New Dice Bag

accessories, dice masters, Dicemasters, first look

At the start of December or it might have been mid December. Any way it was in December before Christmas I decided to treat myself to a new dice bag to use with Dice Masters.

I had been tempted by the handmade ones by Jocelyn. Who just happens to be one half of the rather great Dice Masters podcast A Double Double and Dice. You remember me mentioning them in the past. That’s the podcast that reads out my comments! So I’m not biased at all. Honest.

Anyway the dice bag I ordered from Jocelyn arrived this morning.

I really like this dice bag.

It’s very personal to me. The reason being when you order you select one of the many themed material patterns that Jocelyn has on her Etsy page for the outside (I went with the rather tasteful spider web pattern). Then I chose the what I refer to as lime green lining for the inside.

Once the order was placed Jocelyn contacted me to confirm my material choices. Which I confirmed.

I like that touch. Seeing images of the two materials next to each other gives you an idea if they work or not. Luckily for me I thought my choices did.

One design choice of these dice bags that I really like is the use of ribbon to close the dice bag over cord. I think it looks better and does the same job.

The included note was a nice touch. It’s little things like that, and the confirmation of materials that make great customer service, and have you ordering more.

I’m really happy with this dice bag. My only issue is I don’t have enough money to get all the various patterns of material I want. There are a lot of cool ones.

If you want to get your own dice bag from Jocelyn you can get it at Jocestitch on Etsy.

Did you cheat?

father son gaming, Game day

Not much gaming got done on our last full day together.

We played two new games that I wanted to try with Nathan. Those being High Score and Viva Java the coffee game the dice game.

I’m not going to go into much detail about them here. I’ll save my discussion about them for my game dev posts.

Nathan won High Score. Although I think he may have manipulated the dice once or twice!

Viva Java I won.

After the games I finished off our tea of roast lamb. The gravy was amazing. And I thought the lamb went really well with my 5 or 6 bean stew that I made. Sadly a combo Nathan did not get to enjoy as he doesn’t like beans.

Our lunch has been curry wurst a German street food I belief. Basically it’s bratwurst with a curry sauce, with some chips. The origins of the curry sauce recipe goes back to after the Second World War where legend goes a German lady was challenged by a US soldier to come up with a recipe/sauce using ketchup.

After tea was spent watching season one of Reacher. Which Nathan hadn’t seen before, followed by the start of season one of Jack Ryan.

It was a chill day with my son. Just what I needed.

I’ll do anything for money but I won’t do that!

father son gaming, Game day

My first full day with Nathan saw a favourite of his (and mine) Star Wars Outer Rim with the Unfinished Business expansion hit the table.

I think the last couple of visits we’ve not managed to get Outer Rim to the table. So it was nice to get this to the table again.

Nathan started setting it up. And by that I mean he put the outer rim segments together before asking me to finish off the setup.

Setup and tear down is a doddle for me. I have seperate deck boxes for the various decks, baggies for the tokens and standees.

Nathan chose Boba Fett (again, as a Renowned Smuggler) and I went with Doctor Aphra (Living Legend).

Through out the game I felt Nathan had the credit advantage, and he did manage to upgrade his ship twice. Whilst for the whole game I never upgraded my ship.

Play was interrupted for a roast chicken thigh and Yorkshire pudding tea.

After the food break I seemed to edge ahead by completing two of my three ambition objectives before Nathan had completed one of his. But a late surge from Nathan meant we were both racing to complete our final objective and win the game.

Sadly a good dice roll by Nathan on a final job I needed to complete to get me the funds to trigger my final objective denied me that one more turn I needed, as he finished his final objective on his next turn after I completed the job.

It was a fun afternoon and evening spent with Nathan in the Outer Rim.

A blast from my past

father son gaming, game night

Despite reports of artic conditions, and that ever mythical snow down South. I made it safely to Nathan’s. Mum needn’t have worried. But she wouldn’t be a mum if she didn’t worry. Even when their eldest is so advanced in years.

We played a couple of games during the evening.

The first an all in game of 7 Wonders Dual.

It was rather cramped on the table. But that didn’t stop us from playing.

We were pretty rusty on the rules, particularly for the two expansions. So we were frequently referring to the two rule books.

I had decided to go all in on a science win. Whilst mid game Nathan had found out that a senate victory was possible and was going for that, along with a possible military victory as a back up.

In fact Nathan could have won with the senate victory if he hadn’t moved one of his cubes. Instead I got a science win after Nathan miss remembered the win condition. He thought it was seven symbols, when it was in fact six.

Later after some sleeving of the cards in the LoTR LCG Fellowship of the Ring saga I taught Nathan a card game from my early years called Trumps. It’s also known as Knock Out Whist I believe.

I spent a lot of time playing this game as a teenager.

Whilst at secondary school we used to play it during tutorials. Officially we weren’t meant to be playing it. But our tutor group was a bit on the rebellious side. Led by our tutor!

I also played it a lot with my dad’s aunt, Aunt Joan. It was most likely her that taught me the game. Which I then took to the classroom.

As a two player game it’s ok. It’s quick. I even used the dogs life rule for Nathan after he failed to take a trick on one of the early rounds. I shouldn’t have done that as he then got the win. On the penultimate round we both got a trick each. So we cut the deck to see who won. Sadly for me that went Nathan’s way. So he chose trumps for the final round of one card.

Afterwards I continued sleeving cards and getting the recommended player decks constructed ready for us to play the game.

Oh our evening meal was spaghetti bolognaise.

Hopefully a good week ahead

father son gaming, life, the universe, and everything, still alive

Things change. It’s the only thing that we can count on in life. Well that and the other two, death and taxes as the saying goes.

Things are going to change on the work front once again. For the better? Who knows?

In the meantime I have nine days off.

The plan is to go visit Nathan for a couple of days.

Obviously I’m taking the LoTR lcg and the Fellowship of the Ring saga.

But alongside that I’m taking some dice games with me to play as research. In that pile are Seasons, Viva Java the dice game, High Score, Yahtzee, Farkle, the Knizia books, Age of War, Hellboy the dice game, and hopefully Strike! (if it arrives in time).

I’m really looking forward to seeing Nathan and playing games with him. It’s been way too long since my last visit.

New Year, New Games

game night

My first gaming of the new year took place Friday. It was meant to be Wednesday but a monkey wrench was thrown into that plan. Such as the community centre not being open when Dave and I got there!

But five of us met up last night to play some games. Between us we had enough games to choose from that would outnumber an average persons game collection.

After some catching up it was time to choose a game to play.

Jonathan wanted to try Cascadia and it was a game I was interested in trying to.

Cascadia

There was such a great gaming moment when Charlene cost herself 24 points by joining her two groups of bears together to make a single one. It was a classic moment of “oh shit, why did I do that?”

I have to admit this was a nice drafting game. Not the heaviest of games. I like the variety of scoring cards that influence what you draft during the game on the animal side. Plus you have other means of getting points based on the terrain tiles. It gives some variety in the tactics and the way to get points.

Ben took the honours.

After Jonathan left we had a game of Stich fur Stich.

It’s a weird combo of mechanics. Think deduction with trick taking!

A player randomly chooses a character and a weapon who did the crime (?) from their set of tiles. This pairing secretly decides trumps for that round.

The players then play a card from their hand. The person that chose the tiles then declares who won the trick, but not why. The other players then try and work out what the two trump tiles are.

The other players then secretly select the tiles they think are trumps, show them to the person who knows and they say yes or no if the guess was right.

The trick taking repeats until all cards are played.

I scoring for the player who chose the trumps is based on how long it takes the others to all guess the trumps plus the tricks taken. Whilst the other players score on the number of cards in hand when they guess correctly and tricks won.

It took a round or two to warm to the game. Especially when Charlene “broke” the game on the first couple of tries by guessing right first time!

I’d be interesting to see what Jonathan thinks of the game. He does like deduction games.

Charterstone Saturday

Saturday saw games three and four of the Charterstone campaign finally happen.

There had been a long pause since starting it due to diary conflict!

Somehow I won a game! I think it’s my first win even taking into account the aborted campaign I played a couple years back.

It really is interesting to see stuff we never saw in the aborted campaign. So there is still moments of mystery for us who took part in that previous campaign.

At the end of the second game we did set a date for the next session.

We finished off with FTW!

Another new card game from Ben’s collection. He does have a knack for finding interesting and fun filler card games.

It was enjoyable. An interesting combo of keeping your highest value card and trying to get rid of the rest of your hand. At the end of the round you score your highest value card in hand minus the total of your remaining cards in hand.

Two great days of gaming. And a great way to start off the new year.

I blame Scott Rogers

#YourTurn, Cyberpunk Dice Game, Game Design Project, Game Dev Diary, Prototype

The inspiration bug that Scott Rogers ignited with his book Your Turn! is kicking in.

In the past I’ve given constructive feedback on my friends games that they have created. Whether that’s Jonathan and his Streets of Commonville, Jeff’s evolution themed card game, or Byron and one of his prototypes. Whether that feedback was any good or useful is open to debate.

However up until now I’ve never felt tempted to create my own game.

But now it’s time to put up or shut up!

The slightly less portable game prototype kit

I’ve put together a portable prototyping kit. It’s not exactly the suggested list in the appendix A of Your Turn! It’s 90% of the list, with some additional bits scavenged from a completed copy of Pandemic Year One. Plus a couple of bits don’t fit into the case I purchased.

I have the genesis of an idea for a game.

I want to create a cyberpunk themed dice game.

I like dice games. Heck we know how I feel about Dice Masters, dice versions of board games, even roll and writes. So it’s only natural I’d want to create a game that uses dice in some significant way.

There is no way you’d describe my knowledge of dice games as encyclopaedic.

At the moment I’m entering a “research” phase. Where I’m trying to expand my knowledge of dice games, and how dice can be used within a board game.

As part of my “research” I have a small list of dice games I want to get or try. Plus one or two in my collection that I haven’t played I want to get to the table. There are others in my collection that I want to revisit.

I’m going to try and get one or two of the games before I visit Nathan next week. He’s the ideal person to try them with.

Nathan will also have to suffer me wanting to try one or two games from the two Knizia books on dice games that I have. In the name of “research” obviously. You can see my current research reading list at the end of the post.

Ideas are already slowly coming through. So I’m making notes of them as they surface.

I have some mechanics I like and think I want to include such as the Yahtzee push your luck, I split you chose, and the Free League mutant year zero stress dice mechanic (particularly the Alien rpg) that uses push your luck in another way.

In the next post I’ll look at why cyberpunk as the theme.

Bibliography aka Reading List

  • Tredd, W.E. (2013) Dice games new and old: how to play dice games over 50 including craps. Cambridge: Oleander Press.
  • Knizia, R. (2010) Dice games properly explained. Place of publication not identified: Blue Terrier Press.
  • Knizia, R. (2019) New tactical games with dice and cards. United States: Blue Terrier Press.
  • Rogers, S.A. (2023) Your Turn! The Guide to Great Tabletop Game Design. Indianapolis: John Wiley and Sons.

LoTR LCG: Fellowship of the Ring

LCG, Lord of the Rings, LoTR, LoTR LCG Saga

I had this idea that this series of posts will look at playing the three sagas that make up the telling of the Lord of the Rings. At the time of writing this initial post only the first two sagas, Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers have been released. So hopefully by the time I get to the end of The Two Towers the third and final saga The Return of the King will have been released.

There is a good likely hood of that being the case as my intention on playing these sagas is to play them first with Nathan. I want to share the experience of playing through the scenarios for the first time with him. Luckily we start our journey through Middle Earth next week when I visit him.

The background stuff

I own the Revised Core Set, The Dark of Mirkwood scenario pack, two of the starter decks (dwarfs and elves), and the two sagas mentioned above. Which means I have none of the earlier released material. I’m coming to this from playing the sagas for the first time.

In a previous post I’ve described how I began what has now been a four decade long love affair with the books.

Yes there are paratexts I have used for these posts. The most obvious ones are the original books by Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit. But at one point or other in my life I’ve also read Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion. Plus a couple of biographies, JRR Tolkien A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter, and J.R.R. Tolkien Author of the Century by Tom Shippey.

There are also the BBC radio plays of both books, plus Tales from the Perilous Realm. The later has The Adventures of Tom Bombadil which which was not included in the original radio play. I’ve also at some point listened to the CD J.R.R. Tolkien: An Audio Portrait and a CD I have somewhere of Tolkien reading extracts from his books.

I’d be amiss if the Peter Jackson movies were not mentioned here also, particularly the extended editions. I also can’t forget the 1979 animated movie by Ralph Bakshi. Which I do have a soft spot for. After all it’s one of my earliest memories of being introduced to Tolkien and Middle Earth.

Oddly enough I only subscribe and watch one Tolkien/LoTR based YouTube channel, and that’s Jess of the Shire.

DISCLAIMER: Some of these paratexts are fresher in my mind than others. Also I’m not in anyway claiming to be anything more than a fan. In no way shape or other am I claiming to be an expert. There are far more knowledgeable people out there than me.

Before I go any further I should give a SPOILER ALERT! As I write these posts I’m not sure where there are going but I’m pretty sure they may touch on spoilers for this campaign. It’s not my intention to ruin the surprises, twists and turns that the campaign has for anyone. So if you don’t want to run the risk of me doing that for yourself then please avoid this series of posts.

For this dramatic playthrough of the Fellowship of the Ring campaign I’ll be using the starter decklists as given in the expansions rulebook.

FFG Starter Decklists

As a brief aside although the Revised Core set supports up to four players. I do feel that it is primarily meant to be a two player experience. This is based on the fact we have a deck list for two decks to be played. That more than two players just take the cards for a single sphere of influence seems a bit of a cop out and lazy to me.

The two deck lists in this expansion (see above) help reinforce this feeling that the designers see this as a two player game.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining. This is mainly how I play the game. It’s either with Nathan when I visit him. Or with one of my friends. I’m not a solo gamer (although I like the idea). And I haven’t played or thought of playing the game with more than two players. Although if I were it’d be a three player game.

Before I close off this initial post I should point out that the LoTR Revised Core set ended up being my game of the year for 2023.

The next post in this series will be the start of our journey through the Fellowship of the Ring saga and the scenarios I get to play with Nathan on my visit to him. See you then.

2023 in review

bgstat, by the numbers, gaming stats, stats, Year In Review

We are two days into the new year. So it’s time to look back at my 2023 gaming.

This post is made possible by the wonderful app bgstats. I’ve been recording all my game plays in the app since 2017. That’s a lot of data. I’ll have to do a post using that data at some point.

So let’s start off with my most played games of the year.

My Top 9 Played Games of 2023

Obviously games like MtG or Dice Masters are going to be in the top spots. It’s nice to see Dice Masters back in the mix. It’s a great game that I’m glad I decided to get back into.

Dave is the new Jonathan!

It used to be Jonathan was the person I played games with the most. But since Fenland Gamers has taken off with more people attending in the last year, the opportunities to play have got less.

In steps Dave a new member to the club who joined in August! Dave has become a great friend and opponent in such a short time.

I’m glad I can call all those I’ve played with friends.

The Raw Stats

Ok here are the raw stats for 2023 as presented by bgstats.

Very Challenging

I didn’t complete a single challenge this year. I may let them roll over for 2024. I still find it hard to believe I have so many unplayed games in my collection.

Challenge Progress

I’m excited to see what 2024 brings gaming wise.

My GOTY for 2023 is…

annual awards, by the numbers, gaming stats, GoTY, stats

Happy New Year.

I hope 2024 is a better year than 2023 for everyone. Hopefully that will be the case when the Tories get obliterated at the ballot box.

After much deliberation I have finally decided which of the 43 new to me games that I played in 2023 is my game of the year.

It wasn’t an easy decision.

But before I reveal the results of that deliberation, last year I did a couple of “minor” awards. So this year I thought I’d repeat those two categories before doing the big reveal.

Roll & Write of 2023

I played 4 new roll and writes this year. A drop from last year. However these four new games were pretty good.

Here are the four contenders. They are a great demonstration of how varied this genre of board games can be.

The winner is Motor City.

Motor City is the follow up to last years winner Three Sisters. It’s definitely the most complex of the four games.

Like it’s two predecessors it can seem a bit overwhelming with its two pads. I felt it wasn’t as combotastic as Three Sisters. But it’s still a very nice ‘on the heavier side’ roll and write. It feels totally different to the previous two in the series.

Expansion of 2023

I didn’t buy many expansions this year. There were the promo packs for Rolling Realms. But I’ve not got them to the table. So ineligible for this award.

I think there can only be one winner for this award this year, and it feels a bit of a cheat. It is touted as a stand alone expansion. The winner is Dune Imperium Uprising.

I love Dune Imperium and I love the changes introduced in Uprising.

And now for the big decision, and the one you are really interested in.

GOTY of 2023

My game of 2023 is…

Lord of the Rings the living card game revised edition.

I think what swayed it for LoTR is Nathan. When I played it with him Nathan was keen to play the game and take on the next scenario. He asked to play it again.

And even though I’ve played one or two of the other contenders with Nathan also. It was that reaction and the fond memories of playing with him that contributed to the decision.

Plus as I’ve written in previous posts I’m a Tolkien fanboy. So I love the theme.

Even with just the revised core set FFG included a fun to play campaign with some nice variety in the scenarios. It was interesting to see FFG play with different mechanics.

What’s your game of 2023?