Beginnings
Rodger B. MacGowan started wargaming when he was in high school in the late 1960s. After a hiatus due to the Vietnam War (in his words, "girls also had a major impact"), he returned to the hobby in the 1970s with his old playing partners, who had now moved to different cities. They started to correspond with each other about gaming, and MacGowan started to detail the games in a format he referred to as "Battle Report". He included maps and analyses of his games, and his reports proved to be so popular with his friends that he expanded his concept to create his first magazine, entitled Arquebus. Many of the concepts that F&M would later make famous were included, such as game reviews, game reports, hobby news, and feedback analysis from readers. As he became more involved in the writing of Arquebus, a friend suggested "going professional". Using his background as a professional graphic designer in both advertising and magazine production, he approached Baron Publishing Company, who expressed interest in printing the magazine, as long as MacGowan did the work.
MacGowan next contacted Mark Saha, who wrote for The General and Moves magazines. Since he was playtesting the next big release from Avalon Hill — Tobruk — he was able to provide an "inside scoop" for the first issue of F&M. Another concept was born with the first edition, when a copy of the review for Tobruk was sent to the actual developer of the game for fact checking and it was decided to publish his reply word for word. The technique of having developers respond in print to reviews, in the same issue, would be repeated many times over the years.
The title "Fire & Movement" comes from a standard military expression, and MacGowan noticed it as a chapter heading in a military manual and decided it would be more appropriate and recognizable than Arquebus.
Read more about this topic: Fire & Movement
Famous quotes containing the word beginnings:
“When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.”
—John Cheever (1912–1982)
“These beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting,—these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The beginnings of altruism can be seen in children as early as the age of two. How then can we be so concerned that they count by the age of three, read by four, and walk with their hands across the overhead parallel bars by five, and not be concerned that they act with kindness to others?”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)