A knackered hunt for new life

game night

Wednesday night saw a small band of intrepid researchers gather to look for new life forms!

It’d been a very long day, because I had been up since 3:45am (yes that is normally the case on a game night). Work has been extremely busy recently. So I was more than a little tired. Unusual for me I had had a little nap before going out. I never do that.

Plus I’d rearranged my days off this week. A fact I’d forgotten when I arranged this game night. So no next day off as I usually have to catch up on sleep after a long day of work and gaming in the evening. I’d be getting up at bloody early again the next morning. A little tmi on this. I normally have gone to sleep by 6:30pm – 7pm when working the next morning. My whole day routine has shifted to adjust for that early start. I was going to be so fucked Thursday!

I have to say I really like Cryptid.

It’s quick to setup both for a first play, and for subsequent plays. I’m not sure how using the “app” (well website they call an app) could make it any easier or faster. But the one advantage the “app“ does have is that there are many more setups that can be played. However having the companion “app” as an additional thing you can use if you want is a big plus for me. We all know how I feel about games that can only be played using an app. This is the correct way to go about it.

I found it handy just to have another player (Jeff) to double check the placement of the structures before starting play. It’s not necessary but cuts out any setup mistakes.

I like how there are two play modes for the game. The more advanced mode introduces not clues, ie “it’s not on mountains or forest” and a fourth coloured structures.

I was tired and just not switched on because our first game with the advanced mode saw me use the incorrect token for my initial clues. Something I had to apologise for and correct very early on.

The not clues do add to the complication of trying to work out what clue the others had. But it’s a nice complication despite my initial tiredness induced confusion.

I love the trying to guess what the other clues are while trying to not give away your own clue. And that starts from the initial setup when placing your first two cubes (a cube indicates the Cryptid isn’t in that hex). It’s great when you think you know what another’s clue is, only for them to place a cube or a cylinder that ruins your theory about their clue. You get a whole new level of doubt. Especially about if the player has given the correct answer. But you can’t openly ask them as you don’t want to give any information away! And then it’s back to the drawing board trying to work out what the clue could be.

A less tired me would have concentrated/focused more on what the others were doing with their cubes. My cognitive processing was most definitely impaired. I’m playing this game on a weekend next time. Most likely will still get my butt kicked but I’ll have no excuse then!

Cryptid along with Search for Planet X both take interesting but different routes to do the same thing, find an item. Whether that’s the space where a Cryptid is or where Planet X is. I like both approaches. I know Jonathan prefers Search out of the two (although he does like Cryptid), whilst my preference is Cryptid. What swings it for me is the lack of dependence on an app. Game mechanics wise I really do like both approaches the same. I know Search can be played without an app by hunting down online the free print and play pack from the designers. Which does give it about the same number of scenarios as Cryptid has. But the draw back is it needs printing out, and it takes out a player from the game. As one person basically has to act as a game master running the game handing out clues. I’m not sure how much fun that’d be for that person.

I’d love to see an expansion for this that is just a deck of new setup and clue cards. The game doesn’t need anything more than that. It’d be a cheap expansion too.

List of winners!

For the record I wasn’t as tired at work as I was expecting to be yesterday. Still knackered tho’.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #3

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

Tantalos finally noticed Babs looked a bit worse for wear after the recent run ins with the inhabitants of the sewer aided in healing her a little. After reminding the party how to find their way out back to the Lower Reaches, they parted way with each other.

On their way back through the sewers towards the Lower Reaches Babs discovered a hidden tunnel, that upon following lead them into a kobold ambush.

After hacking away a few of the attacking kobolds the party decided to double back on themselves back to the sewers.

There they set off a shrieker whose spine tingling, ear hurting shriek attracted a smaller band of kobolds. Which attacked as soon as they saw the party.

The skirmish ended with the untimely death of the kobolds. After which the party made their way out of the sewers into the lower reaches.

Vaz then guided them to Adel’s Emporium of Magical Relics.

We left the party resting in the accommodation that Adel had arranged for them (at a cost).

Post Mortem

Before we start the post mortem of the session I do need to do that little bit of house keeping to warn any of my players.

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.

It was another fun session. I am enjoying being a DM with this group. Friendships are starting to happen.

I started the session trying a suggestion from Quick Tricks For Lazy DMs page of The Lazy DM Companion of giving each player inspiration. It’s something I want to use more. I hadn’t used it at all with the other group. Which makes last sessions use the first time I’d used it in anger. I think it worked well. All of the players used it.

My Way of the Lazy DM Session Notes

Player: “I rolled a 19.”

Me: “What are you rolling for?”

Player: “I’m going to steal the healing potion from…”

With the agreement of the player it was going to affect I had them both roll to see if the theft was successful. Luckily for the enthusiastic player the other one rolled low.

But I wasn’t very chuffed with the initial player rolling and assuming the high roll allowed them to do what they wanted to do. Especially when it broke the line in the sand I discussed with them in the session zero. I appreciate the enthusiasm of the player. But they need to remember the DM tells them if a roll is needed or not.

I do need to keep better tracking of the items given out to players. I’d forgotten I’d already given out the fey amulet in the previous session. Which Liz pointed out when I gave a second to Babs! Oops.

A6 sized gridded index cards were used for drawing out the map of the sewers as the players navigated their way out. This worked better I thought than the small white boards I used in the previous session.

I used a combat map (from the big book of Battle Maps) with a very rough sketch of the current location for when we were in combat. Which happened twice in this session. I like the simplicity of this. Which can be enhanced with scatter terrain (if appropriate). I think it went well and for the time being will be my preferred way to run combat.

Now to start planning the next session.

D&D Grp 2 Session 3 Planning #4

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

It’s the morning (6:30am as I’m writing this) of the planned session and I nearly forgot to say the following.

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

With that bit of housekeeping out the way I can safely now share my last minute brainwaves for the session that I’ve had.

The main bit of inspiration I had was around the treasure that hasn’t been found yet.

If you check my notes in the post mortem for the previous session there is the equivalent of 400 gold pieces somewhere in the sewers. Plus two magical items.

One of the magical items has been lost and they will stumble across it easily enough early in the session.

But what about the rest?

The loot mentioned above has to be somewhere. It’s from the victims of the giant spider (deceased) and the giant crocodile (sleeping).

I wanted a creature that hordes loot, even shiny stuff.

Kobolds.

Yep I’m going with a classic D&D creature that low level parties tend to come up against.

This group of kobolds have found a wyrmling and have been venturing into the sewers to collect the gold from the victims to grow the wyrmlings hoard.

This also presents an interesting situation for the party. “…kobolds are bitterly hateful toward gnomes.” Volo’s Guide to Monsters, page 65.

50% of the party cause intense feelings of hatred in kobolds!

I think my caption for the above photo (taken from the last session) sums up the problem they will face with the kobolds.

Which makes negotiations with the kobolds that tad more trickier, nah impossible I’d say.

If things did go awry or tits up as I like to say with the kobolds. Then Volo’s offers the following advice for combat (same page as the above quote).

“Although they usually don’t seek out gnomes to do them violence, if hostile kobolds encounter a mixed group of gnomes and other humanoids, the kobolds instinctively attack the gnomes. Kobolds in battle with gnomes are much less likely to run away because their hatred overrules their sense of self-preservation.”

I think one of the secret doors on the sewer map will lead to the liar the kobolds have been tunnelling for the wyrmling.

I’m going for a red wyrmling as that gives me that pokemon charmander vibe.

Now to dive quickly into Fizban’s for some last minute game breaking ideas!

Will the party ever leave the sewers and meet Adel?

Inside my DM Folder for D&D

D&D, DM/GM Tips, RPG

I decided to do a short video of me looking through my DM folder for this second campaign. Someone might find it interesting. Maybe, and it’s a long shot, useful.

I have the following on the video, and YouTube page description. It has to be said.

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

Oh and one more thing it’s what’s in the folder at this moment in time. My DM folder is a living thing! It’s contents will change. It will grow with me as the campaign develops.

Inside my DM Folder for D&D video

A 4 Player Vampire Wednesday!

game night, Rivals, Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, vampire the masquerade: rivals, Vampire Wednesday

Last night saw Diego and myself play our first four player game of Vampire the Masquerade Rivals.

Before then we had only played head to head (in other words two player) and three player games.

But this game was a first for Shane and Marcin also. It was the first time they were playing the game. Noobs in other words. Or to remain on theme, fresh blood!

Whilst waiting for Marcin to arrive we went over the rules for playing the game with Shane. Or the most relevant ones to get started. Some you can avoid until they crop up, like schemes. Otherwise it’s rules overload. And it probably felt like that anyway.

The three of us then “played” a couple of rounds with Diego and myself explaining what we were doing as we played. It was during this learning play Marcin arrived.

We had already given Shane Brujah to play for the evening. It’s probably the easiest of the four core set clans to play. We had also planned for Diego’s copy of Brujah to be played by Marcin, with the added house rule suspending the unique vampire rule for the evening. However Marcin felt the call of Toreador.

We drew for our rivals which saw Shane and myself drawing each other’s token. Which basically left Diego and Marcin each other’s rivals.

Our Vampire Clans and Rivalries

I needed to be drawing rituals and finding Sonja Valentine. But my deck seemed to be working against me on that front. I only started drawing rituals late in the game. Too late to be any use to me. My leader was in torpor mending. So I had no blood to use that would hurt my rival. My three vampires I did have out were dangerously low on blood. I had three prestige left. They were dead cards at the point they showed up.

For a couple of rounds it wasn’t in anyones interest to attack my three weak vampires. If Diego or Marcin did they left it open for Shane to grab the win. If Shane did he left it open for Marcin to grab the points win (at that point in time Marcin was in the lead with five agenda points). To make the situation worse we had three S.A.D. Agents in the Street.

Before Diego grabbed the points victory by leap frogging Marcin with six agenda points, and knocking out Shane. It was getting to the point of I could have won on my turn. Shane was on a single prestige. He only needed one of his vampires to die (it’s how Diego triggered the end of the game). S.A.D. would have weakened his remaining vampires more than enough to make sure which ever one I attacked they would have gone down.

I liked that last bit of the game. Anyone of us could have potentially grabbed a win. Sadly Diego did!

My only agenda point for the evening was from putting Shane’s leader into torpor.

Although Shane is shown as zero points below. Which is correct. He was knocked out by Diego, so any agenda points he had don’t count. However if in a tournament I believe we would still record Shane’s three agenda points as they are used in rankings or something like that.

Final scores

Still a fun evening playing a great card game with some great people.

D&D Grp 2 Session 3 Planning #3

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

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

Right if any of my group 2 adventures are still reading then it’s on you if the following spoils your sense of wonder and surprise in our next session. I did warn you to stop reading.

I’ve updated my Checks Sheet with the hand written notes you may have noticed in the photos on the session 2 post mortem. Which has also been printed and added to my DM folder. The original aim of this sheet was to be a quick reference for various ability checks. So if anyone wants this as a pdf let me know and I’ll send them a copy.

My Updated Checks Sheet for D&D

I have also printed out the following since I was at the library already printing out the Checks Sheet.

  • Side view map of City of Arches A3
  • City of Arches Core Adventure Generator A4
  • Dyson Logos version of Caves of Chaos map A3

I held off the new location descriptions because in the next update there are some corrections coming apparently so I saved my money until then.

That’s all practical stuff for running the next session or prepping for it. But what about ideas for the next session?

I don’t know who or why yet. However in the next session the group will be learning from Adel that some-one has been collecting magical relics, beating her agents to them, and in some cases killing her agent.

Adel will have arranged some accommodation for the party within the Lower Reaches. Naturally the payment for this will be deducted from any reward she was going to give the party.

I still need to dig out my Pathfinder npc cards and find a suitable one for Adel.

Plus what are the adventurers going to do after they have long rested?

Scythe Rise of Fenris Campaign Episode 3

Game day, Rise of Fenris, Scythe

I have to say the following as I’d hate to have ruined the campaign for anyone.

SPOILER ALERT! The following post contains spoilers for the Rise of Fenris campaign for Scythe. If you haven’t played the expansion and wish to avoid any spoilers you may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

The morning started off with Ben sending me a text saying he was unlikely to make our session later.

As per normal (well for me) I arrived early and started to set up.

I know folks might find this hard to believe, but I actually enjoy setting up Scythe! It’s a breeze.

We were due to have Lizzy and Mark join us for the campaign but you can guess from how I started the sentence they were unable to. While setting up Lizzy messaged me that Mark seemed to have whatever she had mid week.

I just had an image in my head that I was going to end up with no one coming, and be sitting there looking like Billy no mates in front of the footy fans watching the lunchtime match (Everton vs Man U), and mothers having a kid free beverage.

While waiting for the appointed time between drinking my latte, eating my ham roll, and bagging the game pieces in Cryptid. I was checking my phone regularly for messages from Jeff and Shane.

There was a big sigh of relief when Jeff turned up. Followed by Shane.

Refreshments is place. It was time for …

Episode 3

Our faction/player board match ups for this episode were as follows after randomly drawing the player boards.

  • Saxony Empire/Agricultural (Black) – Jeff
  • Nordic Kingdoms/Engineering (Blue) – Shane
  • Rusviet Union/Innovative (Red) – Me

The factory deck and space were going to be different this episode.

For starters a character card for Vesna, daughter of Nicolas Tesla was added to the initial four cards. Then a further four cards were added, with the larger deck then being shuffled.

During this episode when we visited the factory tile we would get an encounter token. We would then shuffle the deck and reveal cards equal to the number of encounter tokens we had. If one of the cards was Vesna we’d keep the card. Otherwise if we didn’t have a factory card already we could keep one of the revealed cards.

It was the turn of the Rusviets to have an episode nerf. For this episode only (I’m assuming) the Township ability was replaced. I could no longer jump into the factory tile from a controlled village tile. However I could jump from a controlled village tile to an unoccupied one. Which was nearly as cool, and did allow me to get more than my share of encounter tokens.

Goals for the episode were to accumulate influence tokens, find Vesna, and win the game. I’m always forgetting to do that later one!

The story mission did have that “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” vibe to it.

I got off to a blazing start and had the objective for all my workers out on the map completed. It helped that my starting perk for this episode was an extra worker.

Then things slowed down for me, with Shane not long after also completing the same objective.

It transpired that using my faction ability to abuse the crap out of a factory card (damn game balancing errata) wasn’t our only miss play in the opening episodes. In episode 2 Jeff got most of his objective points from completing missions. He was drawing new ones, when he completed one. It had escaped me that he was doing this. I thought he was getting new ones from Encounter cards.

Shane queried his Engineering player board and it’s move action.

It looked like it did not have the slash between the move actions and the gain coins action. Shane was querying whether it should have one there. I said if it didn’t then it was a misprint. Otherwise that’d be an insanely power action.

As the photo of the Engineering player board above shows that it does indeed exist on the player board. It’s just very hard to see thanks to the gorgeous art work. A black line on a dark grey part of the image doesn’t make it the easiest thing to spot.

Naturally my three visits to the Factory failed to find Vesna. But it did get me three influence tokens, and a factory card. To add salt to the wound Jeff defeated my mech on the space, and then found Vesna on his first attempt.

I was too slow putting stars out. Although I did get the one for having the maximum bolster points. One I rarely get in games. I had been playing catch up on that front for most of the game.

So it came as little surprise Jeff triggered the end of the game. I was at least three maybe four turns away from being able to do the same. I’d only got four stars out.

The final scores were as follows:

As you can see Jeff won with a very comfortable margin.

So Jeff’s reward for finding Vesna was to change his faction! Saxony is no more. Jeff had the honour of opening box A to have the new plastic revealed to him. It looks pretty cool. However you will have to wait until we play episode 4 to see photos.

The rulebook very generously also allowed the rest of us to change our factions if we so wished. Shane and I both declined that offer.

We also got to draw more infrastructure mods. I bought the Construction mod. Which means I now have three mods to use each game. My other two being Cavalry and Automachines. Bloody shame I never used those two this episode. That might explain a little why I didn’t do as well. Failure to utilise all my resources.

The influence tokens also meant something this game other than card draw on the factory deck. For every two influence tokens (rounded up) you got to increase a setup bonus by one. I spent them wisely on popularity. So from now on I start each episode with an extra two popularity.

I ended this session with $16. Just enough to buy the perk at the start of episode four.

What a great game. Loved it. Loved the hunt for Vesna and the change to the factory deck. Wow! Getting the new faction. Can’t wait to see what that does in episode four.

I was wrong! How’d that happen?

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was another really well attended club night. Despite that thing that shall not be named hitting a couple of members and thus couldn’t attend. We even saw a couple of new members attend for the first time.

This will be a brief post as not much to say about the evening game wise. I played three games I’d played before. Enjoy the brevity. But don’t get used to it.

After splitting into three gaming tables, my first game of the evening was the amazing Libertalia Winds of Galecrest.

In our game of Libertalia there was a differing interruption of the hook ability on the calm side of the board. I’m surprised it hadn’t come up before in previous plays, and for the life of me couldn’t remember how we played it.

I wasn’t able to Google an answer at the table. However this morning I did find one on the Libertalia Facebook page. Shane you were right and I was wrong. It doesn’t return to hand. There that wasn’t easy to admit, but I can admit when I am wrong.

I still haven’t played this game at the higher player counts. Which is something I do want to do. I feel that reputation track position becomes even more important for making sure you get loot.

Libertalia Final Score

Our second game was the ever classic, and still my favourite version of Love Letter, Love Letter Batman.

Love Letter Batman Final Scores

My final game of the evening was the totally mean, but such such fun Survive Escape from Atlantis.

We even remembered the giant squids this time too! They were fun having out on the board, and look totally awesome.

Somehow I managed to get my three highest valued meeples to safety. I had no idea what meeple I had where during setup as I didn’t look at their values! The six I did get to safety could just as easily have been all the low values. This was a pure luck victory.

Survive Escape from Atlantis Final Scores

Let’s see what that “young” Jonathan took photos off last night.

Jonathan’s photos

D&D Grp 2 Session 3 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. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

At the moment the party are pretty battered. They need a long rest. But first they need to get out of the sewers. I think Tantalos Whitetail will have to give the party a parting gift of restoring some of their HP. After all there are shriekers, a gelatinous cube, and maybe some other unnamed creatures still in the sewers.

I have the Mot the Sporeling mini from MCDM (but needs to be cut and glued) that is a Sporeling Companion. I’m very tempted to introduce Mot to the party. An even bigger temptation is to run the gelatinous cube as a companion. I need to read the MCDM rules on companions first. Some light reading for the weekend.

When the party finally make it to Adel’s Emporium of Magical Relics the party need a new job from Adel after they have rested. I’ve got time to rewatch some Warehouse 13 episodes for inspiration. Failing that I do have the Lazy DM Companion Hunt for the Relic page, plus the City of Arches adventure generator pages to fall back on for inspiration.

Well that’s my brainstorming so far. Maybe I’ll get more inspired whilst at work!

Bonds, Railway Bonds

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night didn’t quite end up as planned.

Yesterday morning I tweeted how I was looking forward to playing my favourite game of all time (do I really have to say it? You all know what it is by now. Oh ok) Scythe, that evening. That’d I’d also be teaching it to two new players.

Indeed that was the plan made on Saturday at the end of D&D so that Mark and Lizzy could learn the game before joining the Rise of Fenris campaign this coming Saturday.

Reality, life, call it what you want had other ideas.

I arrived early to get Scythe setup. As usual I wanted to maximise play time for everyone by having it so that once everyone had arrived we could dive straight in.

There were no tables so I set up the ones I needed, plus the one I thought Jonathan and his Railways of the World players would need.

Brief aside before carrying on with the retelling of the events of last night.

As the photo below shows I now have the realistic tokens for Scythe. I know that’s a major shock. After all I have been vocal in my preference for the wooden tokens that come with the game. However these were the final upgrade I needed to make my copy of Scythe the equivalent of the Kickstarter Art Connoisseur Collector’s Edition.

What surprised me last night was how they grew on me last night as I was setting up, and taking the photos (below). I actually quite like them!

I just need to save up and get the metal mechs (I need four sets, which ain’t cheap) to have everything you can officially buy for it.

Right back to my ramblings.

Scythe Realistic Tokens

As I was setting up Scythe Jonathan arrived and not long after so did Shane.

With Scythe setup we just needed Mark and Lizzy to arrive.

However Shane asked if I had heard from them. Which I hadn’t. Apparently Lizzy was ill and wouldn’t be coming.

Bugger.

I asked Jonathan if he wanted another two players for Railways of the World.

After Jonathan started setting up for a five player game, and I had packed away Scythe, it transpired Mark was on his way.

“John got room for one more?”

While we waited for Mark to arrive there was banter and a brief discussion between Jeff and Jonathan about how best to setup the game so it didn’t go on all night.

Some cubes were removed from the board.

Once Mark arrived Jonathan explained the rules. For three of us this was our first time playing the game. Luckily there was no “it’s just like Agricola” moment.

I have to say despite nearly coming last, I really liked Railways of the World.

With three copies in the club now (Gav just bought a copy) I don’t feel a need to get my own. But if I want to play a railway themed game this is the one I’d play. It’s so much more fun than Ticket to Ride.

Railways of the World

I like the bidding for first player at the start of each turn.

Another thing I like a lot is the almost sandbox like approach it has to building tracks. You can literally build a track anywhere on the board. Ok it might cost you a fortune to do so depending on the terrain crossing.

The having to upgrade your trains to be able to move goods further along the built tracks is cool.

But there is the whole making connections and delivery engine you are building to push you up the income track, whilst trying to get as few bonds as possible. Obviously the two most experienced players had this off to a tee. Eventually I managed to break even and then make a small profit. But this whole core to the game is so much fun and can be very cut throat.

As the results show the three more experienced players finished top three, with Shane almost breaking into third place.

Final Scores

Still a great evening of gaming with great gamers!

Here they are Jonathan’s photos of the evening to end the post with.

Jonathan’s photos