Admittedly the coverage of solo gaming methods feels kind of skimpy and light on details. It's certainly not revelatory for anyone with an Internet connection. When it came out, however, in 1988, Featherstone's classic on the subject had been out of print for some time and I'm sure this book was undoubtedly helpful in encouraging someone to try their hand at solo gaming.
Had I encountered this book in 1988 it would have blown my mind - I had an interest in wargaming after an encounter some years earlier with what I believe now was likely a Featherstone book, but my mind could not conceive of how I would play such games by myself. I had managed to wrangle my friends - who were all much cooler than me - into playing Dungeons & Dragons and it seemed best to quit while I was ahead.
In any case, it's not 1988, and I have access to the Web, a reprint of Featherstone, and a back issue collection of Lone Warrior going back about 10 years, so I bought this out of curiosity, not for solo mechanisms. The stand out for me is that there are quite a few scenarios for inspiration, all the way from"Small Scale Actions" to a sample programmed scenario borrowed from Grant's book - to my mind, these make the book worth the price of admission (which in my case, was less than $9 USD).
For a more in-depth review, here's a review on the Lone Warrior site.
It is a nice straightforward book. Last year I picked up a secondhand copy. Mostly because I used to own one and lost it at some point. I also picked up The Solo Wargaming Guide by William Silvester and published by Precis International, which had many practical ideas for gaming and solo campaigns.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the reminder about The Solo Wargaming Guide by William Silvester. I picked it up a few years ago as a PDF but never really read it and had since totally forgotten I had it!
DeleteI have Grant's Solo Wargaming, and it is chock full of ideas, also.
ReplyDeleteStill, most things are pretty obvious, like dicing for obvious 2-3 choice decisions that make sense, or pre-planning the OPFOR along some likely choices.
Interestingly, I usually do nothing, since whichever side I'm on I'm usually so focused on "the plan" that I make mistakes I can exploit when I put on the other hat! Maybe a split-personality issue??
:)