Making Sausages

Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck once said, "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." I think a good case could be made that the same is true for ASL scenario playtesting and development. Most of the time, most ASL players don't give much thought to how the scenario in front of them was created, nor is there any reason for them to. The exception is when they encounter a "dog" (i.e., unbalanced) scenario, or a scenario that clearly has some sort of rules or interpretation problem. Then one hears the irritated lament, "Was this thing even playtested?"

The answer may be no. Or the answer may be that it was not playtested enough, or not enough in the right way, or by the right players, or simply that the correct lessons were not learned from the playtesting that occurred. Sometimes a scenario turns out problematical or unbalanced because the publishers were lazy, sloppy, or incompetent. But often it turns out that way through no fault of their own. The bottom line, though, is that while extensive playtesting cannot guarantee that a scenario will be balanced or fun, the lack of such playtesting certainly raises the risk of such an outcome.

2009: The Year in ASL

Today is January 1. The Old Year has exited the map and the New Year is on the board edge, waiting for the MPh so it can enter. A propitious time, then, to take a look back at the year 2009 as it pertains to the Advanced Squad Leader world and even to offer a few awards and plaudits.

Some things are universal. We all had worse dice luck than we deserved, while all of our wins were achieved through skill alone. None of us got to play as much as we wanted to, and we all waited for ASL products that never appeared.

How many ASL products did appear in 2009? Yesterday, the year’s last ASL items arrived at my doorstep, Le Franc Tireur #12 and Command & Strategy #7 (a general wargaming magazine with a minor amount of ASL content; see upcoming write-up in the World of ASL compendium). This means that , aside from reprints and re-issues, there were around 16 issues of general wargaming magazines that had at least one ASL or ASLSK scenario in them, about 9 issues of ASL related newsletters (including two issues of Dispatches from the Bunker, which includes scenarios), about 15 third party ASL modules and scenario packs, two official ASL products, and one official ASLSK product. In addition, there were a multitude of problematical “Wild Bill Wilder” items (see below).