Re: (TFT) Classification of monster games. Defence of ASL

[Jeffrey Vandine <jlv61560@yahoo.com>]

Different strokes for different folks.  Just because someone liked or 
disliked ASL versus SL doesn't make them a bad person, either way.  

      From: David Carter <clumsyspider@hotmail.com>
 To: tft@brainiac.com 
 Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2015 12:48 PM
 Subject: Re: (TFT) Classification of monster games. Defence of ASL
   
We started off with SL and really liked it and then when the new scenarios 
came out we added them but liked it a little less. Got tired of looking up 
rules so we moved on to other things. Bottom line is that we just liked the
 extreme simplicity of SL. Prob why we could not get into Gurps. Non cerebr
al bash and kill type group.

Another crossover group in the city (Toronto....go Blue Jays) was very much
 into ASL. 

Djc

Sent from my iPad

> On Oct 22, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca> wrote:
> 
> Hi David,
>  You prefer SL to ASL???  Wow!
> 
>  A friend and I were big fans of SL.  But is that rule I half r
emember in 
> scenario 3 of SL, scenario 7 or 8 of Cross of Iron, or is it in Cresendo
> of Doom?  No!  We found the rule in the erratta from GI, Anvil 
of Victory!
> 
>  SL had the advantage of programmed instruction.  But the flaw 
was
> programmed instruction where the rules were scattered all over the 
> place.  (And we always bought the 2nd or 3rd editions which had the
> erratta printed at the end of each rule book which gave us another spot
> to look for rules.)
> 
>  (Did you just play the basic SL, or did you add Cross of Iron, Gi, 
etc. 
> etc.?)
> 
>  Not only was ASL's rules organized, but game play was streamlined.
> Snipers in SL were a monster.  In ASL, snipers give you a reason not
> to bother figuring out that that tiny long range squad, if it rolls a sna
ke
> eyes, might cause a pin on that squad over there.  The fact that the
> activity might alert a sniper, means that you tend to ignore the almost
 
> no chance, wild shots that you hunted for in SL.  This one rule grea
tly
> speeds play.
> 
> Warm regards, Rick
> 
> 
>> On 2015-10-22, at 12:24 PM, David Carter wrote:
>> 
>> I actually bought a copy of War in North Africa when it came out. We eve
n punched the counters for the first turn units and that was all she wrote.
 Way to complex to play. Terrible Swift Sword was another monster game but 
it played well. One of the cons had a 5 day 24 hr multiple player TSS campa
ign. DNO/Unt and War in the East could be played if you had the time. Took 
me and a friend 3 months to play WIE.
>> 
>> For my little group Advanced Squad Leader killed our enthusiasm for SL.
 
>> 
>> DJC
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>> On Oct 22, 2015, at 3:17 PM, Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi all,
>>> The discussion of Monster Games below prompted me to say 
>>> what KIND of monster games are there?
>>> 
>>> --- The first type are games like Quazar, or War in the West
>>> which had fairly simple rules.  They were monsters because they
>>> had huge maps and bejillions of counters.
>>> 
>>> --- The second type are best represented by Advanced Squad
>>> Leader.  Lots of rules, but most scenarios have a fairly low numbe
r
>>> of counters and play quickly (if 2 to 4 hours are considered 
>>> quickly).  Quickly at least, compared to the type one monster game
s
>>> given above.
>>> 
>>> --- The third type of monster game are those that have huge maps,
>>> tonnes of counters and really long, complex rule books.  I've neve
r
>>> played any of these, but from my readings, War in North Africa 
>>> might fall into this category.  (I read that the designers admitte
d that 
>>> they never expected anyone to play it.  The game was to bought &
>>> admired for its research.)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I would like to take exception to the slander that ASL has poor game
>>> play.  In many ways, it is more playable and more polished than th
e
>>> game it was created from, Squad Leader.  The rule book is so 
>>> amazingly thick, because it tries to have rules for EVERYTHING.  D
o
>>> you want to create a scenario, based on a real life battle where 
>>> gliders landed at night on both sides of a river, and one side used
>>> star shells?  Well that game has glider rules, river rules, night 
fighting
>>> rules and starshell rules.  But in 99% of the scenarios, you do no
t see
>>> any of those elements.  If you are playing an exotic scenario, (wi
th say
>>> Japanese tunnel complexes in the Pacific theatre), you read the page
>>> of rules for that weird situation and add it on the rules you know well
.
>>> 
>>> The basic infantry rules for ASL can be boiled down to 16(?), 18(?)
>>> pages of rules and they play is fast and clean.  I know this, beca
use
>>> that is exactly what ASL starter kit does.  (I don't own Starter K
it 1, so
>>> I can't check the exact page count as I type.)
>>> 
>>> And the rules for ASL are phenomenally well organized.  They are
>>> indexed, cross indexed and logically laid out.  I can find rules i
n ASL
>>> faster than in poorly organized games with 1/100 of the page count.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> If you had asked me three years ago, I would have said that I admire
>>> ASL, but never play it.  (Which would tend to give the lie to how
>>> great it is.)  But I've recently found a guy who is into the game 
and we
>>> will get together, about once a month, and play a smaller scenario.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Now ASL starter kit and Memoir '44 will appeal to different people.�� 
>>> The latter has between 1/2 and 1/3 the rules of the former, and takes a
 
>>> lot less brain power to play.  But the former tries to give you th
e feel of 
>>> tactics in WWII.  My friend Ben Pong (who was a Captain in the Can
adian 
>>> Army) played ASL with his fellow officers to get a feel of the ebb and 
flow 
>>> of real battles.
>>> 
>>> ASL plays cleanly.  But there is a considerably larger learning cu
rve to
>>> get to the point where it CAN play cleanly.  But again and again, 
I see
>>> people who have never tried it, look at that thick rule book and assume
>>> it has poor game play, simply because it has a lot of rules.
>>> 
>>> Warm regards, Rick
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 2015-10-22, at 11:06 AM, Jeffrey Vandine wrote:
>>>> How can any game, constrained as it is by the hex map, ...
>>> 
>>>> In the end, it depends on how you like to play.  Continuing the w
argame
>>>> analogy, War in Europe & Europa both simulate the same thing, but whic
h
>>>> one do you prefer, taking into account complexity versus playability?
 
>>>> Some people love the brutal attention to detail (at the expense of gam
e
>>>> play) in, say, Advanced Squad Leader.  Others prefer to use nothi
ng at
>>>> all but a storyboard and their imaginations, while yet others think ca
rd 
>>>> play, Fate Points, and the like are the be-all and end-all of gaming.
  
>>> ...
>>> 
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