25JUN12 In anticipation of Ogre 6th Edition…

I’m a bit excited about the latest version of Steve Jackson Games FLAGSHIP product.  It all started as a “Microgame” pocket game in the late 1970’s and has bloomed…  Inspired by Keith Laumer’s “Bolo” GIANT self aware cybertanks, Ogres are much grittier and live in a bit of more Cold War world inspired world of the North American Combine, Paneuropean Union, and Nihon Empire.  They also sling around nukes all the time…  Making them much more devastating than other weapons systems in SF…  Not that I don’t have plenty of bi-pedal armored war machines floating around in my own game collection…

20JUL10 The RPG Tank…

Be very careful what you tell players, in fact, you might want to clarify depending on genre…  After all, with a game system like GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System by Steve Jackson Games, http://www.sjgames.com) you certainly have to.  After all, you never know what sourcebook a player might have picked up and what kind of character they slipped into your game world!  Yes, I’m such a Munchkin…

Most references to various games are Copyright Steve Jackson Games.  “Bolo” is reference to the giant cyber tanks which are the brain child of Keith Laumer (and an inspiration to S.J. and crew) along with “Gottlos” being the cyborg tank idea of Colin Kapp (Analog Collected works Number 8, picked up at a library book sale years ago!).  Fans of “Ogre/GEV” will instantly recognize the references to the orignal ideas that inspired Ogre.

What can I say, I find the idea of giant self aware tanks that pack enough firepower to match an armored company pretty fun as a science fiction game concept.  My roleplaying game experience is pretty limited, so when I first heard ‘tank’ in reference to Fantasy RPG’s you can imagine the devious thoughts that went through my head.  As I’ve been a GURPS book reader and Ogre player since the age of 12…  The fact that I have some friends who might play a GURPS Fantasy module and I have GURPS Ogre on my shelf…