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You can find it in P500
-Who is Dave Townsend?As a youngster I played chess and various kids' games with my dad and my friends. At some point around age 12 I ran across an ad in a magazine for Avalon Hill's Battle of the Bulge game. I didn't have much knowledge of, or interest in, history at that point. But the ad showed part of the game's map and unit, which I found intriguing. I went to a local toy store -- toy stores carried wargames back then -- bought the game, and so started my wargaming hobby.
Wanting to better the understand what the games were representing led to a budding interest in history. And so began the fun vicious circle of games leading me to relevant books, which lead me back to games, and so on. This is a circle I'm still very much stuck in.
For a long time I was something of a wargames snob, but the arrival of my children coincided with the burgeoning popularity of "German" games (Settlers of Catan, etc.) which were more kid-friendly, and as the family sampled them we found they were often a great deal of fun.
So my gaming tastes have broadened. These days, I've even branched out to miniatures. Game stores which cater to all types of games are now my favorite.
I originally self-published Wings for the Baron in "kit" form, with the buyer responsible for cutting apart the cardstock card decks and mounting the counters. This would be back in 2008, quite a long time ago at this point. It sold surprisingly (to me) well, despite my nearly complete unsuitability as a salesman.
I tried submitting it to a few publishers, but got no bites despite decent reviews from my customers. Among those publishers was Victory Point Games (VPG), where there was a bit of an email discussion. But that gradually tapered off into nothing, and so at that point I wrote the opportunity off.
Two years later there was a shakeup at VPG, Alan Emrich ran across the game in their files, and he was kind enough to reach out to me regarding publication.
Alan was enthusiastic about the game and soon enough Wings for the Baron joined the rest of the VPG line. It got upgraded artwork, mounted counters, special company powers, a fifth player, a number of rules revisions to smooth some rough edges in the original version, and a campaign game with expanded rules and options.
Over the years the game has accumulated a dedicated following -- the folks that like the game seem to really like it -- and one especially dedicated fan, Steve Bradford, was determined to get the game back in print after VPG stopped publishing it. Steve introduced the game to the folks at GMT, and they were willing to invest the effort for re-re-publication.
This gives us the opportunity to improve, well, everything. The art is being reworked, a sixth player has been added, the rules are being rewritten, and small gameplay tweaks are being made to improve the play experience. In sum, the deluxe edition should be an even better package than the second edition, much less the first!
-Tell us about the game and its mechanics.
Wings for the Baron is an economic game taking place during World War I. The players run one of the famous German airplane manufacturers -- Albatros, Fokker, and so on. They compete to develop the best airplane designs; the best designs get the most government contracts, and those contracts are points. Whoever has the most points when the war ends wins the game.
Each turn, you choose two actions from five possibilities: Build, Research, Design, Espionage, and Bank.
Build lets you construct factories, which are important because the number of factories you have acts as a cap on how many contracts (= points!) you can fulfill.
Researching lets you Technology/Event cards, which provide technology advances and helpful events.
Design is how you translate your researched technologies into an actual aircraft design.
Espionage lets you attempt to steal a developed technology from an opponent.
Bank lets you inflation-proof your points, which otherwise can be eaten away through the course of the war.
Since you can only choose two actions, the fun comes from trying to decide which actions to use. You usually wish you could do more than two!
Actions are chosen secretly and simultaneously, and are quick to resolve. I like this because I've always hated downtime in games.
After actions, contracts are rewarded in order from the best design to the worst. It's important to have competitive designs, as the contract awards procedure heavily penalizes you for falling behind your competitors.
At the end of each turn, a War Status card is drawn, which randomly lowers the morale of both the Germans and the Allies. When either side's morale reaches zero, the war is over and the winner of the game is determined. The uncertainty in the morale changes means that you can usually tell when the end is near, but you can't know for sure -- which is entirely historical.
Throughout the game, events spice things up with famous aces (such as the Red Baron who the wings are for...), talented engineers, fires, political preferences, and so on.
An expanded game allows the players to compete in developing reconnaissance and bomber airplane types as well, in addition to the fighters used in the basic game.
The result of all this is a game that works well and plays quickly no matter how many players there are. I've taught and played a round of the basic game with experienced gamers in an hour flat. And even players who have decided the game is not for them allow that the game is rich in period detail, where the game mechanics arise from the history rather than being just window-dressing around an abstract system.
-Tell us about the solitary system.
I should start by crediting Ken Keller, a fan who designed the solitaire system. The system allows the solo player to compete against two to four other "players". The more opponents you use, the harder it will be for you to win.
The human player follows the rules as normal. Since it would be extremely difficult to program the logic for how best to use the cards, the "robot" players use rules designed to simulate the effect of the normal human actions even though they don't use the normal mechanics. The robot rules include some randomization to add variety and make them less predictable.
Nothing can replace the infinite variety of human opponents, but the solitaire experience is a pretty reasonable recreation of a regular multiplayer game. Also, if you lose, no one needs to know!
With only one published design, I don't yet have the opportunity to deluxe up, or "solitarize" other games. But maybe some notes on future plans would be of interest?
Wings for the Baron was originally a side project arising from Above the Trenches, a game design I've been puttering around with off and on for nearly twenty years now. It covers the WW1 air war at the strategic level, with technical development and supporting your ground troops being the point of the game. Most of the WW1 aviation games are dogfighting games. Which are a lot of fun, no question. However, artillery spotting and reconnaissance were really the point of aviation in the period. The fighters are important for denying those capabilities to your enemy, rather than being important in themselves. Those dogfighting games don't really reflect that, so that's what Above the Trenches highlights.
Anyway, in the course of researching WW1 aviation history for Above the Trenches, the thought occurred to me that the fighter design competitions, which the Germans held quarterly, would make an interesting game. That was the genesis of Wings for the Baron, of course. But I still think a lot about Above the Trenches, and still hope to produce it one day.
My current project, though, is Oligarchs, a simple game of the richest people in a fictional country trying to steal as much from their ministries in order to acquire the most real estate, yachts, and paramours. It's a bit cynical, and the unfortunate inspiration is perhaps obvious. The game's gone over well with my playtesters, and as with Wings for the Baron I'm pretty happy with how the "history" is driving the game design rather than the other way around. I hope to see it published some day.
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