This weeks gaming

Fenland Gamers, game night

Wednesday saw the Fenland Gamers monthly meet up for October.

It was a small affair, with just 4 (including me) attending.

I don’t get our club sometimes. I may have mentioned this previously. But I’m not sure how we increase attendance to events. I’ve put surveys up asking what days would be best for for members to attend. You guessed it, even those are poorly responded to.

We try and vary when sessions are held. We aim sessions at specific games and different types of games. But we get the same disinterest each time. I flabbergasted and at a loss on how to improve participation at game sessions.

Wingspan as always was a joy to play. Really looking forward to the first expansion coming out next month. European birds, a couple of new mechanics, new bonus cards and end of round scoring tiles. So expect to see it being played lots once I get my grubby mitts on it.

We rounded off the evening with a change from the usual Love Letter: Batman. We played the Hobbit version instead. A couple of slight rule changes. But still a great fun game to end on.

Games played: Wingspan, Love Letter: The Hobbit – The Battle of the Five Armies
Wednesday Fenland Gamers we’re approached by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire if we would be available Thursday to do an interview to use in a piece about boardgaming for the mature gamer that they were doing on Friday morning.

A bit short notice, especially considering people have jobs. But I have some flexibility in my schedule. So I arranged for the interview to happen at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole.

Thursday morning saw John (FLGS owner) and Kath (who helps out at the store) and myself being interviewed about boardgames by a local BBC radio journalist on his iPhone!

So that there were some “gaming” noises going on in the background during the interview, the reporter had John rolling lots of d6 dice and Kath and I playing Connect 4 (the journalist bought a copy with him).

I hadn’t played Connect 4 since about 1988. I was back then pretty good at the game, and unbeaten. And that streak remains. I still got the skills. I won all of the games Kath and I played.

The interview took about 20 minutes. More material than they could use for the 5 minute slot they had planned.

In the end the interview went out about 9:10 on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (you should be able to listen to it on the BBC Sounds app). It was about 3 minutes long. And concentrated on why we played games. Despite having notes written down, the reporter got who I was wrong, and said Fenland Games, but got it right in the interview itself!

It was an experience, and a little promotion for the club and my FLGS.

“You free to play some light games this evening?”

Not surprisingly I was.

So last night Jonathan and I ended up at The Luxe playing some light games.

We started off with a game of Penny Lane. Which saw my worst score for the game. I just didn’t get the engine side going. My butt was truly kicked.

Next up was the classic abstract game Santorini. We played using just the god cards from the base game, leaving the Golden Fleece expansion in the box. Each player was dealt two god cards, and selected one to use. We got some cool combos, where the god cards were opposites to each other. This is really one of those “just one more game” games. So quick and fun. After an initial run of victories, I hit a losing streak.

Our final game of the was the classic two player game Lost Cities. Jonathan hadn’t played this before. He wasn’t entirely sure about the game after the first play, but I think he had warmed to it after our second game. The actual game itself is simple, and has some interesting decisions to make. It’s the end of game scoring that seems over complicated, and takes a little getting your head around. I’ve been playing this game for years. But the app version, which does all the scoring for me! So you get lazy on that front. I also missed the little card count of the deck as we played. It helps having that info at a glance, knowing roughly how many turns you have left, and can plan cards to play based on that. But it was nice to actually play the physical version against a friend, and not just people online I’ve not met.

We shared the honours one game a piece.

Jonathan and I did have a gaming related discussion about an opinion from a friend on Stonemaier games. Which lead to a brief chat about luck of the draw within Viticulture, and how it can have a big impact on a game. So many games rely on or have as part of the game a luck element. But even if we just consider luck of the draw, lots of games rely on this to varying degrees, such as every Deckbuilder, Magic the Gathering, Tapestry, Scythe, Wingspan, London, Memoir ’44, etc, etc. The list goes on.

You either are going to love that element of luck, and the having to work around the challenge it throws up. Or you hate it, and need to find games that don’t have that element.

I don’t mind it. I like how it adds variety to games, varies the challenge from game to game. And if I get totally screwed by the cards, I accept that from time to time that will happen. I certainly don’t take it to heart and start sulking. Which some do.

Anyway that’s my not some well thought out thoughts on the subject

Jonathan and I had a great evening of gaming to end the week at The Luxe.

Games played: Penny Lane, Santorini, Lost Cities

More great DM advice to watch

D&D, RPG

I think by now it’s not much of a secret that I’m a big fan of Matt Colville and his D&D beginners YouTube series.

One of those videos is an interview with a friend and fellow DM of Matt’s Jim Murphy.

What I didn’t appreciate was that Jim has his own YouTube channel give DM advice.

It was something I kinda discovered thanks to the YouTube recommendation engine this morning. In the list of videos it thought I might be interested in was the one I’ve embedded below.

The title of the video piqued my interest. So I clicked on it and watched it.

I really enjoyed the video. Well I must have because I’m writing a post to tell you dear reader all about it and Jim.

It’s a talking head style video to a webcam of some sort. The video like the others he has done are relatively short, 10-15 minutes. Which is a really nice length. I like his style of presenting. It’s obvious he’s very knowledgable and has been playing for since the dawn of D&D time. So like Matt we are getting the benefit of all that experience being filtered down into great advice that we can use.

There is some great advice in the video above. And I think it is advice that even a noob DM like me can use. Plus it’s system neutral. So it equally applies to D&D, Genesys, Pathfinder, WOIN, or whatever your personal favourite RPG system is.

I think what I like about Jim and Matt is they not only encourage you to try being a DM, and help remove some of the mystery behind it. But that they encourage and give you the confidence to create your own stuff. Whether it is from scratch (even how to cut down that workload by using material from elsewhere), or taking an existing adventure and making it your own.

I know have a bit of catching up to do on Jim’s back catalog.

You can visit his channel HERE. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Once Upon… A Five Room Dungeon Adventure

D&D, magic, MtG, RPG

One of the things I love about the Throne of Eldraine set for MtG is the theme, and it’s take on fairy tales. It really is a fantastic mash up of fairy tales, Arthurian legend and the MtG universe. Did I say how gorgeous the art is?

It’s very inspiring. Especially the twisted take on fairy tales. And I love anything that inspires ideas for adventures for my campaign or even a one shot.

I’ve been meaning to create a one page dungeon (although this years competition has ended, and next years is along way off). I want to create a few and share them on here. After all practice makes perfect. I also want to combine the one page dungeon with the 5 Room Dungeon. It seems a natural fit.

The three cards that I’m using for inspiration for this adventure are Gingerbrute, Flaxen Intruder and Trapped in the tower.

Although there are some great cards to inspire objects to populate the adventure with also.

I’ve also been reading The Curse of Strahd campaign book recently and think that this twisted fairy tale idea would fit in nicely with the Barovia setting.

So based on my initial inspiration, A Goldilocks and the 3 bug bears comes to mind, as does rescuing a princess/maiden (could be a prince or some other being) from a tower that is guarded by those 3 bug bears. With the gingerbrute being the main bad guy. I also like the idea of using something like the corridor monitor as a roaming guardian in the tower.

With that brainstorming I have three locations, a cottage, a tower and the space between them. The tower can break down to another 2 locations, the stairs and the room at the top. Finally that room at the top can be split into 2. Which by my count gives me five locations.

The tower itself is surrounded by a wall of thorns. That is only broken by the cottage. So to get to the tower you have to pass through the cottage.

This poor attempt at a map is how I envision the layout.

Tarokka cards are used in Curse of Strahd “to randomly determine key aspects of the adventure.” I’d like them also to be used in this adventure. But at the moment I just can’t get that to work.

Sadly after writing the 5 Room Dungeon in Scribe, and then transferring the words into GoodNotes. I just couldn’t make it fit without cutting a lot of text. I suppose I could do that. But for the time being I’m going to put out the initial version of this as a 5 Room Adventure. When I get time I’ll try to fit it onto a single page.

The adventure is aimed at a tier 1 party. Apart from one instance I try and avoid giving quantities for monsters. I like to give a bit of wiggle room, and allow for the DM to adjust on the fly based on how the party are doing.

You can get the draft pdf of the adventure by downloading that link. I’d love some feedback. I’ve not tested the adventure. So if you get a chance to try it I’d love to hear how you got on.

UPDATE: Once Upon v2 – updated with feedback from Scott and Jacob.

Once upon v3 – updated with feedback from Duncan.

Some gaming self reflection

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What is it I like about certain games in particular?

Let’s look at the one I’ve been writing a lot about lately, D&D.

In D&D as a player I love the sandbox nature of the game. That unlimited possibilities, I can do anything I can think of (dice rolls permitting). I also like that you build up a relationship, an attachment with the character you are playing. It’s not an instant thing. But something that grows over time as you both experience the world as it reveals itself.

As a DM I get something different out of the game. I get to stretch my creative muscles. Which I really love. You get to create a world for the players to explore and have adventures in. Not only that but to tell stories. For me as I’m creating my campaign as I’m coming up with ideas those ideas have to have some sort of authenticity. A reason that logically explains why that idea makes sense for the campaign. I just love that whole process. Then seeing the party explore and enjoy the world and story you have created. That’s a great buzz to have. But you also enter in a feedback loop where what the party does in the session generates new ideas and plot lines. Which just feeds that whole creative process.

Another game I write about a bit, but not so much lately is MtG.

MtG is another game where I get to exercise those creative muscles. But in a different way to D&D. In MtG I’m building decks. Decks that allow you to express yourself, your play style, explore ideas and mechanics. All within the restrictions imposed based on the format you are playing. Instead of handicapping the creative process those restrictions aid it, force you to focus, and make difficult decisions.

MtG is also an amazing game. There is so much going on during a game. You are having to make decisions constantly based on imperfect information and the cards you have in your hand and on the battlefield. Add in the different mechanics, being able to pull off combos (which is really satisfying), set themes, and the beautiful art. You really do have a near perfect game for me.

Finally for this post let’s briefly look at my favourite game of all time, Scythe.

Scythe is a bit different to the other two games that I have looked at in this post. There is no creative aspect to the game.

But it’s the game play and aesthetics that appeal to me here.

I just love the mix of action selection, resource management, and area control. There are variable player abilities. The game just looks stunning, and has an amazing table presence.

Plus the expansions add to the enjoyment without over complicating things. I particularly love the alternative end conditions from the Wind Gambit expansion. Which definitely can affect the focus and tactics that you use through out the game.

Even without the expansions there is a lot of replay ability. But with them that goes through the roof. That no two games being exactly the same really helps to keep the game fresh.

So there you have it a brief look at the aspects of three games that I enjoy. Which games do you like and why?

Feast of Legends – a food centric RPG!

D&D, RPG

After watching the Joker movie Friday, and then defending it on national radio Saturday morning on the BBC Radio 5 Live breakfast show. I thought I’d share my brief thoughts of it here before looking at a unique marketing idea.

Ok the Joker is apparently between reviewers becoming very much a marmite movie. They either love it or hate it. Very few in between.

Like the majority of regular joes that paid to see it I loved it.

But word of warning this isn’t your regular run of the mill comic book movie. Don’t go in expecting to see a MCU action packed sfx spectacular or a DCU train wreck. This movie also does not tie in with any of the other DCU movies. Look at Joker as the cinematic version of the many Batman one shots that show Batman in different times and settings. An elseworld story if you like.

What you have here is a movie that depicts the descent of a mentally ill person to becoming one of the most iconic comic book villains of all time.

The cinematography of the movie is amazing, as is the tone and retro feel of it all. Gotham isn’t the dark gothic beast of Burton, it’s more real, gritty, run down. Which is helped by the washed out tone, and looking like its set in the late 70s or 80s.

The story has a few influences, the most obvious is Killing Joke. But you can see Taxi Driver, V for Vendetta, King of Comedy also. Joker tries to reflect our current society and the them vs us between the rich and the poor. And the interesting twist of depicting Wayne as a “villain” that fits in with that theme. I’d also feel there will be a Falling Down comparison. It will definitely spark similar conversations.

The acting by Joaquin Phoenix is amazing. His depiction of Arthur/Joker is amazing. The amount of weight he must of lost for the role to make him look starved, skeletal. Talk about method acting. But the laugh, the physical acting. Even down to Arthur’s voice. The detail. I felt like I had a hard decision to make for my favourite Joker. But I think Ledger still tops my list by a hairs width. But it’s that close.

The score/soundtrack is amazing. It’s menacing, broody. Love it.

I love Joker. It’s a movie that will spark debate. It certainly demands multiple viewings.

While I was being wow’d by Joker, Twitter was briefly went crazy (not really) of a great bit of marketing for Wendy’s. Which I believe is some sort of fast food outlet in the US.

Wendy’s took the D&D d20 system and produced a free RPG! The RPG is called Feast of Legends.

In Feast of Legends…

“You are adventurers in the realm of Beef ’s Keep, where the nations have been splintered over major disagreements in how to treat the realm’s people. Creepingvale and the United Clown Nations have led their people into a collective darkness known as The Deep Freeze. While the world currently feels like a cold and desolate place, you reside in the one nation that remains a true beacon of hope: Freshtovia.”

I’m assuming United Clown Nations is a certain fast food chain that has a clown as it’s mascot. I’m getting flashbacks to Judge Dredd and The Cursed Earth story line and the two fast food inspired warring factions.

Naturally at its heart this is a piece of marketing. But thematic marketing I’ll grant them that. Which starts with the table of contents and continues through out.

The marketing even permeates through to the buffs you can get if you are eating Wendy’s food while playing.

The orders are like classes and if you are actually eating the physical order while playing that matches your chosen order, you get advantage for the day!

“As you’ve probably discerned, food is a major aspect of Feast of Legends. As such, what you’re eating in the real world will create direct buffs that affect your character in the game. Each of these buffs will go into effect for the entire duration of play for the day. So you might want to swing by your local Wendy’s or hit up delivery real quick.”

Or if you “dare” to eat a rivals products during play…

“Just as important, if you’ve settled for something other than Wendy’s, it can cause your character to weaken. Players eating any of the following during gameplay will gain the following debuffs for the duration of the session.”

I think it’s great that they give some example preconstructed characters for players to jump straight in with.

There is also a DM section and campaign to play through.

“Feast of Legends: Rise From The Deep Freeze is an adventure set in the realm of Beef’s Keep. The realm is vast, encompassing mountains, deserts, coasts and more. Your players will begin in Freshtovia, a kingdom ruled by Queen Wendy. Each player will begin at level 1, progressing to level 5 over the course of play.”

The following is the premise for the campaign.

“The main threat to the land is the Ice Jester of the United Clown Nations who resides in the lands known as The Deep Freeze — a dark, desolate place filled with frozen dangers. Recently the Ice Jester has been sending frozen minions across the realm to spread icy havoc. And now there are rumors that the Ice Jester has found a powerful magic device capable of throwing all of Beef ’s Keep into a new frozen age. The fate of the realm rests in the hands of a few fresh, never frozen heroes.”

I love the portrayal of the rivals mascot. Not having a Wendy’s in the UK, I’m picking up from the not so subtle messaging that the rival uses frozen patties, whilst Wendy’s uses fresh patties.

As a free way to try an RPG this looks fun for those that are fans of the Wendy’s fast food chain. It’s definitely a fantastic piece of marketing. I’m not sure how much mileage those of us out of the US would get from this. But there are some interesting ideas in their that could only really work in a product like this, for instance those buffs for eating related food.

You can get the pdf HERE.

Stealing RPG Rules

D&D, RPG

A couple of days this week I’ve been out and about, and had time to catch up on some podcasts. One of the ones I caught up on was Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk.

It’s a particularly nice podcast in my opinion. Firstly it’s UK based, Morrus is also the creator of the WOIN system and the Judge Dredd and World’s of 2000A.D. RPG (that uses WOIN as it’s basis).

One particular episode on Stealing Rules got me thinking and agreeing with them on a couple of things.

The first is using Morrus’ countdown dice mechanic from his WOIN system. He’s right to feel proud of it. When I read it in the Judge Dredd rulebook I thought that’s pretty cool. It’s also something that can be used in D&D quite easily.

Basically you create a dice pool of d6 dice. Then when you roll them, you remove any 6’s from the pool. And you keep rolling until there are none left. That’s as I said the basic concept. You can speed things up or slow things down by adjusting the number range used to remove a die, and the size of the dice pool.

It acts as a timer that you can use to simulate things like a countdown before an alarm goes off, or a trap/bomb triggers.

I love the concept. And definitely think it can be used in my current campaign. I’m thinking it might even lend itself to determine the length of combat. Hear me out. There is an encounter coming up where I want the NPC’s to attack my players, but it’s a smash and grab. Get in and get out quickly. It’s not a fight to the death. So how long should that last in combat rounds? If I use this countdown dice mechanic, and set it up for a quick countdown, then roll the dice at the start of each combat round. If it runs out the attackers split and fade into the night.

There is another nice part of this mechanic, where you can trigger things to happen when you reach certain numbers of dice. Say for instance once you hit 3 dice something bad happens like more enemies run into the room.

I think the hardest part is going to be deciding the size of the dice pool to use and the speed of the countdown.

You can read more about the countdown dice mechanic here.

The other one that I thought sounded interesting and worth investigating a bit more in-depth was the The One Ring/Adventures in Middle Earth (the D&D d20 version) journey rules.

For easy of use and porting into a full D&D 5e campaign I’d look at the Adventures in Middle Earth rules.

But I like the idea of using a system that is targeted at making travelling more interesting.

However that’s a research project for another day.

I’m kinda doing some stealing of rules at the moment. Except I’ve been stealing from the D&D Adventurers League. In particularly for character advancement. I like the points system it uses.

What rules do you steal for your RPG games?

Trying a fantasy horror d&d adventure for free

D&D, RPG

I’ve talked in previous posts about trying D&D for free. But what if like me you want to run something more spooky/horror related to “celebrate” Halloween at the end of the month?

Well keeping with the free criteria that’s totally possible. Yes you can try D&D for free and have a fantasy horror theme to the adventure.

WotC back when they released the Curse of Strahd campaign book for fifth edition also put up on their website a free pdf of the adventure from Appendix B of the book called Death House.

Naturally it’s set in the fantasy horror setting of fan favourite Castle Ravenloft/Barovia and it’s vampire master Strahd von Zarovich. Sadly this free adventure doesn’t see us in the castle or going up against Strahd. But still it ticks the boxes we are looking for free, and fantasy horror.

Below are the main links you need to run the Death House adventure, including some advice from a way more experienced DM than the noob that I am.

Link to Death House pdf

Additional Curse of Strahd Character Options

Sly Flourish – Advice on running Death House

Free D&D Basic Rules

Naturally you can use the pregenerated characters that WotC have created or create your own. You can get the character sheets whichever way you decide to go here. The advantage of creating your own is you can use the additional setting character options linked above.

Death House suggests using the Creeping Fog scenario from the first chapter in the campaign book. ‘This scenario assumes that the characters are camping in a forest when the fog engulfs them. They are quietly borne to the edge of Barovia.”

I like this idea. We are running this adventure as a one shot basically (although nothing to stop you turning it into a campaign). It’s simple, gives a bit of mystery, and gets the players to Ravenloft and the village Barovia.

You may have to find a monster stat or two on the web, for instance the shambling mound.

I hope people have found this useful. Let me know in the comments below if you have run this adventure and any tips you may have. Or maybe if you do run it for Halloween how you got on.

Update on planning session 3 #1

D&D, RPG, session planning

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

We have a date and time for our third session. It’s the last weekend of October. It might have been earlier in the month, but we had to take in to account a honeymoon for two of the group to happen.

Before this next session all but one of the group have to level up their characters. So I have offered to meet up with any that want to and help them level up their character.

At the weekend a friend asked if he and his son could join the group. I said I was happy for them too, but it had to be a group decision. So I put the question to the group in our Messenger chat area. All but one responded in the positive. The one that didn’t respond had seen the discussion and remained silent. They didn’t even confirm they could make the date set either. So I posted that I was assuming they didn’t object to new members joining.

I’m happy with how I handled this. I didn’t want to emulate the events that saw me leaving the previous group. New players to a group has to be a group decision.

It means our party of adventurers will be 7 strong. A tad on the large size. But as has been previously discussed on this blog, that may drop to 6.

Sadly the date for session 3 means the new players won’t join until session 4. Which means level wise they will be behind by a level and a half. So combat encounters will need a little more planning.

Session 3 would have been a great session plot wise to introduce new characters. With the party escorting the tribute from Queen’s Cove to Mintarn, having them join as part of that guard would have made sense plot wise.

But session 4 will be in Mintarn. So I’ll have to find a way to introduce them to the party before they go off on the adventure hook chosen in session 3.

It also means I need to meet up with the new players to go over character creation, talk back stories, and how we will introduce them to the others.

In the next planning post I’ll look at Mintarn.

Tye Reedfellow Halfling Monk

D&D, RPG

This post is all about me scratching an itch. For a couple of weeks or so now the idea of creating a halfling monk has been niggling away from the back of my mind. Distracting me from the prep I need to do for the imminent session 2 of our campaign.

The inspiration for this character comes from my childhood and teenage years.

I’m a child of the seventies, among many of the tv series from that time one of my favourites, and still have fond memories of is Kung Fu.

It was a very popular tv series at the time, even breaking in to the comedy acts of popular comedians at the time.

Kung Fu told the story of a Shaolin monk called Caine, that wondered from town to town in the old west, searching for a half brother. Along the way he helped people in his unique way using his martial art skills. Caine had ended up in the US after killing the Emperor’s nephew in revenge for that nephew having killed his elder and mentor.

A bit later in my youth I came across the Marvel comic The hands of Shang- Chi Master Of Kung Fu (also to set to join the MCU in Phase 4 iirc as well). Which I loved. Shang-Chi was the son of Fu Manchu, who he did everything he could to oppose.

Another influence also from that time is Bruce Lee (who also I believe was an influence for the Shang-Chi character). Mainly his characters who like Caine did everything to avoid combat. But usually as a last resort after being pushed to the limits has to use their superior martial art skills to get justice.

For creating our halfling monk I’m going to be using options from the Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide.

1. Choose a race

Naturally this is a halfling. Which means we get the following ability score increases.

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.

Age: Let’s have Tye just entering adulthood. Which for a halfling is 20.

Size: Tye will be the race average of 3ft tall, and 40 pounds.

Speed: halflings walk at a speed of 25ft.

Halflings are lucky. Which basically means they get to reroll a natural 1. They are also brave, which means they have advantage in saving throws against being frightened. Tye also being a halfling has Halfling Nimbleness. He can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than him.

Tye knows common and halfling. Being a lighfoot he is also Naturally Stealthy. Tye can attempt to hide even when he’s obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger than him.

2. Choose a class

Once again we have already determined this.

The quick build advice for creating a monk is to have dexterity as our highest score, followed by wisdom. And to have the hermit as our background. We’ll follow that advice.

As a monk our hit points as a first level character is 8 + our constitution modifier. Our hit die is a d8, and we get 1d8 per monk level.

We now need to make some choices as we work through the rest of our class traits. First up our monks proficiencies.

Sadly Tye isn’t proficient with armor. Which is common sense. Armour would just get in the way of doing all those martial arts moves. Our AC equals 10 + Dexterity modifier + Wisdom modifier.

Naturally all those years in the monastery training means Tye is proficient with Simple weapons and shortswords.

Tye gets the “following benefits while unarmed or wielding only monk weapons and not wearing armor or wielding a shield:

  • can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolIs of unarmed strikes and monk weapons.
  • can rolI a d4 in place of the normal damage of his unarmed strike or monk weapon. This die changes as Tye gains monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table.
  • use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon on your turn, Tye can make one unarmed strike as a bonus action.”

Tye is keeping with Caine as our template will be proficient with the flute.

Saving Throws: Strength, Dexterity

As a monk we can choose to be proficient from two of the following skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, History, lnsight, Religion, and Stealth. I think for Tye we will chose Stealth and Acrobatics. Our background will give us Religion.

Being a monk means we get some starting equipment decisions to make. Our first choice is between a shortsword or any simple weapon. I think in keeping with our inspirations Tye would have a quarterstaff as his weapon of choice. This does 1d6 bludgeoning damage, weighs 4lbs and has Versatile (1d8) as its property.

An explorer’s pack I feel is the natural choice for Tye over a dungeoneer’s pack. Our halfling monk is wandering around Faerun just like Caine. In the explorer’s pack Tye gets “a backpack, a bedroll,a mess kit, a tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, and a waterskin. The pack also has 50 feet of hempen rope strapped to the side of it.”

Finally monks also get 10 darts (1d4 piercing, finesse, thrown (range 20/60 feet)

The hermit background also comes with some extra proficiencies.

Skill Proficiencies: Medicine, Religion

Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism kit

Languages: One of your choice – this is a difficult one I feel this needs to fit in with Tye’s background. Draconic the language of dragons and Dragonborn.

Equipment: A scroll case stuffed full of notes from your studies or prayers, a winter blanket, a set of common clothes, an herbalism kit, and 5 gp

3. Determine ability scores


I rolled the above dice to allocate to abilities.

Strength = 12 Modifier +1

Dexterity = (16 + 2) = 18 Modifier +4

Constitution = 15 Modifier +2

Intelligence = 14 Modifier +2

Wisdom = 16 Modifier +3

Charisma = (15 + 1) = 16 Modifier +3

4. Describe your character

Gender: male

Background

Tye grew up and trained at a monastery in the Sword Mountains that was part of the halfling monastic order called The Hin Fist.

The monastery had been carved into the mountainside on the southern side of the Sword Mountain range where it looms over a treacherous pass.

Tye’s parents had died when he was very young, when a goblin raiding party attacked their farm near Triboar. Villagers arrived too late to save them, but in the destruction left behind found Tye hidden, scared, crying, cold, and hungry in a bush. Fortunately back in Triboar monks had been visiting from the Hin Fist monastery. Once the villagers arrived back in Triboar with Tye, a debate took place about what to do with him. The monks seeing that they were discussing a halfling child, said they would take Tye in.

Tye has been following the Monastic tradition Way of the Open Hand. There is a Way of the Drunken Master which I’d love to use. It’s very Jackie Chan and of the movie with the same name. It’d be fun to play a character using that fighting style. But Way of the Open Hand is our tradition of choice fitting in with our inspiration.

“Monks of the Way of the Open Hand are the ultimate masters of martial arts combat, whether armed or unarmed. They learn techniques to push and trip their opponents, manipulate ki to heal damage to their bodies, and practice advanced meditation that can protect them from harm.”

Due to the number of dragons in the area the monks revere them, and speak dragonic, and use a dragon icon as their monastery’s emblem.

Tye has passed the final test for his monastic order to become a monk of The Hin Fist, which is shown by a dragon icon branded on the inside of both of his wrists. This harks back to the marks that Caine got completing his final test.

Like our inspiration Caine, Tye is on the run. On one of the monastery’s regular visits to Triboar Tye and his Master/instructor where amongst the monks on the visit. A group of guards that were part of a party from Waterdeep had a run in with Tye’s Master. The result of this run in was a relative of one of the Lords of Waterdeep killed the Master with a crossbow bolt in the back. Tye killed the relative when he grabbed one of the guards daggers and threw it at them. And yes this is the Kung Fu backstory! The Masters dying words to Tye were to flee, not to go back to the monastery.

There is naturally a price on Tye’s head by the Lord of Waterdeep.

I’m leaving this bit open about which Lord and how much the reward is to the DM so that it can be used to fit in with any plot hooks the DM wants to use.

Alignment: lawful

Personal characteristics

3ft tall, and 40 pounds.

Tye has a full head of brown hair.

Harking back to his monastic order Tye dresses in lose garments, that are coloured yellow and green. Naturally Tye wears long sleeved garments or if short sleeved bandages of some sort to cover up his dragon icon markings.

Tye like our influence tries to avoid conflict and using his martial art skills. When confronted Tye will take a lot of abuse. So that bully pushing him around in the tavern, Tye will just turn the other cheek. After all he is on the run, and has to disguise that he is a monk.

Like Caine, Tye is conflicted between wanting to remain anonymous and a sense of social responsibility.

Tye plays the flute as his only pastime apart from meditating.

Tye like Caine is humble, intelligent, inquisitive, and usually very soft-spoken.

5. Choose equipment

See above. It’s the basic starting equipment for our race, class and background that I’ve already discussed.

Warring Isolationists

Game day

Yesterday afternoon at The Luxe I got to play a 3 player game of Tapestry. Jeff and his son Jonas had very kindly agreed to meet up and play.

Unlike Friday where Gavin and I scanned through the civilisations and chose one from them. This time I went with the official way of dealing 2 to a player and they chose one to keep and play, discarding the other (Some online have suggested a mulligan option to supplement this rule).

I went with the Isolationists, which encouraged me during the game to explore and conquer. Jeff went with the Historians, while Jonas went with the Traders.

Tapestry is just a stunning looking game. From the art to the hand made landmarks. Tie that in with the usual high production values for the components of the game and you have yet another beautifully produced game by Stonemaier Games.

The boards (Civilization, Capital City, and Player) have a lovely rough texture to the front of them. Jeff liked the effect but felt he should be striking a match on them! Surprisingly the super thin 4 page rule book didn’t use the same paper that was used in Wingspan.

The game once set up takes up a lot of space. Not just the board. But the play area needed by players. Things can get quite wide. Especially when you start getting technology cards, and possibly additional civilisation cards.

I do like games that have a table presence, and look a bit theatrical on the table. They draw players in, and give a wow factor. I think Tapestry has this, and unusual for a game (or I can’t think of one at the moment) particularly on the player boards with the capital cities when they get buildings and landmarks added.

Friday there was no teaching of the game. Gavin and I had both been watching YouTube videos before hand, and had a pretty good grasp of what to do. So yesterday was the first time I had to teach the game. For a game with basically 2 actions that you can do, it still took about 20 minutes to teach. Which still isn’t bad.

Tapestry is all about developing your civilisation over 5 eras. Hence why it identifies itself as a civilisation game on the box. But does that theme come across while playing? To some extent yes, and also a big no.

This is a very euro like game, where you are building an engine. The purpose of that engine is to get you resources and victory points. The more resources you get the more things you can do. And that engine building bit doesn’t feel very thematic.

It’s little touches like when you place a building and reveal the space underneath has a word/technology that you have just developed like VR or video games. And the story your tapestry cards tell for your civilisation through the eras, and the technology that your civilisation invents, and the tracks you advance on. Although I think Jonas’s civilisation explored space without developing any technology! It’s that weaving a story/narrative for your civilisation that feels thematic.

The actual action of advancing on one of the four tracks, allows you to conquer, explore, develop technology, advance on a track, get tapestry cards, place buildings, plus on certain spaces pay for an additional benefit. The nice thing is that the main action theme for a track like exploring for example is only possible to do a limited number of times.

I like the simplicity of conquering a tile. Plus the random element of the dice rolls, where you then have to decide between points or a resource. It’s quick and easy to teach. In fact you probably take longer deciding which die result to take than the conquering action itself. There is a way to avoid having a tile you control conquered using a Trap tapestry card. The aggressor still gets to roll the dice, and places a toppled token on your tile. But you remain in control of it. With the basic rule of a tile can’t have more than 2 tokens on it of any kind. It locks down the tile so you can’t be attacked again on that space.

I love that each era you are trying to eek out the most value from the limited resources that you have. Which gets harder and harder as the further you advance on a track the more costly it becomes to advance and do the more powerful actions. It’s also fair to say you start off doing a handful of not so powerful things, and as the game progresses you get to do more and more, and the stuff you do is getting more and more powerful.

It’s this side of things, the engine building and the next point that makes Tapestry dry euro game like. Add in the capital city board and the trying to complete rows and columns (for points) along with 9×9 grids (which give you an instant resource of your choice when done).

I can see for some that doing their fifth and final income round, and having to sit and watch others continue playing may be an issue. Especially if the other players have a lot of actions they can still do. But I do like the fact everyone does their income rounds at different times, and you have that decision of when the optimal time is to take it. Sometimes it may be forced on you because you have no more resources or not enough left to take actions.

There is also the random nature of the tapestry cards that some may find clouds their enjoyment of a game. It’s possible to get cards that don’t synergise with your civilisation, or would have been better earlier in the game. But that’s not an issue for me, it’s a challenge to overcome.

I like Tapestry, can’t wait to play it again. It’s not replaced Scythe as my favourite Stonemaier Games game. But it’s good, real good.