Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Games Britannia

I wouldn't be surprised if no one else has watched this as it's on BBC4 but last night was an interesting episode on Victorian-modern boardgames.

A lot on Monopoly and Cluedo of course, but also passing mention of wargaming and a couple of minutes on Dungeons and Dragons - which was generally quite misinformed, GW was credited with creating D&D for example.

Ended with the War on Terror game though which was unexpected and now makes me fancy playing it (though not sharing the 'evil' balaclava!)

The first episode on ancient games was pretty good too, but inevitably the last episode will be devoted to computer games; rather outside my preferred interests, but probably worth a look.

Bound to be repeated oft times in the coming months; and is on the BBC I-Player if you have access to the technology. If you missed it, give it a look.

Now when will Wargaming make one of it's ill fated appearances on TV again?

3 comments:

  1. Saw that episode too, by pure chance. Was also rather surprised at seeing G.W. credited with D.&D.!

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  2. I watched that. Really enjoyed it. After watching the bit on Monopoly had the urge to play a game as not done so for years. Completely missed episode 1 by accident.

    Thought it was strange GW credited with D&D. Who did create D&D?

    Thought that War on Terror looked fun. Would like to play it and use the evil balaclava. Hey, if its part of the game....

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  3. D&D was of course the brainchild of the late Gary Gygax, and originally was published by TSR in the USA.

    Games workshop was the original importer to the UK, but was never licensee and so did not have its name only the product, unlike say, its relationship with Chaosim, who produced Runequest and Cthulu.

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