Real Life Excitement(tm) has been forcing games to take the backseat over the last few weeks, but rest assured that my twenty-sided die is never far from my thoughts.
The main thing currently distracting me from the wonderful world of games is the fact that my wife, it turns out, is newly pregnant with our first child (and future gamer)! I’m already giving some thought as to when it will be appropriate to introduce said child to the joys of roleplaying–I was playing Rolemaster with my friends by late junior high and high school, but I’m not sure if I want to saddle any child with that social-life-killing burden at such a young and delicate age. On the other hand, Rolemaster kept me far away from the ever-present perils of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, none of which were present my parents’ basement where we played… so maybe it’s a useful tool in the parental arsenal after all. Ah well, I’ve got several years to ponder how and when to introduce Baby to daddy’s well-worn copy of Arms Law.
For Valentine’s Day, my wife even crafted me a hand-made Valentine card written up to look like a D&D character sheet. I’m sorely tempted to scan it and present it here, but it’s sort of mushy in a very geeky way, and I don’t want things to get too awkward for you, my dear readers.
To sum up: thanks for your patience, and I’ll be back shortly with some initial thoughts about the epic wargame Federation & Empire, to which I was introduced earlier this week.
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Congrats!
My 3 year old son played Candyland with me last Saturday– and he pretty much played by the rules with the exception of one or two careless errors. (We went through a phase where he would “accipurposely” move three times as many spaces as he ought, so I’m pleased with his development.) [How much longer ’til we get to play Ogre or Basic Battletech (ie, no Heat or Crits or Piloting rules)?]
Ah… F&E. Never bought it because I suspected I’d end up Not Playing it about as much as I end up Not Playing SFB. I do like how it extrapolates the technology and values of the original series: there’s no place for Picard or Janeway in that Federation!! ADB does have a good reputation for debugging their rules… and they are comprehensive as well. A lot of “simpler” games just have gaping holes in the ruleset that force you to come up with houserules. Still… it’s just a bit too big a game for me though I do read the tactics articals for it in Captain’s Log.
PS Your wife sounds really great. You’re a lucky guy. Plan on her having plenty of help after baby is born. Post Partem Depression can strike just when you think you’re “done.”
Thanks! Your kid sounds like a natural born gamer. I’ve seen plenty of “accipurposely” mistakes by adults in RPGs and boardgames, so he’ll do just fine 🙂 And yeah, my wife is absolutely wonderful–I’ll do my best to help her out post-pregnancy as you suggest.
As for F&E, I’ll probably write more about it shortly, but yeah, I’m a little on the fence as to whether or not to pick it up. I really enjoyed playing it, but playing it requires such a massive time commitment that I will really have to ask myself how often it will realistically get played if I buy it. Also, I probably don’t need Yet Another Game to start spending money on, as there are numerous F&E expansions that have been published…
But yeah, it’s a solid game, and I share your respect for ADB’s rules skills… despite the hundreds of pages and gazillions of rules in the SFB rulebook, they’ve closed off most of the loopholes. Pretty impressive.