The Best RPG I ever played in, wasn't one.

Recently I wrote about how the historical wargaming hobby was eaten alive by D&D in the late 70s, but some interesting hybrids did emerge from the fray. I'd like to put the spotlight on one Mr. Peter Rice of Bath, ME and his man-to-man WWII combat game, Follow Me. Peter was one of the pipe-puffing vets I mentioned in the above-linked post. He ran a wargame shop and helped organize cons in the northeast. Peter was one to roll with the changes, and when the D&D wave hit, he obliged -- I bought lots of lead off the man on my excursions up to his shop, mostly Heritage Fantastiques and early Ral Partha 25mm. Follow me if you want to hear more...

He published Follow Me in 1979, and I had the good fortune to play in several one-shot scenarios refereed by Peter at various cons. Picture a beautifully landscaped table with styrofoam scenery, hedges, trees, roads, farmhouses. Exquisitely painted 15mm troops and vehicles. We played with up to five or six guys on each side. It was strict fog of war, with hidden movement managed on a map. The minis didn't come out until your squad stumbled into an ambush or your M4 Sherman wheeled around a corner to find a snotty-nosed Hitlerjugend waiting there with a Panzerfaust. It was white-knuckle stuff -- I've never felt more immersed in a virtual world than playing in those games. The rules were insanely detailed. I seem to remember lots of charts, and a table to determine the effective size of a target at a given range. Hit location was vivid and gruesome. No hit points, but you might find yourself bleeding out from a severed artery or blown to bits. Fortunately Peter did most of the number crunching. You just told him what your men were shooting at and he did the rest.

I think the best of the best was being one of a stick of German fallschirmjaeger paratroops landing on British-held Crete. Peter actually lined us up and had us jump as if we were exiting our air transport. We were scattered and spent the first hour of the game trying to find each other, as the Brits tried to find us. Each of us had maybe three or four men, and when you lost one, it hurt. My heart starts racing a bit even now, thinking about creeping along a road and wondering when the first shot was going to ring out. It was the kind of immersive, suspenseful experience many people say they want an RPG to be, but it lacked most of the "essential" elements: no ability scores, no characters to speak of, completely mundane, no level-ups. Just a disciplined, impartial referee and a high-risk gameworld.