Are you in sync with new product releases?

[Phil Dutré]

The recent discussion about following the “wargaming news” got me thinking how many wargamers really follow/buy/play new product releases as they hit the market? The answer for me is simple: I don’t. I simply don’t have the time.

I play perhaps one game per month at most. Usually one game per 2 months. So that’s 6 to 12 games per year (I would love to play more, but professional and personal constraint don’t always make it easy). That’s simply not a high enough frequency to worry about a new ruleset that was published last month, or about a new figure range. Rather, we play the games we already know. That doesn’t mean we don’t try out new things now and then. But the “new games” for me that are still on the to-do list are games like Frostgrave, which are already 2 years old by now. The latest new thing we tried was Rommel, which was a bit uncharacteristic that we played it so soon after it was first released.

It reminds me somewhat to my earlier gaming days (late 80s), when I was an avid fantasy roleplayer. I bought new systems, new campaigns, new rules, … as they were published. There were always grandiose plans about starting new campaigns in whatever new systems were being published. But they never got played. Even at the frequency of one gaming session per week (back then), we simply couldn’t cope with all the new material that was being published. We stuck to to two systems we liked (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Call of Cthulhu), perhaps interjected with a single session of something new, just to “try it out”.

Of course it’s fun to buy new stuff and fantasize how you will use it. But in practice, it almost never materializes. This “cult of the new” is something I also witness in some podcasts. There’s always a lot of excitement about a new game, a new kickstarter, a new ruleset. But how realistic is that for most gamers?

I guess part of it is FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Fear of missing the new hot game. Fear of sticking for too long with an antiquated rule system. Fear of not having the latest shiny toys on the table. Or is this a behaviour that is typical for younger gamers, and have older gamer learned their lessons by now? 😉

I am not advocating a right or wrong in this debate. Just wondering.

[Steve Johnson]

I tend to stick to rulesets that I like and know now, so when I’m gaming, I can concentrate on what I want to do rather than constantly referring to the rulebook, or even worse confusing rules from one set with another. There is a good article in the latest issue of Warning Order from Wasatch Historical Gaming Society that touches on the subject of why rules go out of fashion. When I was part of a club new rules became very fashionable to have/play, but often were dropped after 6 months when another new set arrived, they got bored of them etc. However I do like to keep abreast of what’s going on, via this forum, magazines etc. The odd gems come up such as Bloody Big Battles, so you never know what might be on the horizon that tickles your fancy.

[Phil Dutré]

Steve Johnson wrote:

so you never know what might be on the horizon that tickles your fancy.

Good point. In my gaming group we also phase out old rulesets and phase new ones in. But that cycle is measured in years (5-10?) rather than months.

[Mike]

Phil Dutré wrote:

when I was an avid fantasy roleplayer. I bought new systems, new campaigns, new rules, … as they were published. There were always grandiose plans about starting new campaigns in whatever new systems were being published. But they never got played. Even at the frequency of one gaming session per week (back then), we simply couldn’t cope with all the new material that was being published. We stuck to to two systems we liked (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Call of Cthulhu), perhaps interjected with a single session of something new, just to “try it out”.

Same here, though back in my rpg days I worked in a games store, so would be able to read all the new stuff and keep ahead of the game in terms of what was new and cool.
Though like you we played only two worlds with any real frequency.
WFRP and the other was split between Cyberpunk and Elric!

As for new things, I will look into them if they fit my current settings.
So right now being into Conan style games I will keep an eye out for rules/models that may benefit those games.
I will not look to play things that are new because they are new, but only if they have an immediate use for my current game.

Were I both time and cash rich then maybe, alas being neither means not taking a punt on something new when I may not like it and almost certainly not have time to play it.

[Rhoderic]

To a limited extent, yes. As a very, very rough estimate, I’d say about 1/3 of the figures and rules I buy are new releases, although that includes occasional re-releases of miniatures that have been OOP for an interim. More often, it’s a sale or some other limited-time offer that steers my hand, and in the consequent shopping spree I end up getting both new and old products from the same manufacturer.

Overall, I do value “newness” quite highly and I feel this hobby would be much worse off without it. Which is not to say I don’t feel the same way about “oldness”. But newness tends to get more flak in the parts of the hobby community that I frequent, and I don’t think it deserves all of it. In my opinion, the conflict or tension between new and old tends to get blown out of proportion and made more acute than it needs to be, especially by the old guard. Maybe in some other parts of the grand community (CMON, the GW-centric forums, and the like), there’s a corresponding “cult of the new” that scorns everything old and in so doing counterbalances the old guard with which I’ve become more familiar, but I wouldn’t really know.

I don’t really correlate the number of new products I buy to how many games I play a month, or anything like that. I just don’t see much causality there, sorry. I agree it’s not realistic to always fantasise about getting the newest product on the table before I’ve even clicked the “Complete Order” button. But I’m not that much of a realist when it comes to my hobbies, and if I was, this hobby would probably leave a much more bitter taste in my mouth. I could be doing other stuff instead – there’s always a new video game hitting the market – but I prefer to keep my fantasies.

“Fear Of Missing Out” doesn’t really describe what it is that drives me to feel an attraction to new products. It’s not as cynical as that. By that standard we could speak of corresponding fears that drive “anti-new” attitudes, but, again, it would be too cynical.

[MartinR]

I often buy new stuff when it comes out, mainly out of interest as I like reading rules. Some get as far as an actual playtest, fewer get as far as a playtest at the club and a tiny minority get played on a regular basis for some months or years. Main example in recent years have been a variety of Neil THomas offerings, which have passed the rigorous selection process, Command and Colours Ancients & Napoleonics, and a(very heavily modified) Memoir 44. Rommel didn’t make it past the initial playtest stage. Some nice ideas, but as a game, oh dear.

The majority languish unloved on my bookshelf, although I might borrow the odd idea or two.

I certainly don’t rush out and buy a load of toys for a new ‘game system’. I’ve got plenty of toys already.

 

 

 

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Autodidact-O-Saurus]

Am I in sync with new releases? Not in the least! My gaming interests are primarily from my interests in history. If I’ve read a book or watched a program that piques my interest, it may spur me to imagine gaming that period or genre. Secondly, the interests of gaming partners may influence me to splash around in the pool a bit. That’s rare, though, especially since I’ve not had any regular opponents for the past few years. I’ve never been trendy.

Self taught, persistently behind the times, never up to date. AKA ~ jeff
More verbosity: http://petiteguerre.blogspot.com/

[Ivan Sorensen]

New rules:

Yes. Otherwise I’d fall out of touch with the field.

New mini’s:

I check the stuff that gets shown on here and random platypus and I follow the new 40K releases.
Otherwise, I tend to check when I go to buy things.

[McKinstry]

I keep fairly current on a few websites primarily TWW and LAF and to a lesser extent TMP. For manufacturers other than Tumbling Dice, Baccus and Adler, not so much.

I wish Hallmark/Figurehead would give me a reason to keep up with them but nothing has changed in years to those ranges.

 

The tree of Life is self pruning.

[Who Asked This Joker]

I look but usually don’t buy.  Like the Phil (the OP) I have a limited amount of time to game.

John

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln

[PaintingLittleSoldiers]

I follow most 15mm Sci Fi and 1/72 news\reviews sites but most other periods I have what I need already so finding out about the 20th company that makes a French line infantry man is not that important.

[Northern Monkey]

Whilst I keep reasonably upto date with the news of new releases. I’m not really influenced by whatever the latest shiny new greatest game evah, is, I buy into what I like(with the usual considerations of cost, space required etc) not what is necessarily popular, sometimes these crossover, more often not.

My attempt at a Blog: http://ablogofwar.blogspot.co.uk/

[Paul Howarth]

Martin, on a tangent. What are your issues with Rommel please? I had been initially unsure after issues with the Blucher pdf, but would appreciate your thoughts.

[Otto Schmidt]

When I was young, and stupid, I was an avid aficianado of the new.  Like Phil  though I saw that  with each new rule set that came out, and each new release of figures in our group would mean a trashing of a set we had just gotten used to and mastered, or a topic which we likewise were just getting enough figures to field a force for.  I quickly lost interest as  each new learning curve had to be masetered, and I noted that most of them never were.  In the end, all those rules wound up like trying to paint detail on figures before the first coat was dry. It turned into a smeary mess.

Unfortunately complicating the issue was  that the players I gamed with did not read the rules. They relied on me, and others to hand-hold them through the rules which  turned into an even smearier mess when they remembered rules from years ago.  I then developed my old and haven’t changed.  We got to the point when someone said “Hey What About  doing  “Napoleons Buttons!” or “Umpires Ego’s and Liars!” we said to the guy. “GOOD! GREAT! you get the rules and buy the figures and learn them and you can put on the games.”

That ended the enthusiasm real quick!

Today I still gave gamers who ask after thirty or forty games with the same rules  “How many dice does a machine gun roll again?”  I realized that players just don’t pay attention and read the rules, even the rules they want to play. Now, I completely ignore rules releases and new periods.  Strange I find everyone still comes and will gladly play the game of whatever you want to put on provided you do all the work.

I remember one time in our club that one guy said one day.

“Hey how about we do Russo-Japanese War.”

This had about as much legs on it as a sponge.

Everyone said “Ummm OK… good, we’ll play it, when do you think you will be ready to put a battle on.”

The guy  was a little shocked.

‘You expect ME to put it on? Why should I have to bear the work and expense of it. I meant for you guys to do it so I can play in it.”

Swear to God, that was exactly what the guy said.

Needless to say there was never one battle in the Russo Japanese war put on.

I too get about a game a month on a good year.

[Otto Schmidt]

One more point. I am in the same vein  as Autodiktatosaurus. If the history of the period doesn’t inspire me then it’s dead to me.  For example the least interesting period for me is Dark Ages.  Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Miserigoths, Gepids, wepids, lipids, limpids, aphids, vandals, handles, Darryls and his other brother Darryl … The thin, smelly,  fur-clad line has no interest for me.  Others love it, but not me.

[MartinR]

Paul Howarth wrote:

Martin, on a tangent. What are your issues with Rommel please? I had been initially unsure after issues with the Blucher pdf, but would appreciate your thoughts.

Primarily that there are an awful lot of decisions to make, but they principally relate to operating the game mechanics, rather than relating to actual divisional level command decisions. I understand the intent and the outcomes, but if I want to mount a prepared attack on a hasty defence, let’s just call it that rather than faffing around with ops points, a multi phase attack and wrestling with some odd stacking restrictions.

I like the tactics cards (Yes, I immediately dumped the cumbersome ops sheet thing) and some of the relative weapon systems effects are well modelled.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Paul Howarth]

Hmmm, so too much micro-managing in what is supposed to be an operational set? Thanks for that, it’s saved me some cash at least.

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