Monthly Archives: January 2020

Testing the waters (again!)

RPG

Inspired by the many calls by Brexiteers over the last few days to be optimistic about our future outside of the EU (which I’m not). I thought once more I’d test the waters with those in our gaming group for interest in the following two non-D&D RPGs.

I love playing D&D. I’m enjoying being a DM. However I’d love to try one or two of the other RPGs that I own.

The reason I went with these two and didn’t include the Genesys system with either the Android setting (which I really really want to play) or it’s Terrinoth setting, is that Genesys requires special dice. I have a couple of sets, but a set or two wouldn’t hurt. What I have should be enough to get started. However if those wanting to play wanted to bring their own dice they couldn’t without forking out for a set. The reason this is a problem is that these FFG special dice are more expensive than a set of dice for D&D. Unless you are buying one of those WotC fancy dice sets. So I wanted to avoid that sort of expense for potential players. Plus with the recent redundancies at FFG that impacted the RPG area of the company (along with other departments), the future of the Genesys system is looking a bit uncertain. Which isn’t a problem using the rules etc. However when a system relies on custom dice things become a little bit trickier to play once these are no longer available.

The nice thing about the Judge Dredd and Worlds of 2000 A.D. and Paranoia is that they are both d6 systems. No special dice required. D6 dice are ridiculously cheap to buy. If I remember correctly £1 of the realm will get you six from my FLGS.

Add in they only other stuff they need is pen and paper, the out lay for people interested in playing is extremely low.

I also think that there is a nice contrast between the two RPGs chosen, despite them both being sci-fi themed. Paranoia is competitive, back stabbing, light hearted. Whilst Judge Dredd is your more traditional co-operative working together RPG.

For both I would use readily available official scenarios.

In the past I’ve said how much I like how the introductory mission
[YOUR SECURITY CLEARANCE IS NOT HIGH ENOUGH FOR THE TITLE OF THIS ADVENTURE] from the Mission Book is written. It really does take the new GM by the hand and talk them through their first game of Paranoia. It’s so good you don’t actually need to have read the rules to use it! So for a taster session this is an ideal adventure to run for a GM and player. The only decision really to make is whether the players use pre-con characters or generate them on the day. Personally I think that generating the characters is all part of the Paranoia experience, and sets the tone for the rest of the game.

For Judge Dredd there is the State of the Empire scenario that is in the rule book, which allows players to play it as perps, civilians or judges. Whilst the Quick Start version of the scenario is limited to judges only. I also have the official scenario Monkey Business that the publisher uses at conventions etc to demo the game. My inclination at the moment is to use this scenario with the pre-con characters from the State of the Empire, so running as players playing judges. Monkey Business is designed to be run in a single session, approximately a couple of hours. So ideal for my needs.

The big unknown is how many will actually show any interest and respond to the post. Let alone actually want to turn up and play. I’ve bemoaned about this in the past. It can be very very frustrating.

But we will see.

D&D Tokens Revisited

D&D, RPG


Back in November of last year I made some tokens for D&D and a cyberpunk rpg. These were based on tokens created by Sly Flourish.

Yesterday Sly put up a YouTube video (embedded below) on how to make them. Which compliments a recent post he did as well on the subject.

I made double sided tokens, however Sly has been making single sided tokens that use 1″ adhesive magnets and 1″ epoxy stickers.

I have found that the epoxy stickers I got are a bit sticky! So when stored in the little container they clump together. They do come apart with a little force. But not ideal. Not sure how to get over this. I’m hoping it will be less of an issue over time.

This is such a great and simple idea. Very portable and gets round the “high” cost of minis. Ok they don’t have that 3D table presence. But they are very effective. And make tracking damage and conditions for the monsters easier, and identifying which one is doing which.

Wait I forgot to give this a title before posting!

Game day

Yesterday afternoon saw another battle for control of the planet Arrakis, also known as Dune.

This time it was the Harkonnen (me), Atreides (Jonas), Emperor (Diego), Space Guild (Oli) and the Fremen (Jeff) slogging it out, making alliances, all for control of the spice.

The Emperor and Harkonnens made the first alliance. At that point they had three strong holds between them, and just needed to clinch the final fourth one. Something they failed to do, and spent more time defending what they had at a great cost.

Later on a more potent alliance was made between the Space Guild and the Fremen, leaving the Atreides out in the cold, struggling for spice. This was an alliance that grabbed the win of four strongholds in round seven. The Space Guild ability to take their turn when they liked during the movement phase allowed them to pick off the two remaining strongholds that they needed.

I enjoyed the game as a five player experience. Playing the Harkonnens was fun. I loved having a bigger hand of treachery cards, and more options on the traitor front. Holding Carthag was something I wanted to do for as long as possible because of the benefits being there gave me. Such as great movement range and increased spice mining.

I’m not sure about alliances for odd numbers. There will always be that one person left out, competing against the odds. The solution is possibly no alliances at all or to,allow more than two houses in an alliance.

But for a thirty five year old game, I don’t think they have changed the rules hardly at all in this reprint, it holds up amazingly well.

We had a blast for the afternoon. I look forward to the next “big” game afternoon.

Goblin Druid

miniatures, painting

I did some painting yesterday. It was just one figure. But it had been partially started a few months ago. All that had been done at that point in time was the hat mask combo.

So it was time to finish it.

At the time of buying I was after a goblin wizard. It was to be used for the Matt Colville Tomb of the Delian Order Adventure that I was going to be running (my first experience as a DM – and yes the power went to my head).

However my Internet travels looking for one were fruitless. But I did find this goblin druid. It looked wizard like! I could use that, who’d notice?

And no-one did.

The only time this plan will fail is if I need a goblin druid and wizard in the same encounter. Hopefully this will be a rare occurrence. Planning and all that.

So now I have a table top ready goblin druid that will masquerade as a wizard from time to time as and when needed.

Update on planning session 6 #2

D&D, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

Technically not a post specifically about the next session.

Yesterday the third series of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was released on Netflix. I’m probably not the main audience that the series is aimed at. But I’m enjoying this reimagining of the character/tv show a lot. I think they have done a good job of producing something that appeals to a wide audience.

However this isn’t meant to be a review of the show.

Whilst watching episode three it struck me that I can borrow a story idea for my campaign.

A long running plot thread for my campaign is this mystical weapon that belonged to The King of the Seas. A weapon that was broken up and it’s pieces scattered to the wind. The players have heard rumours that a piece of this weapon has been discovered.

In this latest series of Sabrina as part of a contest to retain the throne of hell. Sabrina and a demon lord upstart called Caliban are competing to find three “McGuffins”, sorry magical items. The person that finds all three first becomes ruler of hell.

So far one piece was found. A crown that had a guardian who was awoken when the crown was taken.

It was this that got me thinking. I could use this in my campaign. Naturally there will be challenges to overcome and minor guardians involved with the remaining pieces. But once they are all assembled to make the mystical weapon this will awaken the decayed remains of The King of the Seas. Who will come to claim his weapon. Naturally there will be an epic battle over who has this mystical weapon.

So that’s the idea. It’s long term. But these are my notes as well as a short distraction for others.

I’ve also decided how the Tyrant of Mintarn should be played. I think she should be like Lord Vetinari, Lord Patrician of Ankh-Morpork (from the Discworld books). These two quotes from the Wikipedia page sum up how the Tyrant will be played “…include his mastery of diplomacy and manipulation, his distant and menacing air, his everpresent calmness and composure (which, ironically, make other people ill at ease), and his skills as an Assassin; in The Truth, another character relates that “Vetinari moved like a snake”.”

“…general acknowledgement that very little goes on in the city that Vetinari does not know about. Thus, when a visitor stands in audience with the Patrician, they can be assured that Vetinari knows exactly why they’re there, even if the visitor does not.”

I’ll use this last snippet about Vetinari/Tyrant in the next session when the party are escorted to “their” ship and waiting in a neat bundle in the cabin on a bed is all the wizard needs to cast the find familiar spell. This should raise many unnerving questions in the party. For starters the party thought they got away with the stealing of the ship.

There was a doh! moment about the next session. I had forgotten the date that we had agreed to try and make at the end of the previous session. I know, I should have written it down. I remembered we had agreed that the next session would be a Sunday and in February. So my mental faculties were not completely abandoning me.

But I was forced to ask on our Messenger group what date we had agreed. Luckily one or two others had remembered, and replied with the agreed date.

So disaster avoided.

Back to a side project

D&D, RPG

I decided to get back to working on the dungeon based on the tunnels that are under Wisbech.

As D&D dungeon maps go they aren’t as exciting and interesting as the maps you get from professionals. No rooms for starters. They are tunnels. So I’ve had to take some artistic licence and add one or two. And I feel I need to add one or two more.

I’ve also added some sloping parts to the tunnels and flooded an area of one.

As a work in progress it’s coming along and taking shape.

I have spells doing the cross hatch stuff. It’s so boring to do. But the look afterwards is worth it. Look at the bits with it and the bits without.

I like the fact one route round (the longest) is obstacles to over come. While the shorter route is more perilous.

The real challenge has been to make the tunnels “interesting”. Making them lead to a liche lair makes sense to me, without the adventurers brave enough to wander down having to explore room after room. Using traps, obstacles and hazards I think makes the tunnels more “interesting”.

Now to play test it. Oh and more cross hatching.

Useful stuff in the DMG Appendices

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Last night I finally caught up with a YouTube video or two from my subscriptions and one of them was a video by the Nerdarchy guys about hidden gems in the DMG.

The basic summation of this video is that they went through Appendix A – Random Dungeons of the DMG. Which is basically a collection of tables you roll dice for to generate a dungeon.

Naturally as pointed out in the video the appendix is basically split into two parts. The first is about generating the dungeon structure wise, rooms, passages, etc. The second part is about stocking the dungeon. What’s in the rooms and passages.

You can use these tables anytime you want really (as pointed out in the video, well more suggested). In the video the example they give is the tricks table being used to “punish” a party for getting a puzzle wrong. But look at those dungeon dressing tables, particularly those that allow you to enhance descriptions of a room that describe what the senses are detecting like smells and noises. That’s two or three tables I’ll be using a lot more.

But the other Appendices are pretty useful also.

I particularly like the following appendix, Appendix B – Monster Lists. What I love about this appendix is the categorising of monsters by environment. Within each environments table the monsters are sorted by challenge rating. But I’m more interested in what monsters my party are likely to come across as they wander through that hilly forest on their way to the lost mine. Being able to look at this table and chose a monster that is in it’s correct environment is really handy. Although picking a monster that would not naturally be in say a mountainous environment might be a plot point, something for the party to investigate. Why was this monster here?

Appendix C – Maps falls into that Jim Murphy advice territory about collecting maps and having them on hand ready for use in your DM folder. But the advice at the start of this appendix is some of the most sage going “…unless you have something specific in mind, you’re better off conserving your time and energy by repurposing an existing map.” And reenforces that suggestion from Murphy. There are nine maps here for people to use.

I like videos like this. They remind you of the great stuff that is contained within the DMG and other books.

Play, Keep, eBay #2

play,keep,ebay

Welcome to the second post of Play, Keep, eBay. Where I take three games and decide which I’d happily play, keep or add to my collection, and finally which I’d sell on.

In this post I have three deckbuilders that I have played at least once over the past decade.

As you read yesterday deckbuilders are one of Jonathan’s least favourite mechanics. But I love it. I love the shaping your deck, the having to alter your plans based on available cards in the changing trade row, trying to get synergies/combos going between cards. The mechanic is so flexible also. It can be the basis of a co-operative game, or it can be an aggressive competitive game, it can be just competitive. Look at the various games out there that use it as a mechanic.

Play: This was close as I do like Eminent Domain a lot. I like the theme, and it’s unique follow action mechanic. It was nearly the Keep. The expansions add to the game while not over complicating it. This is a nice competitive deckbuilder.

Keep: Probably the easiest and most predictable of my answers for those that know me. It has to be Star Realms. I play this all the time via the app. The physical game is awesome. I love the aggressive nature of the game, it’s quick, cheap, portable. Then all the expansions you can get add variety and new mechanics.

eBay: I think if you have been reading this blog for a looong time you might have guessed this one. You’d need a good memory. But still. It could only be Thunderstone Advance: Numenera. At the time when I played this I wasn’t impressed. It lacked urgency. This game put me off the whole series/system.

Games listed: Eminent Domain, Star Realms, Thunderstone Advance: Numenera

Deckbuilding Taverns

Fenland Gamers, game night

Banter between players is a part of game night. That friendly ribbing between players.

Part of our banter at Fenland Gamers is over the colour yellow (which we will refer to as filthy yellow) and Jonathan’s irrational liking of the colour. It’s his favourite colour to be fair. So often the banter is that when people are selecting who plays what colour normally Jonathan hides yellow up, and says there is no yellow, and then surprisingly when it comes to him selecting a colour he discovers there is yellow after all. Whilst I try and remove yellow without him seeing.

Ok you have to be there. It doesn’t read as funny.

Another source of banter when Jonathan pops out a new game that has deckbuilding as a major mechanic. It’s funny because Jonathan is not a fan of that mechanic.

That’s why playing The Taverns of Tiefenthal (TOT) with him as a learning game last Friday evening was funny.

I think games like TOT are probably the just acceptable form of a deckbuilder that Jonathan will play. And dare I say it possibly enjoy!

I have to say TOT uses deckbuilding nicely as the main mechanic. Add in the dice placement and drafting, with a fixed number of rounds and you have a nice game that gives you some interesting decisions to make each round.

I’d go as far to say you almost don’t feel that you are deckbuilding. There are opportunities to thin the deck of cards, but it’s not an aggressive strategy you could follow. There is not enough time over the limited number of rounds to do that.

Your main decisions on a round are based on the cards you draw for the tavern and the dice you are able to draft. Basically you are either generating money or mugs of beer. You then have to decide how you are going to spend what you have generated. Are you buying tavern cards with the money or upgrading your tavern. Upgrading your tavern gets you a high scoring noble card on top of a more powerful action space. Or are you buying guests with the beer generated?

It is a nice blend of mechanics and decisions. If you asked me I think I prefer this over Clank! And it is miles better than the recent Undaunted: Normandy, where I didn’t think the deckbuilding worked at all.

Our gaming finished with a couple of games of Las Vegas. Still loving this classic.

Games Played: Taverns of Tiefenthal, Las Vegas