Showing posts with label Wargaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wargaming. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Miniature Games I Wish I'd Developed Further: Disney's Frostlanders



Starting with Field of Glory in 2008, and continuing with the excellent Bolt Action in 2012 Osprey Publishing has published a number of high quality rules for use with miniatures in a wide variety of genre. This multi-genre approach to miniature wargaming is best highlighted in the series of blue spined paperback digest books (Little Blue Books? LBB) they began publishing in 2012. This series started with the Dux Bellorum “Historical” Arthurian rules and has included a number of excellent games like In Her Majesty's Name, A Fistful of Kung Fu, or Black Ops: Tactical Espionage Wargaming.

Building on the success of the LBBs, they released the first edition of the Frostgrave fantasy miniature skirmish game in 2015. A couple of years later, they streamlined and clarified the rules with a second edition.

Like many of Osprey's offerings, Frostgrave has an easy to learn system that is highly flexible and moves quickly. The focus of the rules are on casual fun and not on tournament play. In some ways, this is a similar approach to the one that Games Workshop has with their smaller minigame offshoots of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Age of Sigmar such as Space Marine Adventures or Blitz Bowl, only cheaper and more ecumenical with regards to which miniatures can be used.

Unlike Games Workshop’s current Brandon Sandersonesque epic fantasy game Age of Sigmar, Frostgrave is firmly entrenched in longstanding and traditional fantasy tropes. Frostgrave shares many thematic elements with Games Workshop's classic Mordheim game, but is much easier to learn is more focused on story than Mordheim was when it was first released. Though it has some advancement rules, again similar to Mordheim, in Frostgrave those advancements are limited to a few characters in your warband which minimizes bookkeeping from session to session. Frostgrave is so easy to learn that it inspired me to begin creating a derivative game that I can use to play with my 7 year old twin daughters History and Mystery. Inspired by James August Walls’s many Google+ posts about gaming with his family, I began designing a mashup of Disney Infinity and Skylanders to play with my twin daughters.

The game never quite got finished and I thought I would take it back up again. We still have a ton of Disney Infinity and Skylanders figures around the house and since both of those games are unsupported by their designers, I’d love to put those wonderful figures to good use. I even designed a couple of potential logos for use in my home game back in the day.

As easy as the rules for Frostgrave are to learn, they do have a couple of "fiddley-bits" that might have made things a little complex for playing with my daughters. For example, in the Frostgrave rules as written it is possible to hit an opponent and not injure them and most rolls in the game are contested rolls. By and large, I am not a fan of contested rolls. I understand their utility in competitive games, but I plan on running this game more like an RPG than a competitive wargame. So I want to move away from having contested rules as much as possible and use a Monte Cook and Numenera inspired mechanic where the players to all the rolling. Additionally, Osprey has not published a fan license that states what we as fans are and are not allowed to do with their rules, so I've decided to use a rules set inspired by the actual Frostgrave rules.

So here are the beginnings of the simple rules I came up with and which I want to get feedback on to expand. I’m happy to change themes later so that these can become the basis for something more, but I’d love to have all of you pitch in on the development with your thoughts.

1) All die rolls are made with a d12.


2) Turns follow the following pattern.
            a) Roll for Initiative.
            b) Hero Phase
            c) Ally Phase
            d) Villain Phase

3) Player Characters are rated in the following areas:

MOVEMENT -- Min (4)/Max(10)

MELEE -- Min(-2)/Max(+4)

RANGED -- Min(-2)/Max(+4)

RESISTANCE -- Min(0)/Max(5)

MENTAL RESISTANCE - Min(0)/Max(+4)

 HEALTH -- Min(8)/Max(20)

4) Villains are rated in the same statistics, but their numbers are 5 higher for all values 
     other than Health and serve as difficulty numbers the players must roll better than.
5) On a player's turn, the player may move and take 1 action. That action may be an
    attack, a power activation, or another movement action.
6) When a player attacks a Villain, the player rolls 1d12 and adds their relevant statistic
   (melee in hand to hand and ranged for ranged attacks). They then add their statistic to that value. If that value is greater than the Villain's equivalent statistic, the Villain has been hit.
7) On a successful hit, subtract a Villain's Resistance from the total and what remains is the amount of Health lost.
8) If a character is "prone" then it takes half of their movement to get up.
9) To activate a power, the player rolls 1d12 and compares it to the activation score of
     the power. If it is higher than the score, the power is activated.
10) When a Villain attacks a Hero or Ally, the Player rolls a Melee or Ranged test. If the roll is higher than the Villain's value in that area the attack misses.
11) Villain powers activate in the same manner as Player powers. This is one of the few
      rolls the Game Master will make.

I've only done stats for a couple of characters, but I have a feeling that this will be fun. What are your thoughts?

All icons used in this post were made by Lorc. Available on http://game-icons.net

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Appendix N? How About Appendix Hammer Films? This Hard to Find Gem is a Pop Culture Geek's Dream

 

Peter Cushing’s Tales of a Monster Hunter (1978)

As you might imagine, the Geekerati library is filled with volumes containing tales of Sword & Sorcery, Sword & Planet, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and not a small amount of Horror. One of the books I am proudest to have in the library is the 1978 paperback printing of Peter Cushing's Tales of a Monster Hunter.


Cushing holds a special place in my geekiest of hearts. Not only did he star in several Hammer Studios Horror films, some of the greatest horror films ever produced, but he was himself a bit of a gamer geek. He collected, painted, and played miniatures wargames. In the British Pathé archival short below, you can see his genuine joy. I can’t quite tell if he has any copies of the British Model Soldier Society’s Bulletin on his shelves, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. This video was filmed in 1956, which lines up with the publication of Tony Bath’s medieval rules in the Bulletin. I’ve played a couple of games using H.G. Well’s rules from Little Wars, which Cushing features in this short, but I can’t help but think he would find the advances in wargaming game mechanics of the era intriguing.

As much as I want to believe that this collection of horror stories was selected by Mr. Cushing himself and reflects his personal taste, it is unlikely that the volume was actually edited by Mr. Cushing. The copyright lists both him and Peter Haining and Cushing's autobiographical preface is written in third person. I would think it odd if Mr. Cushing referred to himself in the third person.

Peter Haining was an anthologist of horror tales who had a number of volumes printed in the late 70s and early 80s. One of these volumes is the very interesting Sword & Sorcery paperback The Barbarian Swordsmen, which contains stories by Robert E. Howard, Lord Dunsany, C.L. Moore, and Fritz Leiber.

Setting aside my belief that Cushing wasn’t the actual editor of the book, there is reason to think that Cushing provided feedback to the selections. Even if he didn't the stories collected in the anthology pair nicely with a Cushing/Hammer Films marathon and are a fitting collection of Cushing adjacent tales if not his own selections.

Here is a brief overview of the contents of the book.

How I Became a Monster Hunter by "Peter Cushing" is a biographical essay that gives a very good overview of Cushing's acting career and has some nice quotations from Cushing himself.

A Masked Ball by Alexandre Dumas is a very short story that is included in the book because of Cushing's very small role in James Whale’s film version of The Man in the Iron Mask. Like all the stories in this volume, there is some connection between the tale and Cushing's career. In this case, it’s not a direct connection as Cushing’s role is small in that film. Then again, so too is the length of this story.

The Mortal Immortal by Mary Shelley is a reminder that the creator of modern science fiction wrote more than just Frankenstein. Given that much of Cushing's career was spent portraying various versions of Dr. Frankenstein, a Shelley story is a must and it is always nice to see a deep cut rather than an excerpt from a more well known work. As a society we often focus too narrowly on the works of past writers and leave out the rest of their career. In the case of Robert E Howard, we often focus on his Conan stories to our own detriment. In the case of Shelley, by focusing on Frankenstein we miss out on other stories that can touch upon our own times. While ChatGPT and other advances keep Frankenstein relevant, her novel The Last Man is particularly resonant in a world that just experienced a pandemic.

Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker is an episode that, according to the editor’s introduction in Tales, was excluded from the famous novel due space restrictions imposed on Stoker by his editor. Cushing's connection to Dracula in his portrayal of Van Helsing is well known and it has been argued in D&D geek circles that Van Helsing is one of the inspirations for the Cleric class in D&D.

In the Footsteps of the Abominable Snowman by Joseh Nesvadba is a Yeti tale that is included due to Cushing's performance inThe Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. This is not the story that inspired the film, which was a teleplay, but it bears some similarities in tone to the underappreciated film.

The Ring of Thoth by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle connects with Cushing's career in two ways. Cushing played Sherlock Holmes on the big screen in Hound of the Baskervilles and he also starred in a Hammer version of the Mummy story. "The Ring of Thoth" isn't a Holmes tale, but it is a Mummy yarn and one that makes me wonder if Robert E. Howard had a copy on his shelf (the answer is YES!). After all, Howard's villain Thoth-Amon sought his Serpent Ring of Set in the first Conan tale and there are similarities of tone here.

The Gorgon by Gertrude Bacon is a late Victorian tale published in The Strand that makes use of the Greek legend of the Gorgon. Cushing had starred as the villain in the 1964 Hammer film The Gorgonthough according to the Encyclopedia of Hammer Films that screenplay was based on a story submitted to Hammer by J. Llewellyn Divine, and there are few enough tales of the creature that this makes a nice addition to the book. The Hammer film is much better than its effects and is one of a list of Hammer productions I wish could be remade with the same caliber of performances but with modern effects.

The Man Who Collected Poe by Robert Bloch is the first tale in the volume that Cushing actually performed in an adaptation of during his career. The story is adapted in the film Torture Garden (1967) where Cushing plays the "bibliophile."

The Ghoul of Golders Green by Michael Arlen (published in 1925 and public domain in the US) is only connected to Cushing's career in that he starred in a film called The Ghoul in 1974 which was based on an original screenplay by John Elder. There are few enough tales of ghouls, so the tale fits even if the connection is limited.

There Shall Be No Darkness by James Blish is the final tale in the volume and it is a great story to finish with as it served as the basis for the film The Beast Must Die. A while back a Vulture article recommended watching this film before or after watching Knives Out. If you've ever played the game Werewolf, you really should check this movie out as it provides the audience with a short "Werewolf Break" in order for the audience to guess which character is the werewolf. It's great fun. In the aftermath of Glass Onion, I’d argue that the second Rian Johnson detective mystery shares even more with The Beast Must Die than Knives Out. To this day, I still think of Calvin Lockhart’s character, Tom Newcliffe, as an alternate universe version of Marvel’s Blade. Watch the film and see why. It’s a film I watch every Halloween season.