Fantasy Wargaming (Bruce Galloway) – Anybody remember this "classic"?

[niklinna]

Fantasy Wargaming news…it’s kind of a big deal

It’s hard to believe that it was over a decade ago that I decided to revisit Fantasy Wargaming. It all began with a search of a bibliographic database (WorldCat) to see if the authors had wri…

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[Mad_Jack]

I actually own a copy of Bruce Galloway's Fantasy Wargaming, although I think I've only ever skimmed through it once years ago when I bought it for a dollar at a used book store... I bought it mostly out of idle curiosity.

 

[niklinna]

The early stuff on medieval Europe, and on magic/faith, is pretty interesting, especially for the time. The rules are very, very poorly presented. The book linked in that blog post is rather surprisingly detailed and fancy, given the obscurity of its subject!

 

[Alzrius]

I picked Fantasy Wargaming up about a year ago, after I saw it in the bibliography for Sean K. Reynold's Anger of Angels (affiliate link). It's quite the interesting slice of gaming history, and I'd like to buy the new book that's come out about it if it wasn't so bloody expensive.

 

[niklinna]

I picked Fantasy Wargaming up about a year ago, after I saw it in the bibliography for Sean K. Reynold's Anger of Angels (affiliate link). It's quite the interesting slice of gaming history, and I'd like to buy the new book that's come out about it if it wasn't so bloody expensive.

The PDF is free! But given the amount of typos and layout problems in it, you're probably best off not getting a physical copy.

I can see why Anger of Angels might have that in the bibliography....

 

[Voidmoji]

I once owned this, simply because it was a book available through the Science Fiction Book Club. I wonder if this wasn't how most people caught wind of it back in the day.

I recall it being awful, and hard to get through.

 

[niklinna]

I once owned this, simply because it was a book available through the Science Fiction Book Club. I wonder if this wasn't how most people caught wind of it back in the day.

I recall it being awful, and hard to get through.

You recall correctly. I remember being fascinated by its models of medieval society, beliefs, and magic, but finding the rest impenetrable. That blogger is part of a whole cohort who got a lot more out of it than we did!

 

[Mad_Jack]

Didn't it have stats for Jesus in it, or something like that?

It's been so long since I read the damn thing...

 

[niklinna]

Didn't it have stats for Jesus in it, or something like that?

It's been so long since I read the damn thing...

It has stats for God (= Jesus), the Virgin Mary, and all the heavenly and infernal hosts, plus Norse deities. Including their sun signs! It's like having Deities & Demigods included in the core book! For a certain part of the medieval world....

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

For several years in small town Louisiana in 82 through about 84ishs this was the only non-D&D book in the Role Playing Game section of the local bookstore. I can only imagine the reaction to THAT cover as the Satanic Panic kicked into high gear. It was very readable, but I don't know if there was an actually playable game there, it seemed to be something you could add to another RPG or set of wargaming rules (much like white box D&D really didn't have a game engine) to get their flavor of Fantasy Wargaming. I pulled bits of it for years for use in my D&D games that I DMed. I look forward to checking the blog entry.