Some early planning for a Judge Dredd Campaign

RPG


Thought I’d share some early high level campaign planning for a Judge Dredd campaign I want to run.

It’s basically bolting together some out of print and current scenarios into what I hope is an interesting campaign for about four judges.

I still need to source a couple of things but they are not show stoppers. But they would make life easier. The Justice Hall source book (for the Mongoose d20 system) is fairly easy to get hold of, and not that expensive either. Unlike the White Dwarf adventures for Sector 255. I found pdf online for one of them, and guess what? The part that I wanted was corrupted!

I think I have an overall arc for the players that sees them graduating from rookie judges, and getting their full eagle shield to become judges in the opening scenario ‘Full Eagle Day’. No sooner are they assigned to their first sector house, when they are attached to a task force that has been set up to clear out criminals living in the Empire State Building in the ‘State of the Empire’ scenario. The judges return to their sector house and go out on patrol in their sector. After a couple of encounters while patrolling our judges get caught up in Call-Me-Kenneth’s robot revolt in ‘The Robot Wars’. Which once put down sees the judges back on the street patrolling.

I think the way it is at the moment there is weeks of bringing law to the citizens of Mega City One. Which means slotting in the two planned scenarios ‘Luna-1’ and ‘The Cursed Earth’ when they are released shouldn’t be a problem at all.

It also gives me time to source copies of the two classic scenarios from the 80’s Judge Dredd RPG ‘Slaughter Margin’ and ‘Judgement Day’. Although the later is much much cheaper to get than the former.

So that’s my current plan. Now to convert the npc’s from ‘Full Eagle Day’ d20 system to the WOIN system.

First Ever Alley Cat Games Con

Game day

Saturday saw roughly seventy odd gamers turn up at the offices of Alley Cat Games to participate in the company’s first ever con. It also clashed with the start of Standard Showdown season at my FLGS. If I was going to miss taking my Simic deck out for a spin, playing games with Jonathan and trying prototypes was a bloody good alternative.

The day started with Jonathan picking me up at the end of the street I live in. Thanks to roadworks closing off Jonathan’s usual route on to the A1, we ended up on the A14 and a pleasant cross country route to Letchworth that avoided the A1 altogether.

Once we arrived in Letchworth we pulled over in the car park of the local Morrison’s to enter the post code for one of the recommended car parks. Which saw us deciding to sample their breakfast offerings before proceeding to the car park. It’s important to make sure you are fully caffeinated and have a full stomach when playing board games.

After registering at the door, Jonathan and I found a table and played our first game of the day, Hanamikoji. Hanamikoji is a recent addition to my collection, after buying it from a friend and member of Fenland Gamers. Neither of us had played the game before, so this was a learning game.

Hanamikoji is a really nice, quick, two player game. Love the two main mechanics of hand management and area control. Each round you have four actions to take that are used to manage your hand and influence which cards you play. However you only take each action once.

One action for example you have is taking four cards from your hand, splitting them into two piles of two, and your opponent chooses one pile and those cards go in front of the matching card in the middle on their side. The remaining two cards go in front of the matching cards on your side. I love this I split you chose action, and all the decisions involved in that alone.

If you like Bloodbowl Team Manager, which is basically an area control game also. But want something that has a similar core mechanic but plays quicker. Then this is worth a look.

I love the art. It’s very watercolour, pastel shades looking. It has that old traditional Japan look and feel to it.

Jonathan and I won a game a piece.


The next game we got to “play” was one high on Jonathan’s list of games to try, Chocolate Factory.

This was a prototype, the game will hit Kickstarter later in the year. And we only got to play three rounds. Well there were a few people keen on trying it. So it would have been rude to hog the game.

However I was pretty impressed with the mechanics and the way the game played. Jonathan pointed out that the graphic design of this prototype needed tweaking. However it already has been taking into account the tweaks suggested, and the changes were shown to us digitally.

I liked the drafting element at the start of each round that gave you an improvement to your factory, and a round only power and access to selling to a department store.

The moving tiles through the factory and your engine, is a nice touch and piece of theatrics. The ordering of improvements from the drafting is key. It determines activation order.

The competing to sell to the department stores, with points being awarded on whose sold the most to each store at the end of the game, gives a nice competitive touch to the game.

There looks to be a couple of paths to victory, either going for the department stores for points, or completing your private corner shop ones. You could go for a mix of the two.

We thought having a role card with a unique power, similar to the ones used in Marco Polo would be a cool improvement to the game.

Overall this looks like it’s going to be a great, fun, game.

At the end of the third round we went to end game scoring. I came second aka first loser, while Jonathan propped us all up at the bottom.

Ruthless had been a pirate themed game faintly on Jonathan’s radar. So I twisted his arm to try it out. We were there, there was a copy in the game library. It made sense to me.

The copy we played, was unplayed! Jonathan and I had to punch cardboard! After setting up, which we thought the rulebook could be clearer on (it was a little confusing), one of the Alley Cat staff/helpers stepped in to talk us through the game.

As soon as it clicked the game was a deckbuilder, I laughed. Jonathan hates deckbuilders.

As far as deckbuilders go, it’s ok.

The fixed number of rounds was an interesting idea. As was using a semi poker hand mechanic with recruited pirates in front of you to decide points at the end of each. The end of game bonus scoring was ok.

I’m just not sure being ok in this day and age is good enough. The bar for deckbuilders for me is Star Realms/Hero Realms. Price, replay ability, expansions, game play. It ticks all the boxes. Then on the big box deckbuilders, I have Marvel Legendary and Eminent Domain. Which are both really good. Ruthless kind of sits in the middle ground. Unless you really really want to play a pirate themed deckbuilder, I can’t see why you’d get it.

The records will show I won our game.

Jonathan and I both enjoy roll and writes. We have one or two in our collections. So I thought a chance to try Welcome To DinoWorld couldn’t be passed up.

I’m not sure why but the game left me feeling indifferent. Even now while writing this post I still can’t really put my finger on why.

Would tweaking how the dice are used, and who can use which dice help? Maybe.

There was a massive misplay we found out after the game, which potentially might have made a difference.

The actual sheets used in the game are quite pretty. Which at the moment is about the nicest thing I can say about the game.

The roll and write market is getting crowded. Apart from theme I’m not sure this stands out. But is more man in the crowd.

I was first loser, but finished above Jonathan.

We followed up by playing Wingspan with Scott. Unusual for me I went with a new tactic of birds on board, instead of egg spamming. It didn’t quite workout enough to get me the win. But in out tightest scoring game to date, I lost by four points. And Jonathan was beaten into first loser position by a single point. So your deduction skills will tell you Scott won.

We finished off our days gaming with a game of Nusfjord. I really was rusty on this. I had played it once nearly a year ago. So after a brief refresher, we settled into building our fishing communities and fishing fleets.

It looked at the end of the game that Jonathan and I were going to have to share the honours of first place. But under further review I had missed three points from shares that I owned. Which meant I was the winner.

Although we left at 6pm there was another five hours of gaming left for those that had the stamina, and more importantly (most likely) didn’t have a long distance to travel. And to be fair our journey time was just under a couple of hours. So we could have stayed longer I suppose. But I think about eight hours of gaming for us was about right.

Our journey home was uneventful, full of good conversation, and we delivered Scott home safely.

Naturally this post would not be complete without a photo of me in action, and thanks to Jonathan I’m able to avoid disappointing you.


Some thoughts

Despite having a great time. The day did confirm to me that these sort of things (such as Handycon and Airecon) which focus on playing games may not be for me. They reenforced my opinion that you need to be going with a bunch of friends. I didn’t see much mingling going on, it seemed more people playing with people they knew. Which means if that is the case, why don’t you just stay at home and play games with your friends? Or if you are intent on going away for a weekend from your usual haunts, going to a hotel or hostel to play?

Having said that for Jonathan and me this is the ideal one to attend. It’s the gaming equivalent of a day out in London. Next time with a bit more planning maybe we can take more of our friends along with us, and have a Fenland Gamers day out.

Alley Cat Games. Now I will give a caveat for this next statement in that I haven’t played every one of their games, so is based on the ones I have played so far. Which is most of them. I think they should drop the smaller games and concentrate on the big games. In the current market place that we have, games that are good at best just don’t cut it. Publishers need to be putting out great games to stand a chance of standing out from the crowd, get the sales, and be a success. Dice Hospital and my experience of Chocolate Factory meet that criteria. Sadly the smaller games fall into the former, and don’t cut it. The Alley Cat Games crew are a great crew that I want to see succeed and grow. And their strength seems to be the bigger box games. For me those smaller games are not their forte.

But it’s easy for me to say. I’m just an armchair critic. It’s not my money on the line here. And what do I know?

I want to end this rather long post with a big thanks to Alley Cat Games for organising this mini con. For inviting us into their home and being such gracious hosts.

I’d also like to say a big thanks to Jonathan for doing the taxi duties. And being a great gaming buddy throughout the day.

A Potential Tweak To My Simic Standard Deck

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

While I was looking through my Ravnica Allegiance pulls to see if I had any Tithe Takers or Unbreakable Formations to use in my Commander Death and Taxes deck. Although unbreakable Formations may well be finding it’s way into any of my decks that splash white. I came across the Frilled Mystic I’d pulled.

I’m seriously considering using this as a card in my Simic Standard deck.

What attracts me about the card? It’s a counter spell and a body on the board. So a two for.

I’m ok with the 4 CMC because of the value it gives. Although being a 3/2 it does die to a shock. But if it counters a spell and forces them to use a shock. That’s two cards to my one. I’ll take that bit of card advantage. I’d prefer that it was not two forests and two islands, but maybe one of each and two of any. But I suppose there is that delicate line of making sure that the card is not too over powered.

But what goes to make way for it? I’m thinking the two copies of Open the Gates in the main deck, and the copy in the sideboard. Plus the third copy of Simic Ascendancy in the sideboard.

I just need to play test this change now.

I’m having a hard time accepting the stupid high price of Hydroid Krasis. It’s a good card. But wow. So glad I got mine before that nasty spike.

I know with my deck the lands could be better. I’d love a play set of Breeding Pool and Hinterland Harbour. It would speed things up on that front. But I don’t think the cost justifies it. The deck could also do with another Vivienne Reid. But that too has spiked. Another Incubation Druid would be nice, potential go up to a full play set.

The deck is fun to play. There are some slight improvements that if this was for a GP or something might justify the extra expense to make them. But seeing as this is a Standard Showdown deck. I don’t think splashing out for those cards is justified. If I can trade for them then I can live with that, but not at spending more. In fact I am mid trade. I’ve traded a shock land, and just waiting for my friend to see if he has a spare one of the ones I need.

Well time to end this post. I’ve already reenforced Jonathan’s views of MtG being a money pit. Which it can be. I don’t deny it. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that the game is still pretty awesome. Time to read some RPG manuals.

I am the law

news, RPG

Yesterday I stumbled upon the fact that the pdf version of the Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD RPG system have been released to the world at large.

This new system was kickstarted last year and is the third or fourth time that the future law man has been captured in a RPG system.

DriveThru RPG have the basic rule book, a free taster scenario and the not free Robot Wars scenario. The latest publisher has two more scenarios Luna-1 and The Cursed Earth lined up for later in the year. Along with two more source books focusing on the classic 2000 AD characters Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dog (really looking forward to this one).

This latest iteration uses the What’s Old is New (WOIN) system as it’s basis. Which uses a d6 dice pool system. As a prospective GM I like these dice pool systems (Genesys is an example of another). The pools of dice used for checking skills, combat etc can be adjusted based on difficultly and conditions. In the WOIN system the total of the dice rolled must be the same as or greater than a figure given by the GM. So the GM may decide that the task being attempt is simple and give a low score to beat. If the task succeeds and there are three sixes rolled there is an additional benefit that happens.

There is an interesting count down mechanic using a pool of dice, that can be used for players on deaths door, drowning or some other event that you want the player to feel the pressure of a clock.

I love the fact that they have taken the scenario from the main rules, and made it as a Quick Start scenario with pre-made characters to allow players to try the system before they commit to the full blown experience and campaigns in Mega City 1. Unlike the Genesys free scenarios you only need d6 dice to play this free scenario and the main game.

With the decades of the comic strip, source books and scenarios from the previous Judge Dredd RPG’s there is plenty of material to base/inspire adventures and campaigns on. Plus there are miniatures out there from the now defunct miniature skirmish game. So these potentially may not be cheap to get.

I just need to find some Judge Dredd fans like me to play the initial scenario with.

Exhausted but fighting on!

D&D, game night, RPG


I hope you have enjoyed the last couple of days of no posts happening. For you dear suffering readers the positive side of me being ill for a couple of days. Sadly as this post shows I’m back.

The astute amongst you will have noticed I’ve been doing posts recently about planning a RPG campaign and in a soon to be finished and published post plotting an adventure.

I thought in this first half of this post I’d share the tools/apps I’ve been using in getting ready for my first time as a GM and the Android universe.

I’m a fan of both the physical and digital versions of books. So for the digital side I use the two most popular apps for ebooks the Kindle app and iBooks. DrivethruRpg is a great source of RPG books and their digital format of choice is the watermarked pdf. I use iBooks mainly for pdfs. For me it’s the better experience for the consumption of a pdf than the Kindle app.

The advantage of the digital version of a book is it’s easier for me to create my own custom cheat sheets. I can copy and paste the information I need. Plus I find it’s easier to print a page from the ebook than photocopy a page from the physical book.

This is why PDF Expert is included here. It enables me to manipulate and extract information from a pdf. It also allows me to select pages from the original and create a separate pdf with the pertinent pages for printing, and keeping for future reference.

I’m a big fan of brainstorming apps. That’s why iThoughts (mindmaps), Outliner (outlines) and GoodNotes (general note taking with an Apple Pencil) are here. These are the apps I capture ideas and plan.

Scrivener is a writing app. It is focused on writing, but it’s a very flexible app that works round projects, which can have research notes within the project. This is where the adventure gets written. The research functionality is amazing, and being able to include or not include sections is really handy.

I’ve included MS Word here, but it could also be Pages. This is the app I use for creating my custom cheat sheets.

Finally I’ve included Pixelmator for any image manipulation that’s needed. This really is one of my favourite apps. It makes it look like a can create graphics.

I have recently found a couple of apps for creating dungeon maps randomly which I need to play with. Once I have I’ll talk about them here. I know my friend Edmund, and the GM for the D&D 5e campaign I’m playing in uses his autodesk expertise to create the maps we get to use in our sessions (which are rather good). So I’ve downloaded the iPad version of it to play with.

Finally before we get onto the dramatic retelling of last nights shenanigans FFG are looking at character creation with in Shadow of the Beanstalk (the Genesys source book for the Android universe) this week along with the taster scenario. People that pre-ordered directly from FFG are starting to receive their copies. Although not shown on this weeks sheet for new releases that Asmodee UK, one or two are saying it’s available tomorrow (Thursday). But I tend to think more likely that it will drop next week. However this wouldn’t be the first time something gets released that is not on the sheet. So basically Shadow of the Beanstalk due out any day now.

And now we rejoin Dram and the rag tag team he is currently having adventures with…

Feeling magically spent. Dram really felt like he could do with a long rest to recoup.

But considering there was still unknown threats in the rest of the unexplored castle the likely hood of that happening were very remote.

He’d have to push on through the exhaustion and use his cantrips as much as he can to back up the others. They’d just have to accept that is all he had left at the moment. No big theatrical spells to save the rests butts for the time being.

After a very brief discussion the party started to move through the rest of the castle room by room. Ace would first check any closed door, and listen for any signs of danger the other side of the door.

This started off well, Dram was hanging back, Ace was taking the risks.

Ace disappeared into one room that turned out to be a chapel only to be ambushed by three goblins. Dram in his exhausted state was happy to let the others rush in and help Ace out and nullify the goblin threat.

Once the sounds of battle stopped Dram joined the rest in the chapel. The group made their way to the far end of the chapel and the unblocked door.

Ace again repeated the drill of checking the door. Despite the gnome having already checked it. Ace could be heard mumbling under his breathe something about being better at it than the short arse.

The party piled into a small hallway. As Dram was examining a curtain over what looked like a door way. A scream of immense agony could be heard coming from the chapel. It was Nick. He had been attacked.

The others once again rushed into the chapel to help Nick. Before doing the same Dram peaked behind the curtain to make sure there would be no surprises coming from that direction.

Dram joined the fray. Surrounded by the party in the middle was a grey stone coloured serpent like creature with four tentacles surrounding its beak. It was a Grick. A Grick caught in the mouth of a dire wolf. Nick had gone all canine on it. Dram used Grull as cover as he tried to use his cantrip shocking grasp on the Grick. His hand sparked blue and just as quickly faded away. The cantrip failed to connect.

Before Dram had another chance to try again with the shocking grasp the Grick was dispatched by the rest of the party.

Back in the hall way Ace checked another door and heard voices the other side of it.

Unusual for Ace he stepped back and prepared himself to attack anything that appeared from behind the door.

Dram pushed open the door and stood back out of the way.

Suddenly a hobgoblin appeared in the door way. There was a sudden flash of metal as Ace swung in and killed it.

A whoosh of air could be heard as Sarmyar let lose an arrow through the open door into the room. Closely followed by the javelin of Grull.

The party rushed into the room, jumping over the hobgoblin corpse. In the room was a fat goblin and a seriously wounded hobgoblin. The hobgoblin was quickly killed by adventurers. But the fat goblin was sneakier than expected and disappeared off behind a curtain door. Ace gave chase. Throwing caution to the wind, not waiting for back up.

Back up (minus Nick would had decided to stay behind in the room with the hobgoblin corpses) finally caught up with Ace in a small hallway. Just as he disappeared into a room. The whelps of a wolf could be heard from the room.

As the back up bundled in to back up Ace, they were greeted with the scene of Ace standing over a badly wounded wolf, a disgruntled bugbear, the fat goblin and a seriously injured dwarf laying on the floor.

Sarmyar’ s panther attacked the fat goblin, while Grull and the gnome took on the bugbear. Once again Dram used Grull as a shield as he used his Ray of Frost cantrip to attack the badly wounded wolf.

In all the confusion that is combat, another enemy used that confusion to it’s advantage to attack the party from its hiding place. It was a female Drow.

As the wolf was killed by a particularly effective bolt of ice from Dram’s cantrip, Ace was knocked to the ground badly injured by the Drow. Before the bugbear followed its pet wolf to the next world, it took the gnome out.

It was at this point that the Drow decided to make a run for it. She grabbed a parchment off a small table in front of Dram and made for the door. However her escape was blocked off by Nick and Sarmyar. The Drow was soon surrounded by the party. Sarmyar grabbed the parchment off her, while a ropey Ace, blade to her throat tried to interrogate her. With no answers forthcoming Ace took revenge on the Drow by slitting her throat.

While this was going on Dram administered a healing potion to the downed gnome that had been given to him by Ace.

And that is where we leave our adventurers for another week.

Testing 1,2,3 Testing

Game day, magic, Magic League, MtG

Yesterday was the start of the Ravnica Allegiance Magic League with my FLGS.

I discussed this format for MtG in previous posts, but for those new to the blog, MtG or just poor memories and don’t want the trauma of remembering my posts, I’ll try and summarise it briefly.

Magic League is a sealed event, where a player buys three booster packs, and with the contents builds a 30 card deck to play against other participants. The league takes place over four weeks, and each week you are able to buy an additional booster to strengthen your deck. Also after three losses you can also buy a booster pack to strengthen your deck. At the end of the league you get a cool promo card for participating.

The nice thing about the league is that it is accessible for new players. It provides a level playing field between new and old by removing the large card collection, and having to spend lots of money to get a “competitive deck” (although you can build a competitive deck on a budget).

After buying my three packs for the league, naturally I cracked them open and did the first thing every MtG player does. I went to the back of the pack and looked at the rares and uncommons I’d pulled.

With two Simic Guild Gates pulled I was getting the distinct hint I should be leaning towards a Simic deck.

After just throwing my Simic cards together I had no decision making to make to get the right number of cards. I had the right number to build the deck with. Instead of playing a league match we played some Commander!

I only had the one Commander deck with me. It was my big green stompy deck. I didn’t win any of the three games we played. But I had a blast. My deck did it’s thing. I got creatures out, made them big, and stomped over a player or two.

I also managed to get some testing of my Simic Standard deck against John and his Merfolk deck.

Our first game was a surprise to me and John. By turn four I had three Llanowar Elves out, three lands and I’d cast a Biogenic Ooze. Ramp wise this was a start I could only dream of. With my removal and counter spells, pumping out more oozes, and them getting bigger each turn. I easily took the first game.

In our second game of the best of three, it was more to plan. Ramp, Wilderness Reclamation , Biogenic Ooze, frustrating John with counter spells and bouncing creatures back to hand. A bit of mill with the walls. Threats from John to kick me under the table.

We started a second round of best of three. But this time I took out the walls and replaced them with two Incubation Druid’s (it’s all I have) and a Llanowar Scout.

Despite losing to John 2-1. I did like what these bought to the table. The Incubation Druid was pretty good, getting a +1/+1 on it was easy with the Essence Capture. So I wasn’t having to wait for the three mana it can tap for. My main problem during these three games was my mana sinks hadn’t come out. So I wasn’t getting the full value from them.

During these games John got to witness the double Wilderness Reclamation, Biogenic Ooze combo. There was a little questioning with the stores future MtG judge (he’s,in training) about the way that combo worked during the start of the end step. My interruption was correct.

Our third game was pretty close. If John hadn’t tapped down all my creatures when he did, my Hydroid Krasis would have swung in next turn for lethal. As it was I didn’t have enough tricks in hand to prevent the loss. I really like games that are like this, where they could go either way. Close games that turn on a moment. They are exciting. Even now the next day, I’m replaying the decisions I made at that point, and working out if I’d done things a little different would the result have been in my favour?

Afterwards there was general chit chat. But eventually I went home after having a great afternoon of MtG. The Hobbit Hole really does have a great MtG community.

Can I Play With Madness

Fenland Gamers, game night

It was cold walking from the car to The Luxe. A definite nip in the air. I was kinda glad I had my big boy trousers on, and not my usual cargo shorts.

There were four of us due to meet up for the evenings gaming session.

We started off our gaming for the evening with Wingspan. That’s three sessions in a row now that this has hit the table. And once again one of the players was new to the game. Which I’ve not seen as being a disadvantage when playing so far. A testament to how good the design of the game is.

All four of the end of round objectives were eggs on nest based. Which guided my choice of bonus cards at the start. It tied in with one of the objectives nicely.

My woodland habitat was in MtG/Commander terminology a care bear or group hug line. I had a couple of when activated abilities that benefited everyone by giving them a resource as well as myself.

My grasslands habitat was a nice little egg laying engine, while my wetlands was a single bird that gave me a little extra card draw.

Jonathan’s first round was very confusing to me, he had accumulated a lot of resources, had one bird in his reserve. It looked like he was going to be playing a few birds in the second round. But at that point it felt like he was behind on the engine front when comparing his board state with everyone else’s.

Through the four rounds I was either first of second on the end of round objectives. My last round was triggering my egg laying and amassing points that way. It was worth five points each time, and for a couple of activations six. However my last action was wasted because I had no more space left to lay eggs, no resources or birds in hand to play a bird. So I accumulated some resources just in case of a tie breaker was needed. It also meant I didn’t get any extra eggs when The Usual Suspect triggered his when activated ability. So I also missed out on points there.

After the dust settled and the final tally was completed, I was first loser. I had lost to The Usual Suspect by 3 points. Which was the extra eggs I missed out on. But for the want of having an extra bird in my reserve to place eggs on I would have won.

Our second and final game of the evening was Lovecraft Letter. Earlier in the day I had finally opened and sleeved my copy of the game. At that moment in time I looked at the rule book to see what was different in this version to the others I had played. Mechanically it sounded very interesting, and I thought I’d take it along with me to the evenings gaming.

I knew Jonathan wouldn’t be a big fan of the theme. It’s not his thing. Which is fair enough. When selecting games to take along to play things like this have to be taken into account.

I like what Lovecraft LoveLetter brings to the table with the sanity mechanic. It brings some new decisions to make to the game, and win conditions.

Having to make a choice between going insane or keeping your sanity during the round is nice. However as Jonathan pointed out, that choice may be taken away from you if you start off with a card that has the sanity mark on it, and then draw a similar card. You have no choice but to go insane.

The sanity check at the start of your turn if you have lost your sanity is a nice push your luck element.

The benefit of losing your sanity is that on the cards with both a sane and insane option is that you can chose to do the more powerful insane option. It’s a risk reward choice. The more cards in your discard pile with the insane symbol the more cards you have to reveal on the sanity check. But you are doing more powerful actions, potentially if you get Cthulhu win the game. However you are more likely to be knocked out of the round, and need one more insane win than a player going for sane wins.

The component quality of the game, just like the Premium edition are out of this world. I really like the poker chips used to track round wins. They have a nice weight to them.

The art is for me on the right side of none offensive. With the Lovecraft theme it can be easy for a publisher to go dark. Which if they had would have made the game less appealing to a wider audience. It’s the right side of tasteful. More importantly I didn’t feel embarrassed or uncomfortable with Jonathan playing the game with the art on the cards.

However with the over sized cards and the larger really cool presented box (made to look like a book), along with the Premium edition. I do feel that these two editions have moved away from the micro game that fits in your pocket that you pull out and play at a moments notice.

Lovecraft Loveletter was the only outstanding version of Loveletter that we hadn’t played. It’s a nice addition to the family of games. Is it good enough to knock Loveletter: Batman off the top spot as my favourite? No. But it’s in the mix with The Hobbit and Archer editions.

Afterwards there was some gaming related discussion, where Jonathan reminded me that next weekend we are at the inaugural Alley Cat Games Con at their offices in Letchworth. Which I hadn’t forgotten about, but had for some reason not clicked was next weekend. I’m growing old. But take that as a warning about what you’ll be seeing on my social media and here next weekend.

We had a great evening of games. Awesome hosts in the form of The Luxe and the amazing staff.

Thunderbirds the RPG

RPG

What must be two or three years ago now, I got the Kickstarter copy of Thunderbirds the co-operative board game that I had backed. It was all in, so I had all the planned expansions along with the base game.

Much to my shame, the game has never hit the table since it arrived. Despite it being a genre that I enjoy, a theme I grew up with and love, and by a game designer I like.

I’m going to paint an image now that you will never be able to get out of your head. Copious amounts of alcohol will not work.

Yesterday I was looking for something to read in the bath. I love having a relaxed soak and a read. As you know recently I’ve been reading a lot of stuff about RPG’s. Then I remembered one of the expansions that came with the board game was an RPG.

So there I was yesterday morning soaking in my bath, reading the A5 rule book for the Thunderbirds RPG.

The RPG expansion gets you the following for your money:

  • 2 x custom Thunderbirds d6 dice
  • 56 Page RPG Book
  • 63 Card Mission Generator Deck

But as the extract from the rule book shows you can (well they say that you should) use bits of the board game itself to enhance the experience.

The actual system Modiphius have come up with is a very simple d6 system. Which would not actually take much to move over to the Genesys system. The Genesys system would be a great system to use for this.

Instead of the bonus tokens that the rules use for giving a bonus to a dice roll, a story point would work just as well. The limited skills used would easily cross over. The rules use default characters that naturally are from the show. I don’t see transferring these to Genesys characters being a problem.

The benefits of moving to Genesys would be the narrative dice, the improved combat (which is very very simple in the RPG rules) and social encounters. Plus it would be easier to do skill challenges. Which I think would be awesome in this game.

‘The random Thunderbirds Mission Generator deck will help you create exciting missions for your players or help inspire devious new schemes to test your players to the limit!” There are basically tables in the rulebook as well that cover some of the cards, that can be used for generating ideas also. But you are rolling a d6, looking on a table to decide on an emergency to deal with, then repeating for where the emergency is happening and so on. Which having not seen the Android chapter with their mix and match adventure creation, sounds similar in principle. Except instead you are rolling a die, and I don’t see why you couldn’t also do that with the Android stuff.

I don’t see this Thunderbirds RPG as a campaign thing, but more as a one shot you’d run every now and again as a break from a groups regular campaign, or as an intro to RPG’s for noobs.

You don’t really need to use the board game. It helps. But there are some fantastic Thunderbirds toys available (or used to be), especially of the iconic vehicles. I did check out the available figures for the 7TV miniatures skirmish game. Sadly no Thunderbird like ones. Although their Captain Scarlet ones sparked the idea of a spin off adventure. As did The Prisoner minis they had. Oh that would be soooo cool.

Having said all this, the Thunderbirds RPG or a Genesys version is something that interests me because I love Thunderbirds. I grew up watching them. And would love to visit that universe from time to time.

If you’d like a copy of the RPG expansion you can get it from the publisher for £4.99! Plus whatever they charge for postage.

Pick and Mix Your Adventure Comes To The Android Universe

netrunner, RPG

I think the arrival of the Android universe source book Shadow of the Beanstalk for the Genesys RPG system is imminent.

I’ve read online that one or two people who pre-ordered directly from FFG have notification that their order is on the way.

Which I’m hoping means that the copies stores will be sending out won’t be too far behind.

In the last few days a post has dropped looking at the source book from the point of view of the GM.

The original information announcing the Shadow of the Beanstalk only mentioned that there would be a chapter to help GM’s creature adventures.

Finally in the last post we are given a bit more meat to chew over before getting our grubby mitts on the book.

“The final chapter in Shadow of the Beanstalk describes how to bring these characters and situations to life as the Game Master. Through unique social encounters and an adventure builder included in the sourcebook, you can bring the conspiracies and intrigue of the Android universe to your tabletop.”

From the description below that FFG are giving us a system that works a bit like chose one from column a, one from column b, and one from column c, and that’s your unique adventure.

“Through selecting a variety of hooks, escalations, and climaxes provided in the book, Game Masters can create modular adventure frameworks, complete with twists, turns, and moral quandaries for the party to face. These modular adventure acts can be rejiggered and combined in new and interesting ways. A hook can be replayed several times with a completely different escalation and climax, resulting in a wildly different adventure. With enough change in set dressing, even the same old hook can feel completely different!”

From what I can tell we are still getting the three act structure (which will be covered in a bit more depth in an imminent post). Except they are calling them something different. The hook is Act 1, the escalation Act 2, and finally Act 3 is the climax.

In the post FFG give us a bit more info about each of the acts.

“No matter where your adventure is headed, it starts with the hook—a starting concept to get your players moving into a broader adventure. Each hook consists of three major parts; the primary goal, the challenges, and the twist. The primary goal is what your PCs are trying to accomplish, the challenges are what stand in the character’s way, the twist is an unexpected complication that take characters by surprise. These hooks can range from an airplane heist job to tracking down a rogue experimental clone, and they simply form the basis for an adventure.

An escalation is a rise, either in the stakes or in the difficulty of the adventure, and it’s usually the point where the waters of morality beomce muddy. There is often a plot twist of some kind that shows the players that the milk run they signed up for isn’t as cut and dried as advertised. Perhaps a third party gets involved in the job—whether it’s a rival corporation or an orgcrime faction, this complicates things for your players and creates new challenges.”

Finally, the climax generally represents how the most powerful organization involved wants to attempt to resolve the issue. This organization is probably a powerful corporation or orgcrime faction, but it could also be a religious group or a government. It could be that a higher-up just discovered the actions of their underlings, and orders a radically different course of action. Perhaps the organization decides to cut their losses, silencing everyone involved in the operation, or maybe they decide to place their bets in court, calling in the NAPD to cause trouble for everyone involved. While the climax represents how the most powerful organization wants events to unfold, the players still have the agency to determine how their adventure will end.

With a full data vault of hooks, escalations, and climaxes to choose from and improvise with, Shadow of the Beanstalk is the perfect starting point to your own cyberpunk adventure in the Android universe or beyond!”

It’s interesting that there wasn’t this equivalent chapter in the Terrinoth source book. Maybe FFG assume that with the wealth of fantasy based content out there that there was less of a need.

But this final chapter does sound like an interesting and welcome addition to the tools that a GM can use for creating their adventures in the Android universe. I particularly like the improvise they mention. Being able to quickly make up an adventure on the fly in response to players decisions will be a great tool to have if needed. I can see it being handy for generating one off adventures for the “gaps” between story arcs of an ongoing campaign.

While I’ve been writing these posts on creating a campaign and adventures I’ve been giving more thought to my plans for my first time as a GM and my first steps in the Android universe.

At about the same time as the source book drops, I’m expecting that the taster adventure will also go up on their website. My guess is that this will be the two part adventure they took to GenCon and Pax Unplugged.

So before I go full knees deep in, I want to see what this taster adventure is like. The plan is to run this first.

Where the taster adventure finishes, and the feelings of the group will dictate the further planning.

For me there are some nice events and themes within the Android universe that I’d like to explore or act as a back drop to a campaign/adventure. I’ll probably talk about those in another post also. FFG have such a rich setting in the Android universe, I can’t wait to share it with others.

Should My Golgari Go Sultai?

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

Listening to the latest MTGoldfish podcast they were discussing the state of Standard after a weekend full of big tournaments such as the Star City Games one, and happenings online and Arena since the release of Ravnica Allegiance. When I think Saffron Olive one of the hosts mentioned that some of the Golgari players were going Sultai, ie splashing blue so they could add Hydroid Krasis to their decks.

That struck me as an interesting idea.

I know my Golgari deck (you can find a deck list here) is not the normal one that gets played in all these big tournaments. In those decks they are exploiting the explore mechanic. But there is some common cards like Carnage Tyrant. Isn’t that the fun thing about deck building? These tournament players went one way with the explore, I went mid range/aggro playing lots of removal, John went with exploiting the undergrowth mechanic. All playing the same guild, some common cards, but all expressing ourselves differently.

But if I splashed blue as well I could add Hydroid Krasis to my deck. It’s an idea. What helped sell it was in the same discussion about Golgari decks splashing blue and becoming Sultai, was Assassin’s Trophy. In the meta the podcasters were playing in, with the arrival of Ravnica Allegiance and the availability of all ten shock lands, they were seeing more three colour decks, and decks with very few basic lands in. So often when the Assassin’s Trophy was being played the opponent wasn’t actually getting anything in return in a few cases.


Until Standard Showdown starts up again this weekend, I’m not sure if that’s something I’ll see in my local meta.

I know Dean who I’ve played against a couple of times now in the Showdown (and Commander) is planning a three colour deck. But the others who usually take part I’ve no idea what their plans are.

So with a couple of basic lands (islands), adding in the couple of Breeding Pool I have (I do need a couple more) and a couple of Hydroid Krasis, I have a second deck for this upcoming Standard Showdown season. If I make the changes to the mono blue mill deck as well that will be a third. Then each Showdown I have the hard decision of which deck to play.

On the subject of Hydroid Krasis. I’m so glad I got mine when I did. In a week (which also saw the official release weekend) they have nearly doubled in price. It’s insane. And would explain why the Simic deck was so costly. Three of those plus the Carnage Tyrants. Crazy. That’s the one thing I hate about the game. The speculation and cost of cards. It stops the game being accessible to all.

Now to decide what makes way for the Hydroid Krasis.