Have you refined your interests over time?

[derv]

It seems that wargamers often develop preferences for time periods, fantasy/historical, scale, complex or streamlined rules, board or miniatures.

Just getting back from a convention I'm starting to realize that there's a few things I like more than others. I'm up for trying different types of games. But, in general I'm finding that I enjoy certain things. How about you?

Here's some things I like-

*Miniatures over board games.
*Tactical over strategic or operational games.
*Company level over skirmish or divisional levels.
*Loose and fluid movement rules. (this weekend we played in a game where there were not your typical terrain penalties. Instead, you diced to see if your unit could enter or move through and sometimes to exit certain terrain. I liked this. The same was done if you wanted to pull back through your own men. The game also allowed side stepping. Something I had not encountered in such rules before.)
*Quick combat resolutions with minimal modifiers.
*Simple morale mechanics and results.
*Games that use only one die type (prefer d6 or d12. don't mind d10).
*Games that minimize the number of dice you need to roll. (prefer rolling one or two dice for resolutions).

Types of games I prefer-
*Medieval period
*Ancients
*Age of Sail
*Fantasy
*WWI

Who knows, maybe my interests will change by this time next year.

[foxroe]

The only "refinement" I can pin-point is a personal preference for wargames that use d6's only...

[derv]

Thanks foxroe. I'm probably babbling about this. Refinement wasn't really the best choice of words- sounds snooty. It just struck me that I'm becoming more selective in my choices of late. Not as interested in certain types of games. I'm not sure that I don't actually prefer playing miniatures over rpg's, if given the choice.

[foxroe]

I suppose I like my rules lighter as well. I loved games like Squad Leader and Wooden Ships and Iron Men when I was an impressionable youth, now I prefer the simpler systems in the Curry/Featherstone books or a quick DBA game.

[Starbeard]

I go through phases, often based on what I happen to be playing with friends or reading about.

I usually prefer unit based rather than individually based miniatures, and games where figures are not removed as casualties. For boardgames I prefer hexes over anything else, unless it’s really big grand strategy.

I prefer fewer dice over buckets of dice. The number of faces makes no difference to me, but D10/20s and D6s are always comfortingly nostalgic.

I usually prefer company level and above, and I really wish there were more miniatures games that operated on an army scale where a single 3-hour game might cover 2-4 days of fighting.

I don’t care what the figure scale is when I’m playing, but I doubt I’ll ever again paint 25mm+ figures for anything other than RPGs, and if I ever get back into army building it’ll probably be 6mm and 2mm all the way. I am a huge fan of 2mm games.

My periods of interest fluctuate wildly, but I will always be fond of:
- Hyboria and other premodern mashups
- Anything Greek, Roman or Carthaginian
- Carolingians, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, & Crusades
- 18th-century ImagiNations
- 19th-century Spanish colonial independence wars, especially skirmishes in Mexico & California
- ACW, especially naval
- WW1 aviation
- WW2 anything
- Korea & Vietnam aviation, & skirmishes
- Star Trek or pulp sci-fi
- EDIT: Three Kingdoms China, and Sengoku & Bakumatsu Japan, though it's always been exceedingly difficult to find anyone willing/capable of putting on a game.

[makofan]

As a teenager, I played anything put out by SPI or GDW, basically. My tastes have not changed much, but my available opponents have. I love me some SPI La Grande Armee, and War in the East 1st edition, and GDW's Fifth Frontier War, but nobody will play those with me so now I play whatever I can.

Compared to derv, I am

*Miniatures over board games. OPPOSITE
*Tactical over strategic or operational games. OPPOSITE
*Company level over skirmish or divisional levels. REGIMENT OR HIGHER
*Quick combat resolutions with minimal modifiers. NOT AN ISSUE EITHER WAY
*Simple morale mechanics and results. SAME
*Games that use only one die type (prefer d6 or d12. don't mind d10). SAME
*Games that minimize the number of dice you need to roll. (prefer rolling one or two dice for resolutions). SAME

My main periods of interest are
- scifi
- fantasy
- classical ancients
- WW2

but I'll play a good game whatever the time period

Oh, and I generally dislike card-driven mechanics