I'd like to talk about books I've read this year.Unfortunately I've not been able the book you wrote because it hasn't bloody arrived despite being ordered at the beginning of December

There is a whole market of weekend gamers that play one off experiences and chop and change. I think that audience is under supported, and they are exhausted by lifestyle games. I dont know if there are enough to make a financially viable business, but there's only one way to find out. Also don't underestimate the impact of the 1000 true fans idea - they can be fans of you, not necessarily your game, and will buy anything you put out.

My favorite new-to-me miniature game I played this year was The Drowned Earth.

I would have liked to hear some of the RPG books Mike has read this year, and if you like I have a challenge for you: Read The Burning Wheel RPG and try to figure out how and why it functions without playing it.

I guess that would be Bruce Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide to Chess, and David Brine Pritchard's The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants as they further convinced me (after Flagstone) there's really a lot you can do with miniatures on a chess board, or any type of grid, and that I may actually prefer that to free form movement. I also got your game design book but I still have to get started on it.

I really like the idea of small games as songs. I think they end up being more accessible. I think there is a demand for short punchy games, for sure some will do better than others, but I think your name will add significant weight to them. Plus you might stumble upon another goldmine by producing more diverse games.

I would totally buy a Gaslands splatbook. Heck, if it had been out in October, I would have bought a copy for myself and five more as Christmas gifts. It’s shame Mike is too cool for money. Where I come from, tuition isn’t cheap and cows are for milking. Happy holidays to everyone.

Really solid episode. Perhaps your “voice” is more important than IP consistency. Drawing a parallel to fiction novelists. The middle ground could be a trilogy or limited series by design.

yay!

i have been using this template as an idea on how to teach myself the game since no one in my area plays. going to give it a try tonight. 1v1 with 2 simple cars makes sense

Speaking as toxophilite I want to point out its called Archery because its latin for Bow.

Some rules exist purely as a editing/cleanliness choice. An example you give of "discard cards facedown" exists b/c there's a non-zero chance players ask "What face do cards get discarded?" and its some peirs opinion its a little cleaner just to give a face. Also, little comment on the gaslands template, out group debated allowing the "anywhere from the wheels to the front of the car" in order to increase some maneuverability

I wish the re-roll rule was replaced with "you choose the result" in a lot of cases

I played some Trench Crusade, which I liked and made me kitbash a warband and back the kickstarter. I'll play this again. But I'm a bit worried the success of that kickstarter will ruin it by creating pressure on the designers to come up with new stuff all the time. The "living rulebook" approach doesn't inspire much confidence there either 🙂

maybe miniature campaign games should have a session 0 to build warbands & stuff together, like it is done in RPGs.

3 years later, and you've finally done it! Congratulations on the rulebook! It's just funny that it was just a joke 3 years ago. 😂

This year was the year I took my first steps into miniatures games so played slightly less tabletop games than I normally do. Standout winners for me were Hideous Abomination and Ancient Terrible Things Reawakened. The latter is cheating a bit because that was just an updated version of an existing game, but I felt the rules had been tweaked enough for it to feel like a different and much better game. Much more tension and felt much more immersive. And Hideous Abomination is just an utter joy to play where you make weird monsters from hundreds of creature parts. The worst; how long have you got? But top of the list would be Expeditions (the Scythe sequel). I think being the sequel to Scythe killed it from the start and (for me) didn't immerse you in that 1920+ world enough. Wyrmspan, only because it was just a reskin of a good game and didn't really do enough different. So not really a bad game, but just a bit sinical to me. I wasn't blown away by Andromeda's Edge, as I felt like it was too much like Gaia Project (but not as good).

as for dissapointing: i didnt like legends of Andor. i even painted minis for it, but once we got to play it, it was too linear and bland. We re switching to rangers of shadowdeep probably for some co-op.

strangely... chess! 🤣 I've played it as a kid a bit, like one does monopoly and risk, and then dropped it when I discovered RPGs and miniature games, but now Mike's Chess28 has really brought it back in focus. There's so much to chess and what you can do with it while still retaining chessyness, I've been not only experimenting with making it more miniature wargamey in the Chess28 sense but also looking into the enormous variety of chess variants and reading up on chess strategy & tactics. Still don't enjoy the complete abscence of chance so I'll never be a real chess player, but other than that it's a fantastically inspiring game and I'm happy to have rediscovered it.

Fun discussion! I’ve been pondering some of these ideas lately myself as I’ve been working on a campaign system based off Warlord’s Combined Arms that can tie together Legions Imperialis, Aeronautica Imperialis, and BFG.

I like the fact it won't need miniatures, the idea of having to get enough miniatures to fight Pacific battles is too daunting, and you can't really fight carrier V carrier battles with miniatures because they're just too big, even at 1/6000 scale

I'll undo the whole blue color from Magic, THEN I might come back to it 😅

Been subscribed for a good while and bought the book (of course).

'I Aint Been Shot Mum' has a rather clunky way of doing it with blinder templates which move at an arbitrary distance so you cannot tell if it's infantry, tanks or a decoy until you can spot it.

This book is on my list for xmas gifts for myself. Going through Priestleys book now.

Cheers for the links for the game generator. I think I saw it during the OBWG challenge and it helped me figure out some wording for my ruleset. On another note. The game 504 is one of the closest things I've seen to a random board game generator. It randomly mixes 3 different game mechanics from a selection of 9 (pick up and deliver, conflict, stock market, etc.) and automatically creates a set of rules for the game. It's utterly bonkers and worth a look just for the sheer madness of it.

Alright, fine. I bought the book. Looking forward to it. Sounds like it'll be a great reference

Premeasuring for me is a must in a modern game. After years of cabinetry, I am so much better at guessing distance then alot of my opponents. It feels weird to have a skill element give me an advantage in a tabletop game. I know I can place my models with a 1/4 inch out from your threat, baiting people into bad decisions. Feels like a skill check that people shouldn't need to pass.

I hardly understood any of that but it all sounds fascinating so i've ordered the book. I read Rick's book on the subject which was very enjoyable, but i'll assume yours has less references to tea, curry and last orders.

As an American, I believe there should be a shooting phase within every phase of a game.

The single best reason to use a grid system is its ease in implementing a double blind stealth system.

Have you guys read the full rulebook for any of the One Page Rules games? I think it's the best example of a terse yet complete explanation of a ruleset.

well done guys, you can be proud of yourselves

I have no idea what "campaign system" means to you, and you didn't explain it in the video.

Just got mine in the mail. So nice!!

Fantastic video I love the Tips brother.

im definitely getting the book soon

Just curious, does this book address solo game development?

Hi guys. My copy arrived this week! Cool! Quick question: Am I somehow looking past the "foreword by Gav Thorpe"? My copy goes straight to the introduction, without any preamble. 🤔

The book is on my Christmas list. Looking forward to reading it in full. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge with regards to miniature games.

I bought theTOW rules and the two books a few months ago. But having read through them extensively, played a few solo table-top tests to check out the systems, and watched scores of KZbin games, I know it's not for me. I'll stick with 6th and 7th editions because they work, and TOW doesn't. It has complexity where it's not needed, it's confusing where it needs clarity, and it has way too many loopholes with which to entice the power-players out there. It has the appearance of a rule set that was designed by a committee that had never actually played WHFB, but had merely read the old rule books and picked out the bits they thought were coolest. It's badly in need of a revision. None of this bothers me. I am happy to carry on playing Oldhammer because I have no interest in buying into the GW scene again. I do however welcome the re-release of some of the charming old sculpts, and have bought a fair few. But I won't be playing TOW, not because I am an elitist Luddite, but because the rules are pants.

I think miniatures can play an important part of helping with readability. If I see a giant with an axe and a unit of small archers, there's a quick intuitive reminder of how those units (probably) behave. Of course if you're not using that space then that could be an example of a game with "pasted on" theme. Also, the theme of a game does a lot of work conveying what kind of fantasy a player is in store for after they crack open the book.

Personally I'm a massive fan of critical hit effects and charts, as a person who came into miniature wargaming from D&D around 2011. Bonus damage was always good in D&D, and critical effects always seemed lackluster as a replacement - but if your attack does bonus damage AND something cool, that was the best. As a tabletop RPG person going into it, it was so exciting that your attack was so extravagant and successful you had to say "wait a sec, lets check the book" and searched up the table. The suspense of what was about to happen to your or your opponent's model during is great. And I believe that narratively, its so much more fun for my model to have his legs blown off and for him to only be able to crawl 1" per activation than for him to have received 2 extra damage and or possibly died. I'll forget that time you killed my orc, I'll remember that time he lost his legs and spent 7 turns just crawling to get into place.

So if you design something it needs to be innovative and interesting. I have an idea for a game based on a computer game franchise with mechs and infantry, however that is a very saturated space within the hobby. Additionally all my mechanical ideas are at best iterative of other miniature games and I don't have the noust to create truly new designs within a space that so many things have already been done. I think it's best I don't pursue it

I feel like the "reroll, but let the first roll stand" option would generally get condensed to "roll 2, pick highest" - which I think I've seen examples of. Maybe there's a more general idea at play here? Like the use of discarded results or something.

Do you have another video for November?

I don’t recall ever hearing the word diegetic. I was non-diegetic until this morning…😊 great to hear these discussions.

Jumping on the non-discrete damage. Sand timers are really good for this. The board game Kero has a fantastic sand timer system where you roll dice with a sand timer and you stop rolling whenever you want, but you're trying to roll specific symbols on the dice before the timer runs out. You could apply this as where the defender tries to roll saves while the sand timer drains. So the longer you take to save, the more damage you take.

Already pre-order guys. Looking forward to getting the book in Japan.

Preordered and stoked to read! Really glad y'all are more than willing to share your knowledge and expertise, whether freely available here or in a more formalized book format <3