Tabletop Wargames: A Designers’ and Writers’ Handbook
Tabletop Wargames: A Designers’ and Writers’ Handbook

Author: Rick Priestley

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2016-11-30

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 147389008X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Unlike chess or backgammon, tabletop wargames have no single, accepted set of rules. Most wargamers at some point have had a go at writing their own rules and virtually all have modified commercially available sets to better suit their idea of the ideal game or to adapt favourite rules to a different historical period or setting. But many who try soon find that writing a coherent set of rules is harder than they thought, while tweaking one part of an existing set can often have unforeseen consequences for the game as a whole. Now, at last, help is at hand. Veteran gamer and rules writer John Lambshead has teamed up with the legendary Rick Priestley, creator of Games Workshop’s phenomenally successful Warhammer system, to create this essential guide for any would-be wargame designer or tinkerer. Rick and John give excellent advice on deciding what you want from a wargame and balancing ‘realism’ (be it in a historical or a fantasy/sci-fi context) with playability. They discuss the relative merits of various mechanisms (cards, dice, tables) then discuss how to select and combine these to handle the various essential game elements of turn sequences, combat resolution, morale etc to create a rewarding and playable game that suits your tastes and requirements

Tabletop Wargames: A Designers’ and Writers’ Handbook
Tabletop Wargames: A Designers’ and Writers’ Handbook

Author: Rick Priestley

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2016-11-30

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1473890098

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Unlike chess or backgammon, tabletop wargames have no single, accepted set of rules. Most wargamers at some point have had a go at writing their own rules and virtually all have modified commercially available sets to better suit their idea of the ideal game or to adapt favourite rules to a different historical period or setting. But many who try soon find that writing a coherent set of rules is harder than they thought, while tweaking one part of an existing set can often have unforeseen consequences for the game as a whole. Now, at last, help is at hand. Veteran gamer and rules writer John Lambshead has teamed up with the legendary Rick Priestley, creator of Games Workshop’s phenomenally successful Warhammer system, to create this essential guide for any would-be wargame designer or tinkerer. Rick and John give excellent advice on deciding what you want from a wargame and balancing ‘realism’ (be it in a historical or a fantasy/sci-fi context) with playability. They discuss the relative merits of various mechanisms (cards, dice, tables) then discuss how to select and combine these to handle the various essential game elements of turn sequences, combat resolution, morale etc to create a rewarding and playable game that suits your tastes and requirements

One-Hour Wargames
One-Hour Wargames

Author: Neil Thomas

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2014-09-03

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1473840937

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A fun and practical new approach to wargaming that lets you complete a game in about an hour—includes rule sets and scenarios for most popular periods. One of the biggest problems facing wargamers is finding the time to actually play. Most commercially available games require several hours to set up and see to a conclusion; some can even take a whole day or weekend to complete. Apart from time, lack of space can also keep wargamers from enjoying their favorite pastime. In One-hour Wargames, veteran gamer and rule-writer Neil Thomas has addressed both problems. Now it is practical to play a satisfying game in around an hour on a normal dining table or living room floor. The book contains 8 all-new sets of very simple rules for various periods—from Ancient to WW2—and thirty stimulating scenarios which can be played using any of them. All the rules and scenarios are intended to be played on a 3ft x 3ft battlefield. The rules only require a small number of miniatures, so this really is an ideal way for new gamers, or veterans trying a new period, to get started with minimal investment of time and money. Also ideal for a quick game in the evening with a friend. Also included are sections on campaigns and solo games.

The Portable Wargame
The Portable Wargame

Author: Bob Cordery

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2016-12-30

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 132690454X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Portable Wargame has been developed over the past ten years to meet the needs of wargamers who want a fast, easy to learn, simple to use set of wargames rules that don't require the player to purchase and paint a large collection of figures and that can be staged on a small dinner table, a large coffee table, or something even smaller. The rules are designed to be used with a gridded tabletop made up of squares or hexes.

Zones of Control
Zones of Control

Author: Pat Harrigan

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 845

ISBN-13: 026233495X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A look at wargaming’s past, present, and future—from digital games to tabletop games—and its use in entertainment, education, and military planning. With examples from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Harpoon, Warhammer 40,000, and more! Games with military themes date back to antiquity, and yet they are curiously neglected in much of the academic and trade literature on games and game history. This volume fills that gap, providing a diverse set of perspectives on wargaming’s past, present, and future. In Zones of Control, contributors consider wargames played for entertainment, education, and military planning, in terms of design, critical analysis, and historical contexts. They consider both digital and especially tabletop games, most of which cover specific historical conflicts or are grounded in recognizable real-world geopolitics. Game designers and players will find the historical and critical contexts often missing from design and hobby literature; military analysts will find connections to game design and the humanities; and academics will find documentation and critique of a sophisticated body of cultural work in which the complexity of military conflict is represented in ludic systems and procedures. Each section begins with a long anchoring chapter by an established authority, which is followed by a variety of shorter pieces both analytic and anecdotal. Topics include the history of playing at war; operations research and systems design; wargaming and military history; wargaming’s ethics and politics; gaming irregular and non-kinetic warfare; and wargames as artistic practice.

One-hour Skirmish Wargames
One-hour Skirmish Wargames

Author: John Lambshead

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2018-09-30

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13: 1526700069

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Many wargamers enjoy the challenge of skirmish games where, instead of the strategy of vast armies portrayed by traditional wargames, the focus is on the tactics of a small unit. However, skirmish rules are often so complex that it can take hours of rolling dice, consulting tables and recording data to recreate what would in reality be a fast and furious firefight lasting just minutes. Now these new rules make it possible to recapture the speed and intensity of these actions where every man, and every second, counts. The basic rules are supported by sections which give special rules and scenarios to capture the flavor of a range of different periods, from Napoleonic to Modern Warfare and beyond with Sci-Fi. From the 95th Rifles scouting for Wellington, Western gunfights and WWI trench raids, through WW2 parachute assaults or Special Forces strikes in Afghanistan, or even Space Marines storming a space station, Squad Firefights elegantly simple system allows you to focus on proper tactical decisions rather than rolling buckets of dice or calculating masses of modifiers.

Cold War Gone Hot
Cold War Gone Hot

Author: Ambush Alley Ambush Alley Games

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2011-11-20

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 1849085374

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.†? – Ronald Reagan, 1984. With these words, spoken as a sound check to a radio broadcast, President Reagan came dangerously close to igniting the long-simmering Cold War. Although Soviet forces were placed on alert following reports of this comment, the full-scale conflict between the West and the Soviet Bloc did not break out. Cold War Gone Hot, the latest companion volume for Force on Force, looks at the 44-year history of the Cold War and asks: "what if?†? With the orders of battle, vehicle stats and missions included in this volume, Force on Force players can simulate the advance of Soviet tanks across Western Europe, a thrust into Alaska, or any number of other plausible scenarios where history took a slightly different path.

Rules of Play
Rules of Play

Author: Katie Salen Tekinbas

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2003-09-25

Total Pages: 680

ISBN-13: 9780262240451

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An impassioned look at games and game design that offers the most ambitious framework for understanding them to date. As pop culture, games are as important as film or television—but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance. Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.

Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana
Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana

Author: Michael Witwer

Publisher: Ten Speed Press

Published: 2018-10-23

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 0399580948

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An illustrated guide to the history and evolution of the beloved role-playing game told through the paintings, sketches, illustrations, and visual ephemera behind its creation, growth, and continued popularity. FINALIST FOR THE HUGO AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD • NOMINATED FOR THE DIANA JONES AWARD From one of the most iconic game brands in the world, this official DUNGEONS & DRAGONS illustrated history provides an unprecedented look at the visual evolution of the brand, showing its continued influence on the worlds of pop culture and fantasy. Inside the book, you’ll find more than seven hundred pieces of artwork—from each edition of the core role-playing books, supplements, and adventures; as well as Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels; decades of Dragon and Dungeon magazines; and classic advertisements and merchandise; plus never-before-seen sketches, large-format canvases, rare photographs, one-of-a-kind drafts, and more from the now-famous designers and artists associated with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. The superstar author team gained unparalleled access to the archives of Wizards of the Coast and the personal collections of top collectors, as well as the designers and illustrators who created the distinctive characters, concepts, and visuals that have defined fantasy art and gameplay for generations. This is the most comprehensive collection of D&D imagery ever assembled, making this the ultimate collectible for the game's millions of fans around the world.

Paper Time Machines
Paper Time Machines

Author: Maurice W. Suckling

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-08-14

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1040100376

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

James Dunnigan’s memorable phrase serves as the first part of a title for this book, where it seeks to be applicable not just to analog wargames, but also to board games exploring non-expressly military history, that is, to political, diplomatic, social, economic, or other forms of history. Don’t board games about history, made predominantly out of (layered) paper, permit a kind of time travel powered by our imagination? Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games is for those who consider this a largely rhetorical question; primarily for designers of historical board games, directed in its more practice-focused sections (Parts Two, Three, and Four) toward those just commencing their journeys through time and space and engaged in learning how to deconstruct and to construct paper time machines. More experienced designers may find something here for them, too, perhaps to refresh themselves or as an aid to instruction to mentees in whatever capacity. But it is also intended for practitioners of all levels of experience to find value in the surrounding historical contexts and theoretical debates pertinent to the creation of and the thinking around the making of historical board games (Parts One and Five). In addition, it is intended that the book might redirect some of the attention of the field of game studies, so preoccupied with digital games, toward this hitherto generally much neglected area of research. Key Features: Guides new designers through the process of historical board game design Encapsulates the observations and insights of numerous notable designers Deeply researched chapters on the history and current trajectory of the hobby Chapters on selected critical perspectives on the hobby