Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — Tom Russell
THE OPT-POP DIARIES PART 4 (by Tom Russell)
One aspect of Optimates et Populares I've been dancing around and deferring for later discussion in this series of articles is the Dictator, and there's a reason for that: the Dictator was the part of the game that gave me the most trouble. It was the one thing that I just couldn't seem to get to work, the one outstanding design challenge that I was still trying to solve. You would think, from the usage of past tense and the fact that I'm dedicating an article to it that I had found my solution. But, in fact, my "solution" was...
SO NOW I'M A COLLECTOR APPARENTLY (by Tom Russell)
Years ago, I was reading James Dunnigan's Complete Wargames Handbook, and I came across a passage that I thought was so ridiculous, I had to read it out loud to share it with Mary: "Reading" games rather than playing them is quite common. Always has been. Many gamers "collect" games. They buy them, but never play them. This does not mean that they are not used. Quite often, the hobbyist will spend several hours with the game. The usual procedure is to lay out the map, examine the pieces, read the rules and scenarios and perhaps place the pieces on...
ON THE JOYS, FRUSTRATIONS, AND POSSIBILITIES OF FREE SET-UP (by Tom Russell)
The other day, the inestimable Robert Peter Bottos - he of BottosCon fame - commented on a Facebook post we had made about our upcoming release Plan 1919. Our post was as follows: Many of our wargames give the player a lot of leeway in setting up their forces, and Plan 1919 is no exception. The Germans set up on one side of the line, and the Allies on the other, and a solid set-up is really crucial. Each side has well over a hundred units (155 for the Germans and 226 for the allies, to be precise) of different...
THE OPT-POP DIARIES PART 3 (by Tom Russell)
The primary currency in my Optimates et Populares design is Political Will (PW), with each action you take or attempt costing some amount of it. Small things cost less PW and big things cost more PW. This is a familiar concept for most gamers, which goes by various names: Operations Points, Action Points, Resource Points, etc. Usually you get these points in games randomly by playing cards, or you earn them by controlling certain areas on a map. It's a necessary abstraction that simulates not so much the actual choices made by leaders and commanders - Lincoln didn't fret over...
COVER STORY: PLAN 1919 (by Tom Russell)
I had a pretty good idea about how I would approach the cover for Plan 1919 even before John Gorkowski had designed the game. Part of this is that I had spent several months trying (and failing) to design my own game on the topic before Mary and I asked Mr. Gorkowski to take a whack at it. Which is one of the great things about running a games company: if you want a game to exist on a topic, but can't do it yourself, you can ask someone else whose talents are better suited to that topic. And with...