PanzerBlitz

Tabletop Board Wargame

An intense interest in history and a love of games in general combined to produce my enthusiasm for wargames starting at an early age. As I recall, a lot of the games from my youth included a statement such as "for ages 12 and up" and that is about the age I was when I managed to acquire my first board wargame. It was titled Waterloo and featured a blue monochrome image of Napoleon on horseback which seems cribbed from a painting by Ernest Meissonier. I no longer have that game, but I have purchased many other map and cardboard chit wargames in the years following.

The game PanzerBlitz was published by the Avalon Hill Game Company in 1970 as one of their new Bookcase Games. It was widely available in department and toy stores and hobby shops and it ranks today as one of the best selling wargames of all time. Finding a second hand copy is therefore not a difficult task. 

I came to PanzerBlitz (PB) rather later than many, years after its release in fact. My first recollection of playing PB is at a high-school friend's house in the late 1970s. As I recall now, I thought it compared poorly to the wargames we had been playing with miniature tanks. (Today, I would say I was missing the point of PB back then.) 

It would be another decade plus before I purchased a copy of PB for my collection and I started to really look at the game in a serious way. Designed by James F. Dunnigan (publisher of Strategy & Tactics Magazine and founder of SPI) to be a tactical game on the platoon and company level, PB is not meant to feel like "tank on tank" as many wargames using miniatures do. 

As the years have progressed and I have revisited PB numerous times, the game has taken on some additional charm for me. Nostalgia doubtlessly plays its part in my appreciation of PB, but the game design itself seems much more sophisticated today than I originally thought. Although it includes a combat results table (odds based CRT) and units can be eliminated during play, PanzerBlitz is primarily a game of maneuver. It also includes a level of abstraction that probably annoyed the teenage me, but which plays well with me at my present age.

PanzerBlitz was an innovative design for its day and introduced the hobby to a number of concepts we see in many later games. The tank silhouettes used on the playing pieces is I believe the first time I saw that done. The game includes three geomorphic map boards that may be arranged in a variety of ways to produce a number of different battlefield maps. The game is setup and played using the map boards and unit pieces according to a situation card. There are twelve situations included in the game and many additional ones have been published in various sources including General Magazine (published by AH). Replay potential is practically endless as one varies the pieces used, the victory conditions and various map configurations.

PanzerBlitz is quick to learn and quick to play. Many of the situation cards have one side (German or Russian) attacking a basically static defender making the game friendly to solitaire as well as one-on-one play. The situations include a variety of missions, and today I see the game as having value as a tool for learning mobile war(game) tactics. Attacking a prepared position, conducting a delaying or blocking defense, and planning and executing a raid behind enemy lines are among the several challenges that the various situation cards present. Each situation is unique, has levels of victory, and encourages trying different strategies through multiple play-throughs.

The game includes a campaign guide featuring vehicle data and silhouettes (as a teenager I loved this feature and memorized much of the data), unit organizations and designer notes and when combined with the variety of game pieces suggests many design it yourself possibilities to expand play. Although I have enjoyed many board wargames bearing the descriptor, "tactical", I find PB remains a particular favorite with its own niche. While other games offer more detailed combat crunch or chrome (hit location, gun penetration values, etc.) none that I have encountered quite equal PB for its mission based approach. The scope of PB allows me to see the situation from a tactical mission perspective, to picture and plan my methods with an eye toward achieving victory (in game terms!), and to accomplish the given mission (or perhaps to learn why mine was a "bad" plan) better than any other game I have found to date.  

The Basics of becoming an Expert DM

Blue Box Expert Advice

Yes, this title is a bit of a play on words. In my opinion the best "Beginner" version of The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game is Basic/Expert edited by Frank Mentzer and released circa 1983. Frequently referred to as BECMI, the acronym for Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal box sets, this version builds upon the original 1974 edition authored by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (often called ODD or White Box), and the previous "Basic" versions of J. Eric Holmes, and Tom Moldvay, David "Zeb" Cook and Steve Marsh (B/X). BECMI seems to be the most novice friendly and complete edition while retaining much of the spirit of free innovation and creativity that characterized the early days of the hobby. Using clear language accessible to everyone, in his Basic and Expert sets Mr. Mentzer describes how to roll the unusual dice, record important game data on your character sheet, map your first dungeon as a DM and create your own setting including home town and wilderness. 

In the Red Box BECMI basic set, the author describes how to begin play as a character (using a solo game) and how to draw and populate a beginner dungeon to run for your friends/family. Like the previous versions of Basic, this set covers play for character levels one to three and encourages the gamer to pursue higher levels by purchasing the next product.

Turning to the next in the series, the Blue Box Expert Set, we find a concise explanation of the process for designing a setting and suggestions for running a successful FRP campaign. In two short pages (pp. 28 & 37) of Expert, the essentials of "mastering the game" are presented in an organized and easy to follow manner. 

A careful reading of these two pages will reveal that taking the time for "thinking it through" is more important than anything you may put on paper. The setting "lives" in your head more than it exists in the maps, notes and boxed text you put on paper. By imagining a character "living" in your fictional world and making a mental note of their point-of-view, what they know, what they likely see, etc., we start to develop the "facts" regarding our fictional world. 

Mr. Mentzer suggests we start with what we know about the "real world" borrowing from things like gravity, weather, and technology (15th Century Europe is the game's default assumption, but it need not be yours) before we add in some fantasy "magic". This assumption of reality forms the basis for improvisation as we continue to imagine how the characters interact with their fictional world, especially during play when the unexpected is sure to happen. We simply cannot pre-plan for everything. Preparation for the campaign is primarily getting yourself into the mindset of our fictional setting.

Blue Box Expert suggests one start the process of actually putting things on paper by designing the home town. In Basic we learned that the dungeon is the "basic" setting for the game. Expert adds a wider context, the world in which our characters spend their days and will find the dungeon. In this way the game shifts from a series of episodic delving sessions to campaign play and continuity takes on meaning. 

In designing our fictional world, the guiding principal is to start local and to keep it relevant to play. One need not create all the heavens and earth prior to our first session. A small area will suffice. Place the home town/starting place from which the characters will venture out seeking fame and fortune at the center. Place the dungeon nearby so the party can easily go back and forth. Give some thought (from a characters' perspective) as to what lies just beyond the local area. Expert suggests giving some thought to the area under human control, the area under non-human control, and how power is exercised. (A rumor or two may be a nice incentive for exploration.)

Home Town is a place where services are available, NPCs abound, and rumors can be heard. It is wise to make Home Town a safe place (at least in the beginning of the campaign) as the dungeon and wilderness will offer enough danger and excitement. (If we think about it, a place of safety is probably why the town was built to begin with.) The PCs may be seen as "intruders" by the locals or themselves be natives to Home Town. Home Town will connect by road or river to other sources of trade and will offer a local market place for goods. It will thus likely attract the attention of thieves or bandits at some point. 

When thinking about the setting, it is important to keep some objective perspective. The PCs are the most important drivers of play, but they are a relatively small part of the world in which they live. By portraying the NPCs as having their own business to go about you will add to the richness of your setting.

Expert doesn't do your work for you, however. The maps, descriptions, encounter tables, and adventure ideas presented in this section of Expert are merely examples meant to inspire your own creations rather than being "ready made" adventures. Setting down in type something for you to run simply by reading to your players was Basic, Expert teaches the art of running the game by first showing you (the DM) how to design our own version of a setting. To "master" the game is to go beyond merely applying the rules. To become a master is to become a "creator". 

Thus we have Expert step-by-step advice on designing your own setting and running a successful campaign all on less than two pages of text. 

Flavors of D&D

...and A Game About Nothing.

Almost a half century ago Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created The Original Fantasy Role-Playing Game and with its publication, started a new hobby - adventure gaming. As authors of  The World's First RPG, they forged ahead into uncharted territory while drawing upon their past experiences with another game genre, notably their shared interest in tabletop wargaming with miniature figures. It is perhaps no coincidence that Mr. Arneson looked to his Napoleonic wargames for inspiration, and Mr. Gygax relied  heavily for the new game's combat mechanic upon his previously published medieval miniatures wargame rules, Chainmail. What we the consumer got in their product, White Box D&D, is a somewhat incomplete guide "for running fantastic medieval wargames campaigns playable with paper pencil and miniature figures".

Over the decades since its publication, the original game has been altered, added to, and advanced so that we hobby gamers currently have multiple versions of the World's Most Popular RPG to choose from today, including several official editions and many other less official flavors which are not published by the current IP holder. Each version of the game seems different enough, while all remain somewhat the same, so that I tend to think of them collectively as "the various flavors of the D&D hobby". A summary of the menu includes the following "official edition" entrées:

Do it yourself - The Original Edition heavily based on tabletop miniatures wargaming, seems aimed at a wargame audience. Typical of miniature wargames rules of the day, it requires a referee to run the game and one who is willing to add to the rules as written and customize play at their table. It relies on the referee having access to the previously published Chainmail rules (especially its Fantasy Supplement) and a popular boardgame (Outdoor Survival) in order to make full use of this product.

  

Tournament style - The Advanced Game delivered in a new hardcover format is the author's personalized vision of how the game should be. Written in full Gygaxian style and tone, the author's stated intent is to standardize the game so that tournament play is reasonably attainable. Advanced establishes the game as a distinct brand and will define "fantasy" for an entire generation.

Accessible for everyone - Basic, especially in its Red Box version, places emphasis on being user friendly and inviting. It teaches the uninitiated how to play and DM using a programmed introduction and solo play to ease one into the game. Far from being an inferior version of the rules that are just aimed at beginners, the Basic Game retains much of the original philosophy and appeal of the original version for veterans such as myself.

The Open License - 3/3.5 is a fresh vision of a new publisher for just how to play the game. This version seems to envision the IP as everything for everyone and it combines various subsystems borrowed from various other games under the familiar IP branding. This edition makes use of miniatures as the standard for play and its many tomes demonstrates that a desire to be all things to all gamers can result in too much of a good thing.

Going almost digital  - A continued desire on the part of the IP holder for the game to be the all-purpose solution for all your gaming needs, 4e is an acquired taste. While it has its loyal fans, it remains the least popular version of our game. Its lack of universal appeal leads to products such as those published by Paizo and the OSR - all using the famous game's OGL. Did I mention that the Open Game License is a really good thing for the hobby in general.

Finally, the Next version - It is an 800 pound gorilla in the game room and has outstripped all others in popularity. The IP holder has again borrowed ideas from a number of independent press RPG products (many using the OGL) in an initial attempt to win back the fanbase, but coincidentally also stumbles upon a large number of new consumers thanks to certain internet influencers. Capitalizing on the popularity of online streaming and televised shows that include dramatic interpretations of tabletop play or nostalgic scenes featuring classic versions of the game, the current edition outstrips all previous versions in popularity despite being frequently derided for having abandoned its roots. Criticism aside, record sales for nearly every official 5e release is virtually assured as the game has become a pop culture lifestyle brand. 5e is seemingly poised to be the one game to rule them all. 

We've come a long way from being just a bunch of nerdy hobbyists with a shared love for games and fantasy stories.

Acquisition & Investigation

Why I Play TTRPGs

The simple answer is of course "we play for fun and fellowship". It is my nature to question the obvious and to dig a little deeper and what follows is my (current) thoughts on the role of "acquiring" and of "discovery" as they pertain in the hobby of tabletop gaming.

The online "old school renaissance community" has a saying/mantra, "we play to find out". This sentiment suggests that we won't have a script to follow, no pre-written story as it were. It also alludes to the investigation side of adventure games as is evident on many levels in all that we discover through the act of playing. 

Exploration and discovery may lead to the acquisition of great (character) wealth, magic and power as we advance our in-game persona - the player character - through application of various aspects of the game's mechanics. Experience for all those gold pieces snatched from monstrous lairs and brought to the surface, and maybe spent on training or other services, can be one common old school source of "experience points". 

XP or experience points are accumulated through treasure or defeating monsters and as it adds up will eventually allow the player to "level up" their character, thus acquiring greater (superhero!) abilities and power. Higher level characters are better equipped to delve deeper into dungeons and can undertake more dangerous quests by virtue of having more hit points and access to more damaging weapons and magic. This is the essence of  the acquisition side of the game (although the game always hinted at establishing a stronghold from which one would wield political power).

Investigation is the defining activity in some tabletop roleplaying games - Call of Cthulhu player characters are called "Investigators" and it therefore immediately comes to mind. But investigation (asking questions), and discovery through both exploration and role-play, is not unique to Call of Cthulhu and they have been an essential play element of the hobby even from its earliest days. 

The dungeon environs are by their vary nature unusual and filled with tricks and traps and fantastic creatures. The discovery of just what lies buried beneath the surface of our fictional world of fantasy adventure is a huge part of the fun to be found in playing. Balancing knowledge of what is different than the real world, and what is the same, is an essential part of "playing the game". 

Designing and Stocking the dungeon is a significant part of the enjoyment I get from taking the role of game referee. Discovering just how my players will solve the challenges they uncover while exploring my "dungeon" is the reward I have in mind when planning my sessions. Invariably my players will surprise me as they come up with ways to interact with my encounters that I could never have imagined. 

A typical tabletop RPG is two parts imagination (what the referee comes up with and what the players come up with), one part rule procedure and one part chance (the dice rolls). Applying the game rules during play (and adjusting the narrative per outcome of dice rolls) is always a constant challenge as I seek to improvise and act as game judge/referee, reacting to creative ideas as they are put forth by my players when they face-off with an interesting challenge. The more understanding the players have regarding the nature of our imaginary world serving as "the stage" upon which their characters "act out their part" in our "play" (as it were!), the better they are able to devise clever solutions to the problems being faced down by their characters. Example - consider the various oozes! (the mindless cleaning crew of dungeon halls) Some oozes (molds, etc.) are harmed by fire, others may feed on it, etc. Figuring out the specific vulnerabilities of these "dungeon ecology" creatures can be an enjoyable aspect of classic dungeon exploration and play. 

Originally aimed at a wargames audience (role-playing didn't exist as a gaming hobby until the 1974 publication of TSR's Original Edition), much of the emphasis of the classic game is on combat mechanics. The Original Fantasy Role-Playing Game has been described as a "dungeon skirmish" game. This is undoubtedly true, but there is a lot more to unpack. It is a game about acquiring and about investigation and discovery. 

Combining tactical combat wargaming elements with a fantastic setting filled with wonderous creatures, supernatural forces and virtually anything a referee can imagine (or lift from a source of inspiration), the games we now call tabletop RPGs are as much about climbing the ladder to character success and power, and finding out what is lurking unknown in the fictional world setting as it is about slaying monsters. 

High Fantasy

A Time and a Place for Imagination!

It has now been more than four decades since my personal journey in this hobby began. We today call what we do "playing role-playing games", but in the early days it was just a new sort of game, a bit different, but approached much as tabletop games had always been. The year 1977 saw my entry when I acquired a copy of the white box and little brown books just three years after its publication. The Original Fantasy Role-Playing Game was released in 1974 and had taken off in a way that probably exceeded even the most optimistic expectations and was from its start prompting many enthusiasts to experiment with rule variations, in addition to designing their own setting or dungeon. 1977 was also the year Jeffrey C. Dillow self published his ideas on tabletop role-playing in a game he called High Fantasy.

One need only glance at the cover of the first edition of High Fantasy to see that it is obviously an amateur publication. Almost everything in the then new hobby was in those early days of the 1970s. TSR, the company that introduced us to tabletop role-playing via its Original Fantasy Role-Playing Game rules, released the first of their hard cover Advanced Game book in 1977 (Monster Manuel) and with it the quality of production in the hobby moved from the strictly amateurish to a more polished and professional standard. TSR's first version of the Basic Set, edited by J. Eric Holmes, came packaged in a neat box featuring an engaging color illustration of a dragon atop treasure made it's debut in 1977 as well. It was a big year for the hobby.

As a collector of tabletop games, old and new, I have read a lot of rule systems, setting material and adventure modules. I have even played a few of them! High Fantasy is a system that I have returned to again and again, in my reading although I have only ever played it solo. I find the game interesting because it pioneers a number of ideas that will reemerge in later games, it shows a remarkable understanding of many of the finer points of running the game and because it is the work of a fellow Hoosier from the Indianapolis area. 

Like most fantasy role-playing games, High Fantasy relies on the character class archetype distinction of warriors verses wizards - those who adventure and fight with muscle power and those who rely upon magical power. The author of High Fantasy adds two original classes to the mix, Animal Masters and Alchemists - character classes that will also be revisited in many subsequent fantasy systems. The impressive part of character creation, in my opinion, is Mr. Dillow's introduction of Subclasses which add skill abilities to the Main Classes just described. In High Fantasy Thieves and Assassins are a Subclass available to a character of any Main Class. Seems appropriate when I consider the implications of playing a "thief". Other Subclasses include Hunter/Huntress, Healer, Historian (Archeologist), Martial Artist, Sensitive, Jeweler, and Armorer. With the probable exception of the Sensitive, all of the Subclass abilities are probably intuitive. The Sensitive Subclass bestows the following "skills" which are in addition to the Main Class abilities: Being able to transmit and receive thought; Being able to detect truth/falsehoods; Being able to locate a known person; A chance to deliver a "mental blast attack; and Being able to detect magic. All of the abilities function according to High Fantasy's percentile dice roll mechanic (yes this is an early example of a "universal mechanic").

In addition to the Subclass system, High Fantasy offers an optional "Talents" aspect to character creation. Talents include abilities acquired as part of the character's background and are diced for on tables including Business Background, Musical Background, Nautical Background, and several others. The specific background table rolled on can be at the player's discretion, but the actual Talents are determined randomly - yes this is 1977.

The person setting up the game and running it at the table is called its "Judge" in High Fantasy and Mr. Dillow has some advice for the Judge that seems appropriate across the several decades since the 1970s and useful for many systems. When creating your own "world" start small/local and build onto the setting as play expands. Giving some thought to why things exist as they do, treat NPCs as if they have their own motives and schemes separate from the player characters. (I have found this is an excellent way to bring life to the campaign.) Offer objectives to the players allowing them to choose their course of action, going where they will, exploring what interests them and attempting the task they find most appealing. High Fantasy lists a number of optional "Investments" into which players may wish to place the hard-earned cash of their PCs and there-by providing motivation beyond the immediate mission. A Wizard may Invest in magical or mundane studies. An Alchemist may wish to Invest in constructing a laboratory and experimenting with various alchemical recipes. The results of such Investment not only benefit's the PCs through gaining advanced abilities, but helps shape the campaign setting offering the players that much more agency. 

In the 1970s we had no internet community. The best place I found to make connection with other people interested in gaming was university and hobby shops. This seems to have been fairly common in those days. As a result, gaming groups tended to be local. It was conceivably quite common for a gaming group to accumulate a set of preferred practices or "house rules" that might eventually prompt one or more in the group to say, "Hey, these seem pretty playable, maybe we should write them up in a nice format and make them available for others to try!"

Looking back at the early games we played over 45 years ago, I am amazed at how much the early designers seem to have gotten "right". The advice given to players and referees regarding "how to play" demonstrated a depth of understanding even in those days about what makes a tabletop game fun to play. Looking back upon many of the products marketed in the 1970s, they often seem as relevant now as anything I encounter being published today - at least in some respects. Fun, creativity, and comradery based upon a shared interest remain central themes across the hobby. High Fantasy is most definitely a product reflecting a specific time and place. I doubt that it ever gained a huge following, but it provides a glimpse into our hobby's past and is a unique vehicle for exploring science fiction and fantasy adventure for anyone with an interest in doing so using a system that seems fresh with new discovery each time I reacquaint myself with it.

And did I mention there are some pretty decent solo adventures written for High Fantasy which I have found to replay quite well.

Nuts!

Musings on Game Design and other Remembrances
In 1965 the Avalon Hill Game Company published The Battle of the Bulge - a map and counter strategy game for ages "12 years & up". Founded in 1952 by Charles S. Roberts, the Avalon Hill Game Company regularly released new strategy games through the 1970s, many new titles (as I recall) were published each year, all aimed at a mass market audience and widely available when I was a young gamer. Their catalog included games based on various subjects related to sports, business and military history. As a boy who was especially interested in sports and military history, I suppose I was part of their target market demographic even before I reached the suggested age of "12 years".

I recall being desirous of laying my hands upon the intriguing history games as soon as I saw one in a local store. I eagerly anticipated the fun promised by the mere thought of playing such an "advanced" game. The Battle of the Bulge was not the first Avalon Hill game I acquired, but it is a game that holds up well today - even though it was designed 57 years ago - and it is the game that is prompting me to write about today's subject. Some games are classics because their appeal seems timeless. 

In 1965:

Lyndon B. Johnson was president of the United States and his "Great Society" was taking form in the wake of an expanding war in southeast Asia.

The NASA space program launched its first two-person Gemini mission - the moon was a dream. 

The Beatles were still taking the music world by storm.

The musical drama film The Sound of Music won the Academy Award for Best Picture (along with 4 other awards).

I make mention of these items of remote historical interest by way of demonstrating that the world was in many respects a very different place in 1965 from what it is today.

But back to the present and the topic of games: I recently played Avalon Hill's 1965 version of The Battle of the Bulge. It has been some time since I had last played this game and in the interval have played many other games based on the same events history knows as the Battle of the Bulge and I have read a number of books on the subject in those years since last playing the game. It seems not unlikely that several thoughts on the matter have been brought into my mind in the intervening years since last I played Avalon Hill's classic. 

I am delighted to say that I enjoyed my recent revisit with the old Avalon Hill "hex and counter" wargame pictured above. In all honesty was not expecting the game to provide the level of engagement that I experienced while playing and the degree of mental challenge the system seems to present in different ways to both the Allied and German player. (I had also forgotten the game has an "Introductory" and an Advanced or "Tournament" mode of play, but that fact seems less significant.) Incidentally, I consider the "Introductory" game, as it styles itself, a decent strategy game - and one that is probably well suited as an introduction to the hobby of wargaming. 

Even more to my surprise is the take-away idea that I now have that The Avalon Hill Game Company's The Battle of the Bulge game is probably the basis and inspiration of many of the more detailed games on the subject that I have played since 1965. Informed as I am today by material and ideas I did not have access to years ago, my perspective has "evolved". I thought new thoughts as I worked my way through an old game design and made comparisons and had many "what if" moments as I thought about how I might "house rule" the 1965 game. 

During my recent play of The Battle of the Bulge I  also found myself wondering whether this Avalon Hill game may have served as a starting point for many of the later games, those featuring more elaborate rule mechanics, including many of the ones that I have personally encountered playing more recently released games on the subject. Traffic congestion, limited supply, weather conditions, surprise, and many other historical details written about this battle have been incorporated into various other games in an effort to make them a more "realistic" Battle of the Bulge game.

It is the nature of things that they be improved upon over time. Human beings find inspiration in one idea and in combination with data, experience and innovation, expand upon the idea and sometimes improve it!

If this sounds familiar, I think it should! The fantasy role-playing hobby has often taken a similar development path with respect to the original game designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson back in 1974. By adding to, and by adjusting things, even by taking away from one rule or another, and by replacing various mechanical aspects of the rules with a different mechanic, game developers have sought to improve upon play and to customize the game, all while making use of some of the basic concepts established in that original design. Variations on a theme - I would say borrowing an analogy from my study of music. Simply put, we build upon what came before.  

So one may ask about the title of this post - "Nuts!". As it is explained on the cover of The Battle of the Bulge 1965 game box, "Nuts!" is the famous one-word reply the American commander gave to a German Commander's request for the American troops to surrender during the actual battle.

Tool-Kit TTRPGs

GURPS

My continuing thoughts on the nature of tabletop role-playing games and my personal quest for a game to devote my hobby energies to for the near future bring me to ponder the class of "generic" role-playing game systems I like to call "tool-kit games". Perhaps the first entry in this group should be to mention our Original Fantasy Role-Playing Game, the White Box edition of Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson. Being both modular and seemingly designed to be very open to modification, the original edition of The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game has spawned numerous homebrew rules. Some even saw publication as games in their own right. 

Today, my thoughts turn to GURPS, the Generic Universal Role Playing System designed by Steve Jackson and published by Steve Jackson Games (1986, 1988, 2004). It's one of the first games to openly state the attempt to provide a universal system that can be adapted to any genre.  Rather than switching systems every time one changes genre, GURPS attempts to provide players with a "one game to rule them all" type of solution. 

Built on the bones of an earlier game designed by Steve Jackson (The Fantasy Trip, Metagaming, 1977), GURPS in all its editions includes a number of mechanical features that place emphasis on a tactical feel and which reference real world measurement units and real world data. Known scientific phenomena about our world and universe is a starting point with GURPS, both as a way to ease transition between game system and reality and as an aid to verisimilitude. Use of supplemental material that is written for other game systems is encouraged and the use of real world terminology is meant to ease the process of doing so.

Despite Mr. Gygax famously deriding "realism in gaming" as a "bugaboo" the concept holds water in my estimation. As a fan of horror in gaming, a central feature of that "sense" is connection to the "real". (There is a good reason writers of horror fiction go to great lengths to describe the mundane such as describing "a sweating coke can on a wooden desk...because it is something we can all see in our mind's eye and it sets the stage for contrast.) 

The feeling of "realism" in a game can be helpful in certain aspects other than horror, particularly when dealing with baseline assumptions about how things should work. Generally I am a fan of game mechanics that seem to simulate real world conditions. Magic seems so much more fantastic when the backdrop is mundane reality and is a lot more imaginable when everything else seems real. 

The real appeal of GURPS, however, is its adaptability. It can be just the game you want it to be. By including some mechanical systems, and excluding others, the gamemaster can pick and choose among the tools GURPS offers. Rather than being a game where all the rules apply to every game, GURPS is a collection of "optional" rules to include, or not to include in any particular game. The person running the game obviously has a lot of decisions to make prior to the first game session - and that can be a joy or a chore depending upon how one approaches preparation. 

Fortunately the basic system in GURPS is quite easy to grasp and being a system based on real world data, I find its methods intuitive and logical to use. To put it simply, at its core, GURPS is an easy game to play. It boils down to "options". Include as many as you like, or just run with the barest of mechanics, the 3d6 dice roll under a stat to succeed mechanic. 

All this isn't really the point of discussing GURPS in the present, rather what recommends GURPS to me at the moment is its adaptability. I can customize GURPS to give me what I wish for in a game - and by extension leave aside all the stuff I find distracting and frustrating about other systems that assume one will use "all the rules as the authors present them". GURPS is in fact built with a "design it yourself" mindset. 

I have found that a significant amount of the enjoyment I gain from this hobby is through my "tinkering" with the game's rules and doing some "beyond the box" amateur designing of almost any published game system I play. Hence the appeal of the Old School approach and games such as White Box and GURPS. Rulings are a challenging part of the fun I experience as referee in setting up and planning a campaign, in running sessions at the table and even when thinking about and writing down my thoughts on the hobby. Looking things up in a big tome of rules is okay, but...

A significant part of the appeal I find in The Original Fantasy Role-Playing Game is the invitation to add to the rules, to make them "my game" through world building, various and myriad in-session rulings and mechanical customizations. The modular nature of the original White Box' rule system makes it easy to add to or alter game mechanic elements without damaging the game's integrity. The blatant absence of particular aspects in the rules as written makes some degree of "design it yourself" almost mandatory. Various "tool kit" games have been published in the decades following the release of the White Box edition and I find the possibilities of a generic system such as GURPS quite alluring. (I am guessing there may be more thoughts to follow.)