piper909]

I can’t tell you how many Metagaming products I own. And I also have some of the microgames from companies that followed their lead, like TSR, Task Force & Cheapass.

Yes, TSR launched it's "MiniGames" to directly compete with Metagaming's "MicroGames." I was there at both companies at those times! (designer: Fury of the Norsemen; Remember the Alamo)

 

[piper909]

There's probably more to it than what's publicly known, but it's hard to guess at the details. Howard Thompson is still something of a mysterious figure in gaming circles and there were all sorts of rumors about why he shut down Metagaming so suddenly and has held on to the rights so tightly for as long as he did. There was also some apparent bad blood between him and Steve when SJG was starting up, which led to legal proceedings where Steve wound up with Ogre/GEV/One-Page Bulge. Howard then printed a spiteful little "game" called Fistful of Turkeys that parodied SJG stylings (particularly One-Page Bulge) and was marked as being from a faux company called Some Turkey Games. He also started up a new Metagaming house organ digest mag called Interplay, and this not long after selling The Space Gamer to SJG because Metagaming didn't want to expend time and effort on producing a magazine any more. Interplay felt very much like another spite play aimed at Steve, who'd turned TSG from a modestly popular mag under Metagaming into one of the top ten (and arguably to four or five) mags of its era.

If nothing else, Metagaming was a historically important company for creating the microgame format, which was quite the craze well into the 80s and has seen fitful revivals ever since. The original Cheapass Games stuff might be the ultimate expression of the "clever rules, cheap components" philosophy, but Howard Thompson started it way back when. And then he packed up his toys and more-or-less vanished, leaving most of the company's work in perpetual licensing limbo. There are probably some former Metagaming staff and freelance designers that could tell us more (Steve being the most obvious) but none of them have come forward yet, and a few (eg Lynn Willis, designer of Godsfire, Olympica and Holy War as well as a bunch of GDW, WEG and Chaosium stuff) have passed away at this point.

SJG's really the only company that's bothered to put real effort into reviving those old games, and even then it's only been the ones Steve authored himself. Other creators (or their estates, for deceased ones) could presumably use the same legal process Steve did to recover TFT/Melee/Wizard/etc. but none have been inclined to do so. Avalon Hill did get the rights to Stellar Conquest and Hitler's War before they collapsed themselves - which is kind of ironic, given that Howard wrote Stellar Conquest and started Metagaming to publish it after having it be rejected by AH in the first place.

I was very intrigued to learn about these copyright laws today. I suppose I could follow SJ's lead and seek to reclaim rights to "Fury of the Norsemen," and it might not even cost as much now that a path has been established. But I don't wanna bother! That game would require a complete redesign and still not be terribly interesting. What can I say, I was 21 then.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yes, TSR launched it's "MiniGames" to directly compete with Metagaming's "MicroGames." I was there at both companies at those times! (designer: Fury of the Norsemen; Remember the Alamo)

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.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I was very intrigued to learn about these copyright laws today. I suppose I could follow SJ's lead and seek to reclaim rights to "Fury of the Norsemen," and it might not even cost as much now that a path has been established. But I don't wanna bother! That game would require a complete redesign and still not be terribly interesting. What can I say, I was 21 then.

Ah, I wouldn't be too hard on Fury, of the various microhistories that was one of my favorites. Easy to learn/teach, gameplay was fine with decent replay value, and the bits of chrome in the rules really helped sell an already-appealing theme. I know my old high school friends got a kick out of pillaging the monastery and stealing all the cows they could get their greedy mitts on. A modern version would need a component quality upgrade (maybe ditch the delightfully cheesy but historically inaccurate cover art?) and maybe a balance pass - but like you said, might be a hard sell in today's market, so perhaps not worth the effort of a legal action. TFT was a big enough deal to be worth it, a single microgame probably is not.

If it counts for anything, I played it a lot more than Remember the Alamo.

Still love to see someone republish the whole line at once, but that isn't going to happen and it'd probably be alarmingly expensive as well.

Last I saw of ol' Howard was in the Austin newspaper decades ago -- he was living in Georgetown or Round Rock to the north of the city -- and was pictured and named in an article about a local atheist group he was active in. Nothing to do with games! He always was a dogmatic atheist. I recognized him at once despite the baldness. I believe he also returned to work at a state agency post-Metagaming, as he had done before he started the company. And presumably retired in due course. (He always bad-mouthed state workers at Metagaming but that didn't stop him from going back to stable employment.) His marriage busted up shortly after Metagaming folded, or even during its folding. Whether or not he's alive today (April 2025), I couldn't say.

Fascinating. That's more insight into the man than I ever had before. For all that the sudden closure and subsequent deathgrip on the games annoy me (and he still owes me a few issues of Interplay!), he did publish a lot of the games that I first bought for myself, all of which hold serious nostalgia value for me. Well, maybe not Starleader Assault. Sorry to hear his marriage broke up during/after the business closure, that can't have helped matters any.