Monthly Archives: August 2022

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 2

#RPGaDAY2022

With this post I’m back on track and all caught up.

I’m so glad it was only a day I had to catch up on.

On the plus side you have had a post-tastic day from me to help pass those moments of boredom.

So our inspiration/theme of the day is “What is a great introductory RPG?”

For me, based on my limited experience, a great introductory RPG has to be fun, accessible, not bogged down in rules. Ideally it has to have a good introductory adventure that is challenging but not deadly for the players, but also supports the new DM/GM, and playable in about three hours. Oh and affordable, ideally under £25.

With that in mind, the first RPG that comes to mind is Paranoia. In particular the introductory adventure [YOUR SECURITY CLEARANCE IS NOT HIGH ENOUGH FOR THE TITLE OF THIS ADVENTURE] from the Mission book that comes with the Ultraviolet edition of the Paranoia RPG.

I really do love how this introductory adventure talks a new GM through the adventure. You don’t even need the rulebook handy!

Naturally D&D comes to mind with it’s Starter and Essentials sets. An indepth review of the latest Starter set by Sly Flourish shows that the included adventure has support for a new DM. Although the included rules books are cut down from the full blown equivalents they are still a lot of reading before hand.
However in Sly Flourish’s Uncovered Secrets Volume 2 (a Patreon exclusive at the moment) there are rules for a ”One-Sheet 5e”.

“This simplified version of 5e helps experienced DMs teach new players or lets anyone to run quick improvised 5e games including guidelines for creating simplified 1st level characters.”
Which although I haven’t used yet, are printed out and in my DM folder ready for that introductory session.

So thats my two suggestions for todays theme. Not very original I know. I’ll try harder tomorrow.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 1

#RPGaDAY2022

A day late, but here we are once more.

The theme/prompt starting off this years #RPGaDAY is ”Who would you like to introduce to RPGs?”

Gosh this is harder than you think, and its only day one!

There are so many ways you can answer this.

Do you go down that classic dinner party with anyone route? Do you pick people you know? Or maybe go for a more general catch all answer?

Obviously if anyone posts on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page or Discord server they want to try D&D (Usually the one most people are aware of and ask about) we try and accommodate by running a specific beginners taster session first.

One or two of my work colleagues have expressed an interest in trying RPGs. I’d love to run something for them. But there seems so many obstacles to overcome before that happens. The main ones being conflicting shifts, child care, and where to host.

I’d love to introduce my son Nathan to them too. I think he might enjoy them. But it would basically be a DM and single player (Nath), as we would only be playing when I visit. I know D&D can be played like this. But I’d much prefer a system that excels or is made to be played like this. So I need to do some research in this area.

I’ve not done the dinner party route. And despite answering the question I seem to have just listed why I can’t introduce them to RPGs. But that has to be a factor. Unfortunately I have a job that covers evenings and weekends. The times when the majority are free. Which does make things a bit harder. Life does have a habit of getting in the way.

But when it doesn’t I love introducing folks to RPGs.

#RPGaDAY2022 Intro

#RPGaDAY2022

It’s that time of year again where I spam you with badly written posts about RPGs based on a daily theme.

I nearly forgot all about it (again).

But a day late is better than never or months later.

Below are the planned themes everyone will be sharing about this year.

#RPGaDAY2022 Themes taken from https://www.autocratik.com/2022/07/announcing-rpgaday2022-in-august.html

Don’t forget people will be creating around these themes in many many different ways. Doing a search on the various social media platforms or just your favourite ones for the hashtag should reveal a wealth of amazing content.

As per usual for me, my participation in this annual event will be via posts on here.

Sadly for you. But lucky for me. I only have one day to catch up with. Which means today will be a very heavy post day for me.

So I better get catching up. See you in the next post.

July 2022 Gaming Stats

by the numbers, gaming stats, stats

I know a couple of days late.

But still better late than never.

Besides I have a great excuse.

No really I do.

I’ve been working, and I’m really tired!

Oh on the life front some brief news before giving you those delicious stats to pour over.

I was offered and accepted the job at the other store. The higher ups just need to workout between them when I can transfer over. As you might guess I’m rather happy about this.

Now on with the show.

The Top 9 Games I Played in July

Now for the stats.

Bgstats for July 2022

Finally the progress I’ve made on one or two of the challenges.

Gaming challenges progress

Same again next month?

Walk space toaster

Game day

The last time, in fact the only time, I got Battlestar Galactica (BSG) the boardgame to the table was back in 2017.

So it was long overdue a return to the table.

The driving force for getting BSG to the table this time was a request by Colin on the Fenland Gamer discord server that he’d like to try the game.

I have a copy, it’s on my big game challenge, so I setup an event to play BSG along with the Pegasus expansion.

In the run up to last Saturday (our chosen day of play) I sleeved the cards in the game, and purchased a 3ft by 3ft starfield art neoprene playmat.

Obviously I wanted to protect my copy of BSG (you should Google how much this out of print game goes for), and these were the measures I’ve put in place to do that. The playmat will also be used with Xia and Star Wars Outer Rim. The starfield pattern will be a great back drop to those games, plus protect the game boards.

Whilst setting up before the others arrived I got distracted by a full English breakfast for my lunch. But still I had the majority of the setup done before players started arriving.

I had been expecting seven of us in total to be playing. Which would mean we would be playing with the Cylon Leader variant of the game. However as with all things in life, stuff happens, and seven became five.

The plan for this game with the Pegasus expansion was never to use the New Caprica part of the expansion. I may play a game of BSG with it at some future point in time. However the majority of the games will be with just the Pegasus side of things. Which doesn’t add too much more to the game overhead wise. You get more of everything else. More choice.

So which characters did we choose? We went with the following:

  • Colin – ‘Chief’ Galen Tyrol
  • Marcin – Gaius Baltar (President) cylon
  • Syringa – Karl ’Helo’ Agathon cylon
  • Diego – Kara ’Starbuck’ Thrace / Lee ’Apollo’ Adama
  • Me – Helena Cain (Admiral)

Setup complete it was time to try and get Galactica to Kobold and throw a cylon or two into the airlock.

Galactica was soon surrounded by cylon basestars, raiders, and heavy raiders, whilst avoiding ever escalating crisis.

Apparently wanting to use my characters once per game ability of doing a blind jump (as long as the distance travelled is six or less) to escape an early cylon attack marked me out as a cylon!

Gaius wasn’t using his Quorum cards, so I instigated an election and had Helo installed as President instead.

Gaius took this loss of power badly and plotted away to regain it.

In the meantime as revenge Gaius tried to unsuccessfully remove Cain as Admiral. Whilst Cain returned the favour of failing to force Gaius out of the airlock.

However once the second loyalty cards had been dealt out, Gaius used his once per game ability to look at every players loyalty. He knew who the cylons were.

With that knowledge Gaius advised Cain to throw Starbuck out the airlock. To be fair Starbuck had been acting suspiciously. The vote did not go well for Starbuck, who took a walk in to space without a space suit.

Sadly Starbuck was not a cylon, and moral took a hit onboard Galactica.

Apollo stepped up to try and fill the shoes left by Starbuck.

After Apollo got Cain thrown in the brig. Helo took over command of the fleet.

But Helo had a short spell in command before Apollo wrestled command away from him. Followed by grabbing the Presidency. Were we seeing the start of a new dictatorship.

A missed guided dictatorship that still had cylons sabotaging things. And to cap to things off cylons had boarded Galactica wrecking havoc.

Eventually Helo and Gaius (just confirming what Cain had been telling them ever since being tricked into killing Starbuck) revealed themselves as cylons to finish off the downfall of Galactica.

It was close, Galactica only had to make its final jump to Kobold to win. But the cylons managed to ware down the ships resources to secure a cylon victory.

We had a blast. Lots of banter.

I really mustn’t leave it so long between plays.

However before it does get back to the table Xia and The Thing need some loving.

The expected call about the job never happened. So I assumed I hadn’t got it. Best prepare for the worst. It did take the shine off such a great afternoons gaming.