November 7, 1998 - Interview
Fireside Chat with Kevin Zucker, Part II
Fireside Chat with Kevin Zucker, Part II
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November 7, 1998 - Interview
Fireside Chat with Kevin Zucker, Part II |
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The following Interview with Game Designer and Operational Studies Group Publisher, Kevin Zucker, was conducted at One World Cafe in South Baltimore, 22 October, 1998. Kevin Zucker (KZ), Dave Schubert (DS), Andy Joy (AJ) participants on behalf of ConsimWorld.COM. Havng received favorable comments with our First Interview, we thought our readership would like to visit with Kevin again as he presents his observations on the hobby today and how OSG plans to address them.
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Kevin Zucker Interview, Part II
Select Fireside Chat Excerpts with Kevin Zucker
"Some gamers want that game to be perfect. Which means they don't have to expend any effort to receive it. And they've been trained to have these kinds of expectations, because of a very false kind of media that they're used to.""The amazing thing is the tenacity with which the grognards hold to their hobby. As their available time for gaming shrinks, they find strategies for keeping wargaming as a part of their lives. They create a special room in the attic where they can keep a big game set-up. Or they create a coffee table with a huge sliding tray inside it. Or they seek out games that can be played in one session. They are looking for a moderate level of complexity. The people that used to eat up these complicated games now have families and obligations and they only have three hours a month to play and they want to complete a game in three hours."
"One thing I heard from people, "Well, I never bought your 1807 game, I've got all your other games, but I never bought 1807 because I don't have a table that big." The full campaign takes three maps. But I said, "Look, it's got a one-map scenario, Pultusk/Golymin; it's got two nice two-map scenarios—Eylau and Friedland—and both are played on two maps only." Nice manageable games, lovely, well-playtested, nice situations, few units on the map."
"The viewpoint of leadership, as opposed to the viewpoint of the geometry of moving the division down the road and through the woods and attacking the other division. Most games view things through the prism of movement and combat. An individual unit on the ground facing another individual unit, and multiplying that across the map. The viewpoint of NAPOLEON AT BAY is from the leadership point of view looking through the eyes of the top level commander of the theater as opposed to the normal wargame."
[regarding OSG's upcoming LA GRAND ARMÉE] "I've looked at all the ideas and I've found a way to say it in a smaller space. The map is smaller than Last Battles, half the size. The scale of the map is one mile hexes instead of 525 yards, so it's about four times the area per hex on this map. The turns—instead of hour turns in Last Battles, 16 turns per day in that game—here we have morning, afternoon, evening, night, so the ratio there is four to one. The number of units—divisions instead of brigades, so it's less than half—181 units and markers in this game if you don't count Vedettes and hidden force markers. Number of pages is slightly less than Last Battles. But more concepts are covered in a shorter space."
"I want people to get something more out of the experience than just a 'crush the other guy and kick butt,' experience. I want them to experience the emotions, or be buffeted by the emotions, that threaten an actual commander. To experience mental and emotional states. Besides that, I want them to have an experience of ideas. I want them to come away learning something. If you look at the material components, there's a map, counters, rules, a box—the same as any other game. And you have to pay for that paper. But in addition to that paper, there's something else in that box that you can't really buy. There's no price that you can put on ideas. Ideas are free, they cannot be owned. This is a company of ideas. It's not about the material, it's not about units as robots that perform according to your will. It's about Human events. If your experience of gaming tells you that the way to prevail in your environment is to have a bunch of robots performing exactly according to your will, you're not learning anything about real life. Life's not like that. The reality is, there's millions of people all with their own immediate desires, ambitions and goals, that may or may not be in harmony with yours."
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Copyright © 1999-2002. ConsimWorld.COM. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited. Web Masters are encouraged to link directly to this page, this URL is not subject to change. For general site information: kranz@consimworld.com
Headline News | Archives | New Products
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Copyright © 1999-2002. ConsimWorld.COM. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited. Web Masters are encouraged to link directly to this page, this URL is not subject to change. For general site information: kranz@consimworld.com
Headline News | Archives | New Products
Game Ratings | Clubs | Events | Discussion Board
Copyright © 1999, 2000 ConsimWorld.COM. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited. Web Masters are encouraged to link directly to this page, this URL is not subject to change. For general site information: kranz@consimworld.com
