Games Workshop At 40: How They Brought D&D To Britain 64
An anonymous reader writes: Following on the fortieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons last year, another formative influence on modern gaming is celebrating its fortieth birthday: Games Workshop. Playing at the World covers the story of how the founders, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (not the other Steve Jackson), started out as subscribers to the 1960s British gaming zine Albion playing Diplomacy by mail and (in Ian's case) publishing silly cartoons. When Albion folded at the beginning of 1975, Livingstone and Jackson formed Games Workshop with its own zine Owl & Weasel as a way to bring "progressive games" (as in "progressive rock") to the UK. Shortly thereafter, when they discovered Dungeons & Dragons, fantasy and role-playing games became their focus. After Owl & Weasel grew up into White Dwarf in 1977, its famous "Fiend Factory" column ended up populating the D&D Fiend Folio. And in the 1980s, of course, they brought us Warhammer and their retail stories brought stylish miniatures to many a needful gamer. Happy birthday to Games Workshop!
never again (Score:2)
I'll never forgive them for what they did to Talisman. Ever see a 3rd edition? Ugh. Their only saving grace is the release of the 4th edition.
And all their products are overpriced.
Re:never again (Score:4, Informative)
Or after a decade of neglect, releasing Space Hulk 3rd edition, only to release 4th edition 5 years later, but making the sets incompatible, and offering no way for people who supported them with the 3rd edition to upgrade, making it orphaned to expansions.
Fuck them to the bowels of hell. Such arrogance to their customers.
Don't even get me started with what they did with Blood Bowl.
Ugh!
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At least in 2nd Edition, you're supposed to re-draw a new character at random if you die. This only stops once a player has reached the center space (Crown of Command by default).
You generally don't want to leave the Outer Region until you've gotten a pretty powerful character. If you do want to cross the river, you can buy an axe for 3 gold and build a raft. Bags of gold are easy to come by - you're practically stubbing your toes on the things if you're going around drawing Adventure cards.
The main knoc
Way too expensive for my blood... (Score:2, Interesting)
At $750 if you want any type of starting army, then two bucks a point if you are not a very fine painter (which means $4000 if you are going for a 2000 point army), as well as the rulebooks, spell cards, army builders, printouts to give to the opponent explaining what you have, Warhammer is pretty pricy.
To boot, if you want to do any tournaments, your painting style and color matching of units can cost you a win, since it is factored in.
Then there are the scenery, and tables... again, not cheap.
Nothing wro
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Wait, what? Your "painting style" matters?
Can someone explain this to one who isn't initiated in the strange world of this game?
Re:Way too expensive for my blood... (Score:5, Informative)
I've never heard of it costing you a win. To compete in a tournament your miniatures must be painted with at least 3 colours each to qualify. At most tournaments though there is a prize given for painting but the tournament overall winner is usually a straight win / loss calculation.
Painting
All models must be painted to a 3 color minimum. We count primer as a color. If you have any models that are not painted to a 3 color minimum, you will be ineligible for prize support at the end of the event. We will use a Paint Rubric for judging paint. No basing requirement.
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No wonder it's dying. That is the dumbest fucking rule.
It was kind of an important rule because otherwise you'd have a bunch of unpainted armies and the game would look stupid to bystanders. They wanted to create the old man's game of tabletop gaming, and they succeeded. But then the prices kept going up PAST already-ridiculous and that's what really sealed the deal. Now they're going away. Hopefully when they expire we can just cook up an unauthorized 40k to replace it. Now that 3d printers are a thing, people can reasonably print minis. They'll need cleanup t
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No, it's just fucking dumb. By forcing people to have to tediously paint each piece by hand you limit the actual number of people who become interested.
The question is, do you turn off more people with such a requirement than you attract? Today, answer is probably yes, nobody has patience for anything. Back in the day, probably not, it was pre-internet and people sat around doing things that took a long time.
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Also, they want to sell you paint. Although I have noticed that their primer in particular truly is epic. I've used it even in automotive applications, as a midcoat to get around a paint interaction. I sure wish I knew who made it for them so I could get it at a reasonable price.
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I guess it's a matter of opinnion, I find their primer horrible, and only bother with their paints for the metallics.
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Well, considering to compete in a tournament you MUST paint the figures, that already excludes peopl
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Well, considering to compete in a tournament you MUST paint the figures, that already excludes people like me who have NO artistic skill, Or even just fine painting skills.
Look, you only need three paint colors, and primer counts. So you base coat them in either white or black, paint helmets and shoulders in another color, and paint weapons either in gray (or gunmetal, fancy!) for models with black primer, or in black for models with any other color of primer. Now you're done. You don't even have to paint your bases green.
This is not really an arduous requirement. The level of fine motor skill necessary for this level of painting is pretty low, it takes a fair amount just to
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That's already more effort than most people want to expend for a game. Painting is not fun for many people. It doesn't matter how "easy" you want to make it seem.
Yeah, the game is not for everyone. If you're lazy, you're better off with a computer game. I resemble the remark; I've spent far more time video gaming than miniatures gaming. I may still have some battletech minis here someplace, I definitely still have a small space marines army with a couple of sidecar bikes, a couple of floaters, a land raider, a couple rhinos... Sits in a box.
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No, it's just fucking dumb. By forcing people to have to tediously paint each piece by hand you limit the actual number of people who become interested.
Three colors is not really tedious. Black spray Primer. One color on the front to denote facing with more spray on paint. Different color on the back. Done. That's all that needs to be done to satisfy the rules and be allowed into a tournament. Of course, now you have to deal with the other players. I've seen people with similarly painted armies (and partially guilty myself) and they still get respect if they can actually win.
That cost is in what it takes (Score:2)
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As a tournament runner(40k, not fantasy battle but we do that too) we award prizes to the best painted armies and have a category of Renaissance man which is basically jack of all trades that we award prizes to. You can win the tourney with three color painted models, but you'd not win the other two awards that are possible. We also try to not give the same person more than one award since we want to give more people prizes.
There is also the Golden Demon, which is the companies painting contest.
Now,
Not a Gaming Company (Score:3, Informative)
And now they say their business model is collectible models, not games, as an excuse for putting out low-quality rules in order to sell their over-priced models.
Yes, I love and play the games (WHFB a lot, 40K a bit) but Games Workshop stopped being a company worthy of their customers respect more than a decade ago. Sure they were obnoxious years before that as well, but 2004 was when they lost all grasp on the reality of who and what they are.
Won't make it to 50 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Won't make it to 50 (Score:4, Interesting)
It's also been hilarious to watch their long-term relationship with the video games industry. They worked out ages ago that there's money to be made from video games and that they'd like some of it. But how they've gone about it defies belief.
Because the problem is that if the video games are too good, they might make people feel that they don't need the miniatures. So their history with the video-gaming industry is mostly one of third-party titles that were deliberately specced to be mediocre, a horribly misguided cockteasing of Blizzard (whose long term commercial consequences for Games Workshop almost stand up there with those for Nintendo after they played too hard with Sony over the SNES-CD) and... the Relic games (the Dawn of War series, plus Space Marine), which were actually dangerously good.
Since Relic folded, it's clear that GW aren't going to let anybody else that talented near the cash-cow WH40k franchise - all that's produced these days are mobile-style deliberately-inferior ports of GW's oldest board-games.
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I actually like the bloodbowl games.
That said I think it is incorrect to think that good video games will cannibalise their minature market. Warhammer is a shockingly hard thing to play once you have other time commitments, ie family. I would love to get my old High Elves or Eldar out but never do. The ability to play those games properly in a video game would rekindle my interest and connect me to others that potentially live close enough to get together with to play the minatures version.
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I recently got the Bloodbowl game on steam, also the Talisman game. Both of them are really great fun.
I'd love to see games like Dragon Masters, Hero Quest and many others make the same transition to digital version.
I think they would make great VR games, even.
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I distinctly remember playing HeroQuest on my Amiga 500 back in the day. Heck, I can still remember some of the music.
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Story and setting is really all they have going for them; the games themselves are garbage - plodding, byzantine rule-fests with minimal strategic play. A typical combat between two units goes something like "Take my five attack dice, minus your three attack dice, minus one more for your protective snorg field, except my unit is equipped with a snorg piercer, so add that back, and I hit on a 4+, but your unit is witty, so make that a 5+ and my character is drunk on hierophantic mycelium, so they just end u
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Re:Won't make it to 50 (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, you are about a year and a half to two out of date with some of your assertions:
The leadership HAS changed. For example, the CEO was ousted, and the senior legal counsel, responsible for the excessive, almost scientology-like IP protection, went out the hard way back in august 2013. Since then, the climate HAS changed: There have been more licenses for computer games based on their IP, mod makers no longer get instant threatening C&D letters. I've made some tilesets for 40k/Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch use, and I actually got a very polite mail about 8 months ago, essentially saying they didn't mind, as long as I didn't try to make money from it. A WH fantasy mod for the Total War series has, to my knowledge, not been harassed after the senior legal counsel was fired, despite Creative Assembly having received a license for Warhammer Fantasy.
Right now, GW ARE changing: For example, the new Warhammer Fantasy that is in the works is apparently going back to older roots, with less hard restrictions on units, instead going back to the old percentage allocations(At least x% points on troops, at most y% points on characters, that kind of thing), as well as going towards more skirmish type(I wonder if they finally dumped Nigel fucking Stillmann, the chief asshole behind the move to put as many and as large units as possible on the table... A bit like how Gav Thorpe and Ian Pickstock helped fuck up WH40k 3rd ed and onwards...)
Also, in terms of models, what it looks like, according to some people who are in the pipeline, is that GW are changing focus towards Forge World, and possibly even customized miniatures, and possibly just selling cad files etc for basic troops.
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So the lameness filter blocks a load of decent posts, but lets this bullshit through? Come on...
War and Peace (Score:1)
Outside their factory was a giant Warhammer figure (maybe 4 metres tall).
Opposite their factory is a large church.
'They' should renamed the road : War and Peace Road.
Back in the 80's (Score:3, Interesting)
Scenery and dungeons were created with things from the garden & plaster of paris / plasticine for the important quest stuff (like monuments / statues)
Almost all my vehicles, boats / wagons etc were made out of wood
The most fun, however, was creating the characters and monsters with cheap plastic army / farm figures and a soldering iron. It was painstaking, but meant each was subtly different physically and I could even tack-on extra items, such as weapons, backpacks, shields and such.
For me at aged 8 to 13, it was about bringing the world to life and becoming fully immersed in a beautifully rendered environment and a painstakingly planned quest / story - whilst following the rules laid out.
Although this wouldn't work for massive combat like 40k - I never did understand why people would buy rows and rows of overpriced, cheap (And they got cheaper and cheaper quality) 'models' and line them up in crappy sub-hornby-style environments.
For me, they brought only a loose world for my imagination to sculpt and I loved it. I was hooked on their writing from Deathtrap Dungeon FF days - but even as a young child never subscribed, nor could afford, the model side of their business.
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Fiend Folio was the dumbest. Some of the monsters were really lame
How dare you disparage the mighty Flumph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
The Flumph is most certainly NOT a lame....oh wait...it IS a lame monster.
Thanks to them, we have today's mmos (Score:5, Insightful)
I firmly attribute the success of world of warcraft also to games workshop.
Because they were too stupid and greedy.
Gw has always been rapacious in terms of pricing, but when they were presented with these developers who (really out of line for the ip) had created this "real time strategy" computer game using orcs (sorry, orks - for a company so tyrannical about their ip, they've been astonishingly casual about others'...) they reacted badly, insisting on a tyrannical level of creative control and ruinous charges for the ip. Their demands were so ridiculous, in fact, that these developers (who really already had the core of the game done) had to reluctantly walk away from the rapacious Brits and set out on their own...and thus was born warcraft.
In exactly the same sense that I think Lego controlling minecraft would have strangled that baby in its cradle, GW controlling warcraft would have certainly prevented warcraft (and ultimately wow - and the mmo renaissance it spurred).
Their greed compelled blizzard to strike out themselves.
You learn something new every day (Score:1)
The Patent Trolls of Tabletop SF (Score:3)
Fighting Fantasy (Score:2)
Anybody remember those? They were just about all I read when I was a kid.
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Warhammer 40K (Score:2)
Long live miniatures battles!
Blood For the Blood God! (Score:2)