[POLL] Do you play other games than ASL?

[Actionjick]

I loved Up Front as well, one of my favorite card based games in the hobby I ever played.

It often came down to the bitter end and had a ton of fun with it.

It is a shame no one ever reissued it and updated it for 21st century players...

See my thread in chit chat about ASLifing UF.

 

[von Marwitz]

TBH, it all seems so boring right now, because of how much is going on in these games. Plus I feel like wasting my time on poorly written stories (adventures) or wasting my energy on creating my own concepts just for the evening's amusement at the table. Plus like I've said somewhere earlier, RPG's require commitment on a very different level than boardgames. When playing some OCS monster, you need to have time and space, but nothing will happen when you'll skip a gaming meeting or two, or ten. It's like "save game" at the table. Not the case in RPG's, where you simply need to commit yourself for playing sometimes year-long stories on a more or less regular basis. Playing solo? No way. And forget about small chit-chat during gaming. For me, it's the antithesis of fun and socializing.

I respectfully disagree.

I believe that a well made RPG campaign can easily eclipse anything that ASL can offer, in depth, in scope and in complexity. And ASL can offer a lot, to be sure.

The rules of the RPG you play are important, needless to say. Bad rules will inhibit gameplay, excessively complex rules can make it cumbersome.

Opposed to ASL, for a RPG the rules merely provide the framework but not the basis for play. It is called ROLE playing, not RULE playing, after all. In ASL, you can do everything the rules allow but nothing beyond the scope of the rules. In good role-playing, most of the game happens beyond the rules: It is the dialogues, playing the role, coming up with ideas (creating adventures & campaigns as well as creating & developing the character and solutions to the challenges). The rules merely kick in to reflect actions which you can't "talk".

As for commitment...
Even the largest ASL CG is but a pale shadow compared to the commitment it can take to play an intricate RPG campaign. I have been playing RPGs for around 30 years. One campaign I mastered ran longer than 10 years. The effort which went into building and developing it was monumental: Storylines, interest groups, political theaters, plans, drawings, reacting to the (often unforseen) actions of the players, continuously adapting and creating, interweaving the action with the history and background of the world we played in. This might add up to 1000 pages of material created beside the 'existing' background of the world and not much of it dealing with the rules at all - not taking into account the notes and diaries of the individual players. Indeed, this campaign only ran out (unfinished, needless to say...) after I had moved and it became impossible to play at least one evening a week. As a consequence it became impossible to remember all the details that were necessary of the ongoing story. Try to miss out for ten sessions, and you are lost like Columbus.

Of course, for me a ready-made dungeon with some hack & slay action and collecting booty afterwards has nothing to do with roleplaying. Rolling the dice and chalking off hit points is simple mechanics. As is ASL, basically. Any 8-1 Leader is just a mechanical game piece. But it is totally devoid of any "character", and that is where roleplaying begins.

As a bottomline:
The scope of ASL might be vast, but it is limited to the rules, the counters, the scenarios, and the maps.
The scope of roleplaying, in contrast, is infinite if well done.

von Marwitz

 

[Wayne]

It is a shame no one ever reissued [Up Front] and updated it for 21st century players...

See this.

 

[Alan Hume]

I loved Up Front as well, one of my favorite card based games in the hobby I ever played.

It often came down to the bitter end and had a ton of fun with it.

It is a shame no one ever reissued it and updated it for 21st century players...

I think Lock N Load Publishing's upcoming POINT BLANK card game could very well scratch that itch
my buddy Rod bought into the kickstarter way back in January and I'm looking forward to seeing his game when it arrives

 

[Manilianus]

I respectfully disagree.

I believe that a well made RPG campaign can easily eclipse anything that ASL can offer, in depth, in scope and in complexity. And ASL can offer a lot, to be sure.

The rules of the RPG you play are important, needless to say. Bad rules will inhibit gameplay, excessively complex rules can make it cumbersome.

Opposed to ASL, for a RPG the rules merely provide the framework but not the basis for play. It is called ROLE playing, not RULE playing, after all. In ASL, you can do everything the rules allow but nothing beyond the scope of the rules. In good role-playing, most of the game happens beyond the rules: It is the dialogues, playing the role, coming up with ideas (creating adventures & campaigns as well as creating & developing the character and solutions to the challenges). The rules merely kick in to reflect actions which you can't "talk".

As for commitment...
Even the largest ASL CG is but a pale shadow compared to the commitment it can take to play an intricate RPG campaign. I have been playing RPGs for around 30 years. One campaign I mastered ran longer than 10 years. The effort which went into building and developing it was monumental: Storylines, interest groups, political theaters, plans, drawings, reacting to the (often unforseen) actions of the players, continuously adapting and creating, interweaving the action with the history and background of the world we played in. This might add up to 1000 pages of material created beside the 'existing' background of the world and not much of it dealing with the rules at all - not taking into account the notes and diaries of the individual players. Indeed, this campaign only ran out (unfinished, needless to say...) after I had moved and it became impossible to play at least one evening a week. As a consequence it became impossible to remember all the details that were necessary of the ongoing story. Try to miss out for ten sessions, and you are lost like Columbus.

Of course, for me a ready-made dungeon with some hack & slay action and collecting booty afterwards has nothing to do with roleplaying. Rolling the dice and chalking off hit points is simple mechanics. As is ASL, basically. Any 8-1 Leader is just a mechanical game piece. But it is totally devoid of any "character", and that is where roleplaying begins.

As a bottomline:
The scope of ASL might be vast, but it is limited to the rules, the counters, the scenarios, and the maps.
The scope of roleplaying, in contrast, is infinite if well done.

von Marwitz

Those are very accurate points, Herr Oberst! Maybe I'm just a bit of tired of people which complain that this is hobby for kids (and I'm prone to suggestion, no matter how irrational it may be), and more than few of my friends are very rigid in terms of playing (meaning, they MUST play each week or two). Both of those attitudes distance me from this hobby.

PS (Not so) fun fact - I even heard opinion that "excessive role playing leads to lowering your imagination and writing/painting style, if you're an artist". Yes, I know, it's absurd at so many levels that I don't know where to start. It's modern version of 70's "D&D satanic panic".

 

[von Marwitz]

(and I'm prone to suggestion, no matter how irrational it may be)

Gut. Seeehr gut...

You feel the urgent desire to provide the Oberst with a cask of Château Lafite Rothschild of 1899...



von Marwitz

 

[Manilianus]

Gut. Seeehr gut...

You feel the urgent desire to provide the Oberst with a cask of Château Lafite Rothschild of 1899...



von Marwitz

I was going to buy it! But my wallet felt urgent desire to laugh at me when I typed the name to wine-searcher...

 

[Robin Reeve]

Robin, this post makes want to invest in that kind of hobby again. Thank you!

Here is the link to my review of Sword & Sorcery on BGG : Sword & Sorcery Immortal Souls review.

If you liked Call of Cthulhu, Mansions of Madness, 2nd ed., could meet your tastes: an app manages the events and monsters.
Very immersive experience.
Mansions of Madness on BGG
There even are fan made adventures on the Valkyrie site.

 

[Actionjick]

I was going to buy it! But my wallet felt urgent desire to laugh at me when I typed the name to wine-searcher...

How about a box of Franzia Chardonnay? $23.00. Inflation. Used to be $19.00.

 

[von Marwitz]

I was going to buy it! But my wallet felt urgent desire to laugh at me when I typed the name to wine-searcher...

It appears that the Oberst has yet to refine his skills of suggestion to match his taste of wine...

von Marwitz

 

[Actionjick]

It appears that the Oberst has yet to refine his skills of suggestion to match his taste of wine...

von Marwitz

Perhaps but his sense of humor is a fine vintage!

 

[von Marwitz]

Perhaps but his sense of humor is a fine vintage!

Well, instead of being a fine vintage, German humor is rather reputed to be something like a warm, uncarbonated PEPSI Coke with a dead fly floating in it.

Oblivious to this, the Oberst is prone to drain his goblet to the dregs.

von Marwitz

 

[Actionjick]

Well, instead of being a fine vintage, German humor is rather reputed to be somethint like a warm, uncarbonated PEPSI Coke with a dead fly floating in it.

Oblivious to this, the Oberst is prone to drain his goblet to the dregs.

von Marwitz

There must be a strain of heathen humour in your DNA. Most likely Vercingetorix was an ancestor.

 

[Actionjick]

Well, instead of being a fine vintage, German humor is rather reputed to be somethint like a warm, uncarbonated PEPSI Coke with a dead fly floating in it.

Oblivious to this, the Oberst is prone to drain his goblet to the dregs.

von Marwitz

Better a dead fly than a shipmate's cigarette butt.

 

[Robin Reeve]

There must be a strain of heathen humour in your DNA. Most likely Vercingetorix was an ancestor.

Arminius/Hermann, rather.

 

[rdw5150]

Yes, I really enjoy the GTS series. One thing about ASL that increasingly intrudes into my thoughts when playing is that there is an absence of the feeling of 'history', less so with the historical modules, perhaps. But the standard scenarios are beginning to feel like they are a 'puzzle' to be solved using the knowledge gleaned from the rulebook, I'm just not feeling the 'history' in the same way I do with the likes of GTS or OCS, to give 2 examples. Of course it could also be that I'm playing more ASL now than at any other point since I started playing.

I wanted to like GTS (and CSS)....... but the constant tweaking of the rules drove me away. I wish I would have bailed when the 2nd edition of the rules was not compatible (without some work) the first games in the series.

SHRUG....... everyone's mileage may vary of course.......

Peace

Roger

 

[wrongway149]

So last night I played the popular game 'Rococo' for the first time.

Briefly :the setting is 18th century France, where elaborate balls with well-dressed people from high society want to show off and you have a team of clothing and interior designers. It is a very well-balanced 'action selection' and pseudo-deck builder that I would certainly play again. But the theme really didn't do so much for me and I got to thinking:

What if:​

​

-instead of ball room decorations and fancy gowns, you had to build the fortifications along the Atlantic Wall?​

​

-Instead of colored fabric, the 'supplies' would be concrete, steel wood and earth?​

​

-Instead of thread and chiffonery - you have cannons and machine guns?​

​

-Instead of Master/experienced/ apprentice cards you would have oberst/feldwebel/schutze to do the work?​

​

Would you play it?

 

[Paul_RS]

See this.

I bought the card sets years ago. Very nice. Great to have pictorial representations of the terrain for different theatres. Well worth the investment for that alone. We played UF to death, many years ago. We found the French were the best all round infantry nationality to have.