The GPA Ring

It is instructive to compare the 1982 collapse of SPI, which sent a psychic shock through the wargaming community, with the recent collapse of TSR. The wreck of SPI scarred historical boardgamers for life, even though lots of companies are still carrying on, and several dozen historical boardgames appear annually. Interestingly enough, the RPG types do not seem to have reacted as much to the TSR crash, and so far few speak of WOTC in the same uncivilized manner that wargamers did, and still do, of TSR. This is probably because (1) no one really liked TSR anyway, and (2) production of RPG materials continues strongly.

One sign of a relatively lively role-playing industry is The GamePublishers Association, an industry trade group with a site at www.rpg.net/gpa. They sponsor The GPA Ring at www.gameshop.com/gparing.html. This webring has 21 members, mainly RPG publishers, although the GPA’s actual membership is about five times that. The group produces a joint catalog occasionally and offers a variety of services for the small RPG company. The GPA Ring also includes Gaming Intelligence and RPGnet, both discussed last issue. Particularly worth visiting is the Grey Ghost Press site which offers FUDGE (The free form, Universal, Do-It-Yourself Gaming Engine), their flagship product, as a free download at members.aol..com/ghostgames.

Adventure gaming in all its forms has never been especially wide-spread, and there does not seem to be room for more than two relatively large companies. First there was Avalon Hill and SPI, then AH and TSR, and now AH and WOTC. Any other efforts are going to fall in the small company category, and organizations like the GPA can help a lot. Wargamers should do the same.

Updates

The Wargamer’s Ring, mentioned in the May Strategist, has moved to www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/6274/wargamer .htm and now has 232 members. SGS should consider affiliating with it. The correct URL for The Game Report is www.wolfe. net/~peter/tgr.

Read reviews of all the RR games at http://www. csn.net/~bing/may-l.html. For those of you interested in Railroad Games, here is the Mayfair url:http://www.coolgames.com/ebrules.html.

Michael P.Owen wenmp@hotmail.com calls our attention to the Seattle/Spokane Washington AutoDuel Team (SWAT) pages with links to Car Wars, GURPS DarkFutureTech,and Formula De Web Sites. SWAT also publishes the Car Wars Internet Newsletter monthly. Pages are http://www.ior.com/~owenmp/cwlinks.htm and http://www.ior.com/~owenmp/cwinhome.htm. GMT games Typhoon and Barbarossa are discussed at the Wargamer's HQ Web site www.consimworld.com/webx

Settlers III Beta-Test and more information are available via http://www.siedler3.de [English and German language screens]. Trimok, a new board game based on the "Scissors Paper Rock" is at http://www.sci .fi/%7Etarvo/spk/ including complete description of the game rules and a Windows95/NT game.

The Siedler computer game has a collection of extra scenarios at http://www.hamburg.net-surf.de/~godwin.solcher/, The one-player Siedler computer game itself may be found through Kulkmann´s G@mebox at http://members.aol.com/kulkmann/index.htm. Colonial Diplomacy strategy is discussed at http://devel.igo.org/DipPouch/Online/variants1.html#c. There is a web-based discussion board for Napoleonics miniatures at http://venus.beseen.com/boardroom/p/16976/.

Charles Ryan, Chameleon Eclectic, charles@chameleon-eclectic.com wrote of Fields of Honor for colonials that an overview and other information can be found at his web site (http://www.chameleon-eclec-tic.com). The rules are in stock for mail order. A web site on railroad history research with data of interest to miniatures/diorama player/creators, is at http://www.us-webmasters.com/kenheine. The Miniatures Page says it is a basic resource for miniatures gamers. A Fistful of TOWs is on the Miniatures Page at http://www.jps.net/minipage/rules/mod/afot.html#summary.

Kulkmann sends us a summary of "Kulkmann´s G@mebox" in the net at http://members.aol.com/kulkmann/index.htm. The site features Independent reviews of new and old german and english boardgames, Rules variants, Computerized boardgames for free download (The "Settlers of Catan", Computer game from the Settlers-Club and "Conquest", convention reviews, a "Talisman"-page, a page for Tolkien boardgames with reviews of many boardgames based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, images and reviews from classic MB-Boardgames like "Broadsides & Boarding Parties", "Conquest of the Empire" or "Dark Tower", and a list with may great boardgame-links.

Derelict is a solo scenario for Breeders: Initial Contact on the Fractal Dimensions web site at http://www.fractal.mandarin.org/.

We heard from “The Mining Company” (“We mine the net so you don’t have to”), which has a boardgame site at http://boardgames.mining co.com. The site specializes in non-RPG and non-wargame types of games since it has http://wargames.miningco.com and http://roleplay games.miningco.com for wargames and rolegames. The official Decision Games website is at http://www.decisiongames.com/. A number of online gameshops exist; see http://grognard.com/shops.html. The Kitchen Table Gamers website is at http://home.neo.lrun.com/board games/ Paul Franz (The Andromedan) has pages at http://our world. compuserve.com/homepages/Andromedan/invaders.htm or at http://www.vamail.com. Sandy Hemenway has web pages on Star Fleet Battles tactics at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/firemane/sfb.htm with a Hydran homeworld page (most tactics stuff) at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/firemane/hydtact.htm. Car Wars Web Sites and opponents ads are reported at http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/2982/ and http://www.sjgames.com/HVD/list/index.html. For Star Fleet Battles, you can find the current SSD's and stats on the web at www-e815.fnal.gov/~jhkim/fun/sfb/tourney.html An updated web site including new Featured Games is: Dark Emperor (AH), a page for AH Misc Publications and ASL Annuals, etc is at http://www.erols.com/mrboone/wg_home.html

A web page with a reformatted destination and payoff chart for AH's Rail Baron with the cities in alphabetical order overall is described in more detail at http://www.insystem.com/rbp/rbpchart.htm.