July 08, 2007

The Black Road 2007

OK, The Black Road was last week, but better late than never!

I took a break from gathering papers and signatures (except for one phonecall and email exchange with the realtor) to spend the weekend with others interested in Amber and Indy RPGs.

Slot 1 was Michael Curry running Afraid, which proved quite interesting, if less than completely scary. It was a lot of fun, if not exactly what Vincent probably means the game to be like. If I had to guess, I'd say it needs to be GMed with the gloves way off, though I'm not sure how enjoyable that would be.

Next, I was the GM for a game of Agon. I miss-estimated the time a minion-heavy fight would take to run and how interesting it would be (overestimating the first and underestimating the second), which forced me to compact my story. The good thing was I'd designed Act 2 of the story to be unnecessary (though desirable). We reached a fairly solid ending, with Jenn coming out at the lead of the Legend total, quite possibly taking the lead right in the last contest, which only she succeeded at.

The next morning was Michael GMing again, this time Fortune's Fool, air pirate action using Spirt of the Century (which was the most used non-Amber system of the con with 3 games). Lots of fun and unlikely stunts, and a game that ended with my character caught up in the unraveling of his web of lies. Well, one lie, really, but since it was of the 'do what I want and there'll be lots of loot for us to share' when, in fact, there was no loot at all, I was certainly not Mr. Popular.

That evening was my second GMing, another chapter of Nine Princes in High School. It was, as expected, rather silly, but Amber was saved from accidental near destruction at the angry hands of the Gods of Metal. OK, you probably had to be there.

Sunday, it was back to Spirt of the Century, but this time with Carolyn Lachance in charge and the earnest but low-buget SciFi of Nine Princes in Spaaace! The crew of the SPSS Unicorn somehow overcame the constant sniping of Eric and Carl and the sneaky plotting of the Draconis lizard-men (well, stunt-men in lizard masks and gloves, really). Some nifty action and over the top characterization that made for lots of fun as the con came to a close.

Then, after the last slot, a half-dozen of us watched the last episode of the third season of the revived Doctor Who, which offered a nice punctuation mark before we all started on our many ways home.

Amber gaming wasn't plentiful in my schedule (two recasts, three non-Amber games), but it was all fun! And it's always great to see all the folk I only see at AmberCon or TBR each year. It's too long until the next one!

Posted by ghoul at 09:59 AM | Comments (1)

March 30, 2007

Odd, Sad Coincidences

Last Saturday night, as part of John Schippers's Justice Legion Militia: Lengthening Shadows game at AmberCon, we were handed pictures of a semi-fictitious, bankrupt Christian amusement park that was the site of some suspicious and unpleasant activity. One of those pictures was familiar to me. In story, they were in South Carolina, but I was pretty sure immediately they were actually taken in Covington, KY, at the Garden of Hope (page down; it's the third item in the article... I can't find the nice color pictures John found for the game).

Why did I know this?

Well, because my grandfather was part of the churchgoing workmen who built the Garden of Hope, back in the late 1950s. He mixed the paints into the concrete to give the faux-stone the proper color and aged appearance, among other tasks. My mother was very proud of that, and told me about it regularly, particularly as the family made roughly-Easter-Sunday visits to the site. I've stood right where the picture used in the game was taken a dozen times, at least. And, even today, there aren't all that many replicas of the traditional Tomb of Christ in the USA. Until very recently, there was only this one, tucked away in its hard-to-find corner of West Covington, KY.

So it was a rather odd coincidence, to say the least.

And was near the top of my mind when, yesterday afternoon, I got the call that my grandfather had died, after a long battle with Parkinson's, a severe stroke, and several minor heart attacks, plus a recently-discovered large tumor in his throat that made swallowing difficult. It wasn't completely unexpected; there had been talk of transferring him to a hospice among the options under discussion for the better part of a month. None of which makes it any easier, really. As I mentioned in a quick post yesterday, I'm flying back to Cincinnati for the services, and to help out however I can.

And, if time allows, I may well even try to wiggle up the back streets in West Covington, refresh some memories. They'll be all decorated for Easter next Sunday. It seems right.

Posted by ghoul at 08:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 26, 2007

Quick AmberCon Summary

I'm home and essentially whole (though I wouldn't actually want to insist I was actually awake enough to drive home from the airport safely if I hadn't just proven that by managing it).

Good times were had. A couple of great times were had. Folks were seen I don't get to see and chat with nearly often enough. New folk were met (or met for real after brief glimpses at earlier gatherings). Characters were put thru wringers or set up for future wringing.

More details to follow, perhaps, once I've caught up from general sleeplessness.

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January 13, 2007

Adventures In Improvisation

It happened six days ago, but I owe a bit of a report on the Spirit of the Century game mentioned last post.

Quick Summary: it went well. Quite well.

Oh, there are things about the system I need to know better before I run it again. I really hadn't gotten the balance of NPC abilities to PC abilities in my head, so my opposition was way too weak. And I didn't do a good job of explaining what sort of characteristics should be Aspects and what should be Stunts (partially the fault of the system, maybe, but mostly me). But I was very impressed with how the "guest star in their novel" character generation built common background elements for the PCs and even as I made up new difficulties on the fly so the characters were challenged, the game ran pretty darn seamlessly.

Hence, the title of this post. If SotC has a strength I hadn't noticed in reading, it would be that it is very easy to change or add things on-the-fly that can make the story the players participate in match their PCs more closely than the one the GM walked in with. And that's a very good thing.

I won't be commenting on detail of the story, as I may use this plot outline (with more effective NPCs and different improvisational additions) as a pick-up game somewhere else along the line, but I had a good enough time as GM and the players say they did as well that I'm hoping we can schedule a next chapter in their story. I've already got a plot in mind, this time more directly matched to who the PCs are, and maybe that'll let me see how well the system works when the improvisations are less crucial to the flow.

Posted by ghoul at 08:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 05, 2007

Less (and More)

So, for those who might have wondered what happened to the boardgaming club reports... I haven't stopped doing them, but I also haven't made it to a Wednesday night gaming day in almost two months. I'm hoping work will lighten up a bit and let me resume attendance soon!

My bi-weekly RPG was called on account of GM cold this week, which would make this nothing but a message of "no gaming" except...

This Sunday, I'll be heading up to Geeks and Gamers and giving a trial run to Spirit of the Century, an RPG I've been looking forward to giving a try to since I spent the drive down to T'Con reading it. If this goes well, I'm hoping it lead to more opportunities to try small-company and Indy RPGs. I've put together what I think is a solid little intro episode (lacking only because I don't have PCs to directly hook plot points to) and printed up character generation aids... Should be a great day!

With any luck, you'll be hearing more about this soon!

Posted by ghoul at 04:14 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 01, 2006

TurkeyCon Days 6, 7, and Departure

Late morning Saturday was offered to the World of Warcraft cult, as the adults of T'Con went off on some virtual project or another. I remain at a safe distance, lest all my freetime (and much of my other hobby time) fall into the infinite sink of the WoW.

I do, however, set up a couple of board games while the instancing occurs, for future consumption, one of which got played today. Details below.

Saturday night is given over to Luc's Call of Cthulhu d20 game. Modern-day setting, so I generated a nifty just-back-from Afghanistan soldier scratching out a living as a mechanic and handyman at old Miscatonic U. One haunted theater later, and we were all suitably freaked out and looking at the smoldering remains before scattering before the cops arrived. Well, it was an out-of-the-box solution...

Sunday had the normal melancholy of the last day of TurkeyCon. Where did all the time go? As a pre-emptive measure, I set up a Command and Colors: Ancients scenario for play, and packed away most of my other games. It ended up being a fairly full gaming day, in fact... More below the cut.

And, as I type this early part (game summaries will be done later on), I'm on the train to Greensboro and the better (or at least longer) part of a week of home office time before finally returning home on Thursday.

Much fun was had, and it was over much too soon.

[Added note from later... the week at work was a week at work, and I'm home all in one piece. Cats are likely to forgive me soon if I can wait them out and keep with the treats.]

Saturday gaming:

Shear Panic is a game I brought as much to show off the pieces as to play, but we did get a game in. Lou, Grant, and Ryan joined me in pushing sheep around, and after a bit of fumbling with just how moves work, we were quickly into the spirit of the game, trying to optimize our own moves while pushing others into impossible situations. I took a slight early lead, but wasn't able to hold on (especially since it's easy for 3 players to block 1 from scoring if they really want to), so we ended up at 25/24/21/20, with Grant in the lead and me a point behind, with Ryan and Lou close behind.

Sunday gaming:

First was that C&C:A scenario, facing off against Grant. We'd both played Battle Cry and Memoir '44 before, so the learning part was just the unique rules for this version, which are few but very significant. We played the simple first scenario, the Battle of Akuagas, which lacks terrain and elephants, thus keeping the rules to a minimum, primarily just an overview of the units, evasion, and battling back. He took the weaker side (the historical loser), if only because that chair was closer to the side of the room he entered from, but the cards made it so his strong right flank and my weak left flank were the focus of the battle, with me trying to shift attention to my strong center line but managing this a turn or two too late to keep him from turning my flank before I could march my heavy infantry to victory. A close 5-to-3 win for the Carthaginians. Time wasn't available to re-play with opposite sides.

Then we decided to give in to another of FFG's re-designs, putting the new edition of Warrior Knights on the table. Luc and Grant were both experienced players of the original game, and Ryan joined us in our afternoon of hard-fought war. The rules are just a little on the extensive side, and we made some mistakes (we were too aggressive in removing troops when a battle was lost due to a margin of 2 or more Victories), but it was a hard fought game for most of its length. Unfortunately for me, I got hit with a "traitor to the crown" declaration, which made me a favorite target for Grant and Ryan to attack (as they got a reward for doing so). In the end, I lost my Stronghold two turns running, and Luc lost hers the last turn as well (likely in large part because of that troop elimination mistake, which advantaged aggressive play against a target that should have only been slightly bloodied rather than crippled), so the game was between Grant and Ryan, and Grant won by the narrowest of margins, 15/14/6/6. I was the tail end at 6, since you can't score any points on turns when you lose your Stronghold. Fun was had, but we all agreed there was a bit of a "hopeless position" problem and a bit more time needed than the fun value of the game really supported (though more players and/or less rule confusion might fix that). Still, not nearly as bad on this count as the painfully over-long Order of the Stick Adventure Game.

Fearsome Floors had been set up on the table from mid-day Saturday, a cue from me that I really wanted to get a game in, so Grant and Lou gave me the chance after dinner. The game is a delightful series of puzzles, trying to maneuver your pieces so they are not in the path of the hungry monster. Or, rather, so they are just slightly less in that path than are other players' pieces. There was a good bit of maneuvering, and we all got at least one character munched (mostly in the first round of the game, where it just means starting over rather than permanent death), but in the end Lou and I were racing for the exit, and I was enough in the lead that I took the win.

And, as a rule, it simply isn't TurkeyCon if we don't wrap up by playing Formula Motor Racing, complete with terrible accents and the traditional "Lou gets exactly the worst cards imaginable". This year was no exception, as the non-player Orange and Purple racing teams scored as well or better than the humans in the early races. A ton of luck (and this game is little more than luck) gave me two powerful cards in my color at race-end for both of the third and fourth rounds, so I managed a win. To which the others replied I must be cheating, since I was actually "trying to win". Bah! 25/16/13/10 in the final score, with the non-player colors scoring 23 and 17, since when we don't have cards of our own color, we traditionally pick sides between the Orange and Purple "Robot Masters" for who to help win. And it's all too common to not have cards of your own color. So, yes, the nonplayed racers beat all but one player... As always, this game can be a sad day for living humans, as fun as it is. BTW, thanks to a 10 point final race, Lou was not at the back of the game... he had the 13 to Ryan's 10.

And, sadly, with that game, everything had to be packed up for the return home.

Posted by ghoul at 07:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 25, 2006

TurkeyCon Days Five and Six

No gaming on T'Day proper, which was given over to friends and food. Yum! (The food... not the friends. Honest.)

On Friday (day Six), we made our trek to the last game shop, where I found Vampire: Dark Influences and a couple older RPG books. Then we got home and set up some gaming...

First was the Order of the Stick Adventure Game, with Grant (Durkon), Lou (Belkar), Ryan (V), Luc (Haley), and I (Roy), so only one NPC (Elan, in this case). Unfortunately, what happened was just what I had feared from reading the game and online session reports and reviews, which is that the game took too long and was too random for its own good. In the end, we called the game at dinnertime, just after entering level 3, when we realized there was a least 90 minutes of game left and we weren't really interested enough to play thru that. As Roy, I had a significant lead, though Belkar and V were close behind and quite able to catch up (Belkar by ambushing me, V by fireballing rooms full of monsters for extra XP). Not a success, however. Especially since Luc hadn't read the comic, so didn't get most of the jokes.

To "cleanse the palate", as it were, we returned to Trendy, with Ryan leaving after the first hand. This game was a good bit more aggressive than the first play, with lots of use of the "Out!" card to undermine trend attempts. In the end, Luc won a solid victory, with the rest of us clustered many points behind her, 160/137/137/140, with all scores a bit distorted by the 5-player first hand. Still, a fun game.

Lou and Grant then asked to try another short-duration game, and I offered King's Breakfast, a game of claiming cards, but making sure the king has at least as many cards of each sort as you. It takes a bit of getting used to, but we managed to play well enough, in fact ending with none of us out-consuming the King (which, perhaps, meant we weren't sufficiently aggressive). Grant managed a slight win, 101/96/94.

And then we called it a night, with plans to perhaps try another mid-to-long game or two on Saturday.

Posted by ghoul at 09:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 23, 2006

TurkeyCon Day Four

And the rains continue. It's been pouring down here for long enough we're considering what we'd need for an ark.

But, instead, we mostly settled in and played some games. Well, that an grocery runs. I think Grant ended up making four, thanks to the inevitable "oh, one more thing" of Thanksgiving pre-prep.

Luc, Ryan, and I took a crack at Transamerica. Not as strong at 3 players as it is a 5 or 6, but still enjoyable. And, while I won the first round, the next three went solidly against me, one by a whopping 8 links, and solidly for Ryan, who won all three. So it ended up 10/3/-1 in his favor.

Luc headed off to the grocery for the main prep run, Lou joined us and we switched over to Easy Come, Easy Go for two rounds, which Ryan and I split. Then Lou decided it must've been bad luck the night before and settled in for a couple more rounds of Pickomino, doing much better but still losing to me 9/7/6 and to Ryan 10/8/6.

After dinner, we had considered playing the Order of the Stick Adventure Game, but it was late enough we knew that wouldn't end before midnight, so instead Lou, Grant, Ryan, and I gave a go at Mission:Red Planet. This is a newer game (in English, at least), pitting the players against one another as late-1800s Robber Barons trying to industrialize Mars. Players choose each turn from 9 roles, manipulating rockets to Mars in an effort to control majorities in each sector. In the end, a bit of luck for me (I had just exactly the rocket I needed) and especially poor timing for Lou (he held no regional majorities at game's end) won this one 56/35/35/15.

Luc took Ryan's place as we turned to a few rounds of No Thanks!, and after a win for me 29/36/45/51, she got the hang of it and played Lou to a very close 15/16/27/73 round, with me at the ultra-high-scoring tail. Grant came back with a vengeance for the next game, 12/30/41/42, but Luc won the last round of the evening in a 12/18/30/76 trouncing of... yeah, me again.

To end the evening, Lou and Grant joined me in another round of Pickomino, and this time I was on the bad end of the luck curve while Lou and Grant traded the lead right up to the last roll, ending the game at 11/10/2.

Tomorrow... way too much very good food and perhaps OOTS.

Posted by ghoul at 08:06 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 22, 2006

TurkeyCon Day Three

Day Three was dominated by a mid-day game of Fury of Dracula and dinner at Ruth's Chris, either of which make for a good day. Together, it's hard to beat.

I was tasked to play Dracula and teach the game, with the good fortune that 3 of the 4 hunter players (Lou, Grant, and Luc) had played the original edition, so only Ryan was completely fresh. Then, when play started, it went immediately south for the Undead side. I managed to move one city before an event card let the players pick 2 cities to scout remotely and, by good luck, they picked my starting city. Two moves into the game, they were on my trail in northern Germany, consecrating the ground in Prague so I couldn't escape into Eastern Europe. A good railroad car later and Dr. Seward (Lou) was ambushing the Count in broad daylight. I took three vicious knife hits over a series of encounters, dropping from 15 to 3 Blood Points before I managed an escape just after nightfall. Things were looking very bad for Team Vampire (i.e., me).

Fortunately, by escaping as a bat, I was able to move 1 or 2 cities away, which let me slip pursuit for a bit, and by amazingly good fortune for me decided not to explore the city I'd left an encounter in, which a few turns later matured into a Vampire for 2 points for me! Two turns later, however, they were back on my trail, this time on the border of France and Spain. Again, I managed to arrange the encounter to after sunset and escaped as a bat to northern Italy. A fortunate event draw let me move to Venice and to see in one turn, and a slight miss-count by the players meant they had me in the wrong sea zone. It only have me one turn's lead, but it did mean they spent an event card that would've stopped me on the wrong target.

Back aground in the more friendly climes of Eastern Europe, I started to make my way toward Castle Dracula and a good chance to recover some Blood. That was when fortune really smiled on me. Van Helsing (Grant) went to sea from southern France to chase me, and I used storms to send him off to Ireland instead, well out of my hair. Then Mina, deciding that she had the event card support she needed to take a badly battered Dracula, moved herself to confront me. At night. With every advantage, including Garlic and Sister Agatha with me a 2 Blood Points, so my only way out was victory. It came down to one roll. If I won, I could Mesmerize her, turn her into a Vampire for 2 points, then on my turn the timer would tick past dawn and I'd score my 6th point on the clock for the win. Or, if we tied or she won, her stake would wound me, almost certainly enough to end the game.

I rolled a 4, she rolled a 2.

And, against all odds, a dark cloud settles over Europe.

A lesson in the ever-important "never give up" rule. I was on the ropes from the 3rd turn, but in the end a bit of luck in event draws met a couple overconfident opposition moves and one lucky die roll was enough for the win!

After cleaning up and dressing for dinner, Lou, Ryan, and I filled some time with a couple rounds of No Thanks! (without question the hit of the con so far), Ryan winning the first 33/49/56, and me taking an incredibly lucky second game 7/39/58. Yes, 7. I had the cards 23-30 and 16 chips at the end. I don't expect to manage many scores that low in the future.

After dinner, in the grip of near meat coma, Grant, Lou, and I tried some Pickomino. I initially got the rules confused in explaining them, but it was quickly obvious I was wrong, so we stopped and started over correctly. The game is one of rolling dice to match target numbers, with rewards if you get higher numbers but penalties if you push too far. And this game, we watched as Lou's luck went from bad to worse. Everything he captured, I took away. Sometimes by making the least likely of rolls (such as a roll of one die with only one possible good result... which I got). In the end, I edged past Grant 11/9/0. Much silliness ensued, and after laughing ourselves to the point of pain, we called it a night.

Posted by ghoul at 08:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 21, 2006

TurkeyCon Day Two

Day Two was primarily our game shop crawl, hitting three local gaming shops and purchasing much that is nifty and new.

For me, that means Gloria Mundi, Leonardo Da Vinci, Jungle Speed, Jericho, Blue Moon: Buka Invasion, Silk Road, Axis & Allies: Battle of the Bulge, Hollywood Blockbuster, Nottingham, Ave Caesar (new edition), Vampire: Prince of the City, and Monkey Arena.

And there's still one more store we didn't make it to, which specializes more in RPG books. That may be on the schedule for today.

With all the driving and shopping (and the watching of Heroes), there was less time for playing, though we still found a bit.

The only new game introduced was Trendy, with me introducing Grant, Luc, Lou, and Ryan to the joys of predicting the world of fashion (or is it just playing cards?). It was a well-fought game, with everyone catching on quickly to how it's done. But, in the end, everyone had one (or more) low-scoring (less than 25 point) hand except Grant, so we took a solid lead in a 161/139/132/129/114 game. I was dead in the middle there, because my one low-scoring hand was a painful 13 point collapse.

Then, to burn a bit of time while dinner finished, we zipped through another game of Easy Come, Easy Go, adding Luc so we had 5 players, nominally one too many, but we used the "recapture a trophy you have and it is protected from theft" rule, and that let Luc hold on for a win.

Then we taught Lou how to play No Thanks!, which took almost no time at all (the game being what it is). The first game didn't go well for him, landing him at the back of a close-fought match between Grant and Ryan, 41/44/64/74. But, after Heroes was watched, Ryan, Lou and I returned to the table for three more plays, which we split evenly. I took the first 35/50/85 (Ryan having no luck at all), Lou the second 26/38/54 (thanks to a late draw that connected two mid-20s card runs), and Ryan the third 47/83/84 (neither Lou nor I could connect anything, mostly because we sabotaged each other to our mutual destruction).

Posted by ghoul at 08:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 20, 2006

TurkeyCon Day One

There is far too much World of Warcraft presence here. As the only non-player (which I will remain so I have time for other hobbies), I must protest!

Anyway, everyone else left their monitors for long enough to get in some other gaming. Actually, quite a bit...

We played Masons to get started, this being the sort of game Luc likes a lot (building and pattern-creation). The game is one of placing walls that eventually enclose cities and of placing towers and houses of random colors near your new wall. Scoring is by matching patterns or combinations on the board to those in your hand of cards when a city is enclosed. Luc spent much of the game in last place, but was just creating a false sense of security for the rest of us, as she rocketed to a late lead, bounding past Lou, Ryan and me to win 104/102/96/90. I was the 102, and so was the most surprised by her late surge.

Next, I got out Easy Come, Easy Go, which I think is best described as a fast, competitive version of Yatzee. You roll for certain combinations, claiming trophy cards if you get them, and the first player to acquire and hold 3 such cards wins. Grant, Ryan, Lou, and I raced through 4 plays in maybe 30 minutes, the last couple using a "protection" alternate rule I found here, which speeds up the endgame a bit and adds more options. In the end, we all won exactly one game, so we'll need to unpack this later to decide which of us is really the best.

Luc called for dinner, but I insisted No Thanks! could be taught and played in the "a couple of minutes" she said we had, and Grant and Ryan took up the challenge. And, of course, that was true. Ryan ended up chip-poor early, so was forced to eat some unpleasant cards, but Grant and I ended up VERY close, with him edging out a narrow win. 44/47/87.

After dinner, Luc and I played a quick game of King's Blood, which I'd actually gotten out just to show Bridget the card are (she's a big anime art style fan). I won the quick teaching game, then Bridget joined us for 3 more plays. I slightly mis-taught the rules for playing extra cards following a child's birth, but we fixed that for the last game. Of the three games, we each won one, but when it comes to points, Bridget only had 7 left over in her 2 "losses", while I had 26 and Luc 57, so there's no question who won.

We then considered a longer game, but decided we were all more in the mood for light and quick, so played two rounds of Cloud 9, one with Lou and one with Julia against me and the Gaineys. And, this time, it was solidly my night, as I won both rounds, even with the same score. 55/50/36/36/13/13 was the first round as I edged our Ryan and 55/51/49/37/33/30 the second, sneaking past Bridget on the last flight.

With that, we called it a night, with me assigned to review the more popular longer games for probable play the next evening. But first, there's the traditional game-store crawl, which will start around noon on T'Con Day Two (which, as I type this, is very soon).

Off to a good start in my book, with 5 different titles played on day one. At that rate, we could play almost everything I brought (around 40 titles) by the 8th day... though that assumes no slacking off and no "must play" new purchases, both of which are likely to occur, and it ignores that only one of the games played on Day One was of a longer-than-quick-filler play length.

Still... a good start!

Posted by ghoul at 11:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 19, 2006

Turkeycon Travel Day

The drive down was nicely uneventful, exactly as it should be, barring a couple bits of traffic and one closed road segment with a seriously backroads detour. But a relatively simple one that cost us little time.

On the drive down, I spent most of my time reading Spirit of the Century, a wonderful FATE-based pulp RPG that nicely mixes traditional and modern NAR-style game mechanics. Also nifty is a "pick up" concept for the game, which allows play with minimal prep time, even most of character generation left to develop in-play. This is one I certainly want to get a chance to try out!

So, anyway, we're arrived, and with some work all connecting to wireless 'net and nicely up and running.

Also, the boardgames are unpacked and interest surveying begun. Play will start around noon on Day 1 (a little more than an hour away as I post this).

Posted by ghoul at 10:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 15, 2006

TurkeyCon Prep

I'm starting to pack games for T'Con this year.

I'll be doing my standard re-packing, replacing the air that fills all too many game boxes with other games as best I can manage. After all, I'm limited in volume I can bring along.

UPDATE: Well, the list below does manage to fit into my space. And I even managed to add a couple more titles (Palazzo and Caylus, with the later making it by sharing a box with Blue Moon City once the unnecessary insert is removed) and have some space left in case something captures my attention in the next four weeks (which is when I'll have to actually take the tubs to be packed into the van). My next step is to create some priorities...

Here's my early list of new (to T'Con) games going into the tubs. Small games are the easiest picks, as they will usually end up easily fitting inside other games!

Trendy (small)
Twilight Struggle (promised)
Command and Colors Ancients (must play!)
Shear Panic (too pretty, also fun)
World of Warcraft Boardgame (with expansion set; everyone else at T'Con plays the MMORPG)
Order of the Stick Adventure Game (long, but funny and OotS, so it comes along)
Great Wall of China (small)
Fairy Tale (small)
Thurn & Taxis (SdJ winner)
Easy Come, Easy Go (smallish)
Piccomino (small)
The End of the Triumvirate (how can I not?)

One advantage is that many of these games have rules available online, and with luck I'll manage to get someone to read them in advance (especially Twilight Struggle and C&C:A, both of which have rules at the GMT Games site). I'll also be trying to assemble teaching and play aids where I can (say, for WoW, as FFG games often become quicker with the addition of a decent play summary or turn flow aid).

Now, WoW doesn't actually fit into the tubs (too long by an inch or two), but I already asked for special dispensation to allow it to come along.

On the cusp are a few others, mostly a problem because of their box size, though sometimes it's length, number of players, or complexity to teach/learn that keeps games off the main list. Or are games I brought in the past but never got into the table (for various reasons).

Fury of Dracula (a bit long, but a classic)
Warrior Knights (another classic, surprisingly different this time, but maybe only appeals to 2-3 of us)
Masons (large, by just a bit)
Bolide (quite large for what it is, long)
Louis XIV (didn't make table last year, but now I know how to play and it's simpler than the rules look)
Pizza Box Football (didn't make table last year, two player only)
Blue Moon City (oversized box, but a very good game IMO)

And that's about where I stand. Old favorites and mandatory bring-alongs (like Formula Motor Racing and Cloud 9) will of course be in the boxes automatically. Though I'm hoping Incan Gold, the US version of Diamant, will be out by or at T'Con and it does a pretty good job of being better than Cloud 9 at almost everything Cloud 9 is good at (except the minimal bluffing element).

And that's where I stand. Advice or requests are welcome.

Posted by ghoul at 07:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 26, 2006

Catching Up On Gaming

It's been just over a month since I last posted a boardgame club report, but since I still have my notes, I thought I'd catch up and add things since then.

So below the cut are two club meeting reports (I missed two meetings as well, one while at GenCon and the other trying to catch up on sleep missed at GenCon), as well as a brief comment on a GenCon demo and some casual gaming on a Friday afternoon.

The 7/26 club meeting had me play 4 games. (By the way, I've now asked and I'll be using names not just initials in these reports.)

Beowulf was played for the 2nd time with the club, this time with the unfortunate "everything falls apart" happening to Eric. It turns out after-the-fact that we may have been a bit overly generous with Risks, allowing players to take a risk, fail, and then supplement their bid anyway from their hand, which is OK if the risk gives you something but not enough, but not OK if the Risk completely fails. The rules specifically say if a Risk fails completely, you're out of the bidding. This led to a lot more random play than the game intends. Anyway, final result was Matt winning in his first play of the game, Adam in 2nd, my in third, Dave in 4th and Eric at the back. 30/27/21/15/-15.

Eric brought out Don, a game none of the rest of us were familiar with, for a short fill while we waited on Rich's arrival (Jim had already joined us near the end of Beowulf). This is an interesting little bidding game, with winners claiming numbers which, when they appear as the final digit of someone else's bid, means you pay THEM, not the bank. It takes some time to get the hang of things, and I wasn't alone in getting caught over-bidding then going several turns without getting paid, which means several turns effectively out of the game. In the end, Eric dominated and I was a surprising (given my big mistake) 3rd place. 10/9/7/6/4/2.

Formula De was next. This one is a favorite of mine, one of the classics of a genre I very much enjoy (race games). Rich had arrived, so we had 7 players, which means the field was crowded enough this game got to really shine, and we used Track #2 (Nederland - Zandvort No 1), which I find much more enjoyable than the much slower Track #1 (Monaco). There were the normal problems (bad luck can eliminate a car, and in this case took out Adam barely into turn 4, then another driver a couple turns later), but that's the nature of the game (and of Formula One racing). We had a real neck-and-neck finish, with me 1/2 a space ahead of Dave at the end. By the book, I moved first and so won the race. However, by an optional rule I actually prefer which makes the tiebreaker the number of movement points left over after the line, Dave beat me by rolling a 30 over my 27, so was 2 1/2 spaced ahead. So I don't know if I call that a win or a 2nd place (we hadn't expressly said we were using the optional rule, after all), but it was a great ending either way.

I sat out a Linkity game when dinner arrived, as did Ethan and Erin. It was Erin's birthday, which was also celebrated. With 10 players, we then turned to a party game, in this case Time's Up. This is a nice little variation of Charades, played in progressive rounds where the limitations on the type of clues you can use become more and more restrictive. But since the answers are from cards and are the same in each round, the 'secret' is to learn to recognize them when they re-appear. Adam and I teamed up, but only managed 3rd place in the end, while Jim and Eric absolutely cleaned up on everyone round after round for their win. Final score was 32/25/24/21/18. And that 32 was achieved as 11 points in each of the first 2 rounds and 10 in the final. Only one other team ever got into double digits for even one round, and they came in 2nd in the end due to their 2nd round score of 11. As Charades games go, this one's very nice!

At GenCon, I played in several demos, none of which really qualify as a full game, so I won't report any here. The only one of real significance was a demo play of The Order of the Stick Adventure Game, which I found to be a lot of fun, but clearly far too long for its strategic depth. We only played 3 turns per player, but it was quite obvious how this would drag out, and the rules admit to the game's playtime. Oh, it has some interesting bits and frequently HILARIOUS cards, so I'll probably find some people to play it with, but I much prefer my 3+ hour games to be a bit more weighty. The explanation that the game was designed to take the place of a D&D session when critical players can't make it doesn't persuade me, I fear.

The Friday after GenCon, I was early down to Fall River for the GURPS campaign, so I pulled out a filler game at Stillpoint to pass some time. King of the Beasts - Mythological Edition is one of many Knizia games that looks very simple, and is in terms of rules, but not necessarily in terms of strategy. Like Trendy, cards are played until one suit (here representing dragon, unicorn, or other mythological beasts) gets enough points to win. But the trick here is that, every time you meld a set of 3 to 6 cards, you put some forward toward that suit and keep others toward winning. The creature that reaches 6 cards first wins and scores 2 for every card kept, and the 2nd and 3rd place creatures each score 1 point per card. Simple? Yeah. (Though posters on BGG point out that the rules lack a statement of what to do if the deck completes without a winner... that never happened in our plays.) We ended up playing 4 hands, each with different players. The first Pat won over me and Kurt, 6/5/4. Then Pat and Kevin split a win over Kurt and I 4/4/2/0. The third game was a win for me over Kurt, Pat, Kevin, and Nick 4/3/2/1/0, and then Nick got his revenge over Kevin and I 7/4/4. Everyone seemed to enjoy the game, particularly for a 10-15 minute filler.

This week, I was back at the club, this time up in Laconia. We started with El Grande, using the nice new 10th anniversary set though playing with only the base rules. I've only played this once, and that years ago, so I wasn't that embarrassed by my 4th place finish, as the game really was tight. Eric won, then Adam, Dave, and myself. 112/108/96/94.

We broke out my GenCon purchase of Knizia's Great Wall of China, but a mistake by me in the rules meant we barely got started before we mistakenly stopped. Rather than refreshing each wall section after it was scored, I somehow decided the initial 5 sections were the whole game. Dumb. Eric took an unassailable lead, and without additional scoring tokens entering play, we all just stopped playing. I hope we'll put this on the table again with the RIGHT rules, because I think there's a good game here, spoiled by my mistake. The score when we called the game was looking to be 12/8/7/5/3 (I had the 7), but easily twice, if not three times that many points were left undistributed by my mistake.

China was brought out while we waited for pizza and 3 others to arrive. I'd read (but never played) Web of Power, the original game this is an update of, so again I wasn't expecting much from my performance (as it's a fairly subtle and unforgiving game). Apparently I looked harmless and unfocused enough that everyone let me got unchecked, building a chain 8 houses long that really should have been blocked. Not that it was enough to do me any better than a tie for third, because Eric was going to claim his 3rd win in a row pretty much from the start. 31/29/28/28/26.

Pizza arrived, but was badly overcooked (to the point of burned for one, and just below that for the other), and a surprising degree of drama was necessary to get that corrected. Not surprisingly, this distracted us from gaming for a significant time. Set had come out to occupy the three late arrivals while China was completed, and then we re-assembled into two foursomes. Ticket to Ride - Europe was played by one group while I joined Eric, Ethan, and Adam to try out Blue Moon City (which only Eric had played before). I'd read the rules (I had picked up a copy just before leaving for GenCon), but I still happily listened as Eric explained them (he's VERY good at that), then we set to play. The game is an odd mix of competition and cooperation, as you try to re-build the titular city structure by structure. Each building requires certain efforts to be re-built, most several different steps. Multiple players (as many as 4) cooperate to achieve this, then share in rewards. Collect enough rewards and you can buy into the victory objective, with the game going to whoever buys 4 steps first. Essentially, this game split into two pairs, with Eric and Ethan working one half the board and Adam and I the other. This proved to be my downfall, as Adam was one step ahead of me in turn order, so was able to dive in for the win the turn before I claimed it. Still, a very close game, with Ethan also just a turn or two from the win in the end. 4/3/3/1. A future re-play will probably see a bit more competition, and Eric observes that a 3 player game may have significantly better competitive dynamics.

Replacement pizza arrived (though it wasn't all that much better), and then Eric, Adam, and I headed back to Concord.

And, with that, I'm caught up on gaming reports.

Posted by ghoul at 08:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 15, 2006

GenCon Acquisition Summary

Yes, it's all listed before, but this is mostly so I have it in one place if I manage to find time to try (as I tried and failed last year) to do some cursory commentary as I read through all this...

Sorting is now Board/Card Games, RPGs, and Other Stuff, alphabetical rather than by selling company and rough order of purchase (as previous listings were).

Final count is around 112 items (counting the whole pitcher of dice as one item), at least one of which I plan to give away.

Board and Card Games

  1. aBRIDGEd
  2. Aqua Romana
  3. Battleground dwarven army starter
  4. Battleground dwarven army expansion
  5. Bison
  6. Blink
  7. Buccaneer
  8. Darkness Falls On Sevinpold
  9. Dead Man's Treasure
  10. Dead Money
  11. Drakon
  12. Easter Island
  13. Emira
  14. Figaro
  15. Funny Friends
  16. Gamer's Quarterly magazine with a mini Settlers of Catan expansion
  17. GoDice
  18. Grand Tribunal
  19. Hey That's My Fish
  20. King of the Beasts
  21. Knights of Charlemagne
  22. Knizia's Great Wall of China
  23. Mag*Blast
  24. Masons
  25. MiniMonFa
  26. MiniMonFa fairy expansion
  27. MiniMonFa undead expansion
  28. Oltre Mare
  29. Ostia
  30. Palatinus
  31. Pieces of Eight: The Cursed Blade
  32. Pieces of Eight: The Maiden's Vengeance
  33. Recess
  34. Reef Encounter
  35. Rigor Mortis: Aye, Dark Overloard
  36. Robber Knights
  37. Rum and Pirates
  38. Shear Panic
  39. Space Station Assault
  40. Take Stock
  41. Tempus
  42. The Arkham Horror Dunwich expansion
  43. The Great Space Race
  44. The Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan (including "Zombie Gamers" promo card)
  45. Times Square
  46. Tombouctou
  47. Toppo
  48. Under the Shadow of the Dragon.
  49. Vapor's Gambit
  50. Villainy (all 3 decks)
  51. Wings of War expansion deck: Recon Patrol
  52. Wings of War expansion deck: Top Fighters
  53. World of Warcraft boardgame Shadow of War expansion

RPGs

  1. Agon
  2. Carry
  3. Cyberpunk v3
  4. Cyberpunk v3 GM screen
  5. Cyberpunk v3 character dossier
  6. Don't Rest Your Head
  7. Drowning and Falling
  8. Faery's Tale
  9. GURPS Mysteries
  10. Hero's Banner
  11. Hollow Earth Expedition (with modified d8s)
  12. inTERRORgation
  13. Lacuna
  14. Mortal Coil
  15. Paranoia Little Red Book
  16. Play Dirty
  17. Primetime Adventures
  18. Push Volume 1
  19. QIN: The Warring States
  20. Run Robot Redux
  21. Runequest
  22. RunequesGM screen
  23. Runequest Rune of Chaos intro adventure
  24. Seven Leagues
  25. Shock
  26. The Princes' Kingdom
  27. The Secret Lives of Gingerbread Men
  28. Wilderness of Mirrors
  29. WWE Know Your Role

Other

Posted by ghoul at 02:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

GenCon Day Three PM and Day Four

More ShadowWorld, and this time a mission that looked overwhelmingly impossible until the pieces started to come together and, in the end, seems to have gone quite well. Some very scary scenes for me, such as when Starchild had to be the voice of cold, harsh necessity when others wanted to save some soldiers caught in our mission crossfire (she'd Precog-seen that any attempt to interact with the soldiers massively increased the chance of disaster for all parties; ignoring them meant they all died -- which was likely anyway -- and we got away). Very uncharacteristic of her... but I think the right reaction.

That only went to around 3:30, so I was back in my room by 3:45.

The next morning was a sleepy breakfast, loading up the car, and checking out of the hotel. But that still left time for more dealer's room! I happened to meet up with Dan and Alex, two of my college roommates. Actually, Alex was easy to run into, as he works for Mayfair games (I mentioned him before), and Dan I happened to cross paths with while checking out the Paizo booth (mostly for new Cheapass releases). We agreed to not be out of contact until next GenCon and exchanged email and other contact info.

I managed a return to a sight of an earlier minor setback, the Pizza Box Football booth, where I'd missed the drawing for their nifty free dice boot on Friday by about 2 minutes stuck in the human traffic outside the dealer's room. This drawing, I was the only one who showed up, so I now have the nice, useful tool for future use. I also have a couple of very nice card-game assistance racks which I'd seen being used for the Order of the Stick game demos. I think I'll be giving these quite a bit of use!

After 4 PM and the close of the con, Julia, Lou, and I ate a fantastic steak dinner at Ruth's Chris and I set off to Cincinnati to spend a night with my family, another GenCon in the books.

Last day purchases are under the fold.

Your Move Games gave me a copy of Space Station Assault after I played a quick demo of Battleground (even though I already own and like Battleground).

Paizo sold me Dead Money, the new Cheapass release, and gave me a Dr. Lucky miniature and a pack of Gamemastery item cards when I also bought the deluxe Euro-style Kill Doctor Lucky (pre-order only; I won't get it until October).

From Chessex, I got a whole pitcher of random dice. That's around 20 ounces of new dice. Because you can never have too many!

A visit to the SJG and nifty Cthulu-themed stuff corner of the booth shared with Atlas Games got me GURPS Mysteries, The Unspeakable Vault of Doom cartoon collection, a Cthulhu bumper fish, and Under the Shadow of the Dragon.

Innovatium sold me two Hold-iit! card game organizers and a set of nice plastic Settlers of Catan frames.

Hyperion sold me Vapor's Gambit, an interesting looking hoverboard race game.

For Pizza Box Football, I got the logo-engraved dice boot, as mentioned above.

From Exile Game Studio, the very cool looking Hollow Earth Expedition (pulpy action goodness with some cleverly-made d8s to let you replicate huge numbers of d2 with a smaller number of d8s).

Firefly Games sold me Faery's Tale.

I returned to Mayfair's booth to pick up some of their Italian partner's games, Rigor Mortis: Aye, Dark Overloard, and MiniMonfa with its undead and fairy expansion sets.

And I picked up a few (4) Gen-Con logo-emblazoned items to wrap up the con.

And that's about it.

Posted by ghoul at 10:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 12, 2006

GenCon Day Three AM

Up again with barely 4:30 of sleep (I don't really sleep well after about 8 AM unless I'm really tired). Minor annoyance with the hotel, which seems to think I'm checking out today, but it is quickly cleared up.

Back over to the con proper to find that, yes, we "They Might Be Llamas" has advanced in NASCRAG!

I then make my way to the dealer's room and encounter one of my college roommates, now an employee of Mayfair Games. We catch up a bit and he advises me on titles worth considering from their new releases (I'd held off their booth until I managed to find him). A quick visit later and I have the Gamer's Quarterly magazine with a mini Catan expansion, Palatinus, Hey That's My Fish, Figaro, Bison, Shear Panic, Ostia, and Emira, plus a free University of Catan t-shirt (I already own one from a while back, but a 2nd isn't a bad thing).

Then it's a quick TFOS visit. Mike Pondsmith was just getting the strangeness going when, unfortunately, I had to bail after an hour to join NASCRAG round two. That went quite well (we required but one substitute player, and we got two of the NASCRAG front-men as GMs. A bit of a walk to their distant hotel (the next one past where ShadowWorld ran last night), but another fun game of slightly silly but tricky puzzles/riddles, and this time a bit more actual D&D rules, as I even got into a couple of fights! When old man Innis wasn't catching his breath, he was putting the Greatsword smack down on beasties, including a flying spaghetti monster (clearly not THE flying spaghetti monster, as it went down to a few well-placed blows).

We fumbled with a few of the puzzles (one early and long puzzled-over), and got a nice silly result when the two married couples lost on a Newlywed Game pastiche to the two unattached guys in the party. We might not make it into the next round, but I'm hopeful (even though it'll mean missing ShadowWorld) and it was certainly fun either way!

UPDATE: No Advance for the potential llamas (well, two of us did advance as alternates... the victorious unattached guys, in fact!). So it's ShadowWorld tonight.

Posted by ghoul at 06:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

GenCon Day Two PM

Played in a wonderful Dogs in the Vineyard game, where 3 new players were absolutely wowed by the system (understandable). Very cool stuff, as expected. I played a very straightforward, rather flawed "Guns Solve Problems", "Act Now, Think Later" sort and ended up in a nasty fight midway through the game, but came out reasonably well in the end. The town was cleansed, with fire in the more critical parts. Great fun!

I made one more purchase (the lovely QIN:The Warring States) and played a Order of the Stick board game demo (though the game sold out around 2:40 on Thursday; I did get a copy!) before heading to dinner (with an acquaintance from The Black Road and several of her friends to an italian place I found wonderful, and will be enjoying leftovers from today), then off to ShadowWorld play which went until 4:10 (4:30 including the walk back to my room).

ShadowWorld was tense and dangerous, as it tends to be, and we learned lots of unexpected facts, even if they don't quite form any appealing theories as of yet. Starchild didn't do too much (she's trying to be careful with her oft-unexpectedly uncontrolled powers), but where she did participate, I think it mattered.

Today, I check for NASCRAG advancement (which could override other plans), perhaps (if not overridden) play in a 50+ person Teenagers From Outer Space game, and then look for less obvious-at-first-pass purchases before (again, if not overridden) heading back for more ShadowWorld.

Fun, fun!

Posted by ghoul at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 11, 2006

GenCon Day One PM and Day Two AM

Well, I'm successfully and completely moved to the new (and both slightly nicer and much closer to the con and connected via skywalk so less exposure to the wet and humid world) hotel.

NASCRAG went well last night, but after last year I won't even try to predict if "They Might Be Llamas" (my team) advanced. We had fun, though. I was playing the grumpy old widower fighter and ended up (as an over-zealous step in our disguise) married to the dotty Druidess. Which led to more grumpiness.

This AM, I loaded bags into bags and headed to the dealer's room again, this time not distracted by an hour in the OotS line...

I still haven't actually seen any of the ShadowWorld players, which suggests last night's game went late.

Purchases below the fold.

Human Head Studios sold me all three Villainy decks, because I just can't decide among an evil monkey, a mad scientist, and a creepy teenaged witch. Though I took a button as a minion of Mugga Mugga, the evil monkey.

Z-Man sold me Tempus, Reef Encounter, and Take Stock, plus game me a Take Stock t-shirt.

Atlas Games sold me the first two Pieces of Eight sets (and I now have 2 of the con-special captain coins), Recess, and Grand Tribunal.

I found a copy of the WWE d20 RPG Know Your Role that I've wanted for some time.

Kenzer and Company took my money for The Great Space Race.

A con-discount convinced me to by a 30% discounted Darkness Falls On Sevinpold.

Mongoose sold me their new Runequest (with GM screen and the Rune of Chaos intro adventure) plus the Paranoia Little Red Book (a player-creation and basic rules guide for newbies).

At Crystal Caste, I picked up the 2006 GenCon dice set

And, lastly, I stopped by Wicked-Dead and acquired several new (and old) John Wick and Annie Rush RPGs et al, including Wilderness of Mirrors, The Secret Lives of Gingerbread Men, Lacuna, Run Robot Redux, Play Dirty, and inTERRORgation.

At that point, my bag started to tear, so I hoofed it back to the hotel to unload.

25 more acquisitions.

Posted by ghoul at 11:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 10, 2006

GenCon 2006 Day One

OK, so I'm still behind a Boardgame Club report (from 2 weeks ago), but I'll jump ahead to today's activity instead of doing that.

I'm in Indianapolis, at GenCon!

I've done some game-playing (a very fun Four Colors Al Fresco session) and have more planned tonight (NASCRAG with Julia and Lou).

I've done some shopping. Today's list of purchases is under the break.

UPDATE: Oh, and I've been moved from my original hotel to another due to a water pipe break. Which meant carrying all my things 2 1/2 blocks in the humid August evening. No fun.

From the Giant in the Playground booth, the new Order of the Stick collection book, the Order of the Stick boardgame, 4 new OotS t-shirts, 2 new OotS character pins, 2 OotS Christmas Tree Ornaments, and the 2 OotS Give-aways (another pin and a fridge magnet).

From Playroom Entertainment, 3 Knizia titles, Dead Man's Treasure, Knights of Charlemagne, and King of the Beasts (and 3 promo cards for their other games, which I don't really count).

From the HeroScape booth of Hasbro, this year's give-away figure, Sir Hawthorn.

From Fantasy Flight Games, the new editions of Drakon and Mag*Blast, the Arkham Horror Dunwich expansion, the World of Warcraft boardgame Shadow of War expansion, Knizia's Great Wall of China, and two Wings of War expansion decks.

From R. Talsorian Games, Cyberpunk v3 (with GM screen and character dossier) and GoDice.

From Rio Grande Games (at the Out of the Box games booth), Rum and Pirates, Masons, Oltre Mare, Funny Friends, Tombouctou, Toppo, Times Square, Buccaneer, Robber Knights, Aqua Romana, and (from Out of the Box) aBRIDGEd. And was given a copy of Blink in a can for my prodigious purchase.

From Molniya Miniatures (which turns out to be run by an old friend of mine), a nice Golden Horde horse archer.

From Twilight Creations (which, I discovered, is run by someone who went, for a year, to the same high school I did), Easter Island.

From Your Move Games, the dwarven army starter and expansion decks.

And, from the Forge collective booth, after accidentally semi-insulting Luke Crane by rejecting Burning Empire even as he was ringing up my order of games NOT made by him, there's Mortal Coil, Shock, Primetime Adventures (the newest edition, as I have only the first), Carry, Drowning and Falling, The Princes' Kingdom, Seven Leagues, Agon, Don't Rest Your Head, Hero's Banner, and Push Volume 1.

That's 53 items purchased or received so far.

Posted by ghoul at 06:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 31, 2006

A Bit Of Bad News

It is announced here (rightmost column a page down) that Guardians of Order is, indeed, out of business. GoO made quite a splash with numerous licensed products (mostly anime, including Sailor Moon and Tenchi Muyo) using their house Big Eyes, Small Mouth system, which had a major revision nearly done. Apparently (and this is based on conversations no more recent than April and mostly from last year or earlier), the financial woes caused by a booming Canadian dollar (very bad for a Canadian company that mostly sells in the US) hit hard. In case you don't know (and most Americans don't), the Canadian dollar has increased in value by about 25% against the US dollar over the last several years.

But I mostly knew them from various Ambercons. In particular, AmberCon North was started by GoO founder and president Mark MacKinnon, back before founding GoO. (Eventually, that con passed to me, and I ran it or assisted in running it for several years before the same dollar shift, coupled with the difficulties of arranging a con in a city 7 hours away, got to be too much for me.) GoO also had an arrangement (to my knowledge, never finalized) to do a new edition of the Amber Diceless RPG, which has most likely died with the company. However, last time he talked about it to me, at AmberCon 2005, Mark actually said the death of GoO as a profitable company would free up MORE time to work on ADRP... we'll see.

Anyway, I have to call this bad news. I was looking forward to seeing Mark at GenCon next week.

(News heard on the Amber Mailing List and then from Michael)

Posted by ghoul at 06:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 20, 2006

Boardgame Club II

Before the leg injury, whatever it turns out to be, several games were played, many of them new to me. And pretty much all fun, though I was really uncompetitive for several of them, sometimes because I was learning the ropes, sometimes unlucky, sometimes just plain off my game.

Game-by-game details below the fold.

Beowulf - The Legend was my copy and my teaching E and J (no, I didn't ask about names yet). And while I was the experienced player (by one training game at GenCon), I was definitely the loser here, falling behind early and struggling to avoid total embarrassment. Final score, 44/31/18 with me far in the back. And I would've been MUCH worse without winning 3 of the last 5 auctions, which removed 3 Wounds. With them, I would've been 20 points lower for an ugly -2 score.

Trendy was a surprisingly fun game of fashion trends (not normally a point of interest). Cards are numbered 3 to 7, each representing the fashions of a fictional designer. Players play one a turn and if the total number of, say, 4s or 6s equals the number on the card (4 or 6), that is the trend. Trend cards score their value in points, all other cards are discarded. Complicating matters are Supermodel cards (count double toward establishing a trend, single for points) and Out cards (immediately discard all cards matching their number as totally out of style). Yes, it's a Knizia game; it has that just-themed-enough-to-hide-the-math feel, doesn't it? I had a great first hand (tying for the lead at 30 points) and a good 4th hand (28 points), but was at the back of the 2nd and 3rd so ended up in 4th place overall. We had added M and L and played 4 rounds until someone broke 100 points (M and L were at 95 and 94 at the end of the third). Final score 132/128/101/95/85. I like this game quite a bit, and it's made my "purchase soon" list.

Linkity was the one game that didn't quite work for me. Players are dealt cards with letters (and meaningless but cute drawings of bugs). One player plays a card and says a word that starts with that letter. Others then try to play a card of their own with a word that relates. Bad choices or repeat words are challenged and you must draw cards. When one player runs out, everyone else scores their remaining cards as penalty points. Even though I ended up winning (tied with E at 5 penalty points), I really found the game less than inspiring, especially since there is no adjustment for harder letters, no real encouragement to be creative, and all the normal problems of "speed" games (judging who really played first, etc.). Not a bad game, but not really to my tastes. Final score 5/5/6/7/9, and L swapped out after the first round for E2 when E2 and E3 arrived along with their son C. (This initial thing is getting bothersome. Next time, I definitely remember to ask!)

Bohnanza was the next game, of of my faves from several years back. Unfortunately, I was off my trading mojo early and took too long to get it back. I'd forgotten how unforgiving this game is when you don't trade aggressively, and so I ended up having to cash a couple of fields of very sub-optimal payoffs. Also, this was a crowded game (7 players), which leaves little room for forgiveness. I ended up in the back while M took the win with E2 and E3 sharing second, final score 11/10/10/9/9/8/7.

Attribut came next, a game described by some as "Apples to Apples but Fun". Now, I actually like A2A quite a bit, but I can see the appeal of this game as well. Players have a hand of cards with Adjectives and are each dealt a Sheep card, either White or Black. One player says a Noun or Name (their choice, not a card), then everyone selects a card to either match (if a White sheep) or to distinctly not match (if a Black sheep). Players then QUICKLY try to claim any card they believe is a match. If you pick a match correctly, you and the match's player score a point. If you pick a non-match as a match, you lose a point, as does the player. If you play a match but no one picks it, you lose a point. If you play a non-match and no one picks it, you gain a point. Play goes around the table twice. I liked the game, but for whatever reason I was painfully blank on good Nouns in my turn and also got my white and black reversed one turn. In the end, L won by a significant margin, 18/14/13/11/11/11/4. I was one of those 11s. L then retired for the evening, having earned quite the triumph.

Fearsome Floors was next, a game I own and have wanted to play but hadn't gotten the chance. Players control prisoners in a dungeon trying to escape and the rules control a monster who chases them. The monster moves by a set of programmed rules, so the heart of the game is to position things (yourself, your opponents, and movable terrain bits) so the monster chases down opposing player's characters and not yours. This was my moment of glory for the night, as it is a game that really plays to my strengths (rapid prediction, quick ability to update based on changes, ability to count ahead). I didn't get the first character to the exit, but I got the 2nd, 3rd and, if I had needed to, the 4th as well, as I'd managed to move all three of my characters to within a single move of the exist. But victory comes once you have 2 characters out, and this game Victory was mine! It was to be a short-lived moment of glory. E2, E3 and C now left us (it getting late for the young'n) and M2 arrived. Which meant it was time for E to bring out a trickier game.

Aladdin's Dragons is a game I had tried at TurkeyCon in the past, but we were sufficiently unimpressed with the base game to never try the full game, which adds numerous rule-bendiing magic effects. It turns out those effects add a ton to the game, but were more than I could manage, it seems. The game consists of all players blind-bidding with tokens numbers 1-9 (except no 3s) on several locations on the board. Then each is resolved in order, with the highest bid (and sometimes the lesser ranks as well) getting rewards. Treasures earned in the Dragon Dens are used to purchase Artifacts in the Calif's Castle, with a town in-between the two where game-changing effects (spells, trades of some treasures for others, future turn order) can be won. My fate was to always be 1 or 2 points short of payoffs, and when I did win to be sufficiently short of resources to capitalize. M2 took an early lead, buying 3 artifacts on the 2nd turn, but E was able to pull off a comeback via good use of spells and artifacts (including one spell played by M, which threw M2's plans to defend his lead into total chaos). Final score, 8/7/6/5/4. I was the 4.

On that note, I decided to call it a night, which led to events already recounted.

Posted by ghoul at 05:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 18, 2006

Spiel Des Jahres 2006

Okay, this site is in German, but I think the point is fairly clear. Thurn and Taxis is the winner!

I haven't played most of the nominees (most aren't available in English just yet), but one play of the winner told me it is a deserving choice.

Posted by ghoul at 06:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 17, 2006

RPG Play Preferences

Based on the method presented here and on some GM questions from a not quite completed conversation a week and a bit ago, let me present a list...

Posted by ghoul at 03:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 13, 2006

Boardgame Club

Thanks to noticing a message on the BoardGameGeek discussion boards, I made contact with a local gaming club, 6AM Gamers. Last night was my first chance to meet them (what with all the travel and other distractions recently). Wednesday night is their regular local meeting, either right here in Concord or a reasonably short (~35 minute) drive away in Laconia. This week was a Laconia week, and I offered to drive the other Concord resident, E. (I didn't ask other players if they minded names being used on my blog, and while I don't expect anyone has a problem with it, out of courtesy they are initials only. I'll ask next time.)

Fun was had, and I think I may be playing (rather than just reading and fiddling with) several more board games in the future!

Details of the gaming are below the fold for those interested...

When we arrived, it was just the host, D, and the two of us, and we decided on Louis XIV for the first game. This sounded great to me, as I love the look of the game but was sufficiently intimidated by the rules that I didn't try to teach them based on just a reading last TurkeyCon. Now I have a better idea how the game flows, and it's significantly simpler than it looks (though still a bit fiddly here and there). But it was certainly a learning game for me, and I was thoroughly trounced, scoring barely more than half what the winner scored, the game ending at 59 - 44 - 36). But I'm pretty sure I can identify three or four mistakes I made (such as not having a strategy at all, just playing via short-term tactics), so another game should show improvement.

Two more players, J and R, arrived while we were settling the affairs of the French royal court, so it was a 5 player game of Rheinlander next. Rheinlander was, you may recall, on my list of "really want to play this soon" games, and I'm quite glad we put it on the table. It was a bit more quickly aggressive than I'd expected from the rules (though that may be a function of having 5 players; with 3, there would be more development time before confrontation begins, something E confirmed from his prior experience with the game), but it was a good, fun game. I had a vicious looking combo of cards in my initial hand, but the way the game developed I never got a chance to use them. Instead, I stuck to steady development, avoided most conflict, and was just ahead of the pack on points when, as a game-ending move, Ray swallowed one of my small duchies. Yes, I was paid 2 points in compensation, but that duchy would have been worth 6 points at game's end... Even with that late -4 point turn of events, I managed a tie for the win (32 - 32 - 28 - 23 - 22). My suspicions about this game are mostly confirmed... I know I like it, and possibly a lot. And, having now seen both the original European and the recent American release... Well, I'm not sure which I prefer on that count. Both have their advantages.

Next, Ra was brought out. I hadn't played Ra since a couple of games at a TurkeyCon at least 4 years ago (because I know it was at the old house, it has to be at least 4 years ago), despite it being on my Favorite Games list, so I needed a slight rules refresher and worried that I'd made a big fumble early on (the move certainly wasn't what people at the table expected). But, in the end, I squeaked out a 1 point victory (in a very close 32 - 31 - 31 - 30 -22 game), so it mustn't've been that bad. If I had to ID my strategy, it was to establish early and maintain throughout a Pharaoh lead (or at least a tie for the lead), snatch one Civilization tile each Epoch to avoid the penalty for having none, snatch other cheap points when available, and otherwise just look small and insignificant. But, I have to admit, it was more luck inhibiting other player's final round scoring options than real skill on my part.

Next, the hot new game Thurn and Taxis was offered, though since it was only 4 players, one of us had to sit out. Fortunately, J had come to the meeting with a set of new purchases and offered to read them over while we learned T&T. All I knew about it was that several comments say it's too similar to Ticket to Ride, but I find the relationship superficial, at most; both games allow you to draw from either an exposed set of cards or the draw pile to build your hand and both feature building routes from city to city, but otherwise they are completely different. Thematically, you're developing postal routes in 17th century Germany; practically, you're trying to meld out longer and longer runs (with adjacency established via a map rather than by numbers) of cards (cities) with a managed balance among concentration and distribution of color (region). Bonuses are paid for performing several tasks (establishing a base in every city of a region, establishing one base in each sub-region, melding a route of longer lengths), with said bonuses decreasing in value for each player who achieves the goal. The base structure of the game is draw 1 card (from face up cards or from deck), play 1 card onto either end of your route (it must be linked by a direct road connection on the map), then optionally score the route (if it is at least 3 cards long). But there are 4 "special actions" and you can (and usually should) play one each turn, those being to discard and replace all 6 face-up cards, draw 2 instead of 1, play 2 instead of 1, or score your route as if it is 2 cities longer than it actually is. I devised a strategy fairly early on and stuck to it, that being to try to bag some quick points and then push as fast as I could toward ending the game (using the "score route longer than it really is" action to progress toward the endgame trigger, scoring one route each of at least length 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 in sequence). This was an option I had because I was the last player... The rules insist that all players get the same number of turns, so if anyone other than the last player triggers the end of the game, the remaining player(s) get one last turn. As last player, I alone could end the game immediately, so I decided to use that "power", such as it is, to my advantage. No, not the most subtle or sophisticated of strategies, but it almost worked. I did end the game with two of the three other players right on the verge of big scoring plays, but I hadn't socked away quite enough and so came 3 points short, but a reasonably solid second place. Final score, 18 - 15 - 11 - 0, but don't be deceived... that 0 was about to become something much higher on the very next play, probably 12 or more, as he had a major scoring route on the table needing just one more card to complete it, and I'm fairly sure he already had in his hand. This game now hits my "pick up a copy" list (at a fairly high spot), as it is compact, is reasonably quick to teach and to play, offers numerous tactical options, and is fun. A powerful combo!

It now being 11 PM, E and I called it a night and headed back to Concord. I had brought Beowulf and Bolide as potential games to play (and had stuffed Street Illegal, No Thanks, and Pickomino into the oversized Bolide box, just because there's room), but Bolide is a longer game than fit the evening and while E wanted to play Beowulf, he wants to learn it with only 3 players not 5, so it will wait for a future meeting.

Which I'm sure I'll be attending.

Posted by ghoul at 03:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 09, 2006

Board Games At Stillpoint

Four more games played today, before I had to pack up and head home.

Carcasonne is a favorite of mine. We didn't use any expansions (it was a new game to 2 of the players, and I hadn't packed any along anyway), and the final sore was VERY close (only 12 points from 4th place to 1st). The winner, in fact, was near the back of the pack for most of the game, but won out on a huge Farmer score.

Next I taught Ticket to Ride, and I got a little lucky in my initial ticket draw (NYC to LA plus Philly to Denver, which let me use every link of the second ticket to also count toward the first). This one went well for me, and I even managed to end up with all 45 of my trains in a continuous route (thanks to a very fortuitous final placement).

I pulled out Pickomino mostly as a joke (based on a "surprise" found in dinner the night before). The rather silly "chickens fighting over BBQed worms" theme is pretty thin, as this is really just a "roll dice and capture prizes" game, much like Easy Come, Easy Go in practice. We initially got a couple things a little wrong (the rules are, if anything, a bit over-written and sometimes spend longer on trivia than on important issues, in my opinion), but were able to recoup reasonably well. And a second dominant win for me, which rarely happens when I teach a game.

With only 15 minutes to go before I was wanting to leave, we shuffled up the No Thanks deck and played two quick games (each takes around 10 minutes). I almost won the second (lost by only 3 points), and this with us playing by the right rules (we'd previously miss-read who has the first chance to take a newly-turned card).

A fun morning to early afternoon, then a nicely uneventful drive home. If only DiskWarrior had actually been able to recover any useful bits at all on my G5's hard drive, it'd be a perfect day. As it was, still pretty good.

Posted by ghoul at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 08, 2006

Dogs And Other Games

My first go at GMing Dogs in the Vineyard was a reasonably successful one.

Being me, I'd made some character sheets of my own, complete with rules references and a one-page character creation summary, all slightly modified (for clarity) from those provided with the first edition rules. And with larger type, as I've found sheets get a bit crowded in play. These helped me through explaining the rules to a slightly large group... I started with three players, but two more arrived just as I finished the first walk-through of the dice scheme. I was a little nervous with that many players in a Dogs game, but I pressed on an was able to steer everyone toward unique character focuses, which let me give everyone a chance or two to shine in the spotlight.

In the 4:30 playtime (30 minutes over the scheduled slot, but no one was complaining), we got well through character generation and the town, with only minimal compression toward the end. Lots of neat scenes, some nice surprise as players realized how capable they are in this system (both their characters and them directly), and some nice worry when I pulled out all the stops on a crazed demon-ridden bad-guy at the end. Especially fun was one character who was directly focused on the demon-smiting and another a doubting rationalist, unwilling to accept that demons were more than symbolism. Watching the two differ in how they interpreted scene after scene was great fun!

I need to do more of this!

Afterwards, we played some Tsuro and Winner's Circle until we decided it was time to call it a night.

Board gaming starts again at 9 AM tomorrow and goes until I have to leave to get home at a decent hour.

Posted by ghoul at 11:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 05, 2006

More Gaming Plans

Just back from The Black Road, but I'm not done with special gaming plans just yet.

This coming weekend features an in-store gaming event at Stillpoint Comics, with full details here.

I'll be running Dogs in the Vineyard, which will be my first time running that system. I've played at GenCon and at The Black Road. I'm really looking forward to it!

And it's just a little over a month to GenCon!

And then Sunday I'm packing along a big crate of board and card games, all chosen to be quickly taught and played. And probably including a couple from this list as well as some proven successes from the last Stillpoint event.

Posted by ghoul at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 02, 2006

Unexpected...

Some AmberCon games get a quotes list.

Apparently, one of mine gets a tribute album.

Which is very, very cool. And records only a fraction of the silliness that game achieved. Great, great fun! Thanks go mostly to players who found the funny in nearly everything tossed their way, even the bits that weren't really very funny originally!

Posted by ghoul at 07:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 19, 2006

Unplayed Boardgames

I've been acquiring boardgames at, if anything, an accelerated pace during the last few months, assisted by my discovery of an excellent store in southern NH, Myriad Games. Such acquisitions have vastly exceeded my time to PLAY new games, so I've got quite a list of "try to play this one sometime soon" games backed up. Here's a few major highlights...

Fury of Dracula is a re-design of an older game we used to play to death back in the day. Most of the changes seem sound. There's an extra player (Mina, complete with her psychic link to the Count), a card-based hidden movement system for Dracula (ra