![]() TSR (Tactical Studies Rules), which had acquired the SPI titles through a hostile takeover of SPI, was still producing wargames but focused most of its efforts on the license-to-print-money that was Dungeons And Dragons, so the company released only two or three strategy games a year. (“Roll d6, modify by the number shown on the Day Of The Week The Game Is Being Played chart, and if the result is less than the square root of the youngest player’s birth month, Napoleon’s hemorrhoids act up and the French are at -3 on the French Early Morning Command Chart.”) No one was trying to attract new blood into the hobby.Īvalon Hill’s PanzerBlitz also changed wargame design by introducing the hex-grid map in the 1960s.īy 1984, following the demise of SPI (Simulations Publications Inc.), there was effectively only one major wargame publisher, Avalon Hill, the company that created the board-wargaming hobby in the 1950s AH also owned Victory Games, which was comprised of former SPI employees. Wargames were produced for wargamers by wargamers, with a seeming emphasis on minutiae. By the early ’80s, rules were becoming inscrutable. As wargames sprang from a military background and became a favorite of history buffs, the rules were designed to simulate as closely as possible the events of a specific battle—sometimes in painful detail. A cardboard counter with an X in a box was infantry, a diagonal slash inside a box was cavalry, and so on. What games did exist were on paper maps, usually covered with hexes, with cardboard counters to represent the military units, usually with NATO symbols to identify the unit type. ![]() The hobby that began in the 1950s and ’60s had remained a niche market into the ’80s. It’s easy to forget how far board wargames have traveled since the GameMaster Series was released. Little did I know that I was participating in a sea change of the game industry. ![]() I had three great wargames, with nearly a thousand toy soldiers—from Roman horsemen and galleys to WWII tanks and near-future helicopters. Tearing into the wrappings, I found three games, all from Milton Bradley and identified as part of the GameMaster Series. I hadn’t seen anything that size since they bought me the Star Wars Death Star playset nine years earlier. Sure enough, there were three gift-wrapped packages waiting to be opened. Though I was old enough to be jaded about the existence of Santa I still knew there would be a couple of gifts under the tree for me, thanks to the two wonderful women in my life (mom and grandma). A 30th-Anniversary Salute to the GameMaster Series and How it Changed Wargaming By Sean Stevenson
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