Since 1976 I have been designing wargames, hoping to publish them in hardcopy (thus Publishing is in the name) but not polishing or marketing them to anybody but my friends, and most often not even polishing them. That has changed. Once I discovered Dale Larsen's wonderful PBeM tool Cyberboard (thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks Dale!) I realized I could prototype those games without taking up table space, space ultimately claimed by kids, wife and/or rampant laundry loads for folding.

In 1985 I ran my first double-blind referred operational game, a game of the Antietam Campaign of the American Civil War. I called the system Yankee Corps/Rebel Division in honor of the troop unit scale. The system turned out to be the pre-cursor to the shock, shot and shell system refined into The Ridge: Waterloo and Gettysburg: Fight of July. And my friends - the players - exclaimed in that way friends do which make us all give it another go six months later, and six months after that, and continuously refine the design down to what we really wanted. And still want, I hope. :-D

Shot and Shell was fine, but I have always had very eclectic wargaming tastes, everything from ancients to shot'n'shell to naval to air warfare, modern wars up to alternate histories (which any historical wargame really is anyways, an attempt at alternate history "What would YOU do at MIDWAY?") and of course science fiction conflict simulations. One of my favorite games of all time is still the original 1977 Avalon Hill Starship Troopers, once I figured out how to play the Bugs. :-)

My Friend Chris Mark (Alas, he passed away a short time ago, RIP) came up with the phrase Firepower Pass to indicate a tactic of one of his spacefaring races that he invented: the vertical envelopment in space of an enemy squadron by your own squadron of fast Dreadnoughts. I wanted a space combat miniatures game where you could GRAPHICALLY display 3D movement/range, to allow for vertical envelopment without having to do scary math, and yet still be easy to USE.

I managed to solve the graphical 3D problem in a simple fashion for FIREPOWER PASS, appropriately with input from a great Napoleonic naval miniatures game Fire As She Bears 2 made with care by a great guy named Phil Fry whose design precepts correspond a lot with my own. His ideas about octagonal tiles regulating movement of the miniatures added to my 3D ideas and graphical math notes turned out to be the missing element I needed to simplify the math of movement in 3D - albeit in a Space Opera style rather than a hard-science style like Ken Burnside's AdAstra games, but still with a real feel for me. "Real feel" is important to actor-gamers like me, and in my experience with general gamers its important to them as well. How you get that real feel is simply a matter of personal taste, i.e the game you choose that day.

Firepower pass IMHO plays fast and more importantly there is always something going on besides just movement (maneuver) so both (or whatever number) of players are always involved, an important thing when 10 or 20 ships a side are involved. Pace is everything, because for me, and to steal a phrase from Paranoia the Roleplaying game, Be boring and you are dead.

Fortunately for me (big brow wipe!) from the very first move of the very first play-test, when game-systems were much more awkward than the final version coming into final development, play-testers immediately began to think TACTICALLY, i.e. WHERE is my squadron, where do I want to be, how close is the enemy and can I get to the weapon range I want, etc, without being bogged down in HOW that was going to happen. The 3D movement concept seemed to work. They did not have to worry about flying the spacecraft - the crews do that, and therefore there is less player control on that level - the emphasis for players is on COMMANDING the squadron or subunits thereof. But when firing erupted as it usually did, and quickly, players immediately became immersed in FIGHTING their ships, launching escort strikes, LAC strikes, battery registration and fire, defending against missiles especially, using simple rules for multiple layers of point defense, etc. The tactical elements that everybody seemed to enjoy immensely are a part of the squadron level, and Firepower pass seems to have that.

I am quite happy with the result of all the testing, and my best testimonial is that my 10-yr old son who helped with playtesting (diligently I might add, I am very proud of him!) LOVES playing it and asks many a weekend to play. :-)

Sci-fi combat games need to be set in sci-fi universes to feel real, and as I mentioned the latter is essential for me in a design. I was going to base the universe of Firepower Pass on one invented and documented by my friend Chris Mark, but with his recent passing I will continue to fill out my original cultures, the TErran Corporate Conf3edration and the Procyonese Concordat.

-Keith 03-2009