When did you started with scenario design

[M.Koch]

and Why ? Let us know what was the reason for you, starting with designing scenarios by yourself. Every information or story is welcome. Makes no difference if you are a crack designer or if you are just someone who likes to experiment a bit. Everybody is welcome...

Well for me i started in 2007 with seriously designing scenarios. Reading a lot about WWII i always had that thoughts...."Hey, this would be a good action for a scenario". After a while i started with designing, trying this, trying that.
I had encountered a totally new side of the ASL hobby and from there on i was hooked .
So far, i´m a design newbie, having only published scenarios in the GRENADIER scenario pack and waiting for two other scenarios getting published by two well known TPPs. ( One should see the light of day that year, i think )Hope that there will be some more...

 

[Psycho]

Was watching Kelly's Heroes when the minefield scene came on and I thought "That would make a cool mini-scenario like the SRP one." Just went from there. Haven't moved on to serious scenario design yet.

 

[ecz]

The first and "serious" scenario I have designed is now in the hands of the judges in the MwT contest #2.
Should it have a little of success I could consider to explore this side of the hobby again.
no problem if it doesn't happen. I have a lot of scenarios to play and a VASLeague increasing crowd to keep at bay...

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I'm looking forward to reading from the guys who have been published, but I just picked up a copy of Against the Odds - an interesting magazine with a "game in the issue" format that is kind of a sleeper as far as I can tell - that has some really great articles on game design. The issue I picked up, only because it actually had a tactical level game in it, had a nice article by John Prados in it. Hopefully one or two people have at least heard of him. He says that Jim Dunnigan (and his name should be recognizable too) used to say, often, that "every gamer has at least one design in his head."

The quote applied to games - and its true, I think, as many people here have talked about how they would do this or that differently with ASL - but I think most people have also at least toyed with the idea of creating a scenario or two if they have anything like a glimmer of a passing interest in history or some small part of it.

There are some good tools to get people started - Mark's book is a good encouragement, and Steven Swann published a nice article in Critical Hit that is fine introduction to scenario design. I don't think one needs to "buy" anything to jump into it, though. I tried to design something probably in 1986 or so when I was still playing Crescendo of Doom; still have the photocopies somewhere - a thoroughly dreadful rendition of Villers Bocage based loosely on Paw of the Tiger from COI with British vehicles substituted for Russian ones. My research consisted of a couple of paragraphs from Max Hastings' book OVERLORD, which was if memory serves a lurid account of British technical inferiority. Wittman came off looking pretty good. I taped some counters onto the paper, typed (on an electric typewriter) the scenario data and asked my dad to photocopy the works (it was a big deal back then). He thought I might need extras, not really knowing what the hell it was, so he made 50 copies on the work copier. Playtest? What's that. I didn't even have any regular opponents at the time other than a couple high school buddies who were more into DYO. It never saw the light of day. Something in the back of my head kind of thought maybe I might submit it to AH but I think common sense prevailed and it sits abandoned in one of my COI boxes. I'd be afraid to even look at it now.

I would say to anyone who is even contemplating it though - just do it. This forum especially is a great resource for historical research tips and playtesting; I'm always impressed at how readily people will jump to help each other with game related projects.

 

[trevpr1]

Never did started with scenario design. I'm a player. I never met a scenario designer I couldn't beat four times out of five.

That being said, I couldn't design for love, money or beer.

I have some great friends who design and I'm happy to playtest. But design is for peeps who are pussywhipped. No time to play so they read more books.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

The first and "serious" scenario I have designed is now in the hands of the judges in the MwT contest #2.
Should it have a little of success I could consider to explore this side of the hobby again.
no problem if it doesn't happen. I have a lot of scenarios to play and a VASLeague increasing crowd to keep at bay...

I enjoyed your scenario AIDEZ L'ESPAGNE! you did for the ASLSK scenario design contest; it's available at boardgamegeek apparently, though it may not qualify as "serious" it seemed to me you invested some time and energy into it and I was impressed with the look and feel of it, considering the parameters we had to work with.

 

[chris_olden]

after a dinner i had with Mark Neukom, Jay Long, and
Tom Campbell at March Madness '99.
we were discussing scenario designs over dinner.
i was so inspired that after i got back from the tourney
i started trying to design a scenario.
"extracurricular activity"(122) was my first attempt for
the Coastal Fortress group.
co

 

[ecz]

I enjoyed your scenario AIDEZ L'ESPAGNE! you did for the ASLSK scenario design contest; it's available at boardgamegeek apparently, though it may not qualify as "serious" it seemed to me you invested some time and energy into it and I was impressed with the look and feel of it, considering the parameters we had to work with.

Yes, that's true, time and energy spent in it. And also al lot of fun gained .
But now I can try something more conventional with a qualified audience to read, play and, hopefully, enjoy it.

The MwT #2 could be the beginning of something or just another funny "one shot" ASL experience.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Yes, that's true, time and energy spent in it. And also al lot of fun gained .
But now I can try something more conventional with a qualified audience to read, play and, hopefully, enjoy it.

The MwT #2 could be the beginning of something or just another funny "one shot" ASL experience.

You'll really enjoy the feedback the judges provide; everybody who submits something is a winner as far as I am concerned as they get the benefit of the experience of several highly experienced players, designers and playtesters.

 

[RobZagnut]

Started after my last issue of FFE. Designed three scenarios. Thought I would think 'outside the box' and designed them as Fog of War scenarios where each scenario was printed on two separate cards. Each card had just one nationality's OB on it, so the other side couldn't see what units the other guy got. With the Victory Conditions, SSRs, Aftermath, etc on both cards.

My favorite was Retreat From Rosario, which copied Fighting Withdrawal's Victory Conditions (I love those VC), but had a V shaped board and had the Japanese entering from the top two edges of the V with the Fillipino Cavalry (667s) trying to stop them.

Starting playtesting them and realized, "Bloody Hell, this is too much work!"

Haven't designed one since, although I had 3 more in the hopper. One used a large beach overlay as a Grainfield, which the U.S. player setup inside.

 

[sswann]

Originally I was just a beginner writer. I started my first scenario design in 1988... RECON IN FORCE it was. It was a requested design by Rex Martin who wanted me to design a scenario to be published with my first ASL article on DARBY'S RANGERS. With some encouragement by Rex and MacNamara I just kept going with both writing and designing, eventually getting involved with the French, Japaneses and US Marine/Chinese modules.
After that got in with Critical Hit with the Gona module, but soon found out how bad that was after the Gona module was ripped from me. Went solo for a short while with the orioginal LEATHERNECK pac before joining with HOB. Now working solo again and submitting to anyone who wants my products.
That is it in a nutshell... almost 20 years of writing and designing.

 

[Michael R]

February 2008 - MWT2 gave me motivation to finally do one. Many times I've read of actions that could be scenarios (even already were scenarios), but this opportunity to have feedback and possibly playtesting drew me into making the effort.

 

[BruceC]

We played the existing scenarios to death and were forced to become creative. When there was no MMP, no HoB, CH, DftB, FT, BB, ToT, Tactiques, ESG, SP, FE et al...you get the hang of squad/AFV ratios, how terrain generally effects these ratios etc over time. We actually have some keepers we dig up...That .50 cal. was a tight battle each time, somehow the US HMG would save the bacon. These were quite amateurish but fun and exciting.

Read some of the Norwegian campaign, read more, then designed a bunch of scenarios which have been sitting around for years. They aren't mainstream types and so was led to leave them be. Who wants to play with snow, sledges, skiers, motorcycles and such when you can pull out those nasty JS-lls and Panthers? So they sit. I should have sent in my Fossum Bridge scenario to the MwT #2 but felt it unfair as I have had more than a fair amount of time to work it up.

I'm unpublished so far, but can whip up an evenings entertainment in a pinch.

 

[sswann]

You should have sent your Fossum Bridge scenario in any case.

 

[Honza]

.....in about 10 years from now, when I'm more 'together'!

 

[Evan Sherry]

I started designing scenarios right after Cross of Iron was released. Back in those days there were very few scenarios to choose from. I quickly became bored with the SL and COI selections. I embraced chapter H from the very beginning of the hobby and never got over it.

Evan Sherry
Editor, Schwerpunkt

 

[MrP]

Started a few years ago for fun, and hopefully the first official one will be out in AP6. I submitted a bunch of Burma stuff to MMP a couple of years ago but they disappeared down the official black hole without even an acknowledgment and have never surfaced. Some nice playing scenarios in there if I may say so myself, from PTO-lite as an intro to bridgelayers and dried up river beds. Ah well, maybe one day they'll see the light of day

Above all for me, it's a bit of fun - that moment of reading an action in a book or seeing a map and having that ASL-translation moment.

 

[ASLSARGE]

Always was interested in WWII history. When I began playing SL I started thinking about some of the actions I read about. After getting into ASL I tried designing a couple scenarios. Not very good, but they were a great learning experience. Just kept plugging away at it over the years mainly for my own enjoyment, always looking for ways to improve and refine. Was always trying to convince my regular opponents to "try one of these out". Finally decided after doing about 100 or so it was time to "bring them out of the closet" for all the world to see. In the next couple of years you should see a deluge of stuff that's been sitting around for 20+ years and a whole lot of new stuff as well. ETO, Ost Front, PTO (lots), DTO...geo board and HASL. Gotta wait for some Major dude to release a couple of his pet projects first. :upset:

 

[Gunner Scott]

Hi-

I think my first design was Bloody Cavalry that was published in AtP, Mark Hanna's little publication. Been designing on and off for the last twenty years or so, though I am not as proliferic as some of my peers IE I dont design 50 scenarios per a year, the ones that I do design and do get published I think are real gems and are memerable.

Anyway, I think with so many scenarios and designers now, I find it hard to try and design anything just because its been done again and again and again.


Scott

 

[AZslim]

Hi-

I think my first design was Bloody Cavalry that was published in AtP, Mark Hanna's little publication. Been designing on and off for the last twenty years or so, though I am not as proliferic as some of my peers IE I dont design 50 scenarios per a year, the ones that I do design and do get published I think are real gems and are memerable.

Anyway, I think with so many scenarios and designers now, I find it hard to try and design anything just because its been done again and again and again.


Scott

I played that scenario. It was pretty fun. My first DI with a PIAT against a Panther as I recall.
Edit. My mistake, it was a Tiger.