Tonight, I got to play Space Hulk for the first time in several years. Well, in over a decade. I never actually played the game much – one or two games at most – but I broke down and bought the recent Games Workshop rerelease of the game.
Randy played the Genestealers (appropriately, his username on BGG is genesteeler), and I played the marines. How did it go for the marines? Not so well.
Space Hulk is about the marines fighting against incredible odds. Yes, they certainly were incredibly this game, and I lost handily. I hope I do better next time!
(For the full pictorial session report, I’ve uploaded it to Boardgamegeek here).
Randy commented after the game that the game was like Doom: the Boardgame (heh, as we both know, it’s the other way around) but with all the bloat taken out. The game plays fast. It feels fast. There’s a timer on the Marines! Once we get to the bigger scenarios, the game will become even more fun. Oh, and we’ll need to play it on a bigger table!
Mechanics getting in the way of what the game actually does is a problem with many, many games. BattleTech, D&D, ASL – I’m sure you can think of more. One of the great things about the advent of the Eurogame was that it stripped away a lot of the needless complexity of boardgames and left the core experience – which was a superior one.
This isn’t to say that getting rid of all mechanics is always the best course. I enjoy ASL, and a lot of that enjoyment comes from knowing that it can handle unusual situations. The chrome of games is important too – but not to every game.
D&D 4E is in a funny place right now. A lot of the chrome of 3e which, frankly, was making the game extremely hard to DM at high levels and a lot harder to balance has been stripped away – but new chrome has been added. The basics of D&D involve rolling a d20 to hit, an AC, and rolling odd polyhedrals to reduce hit points. It’s what you layer on top of that which determines edition and feel. OD&D didn’t have much more than the basics; 4e has considerably more than that.
My personal feeling is that 5e, when it comes out, will revert to more like a 1e approach to characters, but keep a 4e sensibility to balance and DM duties. Thus, the strict power set-up will disappear and a more free way of showing PC capabilities.
For now, though, I’m going to enjoy Space Hulk, BattleTech, D&D 4E, and my other wonderful games!