Things that were lost

[Alvin Molethrottler]

Just had a book-quake in what I somewhat optimistically call my study. Fortunately only one shelf came down but it did have a lot of stuff on it. While putting things back I came across a copy of “Middle Earth Wargames Rules” a S.E.L.W.G publication from 1976 (purple cover).

I haven’t seen those rules for more than a decade and had thought they’d been lost to time, but I’ve just spent a pleasant half an hour reading through them. Bloody hell but they were complex! Over 50 different moral factors to work through and 8 different reasons to test including “At opposing general’s wish” (I’d be house ruling that you only ever get three wishes), not to mention having to measure in millimeters at a one meter equals one millimeter scale.

However what endears me to these, quite possibly, unplayable rules is that they are not adapted from any other system, unlike say “The Lidless Eye” adaptations for WRG Ancients.

So, two questions:

1. Anyone still play these rules and if so did they ever get an update/rewrite?
2. Anyone had a similar occurrence and if so what did you rediscover?

[paintpig]

First run boxed set of AD&D, The Battle of Fontenoy (Charles Grant) a history and how to set up for a game and Lace Wars parts 1 and 2 by Lil and Fred Funken. All were found in a box which hadn’t been unpacked after two house shifts and all were/are in pristine condition thanks to the box being thought to contain mundanery …..and my thinking that the books and rules had been well and truly lost to the ages. I still beam thinking about when they were discovered.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel
Slowly Over A Low Flame

[Not Connard Sage]

Alvin Molethrottler wrote:

While putting things back I came across a copy of “Middle Earth Wargames Rules” a S.E.L.W.G publication from 1976 (purple cover).

 

I’ve got a copy of those too.

 

Never played them…

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Lagartija Mike]

Not so much lost and found, but tossed and ransomed. A bit over a decade ago, having basically dumped a career in architecture for a (years) long binge with opiates and fuzz boxes I decided my library, my croaking academic albatross, must be destroyed. In the course of a month I either gave away or sold for pennies almost my whole collection, including beautiful Frank Pape illustrated copies of James Branch Cabell and first edition Dunsanys with the Sidney Sime plates. In the last few years I’ve been buying them back, slowly and expensively. Yet when the dust settled a few great things survived the carnage: a copy of the original D&D God book with the Melnibonean and Cthulhu pantheons; all three volumes of the Arduin Grimoire; and, best of all, a box containing the entire Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.

[Mike]

I prefer Pan Tang myself.

[Lagartija Mike]

I liked Elric, but I was always more partial to the Corum and Hawkmoon books (impossible not to love the Beast Orders of Granbretan, or Arioch as a giant, naked, vermin-infested derelict in an Escher palace). I need to go back and see if my old Sword & Sorcery stuff still does it for me.

[Author]

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