I do like an umpired game and I’m particularly keen when I'm unfamiliar with the rules but the umpire is a walking, talking, 3D version of the rulebook. That meant I was already keen when friend of the magazine Pete Brown offered to umpire a game based on a battle in the Irish rebellion of 1798. On this occasion I was familiar with the rules - Black Powder - but I wasn’t familiar with the concept Pete was going to introduce; freeform gaming. Inspired by roleplaying games such as D&D, Pete wanted to umpire a game that was based on Black Powder, but which allowed players to bend, break, and invent new rules in order to introduce elements which, in a normal two-player game of BP, would not be possible. Internal walls were no barrier to the action. Based on the historical Battle of New Ross, Pete was able to introduce myriad (almost unbelievable!) events from the actual battle - drunken Irishmen, sleeping generals, stampeding cows - which we players had to cope with, and we were allowed to do whatever we liked without conforming to the rules. This led to fighting taking place between the internal walls of houses, a unit of troops being waylaid in the pub, and a man sticking his wig down the barrel of a cannon in an effort to spike it! That was just a few of the entertaining events in this hoot of a game. My Irish rebels were far more interested in the ale wagon than the fighting. Pete will be covering all the action from our game in a two-part article that begins with the history and concepts of freeform gaming and concludes with how it practically worked out in our battle. Suffice to say, once you’ve freeformed it’s hard to go back to sticking to the rules! P.S. Trent Miniatures (available from Skytrex) Irish Rebellion figures are used throughout.
