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Old 12-04-2017, 07:41 PM   #41
masockwell
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

My story is pretty much the same as everyone else's.

Born in '62, picked up OGRE (probably 2nd ed.) at Little Shop of War, a little hole-in-the-wall store on Merriman Rd. in Akron, OH. Store was run by Mrs. Hanlon, who at the time was probably in her late-50s or early-60s.

Picked up GEV (of course), moved into Squad Leader and then into ASL. In the early '90s, life intervened and all of my gaming material got lost in a move. In 2009, I was looking for a game to play with my son that wasn't a video game. Looked up OGRE and found this site.

ODE commands a significant spot on my bookshelf (in more ways than one). Still play, but prefer the old cardboard and paper set (easier to move around the house). Also still play ASL, and have picked up the Command & Colors: Ancients series along with a few solo designs.

Cheers,


Mark
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Old 12-05-2017, 12:31 AM   #42
Leonidas
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Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

I have no such good stories! Albeit I am 44, I just remember Ogre ads on RPG magazine, but I never dared to buy it. I just discovered Ogre through Mr. Jackson's video on KS while browsing Youtube a year ago. Then I looked at the Dice Tower review, and saw the Ogre garage. I tracked down a red KS ODE and that was it. I am in love ever since. I wish I knew Ogre before, rather wasting money and time on WH40K. I played a lot of Battletech though, and probably that's why I love Ogre.
The more I play Ogre, the more I like it!
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Old 12-05-2017, 01:03 PM   #43
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Location: Plainfield, IL
Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leonidas View Post
I have no such good stories! Albeit I am 44, I just remember Ogre ads on RPG magazine, but I never dared to buy it. I just discovered Ogre through Mr. Jackson's video on KS while browsing Youtube a year ago. Then I looked at the Dice Tower review, and saw the Ogre garage. I tracked down a red KS ODE and that was it. I am in love ever since. I wish I knew Ogre before, rather wasting money and time on WH40K. I played a lot of Battletech though, and probably that's why I love Ogre.
The more I play Ogre, the more I like it!
That's still a great story. Better to find Ogre later, than not at all. :-)
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Old 12-05-2017, 06:37 PM   #44
FJCestero
 
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Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

Here's my story. Might be a bit unusual (or heretical, YMMV)... I was about 12 years old, just getting into D&D. Had a friend in school who traded comic books with me say "Hey, check this out!". It was a little booklet called OGRE. He thought it was the greatest little game ever. I gave it back after a day or so thinking "meh". It kinda sucked: only two kind of guns (oh wow, and look! the BIG one has a whopping whole range of THREE!), one type of one-shot missiles, and a bunch of obviously useless 'AP guns'. No variable damage, no hit locations (you just pick what you want to shoot and all your bullets automatically go there???), and those 'Tread Units' totally did not model how I knew real tank treads behaved when shot at. I mean really, a tank is either full speed, or pretty much dead once you blow off a tread. Nice intro, gripping really -- but the game mechanics just didn't back it up.

A few years go by. Star Fleet Battles and Squad Leader teach me the error of complex rules that ... well, don't do much really.

I still however really liked spaceships, and there's this little game called Starfire -- which let me roleplay interstellar empires but does a horrible job on the ground combat side of things. Hmmm... thinks I, small games are better... hey self, don't we sort of remember that little game from Jr. High. What was it called? OGER, ORGE, or something??? It was small. I remember that.

I bit of searching and one metaphorical road to Damascus later...

It's been almost thirty years now, all my other pen&paper games have fallen by the way-side. In a trunk I keep but seldom have time for. Simplicity it seems has a virtue of its own. And the OGRE rolled on...
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Old 12-05-2017, 09:07 PM   #45
J. Durr
 
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Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

You got a movement bonus on the road to Damascus
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Old 12-05-2017, 09:18 PM   #46
brionl
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

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Originally Posted by CON_Troll View Post
Yep! 1701 occupied one of the store fronts on Corrine Dr. (Just a mile and a half down from the old corner gate at Corrine and Bennett Rd.) During the time period you mentioned. Right around 1988, needing to expand, they bought the lease on the second store front next to them and knocked a few sections of wall out between the two. Then they bought the third store next door a year later and were using it as a separate game room. I ran OGRE and Car Wars events (especially after store hours) during the early to mid-nineties.

You might be happy to know that Enterprise 1701 still exists. It's called "Sci-Fi-City" now and is located on HWY 50 just East of SR 436.

Alas, the NTC was shut down in 1999. Which is what prompted Frank to move the store to HWY 50 and change the name.

Getting back on topic, you and others here might be interested to know that I got a resin Godzilla model at 1701 that seemed just the right scale for OGRE miniatures. My gaming group and I had lots of fun stomping cities (and entire battalions) into the dirt with him. This eventually prompted me to write "Godzilla 2076, Atomic Monsters in the World of OGRE!" Which actually saw print in Pyramid #1.
I used to go to 1701 all the time in 1980. I bought the Europa Games Drang Nach Osten and Unentschieden there. Tried to play them a couple times too. Took a whole weekend to get about 3 turns done.
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Old 12-08-2017, 03:16 PM   #47
dwalend
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

TL;DR - Ogre taught me probability and saved my mortgage.

I came to Ogre early in life, maybe 1979. I learned fractions and probability via Ogre before we got to it in school. I must have picked up a copy of the second edition from The Hobby Shoppe (yes, with the extra "e") where my dad bought model trains, at a town about 45 miles from our house. I spent a good part of late elementary and middle school with my mom's business partner's son and his friends, intending to play D&D (when/if everyone got there) or Car Wars (as soon as the last kid finished shopping), but actually playing a lot of Ogre.

In high school I figured out how to finish a game of Ogre with a friend before the end of lunch break. Most of my gaming energy went to D&D and eventually GURPS. I'd pull out Ogre every few months just to scratch an itch.

Years later in night school I needed a masters thesis project that had something to do with machine learning. I coded up a text-only version of Ogre, then had it play smash-the-CP using genetic programming. It played kind-of-respectably against itself once I switched primitives from ogre moves and fires to deciding when to apply canned tactics. Pro tip: A circa 2001 plastic-cased laptop will overheat from running genetic programming inside a backpack. (No Skynet achievement patch for me.)

Just about then the telecom bust hit my start-up, I needed a job to cover a mortgage, and no one was getting interviews, much less offers. I had one lead via a friend at a defense research start-up. My time playing Ogre meant I could talk about tactics and compromises and how these ideas fit together. The interview started at 8 am, and I talked until my voice gave out completely around 8:30 that night. I came home with a job offer "because you already do what we are trying to figure out - as a hobby," covered the mortgage, and had a blast building air battle planning systems for the next five years.

Our project's success meant they needed me to travel a lot on short notice, just when I was starting a family. I moved on from that job a bit before the ODE Kickstarter. When SJGames asked for help editing the rules it was time for me to pay back. I did some of the proof-reading while rocking a baby.

Now I've got two kids of my own. The oldest has learned arithmetic via Munchkin Junior and delayed gratification from Castellan. My youngest learned numbers from Simon's Cat. I'm trying to decide when to introduce Ogre. Glow-in-the-dark is very much the thing at our house, especially in the dark winters. The older kid is ready for probability and fractions. Maybe this holiday break...

Last edited by dwalend; 12-08-2017 at 08:12 PM.
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Old 12-08-2017, 06:40 PM   #48
sparky00
 
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Parma, OH
Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

What a great story!
My first 2 copies of Ogre also came from a hobby shop - National Hobby, where l left lots of grass-cutting & paper-route earnings in my childhood, and later worked for a time ( i guess the owners figured that if i was hanging around there all the time, I might as well do something useful).
I've never really been able to see where all the many strategy games I played in my youth directly relate to the other parts of my life, but I'm sure they do somehow.
I can still develop complex plans rapidly and evaluate complex sets of alternatives quite quickly. I also still have a pretty good imagination, most days.
Thanks for sharing your story, and I hope the introduction of Ogre goes well.
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Old 12-09-2017, 09:21 PM   #49
selenite
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minnesota
Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

Quote:
Originally Posted by dwalend View Post
I came home with a job offer "because you already do what we are trying to figure out - as a hobby," covered the mortgage, and had a blast building air battle planning systems for the next five years.
That's great.

I had the reverse experience. The defense project I was working on around then was heavy on the meetings. I wrote up the various stuff that became "Poor Bloody Infantry" sitting in design reviews waiting for the VP to brief my slide.
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Old 12-10-2017, 06:35 PM   #50
ParadoxGames
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: New Jersey
Default Re: How I Came To Love Ogre

I love these stories being shared. As stated much earlier, this grew out of another thread and I was happy to share my experience. ...And reading everyone else's introduction to the world of Ogre. It is a special moment!
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