Lighting Strikes Twice!

by on September 28, 2009 at 10:31 am
Posted In: GURPS

GURPS generally enjoys a reputation for good reference supplements. One that caught me particularly by surprise was when I borrowed a friend’s copy of GURPS High-Tech. I’m not really into guns, but I was impressed by broad-based historical info on all subjects from ~1450 to the present as well as for the historical interest given on the guns themselves.

Low-Tech, to cover from the Stone Age through the Middle Ages was an actively requested book in the mid-’90s (when I was on the GURPSnet mailing list). Sadly, I missed it when it did come out (I was in a non-RPG cycle by that time). I have just recently gotten a copy and gone through it.

Get the Bad out of the way: The cover
It’s not exactly bad concept, or composition, but the color intensity of most of the cover art elements are about the same, and just blend into each other. Uninspired at best, muddy at worst. Worse, is the use of Avalon for the title logo, done too big, and massively scaled to make font that is naturally very wide fit into the available space. I’m not a big fan of the font (sure, it can be nice once in a while… Diablo is about my personal limit), and I could have done with a different choice on the cover and all the major section headings.

Also, while I thought the binding was holding up, the bulk of the book separated from the spine about the time I finished a read-through of it. This seems to be a very common problem of SJG books of the time, and I’ve gotten used to being prepared to just use some Elmer’s to put it back together, which generally works fine.

Defining Technology
Thankfully, while it is nice for a cover to look good, that’s not why I got the book. It is divided into 5 chapters; a beginning section that lays out the common precepts of the book, one chapter each on Tech Levels 0-3, and an appendix that gives arms and armor details. In addition, there’s a good 2-page glossary, and a very nice 3-page bibliography. I don’t know most of the books in it, but the ones I do know are very good.

The introductory chapter focuses on the GURPS Tech Level system itself, and talks about the fact that some societies won’t show a consistent TL across all categories. Reasonably obvious stuff, but it needed saying somewhere. In addition, there’s a two-page job table suitable for the entire period covered in the book (pretty well done, considering the broad subject).

Through the Ages
The bulk of the book is discussions of technology and capabilities at various tech levels. I’m something of a history nut, and much of my reading over the last decade has focused around the Roman Empire, so there’s not a lot that was completely new to me. However, the highlights of a very broad subject are covered very well, including discussions of how nomadic cultures fall into the TL scheme, and other anomalies.

Since there is relatively little technology to cover, the section on the Stone Age works out fairly well, covering just about all the high points. Skills needed for various tasks, just how much food can be gathered, and how much meat can be gotten from game. Since adventurers are likely to be hunting for themselves in any setting up to TL5 (19th century), this has some good figures for a lot of campaigns.

The Bronze Age chapter has a good example of the type of data that can make GURPS books good references, a sidebar that gives the energy output (in kWs) of burning different general types of wood. Beyond any further utility of hard numbers, it’s a good way to compare them against each other. There’s also a couple of GURPS Martial Arts-style maneuvers for use with chariots.

The Iron Age chapter gave me a couple of problems since I’m so used to thinking of the heyday of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire as two very different periods, even though they’re both Iron Age cultures. So I was fighting my instincts while they did the only thing they could in an overview this broad.

The Middle Ages feels like even more of an overview to me, though there’s no real reason why that is so. Certainly, there’s a good sidebar on how to judge a flame catching something on fire that could be used almost anywhere (mostly meant for fire arrows and Greek fire here). There’s also a table detailing the various components of horse barding.

Equipment
The final appendix supplements all the general equipment given at each TL with hard stats for various weapons, armor, and vehicles. There’s also a page talking about various materials weapons can be made from and how that affects quality and the chance of the weapon breaking, in an enhancement of the rules in Basic Set. Another page deals with customizing weapons from the standard types given with things like flanges and butt-spikes. It is claimed that this allows construction just about any type of polearm that has a meaningful in-game difference. Sadly, I can’t find my copy of Unearthed Arcana to take them up on it. 😉 The armor table also includes some optional rules for more detail with head protection from helmets.

A nice thing about the weapons tables is that in the sections it covers, it includes the original Basic Set weapons, as well as the new ones, so you don’t need to refer to both places. However, there are a few things that aren’t in the new set (generally post-medieval), so you may need to go back to the original sometimes. Similarly, the armor tables are a much more detailed look at the equipment given in Basic Set, plus new items. There’s also about a page and a half of vehicle statistics (‘vehicle’ includes things like dog sleds…), mostly worked out with GURPS Vehicles (Second Edtion), but with speeds figured using statistics for harnesses given in the text of the book.

But what’s it worth?
For someone GMing a low-tech campaign in GURPS 3rd Edition, this is a very handy resource. Even if you have a more specific world book (say, GURPS Greece), there’s a lot of context here that can help out. Similarly, there’s a lot of little bits that can be handy in the oddest places. Most of it can be done off the cuff, but if you want something a little more consistent, and thought-through ahead of time, as usual, GURPS delivers. I was wowed by the original High-Tech, and it’s successor does just as good a job.

For someone not using GURPS, it is much harder to say. A lot will depend on the person. If you don’t have a lot of grounding in the period, then it definitely is a good primer on the subject. Even if you do, it can be handy to have it all put into one place like this. Also, some of the pure data that crops up can be very handy on occasion.

GURPS 4th Edition doesn’t have an equivalent book, and the SJG website does point people to this book as a related item to GURPS High-Tech (Fourth Edition). I haven’t made the jump to 4th Ed myself, so I don’t know how much some things have changed, though I know there have been some changes. Assuming that actual damage and DR numbers for weapons and armor in Basic Set stayed the same, then that should convert over well, and Low-Tech as a whole should do very well under the 4th Ed rules.

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Cunning Crete

by on September 27, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had the gang over for gaming yesterday. We played the ever-popular Advanced Civilization with five players, and had a good time of it.

The mix of powers was the same as last time, though who took what was different. I decided to take Crete this time, and got Barbarian Hordes (which Crete is immune to) twice during the game.

For some reason, we went a bit slower this time, only getting about as far as the first time we played. I found this a little disappointing, but still a very good day as everyone was in good reach of the lead at the end.

Jason played Egypt, and nearly knocked himself out of the game by building two cities early, one of them away from a city site, reducing his population to just enough to support the cities. He made the Early Bronze Age barrier, and didn’t build on the flood plain, but the lack of population kept him from doing anything else until the first Civil War calamity hit, and he inherited some territory in eastern Asia Minor.

As Crete, I didn’t have my best start ever, mostly because I bounced off the Early Bronze Age twice. I built my first city the first time, and planned to build the second the turn after, but forgot about it when the time came, putting me a turn behind where I planned to be. However, I managed to escape most of the first and second round of calamities (including being the one to trade away an Epidemic, rendering me immune), and overall was in the best position, though Patch’s Thracians had also been doing well.

Mark was surprisingly aggressive during the game, with his Assyrians on the border of Babylon’s (Dave’s) start areas for pretty much the entire game (with an interruption by the Egyptian pocket empire). Between that and Egypt’s late start, the Levant wasn’t truly colonized until reasonably late, and most of North Africa was never occupied. I had gotten Astronomy towards the end of the day, and was hoping to colonize Carthage once the third round of calamities (which was hitting me) settled out.

Thanks to a couple of nasty calamities on the last two turns, I only finished with three cities (I had rebuilt up to six after a Civil War handed a fair chunk of property to Thrace, but Slave Revolt reduced me back to three). And that cost me the victory. For the third time in three games, I was in second. Now, this is a much better average than anyone other than Patch (who has been first twice, and third once; average 1 2/3), but I’d like to get an actual win….

Final Scores:

Side Player AST Cities Civ Cards Cards Treasury Total Place
Thrace Patch 1000 350 280 27 10 1667 1
Crete Rindis 1000 150 440 0 0 1593 2
Assyria Mark 900 350 300 0 0 1550 3
Babylon Dave 900 200 390 0 0 1490 4
Egypt Jason 900 300 280 0 8 1488 5

The spread between first and second was less than 100 points, and I had a definite edge on Civilization cards, so not only was I likely to have broken the Early Iron Age barrier first (up to five cards, and some nice bonuses starting to add up), but I probably would have had the victory on any turn other than this one. But, we were all happy at how tight the game was staying.

We need to sort out who’s available when, since it looks like we have some crowded schedules next month. Not sure what we’ll play, though my playtest copy of Metropolis Archon has finally arrived….

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Gaming Fusion—Tactical and Strategic in One Package

by on September 24, 2009 at 1:38 am
Posted In: Design and Effect

Crossposted from the Design and Effect blog at GameSquad.

There are games that are tactical in scope, presenting small units (or even individuals) fighting out a battle. There are games with a wider, strategic, scope, where entire wars are fought out.

And then, there are a few game that try to deliver both. I’m not just talking about some of the complicated combat procedures, nor multiple rounds of rolling dice back and forth. I mean games where there is an actual mini-game that allows maneuver and tactics to matter.

This is mostly the realm of computer games, which can handle the switch of scale without overcrowding an already cluttered table, but there are some celebrated board games that use this idea too.

Napoleon (Gamma Two Games, 1974)
The third, and final, of Gamma Two’s block wargames, Napoleon featured all the same base mechanics of the first two, a much more dynamic situation—and the added complication of having to organize and maneuver your troops once battle is joined. Considering that this one was representing a much smaller scale than the previous two games (turns are hours instead of weeks or months), the more detailed combat resolution may make some sense.

The combat is pretty simple, in keeping with a game that is overall one of the hallmarks of design elegance. Units are secretly assigned to either the center or one of the flanks, or the reserve. Deployments are revealed at the start of battle, and the players have options to shift troops around, commit reserves, and advance to the attack. Columbia Games recently did a new edition, and I believe it simplifies the maneuvering process some. The rest of it is pretty standard block-game fare: each unit rolls a number of dice dependent on it’s strength (from 1-4), and 6s are hits that reduce the enemy strength. There are also effects from using infantry and cavalry and artillery together.

Titan (Gorgonstar, 1980)
In some ways, Titan is the reverse of other games, almost being an involved combat resolution with a strategic game sitting on top. The strategic part of the game consists of working around the world board, recruiting creatures into your armies as you go. This is the real heart of the game, as what you recruit when has a complicated system of prerequisites to work through (and the movement itself isn’t the most straightforward thing either).

When battle is joined each player sets their army up on a battle board for that space’s terrain, about 6 hexes across (this is an enhancement of the AH edition, the original battle boards consisted of a mere 5 hexes; one row of 3, one row of 2). I don’t really remember much about the combat, but the boards are just big enough for some maneuvering, and units that come from the type of terrain being fought on get some bonuses.

Master of Orion (MicroProse, 1993)
I’m generally considering all the games of a series together here, however, the tactical combat in each MoO game has been substantially different, so each is examined on its own. A space ‘4X’ game, MoO featured ship design and a tactical space-combat system. While both were well done and fun, the combat system did use a shortcut that has been seen again: combat was between ‘stacks’ of identical units.

For some reason, this last bugged me more here than it did in the later HoMM series (see below). There are two things that made it necessary here, though. First, the player is limited to only having six ship designs at a time. To design a seventh class, you first have to delete one of the existing ones (scrapping all the remaining ships of the type in the process…).

Master of Magic (SimTex, 1994)
MoM is basically a fantasy version of Sid Meyer’s Civilization, with city building, exploring and magic research instead of technologies. Its combat system is one of the high points in what is overall a good game. Combat happens on a square-grid map derived from the terrain the battle is happening on, and each unit is treated separately. The ‘normal’ (non-monster) units generally consist of several people, and as they take damage the number of people (and hitting power) goes down, much like units taking hits in many miniatures systems. In fact, with the isometric view, it was as close to a simple miniatures game as VGA graphics were going to allow.

Heroes of Might and Magic series (New World Computing, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2002; Nival Interactive, 2005)
While the HoMM series has grown a lot, combat has stayed essentially the same. Units can either garrison a castle, or move with a hero, but can’t move on their own. When a hero attacks another hero or a castle, the game switches to a fun combat game.

It’s not much of one on the surface, as while it does use a hex-grid, units merely exist in ‘stacks’ of identical units, with no upper limit on how many units could be in a stack. Despite this, the combat was pretty deep, since there are a lot of different unit types, and there’s a hard limit on how many different types can be in an army. The range of different abilities is quite varied, and with the ability of lower-level units to be recruited faster, there is generally nothing that is truly worthless (with the exception of Peasants in the first two games…).

Conquest of the New World (Quicksilver, 1996)
At first glance this was just another ‘colonize the New World game’, though a well done one. Our interest here is the combat system however.

It actually resembles the system used in Napoleon, with a backfield reserve and a grid of left, right and center areas. Since it’s much the same period, this is nice to see. There’s the split between infantry, cavalry and artillery again. Each army has to be commanded by a leader who determines how many units can attack in a round, which can be grouped or done separately. There are bonuses for grouping combined-arms attacks as well as charging cavalry (moving and attacking). Units have a rating that determines effectiveness and how many hits they can take; also, as they take hits they check morale and may automatically retreat one square (which forces you to waste an action moving them back if they’re still in good shape…).

All things considered, it’s possibly the simplest separate battle system in a computer game. The fact that you could hop straight into a fight against the computer from the opening menu in something of a ‘practice mode’ was also nice touch.

Master of Orion II (Microprose, 1996)
Despite the name, there were not a lot of points of similarity between this game and the first one. (They are there to be sure, but less so than in most sequels.) Ship design and construction were familiar, but had far-reaching differences.

Not only was the limit on ‘classes’ removed, but each individual ship could be unique. Even if two ships started the same, they could be refitted independently, producing two separate designs. Combat of course, dropped the ‘stack’ concept, which each ship operating separately. The hundreds of ships gave way to fleets that usually had a couple dozen ships at most, emphasizing the individualistic nature of shipbuilding.

The battle system wasn’t anything special, but it was solid, and fully featured, with facing, differing movement rates, special abilities, etc. ‘Real’ physics and momentum weren’t present, but that’s rare in dedicated tactical SF games, so not surprising.

Great War at Sea/Second World War at Sea series (Avalanche Press, 1996-present)
Okay, there’s been a lot of releases in these two related series, so I’m not even going to try to mention them all. Of especial note, this is the first boardgame mention since Titan. The general idea is an operational-level game of naval maneuvering across the seas which has a tactical component when two forces actually spot one another. Since most forces have to pre-plot their route in advance (and the exceptions still pre-plot for two turns), this is by no means certain.

The tactical side is something of a mixed bag. For the amount of (potential) detail, it’s a very simplified system. As a quick subsystem of the larger game, this makes sense, but can be very off-putting to naval enthusiasts who are used to detailed treatments of individual battles. The most noticeable lack is any sort of facing rules, allowing ships to go in any direction, or fire in any direction. As each phase for movement and firing is rough a half-hour long, this isn’t as bad as it seems, but it is jarring, as that’s typically one of the major concerns in simulating a naval engagement. On the other hand, the series uses a very lengthy phase sequence to allow for a good range of speed differences, and this grates against the simpler aspects of the system.

All in all, a fairly unique effort, and has gotten a number of Origins awards.

Imperialism series (SSI, 1997, 1999)
The two games in this series tackled different eras, but featured similar mechanics and goals. Balance work in your infrastructure with diplomacy and trade to increase your economy and dominate your rivals through a network of allies and guns and butter spending.

I’ll admit, I like the economics and empire building aspects, but never got into the wars much. It does feature a separate battle system, that was fairly simple, and a bit lackluster in presentation, especially by the late ’90s.

Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds (Rage Software, 1998)
A game just short of being great. H. G. Wells’ classic novel sees one of its few adaptions that are true to the original setting (instead of an ‘update’ to be contemporary). The humans are put on a equal footing with the Martians, and destroy the first cylinder, after which the others are diverted to Scotland where the Martians have more room to build up their strength.

The strategic portion of the game involves a map of Britain broken up into provinces. These have to be individually managed with the construction of defenses and the facilities to create new units and supplies. Units are built as groups of 1-5 vehicles (depending on type; there is, oddly, no infantry, obviously to simplify the job for the primitive 3D graphics engine). When units are moved into an enemy province (or vice versa), the game switches to an RTS game, where the units fight the available defenders and fortifications to try to drive the enemy out of the area by taking out their headquarters.

When looking at the map of Europe for scenario selection in Command & Conquer, this is what I thought the logical next step in RTS evolution would be.

Boy, was I wrong. And disappointed with where RTS did go. Or should I say, ‘didn’t go’?

Age of Wonders series (Triumph Studios, 1999, 2002, 2003)
This series, especially the last two releases, are very much in the same vein as Master of Magic, where you heroes who can cast spells in battle, as a wizard (directly representing you) who can cast spells at a distance.

The combat system is the standard ‘bunch of different unit types, often with special powers. Like most entries (and unlike MoM) each unit is one person, with no partial losses. However, it’s a very nice system, with terrain that blocks archery, number of attacks impacted by movement, and other nice touches. The real interesting part is that the tactical field consists of the hex being attacked and all the adjacent hexes. (This, naturally, includes the hex being attacked from.) This allows for some really large battles, especially for city assaults where the city is well defended, but the attacker now occupies all the surrounding terrain (yes! a real siege—well close enough).

Total War series (Creative Assembly, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2009)
I have to admit a good amount of ignorance here. Despite being real attracted to the style and subject of the games, I have yet to get any of them. I really need to just go down to Fry’s and spend the $20 for Rome + expansion.

But the general idea is like WotW above. You manage provinces strategically, and when one player invades another, the battle is played out as an RTS. In this case the series is all historical-based, which also attracts my attention.

Master of Orion III (Quicksilver Software, 2003)
The most controversial of the series, and one that I liked more than many people (instead of the other way around on the first two). For our current purposes, the game changed significantly yet again. Ship building is largely akin to MoO II (though the interface is much worse), but ships are easier to build again, meaning that there will be more of them, and having a fleet of ‘unique’ capital ships is no longer practical or desirable.

The biggest change is that ships have to be grouped into ‘task forces’ to be used, and battles are fights between task forces. I really like this part because it allows for a much more ‘epic’ scale of fight than II while avoiding the over-simplicity of the original. The combat in II felt very static and constrained, while the engine here feels more like true space (opera) combat. Sadly, it too had it’s bugs and problems, but I really admired the general feel.

Overall, the ‘perfect’ blend of strategic action and tactical combat can be considered one of the ‘grail quests’ of gaming. The dream of a rich combat experience married to strategic choices that make suicidal charges as unpalatable as in a real war shines golden in many eyes, and has lead to many games not mentioned here. But it is a very tough balance to achieve, and is only rarely truly successful. For my preferences, Age of Wonders II would be the best I’ve seen so far.

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Chariot Hit and Run

by on September 20, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Had Mark over today for wargaming. It was his turn to pick, and he had originally wanted to do Spartacus, which both of us think looks interesting. But, he hadn’t gotten a chance to get it to me ahead of time, and we’re trying to avoid one of us teaching the other cold during these meets.

So, he’s now loaned it to me for a couple months down the line, and he brought over his Commands & Colors: Ancients collection, to celebrate the imminent arrival of my own copy (should be here within the next couple weeks).

Mark’s first suggestion was for a scenario from Expansion #2, as I had yet to play anything from that. I had already been thinking that I’d like to take care of that same gap, and readily agreed. We did a couple rounds of Vercellae, which is a big scenario, running to 8 banners. Anything with Gaius Marius involved gets my attention, and I was quite happy to take the Romans in the first round.

It’s an interesting situation. There’s a lot of Germans on the board, but they’re mostly in a big mass where it is easy for them to get tangled on each other. The Roman army is a bit thin, but good quality, and gets to draw six cards to the German’s four. In the event, things started decent, with us alternating getting banners at a decent clip. The problem was, I was always getting my banner second. I did a good job chewing up his center, and Mark did a better job getting several units out of harm’s way. My middle also got chewed up, but a good Rally put things back in order, and I thought I had a good shot at the game at that point. In the end, the Roman army ran out of momentum and couldn’t get it back again, even when I got a cavalry unit into where his weakened units were hiding. 7-8

We swapped places for a second round, and things went no better for me. In fact, the four card hand definitely gave me trouble, and I often had trouble getting anything I needed to move. I don’t remember what happened so clearly, though I was happy with how I managed to open up my center during the middle game. 6-8

After some discussion, we went for River Stour, a skirmish early in Julius Caesar’s second invasion of Britain. The Britons get a force completely made up of cavalry and chariots, against a standard Roman army, which makes for a very different fight.

I decided to take the Britons. When I considered that I knew nothing of how chariots worked, I wondered if that was such a good idea….

I really had to wonder when I got my opening hand of five cards. I had three that demanded infantry (could still use them to order any one piece, but I also didn’t like letting Mark Counterattack with them), a Counterattack (lets me mirror what Mark just played, but since I move first, he hadn’t even played anything yet), and an Order Two Right.

At first, things were pretty desperate. Chariots can evade against anything, so I’d charge in and attack, and as soon as he moved in and attacked the exposed units, I’d evade back out of range. But the losses still mounted pretty quickly, and I was struggling with a crippled hand the entire way. The ‘classic’ opening move is to try and pick off one or both exposed Roman archery units that are stuck where they can’t retreat; following a pattern that had been going on all afternoon, whenever Mark was vulnerable to Flag results, I couldn’t get any.

My right flank collapsed fairly quickly, and everything else migrated left, trying to stay out of range of Julius Caesar, who provides additional bonuses. Some gambles paid off… moderately well, and I managed to nail most of his right flank. I had grasped how to use the chariots fairly well, and the main thing was that the fight had degenerated into a bunch of little groups milling around, and the superior mobility of the chariots was letting me concentrate effectively. Also, I drew a third Counterattack card, and I stopped worrying about Mark having any. I ended up managing to eliminate his unit with his right-flank leader against the back row, getting me credit for the leader as well as the unit, getting me to 5-4 (out of 6). The next couple turns were tense as Mark tried to arrange ways to kill of a pair of units while I went pounding after his other remnants. It took me three tries before I managed it (the dice toying with me again, I’ll have to train the ones in my set better), and Mark had gotten one in the meantime for a very close 6-5 finish.

That put us at 19-21 for the day, but at least I won one of them, and perhaps the one needing the most finesse. Next time between us is my choice; I was planning on Unhappy King Charles, but my playtest copy of Archon Metropolis Archon just came in, and we’ll probably do that instead.

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A World in a Volume—Come Back For More?

by on September 13, 2009 at 2:21 am
Posted In: RPGs

The early 1990s marked the last part of the expansive history of the ‘classic’ TSR. New lines were being created all over the place, and most previous lines were kept fresh and updated. TSR’s financial collapse is mostly blamed on the novel publishing side of things, but I can’t help but think that the ever-expanding universe of game worlds they were trying to promote had to cause a great deal of over-extension on its own.

One of the odder niches in the TSR lineup was Mystara, a world that mostly grew out of the ‘wilderness adventures’ that made up most of the line of modules for the D&D Expert Set. It was never very well developed until the late 1980s when the Basic/Expert line was revamped and expanded, and the Gazeteer series of setting modules started.

At this point the world of Mystara was a fairly static place. Some modules introduced world-shaking events, but the big one, X10 Red Arrow, Black Shield, was quickly disowned from the main part of the timeline and asserted to actually happen a couple centuries later, so as to avoid shaking up the world in too many unpredictable ways (as the war in the module was heavily dependent on player actions).

With the release of the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia and Wrath of the Immortals, this changed. Massive changes were introduced to Mystara with the latter (including the removal of a major empire and the continent it was on). Which brings us to the current product under consideration: The Poor Wizard’s Almanac was a one-volume guide to Mystara, incorporating all the latest changes, and this review will focus on its utility as such.

But—the idea was to do a series of these books, one per year, each one advancing the game-world date one year, and giving the major events of the year, and updating the rest for the changes that happened the previous year. As I only have one of the series, this leads to the question I cannot truly answer, was it worthwhile to get a new Almanac every year?

On to the Review:
The Almanac comes as a very attractive looking half-inch thick 9″x6″ book with a full color folded map bound into it. Note that the latter has to be removed (via perforations) to be unfolded and is about 21″x17″.

The first 150 pages are the “Atlas of Mystara” and is mostly dedicated to a series of short entries on the various countries of the world. These entries are too short for anything beyond generalities, but they do a good job, and I found (as a former Gazeteer fan who missed Wrath of the Immortals) that they are excellent for providing the current essentials and showing just what had changed (and there is a note that some parts are purposefully trimmed back, to provide information on new areas being explored, also shown in the color map—nice touch, but if that keeps happening the page count has to go up at some point…). There is a good overview of the structure of the world, which is handy if you didn’t have the Hollow World Campaign Set. Less successful are sections on who’s who, and the militaries of the world. The latter is handy when you need it, but otherwise is just a dull repetition of facts, unlike the other sections that are generally a joy to read. The who’s who gives basic system stats, and an overview of the character; however, I found these not to be well enough done to feel like I could handle any of them as an NPC.

The second section (some twenty pages), Miscellaneous Information, gives the calendar and holidays, economic information, and climate info. All very well done, and more organized and concise than I generally see in products like this.

The final section is Current Events. Sixty pages of ‘headline news’, and the core of what makes each volume different. These are very well done, each entry organized chronologically, with references to the other entries that directly impact on it (before and after), and ‘adventure hook’ thoughts where appropriate.

So What’s it Mean?
I found the Almanac to be a great product. I’m also the type of person who loves reading through setting supplements, and suggestion-ridden meta-plots. For someone who likes reading up on settings in general, for whatever reason, this presented a lot of value for its original $10 price tag. The format and the writing do an excellent job of making a traditionally static setting into a living, evolving world.

The problem becomes, was it sustainable? Was it worth getting one each year? That is harder to answer. The bulk of the book does not change much from year to year, and only the last 70 pages (of 240!) are entirely unique. I have a feeling (but nothing to back it up) that the first one probably did quite well for TSR, but sales dropped off each time as saturation set in.

I would like to point out to anyone thinking of presenting their own setting to the rest of the world, this is not at all a bad format to do it in. I think a GM could run with all that is given in here and flesh it out his own way quite easily. Forget overproduced $20+ boxed sets (the typical TSR package of the time), this $10 book does well on its own. PoD/PDF seems like it would be an answer to someone wanting to follow the ‘almanac’ approach. Make the current events available separately, and allow people to buy the full version only as often as they think they need to for an updated ‘reference copy’.

Going Forward:
I should also point out that while both Basic/Expert and Mystara were among the things dropped after the collapse of TSR, the Almanacs and the history of Mystara do continue, after a fashion. The official fan site for Mystara has created new almanacs for the next six years. However, I have yet to really go through them, and can’t speak to the quality.

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