Those Sorts of Games

Behold Starforce, a game originally published back in the Pleistocene by Simulations Publications Inc. Okay, 1977 or thereabouts. Kids today would probably look at this and say "This is a game? Where's the controller? Does it run on an X-box or what?" No, boys and girls, it ran in your brain and it consisted of nothing but paper. Well, paper, a little bit of cardboard, and occasionally some dice, though SPI stopped shipping dice with its games as a cost-saving measure, and a good thing too because it got to the point I had so many of those characteristic SPI dice in my bedroom it looked like I was developing some kind of fetish for them.

The elite stance on Starforce was that it had interesting mechanics and a reasonably thoughtful premise, but that in the end it boiled down to a guessing contest. You might as well throw dice and the high roller wins. Maybe so, but I thought it was reasonably educational, and I still think it's a pretty elegant solution to the problem of simulating three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional map. (Other solutions have not been quite so successful, in my opinion. Vector 3 and games of its ilk were difficult for me to visualize, and I often found that despite my incessant bitching about how science fiction games didn't have good 3D systems, when they gave me one, I bitched about them too. Sometimes the best solution is to a Traveler - just pretend there are three dimensions and get over yourself.)

But one thing Starforce did was get me interested in these sorts of games. Here are some of my thoughts on various science fiction games of that era:

Starfire: Loads of fun to play and offers a lot of simulated complexity without really hurting your brain, but it bears as much resemblance to actual interstellar flight as Justin Bieber does to a death metal singer. It's really Jutland in deep space, but it's still fun.

Battlefleet Mars: The map is a brilliant learning exercise, and you really wish it was good, but in the end, tedium sets in.

Mayday: Hot diggity dog! Vector movement, computer programs, sandcasters, what more can you ask for? Ships with hulls larger than 50 tons, for one thing.

Starfleet Battles: It was fun in its early incarnations, but as the game grew more complex, my brain couldn't keep pace and I found myself muttering "Am I doing this right?" way more often than I should have.

Vector 3: Novel 3-dimensional vector movement, and proof that you should be careful what you ask for. I asked for a novel 3-dimensional vector movement system, and they gave it to me. Boy, did they ever give it to me. Still, I liked the "pod" idea.

Warpwar: Another gem from Metagaming that packed a whole lot of game into a tiny package (you could easily carry the entire game in your shirt pocket). The technology levels and the diceless combat system were interesting wrinkles, but the game lacked chrome (yes, I know, and I have the gall to bitch when they give me too much chrome).

Voyage of the BSM Pandora: A classic highly deserving of whatever praise it gets these days. It cheeses me mightily that I put a gallon can of paint on the booklet of paragraphs and melded them into a monolithic block of off-white paint.

Rescue from the Hive: Cheesy science fiction of the stringiest and gooiest sort, but I sort of liked it even though it really was pretty bad. And I was pleased to see the old Starsoldier counter art come back for an encore.

Starsoldier: How many linear equations can you solve in an hour? Not enough! The game had interesting ideas and mechanics, and I always liked the future history it was drawn from, but you end up having to do an awful lot of math and the map is probably the most unattractive piece of printed paper since Tank! And that's bad, me buckos. Still, who could resist tinkering with the constants for gravity and atmospheric attenuation and fighting it out on a cylindrical asteroid?

Invasion Earth: There are more Traveler-related game products than there are kinds of light bulbs, and keeping them straight is tricky. But don't waste much effort on this one. Other than a novel (and ugly) attempt to render a map of a globe with equal-area hexes, there isn't much going on here.

Dark Nebula: It's sort of based on Imperium with a dash of Warpwar, but it's quick and easy and doesn't assault you with much in the way of math or mind-bending complexity. The trick, really, is remembering that whatever it is, it isn't Traveler, even though it feels like it.

Starship Troopers: This game amounts to Panzerblitz in spacesuits, and that isn't for everyone. I generally enjoy it only if the Mobile Infantry player lands his boat right on top of my nuclear demolition charge. If not, I lose interest because there are only so many bug beams to go around.

Car Wars: Not really a science fiction game, and surprisingly akin to Starfleet Battles in mechanics. It's a game that is more fun to think about than to actually play, but it isn't bad to play either, especially if you keep the chrome quotient low and refight Mad Max encounters. It also helps if you can do a good impersonation of Wez from The Road Warrior: "Toady! The gassssss!"

Traveler: A science fiction role playing game, sort of like D&D with lasers and computers instead of swords and orcs. As such, it's a hoot. Or was, anyway. I liked the first version, the "little black books" as they are known, along with the twelve or so supplements. But after that, the pain began to mount. Mega-Traveler had many tasteful ideas but no discipline. Traveler: The New Era was just too much. The mere technical supplement, Fire, Fusion & Steel, was weighty enough to beat a home invader to death with. I'm still very fondly disposed toward this game, but only in its early pre-Mega incarnation.

Universe: SPI's answer to Traveler, and in many respects a strikingly effective role playing game. It was generally much more restricted (geographically and technologically) than Traveler and I personally found that pleasing, as I almost suffered whiplash when some kid told me he was a tech level 27 Transformer in the Traveler universe. But alas, Universe went down with the ship when SPI folded, though I still have all the stuff, including two or three copies of the Delta Vee starship game.