1999 has been a great year for Matrix Games. At the start of the year this newsletter began - the only journal dedicated to Matrix Games. In February, Hamster Press published its first commercial product - Dark Portals. The Hamster Press web page and the Matrix Gamer one list got in ggod shape this summer and Matrix Games have appeared in a number of conventions. Gen Con is my big show of the year. Creating good games for it is something I strive for. But I also try to push the envelop a little in these games. For the last five years this has meant using better and better terrain. This year I pushed in two other directions. USING OTHER REFEREES At Gen Con 98, my wife Terri (who does not play games) ran Matrix Games for me. It was the ultimate acid test of the system. But since I want to stay married this experiment will not be repeated! So I needed other referees. Rob Pyatt and Jeff Thompson graciously volunteered to run my Star Wars scenario. The game was listed under different titles but was actually the same game all five times. The good guys (Duke, Hans, Lea Ortega, and Chewbacco) are on a desert world (Naba-daba-do-to-ween) to steal vital secrets from the imperial base. The Imperials (Major Milosovic, Captain Caratich and Emma Peel) are out to stop them. Invariably Darth Vader shows up for an inconclusive fight with Duke. Neither can die since "They are under contract to appear in the next movie." Other factions of note are usually the gray aliens/CNN reporters, the local carnivorous insects, the British imperialist dogs – two dogs dressed like 1898 British soldiers and the local Musilm population. The game uses all the bells and whistles I've developed over the last few years - great terrain, good figures, quick and easy rules and a movie tie in. I ran the scenario myself in the spring to train Rob and Jeff. Both are relatively new Matrix Gamers but as I've always noticed, people pick up how to play and run these games very quickly when they do one. So Rob and Jeff were ready to run five games in three days for the event. They had no problems and I hope they will run more games next year. I was concerned that a "difficult" (i.e. jerk) player would challenge them. This is what people tell me will destroy my games, when they read about them for the first time. This did not happen to Rob and Jeff or Terri and honestly has only happened to me twice in over ten years of running these games. I've never had a player get nasty or blow up. I think the fact that I almost always give players a roll makes players feel they have a chance. The two incidents that did arise where more to do with what kinds of arguments that the players made rather than people getting huffy. The first time was in 1989. A player in a Holy Grail quest game made arguments to learn magic. He then expanded on this again and again till he declared himself to be a God. Evidently he had one of the needs to be all powerful, which I don't understand, so he could make the argument "I win." Of course he did not find the grail and in fact propelled himself out of the game. After all what would a God need with puny mortals like King Arthur? I was ready for his victory argument, I was going to counter that he was just another avatar of Vishnu. (Hindu Gods are dime a dozen.) The next problem occurred in 1994 when I ran a Robin Hood game. Guy of Gisbourne captured Maid Marrion. The Maid did not want to cooperate with him so he argued that he cowed her by raping her ladies in waiting. I was shocked and did not have the presence of mind to react to this. I ruled on it and he rolled, making it happen. I realize rape is used as a terror weapon in war, but it is a sick and twisted thing that has no place in a recreation game! (Unless rape is that person's recreation. Which is even worse!) After that game I thought I should have not allowed the roll. It just has no place in a polite game with women and children playing! Later on I decided that again, trying to control players is probably a mistake. Let the player commit a crime and then in ruling on arguments allow the consequences of that act come home to roost. Rape of ladies would bring retribution from their noble families, the hatred of the people, criminal charges, disrepute and ruin. So evil brings evil in return - force breeds resistance. So all in all I've found that difficult players are not an issue. If they really don't want to play they can leave. The Star Wars miniatures and title pulled in players, many of whom came back to play again and again. The name Matrix Game is not high lighted because it is still largely unknown. Sot it doesn't pull gamers in. Such games are labor intensive to pull together and can never be commercial games. But with Rob and Jeff's help they are great show case games. To use other referees more widely I need a game that is cheap and easy to produce and that begins putting the focus on "Matrix Game" rather than "pretty miniatures game". ROMEO AND ETHEL THE PIRATE'S DAUGHTER - AN EXPERIMENT IN CARDS I could have done Romeo and Ethel in miniature (GOD! is there a period I don't have figures for?) Instead I used my computer to create very nice looking character and location cards to play with. The location cards, when laid on a table, form a temporary map. Some locations (like the pirate ship and the Neopolitan fleet) were mobile and could change position. Character cards are placed near the location they are in and can actually be positioned to set up dramatic scenes within an area. Cards like this are easy to create. In a sold product I would not even have to print them since anyone can copy them on card stock and cut them out. This does away with the need to have a map and miniatures so it meets my design criteria of being cheap and easy. Romeo and Ethel was run on a Sunday morning (a slow time at Gen Con) and yet it got seven players. No one seemed to miss the figures and the game went off perfectly. The players included Romeo, Ethel, Mercuscio, The Pirate King, a comedic pirate, Shakespeare and the Audience. Everything that I hoped might happen happened. Mercuscio fought, the dog stole scenes, players made up comical interactions, Mercuscio died senselessly, right at the end the Pirate King killed Romeo, Ethel killed herself in grief, the Duke killed the Pirate King and order was restored. The last argument of the game was over whither Shakespeare should be paid. The audience decided that since it had sex and violence and that funny bit with the dog that, sure, pay him! So a cheap and easy method for publishing a game proves its merit and will appear again. COWBOYS AND INDIANS - VOLUNTEER REFEREES I frequently have people tell me what "you should do." I listen and am polite (at least I try to be) but being fully aware of the humongous limits on what I can do I know I will never do what these well intentioned people want. Then again some suggestions fit into ideas I've already had and park me on to do something. I got one such suggestion at Gen Con. A gamer said he would like to run a Matrix Game at the next Gen Con about Cowboys and Indians. For years I've liked Westerns - Good vs Evil, the hint of sex, the purposefulness of violence and horses! Could you ask for more? I especially like Clint Eastwood's work of the last twenty years (Outlaw Jose Wales, Pale Rider, and Unforgiven) These are wonderful stories which gaming has consistently failed to do. I like a good shoot out game as much as the next guy but Westerns are really romance/intrigue stories rather that combat stories. So skirmish games miss 90% of the story. Role playing has only made two attempts at the genre (Boot Hill, and Dead Lands - er...sort of). Role play games have probably steered clear because they are horrible at handling romance. A male referee and a male player role playing a love scene just doesn't work! I've long thought that Matrix Games would work very well for westerns. The suggestion - and more importantly, the offer to run the game - sparked my energy once I got home. "What will I need to have for other people to run Matrix Games for me?" Well for one, the rules must be finalized and printed in a hand book they can use while running the game. The character and location card system of Romeo and Ethel end the need for figures and terrain - and make the game small enough to be mailed in a single legal size envelope! Once home I quickly set about pulling together the rules book. This did not mean much writing - I've been doing that for months. So within a week I had the rules for spy, mystery, encounters, quests, and intrigue stories done. My energy was still there so another book to do military campaigns, revolutions, guerilla wars, police actions, riots, protests and politics was done in days. Then I churned out a miniatures game version of the Matrix Game. So that one suggestion opened a floodgate of activity. Once the volunteer referee rule books were done I realized that this was the rules packet I've been working towards for many years. After reformating it for an 8 1/2 X 11 inch book I was able to leave rule writing behind and concentrate on scenario writing. The result of this effort has been a new product each week. So far I have: The Spanish Ulcer: Being a game of guerilla war in Napoleonic Spain, The Three Musketeers: Being a game of Romance and intrigue in 17th Century France. Murder on Main Street: A small town murder mystery in the 1890's, Bloody April: An aerial campaign in France in 1917, and A Confederate Spy in Washington: A game of espionage and treason during the American Civil War. I've not got to the Western Story yet, but I will. So I take my hat off to Gen Con. As an event it spurs my creativity. While the community it creates often feeds my energy in ways I can't predict. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #7 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com