Duelmasters: An Old-Timer Reminisces From: ccmdenis@george.ucdavis.edu (Dennis Cleary) Date: Mon, 25 May 1992 22:10:18 +0000 Reading Garth's article about the 6 types of managers (well, 5 but who's counting?) made me think about how I manage. What exactly is my style? Let me pontificate... I started on turn 1 of Aruak (11), the duedate: January 31th, 1985. My team was the Myrmidons, and I had absolutely no idea how to run any style (this was before the DM sponsor program), so I read what RSI had to say, went big and strong and small and deft. The gem of my first team was a 13-10-5-12-11-19-14 PR who started with expert riposte on the roll-up. I had no idea what this meant, but figured it couldn't be bad and was quite glad about it. However, experts != wins, and I ended up DA'ing him at something like 2-6, discovering that the Dark Arena is a great place to learn about favorite weapons and tactics. :) Of course, I would never have done this today, but in those days the only way to guage success was the W/L record, and most of my warriors failed it. I retired the team at 32-33-2, and waited for Hyborian War to start. Hyborian took too long, so I started up a team in Arvat (32) on their first turn named War Legion. My best character was Nicodemos, a really horribly set-up basher who somehow managed to go 4-0 before being killed. On this team, I had a pretty successful LU and PS, as well as an interesting WS, so I was beginning to diversify my styles, still without really having discussed strategy with my allies (in those days, any personal secrets were closely guarded, and the only real correspondence dealt with who we had fought, and what kind of warrior would do well against them). I got discouraged with this arena when I allied with Biff Frothingslosh (remember him/them?) and they spread all my warrior info around, and consequently my record fell like a rock. Hyborian War proved to be ultimately uninteresting (they might as well have called it a playtest it at the time) so I started up a team in Murska (35) - Riff-Raff Crew. I adopted Murska as my home, and have had a team there pretty much since turn 14 (although recently I retired the Crew and started Too Much Posse). Notable characters include a poorly set-up SZ 14 TP who made it to Primus at 31-5, a SZ 4 lunger who's not even close to perfection, and a variety of Bashers who have done quite well, but have almost all ended up going 4-1-1 or 4-1-2. I only recently broke that trend, but that basher ended up 8-4-3 in the arena, dying in the 1st round of the last tourney. Through the years I've talked with may managers about styles and strategy, as well as how to deal with newbie managers, experienced managers, insane managers, and non-orthodox tactics. I feel like I've got a pretty good grasp of the game, but my budget has never been such that I've been able to go out and dominate a large enough portion of the arenas so that my name will be known. I'm known mostly for mmy role-playing, although many of my allies fear random matchups against me (only because I have an uncanny knack for beating my ally's warriors silly). I would love to have a Primus god, but for me it's simply not worth it to get the "perfect" roll-up - I tried for awhile and ended up killing off some not half bad roll-ups for the sake of perfection. Duelmasters is enjoyable enough without winning every single fight - there's a certain elegance in determining a character's strengths, avoiding his weaknesses, and running up a decent record. I must admit that interaction with other managers is, to me, the most important part of the game. The Wizard of Oz, along with Shadowmaster, has revived my interest in Slashers, and Vlad Taltos has campaigned single-handedly to get me try out his Aimed Blow design. Of course, I've got my own stlylistic designs which do pretty well: BA, PS, LU, PL, WS, TP, and PR, but even they have been strongly influenced by other managers. For a while RSI seemed to be trying to discourage player interaction (1 spotlight per newsletters, 250 word limit on the personal ads with that personal ad limit exceeded sign, and so on) and it nearly killed my interest in the game. So, I guess you could say I'm a humanist. It's the player interaction that interests me foremost, and the strategic element second. However, the game is still a lot of fun, or I'd have certainly found a cheaper hobby by now! Donald Trump a complete listing of Trump Gladiatorial Enterprises subsidiaries: * co-managed Aruak(11) - The Myrmidons Dullens(13) - Yuppie Horde Malcorn(15) - Happy Smacks* Sunset(21) - The Quiet Storm* Ti(23) - Gaea Theory* Lapur(29) - Perfect Timing Iaye(30) - 64 Box* Arvat(32) - War Legion Murska(35) - Riff-Raff Crew / Too Much Posse Xochithlan(39) - Elite Cadre Kati-Tei(41) - Exotic Dreams* Stormcrowe(45) - Max's Miracle Vithicar(49) - 1 Lump or 2?* Trocar(54) - Young Guns Home Guard(101), Free Blades(103), and soon Primus (102) - Riff-Raff Crew Up