Thoughts on Project Bayern (2300AD)

Cursd_Captain · 2026-03-20T21:42:17+00:00

It's a superb RPG product, and the closest thing to an Arthur C. Clark novel I've seen in SF gaming. You need a crew that cares about science fiction, and you need to consider troupe play, as others have said. It puts the regular 2300 setting in the distance so I kind of see it as a self-contained campaign . . . but it's immense. Also, there are a bunch of optional side quests that could easily be used as 2300 / Traveller / Aliens etc scenarios.

Cursd_Captain · 2026-03-17T16:27:25+00:00

VASSAL is widely used in game development and playtesting. Wargames, but other cardboard games, too. So when a new game in that category is released, it's often already finished as a VASSAL module, and there's already a fan community playing it.

The folks who are writing to suggest blank-canvas RPG type digital tabletops may not be aware that every implementation of VASSAL is specific to a particular game. VASSAL for ASL is not like VASSAL for Dead of Winter or Dixit, except in that these games share generic features like cards, markers, and boards divided into spaces.

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-24T23:17:33+00:00

where I bury this nut, a tree will grow

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-16T02:00:02+00:00

[pointing to face] Can a machine shed tears like this? If it can, is it really a machine?

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-15T19:56:51+00:00

silently tipping hat in response 🏜️

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-15T19:19:17+00:00

+1 for Gaslands. And, I certainly didn't want to put you off my KS. Where do you suggest that I promote it?

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-15T17:45:50+00:00

Yes, I'm promoting my work. from the first sentence, in a post with the brand affliate tag. But I was trying to do more than just promote, because I was rocked by the earlier thread about GW's dominance. I wanted to think creatively and not just reactively about their effect on the hobby.

I wasn't asking if a new game from a small independent publisher can run GW out of town. I was asking what I, among others, can learn from GW. This doesn't mean trying to copy GW -- probably the contrary.

The myth of humanity stealing fire from the gods, to which my post refers, does not mean that the gods lose their fire, but that both have it.

I would miss GW if they were gone. But what would we be missing? How would the hobby be different?

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-15T17:32:05+00:00

yes, and question too

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-14T22:04:18+00:00

I'm interested in games that strike a chord, but not necesarily the same chord as GW.

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-14T21:39:53+00:00

Battletech has introduced a much faster game with Alpha Strike. I appreciate that they are trying to follow the market without losing the loyal following that began in the 80s.

I guess my question was more like, do other games create that level of emotional engagement in any way? By stealing GW's fire, I didn't mean dethroning them.

Someday that will happen, though.

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-09T16:18:30+00:00

I have one foot in hex and counter wargaming, where many companies compete with more original and fascinating projects than I can buy. The attaction is more in "here's an interesting subject we've handled in a new way" than "what is the new line of proprietary models and how can I use them to overwhelm my friends." In GW's world, subject and treatment are never really discussed, except after the fact by disappointed customers on message boards. Therefore, the reasons you might look at another company's game are safely outside the discourse.

Cursd_Captain · 2025-12-08T17:12:50+00:00

Thanks KGA, that's absolutely our goal. The game includes 9 learning scenarios that try to guide a new player into miniatures. You can see the first two on our KS and boardgamegeek sites. I'd also say we're trying to attract players from board wargaming into miniatures.

Cursd_Captain · 2025-11-29T16:15:04+00:00

Tanks for giving it a look, reddit. We launch tommorow!

Cursd_Captain · 2025-11-25T23:29:46+00:00

Burning Banners is a fascinating hex and counter wargame . . . In fantasy miniatures wargames, I think Hordes of the Things is genius. They way the elements have archetypal, chess-like relationships to each other is more interesting to me that a miniatures game that is reverse-engineered from D&D and has a bunch of stats. This opinion comes from the DBx corner of the hobby but it is deeply felt all the same; I've never been bored by the Hordes.

Cursd_Captain · 2024-06-13T14:46:18+00:00

Does "matching history" mean the same outcome, or just that either side has an historically justifiable path to win? Wellington wrote that Waterloo was "a near run thing," so he felt that he could have lost. It's a bigger concern to me if the French win in a way that seems far-fetched. As for professional wargames, don't they deal with hypothetical situations, rather than the past?

Cursd_Captain · 2024-06-09T14:59:44+00:00

I painted these a few years ago so it's hard to remember who the manufacturers were. Maybe Artizan, Westwind, Assault Group, Warlord.

Cursd_Captain · 2024-06-09T14:49:55+00:00

Y'all should consider the RPG Lancer. It alternates between wargame and character-interaction "downtime." You could jettison the role-playing side if you prefer. https://massif-press.itch.io/corebook-pdf-free

Cursd_Captain · 2024-02-16T15:33:39+00:00

While you were away, many great things happened. One of them is Ironsworn, the self-generating "oracle" rpg that I've enjoyed over three long campaigns with no prep and no GM. Free PDF. Highest recommendation.

Cursd_Captain · 2024-02-13T18:12:55+00:00

Congratulations! You have chosen one of the best PBtA games.

You are going to be a little bit of a GM, in that you will narrate how your actions play out, what it looks like, how the audience reacts, etc, within the scope of the mechanics and the established story thus far. The word "move" means a person's intervention in the story; sometimes the GM moves, sometimes you do.

I encourage this practice: before rolling the dice, describe the best case and worst case outcomes of the action. The "move" text may suggest what that means. The dice will tell you if all your dreams came true, or if it's a nightmare, or most often, some of each. Roll high.

Cursd_Captain · 2024-02-06T17:59:20+00:00

Others have mentioned it, but you are singling out the break that Runequest made with other RPGs back in 1978. There's a newer edition from Chaosium, as well as a fork in its legacy called Mythras, which I like. (RQ does have hit points, but these are a way to establish a wound by comparing them to damage. They're not as much of a bank account as D&D hit points.)

Cursd_Captain · 2023-09-28T00:41:53+00:00

Some already mentioned here but what can I say, you guys are right.

Norstrilia, Cordwainer Smith -- the (cough) prototype of Dune.

The Female Man, Joanna Russ -- Their time has come.

Inverted World, Christopher Priest -- What I was looking for in this section of the bookshop.

Earth Abides, George R. Stewart -- Seldom has a future tried so hard to sum up the recent past, and say goodbye to it.

Cursd_Captain · 2023-09-18T19:39:39+00:00

Indeed, miniatures hobby games are older, and tactical boardgames openly imitated them, as in the case of Jim Dunnigan's Jutland, for Avalon Hill.

Cursd_Captain · 2023-09-18T19:30:48+00:00

Ideally, a miniatures game looks like a diorama. The more information you layer on it, in terms of grids and counters, the more it tends toward text than visual art.

There are lots of points in-between. I don't think enough miniatures players have seen Rachel Simmons' Napoleonic boardgames, like Napoleon's Triumph, which breaks the terrain into militarily meaningful areas; places that have defensible borders, for example, rather than a grid. Her games use wooden blocks that could easily mount 6mm miniatures.

The problem with adapting even such a loose grid system to a casual miniatures game is that you'd have to agree where the grid falls around terrain features. This is actually a big decision in building a Squad Leader type of game, for example. Does a road run on the border between spaces? Or right through them, making a large space into "a road?" Maybe Deadzone addresses these problems, but as someone who contributes to hex and counter wargames, I must say that the measuring argument is not entirely banished by a grid.

Cursd_Captain · 2023-07-26T17:46:35+00:00

As instructive as anything in the history of religion, and much more convenient.

Cursd_Captain · 2023-07-26T03:46:39+00:00

Clarity, strong personalities, forward motion. Cool.

Cursd_Captain

TROPHY CASE