I write a historical scenario every month or two. I love doing the research, especially when it is an obscure battle where details are hard to find, or there's a quest for an authoritative answer on some point on which sources disagree. I love the process of working out what a battle was really about, what the two sides were trying to achieve, what critical factors need to be represented, how to structure the game and how to frame the victory conditions.
Sometimes the resulting scenario not only is a thing of beauty in itself (in the eye of its creator) but also produces an exciting game, an exquisitely balanced contest and a nailbiting last-roll-of-the-dice climax.
But sometimes the designer (me) gets it badly wrong. Clever players discover loopholes in the scenario and drive whole divisions through them. It can become apparent early on that for one side, victory is all but unattainable, and even a draw too much to hope for. The unfortunate players on the unlucky side either sink into "couldn't-have-won-anyway" gloom, or find hysterical glee in tiny against-the-odds successes.
On Monday we had a first playtest of the scenario I had drafted for Schwechat (1848), the Hungarian invasion of Austria in an attempt to link up with rebels in revolutionary Vienna. It was an entertaining evening, but it was definitely in the badly-skewed category, not the perfectly-formed.
Happily, the result is that thanks to my valiant playtesters, the scenario is now much improved and fit to be shared with the world. It is in the BBB Yahoo group files as usual. Not only that, I have posted an AAR on the BBBBlog, compete with wine and poetry:
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Chris
Bloody Big BATTLES!
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finally dips his toe into the world of Aeronef.
