Free RPG Day 2010—The Pre-game

I was planning to hit my Local Game Store first thing in the morning, so I could pick up some goodies on Free RPG Day (June 19).

I know I want to pick up the D&D Dark Sun 4th Edition Adventure. There's supposed to be some cool Dice Paraphernalia, and Some other  Free Adventure things.

I got the Eberron Adventure, and the Hollow Earth Expedition  Adventure last year—and recently I scrounged around the internet and managed to get my hands on the Paranoia Quick Start Rules for a price that was just a little bit more than free.

When I got to the Game Store last Year there was a sign that said please only take two, and it was all Adventures. I'm guessing all the cool dice stuff was gone, I didn't even know there was Dice Stuff until I looked up everything that was available at a later time.

It seems we're going to be in Boise, ID on the 19th. So I called a bunch of game stores in Boise—no one seems to be participating in Free RPG Game Day 2010.  I checked the web site and there appears to be a game store in Mountain Home, ID—about an hour away from Boise, that is participating in the event, so I guess I'm going to try and make the trip.

I suppose, I could have someone who isn't into gaming here at home go to the Local Gaming Store for me and pick some things up. Any Volunteers? You have to go when they open—the good stuff goes fast.

Onyx Dice

I love it when people feed my obsessive collecting behavior.

The most recent example of this comes from my Wife's Aunt. She picked these up in Seattle, and I love them. Now, that I've finally had a chance to talk to her and thank her, I can post a picture here.

I thought Onyx was black, but apparently that is just one of the more common varieties—however, it is not The most common variety.

Laugh Out Loud—I Can't See My Dice Through the Tears in My Eyes

Saturday's game was one of my favorites. None of the Regulars came (except my wife). The group consisted of my Wife, Two of my friends that I've known since Jr. High and the daughter of one of those friends.

I've only been running games for a year, and I only started running because I wanted to play Savage Worlds and I had a feeling, if I didn't run the game it wasn't going to happen. In that time I have never run a game that was a setting or adventure that I created myself. I just haven't really felt that I have the time to do so, and there are so many great settings for Savage Worlds. So I started Deadlands: Reloaded with the Coffin Rock adventure and then moved it into The Flood plot point campaign—the transition was a little ugly, but the shoehorn seems to be working.

The beginning of The Flood is a little Railroady. I couldn't believe the amount of "box text" that was part of the first few sessions. I try not to read verbatim out of the book, and paraphrase, and say things so they fit the characters—at least in my mind that's what I want to do. I don't know how well it goes, but the session seemed pretty good.

The combat involved fifteen villains, and three extra allies. I'm glad how easy it went, but I feel like I need to come up with a way to make combat a little more interesting. Justin (a.k.a. "Bruce") was reminiscing on a GURPS game he had played and reminded me of something that I've been wanting to do since almost day one of the Zombie Run game, and that is to relinquish a certain amount of narrative control to the players.

I've written a reminder down to do so and pinned it to the back of my Game Master screen multiple times, and then I get caught up in franticly trying to keep a step ahead of the players, but last night it became almost second nature to say, "you killed him, describe what happened." Now I have to relinquish even more responsibility to the players. I keep meaning to tell them the numbers required to hit at the beginning of combat so they can determine their dice rolls ahead of time.

The other thing I need to do is use the more creative combat maneuvers that the non-player characters have at their disposal, so the combat isn't just group A shooting at Group B, or Group A pounding on Group B. I have gotten better at actually remembering to use my Game Master Bennies, so the Wild Card Villains come off more villainous.

I'm pretty sure there were some rules that I was getting a little off. I thought that once I had been running a game for a year that I would have sessions in which I didn't have rules questions—though I think I'm getting a little better at breezing past and looking things up later (For instance, I didn't do the Fear spell right the first time, but I did get it right the second time it was cast).

Joshua had me laughing so hard at one point in the game, that my eyes were literally streaming tears, and I was having trouble breathing. Every time I get together with friends that I have known since Jr. High and High School is a good time (Even when those times are bitter sweet).

I'm looking forward to the next session.

Seriously—Everyone Need To Play Portal

Back when I was High School a little game came out: Wolfenstein 3D

This little game changed the face of Electronic Gaming. It wasn't the first first-person-shooter, but every first person shooter since has pretty much been the same (Except for some six degrees of freedom games: Descent, Forsaken). The next big one after that was Doom, and I haven't really played a First-person-shooter (FPS) since then. I played Halo and Halo 2 a few times, but frankly they seemed about the same to me.

When I first started playing Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, it gave me headaches, but the play style was so new I just played through it and eventually got used to it and didn't have the problem any more. Then I stopped playing because every new FPS game was just more of the same, and now if I play FPS games the headaches and nausea manifest themselves almost immediately.

Some time ago, a game called Half Life came out. I don't know much about Half Life. What I understand, is that it introduced some puzzle elements to the FPS. Then Half Life 2 Came out, and my understanding is that it had really great modification tools available, and people were building completely new games based on Half Life 2. In fact, I think I knew people that bought it so they could play the Modified versions rather than the actual published game.

Then this thing called The Orange Box came out. It was a compilation of games all based on the same engine. (Half Life 2: Episode One and Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal) I think that Most People Bought it for the Cartoony Team Fortress 2, and were surprised at the awesomeness of the new puzzle game Portal.

I don't play as many video games as I would like to, but I try to keep up with the news. Portal was all over the place for a while. Since it was first person I read about it (Since I knew I would most likely never play it, and I wanted to understand the jokes).

In the game you wake up in a cell and shortly thereafter a portal opens to let you out, then you are challenged with a puzzle to exit the area. For the most part there is nothing that directly threatens your life and you are just challenged with passing obstacles and opening doors to get to the next challenge. During your travels from level to level, a computer voice speaks to you and you feel as though you are being watched by some Big Brother Entity. Frankly, I felt like a rat in a maze—there are frosted glass areas that are high up and give you the impression that you are being watched.

The Puzzles all involve the use of portals that are linked (Walking through the Orange Portal, you exit at the location of the Blue portal and vice versa). For the first couple levels, the portals open and shut for you. Then you are able to obtain a portal generator that generates the blue portal, while the Orange portal is stable and cannot be manipulated. Then later your Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device is upgraded to allow you to create both the Blue and Orange Portals, this is where the game gets interesting.

As the computer continued to announce things, I started to get the impression that this was an experiment gone horribly horribly wrong. The computer voice would short/cut out right as it was about to give vital information. It started lying about its monitoring of the tests, and eventually was offering me cake to just give up.

This game was a short, but brilliant ride. It consists of nineteen levels. Eighteen of them, I would consider to be tutorials that teach you all the concepts that you need to know in order to get through the last level.

It's a good story. I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot because I get the impression that it takes place in the Half Life Universe, which I know nothing about. Still, I think it stands on its own quite well.

What prompted me to actually play this game?

I certainly wasn't going to buy it, given my history of physical illness when playing first person games. There is a service called Steam from which you can purchase and download full retail versions of games. May 12–24 they had Portal as a FREE download. (Apologies, I meant to get this written before the deal was over—now it's $20, which is a fair deal if you ask me.)

My daughter loves playing this. She makes no attempt to do what the game asks you to, but she gets a kick out of putting a portal in the floor and the ceiling and falling infinitely; she also likes making portals in corners so she can see herself.

I'm excited that there is a sequel planned, and I'm planning to get it.
In fact, I've wanted to play new content enough that I've downloaded some fan built levels, but they aren't as fun as the real deal, if anyone knows of any pro quality MODs for portal, let me know.

I know I'm late to the party on this one—the game came out in 2007—but for anyone that missed this, you really need to try it out.

Dicecreator's Dice

Anyone that follows my ramblings should know I have a wee obsession with Dice.

Which leads me to looking for unique dice once in a while. A while ago, I stumbled across someone that manufactures unique and custom dice—and sells them on e-Bay, through his store: Unconventional Dice.

Shortly thereafter, I learned about his blog: Dicecreator's Blog, and I've been following it ever since. I have planned to purchase some of his carbon fiber and unusually numbered dice when I get the chance.

Then there was a contest in which I participated—and won. So here we are. I won the opportunity to review some of the dice created by the Dicecreator. FULL DISCLOSURE: I was sent a pair of dice free, for review purposes. 

Let's start with a picture of the dice.

We have here a Halo Die and a Steam-punk Die.

The Symbols are inlaid brass, and they look very nice. I thought I read somewhere care instructions for the dice so that the patina they develop is nice and even, but I can't seem to locate that. With brass in there you would wonder about the fairness. I know that is a real concern of the Dicecreator and he has made a commitment to never sell an unfair dice.

I'm no statistician, but they do seem to roll just like every other d6 I own—they roll all over the place: high, low, and medium. They roll low when I want them to roll high and high when I want them to roll low.

Now here's the funny thing, I just described the way they roll as fair, just like all the other dice I own—and now I'm going to describe the way they roll as just like the loaded dice that I own. What could I possibly mean by that? It's because of the brass. The added weight makes them skittle across the table low, i.e. they don't bounce as high as standard dice, but they do roll as far.

It was kind of weird to see at first, and I couldn't quite figure it out until I watched it a few times.

Let's talk quality. These dice have been in my pocket since I received them. Here is a picture of the contents of said pocket.

You may not think a pocket is a rough place to travel, but look at the phone and the pen. All that damage happened in my pocket. The dice are durable enough to take the abuse. In fact, I found myself rather clumsy the week I received them and dropped them from about four feet on multiple occasions.

I must say, I really enjoy these dice. They look great, they're easy to read, they're fun to use at the game table, they're durable, high quality.

I give them A+, 4 Stars, Two Thumbs Up, and every other Appropriate Superlative Available.

Someone At The Library Loves Me

My Wife asked me to pick some things up for her at the Library recently. It had probably been over a year since I was last in that building—I love reading, but I just have been involved in so many other things, that I hadn't taken the time to go to the Library; and my Wife usually goes with the kids when I'm at work.

So I perused the DVDs briefly. It's hard to get a quick look at all the DVDs because of the way they have them shelved. I only saw a fraction of what was available, and I didn't see anything that jumped out at me as a must watch now title. So I decided to check out the Instructional Art books, see if there was anything worth taking a look into, or something that might Jog my creativity.

I found that they had completely rearranged the library and what was once a Non-fiction, Dewey Decimal section, was now young adult fiction. I couldn't remember the number of the section the art books were in, which means a trip to the computer. While looking that up at the computer system, I got curious as to whether they had any Role Playing Game books in the system. I made a note of the section they were in and headed over to find them.

This is when I discovered that someone at the Library loves me. I spotted 3 full shelves—top to bottom—of Graphic Novels & Comic Books. Last time I had gotten comic books at the library, there was only about half of a single shelf; and most of that was newspaper stuff (Garfield, The Far Side, Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Dilbert, Garfield...Garfield). One full shelve and a third of the second shelve was Manga, which I'm not really in to. The rest however, was Superhero and Independent stuff—Titles that I've wanted to read for years. Things I haven't read because I lack the funds to justify purchasing such things.

I don't know who is doing the purchasing for the library, but they seem to know their stuff. There was a small, independently published, obscure, title on the shelf that I've wanted to read ever since I heard about it—Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer. Think about it...it's a Brilliant idea, and well executed, I only had one complaint about it, and that was the use of the slang "Cool" it felt out of place.

A Short Game This Week

I moved the Deadlands: Reloaded game to Friday this week, people had fewer conflicts—all week I've been working hard at getting my Resume and Portfolio in order, and I hadn't really had a chance to prepare for the game properly.

Friday before the game I was trying to read through the material for the game and my 1.5 year old came to sit on the couch next to me, and threw up. So, I cleaned that up. Just as I finished taking care of that, my four year old wet her pants.

When people showed up, I still had not finished prepping the game. The couple that came have a child who has problems with seizures, so we warned them about the state of heath in our home (their child was with them) and they made a quick trip to the grandparents. The other person that had planned on coming sent a message that she wasn't feeling well. I felt like calling the game, but everyone wanted to play.

So we started late and I was under prepared.

When we got to the end of the only encounter I had planned, I let the small group know that we had reached the end of what I prepared, and called the game an hour earlier than I generally plan.

I generally like to run games completely analog. Part of what I like about Role Playing Games, is that they are low tech. I often use the computer to prepare the game, but I like the table to be free of Electronics. (The Exception being that I do want to get an e-reader) Since I wasn't completely ready for the game, I used a laptop as GM Screen, and Books.

Running a game out of PDF versions of the books seems a little slow. I had managed to get all the stat blocks for the evening copied into Word, I found that to be very convenient.

Halfway into the encounter my wife was mocking me for closing the notebook computer's screen every time I wanted to look at the battle mat—suggesting that I use the webcam. Frankly that was brilliant!!!

You can see from this screenshot (click for full size) that I had Deadlands, and The Flood open in PDF as well as a word file for my Encounters. If you look close you'll see that all the figures we were using were Zombies—I need to get some more appropriate figures for this game. I have the Deadlands board game; the figures in that are appropriate for the player characters, but I need to look at all my little toys and see what I have for the Monsters. The Encounter from last nights game was our player characters versus tunnel critters—mostly represented by Zombies on the map.

We didn't get a lot of story covered, so I would have awarded 1 XP. However, I was impressed that nobody took the "bait" and acted impulsively versus some of the things leading up to the final encounter of the evening or attacked inappropriately—so 2 XP for the night.

Let the Job Search Begin

So, officially my last day was a week ago though I left Thursday and did not return. I've spent the week updating my resume and pulling together all the graphic design I did in the past two years to update my portfolio.

I'm tempted to post my resume here, but I try to Keep information about where I live vague on this site. Though I think that that may not have been the case when I first started the blog, so It might be a moot point, I haven't gone back and looked.

Monday they told us to apply for unemployment now, and by now they meant before June first. Today I tried twice to do so and the website crashed on me. The second time I decided to call as instructed, because I had gotten much further into the process and didn't want to type all that stuff in again.

I forgot that it was Friday, and our local government doesn't do Fridays. Perhaps I'll try again later today...or wait until Monday.

Laid Off

That is all for now.

Ummm—Tell Me Again Why We're Going In the Dark Creepy Hole?

I am not happy with the way last night's session of Deadlands went. It was my fault. I felt as direction-less as my players were probably feeling. I had decided that they would probably end up going back to Denver. Brandon decided to Retcon the Head Chopping action from the last game, and I was perfectly happy to allow that. What I wanted to do was feel out what the players wanted to do when they got to Denver. I had 3–4 things that I could take the players through after feeling out what they wanted to do in Denver—and most likely ended up headed to Mexico.

Things were very direction-less however, so I had to make a decision. I felt like I was forcing things, and I messed up part of the description that I'm going to have to fix.

I felt a little flustered every time Brandon would "loot" the scene. It was pulling me out of the narrative, but it wasn't out of character for him to be doing that. I also think I need to read up on how spell-casting works; I trust Brandon, but I would feel more comfortable if I understood the mechanics of it better.

We started the Flood last night, and I found it a little tricky to get the characters to go where they needed to go. I guess if they had decided to not go down into the scary hole, they would have met some sharply dressed businessmen back in Denver.

I had also planned to run an interlude session on the Train, but I forgot to print out the interludes document. I wanted to run the interlude, because part of the issues I have as Marshall (Game Master) seem to be rooted in the fact that the posse doesn't feel compelled to be together. So they decided to role play it out sans interlude card drawing. I think that went ok, but I feel it cemented the fact that there's not a lot of cohesion in the group.

I guess I just didn't feel connected to the game last night. I was pretty upset about it, it was stressing me and I even snapped at Justin when he questioned part of the narrative.

The only part that seemed to go okay was the combat. I threw a lot more villains at them than the scenario called for, and it seemed to work out okay, I was rolling lousy—but I was using Fate chips, so was everyone else, so that went well—but there wasn't a lot of description (another failure on my part) so it was the ROLL play portion of the evening.

I feel that overall I did a lousy job last night. I hope I can run a better game in two weeks.

Free Comic Book Day 2010

The trick is to take your family along with you. Limit 10 per person—so I took 4 persons (Including Myself). There weren't even 40 comics that I wanted. I think we ended up with three copies of the Toy Story Comic, which is good; one for each kid and an extra when one inevitably gets destroyed.

They didn't seem to be handing these out to everyone—but I got one. A War Machine Hero Clix. Probably because Iron Man 2 released yesterday.

Yes, that's a picture of me in a Batman T-Shirt With Guy Gardner. COME ON!! I was at free comic book day—you have to be nerdy and pose with Guy Gardner!! At least I wasn't dressed up like Rorschach (Yes there was a customer there dressed as Rorschach). Funny thing—Green Lantern has always been my favorite, but back when I was actually collecting comics they weren't doing much with Green Lantern. Now it's Green Lantern this and Green Lantern that and I just peripherally experience it because I don't have disposable income to spend on comics these days.

Then there were these, I was pretty Excited to see them. I know, you're saying to yourself—but you already have a set of those! Well, these are the Mini Versions. See...

Emily was making fun of me for being so excited—then she spotted the mini version of her Toxic Orange Set and insisted that I pick them up before they were all gone.

I also got a standard size set of Pink/Purple Sparkly Dice for my four year old Daughter.

It was a good Free Comic Book Day. Now it's time to prepare for my Deadland's Game Tonight.

In A Word—AMAZING!!!

Yeah, that's right. French Toasted Pancakes!!

I think the only thing that could have made this dinner any better is Bacon Syrup.

Not a First That I Wanted to Experience

Friday I woke up with a sore throat. Not an unusual thing for me, especially during that time of the year that the seasons can't make up their minds about whose turn it is. I have some issues with my sinuses that stem (I believe) from a car accident and a broken nose. This leads to mouth breathing, and occasionally waking up with a dry and sore throat. That's probably more than anyone wanted to know.

The point is, though it hurt a little more than usual—I got up and went to work as is the norm. By noon, I could tell that this was not a normal sore throat. It was the worst sore throat I had ever experienced in my life. Around eleven o'clock I had gone down to my car and dug through the pockets on the back of the front seats, I vaguely recalled having some throat lozenges. YES!!! I found them. After sucking down three to no effect, I started to suspect this was not a typical sore throat. Shortly thereafter I started to feel cold and a little sick—so I went home.

On the way home I stopped at the Drug store and picked up the real deal throat lozenges. Did you know they sell two kinds? For about the same price you can buy a bag of one hundred or a box of eighteen. Those available in bulk have an active ingredient of Menthol. Those that come in a box of eighteen have an actual oral anesthetic; it's like sucking on Orajel—it literally numbs your mouth/throat. After sucking down two of those, and noticing that my mouth was numb, but my throat still hurt—I suspected, but didn't want to admit what illness I had.

Saturday, when I woke up with the same sore throat (and had been dealing with Chills and Fever), I decided it was time to go to the doctor and get diagnosed for what I suspected was Streptococcal Pharyngitis. All my life, and all around me I've heard of people getting Strep Throat, but I've never had it. Until now. If I don't get it again for another 33 years I'll be okay with that.

Going to the Doctor was weird. I didn't know where to go or how to fill out the insurance information and what not. It's literally been over twenty years since I've gone to the Doctor for an illness.(Unless you count that one time when I was on my mission that I just remembered; that's a little different though, since it was the emergency room at one in the morning, and suspected Appendicitis, and I didn't take myself in, I just sat there in pain—the Dr. told me he was 95% sure it was appendicitis, but that he wouldn't operate until he was 98% sure. I had a priesthood blessing. I spent the night in the hospital alone [very strange for a missionary of my faith]. In the morning all symptoms were gone.)

For what it's worth, the throat culture confirmed what I suspected...At least I get a couple days off of work.

The Junk In My Trunk

We've been trying to sell our house. The house we wanted has gone under contract, we cannot find anything comparable. Ours is no longer on the market as a result.

Now when your house is for sale, people come to see it. In an effort to make the house more presentable, I moved some things to the trunk of my car.

I know I have a tendency to hoard things, and I find it necessary to occasionally take a moment to laugh at myself.

Visible in this picture: (Click for Full Size)

RPG Books

Replica of the Original Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) White Box
D&D Basic Rules (Red Box Rulebook)
D&D Expert Rules (Blue Box Rulebooks)
D&D Rules Cyclopedia
D&D Immortal Rules (Gold Box Rulebooks)
D&D Wrath of the Immortals
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) Player's Handbook
AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide
AD&D Monster Manual
AD&D Monster Manual II
AD&D Fiend Folio
AD&D Unearthed Arcana
AD&D Oriental Adventures
AD&D Dieties and Demigods
AD&D Dungeoneers Survival Guide
AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide
AD&D Manual of the Planes
AD&D 2nd Edition (2E) Player's Handbook
AD&D 2E Dungeon Master's Guide
AD&D 2E Monstrous Compendium Vol 1
AD&D 2E Monstrous Compendium Vol 2
AD&D 2E Monstrous Manual
D&D 3E Player's Handbook
D&D 3E Dungeon Master's Guide
D&D 3E Monster Manual
D&D 3E Revised (3.5E) Player's Handbook
D&D 3.5E Dungeon Master's Guide
D&D 3.5E Monster Manual
D&D 4E Player's Handbook
D&D 4E Dungeon Master's Guide
D&D 4E Monster Manual
D&D 4E Player's handbook II
GURPS 3E Basic Set (1st Print)
GURPS Deadlands: Weird West
GURPS Cliffhangers
Toon Deluxe RPG
Toon Tales
Tooniversal Tour Guide
Toon ACE Catalog
The Edge of Midnight RPG
Theatrix The Core Rules
Savage Worlds (SW)
Savage Worlds Revised (SW)
Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition 2nd Printing (SWEX)
Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition 3rd Printing
Realms of Cthulhu (SWEX)
Low Life (SW)
Mars (SWEX)
Runepunk (SW)
Fantasy Companion (SWEX)
Super Powers Companion (SWEX)
Paranoia 25th Anniversary Edition
Ring Wielder


Board Games

Red November
Advance To Boardwalk
Deadlands: The Battle For Slaughter Gulch
Don't Go To Jail
Ticket to Ride
Cranium Cadoo
Dicecapades
MidEVIL Deluxe (Includes MidEVIL, MidEVIL 2: Castle Chaos, & MidEVIL 3: Subteranian Homesick Blues)

Lots and Lots of Dice

In the Filing Box to the Right are the Following:

Zombies!!!
Zombies!!! 2: Zombie Corps(e)
Zombies!!! 3: Mall Walkers
Zombies!!! 4: The End?
Zombies!!! 5: School's Out Forever
Zombies!!! 6: Six Feet Under
Zombies!!! 7: Send In The Clowns
Zombies!!! 8: Jailbreak
Zombie Town
Zombie Town 2: Road Rage
Humans!!!
Humans!!! 2: Seafood

In the Back Pack:

Carcassonne
Carcassonne The River
Carcassonne The River II
Carcassonne The Count of Carcassonne
Carcassonne King & Scout
Carcassonne Abbey & Mayor
Carcassonne Cult Siege & Creativity
Carcassonne Games Quarterly Mini Expansion
Carcassonne Inns & Cathedrals
Carcassonne Princess and the Dragon
Carcassonne The Tower
Carcassonne  Traders & Builders
Bang!
Bang! A Fistfull of Cards
Bang! Dodge City
Cranium Zigity
Zombie Fluxx
Martian Fluxx
Guillotine
Lord of the Fries
Battle Cattle
Are You a Werewolf
Lupus in Tabula
Trax
Ticket To Ride USA 1910 Expansion
Settlers of Catan: The Card Game
Settlers of Catan: The Card Game Expansions

In the Backpack under the Back Pack:

Pirates of the Spanish Main (SWEX)
Day After Ragnarok (SWEX)
Slipstream (SWEX)

Not Visible, But Definitely In There:

Deadlands: Reloaded (SWEX)
Necessary Evil Explorer's Edition (SWEX)
Zombie Run (SWEX)
Deadlands: Murder on the Helstromme Express (SWEX)
Deadlands: Don't Drink the Water
Deadlands: Saddle Sore
Deadlands: Marshalls Screen
Green's Guide to Ghosts (SWEX)
Fear Effects (SWEX)
Gaslight (SWEX)
Advanced Dungeons & Savages  (SW)
The Making of Savage Worlds
Wizards & Warriors (SWEX)
Savage Beasts (SWEX)
Boot Hill Replica
Chainmail Replica
FUDGE
Villains and Vigilantes (V&V) DNAgents Sourcebook
V&V Most Wanted Volume 1
V&V Most Wanted Volume 3
Marvel Super Heroes Deluxe City Campaign Set (Adventure Book Only)
Hollow Earth Expedition—

Kidnapped in the Hollow Eart

h 

(Free RPG Day Adventure 2009)

D&D 4E—Khyber's Harvest (Free RPG Day Adventure 2009)

Martians!!!
Give Me the Brains
The World According to Ubi
Agricola
Bump in the Night
Shut the Box

Lots and Lots More Dice

A Set of Juggling Balls
A Set of Juggling Clubs

Not in the Trunk Currently—Because It's In My Back Pack that I Take Everywhere:
(I.e. What I'm Currently Running/Using Actively)

Deadlands: The Flood
Deadlands: Coffin Rock
Savage Worlds: Explorer's Edition 1st Printing
Lots and Lots More Dice
Lots and Lots of Mini Poker Chips (For Bennys/Fate Chips)
Two Decks of Face Cards With Jokers (For Savage Worlds)

This Quiz Amused Me

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

You are a d100: You're a bit odd, to put it mildly. We're not sure whether you're socially inept, brain damaged, or just trying to be funny. We've given up on trying to figure it out, and have to accept that it might be all three. For you, non-sequitur are the most common form of non-communication. You are given to great flashes brilliance, but don't have the attention span to carry out any of your most ingenious plans. We don't know what color the sky is in your world, and frankly, we're afraid to ask.

Your Marshall Presents—A sandbox Game

Last time the posse defeated a wolf in priests clothing and the demon he summoned and dispelled much of the fear that was leading to some strange happenings in town. Leaving me in a difficult situation. What are they going to do next session. I'm trying to let this game be a little more open ended than the last game I ran—but I don't want it to be so open ended that the players feel lost.

I read through two alternate adventure modules and boned up on some portions of the adventure module they've been going through and I planned to try and direct the players toward one of them. They decided to hook onto something else however and went somewhere I wasn't planning to take them.

I apologize for the stalling. Sometimes I'm just not good at improvising. I had to work two new players into the game. One opportunity worked a little better than the other, if Justin starts coming regularly again, I'll either need to get him hired by Mr. White, or just retcon his induction into the group.

The shoot first ask questions later attitude is going to cause problems in the future if it doesn't get curbed. In this game it worked out, but only because I happened to remember that there was a gang hanging out south of town—so they did happen to be shooting at people that are wanted by the law, but it very easily could have been a Sheriff and a posse, or a Marshall, or Just a bunch of Ranch Hands.

I'm still a little confused by the way the character Mathias has been acting. I guess in my mind he's a gentleman of refinement, who happens to have some skill in the arcane arts. He just seems too eager to do things that are   extreme (Chopping heads off, Burning Down a Church). I guess what's bugging me about it (because frankly, I've been having a hard time putting it into words) is that this isn't the character I was sold on. I thought that this guy would be more concerned about keeping his shirt clean and pressed, and less eager to remove the heads of dead gang members trying to turn them in for some supposed bounty.

Overall, I think the night went well. I think everyone had fun (and that's my goal). I think if I could get the group to be more group minded then things could progress a little better.

Mystery Express—

Let me start off by stating that Days of Wonder is one of my Favorite Game Publishers. Everything they do is top notch.

The first Days of Wonder game I played was Ticket to Ride—at the time, it was the new hotness that all the game stores were pushing. I'd seen it a few times and it evoked a big "meh" from me. Then it was given to us as a gift for Christmas. It's still one of my favorite games—I like most of the expansions/sequels as well.

After we discovered Ticket to Ride, we get into quite a number of games published by Days of Wonder: Shadows Over Camelot, Mystery of the Abbey, Pirate's Cove, Colosseum, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, Battlelore (Now owned by Fantasy Flight), and Small World.

Fun fact: We liked Shadows over Camelot and Mystery of the Abbey better when We were playing them wrong.

So their newest game is Mystery Express. It's like Clue, but on a train.

Good things about the game: Think about the last time that you played Clue. Remember when you kept rolling ones and you couldn't get to a room to make an accusation? That mechanic is gone. You can move to any car on the train at any time. When you're in the different cars, you don't make accusations like you do in Clue—each car has its own game mechanic. To explain the mechanic of the cars, I guess I need to explain the trip that the train is making. The train is making its way from Paris to Istanbul. The trip has five stops, and each leg of the trip takes a determined number of hours. Each car has a certain action that you can do in that car, and each action takes a certain amount of time.

The first leg of the trip is from Paris to Strasbourgh, and it takes 4 hours. In the dining car you can ask players to show you a card that is in their hand. You also get to determine the type of card (Motive, Weapon, Location, or Person). If you ask two people it uses two hours. In the lounge car you can have all the players reveal to everyone a card of a chosen color simultaneously, which takes two hours.

During certain legs of the trip there are extra passengers that board the train that you can get information from (i.e. trade a card for a new card), and if you do an action in the car that the conductor is in, you can get information from him.

Unlike Clue, there are two of every card—so you cannot eliminate anything until you know you have seen both cards. Also there are five things you are tasked with discovering. The Guilty Party, The Weapon, The Location, The Motive and the Time.

Determining the time of the murder is a pain in the brain. There is a deck of cards that has the eight possible times on cards, three of each card, on analog clocks, with no numbers on the faces. After each leg of the trip is over, there is some method of viewing the time deck: For instance, after the fist leg of the trip, the player that went first flips all the cards over one at a time in rapid succession while everyone tries to remember what they see. No note taking is allowed until the last card has been flipped. After the second leg of the trip all the cards are dealt and you get to look at one hand at a time and then everyone rotates hands until you have seen all the hands—again, no note taking is allowed during the viewing of the time cards.

So, what did I think of this game?

I knew I was either going to hate it or love it. I'm not a big fan of clue, I thought that this might overcome some of the things that I hate about Clue. It did, while simultaneously introducing a greater number of things that I hated.

First of all, the game took way too long—admittedly, part of that was due to our learning as we were going—but it took three hours to play a game advertised at 90 minutes. During that three hours, There were things that I had easily taken care of early on in the game. I knew who and where. However, by the end  I had to guess on motive and weapon (and I had neither one of those narrowed by much—there are a LOT of cards flying around in this game and it becomes fairly easy to conceal one if you have a lot of a particular category).
The time was a cruel joke—only those gifted with a photographic memory will enjoy that mechanic.

Did I mention that I won, well co-won. In then end I guessed properly the weapon and the motive, making me correct in every category but the time. Another player had done the same. As a tie breaker, the game has you you write down all your premature guesses at the penultimate stop. I had three of five correct, so did the the other player—so we both won.

That's right, I hate a game that I won. It happens. The win was pointless, because I guessed so much vs players that had used skill and deduction and gotten more things wrong than I had.

I don't want to play this game again.

I still think Days of Wonder is a fine game publisher.

Blood Men and Demons and Fires—Oh My!

Have I used that meme in my title before? Yes, I believe I have, oh well.

So we played a rousing game of Deadlands: Reloaded. People will always surprise you, especially when they actually role play what they wrote into their character.

A friend of mine I have known since Jr. High was in town, so he came and brought his daughter, and another player was able to finally come. Adding those three to the regular players brought the posse to seven—a decent sized group.

The first matter of business (which could have been handled better by myself) was to shoehorn the new players into the posse. Which was easy when I thought that I only had one extra player coming. She's planning on being a regular now that certain events on her calendar have cleared, so I already had a story written up for her. I ended up tacking on the other two, but I didn't handle the "meetup" description as well as I thought. On top of that Josh played his character's distrust of new acquaintances and the game started with players shooting at each other—however, later in the game this also meant that he was prepared to defend himself in a situation that most other people would have not handled so irrationally albeit appropriately.

Personally, I'm still torn on how I feel about that (the players gunning for one another). On the one hand, I like that people were playing their characters the way they were written. On the other hand I see that as a violation of the unwritten social contract between players and GM that players will not deliberately try to break the game.

I find that I still don't know how to read the difficulty of Villains vs Players. I read the stat blocks and I think to myself that they're going to get killed; then they take out my monsters one by one. While my monsters barely get any hits in. I also feel like the combat isn't coming across as terribly exciting or tactical. I think I need to concentrate on being more descriptive and trying to make the locations a little more fleshed out, so as to force more tactical combat. (i.e. more stuff in combat areas, so people can duck behind things or use the environment more)

I was prepared for the game, but not the combat—I hadn't prepared a map. I was contemplating trying a map free combat—but I could tell my description of the room they were in was already getting lost in translation. Brandon had his battle mat, so we tossed that down on the table—I sketched what I had in mind for the room. I grabbed my Deadlands: The Battle for Slaughter Gulch board game and tried to give appropriate figures to everyone. Half of them worked really well, the other half just had to pretend, and my wife got a mini figurine we got at Disneyland of Cinderella, because she's playing a southern belle. . . we used Gummy Bears for the Monsters.

Coffin Rock Spoilers Ahead...




After that fight they entered a portal which scattered them all over town. I randomly distributed the figures on the map and then described where people had landed. Unintentionally, I dropped one of the more impulsive players near the location everyone else wanted to be, and he did something impulsive.

There was another fight, and this one actually went fairly well without the battle mat.

Things I feel I need to work on:

1) Keeping track of Details (More than once we had to backtrack a little because I forgot something).
2) Being more descriptive as far as action.
3) Fleshing out locations more fully to encourage creative tactics.
4) Remembering to Give out XP before people have left. (The Answer is 3—You accomplished a lot!)
5) The Fate Chips weren't going out as much this time, consequently they weren't being used as much.

Questions for my players.

1) Was this session fun? Why or why not?
2) What can I do as Game Master to improve the Game?
3) Any other Questions or Comments? . . . Ugly Rumors?

Now—Where Did I Put That Mine?

Saturday's game went well, I think.

I've been running this game a little more open than the last one I ran. Apparently only one of the story hooks that I've thrown out managed to latch onto the minds of the players. Now, If I could only figure out why that latched on and the others did not, so I could throw some of the others out again in the manner of the one they decided to bite, then I'd really be in business. (Did you manage to follow that thought?) [I really want to say something here, but that would spoil things for my players.]

I managed to actually remember to hand out Fate Chips for once—but there wasn't really much of a chance to use them in game. P ended up asking for a retcon at the end of the session, which I allowed—so he did use a fate chip to fix a bad roll that kept him out of a vision quest.

My wife is really into her character, she speaks in-character a lot. I however am not speaking in character for most of the NPCs at the moment which caused her a little confusion. I need to work on some of my descriptive skills.

Two of the characters are very mistrusting of each other at the moment, which completely fits their characters, and the situation I've placed them in, and the back story intertwining that I asked everyone to create. I just hope it doesn't tear the party apart.

I missed an opportunity Saturday, and it just occurred to me, unfortunately I can't say what it was. I'll just point out that what happened when the Posse slipped into town after dark should have been interrupted by something that would probably have distracted them from the task at hand.

They spent a good portion of the game trying to track down the Cooked Earth Mine. I changed the story a little from what it is in the book. This posse is good. That's all I'm going to say. That and I think my Indian Shaman came off a little crazier than I intended. That's okay, Yoda acted pretty crazy when Luke first showed up in Dagobah.

My last comment will be this—this game is headed precisely where it was intended to go, but this Posse paid for Express tickets. I guess I need to start reading through the Flood a Lot faster.

Oops, I guess I had another comment in me. When I first started reading The Flood, I didn't think that it was going to fit the concept I had in mind for the party—but I just read a little snippet that leads me to believe that it's actually going to fit like a glove. Time to bust out the old speed reading skills...or just take a break from Barsoom.

Drunken Gnomes—Russian Sub

A Few Months ago I picked up Rзd Novзmbзr.

In this game you play a crew member of a sinking Russian submarine (The Red November). A Submarine Crewed by Gnomes. Gnomes that are getting Drunk.

Turn order is determined with a time track. You have to keep the Submarine from getting destroyed in a "60 minute" time period, each action takes a certain amount of time—and as time passes, bad things happen.

There is a fairly new phenomenon in the world of board games called the Cooperative Game. There may have been cooperative games in the past, but we are literally in the middle of a Cooperative Game Renaissance. I think that what a lot of people like about cooperative games is the lack of competition, it's you and your friends against the game.

We were doing pretty good, for a first time play through. Most cooperative games are pretty brutal (they have to be a challenge or else they would get boring pretty fast) and this was seeming to be tough, but not impossible, and then everything hit the figurative fan and we lost with a mere ten minutes left to go. Half the Sub was on fire and the other half was flooded.

The rulebook even had variations to make the game more challenging. Crazy!! (To be fair it also had a variation that would seem to make it easier, called Less Deadly Death)

We've only had a chance to play it once, but I'm itching to play again. I would recommend this game to anyone.