--- In SoloWarGame@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Stewart" <rstewart@...>
wrote:
>
> What Are We Looking For Here?
> There are lots of Solo Wargames articles that seem to focus most of
> their rule-comments and design-time on the combat element, and why
> not? That's the main appeal of wargamers, right? But we tend to
spend
> comparatively little effort on improving the flavor of the arena
that
> the armies fight in. While that's not a bad thing, we can get a
whole
> lot more out of the time we spend doing Solo Wargaming, if we
improve
> on how we generate the tactile feel of the surroundings themselves.
>
> Take any combat games that work with the new gaming consoles, and
> compare them to older versions, and one of the first things that
> leaps out is the new 3-D near-movie-quality of the "sets" (note 1).
> Darker and Edgier means the difference between the future-world
> bunker-scenes and the clean card-board sets of Star Trek (note 2).
> Decay and chaos are rampant. The fight scenes are a lot more
graphic,
> too. And there are ways that Solo Wargamers can approximate this
same
> quantum-leap in story-line impact --- read on.
>
> What Makes a Wargame Darker and Edgier?
> There are a number of mechanics that writers (and set designers)
use
> to tweak a genre, and we are going to have a look at some of them,
as
> they could apply to Solo Wargames. In no particular order, these
> themes include: a sense of being watched or preyed on; using
weather
> as a common method of imparting a sense of gloom and doom; there
are
> lots of bad omens that come up, more often than chance would
suggest.
> When we take a look at what we feel, taste or smell, then we just
> KNOW that the orcs or similar bad-guys are around here when things
> turn sour; Bad things happen to nice people; wrinkles abound, and
we
> never seem to be able to let down our guard --- can't sleep, always
> worries, treachery surrounds us. The arena and the main guys are
both
> becoming worn, frayed, and gritty. The protagonists feel they may
not
> be able to cope.
>

>
What Makes a Wargame Darker and Edgier?
There are a number of mechanics that writers (and set designers) use
to tweak a genre, and we are going to have a look at some of them, as
they could apply to Solo Wargames. In no particular order, these
themes include: a sense of being watched or preyed on; using weather
as a common method of imparting a sense of gloom and doom; there are
lots of bad omens that come up, more often than chance would suggest.
When we take a look at what we feel, taste or smell, then we just
KNOW that the orcs or similar bad-guys are around here when things
turn sour; Bad things happen to nice people; wrinkles abound, and we
never seem to be able to let down our guard --- can't sleep, always
worries, treachery surrounds us. The arena and the main guys are both
becoming worn, frayed, and gritty. The protagonists feel they may not
be able to cope.

FOR EXAMPLE: When gaming with weather instead of simply saying its
raining. Determine how bad it is raining AND THEN how it impacts
your characters and their surroundings. You can do this by rolling
for each object on the board, that truck out front is stuck in water
filled pot hole that has just appeared (don't roll until you try to
use the truck); that building that your huscarls are hiding in has
birthed a massive hole in the roof and its filling with water making
it difficult to fire from inside the building and making footing
precarious if fighting comes inside; that charge you just made has
floundered as four of the eight guys have either fallen or gotten
bogged in the mud. Just using simple elements like these when
appropriate adds a sense of doom and forboding to a game when you
pull that weather card and it says `Rain'