Monthly Archives: January 2020

A Doctor Who Inspired Adventure!

D&D, RPG

I gave up on Doctor Who just after Capaldi took over. The writing seemed particularly poor in the episodes I had watched. And feedback from my friend Duncan during his tenure as the Doctor who had stuck with the series did not hint that the writing had improved. It was a shame, they had wasted a great actor as the Doctor.

When Jodi Whittaker was named as the new Doctor. I didn’t care that they had swapped the gender of the Doctor. My concern was would she be let down by the writing as Capaldi had been?

Once again my friend Duncan who was proving to have a high tolerance for the badly written show, confirmed that this new Doctor was also being let down by poor scripts. So I’ve stayed away from the show.

That is until I got sent this tweet by my friend yesterday.

Curiosity got the better of me. I watched the episode.

For the record we are talking about Season 12 Episode 3 – Orphan 55

A brief synopsis of the plot (taken off Google) is as follows:

“The Doctor and her companions discover the luxury resort where they are staying is hiding a number of deadly secrets; they must discover why there are ferocious monsters attacking Tranquillity Spa.” (You can read a more in-depth look at the episode here)

Just to get it out of the system before looking at the reason why my friend got me to watch this episode. Wow the writing is worse than I had imagined.

So how would this novice DM make this work in D&D?

Firstly we are looking at a cross between a mystery and a horror alienesq scenario. In fact I could see this working really well in the new Alien RPG or one of the kids on bikes type RPGs out there like Tales from the Loop.

In my campaign the setting would most likely be a remote mysterious island that the party stumble upon. However in other campaigns I could see this working with a remote village, an outpost of some kind.

Which ever is chosen, the location will appear idillic. A paradise.

I’d then have a body discovered, and have the party get roped in investigating the death.

As the investigation progresses I’d maybe start adding more bodies. With it slowly being revealed that the locals know who or what is doing the murders. I’d have witnesses being cagey, giving partial inaccurate descriptions that conflict with each other. Maybe use this as a little misdirection and make the players suspect one or two of the locals. I’d possibly throw in a chase scene where the party nearly catch the killer in the act.

I’d use the surrounded by creatures idea from the episode. These naturally will be the killers. And it will turn out that the occupants of this location knew they had settled in a dangerous location, and that the odd murder was a price the occupants were prepared to pay. This will be the big reveal.

This is when we switch from the mystery part to a more the end of Aliens, the final stand before being completely over run scene. The odds will be overwhelming. After a heroic stand (using a dice countdown to determine when) one of the surviving locals will show the party a secret way out of the location, that will be run as a group challenge to escape.

I agree with my friend the premise is interesting as a possible adventure for an RPG. I’d need to come up with a credible reason why these people had built in such a dangerous location. Something better than the poor Planet of the Apes reveal that was implemented in the episode of Doctor Who.

Will I use the idea and develop it more? I don’t know. I’ve not run a mystery yet. It would require a lot more effort to prepare, particularly researching how to run a mystery in D&D. But the idea has potential.

Last Days: The Big Bang Squad

Last Days, Skirmish

Despite having I think enough scatter terrain to play a game or two of the miniatures skirmish game Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse I still haven’t organised a game yet. Something I need to rectify.

But first I need to put together a couple of squads to play with. Although whoever I play the game with can put together their own squad if they wish. That is the beauty of this game/rule set it uses whatever miniatures you have on hand.

For me that means my Zombicide survivors. Both the ones that come with the game and the promo ones. Naturally the promo survivors are caricatures of the personality whether real or fictional with different names. But it’s pretty obvious who they are meant to be.

Out of the few I have I’ve always had floating around in the back of my head that once I had all the Big Bang Theory cast as survivors I’d like to play a scenario in Zombicide with them. Luckily that was something I managed to do between a Kickstarter or two by CMoN and I don’t recall having to resort to eBay. But it’s possible. The downside is that it’s been a long long time since Zombicide hit the table and I haven’t used the miniatures.

Then Last Days came out, and once more the plan was resurrected. Bring the Big Bang gang to this version of the zombie apocalypse instead.

So here for your amusement and my notes I present The Big Bang Squad.

Oh almost forgot before I get into the meat of this post a little disclaimer. This is my first squad that I’ve created for the game. There are bound to be mistakes. When giving the characters their abilities and keyword I’ve tried to match them up as best as possible whilst hopefully staying true to the fictional character. But please remember the options available in the core rule book are limited and may not map exactly or at all. Especially whilst taking into account any restrictions imposed by the rules.

Scavenger Points To Spend: 100

Scavenger Points Spent: 95

Leader: Dave aka Sheldon

Naturally Dave had to be the leader. Watch any episode of the show, whenever they do anything Sheldon is always the leader, team captain. Ok mainly to shut him up, and they know they will eventually cave in anyway.

There are currently three options for leaders. Obviously Dave is not a merciless thug. I was going to go Professional however you could never describe Dave as athletic. And that is one of the professionals available skills. So I’ve had to go with the Everyday Hero.

THE EVERYDAY HERO – SELFLESS (12 Scavenger Points)

Next I need to pick a refuge for this group of survivors. In the core rule book there are the following options.

Considering the setting of the tv show, and the time spent in the comic book shop, coffee shop, etc. My inclination is to place the squad in The Mall.

Refuge: The Mall

Now I have to recruit the rest of the cast to Dave’s group of survivors. Naturally there are six other characters to add. Which The Mall easily allows me to add.

But I do have to keep in mind the following restrictions:

• I may recruit any number of Characters with the same Keyword as the Leader.

• Up to 50% of the Characters in the Group may have the Neutral Keyword.

• Only 25% or less of the models in the Group may have a different Keyword than the Leader.

For all the character types selected below I’ve tried to avoid ones that have the athletic skill. We are talking about a group of “nerds” here, and that usually isn’t a word used to describe them in the show, despite it being a tired stereotype. I’ve also tried to make sure the ones selected have the academic skill.

The most flexible character type for my needs is the Survivor. Which sadly is the wrong keyword. The nice thing about this character type is I get to pick the skills each character has. This enables the character to feel more like their fictional representation.

SURVIVOR – NEUTRAL (6 Scavenger Points)

Kabir aka Raj: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS, SCAVENGER
Miss Trish aka Bernadette: DIRTY FIGHTER, DOUBLE-TAP
Will aka Howard: ENGINEER, MARTIAL ARTS

CRONY – SELFISH (3 Scavenger Points)
Audrey aka Amy

The options for the same keyword were not ideal. I’m kind of happy with Patrick being a Good Samaritan. However Nikki is probably the worse fit for this. But the other options were worse in my opinion.

GOOD SAMARITAN – SELFLESS (9 Scavenger Points)

Patrick aka Leonard
Nikki aka Penny

I make that a total of 39 Scavenger Points spent on the group. Add in the leader spend my running total is 51 Scavenger Points. Now onto the …

Starting Weapons

There are also some restrictions that need adhering to when selecting the starting weapons and equipment for the group.

  • Each Character in the group must start with at least one weapon with which to defend themselves from hostile groups and the living dead.
  • They may carry up to two Firearms and two Close Quarter Combat weapons (CQC).
  • When you recruit a new character it is the only time you may freely pick weapons and equipment for them.

Here are the starting weapon options available to choose from:

When choosing the characters weapon I’m trying to match the weapon to the miniature. Although for Dave and Audrey the games version of a Molotov cocktail isn’t a starting option.
For weapons like Heavy Blade I’m house ruling that it’s not one weapon of type Heavy Blade, but one machete, one sharpened sword. It makes sense that you will have one of each of those, not just one Heavy Blade weapon.
Dave:

  • Club (nightstick, ASP, bat, crowbar, etc.) *, Scavenger Points 2
  • Revolver*, Scavenger Points 2
  • Medical Supplies *, Scavenger Points 2

Audrey:

  • Surplus SMG, Scavenger Points 4
  • Knife *, Scavenger Points 2

Kabir:

  • Heavy Blade (sharpened sword), Scavenger Points 3
  • Revolver*, Scavenger Points 2
  • Medical Supplies *, Scavenger Points 2

Miss Trish:

  • Semi-Automatic*, Scavenger Points 3
  • Knife *, Scavenger Points 2

Nikki:

  • Magnum*, Scavenger Points 3
  • Surplus Hunting Rifle, Scavenger Points 4
  • Knife *, Scavenger Points 2

Patrick:

  • Heavy Club (hand axe), Scavenger Points 2
  • Revolver*, Scavenger Points 2

Will:

  • Pump-Action Shotgun *, Scavenger Points 5
  • Knife *, Scavenger Points 2

So that’s my Big Bang Squad. I need to create a second group of survivors for them to go up against. For that I have a ready made one figure wise I can use, which is from another CMoN game, The Others. From that game I will be using one of the expansions Sons of Ragnarok which is a Norse Gods inspired take on the biker gang and tv show Sons of Anarchy. But I’ll cover that build in another post.

Update on planning session 6 #1

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.

This post is going to be my to do list for the next session and some thinking aloud.

The magic items that were given to the party as payment in advance for escorting the tribute I took from the YouTube video Five Low-Level Magic Items for Creative Players by the Dungeon Dudes. To save you clicking a link, the items were Bag of Holding, Robe of Useful Items, Immovable Rod, Deck of Illusions, Decanter of Endless Water.

Which means before the next session I need to create item cards for those items. But I also need to work out what patches the robe has. And I’m tempted to use a deck of real cards for the deck of illusions.

The rod and decanter will be very useful for the party on their sea bound travels. But I’m looking forward to seeing how the party will use these items.

A big decision I need to make for the next session is what happens and how I handle the travelling at sea.

I’ve discussed in a previous post a while back the options for handling wilderness travel. Which this basically is. I think my deciding factor should be the duration/distance of the journey.

What makes this one a tough decision is that I’m looking at about a day and a half of travel each way. Which is borderline. At the moment I’m tempted to describe the journey. But it’s also a great opportunity to try out a version of the method described in the Tomb of Annihilation campaign book.

I’m so tempted to have sahuagin attack the party again. But this time they will be attacking with sharks, and one thing I picked up from the Rising Tide book was that they used a craft called a manta made up from the wrecks of other ships.

This is how it is described in the book when one is encountered:

‘The oblong barge used by the sahuagin to travel above or below water was much smaller than most of its kind that the young sailor had heard described… the manta had been cobbled together from ships wrecked at sea or scavenged from shorelines. The boards were stained green with undersea scud from being submerged for so long, but fitted neatly into a wedge shape that made it very maneuverable. It rode low in the water, but the finned shapes of the sahuagin could be seen hunkered down on the benches. They paddled furiously, moving in response to a measured cadence, totally focused on their prey.

Jherek had heard stories about mantas that crewed as many as six hundred sahuagin, but firsthand stories were few and far between. Most men who saw them perished in the sea devils’ attack. From his initial estimate, he guessed that there were forty or fifty sahuagin aboard, easily twice the number of crew aboard Butterfly.” Extract from Rising Tide by Mel Odom, Wizards of the Coast (18 Mar. 2013).

Story wise I could have the sahuagin attack while the party has the tribute. This would mean the party would potentially have to deal with the repercussions of losing the tribute.

If they manage to get the tribute to Hoondarrh’s lair on the isle of Skadaurak. There is some good info from WotC in an old Dragon magazine article (here) that covers Hoondarrh’s lair. In that article it describes this island lair as…

“… a vast complex of subterranean rooms — in fact, a recently-built “dungeon.” It has no less than three shafts where a large red dragon can fly in and out with wings spread; one of them turns back to angle almost straight up into a mountain peak, and there ends in the main treasure cavern.

The rest of the island is honeycombed with trap-filled false lairs. Some of these are even home to a few bold brigands, whom Hoondarrh suffers to live because they amuse him with their furtive diggings, and they have learned not to dare any open assault on his main caverns. From time to time he snatches one up and dumps the man in Baldur’s Gate or Waterdeep or Athkatla, to babble tales of the vast and rich lair that sprawls through the very heart of the isle of Skadaurak, and so lure more adventurers hence.

Though Hoondarrh is not known to possess any sentient servants, his lair seems alive with golems and gargoylelike automatons of various sorts — and even with captive monsters that are kept ravenously hungry.”

So far I’ve not found any maps online for Hoondarrh’s lair. Which means I’m going to have to come up with something map wise myself based on the above description. That’s assuming the party don’t just drop off the tribute at the most convenient spot and make their way back to Mintarn.

So that’s my things to do and thoughts for the next session so far.

I don’t want to be more powerful!

D&D, RPG

Yesterday there was an interesting YouTube video by the Roll for Crit folks looking at a recent post on the interweb looking at D&D Beyond stats showing hardly anyone played the higher character levels (original D&D graphic below).

Note from D&D Beyond on above chart: “Campaign Character Level Spread – Lower level characters are most popular. Adam did note that there are 16th – 19th level characters in campaigns, but the percentage is so low that it rounds up to 0%.”

The Roll for Crit video was interesting in the discussion about the various reasons. However I felt they missed out a couple of points.

As pointed out in the video D&D Beyond is a small subset of those that actually play D&D. However it’s a smaller subset still if you consider that some of it’s user base will only be using it as a digital reference and not actually running their campaigns with it. I’m using it for instance to get access to the “free” D&D Essentials adventure resources.

I’d also love to see stats from similar online services like Roll20 to see if the trend continues on those platforms also. That would widen the sample size naturally. But still only be a subset of the total number of people that play D&D.

The big question for me is how representative is this data of the wider D&D audience? Something I’m not sure we will ever know. But from antidotal accounts, surveys and observations from cons etc we could draw an approximation to how representative this data is.

So for the time being, because there is no evidence to the contrary, that what we are seeing on D&D Beyond is a fair representation of the wider D&D playing audience.

With that assumption in mind. I’m going to make another assumption now. I have no data to back this up. I’m not even sure it exists either. But there will be a large number of people playing D&D on D&D Beyond and the wider community that the only adventures and campaigns that they play are the officially released ones. Like Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Tomb of Annihilation, Tyranny of Dragons etc. etc. Or even the Adventures League stuff.

Which brings me to my second point. These official campaign books finish around that level 10/11 mark if I remember correctly. Definitely at that lower end of tier 3. And that’s assuming that the gaming group make it that far. These official campaign books can (depending on the frequency of the groups sessions) be a year or more of playing. Which means that a lot of the points made by the Roll for Crit folks come in, like life events getting in the way.

Plus when a new campaign book gets released some players like to jump in and play the new stuff. Which means that the “old” campaign gets shoved to one side.

Each time a group starts one of these official campaigns they roll new characters to play. Which is natural because the campaigns start at tier 1. But also because the players will want to use any campaign specific class/race options that are introduced.

Unless WotC do some sort of survey about this and share the results (which on the MtG side they don’t usually do, we never see the results of the player surveys they do on a regular basis), we won’t know what the reasons are. I suspect it will be a combination of the points I’ve mentioned and those mentioned in the video. Plus others we haven’t even thought of.

Finally as part of the discussion on levelling up that was raised within the video they mentioned the classic XP and milestone methods that are in the players guide and DM guide. However they forgot about the checkpoint method as detailed in the appendix on shared campaigns in Xanathar’s Guide. Which is the system I prefer.

The Roll for Crit video can be viewed here.

EnWorld post that sparked this all off here.

D&D Beyond here.

When we last left our heroes… #5

D&D, post mortem, RPG

In this session our party took part in a historical recreation of an infamous halfling battle at the Mintarn arena as party of a celebration organised by the Tyrant of Mintarn. Which was gatecrashed by the red dragon Hoondarrh, demanding that their tribute is delivered early. Afterwards the Tyrant recruits our party to deliver the tribute to Hoondarrh.

Post-mortem

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.

This was a slightly shorter session than usual. Our sweet spot is around the two hour mark. But the way things worked out, this session ended up being an hour and a half roughly. However this still counted as two experience check points. Which meant that three players at the end of the session were able to level up to level three. The others had been able to do that at the end of the previous session.

One bit of business I had to do to the start of the session was some house keeping with the groups dwarf sorcerer. This basically entailed checking the equipment they had, and then informing them that the find familiar spell had been used incorrectly in the previous session. I then had to break the bad news to them about not being above to cast it until the casting requirements were met.

One thing that hadn’t occurred naturally during the previous sessions was providing the opportunities for the groups druid to see animals for them to transform into (once they were able to do so). The Mintarn Arena presented the ideal opportunity for this. Historically gladiator arenas were known to use animals of various types as part of the “entertainment” that they provided. So as the party were wandering around the arena behind the scenes they came across various caged animals, such as wolves, bears, boars, tigers and panthers.

At the end of the day after the days happenings at the Arena the party had a chance to go shopping at the market. I had the market closing up for the day. I wanted a way to restrict what the characters could buy. I don’t want the players getting used to the idea of they can just buy everything they need all the time. I want scarcity. Making the players make decisions during the rest of the session about how they use their equipment and spells.

Part of the reason the session didn’t last as long as I thought it would, was down to the main encounter of the session at the arena. I had pre-drawn the battle map out on my folding white board. Sadly this was the reason why the encounter was quicker than anticipated. The folding white board wasn’t wide enough. So the gap between the outer towers and the middle tower was less than it should have been. It had become jumpable! And yes that was the first thing the players attempted. Luckily the halfling druid had entangle in it’s spell list.

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Was the comment made when I had the halflings on their turn rile up the crowd. It was the reason I did it. So I think showing instead of telling worked in that instance.

Because the main goal of this arena encounter had been achieved quicker than planned. I had to stretch it out, and have the encounter continue. This was explained by the Tyrant and the arena owner not wanting an entertaining recreation to end. So decided to let it continue. This had the players thinking that the Tyrant had other reasons for doing so. A bit of doubt over the motives of the Tyrant seemed a good thing.

I’m also glad I didn’t spend much of my scarce monetary resources creating a 3D version of the battle map. If I already had the stuff that would have been a different matter. Having raised battle tiles is something I will invest in at a future point in time when funds are more plentiful.

I’d always planned to have Hoondarrh gate crash the encounter. Once again I used the WOIN countdown mechanic to determine when this would happen. I do like this mechanic a lot for determining when certain events happen. It removes the having to decide when it will happen. Although you still have the option of triggering the event if the moment seems appropriate.

Dropping Hoondarrh in was a surprise for the players. They were not expecting that. It also presented a comedic moment. But it also highlighted how little the party remember from previous sessions. Is this due to poor note taking, the gaps between sessions, or me not putting enough emphasis on certain facts and story plot points? This is something I’m going to have to monitor closely.

I liked giving the players one less magic item than there were players. It meant they had to negotiate between themselves who had what.

Overall despite it being a short session, everyone had a good time I think.

Reinventing the wheel

D&D, FEG@TA, RPG

Even as an inexperienced DM one early skill I think is important for a DM to develop (especially if they are running a homebrew campaign of some kind) is to know when to not reinvent the wheel.

I enjoy the creative process that being a DM exposes you to. Coming up with a world, story lines, adventures and all that each entails. They all have their own creative challenges.

However if like me your spare time is a precious commodity that is in short supply. Then how you spend it between sessions preparing is pretty important. You want to get as much done as possible for as little effort.

That’s where knowing when to reinvent the wheel comes in handy.

The first thing I do when I have an idea is research it. For example I had no idea how to run gladiator combat in an arena. I would have been surprised if it hadn’t been done during the 45 odd years of the games history.

My googling turned up a recommendation for an Adventure League module that had the perfect encounter for me to base the encounter I was planning on. All I’ve had to do is work out the changes I need to make to fit in with my campaign. Which is mainly location and characters.

It’s also worth as you read D&D or general RPG material squirrelling away stuff that may be of use in future. Such as those generic lairs that are part of the Lazy DM Workbook. Or as I’ve identified in the D&D Essentials adventures a couple I can repurpose for my campaign. This goes for towns as well. For Mintarn I’m using the map for Alhaster that was created for a Dungeon magazine adventure.

Not everything has to be 100% perfect for you to use it. Even if what you have found is only a 60 or 70 percent fit. That’s still a lot of work you have saved yourself.

Having a folder whether it’s digital or physical of all these snippets is a great resource you can call upon to help stop you reinventing things.

But there will be times when you do need to create from scratch. And being able to tell when that time is, allows you to spend that time productively.

Update on planning session 5 #3

D&D, news, RPG, session planning

With rumours of a new D&D source book flying around the Internet. All we actually have that some are taking as a clue that it is Forgotten Realms based, is a dice set coming out in March.

I think WotC have got the right balance in these products between being useful and full of tatt. The map included is the Sword Coast on one side and Waterdeep on the other. Who knows what the conspiracy theorists will be reading into that, especially with the set being named after Laeral Silverhand—Open Lord of Waterdeep, FORGOTTEN REALMS LAERAL SILVERHAND’S EXPLORER’S KIT.

On the alternatives to D&D front, news was breaking that FFG was making “massive” redundancies within certain departments. I believe the two main ones effected are the Interactive department (basically their in-house software dev team) and the RPG team.

With no official statement there will obviously be various conspiracy theories going round. Redundancy is never a nice thing to go through. And it needs remembering that there are people here that have just lost their jobs. Our thoughts firstly should be with them and their families during this uncertain time.

How this will affect the RPGs that FFG produce (Star Wars, L5R, Genesys) and their on going development and support we don’t know. It’s possible that any new developments will be outsourced in some way.

So after that bit of news like stuff…

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.

With our next session only three days away it’s time to do those final bits of prep before scraping together the pennies to print bits out.

I think I know how the session will flow, and the main combat encounter.

The session will start off in the tavern over breakfast, and some adventure hooks being seeded.

I’m pretty sure the main combat encounter will be the gladiator arena that has been discussed in the previous prep post. I have decided that the end of the encounter will be interrupted by Hoondarrh, the Red Rage of Mintarn landing in the middle of the arena demanding their tribute is delivered early.

It will also see the party given the job of investigating the outpost they discovered on their journey to Mintarn to find out what happened to the guards and workers sent to open it up again.

For the arena I’m going to draw the map in advance on a Pathfinder battlemap. I’d love to do the 3d version. But resources are severely restricted at the moment.

I think with all the above that should be roughly the two hour session taken up. Which you will remember is the duration my group likes for their sessions.

Looking forward to Saturday.

The spice must flow

Game day

Wow it’s been a few days since the last post. A relief for some, a disappointment for a minority.

In that time of incommunicado there was the first Friday gaming of the year. There was a good turn out for us of seven. So we split into two groups, a three and four.

But Saturday saw a game hit the table that I’ve been wanting to play since it arrived.

November last year saw the reprinting of the 35 year old classic board game Dune by Galeforce Nine. Who by the way have the Dune licence now and are planning on releasing new Dune based games in the future.

Dune is a game based on the classic sci-fi book by Frank Herbert. You don’t need to have read it, or seen the movie or tv mini series to play it. But like all things based on a licence of some kind it helps to be familiar with the source material.

Although the game will play between two to six players. This is one of those rare games that plays it’s best at the maximum player count.

Sadly this first time playing the game was not to be at that player count but with three players.

In the rule book they recommend that the factions used for this player count are the Harkonnens, Fremen and Atreides. So this is what we went with for our first play. Who got which faction was decided randomly. I got the Freman, Oli got Atreides and Diego naturally got the Harkonnens.

We also jumped in the deep end and used all of the advanced rules except for the advanced combat. Which seemed to over complicate the combat.

Dune is one of those games that has a reputation for taking a long time to play. The play throughs by MCDM on YouTube are over three hours, and that’s for seven rounds and six players. In the original version of the game the maximum number of rounds is twelve. So if the MCDM folks had played to that limit the sessions potentially could have been much much longer. In this reprint it’s a ten round maximum limit.

In our game we hit a win condition in the ninth round. This took us around two hours. Which I think was pretty good. Especially considering this was our first time playing the game and all that entails as well.

I loved the game. It didn’t disappoint.

Galeforce Nine have done a great job producing the game. You not only get a well written rule book it also summarises the events of the book. They also put in a quick start booklet, which is a nice addition. The component quality is good. The faction cards summarising the factions abilities both for basic and advanced play is a useful thing to have. The only quibble I have is the insert. If the card storage areas had been slightly bigger they would easily have fitted the cards sleeved.

Playing the game at first it may seem overwhelming and complicated. Each round is broken down into 9 stages. But the majority of these are very quick. With only two of them really eating up the majority of the game time. And you quickly get into the rhythm of the game.

Like all great games the time just flies whilst playing and you lose all sense of how long you have been playing. You are constantly engaged even when it’s not your turn.

I like how the first player each round is decided using the storm marker as it moves round the game board. With the first player being the player that the storm will hit next during it’s next move.

The alliances I think would work better in the higher player counts. In the three player game it’s something I think in future games I’ll house rule not to use. I spent the last two or three rounds trying to stop the unholy alliance of the Atreides and Harkonnens. Which was a very difficult task, almost Herculean. Unsurprisingly one I failed at.

The unique player powers are both cool and thematic. Forcing a player to play to their faction strengths. But the unique powers during play aren’t the only unique thing about some of the factions, some have a unique win condition also.

The art has a retro fifties sci-fi vibe to it. That I like a lot.

I don’t think the art would look out of place on the cover of a sci-fi book from that period. I love how it evokes that feeling in me.

The bidding for treachery cards is cool. You need these cards for combat, they can be offensive, defensive or a complete donkey (there is an actual donkey). However you can only have a maximum of four of these cards. And if at the start of the bidding stage you are at that limit you can’t take part in the bidding. So you have this whole hand management element going on. Then add on the fact you are bidding on cards that you have no idea what they are, and the risk of winning a dud. And do you bid to push up the cost of the winning bid and deprive your opponents of their spice? It’s a cool mechanic.

Combat is fun, and you can see it’s influence on Scythe. I like the basic version of combat. It just flows. The advanced version can have half forces, troops used need to be paid for with spice. I can see how this adds to the decisions that need to be made of when to spend your spice. But the extra overhead I’m not sure is worth it. Naturally I will try the advanced combat at some point.

I like this game a lot. I can’t wait to get it to the table again, especially with higher player counts.