Full Thrust, the way it was meant to be played

At GenCon last summer, I got bitten big-time by the spaceship wargaming bug. I demoed War Rocket and had a blast, but the pulp sci-fi setting didn't really resonate with me. I wanted more of a deep-space naval experience, kind of like Star Wars/Trek but without the added burden of a well-developed setting.

Enter Full Thrust, the granddaddy of spaceship wargames that's still going strong almost two decades after it was first published. The game is officially in its second edition (free on the Web) but a fan-made, creator-sanctioned PDF offers an updated representation of the game. It's called Full Thrust: Cross Dimensions, and it's also available as a free download.

The best part about Full Thrust is that players are explicitly encouraged to use any miniatures they want to assemble their fleets. There's an established universe for the game, and the publisher sells miniatures to go with this setting, but it's not essential for the playing experience. The creator notes several times in the rules that the game can be grafted onto any number sci-fi settings, including (of course) homebrew universes.

So, in true Full Thrust fashion, I assembled two mishmash fleets using miniatures from 4 different game lines and manufacturers. For smaller escort ships, I'm using the starfighters from Silent Death. For medium-sized destroyers and light cruisers, I'm using a handful of BattleTech/AeroTech miniatures. Heavy cruisers and battleships were drawn from Starfleet Battles and Firestorm Armada, both of which have some beefy, cool-looking ships.

To a casual player who's more familiar with branded miniatures games, my fleets might look like a mess. But to me they're a perfect example of the Full Thrust ideal: generic fleets composed of the various miniatures, painted up and ready to hit the battlefield (er, space-field?).

I'll make a little universe one day to go along with my fleets, but right now they're just the Gray Fleet and the Green Fleet. Original, huh?

We played our first game of Full Thrust the other night. Thankfully my opponent had played the game a time or two before, so between the two of us we were able to get up to speed quickly.


In Full Thrust, players plot each ship's movement on a piece of paper at the start of each turn. Then, all ships are moved at once. This puts players in the interesting position of trying to anticipate their opponents' maneuvers, and react accordingly. It's also possible that your ships will find themselves with nothing to shoot at because of your opponent's maneuvers. It took some getting used to, but by the second game I was really enjoying the movement system.

Combat is fairly simple, with most ships mounting huge banks of beam weapons, or various missile/torpedo systems. I'm told the combat resolution system inspired similar systems in Uncharted Seas and Firestorm Armada.

The deep space felt mat in these photos is from Hotz ArtWorks. It was a custom job, like almost all of his products, and it took about a month and a half to get to me in Chicago. But the wait was worth it...while playing at our local game store, about a dozen gamers wandered over throughout the evening to ask about our game, drawn solely by the gorgeous spectacle of two fleets exchanging volleys on the pretty felt mat.

The asteroids were pieces of lava rock mounted on flying bases, and the planet was a decorative bamboo ball I snagged from a hobby store. It looked great as a storm-wracked gas giant looming in the middle of the battlefield!

D&D marathon—12 hours at the Keep on the Borderlands in Chicago

Chgowiz lives! Everyone's favorite old guy RPG guru showed up at my local game shop in Chicago yesterday to attempt a daunting task: a 12-hour D&D marathon using Keep on the Borderlands.

The format was similar to the Tower of Gygax events that have been run at GenCon the last couple of years. Players could sit down, grab a pre-gen character sheet, and join in the fight. When they died, they stood up and someone else sat down to play for a while. Mike also kept track of how long the players had been in the game; when no one died and there was a player standing around waiting to jump in, he'd boot the longest-living player. It was all in good fun, and the players cheerfully vacated their seats to let the newbies sit down.

As for me, I live 4 blocks down the street from shop, so I played two separate sessions: one before noon, when ol' Chgowiz was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and another toward the end of the evening, when he had the thousand-yard stare going.

The game was Holmes D&D, which had a few interesting quirks that I learned about (clerics have no spells at 1st level, oil does crazy damage, adventurers can walk three abreast down a dungeon hallway).

Throughout the day, there was remarkable continuity in terms of player progress. When the mapping player's character died, he'd pass along the map (which had probably been started 2 or three players ago) to the next likely mapping player, so he could take up the pencil for an hour or so. Likewise with treasure and magic items looted from the Caves of Chaos. We just passed 'em down the line. A healing potion filched at noon might finally be used around 5:30 p.m. by a new player.

Mike kept things rolling throughout the day and into the evening, fueled only by pizza and an everful chalice of iced tea. He used miniatures for the sticky combats and allowed players to roleplay to their heart's content back at the keep. The action definitely wasn't centered on the Caves of Chaos; in true sandbox fashion, we went wherever we wanted and found adventure waiting for us when we arrived. We uncovered a plotting priest of chaos in the keep itself, led an attack on a hobgoblin camp in the wilderness—and of course, pilfered the Caves of Chaos, albeit in a haphazard fashion.

Each player who survived an hour got a free d20 and a d6, compliments of the good folks at Chicagoland Games. Mike also had some very nice printed copies of Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, which he gave out to players as well. (This was probably the ideal context to distribute this most excellent treatise, following on the heels of a glorious one-hour old school dungeon romp.) In the end, Mike estimated we probably got through 20 percent of the module. I'd guess 15 to 20 players rotated in and out of the game throughout the day. Some came back three, four, even five times to play new PCs.

The best part came during the final hour of the game. Two players who had never played D&D—or tabletop roleplaying in general—stopped by the table. I'm guessing they were a boyfriend/girlfriend combo. They said their only experience with this type of geekery so far had been playing World of Warcraft. So of course, we happily booted some players to make room for them. Mike explained their character sheets, we pointed out what was on their equipment lists, and they plunged into the fray. There was much laughter and gnashing of teeth for another hour or so, and then Chgowiz called the game around 9 p.m. Applause broke out at the table—he'd been at it for 11 straight hours.

Afterward, I asked the two newbies how they heard about this D&D marathon. Stunningly, they had simply googled "D&D chicago" a few hours before—having never played, only heard about the game from a friend—found the game store's website at the top of the results page, found this event on the store's online calendar, hopped in their car, and drove out to play. Their whole day of gaming coalesced in less than six hours. After the game, they inquired about the weekly D&D 4e game that takes place each Monday at the store, and they left with plans to return next week. It's an amazing world we live in.

The glory of the gaming auction, part 2

So the twice-yearly Game Plus gaming auction came and went earlier this month. If you've read this blog much, you'll know that the auction is a fixture in the Chicago gaming scene—literally hundreds of sellers unload their unwanted gaming goods (board games, RPGs, miniatures, everything else) over four frenetic days of bidding. It's almost a convention unto itself, albeit one restricted to a single event.

It's fascinating to attend, because it really gives a sampling of the Midwestern gamer zeitgeist of the each particular year. Last September, for example, D&D 4e products didn't sell (to one commenter's woe). This year, a bunch of older gamers whipped themselves into a bidding frenzy over a string of Middle Earth Roleplay products, which I gather are becoming increasingly hard to find. Each year, a few reliable products command high prices (Deities and Demigods feat. Cthulhu, the D&D little brown books, entire Warhammer 40k armies painted to a decent degree, etc).

In any case, the March auction witnessed an undeniable resurgence of interest in D&D 3.x products. Gently used Players Handbooks and DM Guides consistently sold for $18 to $22 all day long; at the height of the bidding, when the room was packed with a standing-room-only crowd, I watched a 3.5 PHB sell for $38...that's right, more than the original retail price.

I participated heavily, both as a seller and as a buyer. I ended up selling off a bunch of oddball RPGs, assorted board games and random miniatures that I convinced myself I'd never get around to painting. I also put up my entire collection of Star Wars RPG d6 books—this was only a bit sentimental, as the SWRPG constituted my initial foray into roleplaying. But the prequels have forever soured my desire to ever roleplay Star Wars ever again, and I was pleased that my whole pile o' loot sold for more than $200. Sweet!

On the buying front, I ended up sitting through 8+ hours of bidding on Saturday and Sunday with very little to show for it. I was interested in a lot of stuff, but not so interested that I wanted to get in a bidding war with the dude sitting across the room, know what I'm sayin'? I'm going to have to re-think my strategy, especially on the RPG front, because I'm finding that there's not that much I'm really looking for anymore. The gem of the day was a very nice copy of Palladium's Weapons and Castles sourcebook from 1982. This was an excellent buy, given my current fascination with castles sieges (due in no small part to my recent re-reading of George RR Martin's Game of Thrones books).

I fared much better on Sunday, which was dedicated to miniatures. There I picked up two awesome random bags of old, half-painted miniatures from a variety of manufacturers and game system, all for $10 a bag. Between the two bags, I probably scored 35+ individual figures. I got Ral Partha, Grenadier, Citadel and a big pile of figs from the now-defunct manufacturer Adiken. That should keep me painting for a while!

Getting down to (gaming) business

I joined a new campaign at my local gaming store this weekend; we're playing A Song of Ice and Fire, the RPG of George R. R. Martin's Westeros fantasy setting. And even though we played for barely 2.5 hours, it was a substantive session—we got more done in 2.5 hours than my current group gets done in 5 hours.

Paradoxically, one reason why we got so much done is because none of us are friends. I mean, we're jovial and polite around the table, but we don't gossip about girlfriends or the latest movie we just saw, and we don't go off on crazy tangents about unrelated stuff. Now, these things are the staples of many a game group, and truth be told I wouldn't want to go without them—but this session was a really interesting glimpse at what can get done when the group focuses solely on the task of gaming.

Fistfuls of loot at the fall gaming auction

Last weekend was the fall auction at Games Plus, Chicago's gaming mecca. Enthusiasts from near and far emptied out their closets and bookshelves, filling the halls of Games Plus with much-loved gaming books, miniatures, board games and accessories.

Each day had a particular theme. I stopped by for Saturday (the tabletop RPG book day) and Sunday (the miniatures day). Once the bidding commenced around 11 a.m., it didn't stop until about 8 or 9 p.m. The Games Plus team went non-stop, auctioning items fast and furious—and frequently switching out auctioneers when a particular volunteer's voice started to fade.

Most lots went for less than $10, and plenty of great deals could be had for as little as $1 or $2. The auction featured several jewels from the hobby's early days. In particular, I saw near-mint copies of Phil Edgren's "The Book of Monsters" and "The Book of Demons"—both circa-1976 unofficial supplements to D&D and other first-generation fantasy RPGs. I admit that I didn't really know what they were when I saw them sitting atop a pile of books. But a quick flip through the musty pages confirmed their old-school cred. They were published through Little Soldier Games. I couldn't find much reference to Edgren or the publisher on the Web, but there's this.

Interestingly, throughout the day, the D&D 3.x core books received much higher bids than the 4e stuff in the auction. One 4e PHB with a starting bid of $10 didn't even sell! But none of the current generation of fantasy games proved as popular as the Pathfinder core book. I saw just one copy go up for auction, and bidding ended somewhere around the actual retail price for the book.

And I spotted this just before I left, so I couldn't bid on it. But I would have!


So what did I get, you ask? I scored a copy of Fantasy Flight's "Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation" 2-player board game, and a I won a lot of 6 AD&D books, all by Gygax—two of which were immediately earmarked for The Reverend, an occasional commenter on this blog and a real-life fellow gamer here in Chicago.

On Sunday, the miniatures day, I spent about $35 and walked away with a nice pile of assorted miniatures, rulebooks, terrain and some static grass. I had entered some of my own stuff in the auction too; later this week I'll find out how much cold, hard store credit I'll be getting from that.

Library D&D: Can it work?

I have a strong desire to put up a simple paper flyer at my local library (4 blocks up the street here in Chicago) and run a pick-up Swords & Wizardry game for whomever shows up.

I probably wouldn't be out of line to assume that I'll get mostly younger players, folks who have probably not played a pen-and-paper rpg—but it's possible I'll draw some older players as well.

I mean, didn't D&D get promoted early on by local libraries as a way for bookish kids to make friends and stay social? Is it possible to re-capture that excitement today? Can the "neighborhood game" be re-created in an era of iPods and video games and reduced attention spans?

Last month I wrote an article about gaming in libraries; it focused mostly on video game events. But everyone I spoke to was enthusiastic about the idea of bringing in kids and showing them how to have some good, clean fun in their local library.

It would certainly make for an interesting social experiment.

Chicagoland Games wins chamber of commerce award

My local game shop, Chicagoland Games, recently received an award from our neighborhood economic development group. Not bad for a store that hasn't even been open for a year yet! This announcement is about a month old, so I'm a latecomer to the action, but click here if you want to read more.

Congrats to J.P. and Lex for getting off to a great start!

Of game stores I've known: Valhalla's Gate in Columbia, MO

Most gamers, if they’re lucky, can relate stories of the local gaming store that helped foster their participation in the hobby. I’m no different, and Sir Larkins’ recent post bemoaning the slow decline of brick-and-mortar retail shops has inspired me to write about my first (gaming) love.

For the first four years of this decade, I lived in Columbia, MO while attending the University of Missouri. College helped rejuvenate my gaming appetite, but it wasn’t until the end of my tenure that I discovered Valhalla’s Gate, then a newcomer to the Columbia gaming scene (which is actually quite vibrant, having birthed several game publishing companies and nurtured many burgeoning designers).

The Gate, as it’s affectionately known, was then an upstart competing with the Danger Room, which occupied an enviable spot in downtown Columbia just across the street from MU’s campus. Despite all that, neither the Danger Room nor its successor entity could gain any real traction, and the downtown storefront closed around 2003 or so. From then on, Valhalla’s Gate was the only game in town, if you’ll pardon the pun.

The Gate had a lot going for it, starting with a huge retail footprint. This was key in a lot of ways. It let the owners take advantage of the store’s high ceiling heights to craft a well-lit, clean interior setup stuffed to the gills with merchandise. Every major element of the hobby got attention, some more than others. RPGs were huge, as were Games Workshop games. Clix-based games had their boomtime too, but they took up far less shelf space. Hobby supplies were next to terrain racks, and even less-popular miniatures games usually had a shelf or two.

What all of this meant was that the store offered a bewildering array of products distributed in a logical, well-organized store setup — as opposed to the pile-it-everywhere approach that smaller stores are sometimes stuck with. It didn’t hurt that the owners were fastidious about cleaning the place, which no doubt contributed to any number of impulse buys from impressed parents of young gamers.

And talk about game space: at any given time, the Gate had at least four fully prepped 8’ by 4’ wargame tables ready to go at a moment’s notice. Another three could be pressed into duty in 10 minutes. RPG and card gamers could pull up a chair to any of the dozen folding tables that populated the dedicated gaming room, which was separated from the retail salesfloor by a short hallway. Add in a (always clean) restroom and a couple vending machines, and it’s easy to see how this place was designed with the gamer in mind.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to land a job at Valhalla’s Gate as one of three part-time employees in the summer of 2003. In doing so, I had the opportunity to understand the store from the other side of counter. I saw how the owners made buying decisions, set up the monthly tournament schedules, organized the special orders and balanced their own personal/family lives in the process. The owners were/are all married couples with children and full-time jobs elsewhere, so life was hectic and they came to rely on the small staff of part-timers who crewed the place.

During my time there, we routinely hosted tournaments that drew gamers from as far away as St. Louis, Kansas City and Des Moines. We even had a father-and-son duo that made a weekly 180-mile round trip to play in the our Lord of the Rings CCG league.

I’ve not been back to the Gate in about three years, but it remains (in my mind, at least) the ideal model for game store retail operation.

The glory of the gaming auction

One of the coolest things about living in Chicago is the twice-annual Games Plus Gaming Auction, held by the good chaps at Games Plus in Mt. Prospect, IL. Throughout most of September, local gamers can drop off their unwanted gaming merchandise, which becomes part of a veritable mountain of loot that dominates the rear of the store. Daily visitors to the store, of course, watch this treasure heap grow over the course of the month, which serves only to enhance the sense of excitement and anticipation for the auction.

The auction itself spans a long weekend, with each day dedicated to a particular gaming category: Friday for the board games, Saturday for the RPGs and fantasy games, and Sunday for the miniatures. Make no mistake: these are long days. There’s no rhyme or reason to the auction; cartloads of material are wheeled up to the auctioneer’s table all day long and sold in the order they arrive. A barely-used copy of Zombies!!! might be auctioned off right after a much-loved edition of Keep on the Borderlands, for example.

What this means for customers is that you have to sit through the whole thing to make sure you won’t miss a particular item you spied in the treasure heap. There’s no way to be alerted when an item you want goes up for auction. The upshot of all this is that Games Plus is clogged with gaming geeks lounging on chairs, reading books or eating lunch pretty much all day long. As the day progresses, these folks are generally quite vocal, sending up a chorus of “ooooh!” whenever a particular gem commands a hefty price, or chuckling when another customer nabs an oddball item for cheap. In truth, it’s a fairly festive atmosphere, sort of a cross between Medieval Times and a football game.

Last year I snagged the Eberron core book ($5), Panty Explosion ($3) and Fluid Mechanics ($5, a supplement for Blue Planet). This year I’m hoping to attend both the RPG day and the miniatures day.

Photos from Warmachine night at Black Sun Games

Here's photographic proof from the first Warmachine night at Black Sun Games. These were taken with my Sony Ericsson W580i WHT...light was a little dim, but you get the gist of the game.

Warmachine night at Black Sun Games

Tonight I’ll head up to Black Sun Games for my first Warmachine game since the store opened last month. I’ve enjoyed Warmachine for about four years, but support for the game in Chicago has been centered around Games Plus, a decent game shop in far-flung Mt. Prospect. It’s quite a haul, considering Chicagoland’s abyssmal traffic, and I just can’t get enthusiastic about driving out there. All that’s changed, though, with the advent of BSG; it’s a 10-minute drive from my place, and I can bike there on days when I’m not lugging miniatures and rulebooks.

Tonight I’m trying in earnest to get a Warmachine community started at BSG. As I’ve mentioned before, they seem to be doing everything right to nurture a thriving game shop in Chicago proper. I’m glad to have a part to play in that effort.

Interested in meeting up? Chime in on BSG’s newfangled Web forums!

The full report from Gamer's Asylum in Evanston, IL

EDIT: I admit when I am wrong with a prediction, and this was certainly one of those times. Gamer's Asylum is still open in Evanston, and the store has expanded into some adjacent retail space. So things are looking up as of 7/29/2009, and I am adding this note to my original article to balance out some of the things I mention below that haven't come to pass.

Well, I dropped by Gamer’s Asylum last night. Here’s my capsule review: Keep your calendar open for a going-out-of-business sale in 8 months or so.

The store has a great location in downtown Evanston near the Dempster train station, and it’s run by a couple of friendly, talkative dudes. But I couldn’t discern much by way of a business plan; the shop was almost completely devoid of merchandise (save for a pile of “starter” Games Workshop product). The shelves were half-full and the walls were bare - not even posters! As someone who’s worked in gaming retail, this is a bad way to start a store.

The owners, to their credit, explained that they intend to respond to the community’s demands and stock various game lines, depending on their popularity. Unfortunately, this is a classic example of putting the cart before the horse. Game stores need to be stuffed to the gills with merchandise to survive and prosper. You need to surround your potential customers with a dizzying array of products – game books, miniatures, collectible junk, dice, paints, accessories, junk food – all in the hope that they’ll make just a single purchase in a given visit. Vast, herculean efforts are required to draw in new customers and keep them coming back, especially in light of the omnipresent Internet retailers.

You also can’t rely on existing player demand to fuel a store. You must constantly bring in new products and establish relationships with the myriad game publishers out there. You must read the industry blogs and literature and make sure you’re up on the latest new releases. If you do stock a given line, you must conduct demos and promotional events to draw in new players and customers.

Gamer’s Asylum doesn’t even have a Web site! How can that be in this day and age? The two store owners, for all their goodwill and enthusiasm, seem to have started the store simply as a way to hang out and talk to gamers. This is heartbreaking, because Chicago needs an in-city alternative to Games Plus (a fine store that’s just a bit too far away for convenience). Make no mistake, I will support Gamer’s Asylum and buy some stuff from them. I’ll game there and hopefully meet new players there. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to count on it for the long haul. By stumbling immediately out of the gate, Gamer’s Asylum may have lost its momentum entirely. I’ll report back when they start their 50-percent-off liquidation sale.

Gamer's Asylum update

Well, Ben and I dropped by the Gamer's Asylum in Evanston on Sunday for the grand opening, but we were stymied - a hand-lettered sign on the door informed us that the owners had the flu and wouldn't be opening until June 4. That's tonight. I'm headed back there again; fingers crossed that I'll actually get to set foot inside this store.

Gamer's Asylum in Evanston, IL

There's a new gaming store opening June 1 in Evanton, IL called Gamer's Asylum. I can't really tell you any more about it, because it doesn't appear to have a Web presence (at least, not one that shows up on the first few pages of a Google search).

About all I have to go on is the intersection (Dempster Street and Chicago Avenue in Evanston) and my own somewhat hazy memory of driving past, seeing the sign and making a mental note to return and check it out this weekend. The sign also mentions that Gamer's Asylum will support Warmachine, a game I've sunk a considerable amount of money into, which is good because the next-closest gaming shop is 25 miles down the highway in Mount Prospect. Gamer's Asylum, if it opens as planned, will be about 15 minutes from my house. Nice!