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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 2, 2015 9:26:34 GMT -6
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 2, 2015 9:18:07 GMT -6
Yes Decision Games owns Hexwar which is an online tool to play some of the old SPI games. I tried it out for a little while, it was a lot of fun and there are lots of opponents, more Napoleonic and WW2 though. I don't see any of the PRESTAG games. I think they have also developed some games for the iPad and iPhone, maybe one or two for Android. I guess they are just holding their cards close to the chest incase they want to do something with it sometime in the future.
Its not games being sold, they just don't want any free third party virtual game boards of their games being distributed. They sell some vassal modules of their current games as does GMT games, most of these are really well done. I had bought Aide de Camp long long ago before this was an issue.
A current game which some had mentioned in the other thread is a game by GMT Games called "Men of Iron" similar to PRESTAGS. This was designed by the same game designer as War of the Ring, Richard Berg. It has a beautiful vassal module available on the GMT games website.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 2, 2015 6:49:31 GMT -6
Reading bits and pieces of Costain's "The Three Edwards" concentrating on Edward III and his son the Black Prince. Just finished reading about the battle of Crecy.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 2, 2015 6:36:06 GMT -6
^LOL I have all the PRESTAG rules which I've acquired in sort of a quest like fashion but I realized yesterday I didn't have the tables that are printed on the maps. I made a request to a person who had posted PRESTAG map pictures on BoardGameGeek but they said the games were long sold. The map images posted are so pixelated from high jpeg compression the writing is illegible. In desperation I went to an external hard drive I had and found the old HPS Aide de Camp software. Which was one of the first successful virtual table top programs for playing old boardgames on the computer. Got it running nicely and lo and behold in a module made to play PRESTAGS I found the tables. Someone at one time had posted a vassal module to play PRESTAGS and the screenshots look pretty nice, but as I stated Decision Games has made a Disney effort to stamp out any unsanctioned third party programs to play the game. So the module was deleted quite some time ago from the Vassalengine website and it can't be found anywhere on the internet. Going to take a bit of retraining to figure out how to use Aide de Camp again but I am dying to set up the Battle of Crecy and move some counters around
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 1, 2015 5:12:44 GMT -6
Finarvyn, I'd like to hear about the S&S PRESTAGS variant. Not much to tell, actually. When I ran campaigns back in the 1970's, I had a group which was interested in kingdom-scale battles and world domination, so I used Chainmail for some battles and PRESTAGS for other battles. Chainmail already had a Fantasy Supplement, but no such thing exists for PRESTAGS so I would use counters from Sorceror and from Swords and Sorcery to supplement the historical counters already there. Elves could simply be bowmen or horsebowmen from PRESTAGS, Dwarves could be axemen, orcs often were swordmen or spearmen, but PRESTAGS has nothing equivalent to trolls and dragons and that kind of thing. That's where the other games came in, to add in fantasy element units. Sorceror has rules for spellcasters in battle, so that helped as well. I don't think I created anything really sophistocated or anything like that. It was simple and fun and allowed me to fight out large battles with cardboard counters instead of miniatures. There are two tactical battle games included in SPI's War of the Ring with Orcs and Trolls, Sauron and Gondor. These games seem to be similar to PRESTAGS but I've never studied them closely to know the similarities or differences. SPI Sauron 1977SPI Gondor 1977I believe someone made a scenario and counters for the siege of Helms Deep using these rules. Siege of Minas Tirith
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Post by Otto Harkaman on May 31, 2015 14:14:10 GMT -6
That is a really fun idea Finarvyn of using PRESTAGS in combo with rules from Sorcerer. I am going to have to look into that. I had a copy of the game when I was really young but was totally baffled by it. Shame my mom got me lots of stuff when I was young but a divorce and moving caused the loss of many great artifacts. Sorcerer (1975)
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Post by Otto Harkaman on May 31, 2015 13:38:03 GMT -6
There is a lot of information about PRESTAGS on Boardgame Geek, here a are few starter links PRESTAGS Master-Pack (1976)PRESTAGS was actually a version 2 of some earlier games produced by SPI like Dark Ages Dark Ages (1971)No the games are no longer in print and demand really high prices when available. Rules can be found and there are some virtual game board programs available to play online, there is a good sized cult following of the games. But I believe Decision Games holds the rights to these games and they want you to buy their new games and so they aren't very encouraging of this
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Post by Otto Harkaman on May 31, 2015 13:22:08 GMT -6
I think the funniest thing for me about PRESTAGS is that is very easy to get started. When I was in college an Army Captain who was a teacher in the ROTC program here at the University of Kentucky introduced me to the game. Within a few minutes he was able to teach me the basics of the game and away we went playing battle after battle. Its much like chess, seemingly simple but once you are matched against the mind of another person you realise there is great complexity.
I've never had a trouble with the sparseness of design. Some people seem to really hate or despise the design of the counters and maps. I love its elegant simplicity, just enough (if you have good imagination, which I would take for granted people have on this forum) to envision the troops of an army of a certain period and the terrain they fought upon.
It should be noted that a lot of this sparseness was because of the technology and cost at the time. Hard to imagine before Adobe Photoshop and layout programs like Adobe Indesign and even earlier Aldus Pagemaker. It would be fun if someone knew how these games were laid out and printed who could enlighten us to the difficulties of game making at this period in the 70s.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on May 31, 2015 7:30:37 GMT -6
I think my dream was always to merge SPI's War of the Ring with SPI's PRESTAGS. Interesting. I'e blended Sorceror with PRESTAGS and Swords and Sorcery with PRESTAGS, but never thought to mix in War of the Ring. We need a seperate PRESTAGS thread. OH! I am all for that! A lot of us seem to have played or are interested in PRESTAGS.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on May 29, 2015 8:29:57 GMT -6
Thought I would read some parts of Charles Oman's "War in the Middle Ages" concerning the start of the Hundred Years Wars with Edward III and the Black Prince.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on May 27, 2015 16:41:06 GMT -6
I think my dream was always to merge SPI's War of the Ring with SPI's PRESTAGS.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on May 21, 2015 21:14:51 GMT -6
George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series I suppose more historic fiction than fantasy but you won't be disappointed.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on May 9, 2015 13:54:54 GMT -6
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Post by Otto Harkaman on May 8, 2015 10:24:14 GMT -6
Finished Deryni Checkmate and now working on High Deryni
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Apr 5, 2015 8:12:55 GMT -6
We lack a good rpg on carthage. Illustrated by Druillet if possible. Druillet is mandatory ! Interesting I will have to find Druillet comics of Salambo. I've read Flaubert's novel which was awesome, have an audiobook of it that I am meaning to listen to at some free time.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Apr 5, 2015 7:53:48 GMT -6
I've been reading a mix of things from Katherine Kurtz "Deryni Rising" to Jim Bradbury's "Stephen and Matilda" The Civil War of 1139-53.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Mar 26, 2015 15:46:08 GMT -6
I just re-noticed that Gary mentions "Charles' ffoulkes ARMOUR AND WEAPONS (Oxford, 1909)" on page 165 of the 1E DMG. It's in reference to the descriptions of the various types of armor (padded, ring, studded, banded, splint, etc)(the same topic also covered on page 27). Many think of these armor types as AD&D-isms because they are not in OD&D, but padded, studded, banded & splint the actually first appeared back in Chainmail in the Man-To-Man Melee table on pg 41. So that might be a reference to look at. For anyone interested, I discovered that Ffoulkes, Armour & Weapons, can be found on Gutenburg. I was just going to mention that it can be found on the Internet Archive as well Armour & weapons (1909)The epub on Gutenberg seems much better, now that I just downloaded it and had a look
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Mar 26, 2015 6:41:11 GMT -6
I loved the old Strategy & Tactics magazine, at one time I found a whole batch of them. I've heard other people complain that recent magazines are expensive. Looking at the copies I have TSR took them over at issue #94, for a long time they were $6, then issue #100 they were raised to $7.50, that was March-April 1985.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Mar 24, 2015 14:01:20 GMT -6
I really like that idea of just using the three original OD&D books. I tend to over do things and try to grab every extra supplement or optional rule to games, bad habit.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Mar 23, 2015 8:55:37 GMT -6
Somewhere on my internet searches I've found a great scan of the map and the counters.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Mar 22, 2015 9:02:21 GMT -6
Yes, I think I always thought of the game that way as well, that you had to have a free trader, Han Solo style. It wasn't until I started to read the Dumarest books as suggested on the Traveller Citizens of the Imperium website and then read this great article "Deciphering the Text Foundations of Traveller" www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10119 that I realized the charm of just a planetary setting.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Mar 22, 2015 7:02:36 GMT -6
I've been reading some of the old Dumarest novels, very inspiring for adventures. It might be fun instead of a stellar map to just say you've travelled to so and so planet and run a "Planetary Romance" style adventure motivated by a "patron" as described in book 3.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Dec 10, 2014 18:27:04 GMT -6
I remember reading it when it first came out and was disappointed. However when I reread it years later I appreciated it much more. Its more in Mrs. Norton's style than directly using the game mechanics, I guess that is what I was looking for at first. I've reread her Witch World books over an over, some are stronger than others. Its really amazing how many books and stories she wrote. I have a copy of Quag Keep on my bookshelf that I picked up at a used bookstore not too long ago. I'll probably reread it again and enjoy it for itself instead of trying to tie it into anything else.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Dec 10, 2014 18:15:34 GMT -6
Yes very cool looking at these pictures, thanks for sharing
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Aug 5, 2014 20:12:01 GMT -6
Funny its one of those games I didn't give a passing glance to in my youth but now seems very fun and interesting.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Aug 3, 2014 22:21:35 GMT -6
Thanks for sharing The Perilous Dreamer made me resolve to make an appointment for a checkup tomorrow, haven't done so in a while. Best of luck to you!
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Aug 3, 2014 9:04:26 GMT -6
I've gotten ahold of this old game, going to be my Sunday reading today, however not ready to play yet.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 8, 2014 6:14:49 GMT -6
The older ones from SPI are great, just use your google skills and you'll find many on the internet as pdfs.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 4, 2014 3:32:47 GMT -6
I put everything on my nook or kindle nowadays. I only have two shelfs left of old paperbacks, mainly for decoration because I like the cover or something. The kindle is great very small, will fit in my large pockets on my biking shorts.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Nov 15, 2013 16:13:37 GMT -6
I fixed up those links for you! All pictures are displaying now. Futures Bright, Paul Thanks Paul! Fun looking over those pictures again!
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