"Complete Reversal of opinion of a game" Topic

What rule set/war game have you experienced the most radical reversal of opinion about as a war gamer?

I was going through the basement and came across a later edition of Empire! That reminded me of how much my opinions of what constitutes a great or a horrible war game rule set have changed since the early 1970s.

My war game group fell in love with Empire! Back when we first started miniature war gaming. Not so much today for me.

That made me chuckle. I'm right there with you. National characteristics, and endless modifiers. It used to be that if I couldn't play an all day game, there wasn't much point in playing. Now, I want to fight to a conclusion in no more than four hours, tops. I no longer have any interest in all day games.

That's right – "back in the day" we weren't playing games, we were playing simulations! The more numbers and charts, the better. Sure, we never finished a game after 8+ hours, but that didn't matter – the fun was in the journey, not the destination…

Empire for me too!

That;s a good one. For me it was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I got into it late in he late mid 80's and was a fervent player for about a decade. Then it began to cloy on me and I realized it wasn't really role playing but just mugging monsters for their money, which was pretty much what they were doing to other creatures.

It became boring and whenever I and another character would try and get into real role playing our own team began talking about dumping us.

My opinions haven't changed much in 45+ years of gaming. I still wax nostalgic about WRG 6. Still play Empire any chance I get and rejoice at the chance for a multi-day game. If anything my attitude towards what I would have previously considered "fluff" has mellowed. Why, I almost enjoyed a Black Powder game at the Con last weekend, something I never thought would happen.

Fortunately I've always found myself surrounded by other such dinosaurs wherever I've lived, even today. So maybe we're not ready for extinction yet. ;-)

Bolt action, really liked it when it came out,played it to death,utterly sick of it now so much so that I won't play it again.

Not really had a total reversal. When FoG came out I was sure it was going to be my answer for 15mm ancients gaming. I never liked DBM because I like to play with units and FOG had Units!

After 4 games I realised it really wasn't for me – much too fiddly and much too complex….

I still haven't really found an ancient set I like – played a lot of WAB and enjoyed it but it seems hard to find other people to play it nowadays.

Mike

I hated Shako when I first played it.
But my regular opponent at the time was a fan, so I persisted, and eventually came to like the rules a great deal.
The rather brutal nature of combat in the rules makes it essential to have a plan and have reserves.

I'm struggling to think of examples of a complete reversal – I do occasionally look at older games and either feel nostalgic about them, or notice the glaring holes, but either way I haven't gone from hate ot love or vice versa. I just get interested in something else and move on.

I did have a hate to love movement with the Patrick O'Brien books though. Read the first two and thought they were awful and sold them, but after I saw the film version I realised what he was trying to achieve as an author. I bought and read the lot after that, including the unfinished one. Jane Austen with guns, how could I have been so blind.

Rapid Fire.

Yes, Rapid Fire for me too

For me it was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

Counting RPGs this would probably be mine as well. Maybe role playing in general.

I started back in the 70s with the white box edition and role played almost exclusively to all other gaming in college and the few years after.

You start with a rules set that is well laid out and codified. The GM will then make his own interpretations, sometimes against all real world logic, making it impossible to formulate a coherent plan. Why not write guidelines on a few pages and not 3 tomes of rules on a total of 900?

Does that mean that you hated Rapid Fire and now love it or vice versa?

Feel free to respond to FirstBrigade if you want to of course but I just wondering if people have had the same change of mind experience that I had with Empire (and the rules that you can't criticize without offending a certain prominent some one.)

It can be love to hate/like to dislike/hate to love/dislike to like – I was just wondering about the frequency of such changes in evaluation of a set of rules in other people.

Yeah as to the AD&D thing – even though we treated it as a war game with developed characters from the very start (roll play versus role play) it went from simple roll/role play war game to OMG libraries of rules covering (they thought) every possible player action and at least a paragraph of rules with at least three exceptions to every action. Of course I quit caring after reading 2nd edition…

Used to hate D&D but fell back in love with it later on.

Rapid fire was the bees knees, then I got sick of it and its tank orientation.
Killing a Panther with an anti-tank rifle seemed odd too!

I didn't likeFireball Forward the first two or three times I played it but I respected the gamers who were demoing it at cons so kept trying. Now it's my favorite WWII rules set.

Black Powder.

As I kept playing it, I began disliking it more and more. Truly surprised me.

Valmy to Waterloo. Loved it at first but it was so slow it killed me. Much happier with Grande Armee and now Blucher and Lasalle