Category Archives: life, the universe, and everything

Good to be back!

Fenland Gamers, game night, life, the universe, and everything

It’s felt like an age since I last did any board gaming.

With the car woes not yet resolved I was glad I was able to arrange for a lift home from the community centre. It meant I could hop off the college bus on the way home, walk to the community centre, and play some games.

The gaming drought was about to be over.

Jonathan had bought along Letters from Whitechapel. A Game I last played with Jonathan back in 2016. Back then it was a three player game with me taking on the role of the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper. In that game Jack managed to avoid capture, carry out his crimes, and disappear into the night, never to be caught. In other words I won, Jonathan and Debbie lost.

Last night Dave was to be Jack the Ripper whilst Diego, Jonathan, Charlene, and myself would be the boys in blue trying to stop Jack.

The first game was over during the first night with Jack running out of time to get back to his hideout.

It was a learning game, and refresher. So can we really count it as Dave was learning how to play, and be Jack at the same time?

Our second game went to the third night with Jack being arrested by me. But he had already claimed four victims by this point.

Charlene’s crime board had worked, but sadly it had not been effective enough to save more lives.

But our collective deduction skills had been more mighty than Dave’s tricksy skills.

These were two really fun games.

Good grief I look so old in this photo. When did that happen?
Photo copyright Jonathan Warren

A big thank you to Jonathan for the lift home. Without it I wouldn’t have been able to go.

A brief car woes update. I have wheels again.

Green Flag got the car started again, and found the fault to be the battery. So once at the garage I passed on the info. It was lucky it was the that. I was prepared for something more expensive like an alternator (whatever one of them is).

A big thank you to Jonathan for picking me up and dropping me off at the garage. Without him getting the car woes sorted would have been a lot more eventful, and longer. Mainly because of a flaw in my plan that didn’t foresee not getting a loan car while the work was being done.

The universe conspires against me…

life, the universe, and everything

But at least it let me get my work clothes washed!

Late yesterday morning the washing machine decided enough is enough and threw in the mechanical towel.

The only fortunate thing was the car isn’t due to be fixed until next weekend. So this weeks pay packet has been redirected to buy a new washing machine. Which should arrive sometime Wednesday.

I’m glad I had the new Zelda hotness to play this weekend. It’s been a bit depressing not playing any boardgames. Which looks like being repeated next weekend.

My gaming stats for May are going to be so low.

I have started putting the Tapestry Folded Space insert together. I’m a long way off from completing it and putting it in the box. Basically I’m doing a couple bits a day, letting them dry over night, before doing the next small batch.

Right that’s the “life” update for now.

Brief car woes update

life, the universe, and everything

The car woes are going to drag on for another week because the garage can’t fit me in on a Saturday until the 20th.

Which means I will have to go board game cold turkey until the car is fixed.

It really is a pain not having that flexibility that a motor vehicle gives you.

I’m even having to use online shopping for the food shop.

In the meantime the cards for that Mindcrank and Duskmantle Guildmage combo deck are slowly arriving in dribs and drabs. Although the main stars of the deck haven’t arrived yet!

The A Game of Thrones Mother of Dragons playmat turned up. But as you can guess the planned gaming session to give it an outing for this Saturday has had to be cancelled until the woes have come to an end.

That’s it for now. Hopefully better news in the next post.

Still here,possibly,maybe…

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

A week is a long time in something or other. Especially when this blog appear to go all silent.

It’s been busy at work. A different kinda busy being in education again.

Yesterday was a great day because I got to do game coding with the students. But we aren’t here for that sort of chat.

There have been a couple of new arrivals in the week.

At the start of the week another copy of the 2004 edition of Doom the board game arrived that also had the expansion with it. I had to buy it like this as the was no way the seller would have separated the expansion out.

Midweek I decided for some reason that I’d get the War of the Ring card game to play with Nathan. There is no way Nathan has a table large enough to play the War of the Ring board game. He likes the Lord of the Ring movies. So War of the Ring the card game arrived Thursday. I can’t wait to play the game with Nathan at the start of the Easter holidays.

I’m not going to write now about last nights gaming. That can wait until I do a weekend gaming post. However I did do a bit of board gaming business last night.

Marcin had been after a copy of Outlive so we came to a deal last night that saw the game leave my collection and join his. In return on Sunday my collection gets a copy of Conan the board game.

In conclusion I’m still alive! And leading a pretty boring, mundane life. See you in the next post, I’ve got a D&D session to plan for.

Doomed Civilisations

Game day, game night, life, the universe, and everything

It’s been a great weekend of gaming.

Friday evening saw Doom the board game, 2004 edition get to the table.

We had a blast but you know I’m not going to say anything about that now. I’m saving that for a future Doom post (is anyone reading them, or finding them interesting?)

The 2016 edition and another copy of the 2004 edition with the expansion haven’t arrived yet. But I’m looking forward to their arrival.

Saturday saw Tapestry hitting the table with the third and final expansion Fantasies and Futures (F&F) thrown in with everything else. So it was a true all in experience.

We were using just the new civilisations from F&F so we didn’t need to take into account any civ adjustments.

Our starting civilisations

Also I used my usual trick of mixing the new cards in so that we get to see the new stuff during play. Which basically means the new cards were shuffled in with the top third of the respective deck.

The house rules were used for the game were the usual get two civilisations, choose one. The other being when drawing a tapestry card draw two, keep one.

I felt my first two tapestry cards were very thematic for my civilisation. But at a couple of points in the game I did top deck some pretty good stuff. One was the tapestry card Tapestry! Plus the Elder Ones civilisation, or a space tile that gave me 13 victory points.

My first two tapestry cards

Despite not going up on the exploration track that far. I didn’t get out of the first era. I still made it into space thanks to a tapestry card.

The Illuminati civilisation I can see being adjusted later in the year. It was very powerful in this game I thought. I’m either getting extra stuff if the opponents use the dice. Or I’m getting up to 18 victory points an income phase. It does force your opponents into making difficult decisions about what to do.

My final two civilisations (top) and Dave’s (bottom)

Add in getting the Elder Ones basically giving me an extra turn after I’ve done my fifth income phase.

I loved the new stuff F&F bought to the game. Charms are cool. Making the decision of which tapestry card to play and when even harder. Plus having stuff trigger on the fifth era income phase.

In terms of what it adds to gameplay it’s perfect as there is no real overhead to using them.

And OMG the new rulebook! So flipping good. Half the physical size. But the complete reference for the whole game including the expansions.

As you can see the final scores below show a comprehensive victory.

Final scores

That’s my highest score ever in the game. Wow!

Now all I’ve got to do is build the folded space insert!

Little life update

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

As I’m working on the next part of my Doom epic for this weekend I thought I’d just ramble on about stuff.

I’m getting the board game side of the Doom project in place so that I can get it to the table. Which naturally will then feed into the posts.

I’m not sure what folks think of the Doom posts they are a bit out there for this blog.

The latest Tapestry expansion and folded space insert have dropped through the letter box. So I have an excuse to get that back to the table but before I do I have an insert to build.

A few Marvel Champions also arrived. Which means I have all the big expansions now along with a few more heroes. But I’ll talk about that once I’ve finished organising the cards I already have. Which I’m in the progress of doing.

A lot of card sleeves are on their way so I can sleeve the Doom games when they arrive and the just arrived Tapestry expansion.

I’ve got the expansion for Deep Sea Adventure (Charlene got me a copy while at Airecon). Well I will have once I see Charlene. I owe her one Hostage Negotiator play mat too.

That’s about it for now laters.

Cake, Mars, and Crows

Fenland Gamers, game night, life, the universe, and everything, still alive

I know my usual posting schedule has once again gone out the window.

Despite having had a half term to recharge the batteries. This past week I’ve been particularly tired in the evenings. Often falling asleep whilst watching something.

I’m not sure folks appreciate how draining the day can be. Especially when you are still adjusting.

However yesterday was the end of the week and once again the fortnightly Fenland Gamers Friday game night.

Which means I go straight from work to where we meet up and play some games. Well that’s the new routine for club night considering the time I finish on a Friday, and it’s on the way home.

Plus it means I get there early, and have time to get something to eat before the majority arrive. I also get to set up the tables ready for some gaming.

Last night I got to play a four player game of Portal.

I’d been wanting to play the game with more than two players.

Our game was shorter than I expected and not as cut throat. But I put that down to one of our players not being a “gamer” and not really paying attention to what was going on. More importantly putting all their eggs into one basket so to speak by having both of their test subjects in the same test chamber. Which opened them up to Ben placing a turret in that chamber and ending the game. At that point in time Ben had the most slices of cake out on the laboratory. Giving him the win.

The second game of the evening saw Ben grab his second win of the evening when he won Alien Frontiers.

The latest edition to the collection, Murder of Crows was my final game of the evening.

The game had only arrived the day before. So naturally I hadn’t had time to read the brief rulebook.

So as I shuffled the cards Ben quickly read the rulebook, and was first player. After all first player was meant to be the most shady looking person!

Murder of Crows is a nice light take that card game, that plays in less than thirty minutes.

It definitely has a spot in the roster of filler games in my collection.

Harrison won the game.

It was a good evening of gaming.

Yep still here…

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

Well it’s been a busy week at work. I’m definitely swimming in the deep end!

But it’s good to be back in the classroom.

Tomorrow sees me attending my first Fenland Gamers Friday evening gaming of 2023. Something I don’t think would be happening if I was still at my previous job.

I did get some gaming done last Sunday when I got to try Encyclopedia. Which Colin and Ben trolled me with by saying some online were calling it “the game Wingspan wanted to be”. Which is total b.s. and most likely click bait.

The games are completely different. Encyclopedia is a fine game, but it shares no mechanics with Wingspan. I’d have put it closer to Marco Polo with the dice placement mechanic. I definitely like Wingspan more.

This was a Kickstarter deluxe version of Encyclopedia we were playing with. I have to say I wasn’t a fan of the metal coins. They felt so light. No weight to them at all. A very disappointing tactile experience.

Whilst out gaming I was able to do a bit of business at the same time.

Marcin was selling his copy of Doom the Board Game 2004 edition.

I’d had this edition on my wish list for a while. Or more accurately my “it’d be nice to have a copy” list.

So I was more than happy to snap it up at the price he wanted.

But now I need to try and track down its expansion, and the 2016 updated edition. The later is easier to get hold of.

With this purchase the pressure really is on to finish off my Portal posts that are sitting in my draft folder. Then I can start this Doom project. Which will be the most epic thing I will have attempted on the blog. Whether I’m up to the challenge or capable of pulling it off is another thing!

It’s VDD Day!

D&D, life, the universe, and everything, news, RPG, still alive

Another week has passed where I’ve written and played little.

It’s been the regular weekly pattern of work and sleep.

Work has been ballistic. Lots and lots of customers and no staff!

On the plus side I only have a week or five shifts left before my return.

Which means last nights club night will be my last (hopefully) one that I miss. It’s not great that the first two club nights of the new year I’ve had to miss.

At least I’m managing to find folks to play a game or two with on Sundays.

Now onto some D&D news that broke yesterday.

It’s pretty big news.

Remember all that #DnDBegone, boycott WotC and D&D stuff that happened over the last few weeks over the OGL 1.0a?

Well yesterday WotC announced a complete surrender over the issue after the survey feedback (so far) for their draft OGL 1.2 was overwhelmingly negative.

Der! They already knew that. The massive loss of D&DBeyond subscribers, the single voice of descent from content creators, social media.

I suspect this draft and survey were a ruse to allow WotC to backdown without losing face. Or that was the plan.

Whatever their motivation, we got to the right result that community were after. The OGL1.0a is safe. Plus the SRD 5.1 (that’s the document covered by the OGL that allows creators use core rules, classes, races, spells, etc) has been put under a Creative Commons license.

It’s a big win for the community.

The only question remaining is has this been enough to stop the haemorrhaging of creators and players? Or is this too late the damage has been done?

Change is a coming…

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

I thought I better post one of these “hey, I’m still alive posts”.

It’s been a busy week back at work.

After nine days off there is always that adjustment back to the routine of shift work. So I feel I’ve been extra tired it feels.

Plus the shift patterns this week has had me going from lates (that’s closing at midnight) to a mid shift, to opening up (that’s a 5:30 start).

That shift pattern is especially tiring as you get no downtime. It’s basically going to work, get some sleep, go to work. There seems no time to chill. To unwind.

However things are a changing on the work front.

Over the time I had off I got another job!

I hadn’t specifically been looking for one. But an opportunity came up.

One of my deciding factors in going for it and accepting the job offer was those shift patterns I described above. They are hard on me. But even harder on mum. They aren’t good for her health.

I discussed things with her naturally. Mums old school. Just like the Black Knight in the Monty Python and The Holy Grail, “it’s merely a flesh wound”. She said she could handle them. But these types of shift were a lot harder on her.

Apparently dog sitting my two little attack chihuahuas in combination with her dog and cat make it hard for her to get the rest she needs at her age. That’s my observation not hers. Although she does complain they keep her up and stop her sleeping (you should hear her when I visit Nathan).

So that was my deciding factor. I love my job and the folks I work with. It wasn’t an easy decision. But in the end mums health trumps everything.

Once I accepted the offer, and the agency negotiated an hourly pay rate (yeah seems the wrong way round I know) I was more than pleasantly surprised, taken aback, even shocked at my new pay rate.

So Tuesday on my return to work I handed in my notice.

Which means in two weeks time I finish at my current employer, and then a day later I start the new job.

Oh what’s the new job? Yeah I seem to have missed that bit out.

I’m returning to education and teaching computing and game design again.

So that’s a pretty big change I think you will agree.

I’m pretty excited about returning, but also sad because I really like my current role and work mates.

But more as things progress.

But as you can tell very little gaming has gone on this week. And the #dungeon23 post will be going up tonight.

However my physical copies of Ruins of the Grendleroot, and Fantastic Locations arrived at the start of the week.

I love the print quality of the soft cover books done by DriveThruRPG.

Until a crowdfunding project is run for the final version of City of Arches, I currently have two more books to get physically to have the Sly Flourish set.

I’m looking forward to dropping these into the campaign in the future.

That’s it for now. The tl;dr is job changing, not much else gone on.