GamerChris

Witch's Showdown Escalates over Monopoly in Blue Macao City

2010-03-11T22:05:00Z

We had quite a game night this week, with about 16 or so people involved, including a couple of new people to our gatherings. Due to getting off work early for Gwen's ultrasound, I actually made it to Hypermind extra early, which gave me the chance to try out...

Monopoly Deal

I had heard several people on BGG and elsewhere praise this little filler-length Monopoly-like game, and I wanted to check it out for myself. At its core, you're doing pretty much the same thing that you do in regular Monopoly, collecting sets of properties and charging rent for them, and the winning condition is to complete three full sets. Many of the cards are the properties themselves, which you can just play (for free) from your hand as one of your three actions each turn. You can also play cards to your bank, which you use to pay out rent (among other things). Payments must come from you bank (not your hand), and if you don't have enough in your bank, you must pay by giving them your properties (which also have a cash value listed on them).  And finally, there are also lots of action cards, which do different things like allow you to charge rent, draw more cards, and steal or trade properties.

My long-time buddy Steve, Mark, and Michelle joined me for a couple of games, with Steve running away with the first game and Mark stealing the second away from me.

Time: 11 and 19 minutes
Game 1: Steve* 3, Me* 1, Michelle* 0, Mark* 0
Game 2: Mark 3, Me 2, Michelle 1, Steve 0
Ratings: Steve 8, Mark 8, Me 6, Michelle 8

Overall, I was pretty impressed by Monopoly Deal. If anything, you probably get about as much fun from playing it as you would from regular Monopoly, but in 15 mintues or so instead of 3 hours. I think that its biggest strength is in its familiarity to non-gamers, though, because it would be a great way to get people into playing something new that still didn't feel all that new because of the Monopoly branding.

My biggest issue with the game, however, is balance. Or, more appropriately, the lack thereof. And specifically (though not exclusively), I'm talking about the Deal Breaker card, which lets you steal one entire set of properties from another player.  You don't have to trade them or pay them anything, you just take it away and stick it with all your other stuff. As Chris pointed out while casually watching us play, the name of the game is Monopoly Deal, and the name of the card is Deal Breaker. So obviously, somebody on the inside knew that the card was a bit too much.

But while the existence of that card cartainly dropped the game a rating point or so in my mind, it still doesn't ruin it completely. For $5 and 15 minutes of investment, it's still a nice little card game, and I'd probably recommend that most of you pick it up if you're at all interested.

Blue Moon City

Blue Moon City has been making a bit of a come-back in our sessions lately, and it was the next choice at our table this week. Chris joined Michelle and I, which was the first 3-player game that I've ever played. It was also the first time I've played with the expansion buildings.

Anyway, I did some work to set myself up for the late game with my early contributions (rather than completing buildings myself), so almost by default I missed out on the early tributes to the tower. I sort of ran with it from there, though, choosing to forego moving back to the center and instead hording crystals until I happened to pass by the tower. Chris jumped out to a huge early lead with 3 of his 5 required tributes. I didn't draw many of the gray cards that helped me move, though, and stuck myself in a corner at one point, and ended up having a few wasted turns.

In the end, even though I dumped lots of crystals for 4 tributes, I was only half-way to what I needed for the last one when Chris won the game.

Time: 47 minutes
Score: Chris 5, Me 4, Michelle 3
Ratings: Chris 8.5, Me 8, Michelle 8

I've talked about it some recently, and I continue to think that it's a really cool game. In addition to the semi-cooperative element I mentioned then, I also like the "don't-set-up-your-opponents" aspect that is similar to Samurai in a lot of ways. But almost in the reverse of that sentiment, you also get some of the "be-second-in-a-lot-of-places" strategy from area-majority games like El Grande. 'Tis definitely worth more play.

Vegas Showdown

We had enough people and copies of the game to play 3 games of Vegas Showdown at the same time, but one table wouldn't play along (shame on you, Kenny, for leading them astray!) My table, however, jumped right in. Tom was new, and Keith (one of our new gamers that found us through BGG) had only played online, so it was good to go through the rules again. Keith apparently learned his lessons well from online play, though, jumping out to an early lead through focusing a lot on restaurants and rooms that gave fame points directly. He was also helped out a lot by one event that gave 3 fame points per restaurant, which netted him 12 points at the time it came out.

I focused more on building up my income early, but also picked up a couple of lounges for the fame points and to fill space. At one point, after I had already built a Restaurant and Buffet, I bid on and won a Five-Star Steakhouse. As I was happily placing it in my hotel-casino, though, someone pointed out that I couldn't place it until I had a Fancy Restaurant. Eventually, one came out and I bought it, but then on the next turn (when I would have taken Publicity and placed it), we flipped three cards out of four showing the large tile, causing the stack to run out and ended the game.

As we totalled up, Keith's lead proved to be insurmountable without the addition of my 5-Star Restaurant. It would have been at least 7 more points for me (from the room itself and completing a 3/4 diamond), and I think I would have also taken the greatest population from someone else (maybe even Keith himself), resulting in a 2 or 4 point swing as well. But them's the breaks, as they say, and so instead I tied for second.


My final hotel/casino, along with the unrealized Five-Star Steakhouse addition

Time: 60ish minutes
Score: Keith 58, Chris 52, Me 52, Tom* 43
Ratings: Keith ?, Chris 8.5, Me 7.5, Tom 7.5

Vegas Showdown is performing pretty well as Game of the Month! for me. For this week, Kenny had put together a "Vegas Mix" playlist for the musical theme, including approximately 13.8 versions of "Viva Las Vegas". And while I was slightly less than ecstatic about the music, I had a lot of fun in the game. There's a lot of strategy in how you choose to build your casino, a lot of competition and tactical play in the auctions, and then a nicely appropriate dose of randomness with the event cards to keep it exciting and just a bit unpredictable. I think that it'll have plenty of stamina to last the whole month.

Escalation!

In waiting for one of the other tables to finish up, we played a big 6-player game of Escalation!

Time: 28 minutes (for 6 hands)
Score: Me 42, Keith* 46, Chip 54, Chris 56, Mark 59, Tom* 68
Ratings: Me 7, Keith ?, Chip 7, Chris 7, Mark 7.5, Tom 6.5

I joked with Keith afterwards that my win in Escalation! was just as significant as his win in Vegas Showdown. 'Cause, you know, it's not.

Witch's Brew

Nine of us then split into stereo games of Witch's Brew, one of our favorite fillers. Daphne had never played before, but you wouldn't have known that based on her play or her score. In fact, whether she meant to or not, there were several turns where she was unopposed for most of her roles, and she always seemed to be in the perfect position to get what she needed. I didn't do nearly as well, but at least I didn't tie with Kenny and Steve for last place, 'cause they were just terrible .

Time: 40 minutes
Score: Daphne* 25, Brad 22, Me 19, Ken 17, Steve 17
Ratings: Daphne 8, Brad 8, Me 8, Ken 8, Steve 8

Macao

It was already pretty late, but I really wanted to get Macao back to the table. When I suggested it, the same three players that played it with me the first time immediately jumped at the chance. Adam was interested in it as well, but was content to listen to the rules and watch a few turns (with his primitive money brain... his words, not mine) and then leave early.

We were thinking that the game would move quicker for us in a second play, but that wasn't really the case. It still lasted right at two hours, but there was a definite improvement in how efficient we all were with our planning (as evidenced by scoring about 25 points more than last time). I jumped out to an early lead all over the place, keeping myself ahead on the wall and moving out into the shipping lanes while putting together a nice little combo of cards that gave me 2 Prestige Points a turn.

Chip came on stronger and stronger as the game progressed, however, especially doing well in the city with a card that let him claim quarters for one less action cube, and then shipping the goods he obtained all over the place. I put together a chain of good myself to claim the 5-PP spot in three different ports. I actually had the card to double the payout for shipments of paper, but couldn't get it activated early enough to use it the first time.

I also set myself up to possibly get a huge chain (okay, just 7) of quarters. But on the penultimate turn, Tom, for no good reason other than to screw with me, claimed the one quarter that could have joined together the two halves of my chain. I did my best to whine and moan about how he was being a kingmaker and giving the game to Chip, but he did it anyway. Of course, Kenny could have done it too, and Chip had taken a move from Tom that would have been his obvious alternative to do, but still, I wasn't going to make it easy on him.

In the end, though, it didn't matter.  I managed to activate all my cards on the last turn, deliver a paper good for 6 points, raise the money I needed to buy PP from the do-hickey track (investment track? prestige-point acquisition track? heck if I can remember...), and make sure that I'd finish first on the wall just in case I tied with someone. One of my cards gave me 1 PP per city quarter I had claimed, so I still racked up 14 points from it and kept myself a good 6 points ahead of Chip for the win.

Time: 117 minutes
Score: Me 83, Chip 77, Ken 50, Tom 42
Ratings: Me 8.5, Chip 8, Ken 9, Tom 8.5

Macao is quickly moving its way up into my favorite games. Two of my favorite elements in games are: 1) multiple paths to victory, and 2) the need to adapt your strategy to what the game and other players throw at you. And Macao has both of those in spades!

In a lot of ways, Macao actually reminds me of Agricola. You've got the ability to put together combinations of cards to build a little engine, screw with your opponents in non-direct ways, and finish in about 2 hours. And as of right now, even as much as I like Agricola, I'm feeling that I may actually end up liking Macao even more. It's hard right now to even explain why I like it so much, but what I do know is that 2 hours have flown by like 30 minutes both times I've played, and I'd play again right now if I could.

Other Games Played

China
Time: 15 minutes (is that right?)
Score: Chris 47, Chip 41, Tom* 37, Keith* 21
Ratings: Chris 9, Chip 9, Tom 7.5, Keith ?

Race for the Galaxy
Time: ? minutes
Score: Mark - 3 wins, Alton and Chip (who only played in one game) - No wins
Ratings: Mark 10, Alton 10, Chip 8

Roll Through the Ages
Time: 15 minutes
Score: Steve 19, Ken 15, Adam 7
Ratings: Steve 9, Ken 8, Adam 8

The Settlers of Catan
Time: 165 minutes
Score: Brad 12+, Beth 12(?), Alton 10, Charles 9, Keith 7, Michelle 6
Ratings: Brad 8, Beth 8, Alton 10, Charles 9, Keith 8, Michelle 10

The Stars Are Right
Time: ? minutes
Score: Kenny 10, Steve 9, Adam* 8, Michelle 4
Ratings: Kenny 7.5, Steve 6.5, Adam 7, Michelle 8

Tribune (VP variant)
Time: 50ish minutes
Score: Beth 36, Alton 26, Charles 22, Michelle 19, Adam 10
Ratings: Beth 9, Alton 10, Charles 9, Michelle 8.5, Adam 7

Unspeakable Words
Time: ? minutes
Score: Ken 101, Daphne* 78, Brad 69, Steve 58
Ratings: Ken 8, Daphne 8, Brad 8, Steve 8

Vegas Showdown
Time: 42 minutes
Score: Chip 79, Alton 62, Mark 62
Ratings: Chip 8, Alton 8.5, Mark 8.5

Chip actually filled up his entire hotel/casino to end the game. I'd never seen that before, but of course, I haven't seen many 3-player games either. It was right impressive either way, though.

Witch's Brew
Time: 22 minutes
Score: Mark 26, Chip 22, Chris 19, Tom* 15
Ratings: Mark 8.5, Chip 8.5, Chris 9, Tom 7

* First play for that Person

Reading RPG's in Public and Other Assorted Loose Ends

2010-03-10T17:14:00Z

As I mentioned last week, we geeks had an assignment to go out there in public - you know, the place where all those people are - and fly the flag of our nerdiness by reading a game book where other people could actually see us. I've definitely made an effort to do so, but most of the time been without my camera, or someone that could take a picture of me. Over the last few days, however, I've managed to correct that...

This is me reading Kenny's copy of Diaspora in the waiting room of Gwen's OB/Gyn. I haven't really announced it here before, but we recently found out that we're expecting our second child, and this visit was for the 8-week ultrasound, during which we saw the little one's heartbeat for the first time! It was pretty cool.

And this was me reading Dogs in the Vineyard over lunch at K&W's Cafeteria here in Burlington. For this one, I actually had to ask the waitress to take it. I was sort of hoping that she'd ask what it was all about or what the book was, but she didn't bite.

In fact, I didn't get any questions or interest in anything that I've been reading in public over the last week or so. I know that both of these books are a little subtle for RPG's, but I also read several boardgame rulebooks (including Shogun, Nexus Ops, Descent, Macao, and others) that were a lot more colorful and obvious. The only thing that I didn't really do was to read a "real" full-size RPG book with an easily recognizable name. 'Cause if I'd whooped out a 4th Edition D&D Players Manual, the sheer size and D&D name may have been a bigger flag. But, of course, I really wasn't interested in reading something like that right now.

And since this post already contains one exciting announcement, let me throw in a bit of a teaser as well. My third blog-i-versary is coming up in April, and in order to celebrate, I'm going to be running a little contest. Yes, that's what I said, a contest. With a real prize. And the prize was even donated to me for this specific purpose, so it's not just going to be some little worthless game from the back of my closet or from the bargin bin at my FLGS. Keep your eyes open to the site in the next week or so, and I'll give you some more details!

Fiasco Report - "This might be a bit awkward..."

2010-03-08T17:45:00Z

Fiasco: A Game Powerful Ambition & Poor Impulse Control

The third event of RPG-or-Die!-Con last weekend was a session of Fiasco. We were all very excited to get this played, and it turned out really well. I won't go into any detail here about the overall premise or general play of the game, because I've already covered that in the preview/review thingy that I did. Instead, let's get right to the action!

It all started in a Nice Southern Town...

We all agreed that our first session should be using the "Nice Southern Town" playset, essentially set right here in Alamance County, the homeplace for three out of the five of us. We rolled all 20 dice and started picking elements from the playset to create our web of ineptitude. Here was our cast of characters:

Junior Apple (Britt) - former racing pilot (in local, Red-Bull-Air-Race-like events) who lost his wife to a terrible hot-air-balloon accident, a chain-smoker and father to...
Kandee Apple (Carol) - the proprietor of Rose's Village Motel (convenient to the interstate) along with her cousin...
Laurence "Red" Apple (Kenny) - who uses the motel as a hub for his illegal copper-thieving activities, which he performs with his buddy...
Rufus "Tick" Turner (Tom) - who was obviously drug into a life of crime by his friend, and now has to report to his parole officer...
Sergeant Nate Siler (Me) - who apparently doesn't care much about his job, but carries a forbidden love for life-long friend Junior Apple

Other elements that were introduced included:

Object: Junior's old barnstormer racing plane (between Junior and Kandee)
Need: To get Respect from the police, by turning in your own kin (between Red and Kandee)
Need: To get Laid, to get it over with (between Tick and Nate)
Need: Somebody Needs to Get Even with a family member (between Nate and Junior)

So things were pretty primed and ready once these were all chosen and we spent a few minutes talking about how they fit together.  Unfortunately, since it's been over a week now, I'm afraid that I'm going to miss some of the awesome that showed up that evening. I really need to take some kind of notes about each scene next time. But anyway, I hope to hit at least the highlights of the game (possibly even in the right order), and welcome any corrections, expansions, or clarifications from my fellow players.

"This might be a bit awkward, but..."

Since I grew up in the smallest "town", I got to go first. The scene took place at work, but I made the mistake of letting the table set it for me. I therefore found myself showing up late (again) for an appointment with Tick (who I insisted on calling "Rufus" the whole game long). I ended up losing my job even though I whined and practically cried to my boss, conveniently named Lieutenant Dan on the spur of the moment.

We then witnessed a transaction going on between Tick, Red, and their criminal contact, Eli. At some point (either in this scene or soon after), Lieutenant Dan was patroling around and came upon one such encounter, and when he demanded to see what was in the back of the furniture van, Red clubbed him unconscious and threw him in.

Throughout the transaction and afterwards, we had the first running theme of the game show up when Kandee was trying to get Red to actually do some work around the motel. Over a few scenes here and there, Red was working on getting the drain unstopped in 7B, while Kandee sent its occupant on wild-goose chases across 8 lanes of interstate traffic to find a cup of coffee. It all sort of came to a head when, as the backdrop of one scene, Red was moving the furniture out of 7B in the midst of a flood of sewage, prompting him to tell Kandee, "7B is outta comission." As the guest walked up and inquied about his personal effects, Red handed him a garbage bag and recommended that he not open it, 'cause "it's best this way." As the man stormed off and pealed out of the gravel parking lot, Kandee waved and said, "Come back and see us!"

Moving around the table, we soon learned that Junior owned back taxes on the house and his plane, and that he and Kandee were going to lose it all unless they did something dramatic to get some money.  Since he couldn't fly the plane anymore (like he used to back in the war, where he shot down all them Nat-zees), he demanded that Kandee had to enter the upcoming race and win it so that they could get the money they needed.

And then it happened; the event that would be the theme of the rest of the game. But before I get there, let me give you the setup. Based on Red's need "to turn in your own kin" for respect and Tick's need "to get laid, to get it over with", a plan was hatched that Red would set up Kandee and Tick to have an encounter of a sexual nature, get it on tape, and then turn it in to the police as proof of the motel being used for prostitution (hopefully letting him take sole ownership of it as well). Kandee would be motivated by the need to get money to get the plane fixed up and out of impound as well, so things looked good.

As Red talked to Kandee in one scene, he just sort of popped out with the following request as evenly and matter-of-factly as you could imagine. To Kandee, obviously, "Now, this might be a bit awkward, but would you consider... having sex with Tick... for money?" He then turned to camera (this obviously being a Coen-brothers movie) and said, "Well, what d'ya know? That wasn't awkward at all." After several minutes of nearly pee-yer-pants hilarity, we all managed to compose ourselves, and since the table had control of resolution, we made sure that Kandee agreed to Red's request.

"This might be a bit awkward..." showed up every scene or two for the rest of the game. It would definitely be the title of the movie, if anyone was stupid enough to actually make it.

Now, we still had Lieutenant Dan tied up in the back of the van, so Tick convinced Red that he could handle getting rid of him. He didn't really have the stomach for it himself, though, so he thought that maybe his out-of-work, parole-officer buddy Nate would help him out. Sort of wanting to delay the inevitable and partly to butter up Nate, they started by going up to the Tank Museum in Danville (even though we thought it was in Martinsville) and making a day trip of it. As they got back in the van, though (with Nate wearing a foam, tank-shaped hat emblazoned with "Tanks for the Memories!" on it... which, unfortunately, they don't actually sell at the Tank Museum gift shop), Nate heard bumping and moaning coming from the back. Tick took him around back, showed him Lieutenant Dan all tied up, explained the situation, and asked if Nate would take care of it.  Nate, still pissed off about being fired, went along with it and took out Lieutenant Dan.

The next day, Nate went in to the police station to butter up their secretary (and her mentally challenged son Kyle) and find out if Lieutenant Dan had processed the paperwork for his dismissal yet. It was still sitting on his desk, though, and no one else knew about it yet, so he destroyed it and found himself with a promotion to Lieutenant when Dan never showed back up.

Right around in here, we used up half the dice, which ended up act one and introduced the Tilt. Britt and Carol won the little dice rolls, so they got to choose the two elements from the Tilt Table. It didn't look too good, though, since two people were going to have to die in Act Two. One of them was a tragedy, "death, after an unpleasant struggle", while the other was "greed leads to a killing".

In the first scene of Act Two, we got an idea of what may have happened in one of the deaths, since Nate was interviewing Junior about Kandee's suspicious death during the race. He had taken out a very large life insurance policy on her, and some of the important hydraulic lines on the plane had been cut by shears found in Junior's back pocket.  Junior denied everything (except breaking down at one point and admitting that he had never been in the war or ever shot down any Nat-zees), and Nate (given his personal feelings for Junior) wanted to let him go. Nate made a proposition when he placed a hand on Junior's arm, leaned in close, and said, "Now, this might be a bit awkward, but..." as the scene faded to black.

We then had several flashback scenes.  In one, we saw Tick and Kandee set up their "rendezvous" while Red conspired to have Junior bust in on them and kill Tick in a fury of defending his daughter's honor. Later on, when it was time for the event to take place, Tick just couldn't go through with making Kandee have sex for money, so he just gave it to her (the money, that is, not the sex). Junior had called Red and told him that he was tied up and couldn't come over to kill Tick, so Red had to do the bustin'-in and shootin'. When he found that Tick and Kandee weren't all nekkid and sweaty, though, it confused him a bit. In the midst of talking with them, though, there was a terrible accident involving the gun, the "magic fingers" vibration feature of the bed, and Tick's noggin, which resulted in 7C being taken out of commission as well (and us finding that Tick was the victim of the tragic tilty element).

In another flashback, we saw how Kandee and Junior worked with Mike the Airplane Mechanic to fake Kandee's death and split the insurance money.  So she took her money and headed off to start a new life in Myrtle Beach.

At some point after the crash and in thinking that Kandee was dead, Red grew some semblance of a conscience.  As the firetruck's siren blared and he saw Junior looking dispassionately at the remains that supposedly contained his dead daughter, Red had a little flashback of his own when he remembered seeing Junior do something to obviously sabotage the hot air balloon that his wife Tammy was about to go up in many years before. Red put it all together then, and realized that his need was now to expose how evil Junior really was.

A big rainstorm hit the town, and Tick's body was washed out of the shallow grave where Nate, Red, and Kandee had buried it. There was a proper funeral then, and Kandee felt like she had to come back into town because she did actually sort of love Tick, butt-ugly as he had been. Red recognized Kandee, though, and it got ugly.

We also eventually got back to the rest of the scene with now-Lieutenant Nate and Junior in the interrogation room. Rather than an "indecent" proposal, Nate was apparently in on the whole thing and was offering to kill off Red. After Red was killed, he set a scene that began with a video playing of Red laying out a case implicating Junior of the deaths of Kandee and Tammy, Red's own momma, Tick, and maybe even a couple of other unsolved murders around town from the last 20 or 30 years. The scene then panned back, though, and we saw Nate and Junior sitting again in the interrogation room. Nate then pulled out the tape and dumped it in the trash.

Through the last few scenes and the Aftermath process, this is what happened to all of our personalities:

Tick was still dead, but we found out that he was actually an under-cover SBI agent, and a statue was built in his honor just outside the county courthouse
Red was also still dead. But in a weird twist of fate, Kyle, the mentally-handicapped son of Nate's secretary, found the tape in the trash and gave it to his momma. Unfortunately for Red's plan, she then used it to tape that week's "Days of Our Lives" instead of watching it.
Junior and Nate ended up in jail for something or other possibly related to Tick's death. Junior suffered terribly, but they wound up as roomates, so it was the best possible ending for Nate.
Kandee ended up pretty much where she started, though, running a crappy motel, but this time it was up in Atlantic City.

Final Thoughts

If you can't tell by reading, we had a freaking awesome time with Fiasco! The story was fun, interesting, and absolutely hillarious. The setup "mini game" itself is a total hoot, and the game really does a great job of pushing the action after that. We were all affecting accents the whole time (often forgetting to drop them when we'd talk out of character), which is a little strange if you think about it, since most of us are "natives" of central North Carolina anyway. Of course, I guess that we all watched too much TV growing up to have much of an accent naturally, and the people we were playing were just beggin' for more color in their speech.  But anyway, there was a great sense of collaboration and building off of each other the whole game long, and I'm pretty sure that we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

As a group and as roleplayers still very new to the whole indie/storygame style of RPG's, however, we had some issues with playing the game like it was "supposed" to go.  First of all, we didn't always do a great job of setting up scenes.  In a lot of cases, we'd almost spend more time discussing what a scene was going to be about than in actually playing the scene out.  We also pushed a little too quickly into resolving the plot of the whole story, becasue by the time we hit the official Aftermath mechanics, we already had most everything wrapped up.

And I think that it would have been better if we'd listened to the recommendations about how many needs and all to include. For 5 players, they suggested another need and then another location or object. Instead, we went with 3 needs, and I don't think that we had the mastery of the game (or the dirty-hippy-roleplaying skills) to pull that off. So as a result, we ignored the third need (to get even with a family member), while another location or object (especially something cool like a box of naughty toys or a shrine about Junior in Nate's apartment) could have added some other cool backdrop to the action.

But with as much fun as we had, I'm pretty sure that we would all be up for playing Fiasco several more times, hopefully being a bit more skilled with the system next time. I'm not sure exactly, but The Ice (Antarctic research station) and The Last Frontier (southeast Alaska fishing village) playsets are sort of calling to me. Of course, we also had an idea about a playset of our own (a local television station) at some point during our game, so maybe that would be a possibility as well.

RPG-or-Die!-Con Wrap-Up

Overall, I think that my little RPG game day went really well. Tom has said that playing and talking about Comatose has helped him a lot, and that even seeing Fiasco in play helped his design thoughts about making it GM-less. We all had a great time (with the possible exception of Gwen, who helped to throw the party but didn't actually get to play anything), and I think that we're all looking forward to the next time. Even if we had to wait a couple of extra months to get it done, I think it was worth it!

Now that I've gotten Fiasco and Dread played again, I think that I want to set my sights on actually playing Dogs in the Vineyard sometime soon. Of course, there's a ton of other games that I want to delve into (including Diaspora, obviously), and I'd be happy with any of them!

Thanks for the Unspeakable Panic at the Cosmic Showdown!

2010-03-04T17:45:00Z

I'll take a little break from my RPG-or-Die!-Con coverage to talk about this week's boardgame night! With the threat of adverse weather looming, I was a little worried about attendance this week. But whether we've all just gotten used to dealing with the white stuff in our unusually severe winter her in central North Carolina, or we're just fed up with worrying about it, attendance was actually pretty darn good.

After the early-arrivers finished a game of Can't Stop, we thought about jumping right into our new Game of the Month! But we knew that a few people were still on the way, and instead decided to all play a game of...

Castle Panic

We had a full table of six players and were playing the standard (semi-cooperative, or as some say "coop-i-tition") game. Things started slow, but we still took a few dings to our defenses from time to time. And then, when the "draw 4 tiles" threat popped up, everything hit the fan. We went into complete "cooperate or die" mode, and still it looked grim. In the end, though, we managed to eliminate all the outside threats and the lone goblin left in our castle killed himself taking out our second-to-last tower. Kenny and James each racked up a lot of kills early, but Chris had managed to slip in during all the chaos and steal the win.

Time: 36 minutes
Score: Chris 14, James 13, Ken 10, Alton 9, Me 7, Mark 7
Ratings: Chris 8, James 8, Ken 7.5, Alton 8, Me 7, Mark 8

I think that I like Castle Panic better with more players. It seems to make it a bit harder, but also gives more opportunity for making decisions. It's also hard to argue with a 30-ish minute game with this level of tension and excitement. But I still want to try out the "Overlord" variant where one player takes control of the monsters, just to see if it takes the game to the next level.

Vegas Showdown

Vegas Showdown is, in fact, our new Game of the Month! We had 10 people present by this time, which was perfect to completely fill 2 simultaneous games. I did the rules teach for all the new players in both games. In our game, I probably had the most overall experience with it, so I was able to think ahead a little better than everybody else, and ended up winning. The way the event cards came out, we actually ran out of the medium-sized tiles way early, so our game was significantly shorter than the other one.

Time: 53 minutes
Score: Me 41, Ken* 33, Mark 32, Alton 30, Michelle* 23
Ratings: Me 7.5, Ken 7.5, Mark 8, Alton 7.5, Michelle 7.5

Everybody was pretty pleased with the first showing of Vegas Showdown as GotM! Kenny specifically mentioned that he wasn't looking too forward to play after hearing the rules, but that the auction mechanics drew him in and that he had a lot of fun. Overall, I think that the game is very solid. The components could be better, and it's a little one-dimensional when compared to a lot of games, but I'm looking forward to the rest of the month.

I'll admit that I'm also a bit hopeful that it similarity to a couple of other games may help me to get them to the table as well. The auctions are almost identical to Amun-Re, which I've played a lot online (a couple of years ago, however) but only once in person. It's significantly heavier in general, though, and is probably a much better game overall.

The other game with some similarities is, of course, The Princes of Florence. Its auction is a major component of the game (though it's not very similar in how it works), but there's also the spatial "building construction" element that appears in Vegas Showdown. It's my favorite game, as you probably already know, and I'm always looking for more opportunities to play it more often.

Cosmic Encounter

Most of us played a few hands of No Thanks! while we waited for the other game to wrap up (in which that wretch Alton stole the win from me in the last hand). We then reshuffled a bit and jumped into a 6-player game of Cosmic Encounter (aided by the new Cosmic Incursion expansion from FFG).

I played the Sniveler as my race, mainly to see how I could make its power work out. Mostly, it just kept me in last place, so I don't think that I made a very wise choice. Kenny and Ben jumped out to an early lead with 3 foreign bases, but Adam came on strong as well, eventually being tied with Kenny at 4. But in a strange series of events and with a bit of nice hand-management (she had held on to the 40-strength attack card most of the game), Michelle took two bases on her last turn to win her very first play!

Time: 84 minutes
Score: Michelle* 5, Adam* 4, Ken 4, Ben* 3, Chris 2, Me 2
Ratings: Michelle 9.5, Adam 7, Ken 8.5, Ben 8, Chris 10, Me 8

I can't remember if this was my first 6-player game of Cosmic Encounter ever, but it was definitely my first game with the Fantasy Flight version. And my impression is that it may be a player or two too many. I really like the extra interaction and possibility for alliances and all with more people. But the mechanical part of the game seems to bog down a little too much. We only made it around the table 1 and a half times, and at one point we even wondered if we'd make it around once. And in taking so few turns, it's very easy for your hand to get clogged with undesirable cards that you can't do much about.

But still, I had a lot of fun with it, and I hope that Cosmic Encounter (hopefully with some of the new variants even) will stay in our larger rotation.

Unspeakable Words

It had been snowing continually all afternoon and evening, so I was about ready to head home. But I was enticed into one more game, in which we pushed the boundaries of Unspeakable Words to include 8 players. Kenny had picked up the "Black Cthulhu" figure expansion for the game, and it worked just fine with that number (other than having to shuffle the deck pretty often).

There was a wide disparity in dice luck around the table, though, with some people losing sanity like water through a seive, while others couldn't seem to roll below a 16. A couple of people went crazy at 60 and 76 points, and then Ben had a heartbreaker when he lost his last sanity after scoring exactly 100 points (which would have win him the game had he not started talking to the little man that lived in his navel).

I had crap in my hand for most of the game, being unable to form any word longer than 3 letters without invoking the variant that lets you make any word you want from the letters in your hand as long as you only have one sanity. Of course, the first time I did this, I used all 7 of my cards and still only scored 4 points. Then I went insane a couple of turns later. Kenny actually used all 7 of his cards to make words... twice. But then he went crazy too, so I didn't feel so bad about it.

Of course "scooiuu" is a real word. It's as real as the duck sitting on my head!!!
Adam, meanwhile, rode good luck and good spelling to a solid win.

Time: 39 minutes
Score: Adam* 101, Alton 89, Michelle 84, James 76, Ben* 100+Talking to his navel, Me 96+Fascinated by the humming of the walls, Ken 76+Intimidated by the scowling of the die, Mark 60+Just freakin' looney tunes!
Ratings: Adam 8, Alton 7.5, Michelle ?, James 8, Ben ?, Me 7, Ken 8, Mark ?

Okay, the cool thing is that we had a really great time with this game. It's always pretty fun, but having so many people made it even better. It moves so fast that the extra time from the other players is actually a good thing (so you can figure out what words you can spell). I'm not sure what the upper limit on the game might actually be, but even if you don't have the "official" extra tokens, I'd definitely letting more than 6 into the game if it comes up for y'all.

The only issue we have with the game is the same one that many of these word games have: deciding on which words are acceptable.  Kenny even mentioned maybe buying a cheap Scrabble dictionary, just to have an official "go to" reference and avoid the interruptions we have in hammering out these little conflicts.

Other Games Played

Can't Stop!
Time: 39 minutes (for 2 games)
Game 1: Mark 3, Chris 2, James 0
Game 2: James 3, Chris 1, Mark 1, Alton 1
Ratings: Mark 8.5, James 8, Chris 9, Alton 8.5

Vegas Showdown
Time: 66 minutes
Score: Brandon* 62, Adam* 56, Chris 53, Ben* 52, James 40
Ratings: Brandon 8.5, Adam 7.5, Chris 8.5, Ben 7, James 8

No Thanks!
Time: 18 minutes (for 3 hands)
Score: Alton 67, Michelle 75, Me 77, Mark 83, Ken 162 (yep, he really sucked in all 3 hands)
Ratings: Alton 8, Michelle 9, Me 8, Mark 8.5, Ken 8

Race for the Galaxy
Time: ?
Score: Alton - 3 wins, Mark - 1 win, James - No wins
Ratings: Alton 10, Mark 10, James... you guessed it, a 10

* First play of the game

Today is GM's Day!!!

2010-03-04T13:12:00Z

Woo-hoo! Where's my presents???

Anyway, this is apparently a tradition started on the EN World forums back in 2002, and it's a pretty good one. So take some time today to thank (and certainly buy lots of cools stuff for) you local Host, GM, DM, Storyteller, or whoever you have that helps you have fun at gaming!

The slogan... March Fo(u)rth for GM's day!

And to help you buy them (and maybe yourself) some cool stuff, DriveThruRPG is having a GM's Day Sale running through March 8th. So throw them some bid'ness while yer at it!

Dread: A Report and Light Review (from RPG-or-Die!-Con and MACE)

2010-03-03T20:09:00Z

Dread, A Game of Horror and Hope...

The second "event" in my RPG-or-DIE!-Con was a session of Dread, an incredibly elegant horror-themed game. After lunch on Saturday, Britt and Carol (blissfully married to each other), Tom, Kenny, and I sat down together to explore this game through the same scenario that I ran back at MACE. It was actually Carol's very first role-playing experience ever, but I was confident that Dread would be a good one.

I let them choose their characters from just the general description (literally a couple of phrases) and then helped clean up from lunch while they filled out their questionnaires. If you weren't aware, character creation for Dread is literally just filling out a questionnaire

Dread (2004)
Designers: Epidiah Ravachol and Nathaniel Barmore
Publisher: The Impossible Dream
Geekdo Rank/Rating: #270/7.06

designed by the "Host" (what Dread calls the GM). The questions should help define personality, establish skills, and more than anything else, give them investment in the coming story.

The other "system" element in Dread (and really, it may the only other system element) is the use of a Jenga tower. Any time that the characters try to do something that could fail, they have to pull one or more blocks from the tower. If it falls, they fail and their character is removed from the game, usually because of death. But there's also the possibility of intentionally knocking down the tower, which still results in the death of the character, but also grants them success in a very dramatic and meaningful way. And if you're thinking, "you lost me at using Jenga... that's just stupid," then you are simply not fathoming the depth of tension and impending threat that an increasingly rickety tower can generate.

The Scenario: Unauthorized Human Trials

I have five character questionnaires ready for this scenario, but only four players, so I sort of steered them away from the one that seems the weakest. By the time they had made their choices and filled out the questionnaires, though, this was our cast of characters:

Louis Featherbottom (Britt) - a sickly, stuttering coward with a powerful secret
Gene (Kenny) - a mentally unstable dude with a crazy delusion and a fear of doctors
Mary Jo Johnson (Carol) - a twice-divorced lady addicted to clinical trials and who was missing a toe
Luke Binford (Tom) - a homeless ex-army interrogator trying to get his life back on track

At the start, all of the characters have come to participate in some sort of clinical trial for a biomedical company named PrimaGen.  They had all been asked to come in for some interviews that would explain more details of the trial, and were escorted to a conference room to wait for a few moments. They sort of introduced themselves to each other and settled in to wait. An hour or so passed, however, and things started to get a little tense.

Leslie McCann, the trial coordinator, then burst into the room looking scared and out-of-sorts. She explained that there had been a slight breach in security, and that they needed to sit tight for the time being. As she spoke, however, the lights dimmed and a red strobe began to flash as a loud alarm started to sound, saying "Security Breach - Lockdown in Progress" over and over again. She turned sharply and left, the heavy door locking behind her.

Now, let me step out of the story for a minute to talk about a few other elements going on at this time. First of all, we had set up the Jenga tower on a desk a few feet away, mainly because it was a little more stable than the plastic-top table we were playing on. Since there were only 4 players, I had them make 3 pulls before we even got started. And one thing that I always try to do (at home games, anyway) is to use music to my advantage, so I had spent some time developing a soundtrack for the game with appropriately themed music to set the atmosphere. I also actually recorded the "Security Breach - Lockdown in Progress" alert (complete with a really cool alarm sound), and inserted it several times into the playlist ('cause I was using my iPod to provide the music) so that it would come up after every song or two.

Now back to the story...

After Leslie left, things sort of went to hell in a hand basket rather quickly. They began to hear shouts and gunshots from down the hall, and everybody started freaking out. After a few moments of silence, they heard more gunfire from right outside the door, followed by the sound of a man screaming. Suddenly, there was a loud crash as something heavy hit the other side of the two-way mirror, denting it in towards them. Then, there was only silence from outside.

Tom was in the bathroom trying to kick anything loose to use as a weapon, while Britt was cowering under the refreshments table. Carol was under the main table, but Kenny decided that they needed to get out, and that the mirror was the best chance they had. He picked up one of the conference chairs (made a pull from the tower) and smashed it in. Blood and gore showered him as the safety glass gave way, spilling the upper half of a man onto the floor before him.  So then it was Kenny's turn to completely freak out, run screaming to the bathroom, and try to wash the blood from his face and out of his mouth.

Tom had come out of the bathroom by that time, and was carefully looking into the observation room beyond the broken mirror just about the time that Britt, seeing any escape from the room as a good thing, came out of hiding and leapt through the hole. Slipping and sliding on the blood-covered room beyond and bumping into the lower half of the unfortunate man who had been torn asunder, Britt hit a new level of panic. Thankfully, the blood soaking through his pants hid the fact that his bladder had lost all control.

Eventually, the other characters managed to convince Britt to open the door and let them out. They then made their way to the reception area, only to find that heavy, steel doors had descended from the ceiling and totally blocked the elevator and all other exits. In searching for anything that they could use as a weapon or to contact the outside world, they stumbled across Leslie McCann, severely wounded and barely conscious.  She managed to achieve enough clarity to point them towards one lab in particular (where "it" could be found), apologized, and then died.

On the way thought the halls, they came across a security station with a heavily dented steel door. They managed to use Leslie's ID card to open it, and found a dead security guard on the other side. Not much farther along, they found three labs. The first two were filled with several animals, all of which were the result of some sort of genetic or otherwise abominable testing straight off the island of Doctor Moreau. In the third lab, however, they found a large cage with a broken door. Three scientists lie dead about the room, badly beaten, mauled, and possibly even eaten.

As they searched around the rooms, however, the animals suddenly grew more agitated, and they heard the sound of something heavy moving down the hallway towards them. After a few moments of indecision, they hid in the two other labs, hoping that whatever was coming would not bother to open the doors. When they were still alive after a few minutes, they summoned the courage to stick their heads out, finding that whatever it was had gone.

Unsure of what to do, they started to head back to the reception area, but on the way noticed someone hiding in one of the rooms they passed. She was a very young woman dressed only in white PrimaGen coveralls. Her head was shaved, and bore the marks that extensive testing had been performed on her. After calming down, she told them that she had been held captive for over a month, so the group took her with them as they searched for another exit.

Very soon, however, the alarm was silenced, and they could hear the sounds of other people moving and talking in the direction of the reception area. Unfortunately, they also heard the sound of muffled gunshots. Within moments, a half-dozen men in black commando uniforms rounded the corner several yards in front of them, shining lights and pointing laser-sighted asault rifles at them, barking commands for them all to lie down.

Britt felt that he had been rescued and broke out in a run towards the men. The young girl, however, was terrified and began to run the other way. After a couple of warnings, one of the men shot her three times in the back, sending her flying forward and landing crumpled and lifeless. Britt froze and one of the men beat him to the floor. The rest then advanced to cover the others and secure the area.

Then something strange happened; the young girl started moving and moaning. Three of the commandos circled her and demanded that she lie still. But instead, she burst forth into a hulk of grey, mangey fur, grabbing one of the men and tearing him in half. The other two opened up on her, but she appeared to barely feel the attack, leaping upon them and killing them both in an instant. She then stood to her full, 9-foot height and looked towards everyone else.

The next thing that happened was my favorite part of the whole session. Kenny's character was under the delusion that he too was a werewolf, so in the moment of distraction caused by (and inspired by witnessing) the girl's transformation, he charged at the leader of the assault team, sank his teeth into the man's neck, and tore his throat out. Kenny, of course, knocked down the tower at this point, and chose to end his life to help the werewolf and his newfound friends. As he yelled "Run!!!", he was cut down by the other commandos, but this distraction let the werewolf close in and take them out as well.  The girl/werewolf then continued down the hallway away from the three remaining characters, leaving them alone for the time being.

Kenny making a freaking awesome sacrifice!
The tower was then reassembled, and given that a couple of hours had passed and another character was missing, they had to make 12 pulls before we got started again. That alone cranked the tension right back up.

With the death of the commando leader, the alarms began to sound again. But this time, they said "Gas Deployment in 1 hour" instead of just "Lockdown in progress". As the time counted down and having no place else to go, they followed the werewolf back to reception, where they found it pounding uselessly against the steel doors. In a surprising move, cowardly Britt actually stepped forward from the rest of the group and approached the beast. He made pull after pull from the tower as he attempted both to keep from being killed and to eventually get her attention. When it appeared that she wasn't going to listen to him, he made a change. He exploded from his clothing, growing perhaps even larger than the other werewolf, and reavealed what the beastly secret he had hidden all along.

Britt managed to keep control of his feral instincts, though, and led the other werewolf to concentrate their efforts to open the door. They were interrupted, however, when another security squad rounded the corner and attacked. Using the element of surprise and a more organized plan, they concentrated their fire at the girl werewolf's head as she attacked them, managing to take her down before she could take them all out. But her momentum bowled them over, and Britt was on them in a flash. Tom and Carol also opened fire, and soon only one remained.

Initially, the last commando refused to give them any information about how to get out, but Tom's experience with interrogation proved to be useful. After a few strategic applications of pain, the man told them that the captain's badge would open the door to the elevator. Just as the countdown hit one minute, Tom swiped the badge by the door and it began to open... only to stop again due to the heavy dents caused by the pair of lycanthropes.

About this time, the other werewolf again began to stir. She was crazed, wounded, and out of control, though, and immediately came at the group. Britt met her, though, and immediately knocked down the tower to sacrifice himself and keep her tied up for the duration of the story.

The tower was again rebuilt, with Carol and Tom making 15 pulls before we got back to the action. They made a couple of more pulls to pry the elevator doors open from the bottom, and then another for Carol to squeeze through.  We were discussing how Tom could squeeze through as well, but then he too went over to the tower and knocked it down, letting the doors close as nerve gas began to pour into the room, ensuring that only Carol would be able to escape to safety.

And that was Unauthorized Human Trials. If you're interested in looking at (or even using) this scenario, here are versions both as a word document and as a pdf.

Differences from MACE

When I ran this at MACE, it turned out similarly, but there were also a few interesting differences:

The ex-army guy was a complete psycho. He was crazier than the crazy guy, and frankly, disturbed me a bit. He was having hallucinations and flashbacks and stuff like that, and at one point even thought that the werewolf was his commanding officer (which ended up losing him a hand).
The female character lost a little girl a couple of years before the story happened, so at MACE, she identified very strongly with Andrea Hall (the girl who turned out to be a werewolf). She was very protective of the girl, and even sacrificed herself to connect with her and persuade her to leave the other characters alone once she had changed.
Britt added all of the cowardly element to his character, so the first time around, he was pretty much the leader of the group. But when they had the final faceoff with the werewolf/Andrea and he changed for the first time, he actually knocked down the tower accidentally and was killed almost immediately in the conflict.
Kenny's character (the delusional guy that thought he was a werewolf, as played by Nicholas below) was the big hero of the day, managing to distract and even wound the werewolf enough to let the last other character escape.

I didn't give a lot of details about the game in my MACE report (mainly because I knew I wanted to run the scenario again locally), but you can check it out here.

Rachel, James, and Nicholas stress over the tower at MACE...
What I Think...

Dread has a lot going for it. And I'll start with the element that won it the 2006 "Most Innovative" Ennie - the Jenga tower. As I mentioned earlier, I don't think that you can really understand exactly how effective the tower is until you see it in action. Purely as a tension-building device, it's just brilliant. Because every pull that is made makes the structure more and more unstable, and everybody knows that it's leading to an eventual accident that will have very real and very drastic implications for one of their characters.  And as opposed to most "random" methods of conflict or task resolution, results never feel arbitrary or inappropriate for the situation.

And that leads me directly to talk about how the tower is a perfect pacing mechanism for the game.  Early on, making a pull is stressful, but not really a big deal. As the tension of the story grows and actions become more important, the stress of the pull itself also increases. There is a real feeling of building towards something in the story, and almost inevitably, the tower falling (or being knocked down intentionally) coincides with a very pivotal part of the narrative. Afterwards, there is a natural break in the tension (as there usually is in horror stories), but it gets right back on track since you now have to rebuild the tower and make extra pulls for everyone that has been removed so far. So you get a very organic story structure that still accelerates towards the end, with rising drama throughout.

The other element of brilliance in Dread is the questionnaire.  Simultaneously, it informs the player of a few basic facts about their character, gives the opportunity to define skills and background, throws up roleplaying flags both for the player and the Host, establishes motivation and personality, and more than anything else, helps the player identify with and care about their character. It takes what is essentially a pre-generated character for a one-shot game and turns it into a fleshed-out and beloved PC. And don't in any way discount the importance of this process, because for a horror game to work and for the tension to be real, the player must care about their characters and what happens to them.

Dread is a game where characters are going to die. You can certainly tweak how deadly it is with how often the Host requires pulls from the tower, but the whole structure is set up for at least one or two people to buy a farm during play. But more than any other RPG I've ever played, Dread tends to drive towards those character deaths being meaningful and dramatic. The whole sacrifice mechanic allows players to choose the terms of their character's ending, to make it meaningful to the story and to who they are. And even when the tower falls accidentally, the mere possibility of sacrifice makes that death seem so much more tragic and real, because everyone can realize the lost potential of that character. I've played some cool games that created really entertaining stories before, but never one that could connect so viscerally with the players.

And the last thing that I'll say about Dread is that it, more than any other game I've ever played, is all about pure role-playing. It's almost the definition of a game where the mechanics "get out of the way" and let you explore your characters and the story. But unlike so many traditional RPG's where you just have to ignore obtrusive rules, the "system" of Dread actually supports and encourages play in every way. It's simple enough to be someone's first foray into roleplaying (as it was for Carol), but it's good enough to fascinate even an old roleplaying veteran like me.

The Verdict

Dread isn't quite a "perfect" RPG (I'd love it if there was a way to eliminate the "solo laboring" of the Host), but it's about as close as I've ever found. Whether you're looking for an easy entry point into roleplaying, or you're just wanting to focus more on character and story rather than system and statistics, Dread is a great choice. I give it the absolute hightest recommendation I can, and just to put a number on it (according to the GeekDo scale), I rate it a 9.5 out of 10.

Tom, Kenny, Carol, and Britt playing Dread!

RPG-or-Die!-Con was a Success!!!

2010-03-02T14:00:00Z

Thankfully, there were no blizzards, untimely deaths, or other natural disasters on Friday or Saturday, so I actually managed to pull off having my role-playing game day!

Overall, we had five people involved, played for about 11 hours, and got in three different sessions of RPG-related fun. I'm going to break up my report into three sections, though, both so that I can get out the content in a more timely fassion, and so that each one won't be too long to slog through.

Comatose

Kenny and Tom arrived first, and we got right into an alpha playtest of Comatose, a game that Tom has been working on for a while. Our goal was to work through the character generation process, and I thought that it went pretty well. Comatose is a game where you play normal people that are attacked by "the Adversary" in your dreams. Eventually, you fall into a coma and struggle along with others who are under attack to break free before having your soul eaten (or some other grissly fate like that).

One of the coolest things is that there are no set "attributes". Instead, you choose three characteristics that can be almost anything (think something similar to aspects from FATE). As you lose conflicts, you take "corruption", which pushes your characteristics towards their opposite, showing how the adversary sucks away who you are and turns you into a shadow of your former self. Just to give an example, one of my characteristics was "Defend the Innocent" and the opposite that we defined for it was "Negligent".

In addition to being the main resource you use to participate in conflicts, these characteristics are huge flags showing God and everybody exactly what kind of story you want your character to have. And since the setting is one of an "Adversary" attacking the essence of who you are in a dream world, it also makes total sense that most of the conflicts you would face would focus on these things.

My character was a kindergarten teacher with a drinking problem, who had been fired for coming to work while intoxicated. She was currently using a false identity to find work, was trying to stay on the wagon, and had just found out she was pregnant. Kenny created a focused, aloof grad student who was preparing to defend his thesis and was suffering from extreme stress. Tom was a dude who worked at Home Depot and had found out that his boss was stealing from the company. But since he was having an affair with the boss' wife and had an issue standing up for himself, he couldn't bring himself to do much of anything about it.

And the reason that we were all pulled into the Dream together is that we were all tied together in some way. As it turned out, Tom was engaged to Kenny's former girlfriend. Kenny and I were former lovers (and he was the only man that I've ever really loved), while Tom and I had also had a previous relationsip (but it didn't turn out so well since I treated his terribly and took advantage of his "nice guy" nature).

The relationship web for our characters
Character creation itself was a fun and collaborative process, and I hope that it helped Tom identify what the next step for the game might be. We defintely had a lot of ideas about the game, and I just hope that they were useful and that Kenny and I weren't too obnoxious about it.

We had sort of thought about doing chargen for Diaspora as well during the morning, but we were having so much fun with Comatose that we ran out of time. Lunch was upon us, and Britt and Carol arrived shortly thereafter, so we just ate and got ready for Dread...

My Comatose character sheet...

Read an RPG Book in Public Week is here!

2010-03-01T04:05:00Z

I stumbled upon this interesting cause last week in my random internet surfings, and I thought I'd share it with all of y'all. Basically, this is an attempt to raise awareness of role-playing and pulp gaming in general among the general population.

Now I know that many of you probably aren't into RPG's, but why not play along with the spirit of the movement and take along some boardgame rules whereever you go this week to whoop out and read in public. Fly that geek flag a little higher than normal this week, and see if anyone around you salutes!

For more information about Read an RPG Book in Public Week, check it out here!

Roll Through the Unspeakable Caverns of Macao

2010-02-26T16:07:00Z

Gwen wanted me to come with her after dinner to pick out a bridal shower gift for someone at church, so I was about 15 minutes later than normal getting to game night. A game of Carson City was just getting under way, but it was full, so I was left out in the cold for a while. I watched a little bit of the wild-west action, but finally got into a couple of other games to fill the time.

As it turned out, though, this was the closest game of Carson City that we played all month long.  Alton got his very first win (in Carson City, anyway) by having the tie-breaker advantage against Chris, ending it's reign as Game of the Month! on a high note for the man who actually owned the game.

Time: 80 minutes
Score: Alton 41 (+ initiative), Chris 41, Ken 38, Chip 36, Michelle 30
Ratings: Alton 8.5, Chris 7.5, Ken 8.5, Chip 7.5, Michelle 8

Alton and Chris tie, but the old man had the advantage on the initiative track!
Unspeakable Words

Mark and I pulled in two CCG'ers to join in a quick game of Unspeakable Words. I had absolutely terrible luck, and even in spelling the ironic word to the right, I lost my last sanity and was left gibbering. Mark, however, sped his way to 100 points and still had the most sanity of everybody.

Time: 18 minutes
Score: Mark 100, Jamie 84, Bandon 83, Me 79 (and totally nuts!)
Ratings: Mark 8, Brandon 8, Jamie ?, Me 7

Cutthroat Caverns

The game of Carson City was still early on, and I thought that Cutthroat Caverns would go over well with this crowd, so we gave it a try next. Tom joined us, so we made a 5-man attempt at getting the Sacred Item of Unimaginable Marvel out of the caverns. I jumped out to an early lead, partially because I knew the game best, and partially because Jamie and Brandon were going after each other like monkies on a cupcake. Brandon took the worst of it and got very unlucky with several monster attacks, so he bought a farm about halfway through.

I continued to do well, and in the end won it by a mile. Tom was in a pretty good position to get some points in the last round, at least until he too gave up the ghost.

Time: 64 minutes
Score: Me 22, Mark 6, Jamie 2, Tom - Dead, Brandon - Dead
Ratings: Me 7, Mark 7.5, Jamie ?, Tom 7.5, Brandon ?

I think that I like the idea of Cutthroat Caverns more than actually playing the game. It's pretty fun and all, and it definitely has its moments of tension and hilarity, but it moves just a little too slow and takes a bit too long for what it is. I always make sure to remove any encounters that delay the game, because that can really ruin it. I'd like to think about shortening it by an encounter or two, but I'm afraid of screwing up the difficulty balance too much. Maybe I could try 7 encounters but step up the difficulty one level (to the next-highest number of players) and see how that worked.

Still, it's not a bad little game, especially when playing it with those with heavy RPG backgrounds.

Roll Through the Ages

My main goal for the evening was to play Macao, and Chip said early on that he wanted in on it. But after Carson City finished up, he jumped into a game of Settlers, so I killed a little time with Kenny and Tom playing a quick game of Roll Through the Ages.

I got ahead in cities early, then used Agriculture and the thing that lets you sell food for coins to get all the big developments that I wanted. Of course, it also helped that I rolled 5 or 6 "pestilences" in a row (3 skulls, which cause all your opponents to gain 3 disasters). So by the end of the game, it wasn't even close.

Time: 28 minutes
Score: Me 37, Tom 17, Ken 3
Ratings: Me 8, Tom 8, Ken 9

Macao

We had the game all set up and ready when Chip finished his other game, so we could jump right into the rules explanation. None of us had played before, but I think we got most everything right anyway. At the beginning, I felt like I was hopelessly behind. Kenny was able to activate several of his cards and never had to take any negative points from being overloaded. Tom activated a card early that gave him a point and a gold each turn, so he had a distinct lead in money the whole game. And despite having the Captain activated (which gives a point when you move your ship 2 or more spaces), I was the slowest to get out of the docks.

The one thing I did focus on some was in picking up goods and claiming quarters in the city. So once I was finally able to put together a few good turns to activate a few more cards and get my ship moving, I was also able to start delivering some goods. I activated a couple of cards just in time to double two of the shipments, but both went into the 3-point spots (netting 6 points for each) rather than the already-filled 5-point spots. On the last couple of turns, though, I was able to connect all my city quarters into one big chain, and that 12 points added to points from a couple of cards I had also activated (two of the Baronesses) was enough to push me past Kenny for the win!

Time: 117 minutes
Score: Me 58, Ken 54, Tom 49, Chip 48
Ratings: Me 8, Ken 8, Tom 8, Chip 8

Macao took a little longer than I'd expected, but the cool thing is that it didn't feel that way. If anything, it's one of those games where you wish you had a few more turns to make things fall into place.

I had heard a lot of cool things about the "wheel of time" thing or whatever you want to call it, and I definitely think that it lives up to all the buzz. The balance of getting resources sooner versus getting more later is really cool, and it takes an interesting mix of planning and luck to get the cubes together when you need them. Of course, activating certain cards can help you pick up extra cubes (or ignore them), so there are always a ton of opportunities to build combos that build strength throughout the game.

And there are certainly a lot of ways to score points. I don't have any real good idea about how variable the different strategies for the game are, or if it will always be more about balancing them all, but I'm very interested in finding out. It was hard for us to see the value of money early on, or how we'd be able to move around to all the different foreign ports, but after just one play I've got a number of ideas about how I could work to use both avenues more efficiently.

So anyway, my initial impression is that I'm going to really like this game. But if I have one reservation right now, it's because of how many cards there are in the Building/Person deck. Not every card is going to show up in every game (unlike the Office cards, which all see play sometime). So even if you know what cards are in the deck, you can't plan a strategy to use any particular one or ones, because they may never come out. Right now, I can't decide if that's a cool way to enhance replayability and force flexability, or it's an overly-random limitation to strategy. Hopefully, I'll get several more chances to find out.

Other Games Played

Can't Stop!
Time: 40 minutes (for 3 games)
Score: Mark - 2 wins, Chris 1 win
Ratings: Mark 9, Chris 9

No Thanks!
Time: 25 minutes (for 3 hands)
Score: James 103, Alton 116, Michelle 161
Ratings: James 8, Alton 8, Michelle 8

Race for the Galaxy
Time: 102 minutes (for 5 games)
Game 1: Alton 60, Chris 49
Game 2: Mark 75, Alton 52, Chris 49, Ken 33
Game 3: Alton 65, Mark 39, James 38
Game 4: Mark 79, Alton 51, James 39
Game 5: Mark 71, James 57, Alton 57
Ratings: Mark 10, Alton 10, Chris 10, James 10, Ken 8.5

The Settlers of Catan
Time: ?
Score: Chip 10, James 6, Alton 5, Michelle 4
Ratings: Chip 9, James 7, Alton 10, Michelle 9

The Stars Are Right
Time: 26 minutes
Score: Ken 11, Chris 9
Ratings: Ken 8, Chris 7

RPG-or-Die!-Con is Tomorrow!!!

2010-02-26T13:43:00Z

Okay, it's not like a "real" convention or anything; just a few friends coming over to play some cool, indie RPG's with me. But it's something that I've been trying to get together forever, and I can't wait!

The main event will be my "Unauthorized Human Trials" scenario for Dread that I ran at MACE. I've got five character questionaires for them to choose from, all of whom are participating in some sort of clinical trial at a company called PrimaGen. It went really well the first time I ran it, and I expect even better things from it this time. I've even got a cool "Onyx edition" Jenga set to make it even more special!

After that, I hope to get Fiasco played as well. I've already prattled on like a giddy teenage girl about Fiasco, so I don't need to say much more about it here.

To start off, Kenny, Tom, and I may actually do some character generation for Diaspora (while waiting for Britt and Carol). We did the cluster generation at game night a few weeks ago, and we're all pretty excited to take the next step with it. Kenny has blogged about our results a couple of times. I took his writeups and added in my meager photoshop and layout skills to make a rough-draft Cluster Gazeteer, if you're interested. I think that we'll probably still want to clean up the writing a bit more and decide on an aspect for the cluster as a whole, but it'll still give you a good idea of the "world" we've built.

Tom's also working on a couple of original RPG's, and we'll probably also work through chargen for that as well, as a limited playtest.

If there's any time left at the end of the day, well... who knows. Maybe another short RPG or some boardgames. If it were up to me, we'd play forever, but the schedules of the other players and the wishes of my wife may dictate otherwise. In any case, though, I'll still have a lot of fun!

BattleLore by Any Other Name...

2010-02-23T19:20:00Z

I don't know how many of you are BattleLore fans, or whether you've been following all the brouhaha about it all over the interwebs, but it's got me a bit worried. I've been following the announcement of Fantasy Flight's new game, Battles of Westeros, both on their site and at The Hopeless Gamer.  And the big issue is how, right there on the front of the box, it says, "A BattleLore Game".

This raises a lot of questions, both about the BattleLore brand (and how it will be supported) and about the system used in Battles of Westeros. To answer some of the questions, Christian Petersen released a Q&A document about the subject.

Now, I could go through the whole thing, but instead, Mark Jackson has already done a great job of it. So go back to that last sentence and click that link, read it, and come back. Go on... I'll wait.

As Mark said, why the heck would they call it "A BattleLore Game" if they're not using the same system? Is the Game of Thrones license not enough to drum up excitement? Throwing in the "BattleLore" brand even though it apparently has no tie to the game at all (other than being vaguely medieval) only muddies the watters and breeds confusion. And then all the talk about how cost-prohibitive it would be to reprint the core BattleLore game sounds to me like they just aren't going to bother with it much at all.

So while we may still see another random expansion or two for "real" BattleLore, it seems to me that the answer to the question, "Will Fantasy Flight save BattleLore?", which many of us asked back when FFG acquired the game, is a resounding "No!".

Playing Games with People Who Don't Play Games

2010-02-22T19:16:00Z

Sometimes, you can get lulled into thinking that our hobby is on the verge of breaking out into the mainstream culture. That people "out there" are practically aching to find games which are stimulating and require thought, but only lack the aspiring gamer to introduce them into this promised land of "good games".

And then, at other times, you come face-to-face with the reality that stimulating thought, learning rules (even simple ones), and maybe even playing games in general isn't what some people consider fun and/or relaxing.

Over the last couple of weeks, I helped organize and run a couple of workshops for the new graduate nurses at my hospital, which were all about stress management. We gave them some time to talk (and vent) about what they are going through, had an expert on relaxation and stress management come in to work with them, and then, in the afternoon, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to share my hobby with them and play some games together.

Now, I knew my audience pretty well, and didn't even begin to try out any strategic games. I looked at my game collection and tried to pick out light, party-style games, but also wanted to expose them to some games that were slightly more obscure than what they'd find at Target or Wal-Mart.

On the first day, I did tote along Pandemic ("just in case" I had one or two really interested in learning something more complex... and it is a healthcare setting, you know), but the other games I brought were Time's Up, Say Anything, Werewolves of Miller's Hollow (since we had actually played Werewolf before), and Felix: The Cat in the Sack. The scoring for Say Anything seemed to blow their minds, and they knew virtually none of the people in Time's Up. So in general, they seemed to suffer through both games to make me happy, but it didn't seem to me that there was a lot of fun to be had. In fact, several comments were made along the lines of "this game is causing me stress", which was, obviously, against the point. I mentioned the word "auction" when they asked me about Felix, and I thought I'd have a total mutiny if I said any more.

So for the second group, I went even more mass market and took these games: Catch Phrase, Word on the Street, No Thanks!, Dixit, and Werewolves of Miller's Hollow. They liked the sound of Word on the Street, so we divided into two teams of about 7 people each and went at it. Everyone seemed to have fun, but one person on my team was like a crazy (and a bit overly-competitive) little word-spoutin' machine, so we won two games in a row. And again, I still got the feeling that they were playing along mostly for my benefit. In fact, most of the group bailed at this time, taking us up on the offer to go away and do something else to relieve their stress.

That was cool, of course, and I was left with 6 people wanting to try out another game.  Since I'd had some success with it before in non-gaming groups, I decided to try Dixit on them.  At first, as I was explaining the rules, I could see some eyes glazing over even in the brief rules-teach. So I mainly focused on what they needed to do, and got them playing as soon as possible. After a round or two, however, they really seemed to be getting into it!  And by the end, at least one or two of them commented that they would like to own the game for family gatherings and vacations and such.

So what is the point of this longish and somewhat rambling post? Mainly, it's that not necessarily every person out there is a gaming convert waiting to happen. For many people, their idea of relaxation does not involve thought or challenge. And the reason that mindless games like Bunco, Keno, and the beloved LCR are so popular is because that's what people want.

And please don't think that I'm judging them those people, because the point here really is more about how different they are than me and the people I hang out with. If what they need to relax and de-stress is just to veg out and turn off the old noodle, then good for them.

But that also doesn't mean that we gaming evangelists should stop our work, because every so often, like a diamond in the rough, a new gamer may be discovered. And who knows, maybe the next one might even be someone involved in my little game of Dixit...

The Dominion of Carson City by a PowerMage when the Stars are Right

2010-02-18T20:48:00Z

The first thing I did this week at game night was to watch a truly exciting game of No Thanks! be played. Three of the five players were new to the game (so "strategy" was a bit lacking at times), but they were all having an absolute blast with this incredible little filler. In the end, Kenny and Chris were way in the lead and seperated by only 3 points going into the 5th (and last) hand. Everyone focused a lot attention on them, however, and they ended up collecting 88 points (putting Kenny into last place) and 66 points, respectively, while Adam actually lost 6 points to win the game by a good margin.

Time: 43 minutes (for 5 hands)
Score: Adam 138, Michelle 177, Chris 177, Alton 182, Ken 196
Ratings: Adam 9, Michelle 8.5, Chris 8.5, Alton 8, Ken 8

No Thanks! is just such a great little game. It may, in fact, be the "perfect" filler, and I'm actually working on a review of it and most of the other Z-Man filler card games, so maybe I'll be able to share a few other of my thoughts about it soon.

Carson City

I had a good time watching the card-playin', but was very happy to actually sit down and join in as we set up Carson City for some Game of the Month! action. John, the Z-Man demo guy, was actually there, so Chris and Mark went off to give Skyline 3000 another try with him, leaving Alton, Adam, Kenny, Michelle, and me to take a ride in the Way Back machine (the actual time machine from the Rocky & Bullwinkle segment, not the web archive do-hicky) to the old west.

I'd been thinking some about what I wanted to try out this week, and had at least planned out my first turn.  I decided to choose the Banker as my role, solely to pick up the extra $9 that went along with it. I had lucked into getting the one perfect place for a Ranch in my opening property placement, so one of my cowboys got the ranch at a steal of only $3, while my other two took the $2/VP spot and the generic $4 action. At the end of round 1, therefore, I converted $32 into 16 VP and was left with exactly $1 for round 2. And my strategy ended right there, with a considerable lead on everyone else, but not quite as great as I'd hoped it'd be, since Kenny also decided to convert money into points, using the $3/VP space.

Being pretty much penniless, I then decided to spend all of round 2 trying to make some money. I took the Sheriff, and then claimed spots for the 3 extra guns (uncontested, since I used the Sheriff token), $2/gun payout, and 1VP/2 guns spaces, leaving me 2 extra cowboys for extra firepower.  So at the end of my turn, I had $23 and had added another 7 points to my total score. And by this point, I was way behind in board position (for claiming parcels of land and building buildings), and someone else made a passing comment about how tight the board got in a 5-player game.  All that together helped me decide on my final strategy, which was to focus completely on earning points during the game with firepower and money, rather than on getting end-game points from buildings.

Just before we resolved round 4...
So on turn 3, I chose the Captain and bought the last three of my cowboys from the general supply (giving me access to all 10 of the little suckers!).  Then and in turn 4 (when I chose the Mercenary), I threw my weight around getting the 3-gun token and turning them into money and VP. On the last turn, Adam took the Sheriff and blocked the $5/VP spot, so I instead decided to bully everyone else around and steal some of their money to limit their VP potential. I actually did pick up a Mine in the last turn to give me the extra gun and another couple of VP's, since I still had an empty parcel left over from the start of the game.

Alton was trying to work out his property-buying strategy, and I was thinking that I would have to duel him for the 1VP/2 parcels spot, but Michelle did it for me. Kenny had lost a couple of big duels to Adam on turn 3 and 4, so he had fallen behind the leaders of the pack. One of the most dramatic moments in the game came when they were fighting over the 1VP/building space in round 4. They had exactly equal firepower, but Adam had the initiative. Adam rolled a 1, which would normally mean that Kenny was celebrating, except that his die came up a 1 as well, and Adam won on the tie-breaker. Adam was therefore my next biggest threat, and it wasn't until the final tally that we realized he hadn't picked up quite enough properties to catch me.

Time: 109 minutes
Score: Me 48, Adam 46, Alton 43, Ken 32, Michelle 27
Ratings: Me 7.5, Adam 8.5, Alton 8.5, Ken 8.5, Michelle 8

While my opinion of Carson City was on the decline last week, seeing how a completely different strategy could actually work this week made me reconsider it a bit. I'm still not completely convinced about its long term replayability and depth (expecially for the 90ish-minute time investment), we're definitely having a lot of fun with it.

The Stars Are Right

Between getting a somewhat late start and then having Carson City run long, it was already 9:30 or so when we were looking for another game. Kenny had been wanting to play The Stars Are Right again (since he hadn't actually gotten his copy to the table yet), so I and Michelle took pity on him and sat down. We then proceeded to tax our brains over the next 53 minutes, only to have Kenny flop down a winning Great Old One on the turn before I was going to do the same.

Time: 53 minutes
Score: Ken 10, Me 8, Michelle 6
Ratings: Ken 8, Me 7, Michelle 7.5

I really like what you're doing in The Stars Are Right, but I really dislike how long it takes. It's essentially a carefully cultivated growth medium for analysis paralysis, and at times the whole shebang can really grind to a halt. Our 3-player session wasn't really bad at all (other than a few turns when I could have played Michelle in a hand or two of No Thanks! while Kenny analyzed his next move), but I still wonder if its sweet spot might actually be as a 2-player game.

PowerMage 54

I just wrote my review of PowerMage 54, so you can check that out for my thoughts on the game. Kenny and I fought it out for a while until he finally drew cards for a 140-point attack that I had no answer for.

Time: 10 minutes
Score: Ken 15, Me -116 (that's remaining health)
Ratings: Ken 4, Me 4

Dominion

It was late, and almost everyone else was heading home, but Kenny and I decided to stick it out a bit longer. He had never played Dominion, and since my interest in it has been increasing as my interest in Race for the Galaxy has waned, I offered to teach him. The game seemed to drag a bit, and for a while I thought I was going to run away with it. But over the last 3 or 4 rounds, I just kept drawing into dead-ends and ending up with 7 or less money each time. Kenny made a run to get the last 3 Province cards, ending the game and taking the win in his first game!

Time: 36 minutes
Score: Ken 43, Me 34
Ratings: Ken 8.5, Me 8

I coached Kenny a bit on strategy as we went, but he picked up on it quick and figured out most of his deck by himself. And the most promissing thing is that he said he'd be up for playing it any time. So maybe I've found a partner that I can explore the base set and maybe even an expansion or two with. Who knows, maybe we'll even pick up another gamer or two at the store who also feels left out by or disillusioned with Race.

Other Games Played

Race for the Galaxy
Time: 28 minutes (for 2 games)
Game 1: Chris 53, Alton 26
Game 2: Chris 71, Alton 19
Ratings: Chris 10, Alton 10

Speaking of getting "left behind" in Race for the Galaxy...

Skyline 3000
Time: 67 minutes
Score: Chris 76, John 74, Brandon 62, Mark 47
Ratings: Chris 8, John 8, Brandon ?, Mark 7.5

Campaign Manager 2008
Time: 48, 30, and ? minutes
Game 1: John 271, Chris 210
Game 2: Mark - Win, Chris - Concede
Game 3: Mark 271, Chris 266
Ratings: John 8.5, Mark 8.5, Chris 6

Podcasting Highlights!

2010-02-18T17:38:00Z

In the process of my regular podcast listening this week, I've run across two episodes that really stood out to me. You, therefore, should check them out as well!

The Game's the Thing #65

Ron and Veronica finally get back to podcasting (after ignoring this one, anyway, for over 3 months), and the biggest highlight is the coverage of MACE from way back in November. It's really cool to have some perspective on how great MACE is in comparison to other (and perhaps even larger) gaming conventions. And, of course, it's just nice to have something fresh from Ron and Veronica on my iPod (even though I've been catching up on several of their back catalog lately).

The d6 Generation #49

The d6G crew has been hitting on all cylinders lately, and I think that this episode is one of the best podcasts that I've ever listened to!

Specifically, the first big segment of the show is an explanation and exploration of trademarks, copyrights, and "cease and desist" letters, all of which have been hot topics in the gaming world recently. One of the regular 'casters, Raef, is actually an attorney, and in a rare moment of staggering clarity, he dropped his usual "random" and somewhat flippant persona and let his professional side show through in covering these subjects. Russ and Craig's questions kept it all relevant and interesting, and I definitely walked away with a much greater understanding of the recent actions of Games Workshop and Lone Wolf Development.

They actually followed up this discussion with an interview with Colen McAlister of Lone Wolf, who talked about his company's actions more in detail. Despite the fact that Lone Wolf is a sponsor of the d6G, I thought they did a really good job throughout in coming across as impartial and informative.

And in addition to this and all their other "regular" segments, the crew (Craig, mainly) spent some time giving more tips for painting and modeling. More specifically, they focused on what would be needed to paint up pieces for boardgames, which definitely hit a lot closer to home. They then also discussed the basics of modeling houses for wild-west themed games, and gave detailed instructions on how to construct a typical building.

And as a bit of a side note, I've also been enjoying the Total Fan Girl blog recently as well. It's written by Nicole, Russ' wife, who also contributes to the show, and is all about whatever little geeky/game-related subjects cross her mind. She's very entertaining both to read and listen to, and I hope you'll check her out too.