“Hey, not too rough” #6

Doom, fps, nintendo, switch, video games

You can find all my previous posts in this project here if you are interested or need to catch up for some reason.

“I won’t take no prisoners, won’t spare no lives
…
I got my bell, I’m gonna take you to hell” Hells Bells, AC/DC

I have no bell but I do have a gatling gun, shotgun, and rocket launcher. They will have to do.

The Shores of Hell

Finally I start the middle setting of the three that make up the original Doom.

After the way Knee-Deep in the Dead finished I’m frankly shocked to be standing.

E2M1 Deimos Anomaly

There’s no exposition as to how I got out of that sticky wicket. All I know is I’m back taking on the forces of hell with just my fists and a pistol.

It feels right from the go that the stakes are higher.

I’m teleporting around the level. Cacodemons are being thrown at me. There’s something satisfying when they melt to the ground after taking that final shotgun blast.

This level is a rarity for me. It’s 100% across the board when I complete it. Yep kills, items, and secret rooms!

“And I’m goin’ down
All the way
I’m on the highway to hell” Highway to Hell, AC/DC

E2M2 Containment Area

I love this level. It’s mainly because I’m running round at one point what is obviously a warehouse, slash storage area of some kind picking off imps hidden amongst the crates.

For me there is something satisfying clearing the area of threats, getting on top of crates, finding hidden areas.

The level design is superb. I picked out the above couple of examples. But all of the levels so far are text book examples in good level design.

One last surprise on this level is the appearance of the Lost Souls. These flaming skulls like the Cacodemon are classic. I just love the look of these two enemies.

E2M3 Refinery

Caged Cacodemons in front of me, imps, demons, and marines to the left and pouring in from the front. Fire, dodge, fire, dodge, is the order of the day until it goes all silent.

There have been two board games based on Doom. Both from FFG. The first came out in 2004 and had an expansion released for it in 2005. An updated second edition came out in 2016.

To be fair and I’m laying the blame for this series of posts squarely at the feet of Marcin. These posts and the replay of Doom would not have happened if Marcin had not been selling his 2004 edition of the Doom board game.

A couple of months back now I saw some-one local was selling a copy of Doom on the Facebook marketplace. So I messaged them that I was interested. It turned out to be Marcin selling it.

After Marcin checked that I knew it was the 2004 edition he was selling and not the 2016 one. Which was perfect as that was the edition that I wanted. We exchanged money for cardboard and plastic the next time we saw each other.

I wasn’t worried about the 2016 edition as that seemed easily available.

Harder to find was the 2005 expansion.

There is a copy of the base game and expansion, both in shrink, on eBay where the seller is looking for £1000! Yes you read that right.

So I offered them what I thought was a reasonable offer of £60 for the expansion only. Not surprisingly that offer was turned down.

In the meantime my search turned up a second hand copy of the game with the expansion on bgg for a much more reasonable price of 99 of the Kings coin.

So I went back to the eBay seller and made my case for an improved offer of 80 quid. More than fair I thought.

However the reply was very aggressive threatening to report me to eBay if I contacted them again. Honestly I was taken aback by the reply that seemed a tad of an overreaction.

The following couple of weeks since, I got more than one email from eBay encouraging me to make another offer!

I am now the proud owner of a second copy of the 2004 Doom with the expansion, because yes I did buy the bgg one.

Which means I have two copies of the core game. I’m keeping both. No wait hear me out. It means I can play just the core game or with the expansion without having to unsort or add the expansion. I just have to grab the right box.

Doom (2004) Knee-deep in the Dead scenario being played

So I got Doom (2004) the board game to the table for a full four player game.

I enjoy one vs many style games, add in that I like dungeon crawls and Doom was ticking a lot of boxes for me.

Usually I’m the one playing on the side of the forces of evil. So it was refreshing that this time Dave kindly took on that role.

We were playing the first scenario of the five that the game has called Knee Deep In The Dead. Each of the scenarios is named after one of the ones in the video game.

We had a blast despite the eventual demise of our marines.

Diego and Gavin left me with the chainsaw as my weapon as they grabbed the shotgun and machine gun. I felt cheated.

But as they ran out of the scarce ammo I was cutting away all before me. I even lobbed the odd grenade that I picked up to great effect once or twice.

After a very deceiving start to the level things started to get tougher. More, bigger, tougher opponents started entering the battlefield.

However it went totally wrong when the blue key we found was broken. Unable to open the door we had to double back through a horde of monsters.

That was the start of the end. Ammo was almost out, we were clearing a slow path through the bodies but at a great cost.

In the end it was too much. We were overwhelmed by the hordes of hell.

The big question did it feel like we were playing a physical game of Doom?

Yes it did to some extent. Especially the scarce amount of ammo. The running out of ammo, having to resort to using fists. Then there is the respawning after dying. Although it’s not quiet like the video game as you keep all your stuff!

As for the wave after wave of monsters to kill as we worked our way through the level map. Not knowing what was waiting round the corner or on the other side of the door. Yeah that was captured very well.

I can’t wait to play more scenarios from the game, and to throw in the expansion as well.

I’ve waded through pools, no rivers of acid. Fought off the horrors hidden in the maze by the strobing lights. Somehow I’ve made it to the exit.

I push the button and the screen melts away.

Venturing into the Shadowdark #2

one shot, RPG, session planning, Shadowdark

With Saturdays D&D session now behind me, my thoughts are now turned towards Wednesday and the Shadowdark one-shot.

As hinted in the initial post that prep involves watching some videos by Kelsey (the games designer). Which I’ve embedded below for easy reference and rewatching for me.

These videos are great as a resource for some-one looking to try Shadowdark, and particularly the Quick Start kit with it’s included adventure.

I know that one player has already created a human priest character for the session.

I’m not sure which direction the other players want to go, whether that’s using precons or roll their own. I’ll find out on the night I suppose.

In meantime I need to try and create a version of the Shadowdark GM cheat sheet that I did for D&D.

Looking forward to playing this.

D&D Grp 2 Session 14 Planning #2

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

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

It’s the morning of game day. So it’s time to go through the Lazy GM (rebranded during the OGL Fiasco of 2023) steps to get ready.

But before I do that I was processing some last minute ideas for this session and future ones.

Yesterday I went to the online printer in the UK that I found (Doxzoo) and had the WotC plane shift booklets for Ixalan and Innistrad ordered along with a copy of a book I got off the DMs Guild on harvesting monsters (there is no print option).

I’ve been on the edge of pulling the trigger on purchasing the latest D&D adventure compendium Keys from the Golden Vault to get the gambling games rules.

However a quick Google got me those rules. So I can punt that decision into the future. So I have the ability to run Three-Dragon Ante and Life and Death during a session.

I like the idea of having this as an option to make visits to a tavern more interesting. I’m also toying with the idea of possibly using Life and Death today!

It’s possible that the lizardfolk the party will bump into will challenge the party to a game with some reward other than money as the prize for winning, such as a map.

I’ve also this morning ordered a copy of Three-Dragon Ante off Amazon along with a wooden box to keep the deck of many things in.

Obviously with Three-Dragon Ante arriving tomorrow playing that will be an option in future sessions. Whilst I could use the deck of many things today if I so wished. I think the mystery box will add to the theatrics when it is final found. Although I do like the idea of using it for the deck of illusions as well.

I’m also working on my own cheat sheet, slash riff on the generator tables by Sly Flourish for harvesting based on the pdf book I bought on harvesting. As I want to use harvesting of monsters more productively with the party seeing as they have been harvesting corpses! The hope of this sheet is that it will help me improvise harvesting during a session. Or during planning for a monster I stat out using the Folio of Fiends.

I also whilst skimming through the stuff about the latest WotC adventure thingy got reminded of the arcane lock spell. A spell that will be used either in this session or the next I think.

Right got to go and do those lazy steps…

Father Son Gaming Easter Holidays Edition #2

father son gaming, Game day, game night

Our morning started off with us learning War of the Ring the card game.

We played the two player Fellowship of the Ring scenario. It’s slightly less complicated rules wise. Only uses paths and battlegrounds that cover the first book, and the battlegrounds are not chosen at random but played in order. The decks are also constructed differently, taking out certain cards from the factions, or missing a faction altogether.

After a slow start as we learnt the rules as we played we soon got into the swing of things.

Oh Nath played the part of the Fellowship, while I played the Nazgûl.

It was interesting that early on I had card advantage, was drawing more cards. But that flipped in the later stages to Nath having the card advantage.

It’s certainly a very nice game, with interesting choices to be made every turn. Which starts with which card to discard and which to play. As you can’t play a card without discarding one.

Then you have to decide to whether play the card to a path, battleground or into reserve.

As the forces of darkness I was cycling through my deck a lot, and I didn’t take advantage of certain card abilities to thin out my opponents cards.

I’m pretty sure we had rules errors whilst playing. But who cares? we had fun.

Somehow my Nazgûl won by a single point.

After visiting the game shop in Basingstoke (I left with War machine, Iron Heart, and Green Goblin scenario pack, and got Nath a MtG Challenger deck) we saw the new Super Mario Bros movie.

Wow I’ve not laughed like that during a movie in a long time. It’s a great movie. Although I may be biased as a Mario fan.

Obviously my age means I got to play Mario back in the day when he was just Jump Man and not the main attraction, just a supporting act.

My first real Mario game though was Super Mario Land on the GameBoy. Yeah I missed the main Mario games on the NES/SNES because I didn’t own either. I loved the original Mario Golf on the GameBoy too.

At the time as you know from my Doom posts I was on a pc mainly playing stuff there. The GameBoy was my “console” at the time. For some reason I love portable gaming systems.

I’m currently reading a book about Super Mario Bros 2. I find these sort of books about our gaming history interesting and add to my enjoyment of the game in question. And yes I will be going back and playing the game once the Doom project is finished.

Back to the movie. There is so much fan service here and it’s a delight as you spot the Easter eggs such as the NES console, or Punchout being mentioned.

I loved the humour, and was laughing a lot during the movie.

This was the perfect Mario movie! It did exactly what the games do, bring a smile to the face.

Certain scenes made me want to play a Mario game. A weaker soul going into Game afterwards would have caved and bought another Mario game. However I did play Mario Kart 8 later in the evening to get the “craving” out of my system.

Later in the evening Nath and I played a couple of games of MtG with him using his new deck. We shared the honours.

Father Son Gaming Easter Holidays Edition

father son gaming, Game day, game night

An uneventful drive down saw me arrive mid afternoon at Nathan’s.

Yep it’s holiday time and a chance to spend a couple of days with my son.

We played a couple of games of MtG using two of the Pioneer Challenger decks (Gruul Stompy vs Mono Red Burn).

Nathan started off playing mono red. A simpler deck I thought for refreshing your memory on how to play. However getting mana screwed certainly slowed the deck down, and allowed me to stomp to victory unchallenged.

After the first game we swapped decks. Despite eventually losing playing red, I did a lot better. Hitting land drops, getting creatures out, just not doing damage quick enough. With both of us having a good presence on the battlefield, one of us was waiting until they could get the edge in the impending reckoning. That was until Nath was able to board wipe my forces and swing in unchallenged for the win.

This morning Nathan and I played a game of Deep Sea Adventure with the die expansion, and two promo meeples!

I like what the die brings to the game. That chance to move three times the value of the second die is a huge attraction for using it. Plus gives a glimmer of hope when trying to get back up to the surface, however slim.

Although the side that gets its value from the number of players sharing the direction you are moving is less helpful in a two player game.

And yes the dice tray is pointless and will just get stored in a box somewhere and never used.

I did win our game by being the only one managing to get treasure to the surface.

We followed up our underwater adventures with some more MtG. This time we used the game night kit decks.

I have to say the elf deck is most certainly an elf deck. It ramps quickly, it gets lots of elves out, you get value from having lots of elves out. It’s fun to play. But not sure it is being on the opposite side from it.

I like playing MtG this way. Grabbing a deck or two and just playing a game or two.

After Nathan had his driving test. Which he sadly failed. We went and saw the new Dungeon and Dragons Honour Among Thieves movie.

It was very enjoyable.

Some of the sfx could have been better (especially the halflings). I think the mix of humour was just right. It had its hulk smash moment taken straight from the first Avengers movie.

I think the performances were fine. Plus the odd guest appearance.

Have I said how bad the halflings were? They were pretty awful.

The story isn’t the greatest, but very standard D&D fare for sure.

I (a D&D player) enjoyed the movie as did Nath (a non-D&D player). So it has that sweet spot of appealing to both types.

Venturing into the Shadowdark #1

one shot, RPG, session planning, Shadowdark

Plans are afoot to run a one-shot using the free Shadowdark rpg QuickStart from Arcane Library (and available FREE on DriveThruRPG).

I’m a fan of Kelsey’s work. Like many others I backed her Kickstarter for the Shadowdark rpg. I went all in. That’s the rulebook, lots of additional content, GM screen. You know everything I could get basically.

Naturally I want to play Shadowdark.

Somehow Fenland Gamers has grown a small group of players interested in playing one-shots or short campaigns that are not only D&D 5e, but other systems. I think the driving interest is that they love playing RPGs however life doesn’t allow for the commitment to a regular campaign.

It’s that group of players that I’m arranging a session or two of Shadowdark.

I’ve had the fore-mentioned QuickStart guide printed out, along with the first three monsters Kelsey did as part of the Kickstarter, blank character sheets, and the precons. Oh and I nearly forgot an A3 copy of the map from the included adventure.

Now I’m busy reading the rules, and adventure. Plus watching the videos Kelsey did during the kickstarter.

I’m sure there will be another post (or two) before we get Shadowdark to the table. I’ll share initial impressions about the QuickStart then.

D&D Grp 2 Session 14 Planning #1

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

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

So I have a stat block for the Bagman (see last planning post) but I’m pretty sure that before I need that I’ll need a stat block for Rullus Hobb.

As the back of his npc card shows he’s a sorcerer. Sadly there are no official npc stat blocks!

The ideal time to use the Folio of Fiends preview.

I’ve also spent a morning playing with heroforge to create my take on an avatar of death, and one or two different Harengons.

I just need to buy the stls and get them printed.

My priority is multiple angels of death to use with a certain deck of cards!

I’ve also been approached by a player about another player joining the group.

We have room for one more. The group is currently five in size. A player has dropped out because of life stuff. Plus we are looking like we will lose one more due to other commitments that clash with the game now regularly happening on a Saturday again (thanks to my life events changing).

I kinda like the group size at four. It’s a nice size.

So this session will see a new player come along for a trial session to see if our game is a right fit for both parties.

Now I just need to work out how they can join mid dungeon!

Alice is Missing

game night, RPG

Last night Jeff, Diego, Charlene, and myself gathered together to play the ttrpg Alice is Missing.

Alice is Missing has become this mythical like experience that if you enjoy RPG’s you have to try. I think a combination of reviews and word of mouth have contributed to it achieving this.

A lot of this buzz is based around its unique mechanic of being a silent RPG played solely through text messages, plus the emotional experience the theme and collaborative storytelling give.

I’ve had the Alice is Missing rpg in physical and digital forms for nearly two years. I just never got a chance to play it.

Well that was until last night.

Plans were made, interest noted. Eventually after the usual song and dance to negotiate a date, we had all could make.

As the day got closer I watched and rewatched videos of the rules on YouTube.

The excitement and trepidation was building up.

Game day and I’m reading the rulebook.

“Oh bugger I need to print stuff off.”

Then my next thought was “have I got enough ink?”

Luckily this was not a last minute realisation and I had time to find out I barely had enough ink in the printer. I got the blank character sheets printed along with the game sheets and five of the posters before there was not enough ink.

I was spared a dash to Tescos. I had enough to go with.

On the drive over to Charlene’s humble abode my mind started to ponder things about our game that evening.

Was I in a good enough emotional place to handle the sort of subjects that could crop up during the session?

I’m still a bit fragile from the passing of Nan. Talking about her can be quite hard at times.

Just the previous day a friend told me they had cancer and was starting a course of radiotherapy. During our time together I couldn’t help noticing that I thought they looked a bit frail. It was certain moments. Not all the time. Maybe I was reading too much into what I thought I saw. I have to admit I was hit hard by the news. Obviously memories of my friend Ben came back to me.

Back when I did the first aid course for Tesco and we did the resuscitation bit of the training it really hit me hard. Memories of trying to resuscitate Dad and Nan came flooding back. I couldn’t fight back the tears. I had to leave the room.

I’d never for the life of me would have thought I’d react like that.

So knowing the sort of things Alice is Missing could go into, would I have a similar reaction?

I didn’t feel I was in the strongest emotional state for this game.

Sitting in the Asda car park near to Charlene’s I ordered Dominos pizza for us all as I waited for our agreed time to arrive. I’d said I’d provide snacks and pizza as Charlene was hosting.

That snack bit had seen me making a last minute dash round one of the stores I used to work in before it closed.

After a warm welcome from Charlene’s two dogs and the others arriving we setup.

I really like the setup process. The rulebook talks through the whole process for the facilitator, highlighting which bits need to be read out aloud etc.

We covered the important X cards, lines and veil’s safety tools. In a game like this they are a must.

The pizza arrived just before we recorded our messages for Alice.

After having our fill of pizza we finished off the setup and started playing in silence.

Wow!

The 90 minutes flew by.

It was such a compelling experience.

With the only sound being the official soundtrack that the timer plays it felt so weird initially playing in silence. The only communication via WhatsApp chat.

The silence added to the impact of a certain event.

I was surprised that I didn’t seem to have had the same emotional experience as others had had.

Maybe that was due to our personal histories or we didn’t go into graphic detail on what could be described as the more triggering subjects. Or the cards that we drew for the key moments. Or all of the above.

I was expecting a Twin Peaks or 13 Reasons vibe to the session. They start off with the death. Which isn’t how this plays out.

Whatever the reason we had a good time. We really enjoyed ourselves.

I’m glad it was Jeff, Diego and Charlene who were the ones I experienced Alice is Missing with, and it was not at the community centre. The place where you play it and with whom is key I think. There needs to be that element of trust and safety because of the games themes.

Anyway I’ll definitely play again, and glad I backed the expansion on kickstarter.

A magical Friday evening

Commander, game night, MtG

I’ve not talked about or played MtG for a long time now. Which should worry WotC. Some-one who loves the game, loves playing it. Not playing it,buying product, or talking about it.

But that changed Friday evening when I taught Dave and Clack how to play.

On the way home I had popped in to my FLGS to try and pick up a copy of the game night kit free for all kit (a box of five standard decks that can be opened up and played by a group of friends). Sadly they did not have one.

They had also sold out of jump start decks.

I needed something I could use with new players. That was new player friendly.

So I ended up with a Starter Kit, plus a Pioneer Challenger deck (I already had two others I could use).

A mad dash back home in record time (all the traffic lights en route were in my favour) to pick up what I needed for the evening. Saw me arrive 10 minutes later than we had arranged.

I started off teaching MtG using the Starter Kit decks for Dave and Clack, whilst I used an old Card Kingdom battle deck I had.

This was a fun first game. They both attacked me a lot declaring me as the main threat because I knew how to play the game!

I managed to stabilise at 4 health before being able to hit back and grab a victory.

Next I gave out a random 2021 D&D Commander deck (not the current set) and went over the brief changes to the format.

Our commanders

I need to look into the themes of these decks. Mine was obviously a dragon deck and all about getting them out. Clack’s deck was possibly a voltron style deck. Dave’s was the confusing one, and seemed all about venturing through dungeons and getting those benefits and graveyard shenanigans?

This game Clack got mana screwed. It happens. As a MtG player you just accept it happens, and hope you live long enough to try and mount some sort of comeback once the lands start showing up.

In a game of Commander being mana screwed might be an advantage early on as other players don’t see you as a threat, and leave you alone as they beat up on each other.

I was ramping up nicely in this game, got my commander out. Was the monarch (a great mechanic for Commander) spamming out tokens. Life was good for the dragons.

Unchecked I was just able to swing in and single shot both Dave and Clack for the victory.

Our second game it was my turn to get mana screwed. It happens. See previous comments above about it.

Eventually I was able to start playing cards and building up a presence on the battlefield.

Clack’s voltron deck was firing off, and some rather threatening creatures were being equipped and made nastier. Dave and I were at risk of dying from Commander damage by Clack.

Dave made it hard for Clack and I to block his attacks, as we were for large chunks of the game only able to block with legendary creatures.

He was also venturing through those dungeons a lot and pulling creatures back from the graveyard.

Our decks were doing stuff.

I think this game felt more commandery than our previous one. There was more politic stuff going on. More “don’t attack me I’m not a threat, look at that big creature they have. Now that’s a threat!”

Despite that distinct lack of mana for what felt like an eternity I managed to hold on in their and win.

It was a fun evening of MtG.

Not only did I get to introduce new players to the game. But I was reminded what I like so much about the game.

Plus the Starter Kit and Pioneer decks I can play with Nath when I visit him next week.

Win, win.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #13

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

Post Mortem

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one. Don’t give in to temptation go read something else.

We were two players down this session. For one it was the second session in a row they had missed so I need to find out if they are still wanting to be in the group.

The second was due to illness. So instead of some-one controlling their character I made an excuse up that the character needed to rest after the previous sessions efforts and would catch them up.

Even so we started later than planned which meant a shorter session.

The party are still working their way through the endless warrens (or the Caves of Chaos map I am using for them).

This part of the campaign is a bit of a dungeon crawl. But not a slugfest for sure. They are getting encounters of some sort in most of the rooms on the map that are driven by the dungeon encounters deck.

I’d like to think that the players are having an interesting exploration of the dungeon that isn’t just a murder hobo slaughterhouse with a combat in each room.

In fact the only possible combat they could have had didn’t happen as the ogre failed the check and had to go off and eat the ogre corpse in a nearby room.

But the next session things are going to be more violent.

They still have no idea about the two fungi they are carrying. We’ll see what they will do with them. The temptation to say “just eat them for crying out” is just so strong sometimes during the session. But I resist and don’t give in.

Right I think that covers it for the session I’ll see you in the next session prep post.