After the Holocaust Revised - After Action Report

[tmjva]

Interesting.

Below is a Yahoo group mention I got from one of the Players, the convention organizer, sorry I took my time referring this:

Dear Tracy

Thank you for the best game I have played in a long time. It was monstrously good fun and I enjoyed myself immednsely. Of course the problem was that as soon as I sat down I was going to play it as a parody of a televangelist/Hitler with my Church of the Chosen Few, and I was able to indulge my ham acting skills to the point of excruciation on my fellow gamers.

To the rest of you, you really don't know what you missed. I had "After the Holocoust" back when it came out and Tracy has told the truth, it was the dog of dogs, a canine among hounds, completely unworkable, completely unplayable, completely unloveable.. Tracy has taken this sows ear and made a silk purse out of it.

Now... let me explain the big secret of the game.

Tracy has designed the game both inside and out. That means that he has both made the rules, logical, intuitive, and they work cleanly, briskly, and it is no exaggeration to say they almost run by themselves. But he has also designed the game 'outside" the game, around the table, and the game VERY MUCH depends on the personalities of the gamers, which always makes a great game.

It is there that the great fault of the game is to be found.

The dirty little secret of the game is apparent from the first time you look at the build chart. It requires no great leap of genius at all to see that anyone who eschews arms and simply builds factories and mechanized facilities (the latter can build tanks, but it also automates and mechanizes your society so you get more dough (which is the agriculture in the game) , Armed forces are simple a waste of money..

SOOOPRIZE!!!!! SOOOOPRIZE!!!!! SOOPRIZE!!!!!

We foungt an International War Game (IWG) with that principle and everyone hated it.

Like we all know that right? There is no surprise here. But this obvious clear advantage that Tracy builds into the "No more war" game is always counterbalanced by the natural tendency of gamers to go for the force and conquest gambit-- I mean like-- we're wargamers right? We like men and tanks and planes right? I mean... we ARE going to go to war sometimes... aren't we.... aren't we? I even confess in the last turn to realizing that I, had 15 factories (the rest had no more than 5) and all the mechanization centers, and I could stamp an army out of the ground and take what I wanted, but... but... but then I couldn't role play as an amalgam of Adolf Hitler and Bill Sol Hargus!

But then... but then... we're SUPPOSED TO REBUILD-- aren't we... aren't we? I mean, it IS called AFTER the Holocoust... So...

You see the point. Tracy has achieved the aim of the game without one rule, without one iteration of activity to force the players this way or that. I take this as the mark of a top notch game designer. He did in his game what I failed in IWG.

Now with different players it would be different. I know if I had been facing John Desmond I would have had to exterminate him. He just can't be trusted, but Norm, Gavin, and Ethan- great guys, they can be trusted and if so, as shown, we all lived happily ever after

Think about chance cards. That could rescue the game from stalemate.

But on the other hand.... everyone had a monstrously good time, everyone passed pleasant hours with excitement, fun, and adventure, and everyone won, and didn't feel it amis.

NAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!! Don't change a thingless