There is no mid week games this week. No Vampire Wednesday Morning with Diego. No Commander with Gavin and Diego.
There is however a club night this Friday.
The first club night since world events meant they had to be stopped.
I’m pretty excited about it but also a tad anxious.
If all come who said they are coming, this will be the best attended Friday night session ever. Plus there is also the possibility that the numbers may be more if we get members turning up that hadn’t replied to the event.
With so many coming I don’t think we have enough table space.
There is our 6ft x 3ft folding club table. Which even splitting into two groups would be cramped. Ideally we would be three gaming groups on the night. Which means three tables.
The club table could get six round it, three each end, as long as the games being played are not space hogs.
Hopefully Jonathan, the manager of The Luxe (our hosts) and myself can work something out.
The weekend saw Portal Games finally release their in-house developed port of their classic board game Neuroshima Hex.
I was wondering how Portal would handle the free update for existing customers. And it appears that when Portal took back the rights to the digital version of their game, they got the iOS dev account for the previous version as well. Which makes life so much easier for this sort of thing.
On a side note it’s no secret what my opinion on board games that rely/require apps to play. I don’t mind companion apps that are not integral to game play, but are optional and enhance the experience. It’s a subject that Ignacy Trzewiczek and I do not see eye to eye on. Why am I bringing it here? Well Ignacy or whoever at his company wrote the app release notes made my point for me!
Before this new version was released players of the app have been in limbo for about 2 years (I think that is correct, it’s definitely over a year). In that time we have seen os updates that have broken it. It has been unplayable. It’s nice for Portal to admit this, and prove one of my points.
I have to say this new version looks beautiful. I really think the game screen pops!
I do have a major criticism of this initial version. There is no in app help. It’d be handy for the iconography used in the Create Game menu option. It’s very much stumble around, trying things to work out what they are.
Plus I’m not too impressed with how to set up an online game via the Create Game screen and the Join the Game menu option.
To play with a friend I need to know their id first. I can’t just set up a private game and have them join. There is no friend list that I can see.
For me setting up an online game isn’t well thought out. Hopefully future updates will remedy this.
I look forward to playing this once more on a regular basis, and getting all the extra armies I had back.
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.
Ok this warning may be over dramatic but this post is here to record an idea down for a future session. I needed to capture it before I forgot all about it. So by reading this post, it may spoil an upcoming session for them.
I’ve been binge watching the tv series Scandal on Disney+. I’d seen it before but there are many things I like about it that warranted a second watch years after first watching it.
In Season 5 episode 21 there is a scene between the main character of the show Olivia Pope, her father Command (ex-head of a secret Government shadow organisation) and one of her love interests who also happens to be one of her fathers shadow agents, Jake Ballard.
Olivia is trying to help Jake escape from her fathers influence, and has turned up to take him away to “safety”. However a stand off develops with her father pointing a gun at Jake’s head. During this stand off Command says the following (I’m paraphrasing) “It may look like it’s my hand on the trigger, it may look like I’m pointing a gun at his head. But it’s an illusion. In fact it’s you whose doing it.”
That’s so cool.
Those words spoke to me. Inspired me.
I can use them, use this scene in a campaign.
The most obvious use would be in say a modern or scifi setting where there are guns. But I can see it working in a fantasy setting also with maybe a knife at the persons throat.
It could easily be the culmination of a rescue mission where the big bad replaces Command, the party replaces Olivia and the hostage replaces Jake.
I like how it adds a “final” twist to overcome for the party. It’s not an original twist. There are many examples of the kidnapper being cornered and holding the victim at gun point trying to save their own skin. There is a NCIS scene that comes to mind immediately for example.
But the word illusion also inspires. What if the person holding the gun/knife to the victim looks like one of the party using an illusion spell? Will it make them doubt who the real one is, mistrust the person, confuse?
How the party handles the situation will be interesting. I have no idea how it would play out, what the outcome will be. That’s something that’d be decided at the table at the time.
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.
In what seems an age now (and technically it was) I made an initial stab at bringing the MtG Planeswalker Angrath to D&D, the Forgotten Realms, and my campaign.
Time passes, DM’s grow, get more experienced, learn new tricks (yes this old dog is learning new tricks!)
Although the adventurers in my campaign have not met Angrath yet. They have come across his minions, and herald. And they have definitely incurred his wrath by attacking his pirates liar, and stealing a boat from his pirate fleet.
So a reckoning is on the books for the party sooner than later.
The encounter with Angrath most certainly is a boss fight.
For this post I thought I’d revisit Angrath and reimagine him as a legendary creature.
To do this reimagining I will be following the Sly Flourish template for improvising legendary monsters (I only did a none post about it a couple days back).
Let’s get started…
The initial monster stat block for Angrath will remain the same, which is the Minotaur stat block.
Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the monster fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Legendary Actions:
Misty Step
Melee attack
Hit Points: 152 (doubling the Minotaur HP – but this most likely will be adjusted at the time of the encounter to take into account the level of the party and how the encounter is going).
Tweak Damage: Angraths whip will do 15 slashing damage plus 10 fire damage. His warhammer will do 8 bludgeoning damage plus 10 fire damage.
Spells:
Fire shield
Shield
Scorching ray
Minions: naturally Angrath will not be alone when he brings his wrath onto the adventurers. There will be pirates supporting him. He will also be able to redirect damage to his minions.
I do like the idea of Angrath being a legendary creature. It seems more fitting for the boss of a pirate fleet, and his Planeswalker heritage. I’m also now of the opinion these spells he now has access to are more in keeping with the character.
So that’s Angrath as a legendary creature. How balanced or challenging he is is another thing. That will only be known once he is used in anger in a boss encounter.
But the process of making Angrath legendary was fairly quick and painless. Vraska next I suppose. But less pressure as the party are a while off from meeting her.
Despite having written two posts yesterday, the second could easily have been scheduled for today, I’m back with another post today.
As we await the opening up of pre-orders for the second expansion for Rivals, The Wolf and The Rat (Gangrel & Nosferatu clans). I thought I’d start looking at the Core Set and the first expansion Blood & Alchemy (Tremere & Thin-bloods clans) in an adhoc series of posts.
These posts will initially look at the pre-constructed decks (as I play them), followed by posts looking at deck building.
I’m going to give a big disclaimer before I do though. I don’t have lots of game time playing Rivals. Heck so far I’ve played it twice! So I can’t be called an expert by any standards. What I will bring to the table when I look at the decks is my experience from playing MtG, Epic the Card game and Android Netrunner.
This inaugural post will be looking at the Toreador clan pre-constructed deck from the Core Set.
The image below is the official deck list for the Toreador deck.
The rule book gives the following description for the Toreador deck.
Ideally in your starting hand you want one of the Unhosted Action – Ongoing cards, and an Attack card that increases your attack (such as Biting Comment, Seduction or Baseball Bat).
Your first turn you need to be attacking a City Deck Mortal in the Street and attaching it as a retainer to Lixue Chen. Plus playing the Unhosted Action. Unless your Unhosted Action is Beauty is a Beast then you need to play that first and use it’s ability to aid in the attack. Depending on the mortal being attacked you may not need to play an Attack card, and can save that for a later turn.
So let’s look at the cards.
Agenda/Haven/Leader
Agenda/Haven plus new player leader
Looking at the agenda, haven and leader the word that is on all three cards is retainers. This is telling me that this deck is the Rivals version of an MtG voltron deck. I want to be attacking City Deck Mortals in the Street and attaching them as retainers to the vampires in my Coterie. Not only do I get an extra agenda point, the vampire heals one blood plus the retainer buffs the vampire in some way also making them more powerful.
Faction Deck
I like that Bella Forte and Iris Lokken synergise so well with Search Engine. Being able to control the top card to get maximum benefit from these two is really powerful.
Having two vampires that do something with retainers is good. Whether it is stealing an opponents retainers with Liza Holt or getting an influence buff from them like Muhammad Zadeh.
There are two vampires that can block ranged attacks. The jury is still out on how good these are for me. My limited play hasn’t allowed me to fully appreciate these cards.
Muhammad and Iris get nice influence boosts to sway those scheme votes. Iris is great for trying to get your own scheme through. But Muhammad once buffed with retainers is great for voting on your own schemes or an opponents.
Library Deck
42.5% or 17 cards of the Library Deck are Attack cards, with 1 duel use Attack/Reaction card. That’s a pretty big signal to me that this deck should be attacking, whether it’s your rival or City Deck Mortals in the street. I like how there are cards to drain your rivals prestige, steal a retainer or get a buff from your own retainers.
12.5% or 6 cards of the Library Deck are reaction cards, not including the duel use card. Only Fleetness fits in with the retainer plan. The other is ok for it’s shields and absorbing damage.
7 cards or 17.5% cards are Schemes. Two do something with prestige. Although it sticks in my throat with the group hug cards where I’m helping everyone. My favourite of the three is Balance of Power as it can be used to weaken my rival. I suppose in a multiplayer game you could try and politicise them and strike a deal to play them.
With 22.5% or 9 cards being these ongoing Unhosted Actions. I like these as they fit in nicely with the overall game plan. I do like Search Engine, don’t under estimate being able to control that top card of the deck. Apart from its great synergy with the two vampires mentioned above. Just being able to filter what you draw next is really powerful.
There is a single title card making up 2.5% of the deck. It feeds into the influence plan for schemes. But not sure how good this card is.
Let me know what you thought of this post in the comments below.
One of the things I like about Renegade Games and what they are trying to do with Vampire the Masquerade: Rivals is establish a community for the game.
Vampire Wednesdays is their attempt at creating their version of Friday Night Magic. To support this they have been running a weekly live stream on twitch on Wednesdays. With the video being shared on YouTube days later.
Ideally because I don’t do twitch I’d love them to push the live stream to YouTube at the same time, or at least put the video up on YouTube within 24 hours. But I can only dream.
At the moment the only other player I know who likes the game is Diego. Luckily the day he is free to play is a Wednesday. Sadly due to timezones and availability we are playing many hours before the Vampire Wednesday live stream. So any fun formats, rule changes introduced for those joining in are missed. I suppose we could use them the following time we play.
This morning Diego and I met up to play a two player game of Rivals.
I played Toreador, whilst Diego played Malkavian. Once again these were the pre-built decks straight out of the core box with no modification.
We were still having to refer to the rulebook to look things up. Like conspiracies, we hadn’t played them before. But for our second game we were getting better!
I have to say I enjoyed playing Toreador.
My experience with the deck was far far different from Gavin last week. The cards were much much more kind to me. I had Search Engine and Influencer in my opening hand. Both Unhosted Actions. So they were both played for my first turn. A great set up turn. Influencer was great as it set up playing a scheme turn two to take a prestige from Diego.
Whilst Search Engine gave me the Rivals version of the scry mechanic in MtG. I love this card. Being able to basically control the top card of your deck with this deck is important. Several of the cards in the deck have you revealing the top card to get some kind of benefit, like extra attack or influence.
It’s also important with the Toreador deck to get a retainer early on to start buffing your vampires and gaining agenda points. Which I was able to do on my second turn. Getting a vagrant also allowed me to mitigate the S.A.D. damage at the end of my turn until a second one appeared in the street. So I was happy leaving it there to chip away at Diego’s Coterie.
Diego had a nice card that exhausted all my vampires so I couldn’t attack his vampire he was going to claim the Prince of the City with. Unlucky for Diego he never got to benefit from it as I claimed it off his vampire on my turn.
In the end I won by TKO or more correctly sending all his vampires to Torpor.
I enjoyed Rivals as a two player game. It was different to last weeks three player game. I like both player counts. But I can see how a deck needs to be built for either a two player or multiplayer game. Multiplayer your deck can be a bit slower to kick in, but in two player you need to be out of the starting block as quick as possible.
There wasn’t enough time to have a three player game with a friend of Diego’s that turned up mid game. So we had a couple of games of Perudo before I had to head back home.
I’m looking forward to our next Vampire Wednesday Morning.
Yesterday Sly Flourish put up one of his DM Tips/Short Cuts videos that was about “Improvising Legendary D&D Boss Monsters” (video embedded below).
I love videos like this. I love how they help DM’s, whether new or old, have the tools to help them up their game while running a D&D session. But especially videos like this that help build up tools you can use to react to unplanned events at the table.
After all even in my short time as a DM I know that the party of adventurers will go off book, do the unexpected. You can’t plan for everything. And the way of the Lazy DM doesn’t try to.
But it does give you the tools to be able to handle everything. Even if you are making it up as you are going along at the table. Or improvising as it’s called.
I was going to write up some notes on the video for me to refer to at the table. An aid memoir.
But before I did that I thought let’s just see if Sly Flourish has written a blog post on this to go along with the video. He had not. There was a post on “Improvising Colville-style Action Oriented Monsters in D&D” which has been added to my notes.
There was one last place to check before sitting down and scribbling down some stuff. That place was the Uncovered Secrets pdf on his Patreon for patreons (although later this year will be part of a third book in the Lazy DM series).
I hit pay dirt. Sly had written up the notes for me already. How kind. That saves me a lot of time. I know I have the pdf, and can print the page out. But I’m hoping that when it comes to putting the new book together that this makes the cut. Sly has said on his live streams that one or two of the Patreon articles that makes up Uncovered Secrets and the Adventure Generators pdf (both will make up the new book) will remain Patreon exclusives.
I’m also crossing my fingers that the above linked article about Action Oriented monsters gets added.
So you’ve just read a post about how I haven’t made some notes on a video I like! Is this a none post? I’ll try better in the next post.
So here we are the big finale. The final post of this years hashtag.
Apart from starting a day late, it felt a little strange to be doing this at the correct time.
I do like the daily prompts to write something (no matter how half hearted the words are). I’ve treated each post as a longer format tweet than an in-depth well written witty take on that days theme.
I certainly don’t do this to generate traffic to the site. I barely promote my participation. I think maybe five or six times (if that) I shared a link to the entries on Twitter. There was no noticeable jump in page views or visitors from doing so. So it’s lucky I don’t do this blog for self promotion or to make a living from.
Let’s do this one last time…
This post has to be a thank you post really.
They won’t see this, but I think I need to say thank you to the likes of Matt Colville, Sly Flourish, Nerdarchy, Jim Murphy, Seth Skorkowsky, The Arcane Library, and The Secret Cabal’s Lords of the Dungeon for their inspiration and great content.
A big thank you to The Luxe for allowing our D&D group to play on their premises.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t say thanks to my best friend Duncan for his friendship and printing 3D stuff for me to enhance the table top experience of my sessions.
An even bigger thank you for our D&D group, for their kindness, support and patience as I find my feet as a DM.
And finally a big thank you to you the reader for suffering my ramblings.
Normal service will now be restored until next time.
Wow is there really only two more posts left after today? This years hashtag has flown by.
So here is today’s post…
For me today’s theme is straight out the different RPGs out there (and there are a lot).
Below is a list of the different RPG systems I own:
Genesys (Terrinoth, Android, Keyforge)
Judge Dredd and Worlds of 2000 A.D (Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper)
Paranoia
The End of The World (Zombie Apocalypse, Alien Invasion)
Alien
Cyberpunk Red
Star Wars RPG 30th Anniversary edition
Thunderbirds
Judge Dredd RPG 1985
Judge Dredd RPG 2002
Elfquest
D&D 5e
Fate Condensed
Twilight 2000 4e
The One Ring 2e
I know, I know the last two aren’t officially out. But I do have the early pdf copies of the rules that they released to backers. After all I backed them, and shipping chaos allowing will have the physical stuff before the year ends.
What surprises me is how many of the ones I own are d6 based, and build a dice pool of some kind.
There is only one that uses custom dice, and that is the Genesys system. Although the dice app for it is now free. With those d6 systems some may have official dice with one or two of the numbers replaced with a symbol. That is a nice touch and doesn’t stop the game being played with regular d6. Unlike the Genesys system that is unplayable without its custom dice.
The only d20 based systems I have are the obvious D&D and the 2002 Judge Dredd RPG.
I also like how my RPG collection is more scifi leaning than fantasy. Although I love both genres.
After coming across the year zero engine in the Alien RPG from Free League I’m impressed how flexible the system is. It is used in all of there RPGs which cover a handful of genres. But I’m still impressed with how they used it in the Alien RPG and it’s stress mechanic. It sold me on the game. So it’s not a surprise that I have more than one of the Free League RPGs now.
It looks like I also skew to systems that are for an IP I like or love such as LoTR, Judge Dredd, Star Wars, Elfquest and Thunderbirds.
I’d love to know what you think my RPG collection says about me.
