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Post by smubee on Nov 19, 2015 0:42:07 GMT -6
My interest in wargaming has grown over the past week for some unknown reason.. I had always heard that D&D was a derivative of Kriegspiel, particularly "Little Wars".. I found out that it's still somewhat in print, so I was going to ask for it for Christmas.
Does anyone have experience with this particular game, that could shed some light on the topic?
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Post by scalydemon on Nov 19, 2015 11:27:31 GMT -6
My interest in wargaming has grown over the past week for some unknown reason.. I had always heard that D&D was a derivative of Kriegspiel, particularly "Little Wars".. I found out that it's still somewhat in print, so I was going to ask for it for Christmas. Does anyone have experience with this particular game, that could shed some light on the topic? It is a simplistic Miniatures type wargame written by HG Wells at the turn of the century. You could buy the rulebook and read it , but would need to have a small army of minis to actually play the game (if I am not mistaken). I think it would be a ruleset that would have perhaps more historical curiosity significance than a game to actively play, but don't let me stop you!
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 19, 2015 12:08:20 GMT -6
It's pretty much what you expect from a miniatures wargame these days, except there is no dice-rolling—close combat results are determined by ratios—and missile fire is handled by throwing or spring-firing toothpicks or other missiles yourself from the position of the firing troops.
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Post by kesher on Nov 19, 2015 12:25:21 GMT -6
It's a pleasure to read, along with his somewhat-related (and delightful) book Floor Games. I haven't actually played the game, but it seems completely doable. As mentioned above, you'd need to figure out an artillery substitute for the original Britain's cannons (which were awesome!), but that'd be easy enough. For an authentic experience, you'll want 2" metal figures, so maybe rubberbands and paperclips? As for derivatives, I'd say ODD is derivative of LW only insasmuch as just about every war game since LW is somewhat derivative of LW. Much like, in essence, most RPGs are derivative of D&D, simply because D&D was the (accessible) original.
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Post by smubee on Nov 19, 2015 13:15:54 GMT -6
My interest in wargaming has grown over the past week for some unknown reason.. I had always heard that D&D was a derivative of Kriegspiel, particularly "Little Wars".. I found out that it's still somewhat in print, so I was going to ask for it for Christmas. Does anyone have experience with this particular game, that could shed some light on the topic? It is a simplistic Miniatures type wargame written by HG Wells at the turn of the century. You could buy the rulebook and read it , but would need to have a small army of minis to actually play the game (if I am not mistaken). I think it would be a ruleset that would have perhaps more historical curiosity significance than a game to actively play, but don't let me stop you! Yeah, maybe I'll check out a few libraries around here to see if they have a copy.. reading through it seems like it would be pretty interesting though.
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 19, 2015 13:55:58 GMT -6
You can download it from Project Gutenberg.
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Post by scalydemon on Nov 19, 2015 18:54:06 GMT -6
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Post by Finarvyn on Nov 20, 2015 4:29:50 GMT -6
spring-firing toothpicks or other missiles yourself from the position of the firing troops. Yes, this was a huge surprise to me when I first found a copy of LITTLE WARS. I sort of expected a pre-Chainmail rules set, but instead got a system where the results were based more on my skill at launching stuff than my skill at being a general.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2015 20:42:39 GMT -6
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Post by tetramorph on Nov 23, 2015 11:32:53 GMT -6
I played little wars with my boy with medieval toy soldiers.
We were disappointed in the results without the randomizing that dice brings.
So I made a mishmash of Little Wars and Chainmail (we call it "Ringmail") and we play out big battles with our medieval toy soldiers.
It is crazy fun.
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Post by scalydemon on Nov 23, 2015 17:10:08 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2016 11:04:53 GMT -6
You can still play LITTLE WARS at GaryCon.
With authentic BRITAINS miniatures, including working 4.7" Naval Rifles.
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Post by Starbeard on Sept 18, 2016 8:47:03 GMT -6
Skirmish Publishing make Little Orc Wars, with supplements for giants and wizards. I haven't read it, but it seems like a wonderful product: www.wargamevault.com/product/27947/HG-Wells-Little-Orc-Wars?hot60=1&src=hottest_filtered&it=1I am big fan of Little Wars. I think Wells' wargaming books were my first introduction to the old school of gaming, and it was through Wells that I became aware of Grant, Featherstone, Scruby, Gygax, Arneson and all the rest. We played with Lego figures, plastic toy soldiers, and the marble-shooting catapults and cannons from a Weapons & Warriors playset. We the rules as written, made up rules for medieval battles on the spot (with and without dice), and eventually a WW2 platoon-level game out in the overgrown backyard, using green army men, hidden movement (you had to turn around when the opponent moved), and spring-loaded BB guns. Much like OD&D with many new school RPGs, it isn't quite fair to approach Little Wars as simply an earlier, simpler Charles Grant wargame. It is, first and foremost, an excuse for grown men to crawl around in the backyard or on the carpet, laying elaborately improvised battles against spontaneously invented Imagi-Nations with whatever materials happen to be at hand. If I remember correctly, Wells once wrote somewhere that while some people may be inclined to use dice to gamble the results of a battle, he strongly discouraged this kind of behaviour: the Little War should, first and foremost, be one of strategy and planning, and anyway the cannons are more than efficient at randomizing results, and bring out the excitement of the action. That being said, using dice for shooting and/or combat doesn't really detract from it, although I would say that it does have a profound effect on play (specifically, that masterful command of the details of the terrain become less important). Anyone interested in Little Wars and Floor Games would probably also get a kick out of reading Robert Louis Stevenson's wargame campaign with his son: www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timeline/rlstext.html
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Post by thorswulf on Sept 18, 2016 10:41:32 GMT -6
Little Wars is The inspiration for Funny Little Wars produced by The Virtual Armchair General. It is played with figures and shooting cannon just like the original, and is a wonderful read to boot. Little Orc wars is very much like Little Wars it uses catapults from playsets or Papo against whatever figures you have- they were written with 25-30mm miniatures in mind.
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Post by ritt on Sept 18, 2016 13:15:56 GMT -6
The book Playing At The World covers this topic and is personally very, very highly recommended.
The wildest thing about Little Wars are all the pictures that show Wells & friends in straw hats playing the game outdoors on the lawn. I think it would be a blast to play LW with dollar store toy soldiers this way. Might be a fun thing to do with kids.
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Post by Starbeard on Sept 18, 2016 14:48:30 GMT -6
We played out on the lawn quite a bit, it's great fun and the natural terrain makes the game really come alive. Thick clumps of grass become knolls, woods or jungle, and lakes and rivers are easily created with a spray of the garden hose.
Once we staged a Normandy beach invasion with our ad hoc WW2 variant, at Seal Beach. For combats we used an ad hoc mixture of rubber bands, dice, rock-paper-scissors, and throwing rocks from a distance for artillery barrages. Drift wood provided the bridges, installations and tank traps along the sand ridge formed at high tide, and sea kelp was used for barbed wire. Unfortunately, we hadn't thought about how difficult it would be to keep the seagulls away from the army men once they were scattered across 20 yards of beachhead. We ended up calling those air raids.
I have pictures on a hard drive somewhere, perhaps I should locate them.
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Post by krusader74 on Sept 18, 2016 14:51:24 GMT -6
The 2004 edition of Little Wars published by Skirmisher Publishing LLC includes a foreword by Gary Gygax in which he wrote:
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Post by tetramorph on Sept 18, 2016 17:33:50 GMT -6
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Post by captainjapan on Aug 26, 2023 9:37:25 GMT -6
The 2004 edition of Little Wars published by Skirmisher Publishing LLC includes a foreword by Gary Gygax in which he wrote: Skirmisher, it appears, published a series of these prototypical wargames. I was interested in learning more about the possible mechanics in the Robert Louis Stevenson game; dealing with things such as cavalry reconnaissance, supply lines, and sickness. Playing at the World has a few paragraphs on the Stevenson game, but it includes information on army sizes and turn frequency that aren't explicit in the Scribner's article, from which all knowledge(?) of the game is drawn. Has anyone seen, either the Skirmisher write-up, or the one from John Curry? Do they add enough rules substance that would make the Stevenson game playable?
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Post by talysman on Aug 26, 2023 14:35:28 GMT -6
The one thing I think I can add to this conversation is: For those of you who want to see the game played, but can't make it to a convention where it's played (or don't want to wait,) I think it's what they are playing near the end of the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). But they seem to be using a drum that they roll at the opponent's troops to simulate cannon fire.
Of course, this may not be an accurate representation of how to play the game, just the film's production team's attempt to represent the basic idea of early wargames.
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