Monthly Archives: October 2020

Oops I missed #RPGaDAY2020 – Day 1 Beginning

#RPGaDAY2020

Last year during August I took part in the #RPGaDAY2019 thingy and wrote a series of blog posts covering that days theme.

Somehow I missed this years happenings for it. Didn’t even see it trend, or people post about it.

I was reminded of it as I went through previous D&D posts looking for one to share with a friend.

So after finding the post I was looking for, and sharing it with the friend. I googled #RPGaDAY and found out that there had in fact been one this year and I had missed it.

Bugger!

I’d enjoyed doing this last year. I enjoyed writing the posts around the theme. The daily theme was open to interpretation. You were creating content based on what that theme meant to you.

Wait a minute I can still do it, even if rather belated.

So I saved a copy of the image with the themes on. And decided for the next 31 days I would write about that days theme. Or at least try to. Apathy does kick in sometimes. Well a lot of the time.

They even had a dungeon map of the themes made up! I think it looks pretty cool.

So here is my day 1 post…

Beginning

I think sometimes knowing where to start or even starting is the hardest thing of all.

Back when I was a teenager in the eighties I stumbled upon D&D and roleplaying games in general through video games, and the home computer revolution.

I even purchased the Basic Starter set. But it wasn’t until I went to Polytechnic that I’d actually get to play an RPG. None of my school friends were interested in playing.

Fast forward to today, and there is a wealth of information about getting started, finding people to play with etc. Sometimes too much.

I think finding a curated list helps. I’ve written posts in the distant past about trying D&D for free. I don’t often point people to them, I usually point people to Matt Colville and his series of YouTube videos (which I do mention in my post if memory doesn’t fail me). WotC also have a good post or two about getting started. And I like the writings of Sly Flourish on the subject.

However as I mentioned at the top of this post I did share a post with a friend last night. It was a curated post about RPGs for Kids. A starting point for them to find an RPG they could play with their 6 year old daughter.

Why did I suggest basically playing D&D with their kid? I think there are a few positives that could be gained by doing so. The first quality family time. Always important. The whole telling a story together, creating memorable moments. Then there are the educational benefits, encouraging listening, speaking, problem solving, creative thinking, reading, basic maths, boosting confidence.

But it’s knowing where to begin, and finding a curated post/list sure makes it easier to take those first steps.

More Commander candidates

Commander, magic, MtG

Another MtG post!

Thought I’d share some arrivals that I’m considering for various Commander decks.

Brand as you can see is a card that will be a must have in my 99 for the mono red decks that I have, plus any that splash red like my dinosaur tribal or dragon tribal decks.

It’s a fact of Commander life that certain cards like the new Planeswalker card Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools in the soon to be released Commander Legends steal permanents from under your nose. Having a card to regain control of those stolen permanents is essential. I had a card or two like that in my token spam deck. But nothing in red.

Luckily I stumbled across this card in a twitter discussion and instantly thought it was cool and needed for my decks.

I couldn’t remember if I had Voracious Greatshark. I certainly didn’t have the foil extended art version. Obviously this is a card looking for a place in the horrors from the deep deck.

What I like about this is it has flash. It’s a counterspell and gives me a 5/4 body. Ok it’s not cheap at 5 CMC, but that’s not bad, otherwise it’d be broken if it was cheaper.

Another card looking for a place in my mono red goblin deck is Outnumber. That could potentially take out very big creatures.

Lurking Predators is a strong contender for a couple of decks. Cheating creatures out onto the board, especially big expensive ones is always a neat trick to pull off. This would certainly make opponents reluctant to play stuff.

Whelming Wave can only potentially go into my horrors from the deep deck. A board wipe that leaves my creatures on the board. Ok not ideal that it’s bouncing back to the opponents hand. But that gets rid of tokens, and slows the opponents down a little as they have to recast the creatures to rebuild their board state. That is if they survive.

Man-‘o-war was chaff that came with Brand to help protect Brand. But I’m actually considering it. It’s that bouncing a creature back to hand etb that makes it attractive.

I think I need to start the deck updating process and share the new updated decks lists.

Shark Storm!

Commander, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

I seem to be back in a MtG groove at the moment. It’s been creeping up on me for a little while now.

Wanting to build decks again, finally update existing ones.

I’m even missing playing the game! Not enough to fire up a MacOS machine, and download Arena though. It’s more the playing with friends, attending prereleases sort of thing. The social side. I miss games of Commander.

Earlier in the year Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths hit the shelves of empty FLGS around the world. I said in a post at the time this was a set I was excited about because thematically it fitted in with one or two of my Commander decks. Sadly I wasn’t excited enough to spend time or money going after single cards to strengthen my decks.

But now things have changed.

I’d love a set (singles) of the Godzilla themed cards. But only one or two fit into decks I play. And I can’t currently justify the expense.

There are a couple of cards Shark Typhoon and Shark token that grabbed my attention and imagination from Ikoria. Both have art by Caio Monteiro that I love.

It’s obvious these cards were inspired by the rather cheesy, “low budget”, guest appearance packed, B movie Sharknado series of movies. I am a fan of those movies. They are tacky, cheesy, tongue in cheek. But entertaining, and fun.

And the movies were the first thing that came to mind when I saw the art on the cards.

The art is gorgeous. Caio has done an amazing job here. The sharks look monstrous, the raw power of the weather phenomenon has been captured. It feels threatening and wondrous at the same time. Love it.

Here are the actual cards.

The enchantment Shark Typhoon is so my Simic Horrors from the Deep Commander deck. A deck that has one or two new cards that need fitting in somehow (among them Arcane Signet, the Thriving Lands, modal doubled sided cards that are lands one side, a spell the other, plus others).

Ok most of the time it’s not going to be spamming out big sharks. It should generate something between a 1/1 and a 7/7. With the majority being 3/3’s or 4/4’s. But bodies on the board for blocking don’t hurt. Plus that cycling does allow me to sink mana into it and get a big body on the board.

I so want to play Commander now with this deck (once updated).

Start of my horror notes

Cyberpunk Red, D&D, genesys, Judge Dredd, netrunner, Rogue Trooper, RPG, Strontium Dog, W.O.I.N.

Today I decided to start making some notes about horror in relation to RPGs instead of just dumping clippings into a note app entry on my iPad.

I’m using the excellent iThoughts mind map app to organise them. It allows me to create something like below.

Basically I’ve captioned headings, sub headings, etc and turned them into mini mind maps on one big mind map.

The plan is to expand each of the mind maps with further notes. Which naturally will take sometime.

But thought I’d share this incase it’s of interest to anyone.

Some sources for running horror in RPGs

D&D, genesys, magic, MtG, RPG, W.O.I.N.

With a stomach bug taking me out of action for a day or three, I’m slowly getting back to the new normal.

Which means I’ve been doing a bit of research that I should have been doing a while back.

Earlier in the year I was watching the Gen Con YouTube channel and their three streamed Alien RPG sessions for the Chariot of the Gods cinematic scenario (these are one shot adventures, that use precon characters and have a high body count!). During the start of the first session the GM quickly runs through what amounts to a session zero. It was when he stated that he was a fan of body horror, and he will be describing things in detail.

That left me a bit confused. What was body horror? It’s not a term I was familiar with. I knew slasher flicks (Friday 13th, Halloween etc), video nasties (hey that was my teenage years in the 80’s, although I pretty sure the majority were banned for the shit acting), and torture porn (Hostel).

But body horror? Nope not heard of it.

Then again it didn’t surprise me, these days I rarely watch any horror movies. I suppose I could have asked my friend James. He’s a massive horror fan. Boy does he watch some obscure stuff. But I never got round to it.

Over the months afterwards I got the rulebook for the Alien RPG, I already had the D&D Curse of Strahd (CoS) adventure, and the desire to run a horror based game of some sort buried itself away in the back of my brain.

With the recent release of another D&D horror inspired adventure, Icewind Dale Rime of the Frostmaiden (IDRotF) that desire to run a horror based game floated to the forefront once more.

But what information was out there to help run such a game?

Well within the pages of CoS we are given page 7 Marks of Horror. Which is a page of tips for running horror. Whilst in IDRotF all we get is a breakout box warning about the content (see image below).

But this fails for me as a warning. You actually have to go to D&D Beyond to get an idea about the content and some great advice for running horror in D&D in the post Creating Terror without Being a Jerk.

But none of this stuff told me what body horror was.

Then I remembered that the Pathfinder RPG had a horror adventure book. What did that have inside?

In Chapter 6 – Running Horror Adventures it defined body horror as…

“This visceral subgenre concerns itself with the organic terror of the flesh, including disease, physical corruption, and transformation. At its basest level, body horror is the revulsion felt upon hearing a bone break or seeing a joint violently bend in the wrong direction. Elaborated upon, it’s the terror of becoming physically monstrous and the awfulness that might hide within.”

Cool I was a lot wiser now.

I can see how that would fit in with the Alien RPG and the cinematic scenarios. Although I feel that the Alien RPG would be more cosmic horror with some body horror moments (facehuggers, chestbursters). The Pathfinder book has some pretty cool stuff in there that is of use for other systems.

In my internet journeys I stumbled across a quote by Stephen King (see below) and his book of essays about writing and horror Danse Macabre. It’s a bit old now.

But going by that quote still relevant. So I picked up the audible version of the book.

There is a little but brief information within the Alien RPG about running a horror session. Shockingly light really. There is also a section on Horror as a tone within the Genesys RPG core rulebook.

That’s been the disappointing bit with D&D and the Alien RPG. The brevity or lack of information.

But I feel between King and the Pathfinder book I now have enough to equip myself with running a horror based RPG session. But more importantly use the correct language whilst talking with the players, and be comfortable knowing where the lines should be based on the players feedback. Which is where I should be when using a pre-written adventure/scenario.

I’d like to think that once I’ve finished King and the Pathfinder chapter I’ll have basic tools and knowledge to create my own horror one-shot. Whether it’s a cinematic scenario for the Alien RPG (I do love the Alien universe), uses the Genesys system (ideally with the Android setting), Cyberpunk Red, D&D or Judge Dredd/Strontium Dog.

Go ahead and jump

Commander, magic, MtG

Nearly a week without me posting anything. Not a record, but still in these uncertain times finding stuff to write about without just writing drivel (ok you could describe my regular content as that) is hard. Mix in a little apathy and you get these gaps between posts.

Read this next sentence like the Rock in the square circle! It’s been a while but FINALLY the UK and Europe gets the Jumpstart set.

It was looking very uncertain for a long time. Delay after delay. It came out in limited supply in the US and other parts of the world. But it was not looking good for here.

Then about three, four weeks ago WotC made an announcement that Jumpstart would hit the the shelves and tables of UK and European FLGS.

If you have played Smash Up! where each player chooses two themed decks, shuffles them together, and then plays against each other. Then you have basically how Jumpstart works for MtG.

I like this format a lot because it is very new player friendly. They don’t need to know how to build decks, or own lots of cards. Buy some Jumpstart boosters, chose two, shuffle together, and play. All a player has to do is decide which themed boosters they like or want to mash together.

Just because you get say two minion decks does not mean you have the same two decks. For most of the deck types there are at least two versions of the deck.

Naturally there are some sweet reprints within this set, such as Rhystic Study (which sadly I didn’t get).

But I did get a card I wanted for my goblin deck, Muxus, Goblin Grandee.

I nearly bought it as a single. But it’s price put me off. I usually use Krenko as the decks commander. However I’ll definitely be giving the deck a run with Muxus as the commander. Although my gut is saying one of the ninety nine. So I’m chuffed to have pulled the card.

Because players are mostly, ok very, no definitely going to be playing duel colour decks, each booster gets the appropriate Thriving land.

These lands are great for Commander players. Ok they come in tapped, but being able to name a second colour that it can be tapped for is the cool part. It’s another dual land basically. That all important mana fixing. I expect Commander players will be picking these up fast especially while they are “cheap”. I’ll be using these definitely in my multicoloured decks such as Scarab God, Dragons Tribal, Dinosaur Tribal, etc.

I’m really happy that we finally get to play with Jumpstart. If WotC are intelligent they will keep this set in print and make them the basis of open house events (once we are back playing in our FLGS). They are that new player friendly.

Geek Tank Games Minis Kickstarter Impressions

D&D, first look

This morning without warning my pledge/reward for the Geek Tank Games minis Kickstarter arrived (along with the new Terra Incognita expansion for Civilization A New Dawn which I was expecting).

I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed and disappointed as the reality hit me after opening up the parcel.

Despite the art being very attractive. It was the actual end product that was disappointing. The minis were much more thinner than I had imagined they would be.

One of the comments on the Kickstarter described them as flimsy. It’s the perfect description for them. The plastic used is thin, paper thin!

These minis are not usable without the official bases. As you can see from the photo, the bases have a slot cut in them that has a curve. A curve that gives the mini a bit more of a 3D appearance on the table.

I have found that the minis sometimes spring out of the slots instead of staying in. Which is annoying.

I also agree with the same commentator who made the flimsy comment that if I’d seen these on the shelf of my FLGS, that I would pick them up, look them over, and return them to the shelf.

As for the company Geek Tank Games. They have a lot of work to do to learn from the ‘mistakes’ made during the Kickstarter. The most important being more open and upfront in their communications to backers. I’d even say more proactive in communicating news such as delays or changing shipping methods.

These look great, but leave a bit to be desired in their execution.

A couple of cool Star Realms moments

star realms

As a brief break from the recent outbreak of poor MtG content. I have some really poor Star Realms content to compete with it.

If you look on my Instagram account you’ll see a very short test movie with no sound. But it uses two recent images I shared over there from a couple of recent games of Star Realms I’ve played.

Basically I was trying out the green screen stuff within the iOS version of iMovie.

This first image is from one of the early games with the new Frontiers Promos expansion. It shows the new Assimilator card which in the game I made use of it’s Allie ability and scrapped to steal The Ark from my opponents discard pile.

I felt so dirty after doing that. This is a new mechanic to the game. And one I’m pretty sure must have shocked my opponent when they watched my turn play out. Rightly I lost the game. But wow that feeling of guilt after playing it!

Next up was a first I believe for me in over nine thousand games. I remember forcing opponents to discard three or four cards at the start of their turn. But never their whole hand before.

It seems so odd that in so many games I’ve never done this before. Surely my memory is failing me on this one?

Naturally I tempted fate by screen grabbing the above and sharing it with my opponent on Facebook wishing them a great next turn. So basically I was a dick about it! Luckily fate didn’t hate me this time and I went on to win the game.

As for the test movie. I’m not sure where that is going. We’ll see where that ends up.

Testing! Testing!

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

I finally built the set part of the Lego Movie Set I have. It’s been sitting on a shelf for nearly two years now.

So I took a test photo with it (below) that has Lego me in it next to a MtG card.

The possible idea I had and still might play with is to use the set to create alternative content for this blog, like videos! But there is a major hurdle that needs to be overcome first. The same hurdle that had to be overcome before this Lego was built. Apathy.

Let’s briefly look at the MtG card while we are here.

Kaervek, the Spiteful is one of the recent MtG cards I have put to one side for possible use in Commander decks.

It’s not a card that would go into a current deck of mine. It’s not a zombie for starters so wouldn’t make my Scarab God deck. However it’s something I’d like to team up with Massacre Girl. Kaervek is a 1/1 token board wipe and keeps it clear. Which I really like the idea of. The decision is do I go mono black and have Kaervek as the Commander or do I splash black and have them as one of the ninety nine? That decision will have to wait until I finish another deck idea that I have floating around.

I do have to say that the flavour text on this card is awesome.

On a completely different note using the Big Bang AR app I took this selfie that it enables you to take and turned it into a thumbnail for the blog.

What type of post I will associate it with I have no idea.