Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group
In the beginning, there was Watch the Skies 1898. This was a new variant of Jim Wallman’s tried-and-true Watch the Skies series of games, but set at the dawn of the 20th century and featuring aliens. By design, it was very high-level and strategic – counters representing entire fleets and armies, abstract economic abstractions and […]
Modelling Idiocy in the ACW [preview] For many years now I have been fascinated with the difficulties of modelling in a fun, challenging manner some of the total losers of history, rather than the usual suspects on the (much shorter) genius list – you know, good old ‘Unfortunate Mack’ (1805), any Frenchman in 1940, English/Russian […]
In September I’d like to run a design session on mechanisms that lead to players making decisions on logistics and strategy. The more I read on the ‘Glorious Revolution‘ and the military aftermath, the more I realise that what lead to victory wasn’t the weapons or the tactics. It was logistics and strategy that determined […]
Aphorism: “a pithy observation which contains a general truth” I often hear CLWG members make very wise comments about game design. I thought it would be a good idea to write these aphorisms down. I will update this post as new ones are heard. Please send me any suggestions. Online Games Cannot be Winged The […]
Yet another play test. Yet more disappointments. And yet still the lure of temptation; there is a good game here, a good idea. It’s just a poor execution. But let’s concentrate on the good points first. Event Cards The Event Cards were a new feature, and I think worked very well. I wrote them to […]
Game Synopsis The game is intended to be a club-sized game for between 4 to 10 people. The game is about medieval farming, the struggle to survive, the conflict between the villagers, and the conflict between the villagers and the manorial Lord. I was inspired to design this game after being slightly dissatisfied by other […]
Synopsis This is a game that recreates the struggles of a medieval village to work together, to farm together, and to raise their families. It is a game about survival. Game Aims I wanted this game to achieve two things. The players had to have their own skin in the game. If they did not […]
Onside Report on the Megagame Design session at CLWG on Sunday 6 August 2017 – By Tom Parry First, we would like to thank CLWG for inviting us to discuss megagame design. We had a very enlightening discussion, and we now have a much firmer grasp on the philosophy behind most megagame design. There is […]
Today was the CLWG March 2017 meeting, with 11 people attending and two game design sessions. The first session was a tryout of the Siberia section of Bernie Ganley’s Russian Civil War megagame. The second was Andrew Hadley and Bruce Walton’s In the Hands of the Many megagame tryout. See below for some pictures and a […]
A book review – Jim Wallman Just reading “Tabletop Wargames – A Designers’ & Writers’ Handbook by Priestley and Lambshead. A well written book with lots of excellent photographs and interesting discussion about how to write better mainstream toy soldier games in particular on structure, presentation, writing style and layout. This aspect of writing rules […]