I've been playing a bunch of Torchbearer with the Monday crew, which has been great fun. After a second session total party kill, they've got a second party adventuring to some success. We'll soon have someone at level three!
So far they've dealt with the introductory dungeon in the book, a bandit lair in a ruined dwarven hall, and looted an ancient magical library for one character's enemy (long story). Next up is a lead on a sealed tomb, which I am sure will go just fine.
What makes the game work is a very finely tuned approach to old school D&D. In particular, the rules for light, encumbrance, time, and deteriorating conditions manage to evoke the tension of exploring unknown caverns full of danger in the hope of loot. However, unlike the original, these are fun. It's some combination of the abstractions they use (and thus simplicity) and the fact that the whole system is well tuned, so these constraints matter quite a lot.
I also got in a game of Life on Mars when there were some absences. This is meditative, thoughtful game. It reminds me a lot of The Quiet Year, although many details differ. Life on Mars covers the first expedition to Mars, and we got to know our crew very well along the way. It manages to convey the close quarters with your crewmates, the loneliness and distance from Earth, and also the day to day operations and potential disasters of the mission as you go. I was pleased that our mission returned home safely, and that we in fact discovered life on mars in the last months there (which was my crew member's obsession). Great fun, recommended. Probably not that much replayability, although I expect that playing with a different group of people would be very different. The mission parameters and allowed actions remain the same (although there's some randomness in there too).
Showing posts with label rpg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rpg. Show all posts
29 March 2014
28 August 2013
Arise!
Time to write some stuff here again! I'll kick off with some quick reviews of all the games I've got since hollowpoint. There's quite a lot of them, especially with the Kickstarters from earlier.
Starting with the most recent and following in the order of me remembering them:
Starting with the most recent and following in the order of me remembering them:
- Owl Hoot Trail takes a stripped down D&D based system and applies it to a fantasy western setting. Lots of great flavour in the classes and the western-ified versions of hobbits, dwarves, elves, and goblins. A good chunk of the book is devoted to a meaty introductory adventure that looks to have a good two or three sessions to kick off your game. I haven't played this yet but I can't see anything that will break in play, and I intend to get some play arranged as soon as possible. 5/5 (provisional).
- I got my pretty hardcover of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rules & Magic book from the IndieGoGo campaign last year. It is very pretty and nicely bound. Still my favourite old school game, too. Note that it includes even more hardcore-shock imagery than previous versions I have seen; not for kids. 5/5
- I've read the PDFs of Numenera, from the Kickstarter last year, but still awaiting the book (hopefully it is on the way). Basically cool, and the character generation is quick and very neat. Planning a one-shot for my regular crew's next game to see how it goes (the main book has a few introductory adventures, plus I have one funder extra; I'll play one of those). System is fairly simple but with a few knobs and levers. I like the setting, but it might have been a little better described in broad strokes and the rest inferred from the rules and gadgets. Worth a look if weird far-future science fantasy is appealing (especially Dying Earth or Book of the New Sun). 4/5 (provisional).
- I got Carolina Death Crawl which is a lovely set of cards and great (if horrible) scenario. I played this with the regular crew when someone was absent (preventing regular The One Ring episode), and it fell a bit flat. The problem comes from having to set your own scenes and create your own opposition (although the cards help with both). Having a GM to do that might make things run better, for my tastes at least. 3/5.
- Dungeon World is good! That said, I've mainly run the stripped down World of Dungeons instead (generously seasoned with things from the main DW book) using Planarch Codex: Dark Heart of the Dreamer (both may be found in the treasure trove). Also, let me give a shout out to Adventures on Dungeon Planet, which is a kick-ass sword and laser science fantasy supplement with a huge bag of awesome stuff. 5/5
- And while we're on dungeon crawls, Torchbearer is also really cool and on the "to be played" list, as soon as the book is finished and shipped here. It's a spin on the Mouse Guard system which focuses on dungeon crawls as a primarily resource based problem: how do we do achieve our goal with the supplies and abilities we have available? 4/5 (provisional).
- Dog Eat Dog is a really elegant, simple system that deals with colonialism, resistance, and assimilation in a (by default fictional) Pacific island nation. Although reading it through, it seems a super light system, in play there's just enough to make the story really work. I've only played the one game, but it quickly became emotionally hard-hitting. There weren't any simple answers for our people, and that was with a fairly black and white contrast between occupier and native cultures. 5+/5
- Another Apocalypse World descendant, tremulus, takes on Lovecraft. There's a lot of great stuff here - in particular the Ebon Eaves setting, where the group answers a questionnaire and the answers allow the GM to look up what's really going on in the town based on the results. It looks like it will make a good setup for a one-shot, and has loads of great seeds for stories in the entries. Some of the other parts I'm not so keen on - I feel like the classes and basic moves didn't move far enough from the source: to really get a Lovecraftian game, the changes need to go a bit deeper. 3/5
- Speaking of which, I have the PDF of Sagas of the Icelanders, which also uses the Apocalypse engine. This is a fantastic historical game, with a focus on 9-10th century Iceland. Bursting with cool stuff and with a really neat take on the moves (there aren't any general basic moves: men, women, and children each have their own sets). Looks great, but haven't had a chance to play yet. 5/5 (provisional).
- I've now had a chance to play fellow-Wellingtonian Dale Elvy's EPOCH survival horror game. It's great, really gets a good survival horror vibe right away and the flashback mechanics to flesh out characters, as well as it being your own choice how badly you get hurt in each act of the story, work well. I've even written a scenario that's going to be in the upcoming war story-themed collection (it's set during the 1939-1940 Winter War, when the USSR invaded Finland). 5/5
- Stalker is a great setting book, but I really didn't like the diceless system. I ran a one-shot with a World of Dungeons variant as the rules (inspired by Jason Morningstar's AP reports for a game doing this), and that went pretty well. Fair warning: the main text of the book is in Comic Sans, which is disconcerting and a little hard to read. 3/5
That's most of my games this year. I'll keep you posted when I run the provisionally rated ones.
10 December 2012
Game Review: Durance
I backed the Durance kickstarter, on the strength of Bully Pulpit's previous work (especially Fiasco). I was a little dubious based on the very specific focus of the game, but after reading and playing it I feel like it will have a fair amount of replay value.
The very specific focus is that you'll be telling a story about a space penal colony where things are going bad. It's a SF take on the Australian first fleet and the early days of Sydney (in fact, there's a chapter on using the game for the historical scenario, if you want to try that).
You can see that the system is closely based on Fiasco, with most of the game being free narration and roleplaying. However, there are plenty of extra bits that give a particular spin on things.
To start with, you define the planet and colony. There are six features that initial surveys said were beneficial. You take turns picking one to be true, and another to be false. Once you have defined all those, you can look up your specific world and colony in the rulebook: each possible result has details listed to use in your game. Then you pick what drives your colony - there's a list of six possible drives, and you take turns deleting one until there's only one left.
Then you create two notable characters to play. One will be a convict, the other a free person or agent of the Authority. Your two characters must also be of different ranks - each side of the colony is divided into a ladder, from the top dog (colony Governor, or the convict bigwig the Dimber Damber) down to the lowest of the low (convicts who have served their sentence on the free side, and the lowly political prisoners and ruined convicts on the other). Each notable also has taken a solemn oath, which may be picked by another player for you - that is done turn by turn as well. A final discussion about relationships and implications of the notables picked finishes up the colony setup.
Play then begins, with no one GM as you might expect. Instead, you take turns as scene guide. The guide's job is to pose a question, like "I wonder how Freesh the bolter [an escaped convict] is surviving out in the wilderness?" or "I wonder what the governor does when he finds out his captain of marines was murdered in cold blood?". The other players then set a scene exploring that question and play out what happens (possibly with a few more questions asked along the way). In general, you aim to include your notables in the scenes as much as you can.
Uncertainty in the resolution of a scene is worked out via a choice (after a dice roll by the guide) of which of the colony drives is used in the situation. The choice is between "servility", "savagery", and the particular drive you picked for your colony in setup. The die roll provides some randomness, restricting which drives may be chosen. When the resolution method is picked, the actual resolution is played out by the group.
I've played only a single session one shot, but we had a great time. The setup gives you both an unstable, failing, colony and a bunch of characters with various issues and relationships that push them into action. The oaths, in particular, very naturally push your play of the notables into certain patterns - especially some of the crazier ones (I had a character who had sworn "to never keep a promise"). We wrecked the colony - the senior Authority notables and the Dimber Damber were all overthrown, and a republic declared. But with my promise-breaking convict in charge, we knew that it would not go well.
The resolution mechanics and story guidance are just enough to get things going the right direction - it shares that light touch with Fiasco. The individually generated planet and colony also assure that each game with have its own particular flavour. For example, our planet was so hostile that none of the colonists left the town. Only the wretched bolters attempted to live out in the wild, fighting off the natives and scratching for alien moss to eat. Most of the game took place indoors to avoid the harsh climate.
Overall, recommended. Especially if you're a Fiasco fan who is interested in exploring and even darker story.
Links: Durance at RPGNow or IPR. Fiasco at RPGNow or IPR.
The very specific focus is that you'll be telling a story about a space penal colony where things are going bad. It's a SF take on the Australian first fleet and the early days of Sydney (in fact, there's a chapter on using the game for the historical scenario, if you want to try that).
You can see that the system is closely based on Fiasco, with most of the game being free narration and roleplaying. However, there are plenty of extra bits that give a particular spin on things.
To start with, you define the planet and colony. There are six features that initial surveys said were beneficial. You take turns picking one to be true, and another to be false. Once you have defined all those, you can look up your specific world and colony in the rulebook: each possible result has details listed to use in your game. Then you pick what drives your colony - there's a list of six possible drives, and you take turns deleting one until there's only one left.
Then you create two notable characters to play. One will be a convict, the other a free person or agent of the Authority. Your two characters must also be of different ranks - each side of the colony is divided into a ladder, from the top dog (colony Governor, or the convict bigwig the Dimber Damber) down to the lowest of the low (convicts who have served their sentence on the free side, and the lowly political prisoners and ruined convicts on the other). Each notable also has taken a solemn oath, which may be picked by another player for you - that is done turn by turn as well. A final discussion about relationships and implications of the notables picked finishes up the colony setup.
Play then begins, with no one GM as you might expect. Instead, you take turns as scene guide. The guide's job is to pose a question, like "I wonder how Freesh the bolter [an escaped convict] is surviving out in the wilderness?" or "I wonder what the governor does when he finds out his captain of marines was murdered in cold blood?". The other players then set a scene exploring that question and play out what happens (possibly with a few more questions asked along the way). In general, you aim to include your notables in the scenes as much as you can.
Uncertainty in the resolution of a scene is worked out via a choice (after a dice roll by the guide) of which of the colony drives is used in the situation. The choice is between "servility", "savagery", and the particular drive you picked for your colony in setup. The die roll provides some randomness, restricting which drives may be chosen. When the resolution method is picked, the actual resolution is played out by the group.
I've played only a single session one shot, but we had a great time. The setup gives you both an unstable, failing, colony and a bunch of characters with various issues and relationships that push them into action. The oaths, in particular, very naturally push your play of the notables into certain patterns - especially some of the crazier ones (I had a character who had sworn "to never keep a promise"). We wrecked the colony - the senior Authority notables and the Dimber Damber were all overthrown, and a republic declared. But with my promise-breaking convict in charge, we knew that it would not go well.
The resolution mechanics and story guidance are just enough to get things going the right direction - it shares that light touch with Fiasco. The individually generated planet and colony also assure that each game with have its own particular flavour. For example, our planet was so hostile that none of the colonists left the town. Only the wretched bolters attempted to live out in the wild, fighting off the natives and scratching for alien moss to eat. Most of the game took place indoors to avoid the harsh climate.
Overall, recommended. Especially if you're a Fiasco fan who is interested in exploring and even darker story.
Links: Durance at RPGNow or IPR. Fiasco at RPGNow or IPR.
07 July 2012
Monster of the Week: Completed
You might see a little more activity here, as Monster of the Week is now complete and in print. You can find out more at my Generic Games site, if you want to check it out (or buy a copy). It's also listed on the Un-Store at my page there. Both of those end up going to me for fulfillment.
I'm working on a Lulu.com edition as well, which will have less crippling shipping to large chunks of the world. The Lulu version will be (a) thinner, due to thinner paper stock and (b) the internal print quality is not so good. Still, there's no reason not to make it available.
There's quite a lot coming up that I might talk about here.
I'm working on a Lulu.com edition as well, which will have less crippling shipping to large chunks of the world. The Lulu version will be (a) thinner, due to thinner paper stock and (b) the internal print quality is not so good. Still, there's no reason not to make it available.
There's quite a lot coming up that I might talk about here.
- I need to write a scenario for this year's Fright Night convention. It's going to be Monster of the Week: Medieval, so I'll be hacking my game a bit to make that work. The characters are not going to be quite so suited to dealing with monsters as in the basic game, for a start.
- I'm going to look at making a Monster of the Week demo kit: a mystery or two and partly pre-generated hunters to get people playing right away. That will go up as a free download when it's done.
- Get some serious planning done for my game of The One Ring. I'm using a bunch of the Tales From Wilderland adventures, but I'm getting to a point where the characters' own goals will be driving things. In particular, two of them have a need to go deep into Mirkwood to investigate certain things, and that's going to be tough for them. I guess I should do a decent review of the game as well. Short version: it's very good.
- Get an adventure ready for ConFusion next month. I'll be running Monster of the Week with one of the mysteries that I'm writing anyway for the IndieGoGo funders. Efficient!
- I have a few people who I owe stuff-reading and comments to. Now I'll actually have time to do some of that.
- I should give you all an overview of books I've been reading, as there have been a few good ones. Expect that soonish.
11 September 2011
Quick Game Review: Blowback
The regular game had one missing and one sick but present, so we did a one-off of something we hadn't tried. It was Blowback, which is an unofficial game of Burn Notice.
We quickly put together a couple of ex-spies and their civilian friends, and I threw together a pretty basic plot. Character generation is simple, but I think we went a bit too quick. Additionally, two players isn't really enough for the game. I suspect the sweet spot is 3-5 players plus GM. Maybe we should have gone with a single professional and single civilian with just the three of us there.
The mission worked well, although we stumbled on a few of the rules. I really liked the way that you do a section of preparation and intelligence gathering, then make a plan and execute it, quite separately. The four skills the game uses even have totally different effects in each phase, which adds a lot to the feel of things.
One of our rules errors was one that made things a little easy for the agents, so I think we didn't get quite the feel of things going out of control on the operation that I suspect is what normally happens.
Overall impression was positive, but that we picked a bad way to try it out. Recommended if you want to play a game like Burn Notice or find the idea of the innovative preparation/operation mechanics intriguing.
We quickly put together a couple of ex-spies and their civilian friends, and I threw together a pretty basic plot. Character generation is simple, but I think we went a bit too quick. Additionally, two players isn't really enough for the game. I suspect the sweet spot is 3-5 players plus GM. Maybe we should have gone with a single professional and single civilian with just the three of us there.
The mission worked well, although we stumbled on a few of the rules. I really liked the way that you do a section of preparation and intelligence gathering, then make a plan and execute it, quite separately. The four skills the game uses even have totally different effects in each phase, which adds a lot to the feel of things.
One of our rules errors was one that made things a little easy for the agents, so I think we didn't get quite the feel of things going out of control on the operation that I suspect is what normally happens.
Overall impression was positive, but that we picked a bad way to try it out. Recommended if you want to play a game like Burn Notice or find the idea of the innovative preparation/operation mechanics intriguing.
24 August 2011
Fright Night V - 29th October, Wellington
Any local horror gaming fans, check out Fright Night V. A small convention of horror gaming for Halloween.
I'll be there running one half of a Monster of the Week double feature/crossover.
I'll be there running one half of a Monster of the Week double feature/crossover.
14 August 2011
Review: The Fiasco Companion
I am a huge fan of Fiasco, and it's one of my go-to convention/one shot games due to its simplicity and the way it almost always generates great play. So getting the new Fiasco Companion was a no-brainer for me.
The book is mainly filled with advice - some general and some specific, such as convention play advice or how to build your own sets.
I used the advice on convention play yesterday, and it was all good. Those two games got into gear a bit quicker than I was used to, and both were really good fun.
There's also four new sets included, and a softer version of the tilt/aftermath tables that can be used for games that are aiming more at "comedy of embarrassment" rather than "death and mayhem". One of the games I played yesterday was "Regina's Wedding" using the soft tables, and it was really good fun. It definitely captured a lighter but still hilarious feel (it was a bit like a wedding version of "Death at a Funeral", indeed we even included a naked drugged character who would have been played by Alan Tudyk).
Overall, the Companion is a solid chunk of new stuff for the money and anyone who plays Fiasco regularly is sure to get their money's worth out of it.
The book is mainly filled with advice - some general and some specific, such as convention play advice or how to build your own sets.
I used the advice on convention play yesterday, and it was all good. Those two games got into gear a bit quicker than I was used to, and both were really good fun.
There's also four new sets included, and a softer version of the tilt/aftermath tables that can be used for games that are aiming more at "comedy of embarrassment" rather than "death and mayhem". One of the games I played yesterday was "Regina's Wedding" using the soft tables, and it was really good fun. It definitely captured a lighter but still hilarious feel (it was a bit like a wedding version of "Death at a Funeral", indeed we even included a naked drugged character who would have been played by Alan Tudyk).
Overall, the Companion is a solid chunk of new stuff for the money and anyone who plays Fiasco regularly is sure to get their money's worth out of it.
25 July 2011
Read-through Review: On the Ecology of the Mud Dragon
On the Ecology of the Mud Dragon is a short comedy game by Ben Lehman. The players are mud dragons, sort of like the swamp dragons in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, if they could talk and make up unlikely plans.
It seems like it's going to produce a funny one-shot, with plenty of random tables to seed your silliness, including one that generates the plan that your dragons are trying to pull off. So you may find yourself in the big city, opposed by a group of humans, hoping to get some candy and respect, and your plan involves really loud farting noises.
Your dragon is rated on things like laziness, patheticness, etc. When you need to roll, you'll be trying to overcome one of your vices and be more like your noble draconic ancestors. Generally you will not.
That sums up the game, I'd say. It's short, and what's there has plenty of fodder for creating your own stupid little dragon hijinks. Long term play is not really a thing, but I suspect it will be a great one shot, or game for off nights. I will certainly take it along to run at Games on Demand type events, too.
If the setup sounds good, I'd advise grabbing a copy, especially given the "pay what you think it's worth"option for the pdf.
It seems like it's going to produce a funny one-shot, with plenty of random tables to seed your silliness, including one that generates the plan that your dragons are trying to pull off. So you may find yourself in the big city, opposed by a group of humans, hoping to get some candy and respect, and your plan involves really loud farting noises.
Your dragon is rated on things like laziness, patheticness, etc. When you need to roll, you'll be trying to overcome one of your vices and be more like your noble draconic ancestors. Generally you will not.
That sums up the game, I'd say. It's short, and what's there has plenty of fodder for creating your own stupid little dragon hijinks. Long term play is not really a thing, but I suspect it will be a great one shot, or game for off nights. I will certainly take it along to run at Games on Demand type events, too.
If the setup sounds good, I'd advise grabbing a copy, especially given the "pay what you think it's worth"option for the pdf.
11 June 2011
Monster of the Week on Twitter
I just set up an account for sharing news and info as I gear up to into open beta testing. Go follow @MotW_rpg if you want to stay up to date about what I'm doing.
There's a button to mash on the righthand sidebar, too.
There's a button to mash on the righthand sidebar, too.
11 May 2011
Monster of the Week update
I've been working pretty feverishly on Monster of the Week (the Apocalypse World hack edition) for a while now, and it's currently solid enough for playtesting. Currently there are three games going, only one of which has me involved.
It's a game of ass-kicking monster hunters, inspired by Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fringe, The X-Files, Hellboy, BPRD, The Dresden Files and stuff like that.
As a teaser, here's a look at the Divine hunter class book.
I'm keen to get it out to other playtest groups, so if that little bit of info sounds good let me know at mike.sands@genericgames.co.nz and I'll let you at the playtest files.
It's a game of ass-kicking monster hunters, inspired by Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fringe, The X-Files, Hellboy, BPRD, The Dresden Files and stuff like that.
As a teaser, here's a look at the Divine hunter class book.
I'm keen to get it out to other playtest groups, so if that little bit of info sounds good let me know at mike.sands@genericgames.co.nz and I'll let you at the playtest files.
03 November 2010
Gaming Update
Not much to review over the past few months, but I did jut buy myself copies of Time & Temp, How We Came To Live Here, Dead of Night and some Trail of Cthulhu scenarios. Expect reviews of those texts soon and reviews after play some time later.
I'm still MCing one game of Apocalypse World and playing in another. This is a fantastic game, and I highly recommend it. Even if a post-apocalyptic setting doesn't really do it for you, it's worth a serious look. In play, it generates really great, emotional character stuff all the time. As an example, one of the advancement options is "create a second character to play as well as your first one", something I have done in the game I'm playing in. The new character comes in somewhat disconnected to the existing characters and story, of course, and he spent two sessions as an outsider, really, to the things going on. Then, at the end of that second session a few move results suddenly brought him right into the centre of everything that is happening (specifically, some responsibility for causing the apocalypse and a hint of how to repair the world). It's awesome stuff, now he's got a huge plan to save the world ahead of him. The abilities of the characters to change the world (even just the local part of it) make for great play, as much when you fail a roll as when you succeed. So play it!
I didn't mention that I got my boxed set of FreeMarket in early August. It's pretty! The game is the same, so no news there, but the components are lovely. It looks like they even have some copies left, so if you were thinking about grabbing it there you go.
I'm still MCing one game of Apocalypse World and playing in another. This is a fantastic game, and I highly recommend it. Even if a post-apocalyptic setting doesn't really do it for you, it's worth a serious look. In play, it generates really great, emotional character stuff all the time. As an example, one of the advancement options is "create a second character to play as well as your first one", something I have done in the game I'm playing in. The new character comes in somewhat disconnected to the existing characters and story, of course, and he spent two sessions as an outsider, really, to the things going on. Then, at the end of that second session a few move results suddenly brought him right into the centre of everything that is happening (specifically, some responsibility for causing the apocalypse and a hint of how to repair the world). It's awesome stuff, now he's got a huge plan to save the world ahead of him. The abilities of the characters to change the world (even just the local part of it) make for great play, as much when you fail a roll as when you succeed. So play it!
I didn't mention that I got my boxed set of FreeMarket in early August. It's pretty! The game is the same, so no news there, but the components are lovely. It looks like they even have some copies left, so if you were thinking about grabbing it there you go.
05 August 2010
More about Apocalypse World
I have begun another Apocalypse World game, this time as a player rather than MC. It's interesting that the experience is very different, more distinct than I had expected.
This is probably partly because I'm out of practice at just playing games, these days, almost always running things for my regular group. It's partly, too, that I built my character thinking mainly about what would be awesome but didn't spend any time thinking about who the character was and how he got there. That made positioning myself a little harder, although now I've had time to digest the game and think about it, I have a better handle on him and most importantly a plan that will almost certainly lead to chaos.
The game was shaped right from the beginning by some significant, and missed, rolls. The characters are me with a Battlebabe, a Hocus and a Brainer. We live around a bar that existed under the protection of a bike gang.
The first play-driving failure was on the Hocus's session start move, with a death and a desertion (specifically, a break with his brother) in the cult. Later, I managed to aggravate the entire bike gang and only ended that by killing their leader and taking another one hostage to walk out alive. Oh, and the brainer failed a puppet strings roll that ended with another gang member dying. So, overall it was fairly undirected chaos.
I think we maybe stepped into play a little soon, but the chaos - especially the local power vacuum - leaves us in an interesting place for the second session. We've been throwing some ideas around, and I suspect that the second game will work a bit better for all of us.
Looking forward to session two.
Regarding Apocalypse World, my high opinion stands. Very good game.
This is probably partly because I'm out of practice at just playing games, these days, almost always running things for my regular group. It's partly, too, that I built my character thinking mainly about what would be awesome but didn't spend any time thinking about who the character was and how he got there. That made positioning myself a little harder, although now I've had time to digest the game and think about it, I have a better handle on him and most importantly a plan that will almost certainly lead to chaos.
The game was shaped right from the beginning by some significant, and missed, rolls. The characters are me with a Battlebabe, a Hocus and a Brainer. We live around a bar that existed under the protection of a bike gang.
The first play-driving failure was on the Hocus's session start move, with a death and a desertion (specifically, a break with his brother) in the cult. Later, I managed to aggravate the entire bike gang and only ended that by killing their leader and taking another one hostage to walk out alive. Oh, and the brainer failed a puppet strings roll that ended with another gang member dying. So, overall it was fairly undirected chaos.
I think we maybe stepped into play a little soon, but the chaos - especially the local power vacuum - leaves us in an interesting place for the second session. We've been throwing some ideas around, and I suspect that the second game will work a bit better for all of us.
Looking forward to session two.
Regarding Apocalypse World, my high opinion stands. Very good game.
19 July 2010
Adnan's Junkyard: Apocalypse World first session.
I pre-ordered Apocalypse World a while back, and got the pdf. I have been really wanting to play since then, as this game is damn good. I've been meaning to write a review, but I didn't feel like I could do it justice without a bit of play.
Which has now been done - we did the first session of a game about a savvyhead and his assorted helpers and strays. Aside from Adnan the savvyhead, we have Jackson (brainer), Keeler (gunlugger) and Lavender (skinner). We generated quite a bit of detail about the world around them, although interestingly nobody volunteered anything about exactly what had happened to the world. There's a bit that's implicit given what came up in the session, of course.
Two of the characters had particularly interesting histories (by which I mean fuel for future complications). Adnan used to live in Grome's holding, but a year ago moved to his junkyard to be an independant operator selling his services to all comers. Jackson used to be the right hand of a hocus, from the sounds of it mind controlling recalcitrant followers and the like. But there was a coup, and after killing the rest of the leaders they threw Jackson in a river to drown, but instead he washed up at the junkyard. As the session went on we found that he'd taken in a few other random wanderers too.
The day in the life as suggested from in the MC's First Session instructions was pretty fun, as they all had a turn with the more appealing moves they had. Jackson spent a lot of time doing violation glove powered in brain puppet strings on anyone he could, for later. Lavender did similar with hypnotic, and now has hold over Adnan and Jeanette (a raiding gang member). They also uncovered a mysterious buried thing - they hoped it was a crashed, buried plane but it turned out to be a weird tunnel full of strange fungus-like stuff, and goo. They decided to seal it back up but I have a feeling that stuff is not gonna stay dormant any longer. Plus, they killed a bunch of dudes from another nearby group in the process of claiming it.
So, plenty of stuff to work on for building fronts going forward. I look forward to thinking that stuff through. We have the final chapter of our Trail of Cthulhu game to get through before we get back to this.
So, on to the game. The thing that I really like is that the character classes are filled with colour, and that the individual character books are the only background you need to read (as a player, anyhow). The MC (gamemaster) in this game... well, it's a way I've run games before, but here everything about the rules reinforces it, something I've never seen before. The style's what I think of as a sandbox game - where the player characters do their thing and the gamemaster lets things play out however seems natural based on what the other characters would do, following whatever plans they have.
Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but I've run games like this using rules like GURPS, and having everything built to support it makes it run really smoothly. The player characters have special moves to differentiate themselves, but the MC has their own set of moves that they use to make sure everything works naturally based on what's happening. And it does work, so that's good. Really nice for the person who wants to run a game without a whole lot of prep - you need to do a bit, but nothing onerous.
So, if you want to run a game that has that sort of sandbox play, I really recommend it. The post-apocalyptic setting is good too, but the game's pretty easily hackable if you want to do something different. In fact, I'm currently working through a re-write of Monster of the Week to use a bunch of the ideas from Apocalypse World there (there turn out to be some things that deal with some specific issues I had with that game design).
Which has now been done - we did the first session of a game about a savvyhead and his assorted helpers and strays. Aside from Adnan the savvyhead, we have Jackson (brainer), Keeler (gunlugger) and Lavender (skinner). We generated quite a bit of detail about the world around them, although interestingly nobody volunteered anything about exactly what had happened to the world. There's a bit that's implicit given what came up in the session, of course.
Two of the characters had particularly interesting histories (by which I mean fuel for future complications). Adnan used to live in Grome's holding, but a year ago moved to his junkyard to be an independant operator selling his services to all comers. Jackson used to be the right hand of a hocus, from the sounds of it mind controlling recalcitrant followers and the like. But there was a coup, and after killing the rest of the leaders they threw Jackson in a river to drown, but instead he washed up at the junkyard. As the session went on we found that he'd taken in a few other random wanderers too.
The day in the life as suggested from in the MC's First Session instructions was pretty fun, as they all had a turn with the more appealing moves they had. Jackson spent a lot of time doing violation glove powered in brain puppet strings on anyone he could, for later. Lavender did similar with hypnotic, and now has hold over Adnan and Jeanette (a raiding gang member). They also uncovered a mysterious buried thing - they hoped it was a crashed, buried plane but it turned out to be a weird tunnel full of strange fungus-like stuff, and goo. They decided to seal it back up but I have a feeling that stuff is not gonna stay dormant any longer. Plus, they killed a bunch of dudes from another nearby group in the process of claiming it.
So, plenty of stuff to work on for building fronts going forward. I look forward to thinking that stuff through. We have the final chapter of our Trail of Cthulhu game to get through before we get back to this.
So, on to the game. The thing that I really like is that the character classes are filled with colour, and that the individual character books are the only background you need to read (as a player, anyhow). The MC (gamemaster) in this game... well, it's a way I've run games before, but here everything about the rules reinforces it, something I've never seen before. The style's what I think of as a sandbox game - where the player characters do their thing and the gamemaster lets things play out however seems natural based on what the other characters would do, following whatever plans they have.
Now, that may not seem like a big deal, but I've run games like this using rules like GURPS, and having everything built to support it makes it run really smoothly. The player characters have special moves to differentiate themselves, but the MC has their own set of moves that they use to make sure everything works naturally based on what's happening. And it does work, so that's good. Really nice for the person who wants to run a game without a whole lot of prep - you need to do a bit, but nothing onerous.
So, if you want to run a game that has that sort of sandbox play, I really recommend it. The post-apocalyptic setting is good too, but the game's pretty easily hackable if you want to do something different. In fact, I'm currently working through a re-write of Monster of the Week to use a bunch of the ideas from Apocalypse World there (there turn out to be some things that deal with some specific issues I had with that game design).
08 May 2010
Parsely!
Another recent game purchase has been ACTION CASTLE! and JUNGLE ADVENTURE, using Jared Sorensen's Parsely system.
These aren't really role-playing games in any normal sense. They're based on 1980s text adventure computer games, with one player as the parser (and the map and descriptions of everything), and everyone else as the person typing in commands. Each player takes it in turn to type in a single command.
I played in ACTION CASTLE! at Kapcon, and enjoyed it so much that I picked both it and JUNGLE ADVENTURE up last month.
Running the games as parser is at least as much fun as being on the other side (you get the fun of knowing what they should be doing, which is usually not obvious to the others). I've run both games at lunch hours at work for a few interested colleagues, and that was a fantastic venue for it. Silly, and short, the games were a lot of fun.
Recommended when you need a short, silly game for any number of people (my experience suggests that the more people playing, the better).
ACTION CASTLE! doesn't have much room for replay - once solved, it is pretty much done. JUNGLE ADVENTURE is a bit longer and much tougher. My colleagues managed just 50/100 points when they finished, and there are more variations available. I suspect that you could happily play this 2-4 times before you discovered everything.
These aren't really role-playing games in any normal sense. They're based on 1980s text adventure computer games, with one player as the parser (and the map and descriptions of everything), and everyone else as the person typing in commands. Each player takes it in turn to type in a single command.
I played in ACTION CASTLE! at Kapcon, and enjoyed it so much that I picked both it and JUNGLE ADVENTURE up last month.
Running the games as parser is at least as much fun as being on the other side (you get the fun of knowing what they should be doing, which is usually not obvious to the others). I've run both games at lunch hours at work for a few interested colleagues, and that was a fantastic venue for it. Silly, and short, the games were a lot of fun.
Recommended when you need a short, silly game for any number of people (my experience suggests that the more people playing, the better).
ACTION CASTLE! doesn't have much room for replay - once solved, it is pretty much done. JUNGLE ADVENTURE is a bit longer and much tougher. My colleagues managed just 50/100 points when they finished, and there are more variations available. I suspect that you could happily play this 2-4 times before you discovered everything.
Read-through review of A Taste for Murder by Graham Walmsley
Mr Walmsley is kindly offering a pdf of the game for those who preorder. I sat down and read it last night.
The game simulates Agatha Christie style murder mysteries, with the focus being people at a country house in the 1930s. The game is similar to Fiasco in style, giving you the skeleton of structure that you then build on in play to create the details of the world.
You start out making up characters, and your relationships with the other characters. The first half of the game deals with the characters pushing each other to stress the relationships. I can imagine that many details will be invented here that will come back later on, often twisted.
At the halfway point, everyone writes down which character they want to be the murder victim and then a random pick determines who it was. The player of the victim returns in the second half as Inspector Chapel.
The second half of the game plays similarly to the first, with the addition of the ability to investigate people - successful investigation means that something is revealed about the character's relationship with the victim (i.e. giving them motive). Eventually, two people have enough motive to have done the deed and there is a denouement to reveal who the killer really was (determined by the winner of a dice roll - events earlier in the game determine how many dice each player gets).
It seems like a very good structure to make the game work as intended. There's some advice on things to aim for in play, in order to get the right sort of feel.
There's also a lot of information in the book about life in a country house at the time, from an overall history of the evolution of the country house to details like how to address different people and who each of the servants report to.
After that read, it looks very good. I'm keen to play it, and will be looking for opportunities to do so.
15 March 2010
Fiasco: Actual Play (Prog Metal Hell)
We played Fiasco tonight, using the "Rock band on tour" playset. It was awesome, with our three characters - the guitarist, bass player and drummer - all in the shadow of the singer/songwriter. Things almost instantly went off the rails (mainly due to the 'minimally trained grizzly bear'). The tilt let latent hatreds out and everything kept getting worse. Ultimately we were all left destroyed.
Game play pretty much delivered as promised. We finished quick with just three - I'd definitely suggest adding a few extra dice to keep the scenes going longer if you have three. Some of the scene setup and resolution was a little sketchy, as we got used to the way the game goes. This was very temporary, and by the end we were scooting along just fine.
Definitely up to play again, several times.
Game play pretty much delivered as promised. We finished quick with just three - I'd definitely suggest adding a few extra dice to keep the scenes going longer if you have three. Some of the scene setup and resolution was a little sketchy, as we got used to the way the game goes. This was very temporary, and by the end we were scooting along just fine.
Definitely up to play again, several times.
10 March 2010
Fiasco by Jason Morningstar
This is a odd game to read, because the resolution is quite unlike most games. I'm not sure exactly how it will play out. Given that, this has to be taken as a fairly preliminary review - I can't quite predict how it will go in action. That said, reports from the Internet are positive, in general, so I have fairly high hopes.
The game is designed to play stories like plan-gone-wrong type films - almost everything that the Coen brothers have done is a good touchstone, but Fargo and Blood Simple seem to typify the default style of the game. It's GM-less, in a similar way to The Shab-al-Hiri Roach.
Play begins with a setup section, where you pick one of the playsets to give you a basic theme and setting. There are four of these in the book, plus they're releasing a new one each month this year (you can find the current one on the home page). So far, we have "A Nice Southern Town," "Boomtown" (wild west), "Tales from Suburbia," "The Ice" (McMurdo Station), "Rock Band on Tour," "Gangster London" and "Last Frontier" (Alaska). All are filled with delicious and terrible details to set your game up.
Once you've picked that, you roll all the dice (4 per player) and allocate relationships and details to give your story its starting point. You'll begin with one relationship with the player on your left and one to the right, plus each relationship will be associated with a need, object or place. Once all that's down you sort out how these fit together and finalize your character.
Then play begins, with everyone taking turns to have a scene. When it's your turn you either get to set the scene (i.e. set your character up to do something you want to see happen) or resolve it (i.e. decide whether it goes well or badly for your character). The rest of the players get to do the other task, so if you set the scene, they decide how it ends, and vice versa.
Then you play the scene out until the resolver decides it has reached the crux and picks a black or white die to indicate if it ends badly or well. You keep playing to work out what happens and then the turn passes.
Halfway through, you add a "Tilt" to make things more crazy. This includes things like stuff being stolen, people being killed and so on (My favorite probably has to be "Failure: A stupid plan, executed to perfection.")
Then play goes on, with everything in theory coming to a head. Then an aftermath is rolled for each character - essentially how terribly they come out of it. You then narrate details of their epilogue based on how many dice you collected.
I didn't go into collecting dice - it's an important economy but I thought it would cloud a quick description of the way the game runs. The short version is that you want to collect mainly one colour, but only have limited control over what you get, so the other players can use this to screw your guy over if they think he deserves it. I suspect this will add an extra level of messing with people into the mix.
In terms of how it will play, I'm not exactly sure. I'm confident that with a proactive group it will just hum along, but there's some areas of vagueness that might stall a little. For instance, the way that you just play out the results once it's determined whether good or bad results happen might be a problem. I suspect you need people ready to step up and declare things pretty frequently, like "I guess this scene is over now". These aren't really problems, but it would be a good idea to be wary of some of these things going in.
Physically, the book's lovely. It's filled with colorful, cartoony illustrations and fun layout and typesetting that really give you an off-kilter vibe as you read it.
I'm hoping to give the game a spin soon, so I'll update with how it played when I do (possibly including a report on the "Smalltown New Zealand" playset I could not resist putting together for it).
Fiasco home
The game is designed to play stories like plan-gone-wrong type films - almost everything that the Coen brothers have done is a good touchstone, but Fargo and Blood Simple seem to typify the default style of the game. It's GM-less, in a similar way to The Shab-al-Hiri Roach.
Play begins with a setup section, where you pick one of the playsets to give you a basic theme and setting. There are four of these in the book, plus they're releasing a new one each month this year (you can find the current one on the home page). So far, we have "A Nice Southern Town," "Boomtown" (wild west), "Tales from Suburbia," "The Ice" (McMurdo Station), "Rock Band on Tour," "Gangster London" and "Last Frontier" (Alaska). All are filled with delicious and terrible details to set your game up.
Once you've picked that, you roll all the dice (4 per player) and allocate relationships and details to give your story its starting point. You'll begin with one relationship with the player on your left and one to the right, plus each relationship will be associated with a need, object or place. Once all that's down you sort out how these fit together and finalize your character.
Then play begins, with everyone taking turns to have a scene. When it's your turn you either get to set the scene (i.e. set your character up to do something you want to see happen) or resolve it (i.e. decide whether it goes well or badly for your character). The rest of the players get to do the other task, so if you set the scene, they decide how it ends, and vice versa.
Then you play the scene out until the resolver decides it has reached the crux and picks a black or white die to indicate if it ends badly or well. You keep playing to work out what happens and then the turn passes.
Halfway through, you add a "Tilt" to make things more crazy. This includes things like stuff being stolen, people being killed and so on (My favorite probably has to be "Failure: A stupid plan, executed to perfection.")
Then play goes on, with everything in theory coming to a head. Then an aftermath is rolled for each character - essentially how terribly they come out of it. You then narrate details of their epilogue based on how many dice you collected.
I didn't go into collecting dice - it's an important economy but I thought it would cloud a quick description of the way the game runs. The short version is that you want to collect mainly one colour, but only have limited control over what you get, so the other players can use this to screw your guy over if they think he deserves it. I suspect this will add an extra level of messing with people into the mix.
In terms of how it will play, I'm not exactly sure. I'm confident that with a proactive group it will just hum along, but there's some areas of vagueness that might stall a little. For instance, the way that you just play out the results once it's determined whether good or bad results happen might be a problem. I suspect you need people ready to step up and declare things pretty frequently, like "I guess this scene is over now". These aren't really problems, but it would be a good idea to be wary of some of these things going in.
Physically, the book's lovely. It's filled with colorful, cartoony illustrations and fun layout and typesetting that really give you an off-kilter vibe as you read it.
I'm hoping to give the game a spin soon, so I'll update with how it played when I do (possibly including a report on the "Smalltown New Zealand" playset I could not resist putting together for it).
Fiasco home
26 January 2010
Kapcon 2010 After-action Report
This year I spent all 6 official and 1 unofficial sessions in the games on demand room. Here's the games played and the good and bad of running them like this.
Bad Family. Steve Hickey ran this, with me playing. It's the newest version of his long in-development game of dysfunctional family sitcoms. It was absolutely fantastic, with the only bump being one player who was quite out of sync with the tone the rest of the table. The game itself is significantly polished compared to my previous experience of it, although (as I told Steve) I suspect that there's still rather more structure around each scene than is actually required.
FreeMarket. This game is hard to pitch to a group. I find that I can explain what's cool about it if I have a chance to talk to one or two people for a few minutes, but to get a quick pitch to a room of expectant gamers, not so much. In any case, I managed to convince four to give it a go and they created some fun characters and a great MRCZ concept: guerilla redecorators. The first thing they did was make over a public cafe (they scrounged some junk, and recycled the cafe and junk together to change the cafe from tags: "Ephemera, Cafe, Utilitarian" to "Ephemera, Cafe, Luxurious"). Once this was done we got into the flow of it and the rest of the game went pretty well. They managed to generate enough flow by the end that we had time to have a virtual second session beginning and run through a MRCZ promotion round, which they won. Not without issues in a three hour round, but overall a success.
3:16. As expected, fun all round. Not the best game, though. I found that the players seemed in a more reactive mood, which doesn't suit 3:16 well. If they are all just waiting for the next encounter, it drags a bit. I was somewhat to blame as well - beginning to run out of creative energy as the afternoon wore on. I wasn't pushing enough for cool narration too, looking back. Despite all that, everyone enjoyed themselves so that's the main thing.
ACTION CASTLE! I played in this one. Hilarious! If you get the chance, play it.
Ganakagok. Played late on Saturday. Suffered from general tiredness of everyone and the short time we had to play it. The game still generated some great myth, and I had a great time (I think ACTION CASTLE! got my creativity kick-started). After this, though, I think Ganakagok really needs at least 3-4 hours to work. That we everyone can get their head around the mechanics and there's time to get several rounds of play in, rather than just one or two.
Lacuna. Sunday morning, I was so tired that I pushed Lacuna as matching my mind's state perfectly. I used the tactic of basically not telling the Mystery Agents anything, and it worked well. Mood was perhaps affected by a very loud game of 3:16 also in the room, although the random shouts and sound effects probably contributed well to our game's nightmarish aspects. Afterwards, I had a conversation with a couple of players about the game's form and structure, how the incomplete aspects fitted into the setting and play, and how Jared Sorenson likes to mess with basically everybody.
In A Wicked Age... Played by popular request of some people who had played it the previous day. We used the "God-Kings of War" oracle and had a good game with a clash of two nations, complicated by a devil-worshiping cult, a jealous god, and a mischievous djinni. My favourite moment was when I offered "The devil kills and eats you" as a post-conflict negotiation and was accepted (the character happily continued taking part in the story as a ghost). The epic battle between the wild tribe huntress and the city-state's general was also neat to watch.
The Shab-al-Hiri Roach: OVERLORD. I grabbed three players for this in the last session. We had a good session, although it took a little while for everyone to get the hang of setting up scenes to position themselves for reputation gains - not helped by a weak first scene on my part, which was really only rescued when another player jumped in to create some good adversity for me. Interestingly, this was the lowest body count of any Roach game I have been involved in, despite being set in a commando training camp and with all characters trained soldiers (this does not hold true if we include German soldiers during the D-Day event, however).
Games on demand as a whole was great fun this year. We ran a little more smoothly and got games going more quickly. There are still a few places for improvement, of course, so hopefully will be even better next year. I enjoy that a lot of people like to come in between rounds to chat about the games we have, as well. There's a relaxed, sociable atmosphere that I enjoyed - although sometimes I was a little tired to actually contribute much to conversation.
Bad Family. Steve Hickey ran this, with me playing. It's the newest version of his long in-development game of dysfunctional family sitcoms. It was absolutely fantastic, with the only bump being one player who was quite out of sync with the tone the rest of the table. The game itself is significantly polished compared to my previous experience of it, although (as I told Steve) I suspect that there's still rather more structure around each scene than is actually required.
FreeMarket. This game is hard to pitch to a group. I find that I can explain what's cool about it if I have a chance to talk to one or two people for a few minutes, but to get a quick pitch to a room of expectant gamers, not so much. In any case, I managed to convince four to give it a go and they created some fun characters and a great MRCZ concept: guerilla redecorators. The first thing they did was make over a public cafe (they scrounged some junk, and recycled the cafe and junk together to change the cafe from tags: "Ephemera, Cafe, Utilitarian" to "Ephemera, Cafe, Luxurious"). Once this was done we got into the flow of it and the rest of the game went pretty well. They managed to generate enough flow by the end that we had time to have a virtual second session beginning and run through a MRCZ promotion round, which they won. Not without issues in a three hour round, but overall a success.
3:16. As expected, fun all round. Not the best game, though. I found that the players seemed in a more reactive mood, which doesn't suit 3:16 well. If they are all just waiting for the next encounter, it drags a bit. I was somewhat to blame as well - beginning to run out of creative energy as the afternoon wore on. I wasn't pushing enough for cool narration too, looking back. Despite all that, everyone enjoyed themselves so that's the main thing.
ACTION CASTLE! I played in this one. Hilarious! If you get the chance, play it.
Ganakagok. Played late on Saturday. Suffered from general tiredness of everyone and the short time we had to play it. The game still generated some great myth, and I had a great time (I think ACTION CASTLE! got my creativity kick-started). After this, though, I think Ganakagok really needs at least 3-4 hours to work. That we everyone can get their head around the mechanics and there's time to get several rounds of play in, rather than just one or two.
Lacuna. Sunday morning, I was so tired that I pushed Lacuna as matching my mind's state perfectly. I used the tactic of basically not telling the Mystery Agents anything, and it worked well. Mood was perhaps affected by a very loud game of 3:16 also in the room, although the random shouts and sound effects probably contributed well to our game's nightmarish aspects. Afterwards, I had a conversation with a couple of players about the game's form and structure, how the incomplete aspects fitted into the setting and play, and how Jared Sorenson likes to mess with basically everybody.
In A Wicked Age... Played by popular request of some people who had played it the previous day. We used the "God-Kings of War" oracle and had a good game with a clash of two nations, complicated by a devil-worshiping cult, a jealous god, and a mischievous djinni. My favourite moment was when I offered "The devil kills and eats you" as a post-conflict negotiation and was accepted (the character happily continued taking part in the story as a ghost). The epic battle between the wild tribe huntress and the city-state's general was also neat to watch.
The Shab-al-Hiri Roach: OVERLORD. I grabbed three players for this in the last session. We had a good session, although it took a little while for everyone to get the hang of setting up scenes to position themselves for reputation gains - not helped by a weak first scene on my part, which was really only rescued when another player jumped in to create some good adversity for me. Interestingly, this was the lowest body count of any Roach game I have been involved in, despite being set in a commando training camp and with all characters trained soldiers (this does not hold true if we include German soldiers during the D-Day event, however).
Games on demand as a whole was great fun this year. We ran a little more smoothly and got games going more quickly. There are still a few places for improvement, of course, so hopefully will be even better next year. I enjoy that a lot of people like to come in between rounds to chat about the games we have, as well. There's a relaxed, sociable atmosphere that I enjoyed - although sometimes I was a little tired to actually contribute much to conversation.
19 January 2010
Ganakagok - First Game
To prepare for wanting to run it at Kapcon, I ran a one-shot of Ganakagok last night.
The short version is that the game worked great, play ended up pretty much as the text implied it would. Perhaps more so, as the constant turning of cards to inspire narration kept giving us ideas in keeping with the setting.
The characters had perhaps a little weak construction (in terms of building Truth-vision, Change-hope and Change-fears that prompted immediate action), but the world building meant that as soon as play began stuff began to happen.
It turned out that we had a very small number of stars, so a short game. That was fine as we have a fairly short session anyhow (especially with all the preparation). The action fairly zipped along and the characters quickly fell into a love-triangle (square?) feud rather than attempting to deal with the coming changes.
Still, it gave us a good story and lots of fun alliance breaking and so on.
I suspect that the myth we made would be told by the descendants of the Nitu as the last sins committed under the old ways, before the new ways gave them a better way of life.
The short version is that the game worked great, play ended up pretty much as the text implied it would. Perhaps more so, as the constant turning of cards to inspire narration kept giving us ideas in keeping with the setting.
The characters had perhaps a little weak construction (in terms of building Truth-vision, Change-hope and Change-fears that prompted immediate action), but the world building meant that as soon as play began stuff began to happen.
It turned out that we had a very small number of stars, so a short game. That was fine as we have a fairly short session anyhow (especially with all the preparation). The action fairly zipped along and the characters quickly fell into a love-triangle (square?) feud rather than attempting to deal with the coming changes.
Still, it gave us a good story and lots of fun alliance breaking and so on.
I suspect that the myth we made would be told by the descendants of the Nitu as the last sins committed under the old ways, before the new ways gave them a better way of life.
02 January 2010
Brief notes on new game purchases.
I bought myself a few new games recently, and here's my impressions of them after a first read through.
The Roach Returns. Two new settings for The Shab-al-Hiri Roach. They're Oxford, 1863 and a commando training school in England, 1944. Both have a few new cards to swap into the deck to add to the flavour, and new enthusiasms and so on to create the appropriate feel. All good stuff, and hopefully I'll get to try one or both of them at Kapcon.
Thou Art But A Warrior. I picked this up as a more-accessible version of Polaris, and it looks like it fits that well. Basically the same game, but the setting is the last days of the Arabian empire in Spain. Very nice to read, and lovely art. This will sit with Polaris waiting for a good chance to play one or the other.
Ganakagok. I picked this one up due to hearing so many good things about it online, and the fact that it has a custom card deck (I am a sucker for custom card decks). Basically, you play Inuit-ish myths, with details heavily inspired by card draws. There's some dice mechanics in the resolution too. Looks very cool - hopefully I can play soon. The mechanics look like they'll really push towards mythic types of characters and events. Plus, the tribe's world is bound to change and the mechanics slowly build up whether various aspects will end up ending well or badly.
The Roach Returns. Two new settings for The Shab-al-Hiri Roach. They're Oxford, 1863 and a commando training school in England, 1944. Both have a few new cards to swap into the deck to add to the flavour, and new enthusiasms and so on to create the appropriate feel. All good stuff, and hopefully I'll get to try one or both of them at Kapcon.
Thou Art But A Warrior. I picked this up as a more-accessible version of Polaris, and it looks like it fits that well. Basically the same game, but the setting is the last days of the Arabian empire in Spain. Very nice to read, and lovely art. This will sit with Polaris waiting for a good chance to play one or the other.
Ganakagok. I picked this one up due to hearing so many good things about it online, and the fact that it has a custom card deck (I am a sucker for custom card decks). Basically, you play Inuit-ish myths, with details heavily inspired by card draws. There's some dice mechanics in the resolution too. Looks very cool - hopefully I can play soon. The mechanics look like they'll really push towards mythic types of characters and events. Plus, the tribe's world is bound to change and the mechanics slowly build up whether various aspects will end up ending well or badly.
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