"TSATF: "It's all about me."" Topic

When you are a CinC playing "The Sword and the Flame", do you allocate movement and firing cards fairy and rationally, for the greater good of your side?
Or, do you save your own ass first, and give out cards to the other players on your side when you have done the best you can for yourself?

One shameless player in our club, who shall remain nameless, justifies this poltroonish behavior by saying "It's all about me." as he takes the firing card to shoot at Pathans who are not even charging him!
Well, he DOES keep my beer mug full…

Remember John, It's all about the Beer!

I warned you about serving under Flashman.

We assign suite numbers to players before hand: if it's a red 1-5, then it's so-and-so, if it's a red 6-10, then…

Sounds like Junta. If you get controll of the Air Force, I'd start a coup.

Or the Navy…

We discuss it amongst the team, and the subordinate commanders have a chance to put their bids in for priority (or not, if they feel they can wait), unless the scenario conditions specifically forbid it. And we don't do much of the latter. Why wargame if it can't be a social occasion?

The "it's all about me" players tend to get ganged up on by their opponents, and not supported by their allies.

Rick

The group that I was with used to give the cards to whoever called out first. This lead to some interesting situations as everyone thought they were in the direst need of the card. Or some people would accidentally call out(not paying attention), or call out just to mess with the other players. We had a great group and it was all done in fun. We would also have secret objectives as well as rivalries for the different commanders. Such as Cpt. Smythe who lost at cards to Cpt Cadwell and must do one task he requests so that no one else will find out that he cannot pay his debt(very wrong in the Army). One that was very fun was an officer who cannot stand his commanding officer and will only do the order to the letter not to the intent. We had a moderator who made sure that all was done in fun. The one who cam up with all of this is a guy named Chuck(hello if yo are out there)) and we had some great games due to him. These were understood to be tongue in cheek games and were to me some of the most enjoyable games that I played.

I have always played it exactly as Florida Tory does. It's all about our SIDE pulling off a win!

We usually have a brief discussion focused around who has the greater need relative to accomplishing the mission or who can come up with the most creative yet totally bull puckey argument. Poltroons (or selfish all about winning insted of fun holes as we prefer ) usually find themselves relegated to Forlorn Hope in the next few games as an instructional lesson.

Another reason we don't use TSATF.

Interesting that with all my playing of TSATF that we had not had "card grabbing" Huh.
If your group has such difficulties, may I suggest "promoting" one player as Commander-in-Chief. He,and he alone, dictates who and when the cards are given and thus real command decisions are made. If his side wins, he is given the laurels. Should his side loses – for whatever reason – he is the scapegoat and duly noted in the history books….

When I run games at cons, I use my own deck that has numbers from 1-4 and that is the number of units that can move or fire. At home I just keep turning the deck until a different color comes up, sometimes you get one card and sometimes you get 4 or 5 in a row.

Hey Now!!!!
While at Walmart today I felt a sharp stinging sensation in my mid-back region. Low and behold an OFM harpoon!
Thanks Inari7, his cup may not runneth over so often.
In my defense they were Zulu who were to close for comfort… Also, I don't usually abandon all hope, and fellow players, until beer #6 or so.

The guilty flee when none pursueth, But the righteous are bold as a lion.

Proverbs 28/1

We don't really seem to have this happen too often. I guess the decision becomes much tougher when there are multiple crisis points happening at the same time.

Thanks,

John

We play just as Florida Tory & Nazrat do, whomever needs it most & will benefit the SIDE the most. To play it any other way is well… just go play solo.
Peter

amen, altfritz

I loved Junta….

ROGER THAT ALFRITZ!

i played TSATF (modified) for years, and enjoyed many agame; but then i discovered COLONIAL ADVENTURES and moved onto to a newer moe beddah colonial gaming experience.

DAWGIE