D&D Product Round Up

June 8, 2021D&D, news, RPGDarren

Yesterday saw the start a week long “celebration” of all things D&D by WotC with their “Week of Legend Lore”.

I’d like to say yesterday’s announcement of the next campaign book “The Wild Beyond The Witchlight” was a big surprise. But it wasn’t. A couple of days earlier a leak on Amazon happened giving brief details about this book and one other.

The two covers for The Wild Beyond The Witchlight

The Wild Beyond The Witchlight takes players and DM’s to the Feywild for the first time.

WotC are pushing D&D Live 2021 on July 16 and 17 for the reveal of more details including new characters, monsters, mechanics, and story hooks. The book itself is due out on 21st September.

Next up is the other D&D book that was leaked early. On 16th November the third MtG crossover with D&D will drop called “Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos”.

I’m expecting “Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos” to be similar in format to the other two crossover books. So new character options, world info, adventure hooks and a sample adventure, plus new monsters and npc’s.

With its 5 schools of magic, and wizard world theme Strixhaven has been compared to a certain intellectual property featuring wizards. And it is this that WotC are hoping will appeal to young players, and attract them to the game. So there will apparently be advice included on running a campaign that appeals to all age groups included.

We getting our first sneak at this new books contents when some stuff to test drops on Unearthed Arcana later today. But also expect a bit more info to be forth coming at D&D Live 2021.

I’m not sure when this dropped last week, but on the 17th August WotC release a new DM’s Screen called the Dungeon Kit. Similar to the Wilderness one last year, this new kit will be aimed at dungeon delving.

“The Dungeon Master’s screen features a painting of a fantastic vista that plunges into the deep reaches of a mountain. Useful rules references cover the screen’s interior, with an emphasis on dungeon-delving.”

“DM screen specially designed for dungeon delving, with tables for encountering monsters and exploring ruins and dungeons
Features 36 punch out dungeon geomorph cards with pathway connection points, perfect for planning a dungeon during game preparation or for coming up with a map in the middle of play
Customizable double sided dry-erase sheet offers unlimited versatility for tactical game play. Numbered grid for sketching maps on one side, and summary of the main actions a character can take in combat on the other
18 illustrated punch out condition cards, including mold and slime cards for dungeon encounters
9 punch out numbered and illustrated initiative cards to easily track the turn order for players, monsters, and nonplayer characters”

I think I’m most excited about the geomorph cards. I like my Deck of Many Dungeons and Map & Dice Playing Cards for generating random dungeons. Whether it’s in advance acting as inspiration for writing/prepping an adventure or using to create a dungeon on the fly during a session, they are damn useful.

And oh joy my third set of initiative cards! But more condition cards are always welcome. They are very handy.

Hopefully with such a strong start to the week WotC will be able to keep the momentum and interest levels up.

10k Games of Star Realms

June 4, 2021apps, star realmsDarren

This morning I hit a major milestone in playing Star Realms using the rather excellent app.

I hit my 10,000th game of Star Realms.

I mainly play against friends. Hardly ever random opponents. Although from time to time I have partaken in the odd Arena game or two. Some of the rule changes used in Arena have been wild, and fun.

I’m reasonably happy with the win percentage. Although I’d love it to be higher. But the cards hate me, and my friends happen to be really good players. Heck one of them is one of the games top players (they have two cards named after them in the game).

Having played so many games of Star Realms I can honestly say I still love the game. The addition of the expansions over the years has helped keep the game fresh.

The aim for the next 10k of games improve that win percentage.

If you fancy a game hit me up with a challenge.

Goodbye Toby

June 2, 2021UncategorizedDarren

I had intended to do some work on this massive post I’ve been working on, and/or look at bit more at horror within D&D. But life has thrown more obstacles in the way. Or excuses for doing neither, depending on your point of view.

Yesterday we said good bye to a much loved furry member of the family Toby.

He had lost weight, and recently been less than solid in the number 2 department. But at the weekend Toby started struggling to get up without help, and had little energy to go out to answer the call of nature.

It was time to make that heartbreaking decision. It’s one of the hardest decisions a person who has dogs has to make. But as strange as it may seem it’s the loving decision to make, repaying all that love and devotion that they give.

Toby was a gentle, mischievous soul. Who will be greatly missed.

My notes on ideas for a campaign in the Domains of Dread

May 25, 2021D&D, RPG, session planningDarren

Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (VRGR) as I mentioned in the previous post hit FLGS and online retailers last week.

Since then I’ve listened to a couple of podcasts reviewing the tome (The Tome Show and The RPG Academy). The consensus seems to be VRGR is a pretty good book.

Whilst listening to these shows and the odd skimming of pages, ideas started to flow through the ol’ noggin. Hence this post to capture them before I forget them.

The first was I’d love a party of adventurers in a horror/Ravenloft campaign/one shot to have an illrigger amongst them.

An illrigger is a new class created by Matt Colville for one of his players and released to the general public (you can buy the pdf on the MCDM webstore). Illriggers are “elite shock troops, the terror-commandos of Hell,… . Knights of Hell, they are high charisma counter-paladins who master devils and cast their own unique spells.” (https://mcdm.fandom.com/wiki/Illrigger) And yes it’s also crying out for use in an Avernus campaign.

The way the mists are described and used within the Domains of Dread had me instantly thinking of the small and big screen adaptations of Stephen Kings story The Mist (sorry not read the words themselves). So this is such an obvious source of inspiration for using the mists within a campaign. I like the idea of a Dark Lord using the mist to terrorise and subjugate the population of their Domain of Dread. But James Herbert’s The Fog could also be another influence here, along with John Carpenter’s The Fog (not the 2005 remake, ok if you are desperate to make it a teen horror story then maybe!)

Mist talismans, which are used to navigate through the mists to the Domain of Dread it is for/from, also present interesting opportunities for the adventurers. I see these allowing influences such as Stargate SG-1, The Fantastic Journey, The Time Tunnel, where the party are traveling from one Domain of Dread to another as part of some larger campaign story line. Whilst in the current location one of the party’s objectives is to find the next mist talisman, and possibly get the Dark Lord to open up the mists. Although I do like the idea of a generic mist talisman that works with any Domain of Dread, but its random which domain it guides them to. Or they can chose the domain but it’s “glitchy” and the majority of the time takes them elsewhere.

It’s hard to list or suggest inspiration for a campaign as it all depends on the horror genre(s) being used.

My teenage years were the Eighties. Which included the whole video nasty thing. I saw most of those movies that the moral minority had banned, and frankly the acting in most of them was awful. Worse than the actual plot of the movie. I particularly enjoyed zombie and slasher movies such as Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and the Living Dead movies.

So I know that they would influence my suggestions. But that session zero and the results of the content and themes questions (chapter 4 of VRGR) will have a major impact on suggestions for inspiration.

Although I’d love to do something based around Alice Coopers classic album Welcome to My Nightmare. Or even using Coopers The Last Temptation (along with the accompanying Neil Gaiman graphic novel) for the Carnival Domain of Dread.

Talking of graphic novels the classic Hellblazer comic and it’s antihero John Constantine would definitely be an influence. Although the dire Constantine movie and watered down single season tv series are best avoided.

I hope this brain dump given you some ideas for your own campaign in the Domains of Dread.

Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft

May 19, 2021D&D, first look, new arrivals, RPGDarren

Yesterday saw the release of the new D&D source book Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (VRGR).

Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft Alt FLGS Exclusive Cover

VRGR takes players and DMs back to Ravenloft and the Domains of Dread. But this isn’t an adventure like the Curse of Strahd. This is a campaign source book.

A campaign source book that gives players and DMs the tools to run horror themed D&D campaigns.

Contents page (Image taken from EN World)

As the content page (above) shows those tools include new options for players such as lineages, dark gifts, new backgrounds and subclasses.

For the DM there is a chapter on creating your own Domain of Dread that also covers the various types of horror. Followed by coverage of the Domains of Dread that make up the Ravenloft setting. DMs also get a chapter on running horror games that also includes an adventure “The House of Lament”. This adventure is for first level players and takes them up to level 3. From a cursory glance over the adventure it looks like a haunted house type of affair.

This brings me onto a minor criticism, and I know that page space is an issue in these sort of things. But considering the advice earlier in the chapter about session zeroes etc, you would have thought there would be a paragraph or two that a DM could use summarising the themes and content for the adventure. But to be fair I’d like to see this sort of thing in all of the official D&D books.

I’ve not run the Avernus campaign, so was shocked when I saw in a Sly Flourish video that it uses body horror in part of the campaign. There needed to be some sort of paragraph at the start of the book, and also at the start of each chapter similar to what I suggested above. If nothing else it forewarns the DM that there might be problematic content for their gaming group.

The final chapter is the good ol’ bestiary for the Domains of Dread. More monsters is always a good thing.

VRGR is the latest instalment in what seems like a fixation with horror for the WotC D&D crew. Since the release of Avernus, we have had Icewind Dale, Curse of Strahd Revamp and now this. It will be interesting to see if they lighten things up.

I’ve been looking forward to VRGR since it was announced. And apart from the comment above, my initial look through the pages hasn’t disappointed.

I’d like to run a campaign in the Domains of Dread. But luckily the way my current campaign is structured I can introduce horror elements to it using VRGR and Tasha’s as well. Naturally before doing so there would need to be a conversation with the players. (Is there a name for a mid game session zero? ) And although this book is specifically for D&D some of the information like horror genres, or running that session zero are applicable to other systems. Horror Cyberpunk Red anyone?

My Current Top 10 iOS Board Game Apps

May 14, 2021apps, iOSDarren

Yesterday I wrote about the disappointing and uninspired top 10 favourite board game list that was featured on the iOS App Store home page.

I also threatened to share with you my top 10. Today I carry out that threat, and present to you my current top 10 iOS board game apps.

Disclaimer: This list is fluid. It does change. Although it wouldn’t matter when I did the list one or two entries would always be there. This list is also in no particular order. Meaning I haven’t ranked them. Also it should be noted I usually play these games online against friends. Very rarely do I play against an AI opponent or random opponents online.

Also remember that this is iOS games. Hence why Wingspan is not on this list. At the time of writing it does not exist on iOS.

**My Current Top 10 iOS Board Game Apps**

Star Realms: If you like deck builders then this is the game for you. It’s great value for money with the Wise Wizard Games (yes they changed their name recently) of buy once play anywhere. There are a lot of expansions for the game now. Which may put people off. But they are not needed to enjoy this modern classic. Did I say I love this game?

Epic the Card Game: for that Magic the Gathering fix Epic scratches the itch for me. It’s totally free to play! You only pay for cosmetics, or to enter tournaments. No grinding or splashing out lots of money to get cards. My favourite way to play is Dark Draft against my friends. Which is an amazing draft format for two players.

Lost Cities: Another two player game, but this time the classic Reiner Knizia card game about exploring for ancient lost cities.

Carcassonne: the classic tile laying game. I love playing this with the expansions. In fact I hardly ever play this without them.

Ticket to Ride: the classic board game. There are several maps/expansions for this to buy. But the cool thing is when playing against friends only one of you needs to own the map you want to play.

Tokaido: a beautiful version of the set collection board game about having the best experience possible as you travel the road between Edo and Kyoto in Japan.

Roll for the Galaxy: an amazing port of the board game that changed how I view the game! Well digitally. This as an app turns the game into something I can play when I have a spare 5 minutes to fill, waiting in line or something.

Scythe: All I’m going to say is this is the digital version of my all time favourite board game. And probably the only game on this list I play against AI opponents.

Onitama: a lovely version of the two player abstract game.

Splendor: a great implementation of the gateway game.

Below are some honourable mentions of games that nearly made the list.

Honourable mentions aka games that nearly made the list

What are your top 10 board game apps?

Disappointing App Store List

May 13, 2021apps, iOSDarren

This morning when I entered the iOS App Store to check for updates to my installed apps I noticed on the home page a curated list titled “Our top 10 board games”.

So once I’d started the downloads for the updates (there did seem a lot this morning), curiosity got the better of me and I checked out this top 10.

To say I was a bit disappointed by their choices was an understatement. With Carcassonne being the only “modern” or “hobby” board game to make the list, I thought this wasn’t a list chosen by gamers.

Even if I didn’t chose some of the more “hardcore” hobby games that have app versions. Where is Catan, Tokaido, Ticket to Ride, Splendor, Charterstone, Sagrada, Roll for the Galaxy, to name a handful of modern, accessible, light or gateway games?

Even with my recent rediscovery of Chess, would or should it make a top 10? It depends what the point of the list is.

With a big clue being “our favourites” then this list is a list of favourite boardgames of whoever compiled the list. I’m assuming this curation was by a human and not some code.

What can we deduce about the author of the list? They may have scratched the surface of modern boardgames as hinted by the presence of Carcassonne. However the rest of the selections being the more mainstream titles that most people play growing up. So I’d guess they don’t play boardgames on a regular basis, maybe during the traditional family holidays with other family members during a family get together. They had to compile this list so fell back on games they played growing up.

I don’t think any boardgamer when asked to do this list would come up with this top 10. I’ll do my top 10 in another post I think.

Once more no real stuff to talk about

May 9, 2021UncategorizedDarren

With Mum’s birthday finally passed, and my prep and planning for it (mainly baking) over, I have time to at least write an update post to prove I’m alive.

My activities the last few days have been none board gaming related. Although with recent real world events thoughts are finally starting to consider the possibility of gaming in meat space again at some point in the future.

I had some light reading arrive. Some of it for a future project (Super Mario Bros 3), another for a current project (Baldur’s Gate 2) and the final one just for pleasure. Although lack of motivation and being able to stay focused are big obstacles to getting through my reading backlog.

One or two new Pop Vinyl Star Wars related figures “mysteriously” arrived.

I got a waffle maker. I’d been dithering about getting one for a while, and finally caved once I decided on a surprise dessert for Mum’s birthday involving waffles. Which means I’ve started to test various waffle recipes to find one I like. The sacrifices I make for my Mum!

I’m making slow progress on a project for this blog that once complete will give you the difficult decision of reading a long pretentious blog post (the first of many possibly) or going off and doing something less boring instead. Like the lack of progress on bringing Aliens to Last Days apathy keeps putting up major road blocks. Which is saving you from having to make that hard choice, for the time being anyway.

Right I’m off to try and get motivated.

May the 4th Be With You – Star Wars Day 2021

May 4, 2021star warsDarren

May the 4th Be With You!

Yep it’s that time of year again. I love that my birthday sits smack damn in the middle of two days that celebrate great franchises that I enjoy a lot.

Naturally I plan to watch something Star Wars related today. Which will definitely include watching the latest addition to the Star Wars universe The Bad Batch. Which I believe is a spin off from the Clone Wars animated series.

I also believe the first episode released today is an extra long episode. Which then gets the second episode released on Friday, and is about 20-25 minutes in duration. And like all other Disney+ series will see new episodes drop on Fridays after that.

I might then rewatch both seasons of The Mandalorian. I love that series. Great stories, great characters, and it feels like Star Wars while introducing new characters.