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Thursday, August 31, 2006

While I was away...

Commands and Colours goodies

A couple of interesting bits of news have recently come my way regarding this, my current fave rave boardgame.

From one thread on the DoW message boards I was led to another, from where I ended up at Boardgame News and their Essen 2006 preview. A bit of scrolling and one more click, and there it was: DoW are to release a new game for or at Essen this year, and the story is that it is going to be Battlelore- the fantasy version of Commands and Colours.

What fantastic news!

A fantasy version of Richard Borg's modern classic is an obvious winner, all the more so to my mind after my recent games of C&C:A, which I expect the new game to resemble more than it does M44. M44 and C&C:A have been great successes for Richard Borg. I have a sneaking feeling that the fantasy version could move the Commands and Colours system beyond success in the Eurogames/wargames markets into the realms of an all-out smash hit. I certainly hope so. All the best to DoW and Richard Borg with this new release.

Meanwhile, Kevin Duke over at the BGG C&C:A forum has told us that the 5 new C&C:A scenarios GMT have been handing out at cons in recent weeks will soon be available as a free PDF. This comes on top of the recent confirmation that GMT are also soon to make generally available the 3 special scenarios originally handed out to subscribers to GMT's P500 list for C&C:A.

With the M44 carrying case and the first C&C:A expansion scheduled for release before the year is out it is certainly an exciting time for fans of Mr. Borg's masterpiece!

RPGpundit takes over Nutkinland

The RPGpundit's hopes that the Nutkinland might be "The Last Best Hope of the RPG Community Online" proved to be unfounded when the place died on its arse. Undaunted the pundit acceded to suggestions from more than one of his Proxy Army and stepped-up to take the place over.

Renamed TheRPGsite and running with the pundit as chief-of-staff for just about a week now, it has to be said that TheRPGsite already looks more interesting than Nutkinland. The post volume is up and the topics of discussion are certainly more interesting than those which were typical in the days of the Nutkins.

The pundit undoubtedly has a clearer vision of what he wants the site to be than did the staff of Nutkinland, and he isn't shy of telling us all about what that vision is- as regular readers of his blog can easily imagine! Already the site has pundit's managerial mission statement, pundit's theoretical mission statement, and a constitution.

It is hard to deny that the roleplaying ecommunity would benefit from a well-run site devoted to the hobby in general, as opposed to company or game-specific sites. And it would be churlish to wish TheRPGsite anything but success. But, well... what are we to make of this forum then?

I mean to say, the pundit is fond of hurling the epithet 'fascist' at the RPGnet mods. And I'm sure he is sincere in his statements that he won't follow their path. But when I see a self-appointed 'glorious leader' take over a message board and there set up a forum devoted entirely to himself; well, permit me to say that my knowledge of the role of the cult of personality in both Stalinist and fascist ideologies leaves me no choice but to maintain a measure of healthy scepticism.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

"my knowledge of the role of the cult of personality in both Stalinist and fascist ideologies leaves me no choice but to maintain a measure of healthy scepticism."

Good to see you joining in the internet tradition of overreacting wildly. Almost had you down as a rational human being for a moment, there! It seems like a place where discussions about his blog can be disseminated more wildly than the rather clunky blog interface.

And if he does create a 'cult of personalty', well, good for him. Not like anyone will notice :) RPGing is a niche hobby, and within that, discussion of 'game theory' is an even smaller niche. Which can only be a good thing, IMO, 'cos it's *^$£ing boring :p

gnome said...

May I just add a nice smile...

:)

(great post, interesting theories you're linking to...)

"A bit political on yer ass!" said...

Andy P
"Overreacting wildly"?

How so Andy?

I was merely noting the irony that someone so fond of "overreacting wildly" in his hurling the 'fascist' epithet at a bunch of rpg message board staff should so quickly install himself as the 'glorious leader' so beloved of the real fascists and their ilk. And "maintain[ing] a measure of healthy scepticism" about the pundit's ability to deliver on his lofty promises strikes me as a measured and quite reasonable reaction to this new turn in the roleplaying ecommunity.

Nah Andy, you're going to have to do better than that if you want to paint me as a delusional frother here! :b

Cheers ;)

"A bit political on yer ass!" said...

@ Gnome
Yes you may ("add a nice smile").

Meanwhile, in the 24 hours since I wrote this post theRPGsite has continued to maintain a healthy rate of posting on interesting topics. So far so good it seems! ;)

Anonymous said...

The very fact of having a blog is probably evidence of being a delusional frother :P

As to the fascism, I must admit to ignorance of the content of the Pundit's punditry, so the first mention of fascism I came across was in your blog posting. I was worried it was a mutant instance of Godwin's Law

"A bit political on yer ass!" said...

Ha ha! No, not Godwin's Law. Just what I said- the pundit really hates the admins at RPGnet. Like pathologically. ;)

PS. The pundit is, naturally enough, a hyperbolic overuser of the term, although it patently hasn't lost him all the points he's made this way.

gnome said...

And a nice new version site too. Sleek and fast!

(thanks a lot for the link)

"A bit political on yer ass!" said...

It's the new blogger beta gnome, which I first saw in action on your site actually.

I like the new functionality I have to say. The new archive structure in particular- with the ability to find the post you want via a menu instead of having to guess the date and search through post after post- is much better than what went before. I'll just have to get to work to sort out my categories now.

Oh, and I also think that the new colours make the blog more readable. I hope you agree. ;)

Anonymous said...

*sigh*
Thats all very interesting. However I couldnt help but note an unfortunate failure to mention a certain drubbing at Squad Leader at the hands of a certain first time player. But there you go, we all know thats the real reason its taken you so long to post John, eh :P. Tut tut, thinking I'd forget
(As a nod to the fact that nobody can tell just how far my tongue is rammed into my cheek since you can't see me, I'd just like to point out that if my tongue was any further in my cheek, I'd been needing stitches to close the wound.

Anonymous said...

Disagree with the readability; the green's too strong. Swap the background of the post text and the bumph at the side, and it'd be better.

Also, for some reason, the RSS feed blipped, and re-sent the last 25 updates. Quite annoying.