Showing posts with label Game Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Game Day. Show all posts
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Game Day Microscope
So I got another chance to play in a game of Microscope yesterday at the October Game Day. Once again I had a ton of fun and we managed to produce an amazing setting with tons of potential and great stories.
We had four players for the game, though they changed slightly over the course of it, and we had John facilitating the game for most of it. The players starting out were myself, Tristan, Chris, and Bobby. Tristan dropped out late in the game, so John stepped in and actually played for the last little bit.
We decided to focus on telling the story of humanity coming into a Golden Age through technology. We ended up going alternate history really quick. I started things off and framed a scene at the United African People's secret Extraterrestrial Research Facility hidden deep in the jungles of the Congo. The U.A.P. were preparing for the first manned mission to Mars. Oh and this was in the 1920s. Doesn't sound much like our normal timeline does it? Of course it was the Secret History of the Space Race, so it could all be happening in the shadows, but things went quickly into left field.
We had solar system exploration, psychic murders, the Psychic Wars, and humanity expanding out beyond our system into the stars. There were tons of cool stories that we looked at and that we did not. One of the more interesting ones was the first psychic murder, very old school detective story. Could be a very fun story to flesh out and write up.
I love this game. It definitely scratches a different itch than most other roleplaying games, and that is fine. It speaks to the writer and worldbuilder in me, and is an incredible tool for creating fun and interesting stories. I look forward to even more games in the future.
Here are all the details of our game:
Seed: Technology brings humanity into a Golden Age
Bookend 1: Secret History of the Space Race (dark)
- Event: First Manned Mission to Mars (dark)
- - Scene: Why Do The World Superpowers Want to Stop the Mission? (Setting: 1920s, the United African People's secret Extraterrestrial Research Facility, hidden in the Congo jungles.) (Resolution: Because the mission will give the U.A.P. favored status with an alien race) (bright)
- - Scene: How did Issac Karazamov die? (Setting: U.A.P. Extraterrestrial Resarch Facility at the launch of the Mars mission) (Resolution: Elijah activates the Omega Contingency) (dark)
- - Scene: Why did the first Mars mission fail? (Setting: Mars lander before landing) (Resolution: Sabotage of Ship) (dark)
- - Scene: Does Victor Karazamov take revenge? (Resolution: Using his position Viktor avenges his son by crushing Africa's economic standing) (dark)
- Event: Sheva's Research Arrives on Mars (bright)
- - Scene: How doe Sheva's research help humans to make colony ships great? (Setting: Mars after knowledge of Sheva's research is examined) (Resolution: Mars starts growing vegetation that is clear) (bright)
Era: The Singularity (bright)
- Event: The First Psychic Murder (dark)
- - Scene: How Did They Discover That the Murder Was Done by a Psychic? (Setting: The murder scene in a hotel above a speakeasy) (Resolution: G-man rules the murderer was a psychic) (bright)
- - Scene: How Did the Psychic Community React to the Murder? (Setting: Psychic Secret Hideout) (Resolution: First the outrage, then the War) (dark)
- Event: The FBI Psy-Division is Founded (bright)
- Event: Veluxia, the first A.I., is created in response to the "Psychic Problem" (bright)
- - Scene: What causes the Psychic Wars? (Setting: Veluxia's Command Room) (Resolution: Veluxia advises "control" of the psychics)
- - Scene: What does Veluxia suggest as an idea to Control Pyschics? (Setting: Veluxia's command room) (Resolution: Effect of Sheva's research vegetation produces "null" psychics offspring from people that consume it. Veluxia based off of Sheva's mind after she died) (bright)
Era: Humanity Settles the Solar System (bright)
- Event: Alien Contact (bright)
- Event: Mars becomes the breadbasket of the Solar System (bright)
- Event: The first "null" psychic is born (bright)
Era: The Psychic Wars (dark)
- Event: The First Null Psychic Regiment Enters the War (bright)
- Event: The Last Psychic is Executed (dark)
- - Scene: Are "null" psychics included in the last psychic executed? (Setting: Execution) (Resolution: Yes, the nulls purpose has been served) (dark)
Era: Mankind Expands to the Stars (dark)
- Event: The HMS Excalibur, Earth's first colony ship, launches; commanded by a descendant of the first manned mission to Mars (bright)
- Event: The original Commander of the Excalibur passes of Old Age in the 50th year of the ship's journey (dark)
- - Scene: Who was the next Commander of the Excalibur? (Setting: The Bridge of the Excalibur) (Resolution: Veluxia becomes the co-pilot, guiding the commander's son to New Avalon) (bright)
Bookend 2: End of the Earth (bright)
- Event: Humanity's Colony Fleet Harnesses Sol's Supernova to Follow the Excalibur to New Avalon (bright)
- Event: The Human Colony Fleet reaches New Avalon only to find it deserted (dark)
Focus 1: First Manned Mission to Mars
- Legacy: Effect of Sheva's Research (Legacy Event: Sheva's Research arrives on Mars) (bright)
Focus 2: The First Psychic Murder
- Legacy: Veluxia, the first A.I. (Legacy Scene: What causes the Psychic War?)
Focus 3: Life Aboard the Colony Ship Excalibur
- Legacy: New Avalon (Legacy Event: Mars becomes the breadbasket of the Solar System (tied into Sheva's Research))
Focus 4: Null Psychics
- Legacy: Martian Beefsteak (Legacy Scene: Who was the next Commander of the Excalibur? (tied to Veluxia))
Sunday, September 16, 2012
September Game Day
Another month has passed and another NWARPG Game Day has come (yay) and passed (aww). This month it was another Benton County one, out at Gamer Utopia in Rogers. The last one at their current location, by the time we get back that direction in a couple of months they will have moved into a new store. I kind of liked the old mall location, for the extra stuff conveniently located around it in the same building; but hopefully the new location will be even better.
This Game Day saw a good number of RPGs being played, and a decent smattering of board games as well. There were some familiar faces that had been missed at the past few game days (I'm looking at you John), as well as the vast majority of the regular crew of wonderful people who I've come to know and enjoy at these and other gaming events over the past few months. I did not really pay much attention to numbers or counts or anything, but my guess is that we were at least at the 25 mark and maybe upwards of 30 people there playing various games.
I had a truly wonderful time playing in a Dungeon World game. As usual I absolutely love playing in any of the Apocalypse World based systems a hell of a lot more than I have enjoyed my short forays into running them. As a player this system just really works for me and I have a ton of fun with it. It also helps that I've played with great groups and great GMs every time. This time of course was no exception. Chris Colbath ran a very fun game, which saw our party of six adventurers undertaking a perilous quest to find and destroy the Corrupted Master.
Our party was composed of Baldric the bard, Mouse the halfling thief, Wolf the half-elf ranger and his bear companion Bear, Lux the paladin, "Horcrux" (not the actual name, but that's what the GM kept accidentely saying so it stuck) the elven druid, and Galadiir the elven mage (ME!). It was quite an impressive party with lots of varying powers, skills, and alignments (shhhhh, I was EVIL!!)
I totally hammed up my character by dubbing him Galadirr the Unsure and playing him as being totally uncertain and in doubt about everything, including his own magical abilities. I was constantly "hoping this works!" when casting a spell, and pointing out to the paladin that "the gods don't actually exist" I also did a terrible take on a British accent, and cracked jokes as often as I could; so for me at least it was a ton of fun. Lots of others were laughing, so I think it was fun for most if not all.\
Our group faced an attack by goblins right off the bat as we were camped out on our journey to find the Corrupted Master (CM). We handily defeated the foes, thanks in large part to my amazing fireball casting skills. I'm not entirely certain I believe the stories that they rest of the party put forth about my fireball hitting them as well, I think they just are too embarrassed to admit falling into the camp fire. After defeating the goblins we made haste to the secret mountain fortress of the CM, which I had never seen before because I definitely had not served an intern-ship with him back during wizarding school. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
After defeating another horde of goblins, and more party members stumbling into random fires that totally were not my fault, I consulted with the most trustworthy sort of individual (a demon) and learned of the secret passage into the tower that I totally did not already know about at all. We managed to sneak inside and find our way to the CM after only some minor difficulties involving illusions, big scary spiders, fire traps (not my fault!), zombies, and paladins walking directly into the path of innocent wizard's fireballs. An epic battle ensued, and after some hard fighting, and a fireball landing on the party that was NOT cast by their own wizard, I managed to just barely kill the CM right as his teleportation ritual finished and the body faded away. The evil wizarding tower was now under new management!!
As I said it was a ton of fun, and hey only 3/5 of my fireballs hit the party! I rolled well enough on a lot of those castings that I wish I'd taken the empower magic ability, I would have been doing a whole lot more friendly fire damage!
The other two RPGs that went on were a Pathfinder Society scenario (with 5-7 players I believe) and a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, a zombie RPG, with 5-6 players as well. I was busy in my game, and was bugging the board game players when I was not; so I didn't pay much attention to either one, but we have such high quality GMs and players at these events that I'm sure both were a ton of fun. Sadly the Marvel game did not end up happening, the GM ended up being late and leaving early because of health issues I believe.
As far as board games went I got to play in a few, and there were a ton going on that I saw but didn't participate in. A group of 5 or so players were unfortunately cursed with having to play Cosmic Encounters, and while they seemed to have fun I'm sure inside they were crying. ;)
A couple of folks played the new Fantasy Flight Star Wars mini game, that looked like fun and I'll have to try it out sometime. A few games of Jungle Speed happened, with Emily winning them all I hear. War of 1812 was played at least once with a group of five, and from the conversations about it afterwards I think everyone had fun and is looking to play it again. Another one I'll have to try sometime.
I was able to play a 2 player game of Pandemic with Bobby, which we lost due to outbreaks. Also got to try out Formula D for the first time. I was trying to be careful and not hurt my car for the majority of the race, which doesn't lend itself to a winning strategy; so I lost that one as well, but it is a very cool game that I think does a great job of capturing the flavor and theme. Which is something I'm always interested in seeing and learning from.
The big highlight of the board games for me was getting to playtest a game of my own design. My election satire card game was played for the first time and I was super happy with the result. No, it wasn't anywhere near perfect, nor was it the greatest idea ever. But it was somewhat enjoyable, and I think most of the people there saw potential for a decent game to come out of it after more testing and refinement; which is all I could possibly ask for at this stage. The two big problems were the balancing of the numbers, which I 100% admit were largely arbitrary and just thrown out there to see what would work, and a need for more interesting and dynamic choices at various points in the game. I got some really good feedback and was super grateful to the group that was willing to try it out. Looking forward to fixing some things and trying it again. Thanks Bobby, John, Taylor and Josh!
EDIT: Oh after I posted I remember that Anders and Chris did quite a bit of discussion about their "Pirate LARP" game, and may have played through some of the mechanics. Another awesome example of the great community of gamers we have here in the area. Chris mentioned an idea of making a website that would be a central hub for all our local game design stuff; which I think would be awesome.
This Game Day saw a good number of RPGs being played, and a decent smattering of board games as well. There were some familiar faces that had been missed at the past few game days (I'm looking at you John), as well as the vast majority of the regular crew of wonderful people who I've come to know and enjoy at these and other gaming events over the past few months. I did not really pay much attention to numbers or counts or anything, but my guess is that we were at least at the 25 mark and maybe upwards of 30 people there playing various games.
I had a truly wonderful time playing in a Dungeon World game. As usual I absolutely love playing in any of the Apocalypse World based systems a hell of a lot more than I have enjoyed my short forays into running them. As a player this system just really works for me and I have a ton of fun with it. It also helps that I've played with great groups and great GMs every time. This time of course was no exception. Chris Colbath ran a very fun game, which saw our party of six adventurers undertaking a perilous quest to find and destroy the Corrupted Master.
Our party was composed of Baldric the bard, Mouse the halfling thief, Wolf the half-elf ranger and his bear companion Bear, Lux the paladin, "Horcrux" (not the actual name, but that's what the GM kept accidentely saying so it stuck) the elven druid, and Galadiir the elven mage (ME!). It was quite an impressive party with lots of varying powers, skills, and alignments (shhhhh, I was EVIL!!)
I totally hammed up my character by dubbing him Galadirr the Unsure and playing him as being totally uncertain and in doubt about everything, including his own magical abilities. I was constantly "hoping this works!" when casting a spell, and pointing out to the paladin that "the gods don't actually exist" I also did a terrible take on a British accent, and cracked jokes as often as I could; so for me at least it was a ton of fun. Lots of others were laughing, so I think it was fun for most if not all.\
Our group faced an attack by goblins right off the bat as we were camped out on our journey to find the Corrupted Master (CM). We handily defeated the foes, thanks in large part to my amazing fireball casting skills. I'm not entirely certain I believe the stories that they rest of the party put forth about my fireball hitting them as well, I think they just are too embarrassed to admit falling into the camp fire. After defeating the goblins we made haste to the secret mountain fortress of the CM, which I had never seen before because I definitely had not served an intern-ship with him back during wizarding school. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
After defeating another horde of goblins, and more party members stumbling into random fires that totally were not my fault, I consulted with the most trustworthy sort of individual (a demon) and learned of the secret passage into the tower that I totally did not already know about at all. We managed to sneak inside and find our way to the CM after only some minor difficulties involving illusions, big scary spiders, fire traps (not my fault!), zombies, and paladins walking directly into the path of innocent wizard's fireballs. An epic battle ensued, and after some hard fighting, and a fireball landing on the party that was NOT cast by their own wizard, I managed to just barely kill the CM right as his teleportation ritual finished and the body faded away. The evil wizarding tower was now under new management!!
As I said it was a ton of fun, and hey only 3/5 of my fireballs hit the party! I rolled well enough on a lot of those castings that I wish I'd taken the empower magic ability, I would have been doing a whole lot more friendly fire damage!
The other two RPGs that went on were a Pathfinder Society scenario (with 5-7 players I believe) and a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, a zombie RPG, with 5-6 players as well. I was busy in my game, and was bugging the board game players when I was not; so I didn't pay much attention to either one, but we have such high quality GMs and players at these events that I'm sure both were a ton of fun. Sadly the Marvel game did not end up happening, the GM ended up being late and leaving early because of health issues I believe.
As far as board games went I got to play in a few, and there were a ton going on that I saw but didn't participate in. A group of 5 or so players were unfortunately cursed with having to play Cosmic Encounters, and while they seemed to have fun I'm sure inside they were crying. ;)
A couple of folks played the new Fantasy Flight Star Wars mini game, that looked like fun and I'll have to try it out sometime. A few games of Jungle Speed happened, with Emily winning them all I hear. War of 1812 was played at least once with a group of five, and from the conversations about it afterwards I think everyone had fun and is looking to play it again. Another one I'll have to try sometime.
I was able to play a 2 player game of Pandemic with Bobby, which we lost due to outbreaks. Also got to try out Formula D for the first time. I was trying to be careful and not hurt my car for the majority of the race, which doesn't lend itself to a winning strategy; so I lost that one as well, but it is a very cool game that I think does a great job of capturing the flavor and theme. Which is something I'm always interested in seeing and learning from.
The big highlight of the board games for me was getting to playtest a game of my own design. My election satire card game was played for the first time and I was super happy with the result. No, it wasn't anywhere near perfect, nor was it the greatest idea ever. But it was somewhat enjoyable, and I think most of the people there saw potential for a decent game to come out of it after more testing and refinement; which is all I could possibly ask for at this stage. The two big problems were the balancing of the numbers, which I 100% admit were largely arbitrary and just thrown out there to see what would work, and a need for more interesting and dynamic choices at various points in the game. I got some really good feedback and was super grateful to the group that was willing to try it out. Looking forward to fixing some things and trying it again. Thanks Bobby, John, Taylor and Josh!
EDIT: Oh after I posted I remember that Anders and Chris did quite a bit of discussion about their "Pirate LARP" game, and may have played through some of the mechanics. Another awesome example of the great community of gamers we have here in the area. Chris mentioned an idea of making a website that would be a central hub for all our local game design stuff; which I think would be awesome.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
August Game Day
Oh my I have so many things that need to be written up for this blog. The latest Game Day, Smallville at Magpie, Mage Knight board game, Dresden Files, my Mecha game and my new project, Risk Legacy, the Mistborn RPG, and 1989: Dawn of Freedom. I'm going to type up as many as I can in this current sitting, so I can have them easily available for release over the next few days.
First up the latest Game Day. It was this last Saturday, the 18th, at the Clubhouse at the Creek. It was a ton of fun, and I was very happy to get a chance to playtest my Mecha RPG. I ran a quick scenario for five players, and I think that for the most part people had fun. I tried out quite a few new things that I added to the game on the fly, and most of it worked. I love the system that John Wick uses in Aegis Project where players get to add details to the mission and the location of said mission. This I stole whole cloth and am not ashamed to admit it.
I tried using my step up die system instead of building pools of D6s for all the mecha systems, and I do not think that it worked out all that well. I definitely prefer the feel and ease of the pools of D6s. The mental strain to energy points system also was a bit rough. I love the concept, but I don't like my execution. I'll probably drop the whole concept, I think the theme of the game is moving away from the one that inspired the mechanic anyway.
There were tons of ideas and questions, lots of good points were made. I definitely need to have limits on how many points you can put into a given system, and come up with ways to customize both the pilots abilities and the mechas systems. The initiative order also was rather slow, which is something I hate about the D&D style, one at a time initiative. The Aegis Project has everybody roll at the same time. I like that, but the more I steal from that game the more I can't help but think, "Why am I not just playing John Wick's game?" That question is one of the main reasons that this game is going on the back burner for me right now.
At the same time that my game was happening there was quite a lot of other activity happening in the room, which I was very happy to see. I got there a little late, and the whole place was filled with games in progress when I walked in. Made my heart all warm and fuzzy :). There was a game of Arkham Horror, the Winterwall Old School D&D game, and a Serenity one shot. Had to have been about 15 or 16 people playing, and everyone seemed to be having a ton of fun.
After my mecha game I ran off and grabbed some lunch, while I was gone I think some games of Resistance, Munchkin, and Canvas Eagles all started up. Apparently Anders tried to start up a game of Battlestar Galactica, but without me there to help push it it didn't happen. I'll be making sure it gets played at a Board Game Day or Game Day in the near future.
I did get a four player game of Dungeon Lords going once I got back. Resistance I think was on their 14th or 15th game or something ridiculous like that at the next table btw. :) We had a good time with Dungeon Lords, and I think everyone liked the game. It is one that I enjoy, but I always feel bad about because it has one heck of a learning curve and an experienced player will usually blow any new folks out of the water in it. I was the experienced one and everyone else was a newb, btw. A good number of other folks that spectated found the game to be interesting as well and I am quite certain I can get another round of it in at the next Game Day if I remember to bring it.
Overall things seemed to wind down and the crowd thinned out fairly quickly. I think this was a combination of a lot of games happening right up front, like 4 or 5 at once; and the fact that Resistance kept 4-6 folks tied up for quite some time. Not a bad thing on the whole or on Resistance in particular, don't get me wrong. Just observing and hypothesizing about the observation. I'm really looking forward to the next Game Day, I always do. My hope and promise to myself it to present a game of my own design at each future Game Day, whether it be a totally new one or just a revised version of one I've already shown. Very excited about that as well.
First up the latest Game Day. It was this last Saturday, the 18th, at the Clubhouse at the Creek. It was a ton of fun, and I was very happy to get a chance to playtest my Mecha RPG. I ran a quick scenario for five players, and I think that for the most part people had fun. I tried out quite a few new things that I added to the game on the fly, and most of it worked. I love the system that John Wick uses in Aegis Project where players get to add details to the mission and the location of said mission. This I stole whole cloth and am not ashamed to admit it.
I tried using my step up die system instead of building pools of D6s for all the mecha systems, and I do not think that it worked out all that well. I definitely prefer the feel and ease of the pools of D6s. The mental strain to energy points system also was a bit rough. I love the concept, but I don't like my execution. I'll probably drop the whole concept, I think the theme of the game is moving away from the one that inspired the mechanic anyway.
There were tons of ideas and questions, lots of good points were made. I definitely need to have limits on how many points you can put into a given system, and come up with ways to customize both the pilots abilities and the mechas systems. The initiative order also was rather slow, which is something I hate about the D&D style, one at a time initiative. The Aegis Project has everybody roll at the same time. I like that, but the more I steal from that game the more I can't help but think, "Why am I not just playing John Wick's game?" That question is one of the main reasons that this game is going on the back burner for me right now.
At the same time that my game was happening there was quite a lot of other activity happening in the room, which I was very happy to see. I got there a little late, and the whole place was filled with games in progress when I walked in. Made my heart all warm and fuzzy :). There was a game of Arkham Horror, the Winterwall Old School D&D game, and a Serenity one shot. Had to have been about 15 or 16 people playing, and everyone seemed to be having a ton of fun.
After my mecha game I ran off and grabbed some lunch, while I was gone I think some games of Resistance, Munchkin, and Canvas Eagles all started up. Apparently Anders tried to start up a game of Battlestar Galactica, but without me there to help push it it didn't happen. I'll be making sure it gets played at a Board Game Day or Game Day in the near future.
I did get a four player game of Dungeon Lords going once I got back. Resistance I think was on their 14th or 15th game or something ridiculous like that at the next table btw. :) We had a good time with Dungeon Lords, and I think everyone liked the game. It is one that I enjoy, but I always feel bad about because it has one heck of a learning curve and an experienced player will usually blow any new folks out of the water in it. I was the experienced one and everyone else was a newb, btw. A good number of other folks that spectated found the game to be interesting as well and I am quite certain I can get another round of it in at the next Game Day if I remember to bring it.
Overall things seemed to wind down and the crowd thinned out fairly quickly. I think this was a combination of a lot of games happening right up front, like 4 or 5 at once; and the fact that Resistance kept 4-6 folks tied up for quite some time. Not a bad thing on the whole or on Resistance in particular, don't get me wrong. Just observing and hypothesizing about the observation. I'm really looking forward to the next Game Day, I always do. My hope and promise to myself it to present a game of my own design at each future Game Day, whether it be a totally new one or just a revised version of one I've already shown. Very excited about that as well.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Last Night on Earth Review
Last Night on Earth. What a roller coaster ride playing that game was.
First of an explanation of how this game works. In it you are on one of two teams, humans (or as I like to call them Breathers) or zombies. You play through some sort of scenario/mission which usually has the humans trying to accomplish a specific goal, like gather 12 supplies which was the goal in our game, and the zombies are pretty much looking to eat all those tasty, tasty brains.
The game is played in alternating turns for each team. On the Zombie turn the hordes of mindless undead are represented by one or two players (or in our game 3). All of the zombie players do each of the steps in the turn together. First you move the Sun Track Marker, which counts down the rounds in the game until the sun rises and either the humans celebrate surviving or the zombies show up in force and swarm the remaining humans; just depends on the scenario.
Then you each draw until you have 2 zombie cards, which give you nice advantages like more zombies, more movement, better attacks, etc. You then roll to see if new zombies spawn. Roll 2d6 and if you roll more than the number of zombie on the board you get more this turn. In our scenario however we skipped this step because zombies automatically spawned each turn.
Next, move the shambling hordes towards their delicious targets. Most of the time the zombies move one space, though cards can improve that. After movement if any zombies are in the same space as some humans they get to chow down. Combat involves rolling one or more d6s versus the humans two or more d6s. The person who rolls the highest number wins, zombies win ties. If the human gets a higher number but no doubles the zombies is Fended Off, basically the fight ends with no one taking any damage. If he wins and gets doubles he kills the zombie. If the zombie wins he does one damage to the human.
Finally you roll a d3 to see how many new zombies you spawn if you do get to spawn new ones. Add new zombies in at the various designated spawn points on the map, distributing them as evenly as possible. You also have an option of trading in two possible new zombies in order to draw a Grave Weapon card. These add interesting weapons to the zombies that give them cool and usually powerful advantages.
After that the silly breathers get their pointless turns in an attempt to deny zombies their rightful dinner. Each of the human players is playing a Hero character. Each Hero takes their turn in sequence, each one finishing their whole turn before the next goes. First up there is a Move Action. You roll a d6 and can move that many spaces. Alternatively after rolling you can decide to Search an area for useful stuff. Next up is Exchange Items. All heroes in the space with the active hero can both give and receive items via the Hero whose turn it is.
After that you break out the guns and do Ranged Attacks. You get one shot a turn and the card gives you the details on what your roll means. Next you Fight Zombies, using the same combat method detailed above, and then the next person does all that for their turn.
Okay so lets look at what I thought about the game. To start I have to say that we played a game with 8 players, and the game is meant to only have 6 players. We had an extra human and an extra zombie player. Since this was my first and only game of LNoE I can't speak with authority on the game speed, but it really seemed to move slower than it probably should. Other players were saying that it was not normally this slow. It was really bad in this particular game though. There was a TON of downtime and the game took so long that people were yelling for it to end during the last hour.
Other than that the game seemed okay. I played on the zombie side, so I can't really say what the human play was like. I have to say that the zombies were fun from a thematic point of view, but in general there was not much there. I really feel that they could just be automated by the game system and you could just have human players. Yes, it was fun to be the zombies and try to eat brains, but I don't think that that side of gameplay would hold up for multiple plays. There just really wasn't enough there.
The various Heroes that were available to play all looked fun and cool, and gameplay for the human side seemed like it would take a good amount of thinking, planning, and tactics. I'd give that side a try for sure. In the end this isn't going to become my favorite game of all time or anything. But I will definitely give it another chance, and I think it will be improved by trying out the human side, playing when I haven't been awake for over 26 hours, and possibly imbibing some alcohol while playing. That always helps.
First of an explanation of how this game works. In it you are on one of two teams, humans (or as I like to call them Breathers) or zombies. You play through some sort of scenario/mission which usually has the humans trying to accomplish a specific goal, like gather 12 supplies which was the goal in our game, and the zombies are pretty much looking to eat all those tasty, tasty brains.
The game is played in alternating turns for each team. On the Zombie turn the hordes of mindless undead are represented by one or two players (or in our game 3). All of the zombie players do each of the steps in the turn together. First you move the Sun Track Marker, which counts down the rounds in the game until the sun rises and either the humans celebrate surviving or the zombies show up in force and swarm the remaining humans; just depends on the scenario.
Then you each draw until you have 2 zombie cards, which give you nice advantages like more zombies, more movement, better attacks, etc. You then roll to see if new zombies spawn. Roll 2d6 and if you roll more than the number of zombie on the board you get more this turn. In our scenario however we skipped this step because zombies automatically spawned each turn.
Next, move the shambling hordes towards their delicious targets. Most of the time the zombies move one space, though cards can improve that. After movement if any zombies are in the same space as some humans they get to chow down. Combat involves rolling one or more d6s versus the humans two or more d6s. The person who rolls the highest number wins, zombies win ties. If the human gets a higher number but no doubles the zombies is Fended Off, basically the fight ends with no one taking any damage. If he wins and gets doubles he kills the zombie. If the zombie wins he does one damage to the human.
Finally you roll a d3 to see how many new zombies you spawn if you do get to spawn new ones. Add new zombies in at the various designated spawn points on the map, distributing them as evenly as possible. You also have an option of trading in two possible new zombies in order to draw a Grave Weapon card. These add interesting weapons to the zombies that give them cool and usually powerful advantages.
After that the silly breathers get their pointless turns in an attempt to deny zombies their rightful dinner. Each of the human players is playing a Hero character. Each Hero takes their turn in sequence, each one finishing their whole turn before the next goes. First up there is a Move Action. You roll a d6 and can move that many spaces. Alternatively after rolling you can decide to Search an area for useful stuff. Next up is Exchange Items. All heroes in the space with the active hero can both give and receive items via the Hero whose turn it is.
After that you break out the guns and do Ranged Attacks. You get one shot a turn and the card gives you the details on what your roll means. Next you Fight Zombies, using the same combat method detailed above, and then the next person does all that for their turn.
Okay so lets look at what I thought about the game. To start I have to say that we played a game with 8 players, and the game is meant to only have 6 players. We had an extra human and an extra zombie player. Since this was my first and only game of LNoE I can't speak with authority on the game speed, but it really seemed to move slower than it probably should. Other players were saying that it was not normally this slow. It was really bad in this particular game though. There was a TON of downtime and the game took so long that people were yelling for it to end during the last hour.
Other than that the game seemed okay. I played on the zombie side, so I can't really say what the human play was like. I have to say that the zombies were fun from a thematic point of view, but in general there was not much there. I really feel that they could just be automated by the game system and you could just have human players. Yes, it was fun to be the zombies and try to eat brains, but I don't think that that side of gameplay would hold up for multiple plays. There just really wasn't enough there.
The various Heroes that were available to play all looked fun and cool, and gameplay for the human side seemed like it would take a good amount of thinking, planning, and tactics. I'd give that side a try for sure. In the end this isn't going to become my favorite game of all time or anything. But I will definitely give it another chance, and I think it will be improved by trying out the human side, playing when I haven't been awake for over 26 hours, and possibly imbibing some alcohol while playing. That always helps.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
July Game Day
Hey only a four day delay for my post about this month's Game Day. I'm getting better at this.
This last Saturday, July 21, we got together at Gamer Utopia for some RPGs and board games, as we are wont to do. This game day felt a little bit sparsely attended in comparison to the last couple of them, I believe the numbers were somewhere in the low 20s. Now the fact that a gathering with around 20+ people is something that I consider to be a sparsely attended event is in my opinion a very good sign. That means that we are getting into a trend of successful and very well attended game days, and that makes me happy!
I did not fully put on my reporter hat for this particular day, mainly because I was quite engrossed in an awesome game of Dresden Files, and because as usual I was very tired. Emily did a great job of keeping a list of the various games played though. Here is what she recorded:
Dresden Files, Alien Frontiers, 2 games of 1812: The Invastion of Canada, 2 games of Pandemic, King of Tokyo, Kittens in a Blender, Elfenland, 2 games of Jungle Speed, Tsuro, Chris Colbath's Pirate LARP Playtest, Pentago, Mythic Iceland RPG, Chupacabra: Survive the Night, and Last Night on Earth.
A good listing of games. As usual I feel there should be more RPGs, because I love them so much, but with many of the normal GMs not able to make it or playing instead of running it was bound to be a little RPG light. Which is fine, everyone very much seemed to have a ton of fun with a wide variety of board games.
So here are my impressions on the things I both played and just watched. I'll go mostly in order, though I'll put Dresden near the end in order to give it more space.
First off, Alien Frontiers. This is a wonderful, quick playing, space themed board game that has been brought to us by the magic of Kickstarter. You roll dice, and then based on the results on each individual die you spend them like a currency to achieve various outcomes. I find the game to be very simple to learn, and to have some fun strategies. The randomness of the die rolls means that you can't think ahead too much and just have to let the game play; which usually gives it a more laid back atmosphere.
1812: The Invasion of Canada looked interesting. I always enjoy historical board games that abstract the events and conflicts, and from my brief viewing of the game that looked like it might be the case in this game. I could be completely wrong of course, but it intrigued me enough that I will look into more details on it. Plus the ability to beat up on Canada, always a plus. We must stop their evil from oozing down on us like so much maple syrup.
Pandemic is very much a well loved staple of the cooperative board game roster. Who doesn't love trying to save the world from horrible cubed shaped diseases? Communists, that is who. So if you hate this game you are a Communist. Science says so. The only flaw with the game for me is the common one among many cooperative games, strong personalities like myself have a bad tendency to try and play every one's turns for them.
King of Tokyo is a fun giant kaiju monster fighting game. Great theme, fun game. Lots of luck because of dice rolls, but not a serious game so I am okay with that. Kittens in a Blender is another good, short game where you use cards with cute kittens on them; and try to save as many of your own while blending your opponents into delicious kitten smoothies. Elfenland looked like an abstract fantasy themed game with a Euro feel to it. Will have to find out more about that.
Jungle Speed is the type of game that I am terrible at, but that I enjoy messing with people in. Everyone in turn order flips over square cards with various shapes and patterns on them, and you are looking for a match between the card on your pile and the one on someone else's pile. If a match is seen, the two people involved in the match must race to grab the plastic idol token from its place in the middle of the table. Quick recognition and dexterous movement are not my forte. Drawing out my plays to annoyingly increase tension is. I'm a bad man.
Tsuro was a fun, quick abstract game where you control tokens that represent Chinese style dragons. You play tiles with lines that represent paths on them, and you are trying to keep your token on a path that does not go off the edge of the board or impact another token. If you manage to be the last dragon flying, you win. Wil Wheaton showed everyone how to play it on an episode of Tabletop.
.Chris Colbath's Pirate LARP looks really cool. It is still being developed, but it should be featured at GlitchCon. I hope to participate. The Mythic Iceland RPG looked like a fun setting; but it used the Basic Roleplaying system, and I HATE BRP!!!
Pentago seemed to be on of those abstract, "ancient Chinese" games like Go. I'd play it, but I don't think I'd be good at it. Chupacabra: Survive the Night. I know nothing about it, did not watch it being played, only saw the box. But man the name just sells itself doesn't it. Just make sure to have a sacrificial goat on hand.
Last Night on Earth will get its own post. So more on that there.
Finally we come to the Dresden Files RPG session that I played in. We had a group of five players and a GM. The experience with the Dresden source material ranged from having read all the books to having just seen the show to no experience. A good mix that makes for a different type of interesting game, IMO. Our characters were all young teenagers of minor magical talent. My character was Sean Barnes, a teenage metalhead werewolf.
The plot was fairly straightforward. We had heard about an interesting meeting at an old abandoned circus ground on the edge of town. We went and attended, meeting a few of the local supernatural types and making a few interesting deals and purchases here and there. After a bit of chit chatting it was revealed that the group was some sort of organization that seemed to have the agenda of pushing the world of magic out into the open so that no one could deny it. Seems like a dangerous idea to me, but hey to each his insane own.
As the meeting progressed each of us got an opportunity to ask a single question of a fae spirit trapped in a magical mirror. We all asked various interesting questions (though Emily saved her question until the conflict arose and wisely used it to get some helpful information then. Well played.) with my character surprising the GM a bit by asking the faerie "What do you want?" I had by then decided that my guy was a bit of an "eco-nerd" and did not like seeing a wild thing locked up like that. So he resolved to do what he could to get the faerie free. Unfortunately the attention of a demon was called down upon the party via another person's question, so things heated up quickly.
The calamity was helped along by a couple of Warden's rushing in and trying to arrest everyone as well on violations of the Laws of Magic. Silly overzealous wizard police. A really fun an challenging battle ensued, in which my character was constantly getting into trouble by accepting compels from the GM to do bad things, and just straight up acting without thinking. Being a frenzied teenage werewolf is fun!
After defeating out foes, and me forcing the release of the faerie from her new prison in another player's faerie catching bottle, I gave her spirit a lift in my body and ran off to find a way to get her back to the Nevernever before sun up.
Overall I thought the session went really well. Our GM, Josh, seemed to have a very good grasp on the rules, and he sure did a much better job of moving the FATE economy along that I ever did when I ran Dresden. The other players were great and for the most part really did a good job of getting into their characters. Out of character I balked a little bit in my own head at the caution shown by other's actions (hey we are teenagers here folks!) but it wasn't even remotely on a level that could be labeled a "problem". Also I sure let me leap to the forefront and both take tons of risks and push my agenda, so that was nice.
The whole thing went so well that it looks like we are going to start a twice a month Dresden game with the same group. I can't wait to play it. And to build the Dresdenverse version of Seattle, which will be our setting.
July's Game Day was a great time as usual. I played a smaller number of games than I usually do, but each one had a good amount of quality fun in it. I'm really looking forward to next month's. Hopefully I'll both get to play some more good games and get to run a full on play test session of my Mecha RPG.
This last Saturday, July 21, we got together at Gamer Utopia for some RPGs and board games, as we are wont to do. This game day felt a little bit sparsely attended in comparison to the last couple of them, I believe the numbers were somewhere in the low 20s. Now the fact that a gathering with around 20+ people is something that I consider to be a sparsely attended event is in my opinion a very good sign. That means that we are getting into a trend of successful and very well attended game days, and that makes me happy!
I did not fully put on my reporter hat for this particular day, mainly because I was quite engrossed in an awesome game of Dresden Files, and because as usual I was very tired. Emily did a great job of keeping a list of the various games played though. Here is what she recorded:
Dresden Files, Alien Frontiers, 2 games of 1812: The Invastion of Canada, 2 games of Pandemic, King of Tokyo, Kittens in a Blender, Elfenland, 2 games of Jungle Speed, Tsuro, Chris Colbath's Pirate LARP Playtest, Pentago, Mythic Iceland RPG, Chupacabra: Survive the Night, and Last Night on Earth.
A good listing of games. As usual I feel there should be more RPGs, because I love them so much, but with many of the normal GMs not able to make it or playing instead of running it was bound to be a little RPG light. Which is fine, everyone very much seemed to have a ton of fun with a wide variety of board games.
So here are my impressions on the things I both played and just watched. I'll go mostly in order, though I'll put Dresden near the end in order to give it more space.
First off, Alien Frontiers. This is a wonderful, quick playing, space themed board game that has been brought to us by the magic of Kickstarter. You roll dice, and then based on the results on each individual die you spend them like a currency to achieve various outcomes. I find the game to be very simple to learn, and to have some fun strategies. The randomness of the die rolls means that you can't think ahead too much and just have to let the game play; which usually gives it a more laid back atmosphere.
1812: The Invasion of Canada looked interesting. I always enjoy historical board games that abstract the events and conflicts, and from my brief viewing of the game that looked like it might be the case in this game. I could be completely wrong of course, but it intrigued me enough that I will look into more details on it. Plus the ability to beat up on Canada, always a plus. We must stop their evil from oozing down on us like so much maple syrup.
Pandemic is very much a well loved staple of the cooperative board game roster. Who doesn't love trying to save the world from horrible cubed shaped diseases? Communists, that is who. So if you hate this game you are a Communist. Science says so. The only flaw with the game for me is the common one among many cooperative games, strong personalities like myself have a bad tendency to try and play every one's turns for them.
King of Tokyo is a fun giant kaiju monster fighting game. Great theme, fun game. Lots of luck because of dice rolls, but not a serious game so I am okay with that. Kittens in a Blender is another good, short game where you use cards with cute kittens on them; and try to save as many of your own while blending your opponents into delicious kitten smoothies. Elfenland looked like an abstract fantasy themed game with a Euro feel to it. Will have to find out more about that.
Jungle Speed is the type of game that I am terrible at, but that I enjoy messing with people in. Everyone in turn order flips over square cards with various shapes and patterns on them, and you are looking for a match between the card on your pile and the one on someone else's pile. If a match is seen, the two people involved in the match must race to grab the plastic idol token from its place in the middle of the table. Quick recognition and dexterous movement are not my forte. Drawing out my plays to annoyingly increase tension is. I'm a bad man.
Tsuro was a fun, quick abstract game where you control tokens that represent Chinese style dragons. You play tiles with lines that represent paths on them, and you are trying to keep your token on a path that does not go off the edge of the board or impact another token. If you manage to be the last dragon flying, you win. Wil Wheaton showed everyone how to play it on an episode of Tabletop.
.Chris Colbath's Pirate LARP looks really cool. It is still being developed, but it should be featured at GlitchCon. I hope to participate. The Mythic Iceland RPG looked like a fun setting; but it used the Basic Roleplaying system, and I HATE BRP!!!
Pentago seemed to be on of those abstract, "ancient Chinese" games like Go. I'd play it, but I don't think I'd be good at it. Chupacabra: Survive the Night. I know nothing about it, did not watch it being played, only saw the box. But man the name just sells itself doesn't it. Just make sure to have a sacrificial goat on hand.
Last Night on Earth will get its own post. So more on that there.
Finally we come to the Dresden Files RPG session that I played in. We had a group of five players and a GM. The experience with the Dresden source material ranged from having read all the books to having just seen the show to no experience. A good mix that makes for a different type of interesting game, IMO. Our characters were all young teenagers of minor magical talent. My character was Sean Barnes, a teenage metalhead werewolf.
The plot was fairly straightforward. We had heard about an interesting meeting at an old abandoned circus ground on the edge of town. We went and attended, meeting a few of the local supernatural types and making a few interesting deals and purchases here and there. After a bit of chit chatting it was revealed that the group was some sort of organization that seemed to have the agenda of pushing the world of magic out into the open so that no one could deny it. Seems like a dangerous idea to me, but hey to each his insane own.
As the meeting progressed each of us got an opportunity to ask a single question of a fae spirit trapped in a magical mirror. We all asked various interesting questions (though Emily saved her question until the conflict arose and wisely used it to get some helpful information then. Well played.) with my character surprising the GM a bit by asking the faerie "What do you want?" I had by then decided that my guy was a bit of an "eco-nerd" and did not like seeing a wild thing locked up like that. So he resolved to do what he could to get the faerie free. Unfortunately the attention of a demon was called down upon the party via another person's question, so things heated up quickly.
The calamity was helped along by a couple of Warden's rushing in and trying to arrest everyone as well on violations of the Laws of Magic. Silly overzealous wizard police. A really fun an challenging battle ensued, in which my character was constantly getting into trouble by accepting compels from the GM to do bad things, and just straight up acting without thinking. Being a frenzied teenage werewolf is fun!
After defeating out foes, and me forcing the release of the faerie from her new prison in another player's faerie catching bottle, I gave her spirit a lift in my body and ran off to find a way to get her back to the Nevernever before sun up.
Overall I thought the session went really well. Our GM, Josh, seemed to have a very good grasp on the rules, and he sure did a much better job of moving the FATE economy along that I ever did when I ran Dresden. The other players were great and for the most part really did a good job of getting into their characters. Out of character I balked a little bit in my own head at the caution shown by other's actions (hey we are teenagers here folks!) but it wasn't even remotely on a level that could be labeled a "problem". Also I sure let me leap to the forefront and both take tons of risks and push my agenda, so that was nice.
The whole thing went so well that it looks like we are going to start a twice a month Dresden game with the same group. I can't wait to play it. And to build the Dresdenverse version of Seattle, which will be our setting.
July's Game Day was a great time as usual. I played a smaller number of games than I usually do, but each one had a good amount of quality fun in it. I'm really looking forward to next month's. Hopefully I'll both get to play some more good games and get to run a full on play test session of my Mecha RPG.
Monday, June 18, 2012
June Game Day
Another Game Day has come and gone. This time we took advantage of a location in Benton County, a very nice clubhouse at an apartment complex that we were graciously allowed to use. It was a nice setup, very comfortable, little kitchenette for the snacks, a little short on tables and chairs, but that was mostly because of the turnout we had. Which I believe was 32 people at the most according to those that were counting. That is the biggest turnout for a game day I can remember; so huzzah!
I ran two games of the Marvel RPG. Just a couple of short scenarios that were basically all setup and action scene; so nothing too in depth. But I think everyone had fun, or at least that's what the feedback is saying. The first game had 8 players if I remember correctly. We had Spiderman, Iron Man, Emma Frost, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Captain America, and Thing. The scenario was the What If? Thor bonus content from the Margaret Weiss Productions website. The basic plot deals with the Breakout mini-event, and is meant to be tied in to it; but works just fine by itself for something like this. The Wrecking Crew invades a mansion owned by a collector of various super themed and related items and memorabilia; seeking to retrieve their magical, construction themed weapons. The What If? scenario as written has the heroes fight them, and proposes that Thor's hammer is in the collection as well so that you can bring him in as a PC or NPC as the fight progresses. I added in a few of the B-list villains from the core book because of the large player count, as well as Loki from the Plot Points website.
The heroes fought the villains with great success, taking them all down in a couple of rounds. But then Loki, being the God of Mischief and Lies and Such, used his regeneration power to come back from his supposed defeat and then called out a mind-controlled Thor to help him fight. Luckily the heroes met the challenge with great force and skill and managed to down the evil god and his brainwashed brother quickly; saving the day.
After a short break I launched into a second round with an all new group of players, six of them this time. We had Wolverine, Iron Man, Black Widow, Shadowcat, Colossus, and Thor. I used the Attack on Avengers' Mansion scenario from Plot Points, as well as various villain and item datafiles from their site. The heroes faced off against Loki, Ronan the Accuser, Blaastar, and Wizard; who had broken into the Avengers' vault and taken the Cask of Ancient Winters, the Cosmic Control Rod, the Symbiote, and the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak respectively. An all out brawl ensued, during which the heroes ended up letting a villain go last in the initiative order for the round, and therefore they faced all the bad guys in a row, doing massive AOE attacks. They got pretty dang beaten up all across the board, but then turned it around and in a single round of hero turns wiped the floor with all of them. This scenario was a bit shorter, but felt deadlier, and was quite a bit of fun.
I thought both groups were really great, and had fun running for them. I'm quite glad I got the opportunity to introduce the game to so many different people. It was quite exhausting though, and I only got to play a short game of Ghost Pirates (which I'll talk about in another post) as well because of spending so much time GMing. But I'm not really complaining. I do think for the next game day in July I'll either just try to play stuff, or maybe run something but definitely put a limit on the players this time around to make it more controllable. The game does a great job of handling large groups without breaking, but it does slow down and it is taxing on the GM.
I didn't pay a ton of attention to the other stuff that was played and run. I know Chris did his Eldritch High game and it sounded like it went well. I think there were some games of Fluxx, Apples to Apples, Fantasy Journey?, Ninja, and probably others I didn't notice.
Oh and there was the fuzz ball. The place had a pool table and fuzz ball table, which was nice for them that like those games. Not really my style of thing, especially when I've the opportunity to play better games, but a good number of people played them and had fun; which is 100% a good thing. The only downside was that the fuzz ball games were REALLY loud, and they were being played during RPGs, when loud noises are especially unappreciated. So I think it would behove us to instate an official no fuzz ball during the RPG session rule or something next time we are at that location.
Other than that this was a triumph. Note: Huge Success. Look forward to next month's.
And for those that have survived the reading down to here, just a quick FYI; I'm going to be trying to increase the frequency of my blog posting via scheduled and themed updates. Shooting for 3 a week at least to start, moving up to 5 a week. The intended content will be a couple of different short, serial fiction stories, RPG and board game reviews/actual plays, and notes on my own RPG design projects. So keep checking back and hopefully you'll find interesting stuff.
I ran two games of the Marvel RPG. Just a couple of short scenarios that were basically all setup and action scene; so nothing too in depth. But I think everyone had fun, or at least that's what the feedback is saying. The first game had 8 players if I remember correctly. We had Spiderman, Iron Man, Emma Frost, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Captain America, and Thing. The scenario was the What If? Thor bonus content from the Margaret Weiss Productions website. The basic plot deals with the Breakout mini-event, and is meant to be tied in to it; but works just fine by itself for something like this. The Wrecking Crew invades a mansion owned by a collector of various super themed and related items and memorabilia; seeking to retrieve their magical, construction themed weapons. The What If? scenario as written has the heroes fight them, and proposes that Thor's hammer is in the collection as well so that you can bring him in as a PC or NPC as the fight progresses. I added in a few of the B-list villains from the core book because of the large player count, as well as Loki from the Plot Points website.
The heroes fought the villains with great success, taking them all down in a couple of rounds. But then Loki, being the God of Mischief and Lies and Such, used his regeneration power to come back from his supposed defeat and then called out a mind-controlled Thor to help him fight. Luckily the heroes met the challenge with great force and skill and managed to down the evil god and his brainwashed brother quickly; saving the day.
After a short break I launched into a second round with an all new group of players, six of them this time. We had Wolverine, Iron Man, Black Widow, Shadowcat, Colossus, and Thor. I used the Attack on Avengers' Mansion scenario from Plot Points, as well as various villain and item datafiles from their site. The heroes faced off against Loki, Ronan the Accuser, Blaastar, and Wizard; who had broken into the Avengers' vault and taken the Cask of Ancient Winters, the Cosmic Control Rod, the Symbiote, and the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak respectively. An all out brawl ensued, during which the heroes ended up letting a villain go last in the initiative order for the round, and therefore they faced all the bad guys in a row, doing massive AOE attacks. They got pretty dang beaten up all across the board, but then turned it around and in a single round of hero turns wiped the floor with all of them. This scenario was a bit shorter, but felt deadlier, and was quite a bit of fun.
I thought both groups were really great, and had fun running for them. I'm quite glad I got the opportunity to introduce the game to so many different people. It was quite exhausting though, and I only got to play a short game of Ghost Pirates (which I'll talk about in another post) as well because of spending so much time GMing. But I'm not really complaining. I do think for the next game day in July I'll either just try to play stuff, or maybe run something but definitely put a limit on the players this time around to make it more controllable. The game does a great job of handling large groups without breaking, but it does slow down and it is taxing on the GM.
I didn't pay a ton of attention to the other stuff that was played and run. I know Chris did his Eldritch High game and it sounded like it went well. I think there were some games of Fluxx, Apples to Apples, Fantasy Journey?, Ninja, and probably others I didn't notice.
Oh and there was the fuzz ball. The place had a pool table and fuzz ball table, which was nice for them that like those games. Not really my style of thing, especially when I've the opportunity to play better games, but a good number of people played them and had fun; which is 100% a good thing. The only downside was that the fuzz ball games were REALLY loud, and they were being played during RPGs, when loud noises are especially unappreciated. So I think it would behove us to instate an official no fuzz ball during the RPG session rule or something next time we are at that location.
Other than that this was a triumph. Note: Huge Success. Look forward to next month's.
And for those that have survived the reading down to here, just a quick FYI; I'm going to be trying to increase the frequency of my blog posting via scheduled and themed updates. Shooting for 3 a week at least to start, moving up to 5 a week. The intended content will be a couple of different short, serial fiction stories, RPG and board game reviews/actual plays, and notes on my own RPG design projects. So keep checking back and hopefully you'll find interesting stuff.
Friday, May 25, 2012
May Game Day
It has been almost a week since the May Game Day, and I'm just now getting around to writing about the game I ran. Man my ability to remember things is terrible. :)
I ran the Breakout! mini-event for the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game this time around. I've totally fallen in love with the Cortex Plus system that they use in this game. It is a quick, easy, simple, narrative system that uses all the die types from d4s to d12s. It has a mechanic similar to aspects in fate, so you get the nice interactive back and forth feel that you can get with those. The Plot Points economy works great, better than any other "points" system I've encountered previously. The initiative system is innovative and really cool, basically the active player gets to pick who goes next. And the whole thing just really does a great job of capturing the feel of superheroes and comic books.
So in this mini-event that comes with the basic game book the super villain prison facility called The Raft has been hit by a massive electrical attack and suffered a massive power failure, which has resulted in all seventy or so inmates getting loose and trying to escape. The heroes all happened to be in the area or nearby for one reason or another and react to the breakout.
Black Widow was working as a shield super agent on the Raft itself. Captain America was flying past the Raft in a military helicopter on his way to a security conference in D.C., and the electrical attack knocks his chopper out of the air. Wolverine and Storm were on the nearby docks and saw the helicopter go into the drink, and went to help; continuing onto the Raft with Cap after saving the two soldiers from the helicopter. Spiderman was having dinner with Mary Jane, and unsurprisingly had to cut it short and run off to check out the craziness. Tony Stark was giving a keynote speech at a Stark Industries fundraiser when the lights all went out, so he suited up and went to investigate.
All of these various heroes converged on the Raft's landing pad seconds before another massive explosion knocked a huge hole in the landing pad and two villains came flying out. Graviton and Count Nefaria faced off against the collected heroes in a battle to try and clear the way for their escape. Both villains were pretty powerful, but the collective might of the heroes put them down pretty easily. Two escapees stopped!
Next the group split up with Wolverine, Storm and Iron Man heading straight down the hole that the escaping villains created, while Black Widow, Spiderman, and Captain America made their way down some back access passages deeper into the facility. The team with Black Widow stumbled across Carnage, who proceeded to tear into the three heroes, putting up a pretty crazy fight. Iron Man's group encountered a mob of various minor villains, and managed to make pretty short work of them, in large part thanks to area attacks from Storm and Iron Man. This team then managed to find the Carnage battle near its end and help the other heroes finish off the insane symbiote.
As a side note, the style and flow of this game really handles the dreaded split party well. You can cut between multiple scenes with various characters really easily using the initiative systems; and everything just seems to flow nicely.
As that battle finished a slew of S.H.I.E.L.D. reinforcements arrived and order was restored to the Raft. The heroes gathered themselves and started to try and figure out what happened and what to do next. By spending some of their leftover Plot Points they were able to create various resources that let them figure out that the one who caused the breakout was Electro, that he had done the whole thing to release Karl Lykos, aka Sauron, and that the S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost down near the Savage Land, Sauron's home, had gone silent which is not something that those outposts are supposed to do. So the group hopped onto the helicarrier and headed down to Antarctica and the Savage Land, joined now by Beast who had been on the helicarrier liaising with S.H.I.E.L.D.
Soon after landing they encountered a savage T-Rex! The fight was brutal, and involved Captain America pulling out all the stops and suplexing the enormous beast(Video of the insanity is up on YouTube here), but the heroes made it through; only to face a pack of swift and cunning raptors. Many of the heroes took some damage; but they all made it through the dino-attack mostly intact.
The group then proceeded to the S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost and were greeted with raised guns and an order to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. property. Another Black Widow was there in charge of the base and she did not want any heroes around, citing higher orders from S.H.I.E.L.D. than even Director Maria Hill. B.W. Natasha did not like the sound of this and got her to agree to go off to the side and talk about the situation. After some discussion Natasha found that the other Black Widow was under some sort of brainwashing mind control and using her experience with old Soviet mind control techniques to help her snap out of it.
Shortly after the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had been told to stand down the heroes discovered that there was an illegal, slave labor operation running near the base, with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents driving mutates to mine Antarctic Vibranium. Before they can react the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier decloaks above them and wipes out the whole operation with a massive barrage. The heroes are enraged and demand to know what the hell is going on, but Director Hill stonewalls and leaves them waiting for a X-Jet to come pick them up and filled with questions and doubt about S.H.I.E.L.D.
Overall I thought the game went really well. I had fun running it and everyone else seemed to have fun playing it. It did slow down a decent amount in combat because of the massive number of players (7 in total by the end) but it still handled things well even with that many people. Everyone like the system and did a great job getting into character, there were quite a few great catch phrases and one liners. The only disappointment I have with the system is that the stuff outside of combat is not quite as robust as the fighting mechanics; but I think with more practice I can figure that out and make it work better. I might check some of the other Cortex Plus games for help in that area as well.
I'll be running it again in June, a short one fight scenario this time, and then once the Civil War Event book comes out I'll start running that.
I ran the Breakout! mini-event for the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game this time around. I've totally fallen in love with the Cortex Plus system that they use in this game. It is a quick, easy, simple, narrative system that uses all the die types from d4s to d12s. It has a mechanic similar to aspects in fate, so you get the nice interactive back and forth feel that you can get with those. The Plot Points economy works great, better than any other "points" system I've encountered previously. The initiative system is innovative and really cool, basically the active player gets to pick who goes next. And the whole thing just really does a great job of capturing the feel of superheroes and comic books.
So in this mini-event that comes with the basic game book the super villain prison facility called The Raft has been hit by a massive electrical attack and suffered a massive power failure, which has resulted in all seventy or so inmates getting loose and trying to escape. The heroes all happened to be in the area or nearby for one reason or another and react to the breakout.
Black Widow was working as a shield super agent on the Raft itself. Captain America was flying past the Raft in a military helicopter on his way to a security conference in D.C., and the electrical attack knocks his chopper out of the air. Wolverine and Storm were on the nearby docks and saw the helicopter go into the drink, and went to help; continuing onto the Raft with Cap after saving the two soldiers from the helicopter. Spiderman was having dinner with Mary Jane, and unsurprisingly had to cut it short and run off to check out the craziness. Tony Stark was giving a keynote speech at a Stark Industries fundraiser when the lights all went out, so he suited up and went to investigate.
All of these various heroes converged on the Raft's landing pad seconds before another massive explosion knocked a huge hole in the landing pad and two villains came flying out. Graviton and Count Nefaria faced off against the collected heroes in a battle to try and clear the way for their escape. Both villains were pretty powerful, but the collective might of the heroes put them down pretty easily. Two escapees stopped!
Next the group split up with Wolverine, Storm and Iron Man heading straight down the hole that the escaping villains created, while Black Widow, Spiderman, and Captain America made their way down some back access passages deeper into the facility. The team with Black Widow stumbled across Carnage, who proceeded to tear into the three heroes, putting up a pretty crazy fight. Iron Man's group encountered a mob of various minor villains, and managed to make pretty short work of them, in large part thanks to area attacks from Storm and Iron Man. This team then managed to find the Carnage battle near its end and help the other heroes finish off the insane symbiote.
As a side note, the style and flow of this game really handles the dreaded split party well. You can cut between multiple scenes with various characters really easily using the initiative systems; and everything just seems to flow nicely.
As that battle finished a slew of S.H.I.E.L.D. reinforcements arrived and order was restored to the Raft. The heroes gathered themselves and started to try and figure out what happened and what to do next. By spending some of their leftover Plot Points they were able to create various resources that let them figure out that the one who caused the breakout was Electro, that he had done the whole thing to release Karl Lykos, aka Sauron, and that the S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost down near the Savage Land, Sauron's home, had gone silent which is not something that those outposts are supposed to do. So the group hopped onto the helicarrier and headed down to Antarctica and the Savage Land, joined now by Beast who had been on the helicarrier liaising with S.H.I.E.L.D.
Soon after landing they encountered a savage T-Rex! The fight was brutal, and involved Captain America pulling out all the stops and suplexing the enormous beast(Video of the insanity is up on YouTube here), but the heroes made it through; only to face a pack of swift and cunning raptors. Many of the heroes took some damage; but they all made it through the dino-attack mostly intact.
The group then proceeded to the S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost and were greeted with raised guns and an order to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. property. Another Black Widow was there in charge of the base and she did not want any heroes around, citing higher orders from S.H.I.E.L.D. than even Director Maria Hill. B.W. Natasha did not like the sound of this and got her to agree to go off to the side and talk about the situation. After some discussion Natasha found that the other Black Widow was under some sort of brainwashing mind control and using her experience with old Soviet mind control techniques to help her snap out of it.
Shortly after the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had been told to stand down the heroes discovered that there was an illegal, slave labor operation running near the base, with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents driving mutates to mine Antarctic Vibranium. Before they can react the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier decloaks above them and wipes out the whole operation with a massive barrage. The heroes are enraged and demand to know what the hell is going on, but Director Hill stonewalls and leaves them waiting for a X-Jet to come pick them up and filled with questions and doubt about S.H.I.E.L.D.
Overall I thought the game went really well. I had fun running it and everyone else seemed to have fun playing it. It did slow down a decent amount in combat because of the massive number of players (7 in total by the end) but it still handled things well even with that many people. Everyone like the system and did a great job getting into character, there were quite a few great catch phrases and one liners. The only disappointment I have with the system is that the stuff outside of combat is not quite as robust as the fighting mechanics; but I think with more practice I can figure that out and make it work better. I might check some of the other Cortex Plus games for help in that area as well.
I'll be running it again in June, a short one fight scenario this time, and then once the Civil War Event book comes out I'll start running that.
Monday, April 23, 2012
April Game Day Summary
Well another Game Day is successfully behind us. While I think this one was a bit light on the RPG side (a slight rant I'll hit later in the post, don't worry no anger or accusations) I think that overall it was a very fun day and am both glad I was there and looking forward to the next one.
The day started off a little bit slow as far as number of people and events. Misspent Youth started off pretty much on time with a GM and 3 players. I'd describe the game as one in which the players play the type of teenagers that really loved Rage Against the Machine, and they are fighting some sort of authoritarian enemy in a near future setting. In I think about 2-3 hours ( wasn't really paying attention to the clock) three rebellious teenage characters (HunterZ the ADHD psychopathic hacker, Ben the anger-issues ridden goody-goody, and Makena the manipulative sociopath) did their best to stick it to the man. The "man" in this case was a pharmaceutical mega-corp, called Better Than Life, that was using drugs to make people into better human beings. Of course this semi-altruistic mission statement was tainted by the fact that they were controlled by a secret religious cult, and "better human beings" means "people the way WE want them to be". Data was stolen, systems hijacked, viral videos uploaded, authority figures kidnapped, and friends sacrificed; but in the end the characters struck a blow for freedom and individualism everywhere. And had a great time doing it.
I think the other game that started pretty much right from the beginning was a Pathfinder Society game. I didn't get much in the way of details about the game since I was not playing in it, but I believe everyone had a really fun time. There were 5 players and a GM if I remember correctly, including a couple of younger players that are, I believe, relatively new to the whole RPG scene. Always a great thing to see new blood in our hobby.
While these games were going on a few various board games also started up and got played. I know there was a fairly big sized game of Roborally, a fun older game about metal on metal action in the world of competive fighting robots, and a couple of games of Space Alert, a cooperative sci-fi action game (can't forget the crazy noises!). I don't know who won the Roborally game; but I believe the Space Alert games were an even split on win/loss; one of each.
Another round of board games started up at various times as the first round of gaming came to a piecemeal finish. I believe the Pathfinder Society table was taken over by a game of Super Dungeon Explorer, dungeon delving with chibi/anime stylistic art to the best of my knowledge, with Ford leading the way in the GM type role, and 3 intrepid explorers fighting through to a victorious end. The Misspent Youth crew pulled out Lords of Waterdeep, which is a really fun, euro-style, worker placement type game with a Forgotten Realms theme, and played a fun 4 player game of that, with Emily manipulating her way to a decent sized victory margin. And a huge game of Cash N' Guns happened somewhere in there. I didn't pay anywhere enough attention to catch any rules; but there was lots of foam guns and swords being pointed at each other, tons of machismo laced threats being tossed at ones enemies, and loads of fun being had. The Mafia faction fought their way to the top in what I'm sure was an epic battle filled with blood and bullets.
After this another RPG hit the table with a small group playing Chris' Serenity Brawl scenario. If my spying attempts were correct it looked like Jayne, Zoe, and Mal were represented; and they showed them Alliance dogs not to mess with Browncoats. I am not 100% familiar with the system; but I know its based on Cortex system, which is really good, and the Firefly universe is absolutely gorram amazing, or in other words Shiny!
I also got an opportunity somewhere in that general time period to play a round of Murderous Ghosts with Jeremiah. This is a RPG designed to be played by 2 people in a 20-60 minute window, and plays like a combination of a narrative, storytelling game and a Choose Your Own Adventure book. It was a ton of fun, and even in the loud, well lit gaming store it was very creepy. I loved it so much I pulled out the laptop and purchased a copy for myself a few minutes later. I'll be sure to run it for some folks at later Game Days.
Various other short, simple board and card games in between larger games and as people's brains began to shut down from lack of sleep or over consumption of sugar (thanks for all the candy Emily!). I participated in a 4 player game of Kittens in a Blender, a delightful card game where you do your best to save your own kittens while horribly killing your opponents. Emily won that one. Also a quick and fun 4 player game of Carcassone. Emily won. (Seeing a pattern yet?) And a 4 player game of Forbidden Isle, in which yes Emily did win; but so did everyone else since its cooperative.
A second game of Roborally hit the table later in the night as well. I did HORRIBLY, which I blame on being both online ordering a game, and on the phone arranging a place to have it shipped, but I had tons of fun running into walls, falling into pits, flying off the board, shooting other robots in the butt, getting shot in my robots butt, riding conveyor belts and spinning gears, and just being a boisterous silly man. Also a second game of Super Dungeon Explorer happened as well, with 5 players this time I think, and I also believe the good guys won that one.
The night ended nicely with a bit of relaxed chit-chatting and discussion of future gaming and cons. I was running on about 30 hours without sleep, a few metric tons of sugar, and pure gamer ecstasy right then; and it was a good thing. I very much look forward to May's Game Day. I think I'm going to run a hack of the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game, in which the players will be super-powered zombie versions of the Founding Fathers come back to fight the various things that are ruining America.
My only complaint or critique, the thing I mentioned way up at the beginning of all this, was that this Game Day, like the other ones I've been too, seemed to follow a pattern of one round of RPGs and then lots of rounds of board games. Now don't get me wrong, that was a ton of fun and I love board games. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. But I would definitely be interested in seeing multiple rounds of RPGs happening at future ones if at all possible. I would have LOVED to see either In A Wicked Age or Zombie Cinema hit the table in the 2nd or 3rd round of gaming on Saturday. I blame myself, both for not being physically and mentally prepared to run Dungeon World, and for not pushing the ideas, but I was tired and was not really seeing anyone else jumping on the "more RPGs now" bandwagon. I talked with John(Fulminata) about it, he was the one that mentioned it in the first place, and my hope is that we both are at the next Game Day so that we can each play and run in each others games; one after the other, and hopefully facilitate more RPGs being played at each game day. But like I said, its a minor critique and I sure as heck had fun.
The day started off a little bit slow as far as number of people and events. Misspent Youth started off pretty much on time with a GM and 3 players. I'd describe the game as one in which the players play the type of teenagers that really loved Rage Against the Machine, and they are fighting some sort of authoritarian enemy in a near future setting. In I think about 2-3 hours ( wasn't really paying attention to the clock) three rebellious teenage characters (HunterZ the ADHD psychopathic hacker, Ben the anger-issues ridden goody-goody, and Makena the manipulative sociopath) did their best to stick it to the man. The "man" in this case was a pharmaceutical mega-corp, called Better Than Life, that was using drugs to make people into better human beings. Of course this semi-altruistic mission statement was tainted by the fact that they were controlled by a secret religious cult, and "better human beings" means "people the way WE want them to be". Data was stolen, systems hijacked, viral videos uploaded, authority figures kidnapped, and friends sacrificed; but in the end the characters struck a blow for freedom and individualism everywhere. And had a great time doing it.
I think the other game that started pretty much right from the beginning was a Pathfinder Society game. I didn't get much in the way of details about the game since I was not playing in it, but I believe everyone had a really fun time. There were 5 players and a GM if I remember correctly, including a couple of younger players that are, I believe, relatively new to the whole RPG scene. Always a great thing to see new blood in our hobby.
While these games were going on a few various board games also started up and got played. I know there was a fairly big sized game of Roborally, a fun older game about metal on metal action in the world of competive fighting robots, and a couple of games of Space Alert, a cooperative sci-fi action game (can't forget the crazy noises!). I don't know who won the Roborally game; but I believe the Space Alert games were an even split on win/loss; one of each.
Another round of board games started up at various times as the first round of gaming came to a piecemeal finish. I believe the Pathfinder Society table was taken over by a game of Super Dungeon Explorer, dungeon delving with chibi/anime stylistic art to the best of my knowledge, with Ford leading the way in the GM type role, and 3 intrepid explorers fighting through to a victorious end. The Misspent Youth crew pulled out Lords of Waterdeep, which is a really fun, euro-style, worker placement type game with a Forgotten Realms theme, and played a fun 4 player game of that, with Emily manipulating her way to a decent sized victory margin. And a huge game of Cash N' Guns happened somewhere in there. I didn't pay anywhere enough attention to catch any rules; but there was lots of foam guns and swords being pointed at each other, tons of machismo laced threats being tossed at ones enemies, and loads of fun being had. The Mafia faction fought their way to the top in what I'm sure was an epic battle filled with blood and bullets.
After this another RPG hit the table with a small group playing Chris' Serenity Brawl scenario. If my spying attempts were correct it looked like Jayne, Zoe, and Mal were represented; and they showed them Alliance dogs not to mess with Browncoats. I am not 100% familiar with the system; but I know its based on Cortex system, which is really good, and the Firefly universe is absolutely gorram amazing, or in other words Shiny!
I also got an opportunity somewhere in that general time period to play a round of Murderous Ghosts with Jeremiah. This is a RPG designed to be played by 2 people in a 20-60 minute window, and plays like a combination of a narrative, storytelling game and a Choose Your Own Adventure book. It was a ton of fun, and even in the loud, well lit gaming store it was very creepy. I loved it so much I pulled out the laptop and purchased a copy for myself a few minutes later. I'll be sure to run it for some folks at later Game Days.
Various other short, simple board and card games in between larger games and as people's brains began to shut down from lack of sleep or over consumption of sugar (thanks for all the candy Emily!). I participated in a 4 player game of Kittens in a Blender, a delightful card game where you do your best to save your own kittens while horribly killing your opponents. Emily won that one. Also a quick and fun 4 player game of Carcassone. Emily won. (Seeing a pattern yet?) And a 4 player game of Forbidden Isle, in which yes Emily did win; but so did everyone else since its cooperative.
A second game of Roborally hit the table later in the night as well. I did HORRIBLY, which I blame on being both online ordering a game, and on the phone arranging a place to have it shipped, but I had tons of fun running into walls, falling into pits, flying off the board, shooting other robots in the butt, getting shot in my robots butt, riding conveyor belts and spinning gears, and just being a boisterous silly man. Also a second game of Super Dungeon Explorer happened as well, with 5 players this time I think, and I also believe the good guys won that one.
The night ended nicely with a bit of relaxed chit-chatting and discussion of future gaming and cons. I was running on about 30 hours without sleep, a few metric tons of sugar, and pure gamer ecstasy right then; and it was a good thing. I very much look forward to May's Game Day. I think I'm going to run a hack of the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game, in which the players will be super-powered zombie versions of the Founding Fathers come back to fight the various things that are ruining America.
My only complaint or critique, the thing I mentioned way up at the beginning of all this, was that this Game Day, like the other ones I've been too, seemed to follow a pattern of one round of RPGs and then lots of rounds of board games. Now don't get me wrong, that was a ton of fun and I love board games. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. But I would definitely be interested in seeing multiple rounds of RPGs happening at future ones if at all possible. I would have LOVED to see either In A Wicked Age or Zombie Cinema hit the table in the 2nd or 3rd round of gaming on Saturday. I blame myself, both for not being physically and mentally prepared to run Dungeon World, and for not pushing the ideas, but I was tired and was not really seeing anyone else jumping on the "more RPGs now" bandwagon. I talked with John(Fulminata) about it, he was the one that mentioned it in the first place, and my hope is that we both are at the next Game Day so that we can each play and run in each others games; one after the other, and hopefully facilitate more RPGs being played at each game day. But like I said, its a minor critique and I sure as heck had fun.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Mouse Guard at Game Day
So the NWARPG group had a monthly Game Day today, and I got to finally play in a game of Mouse Guard. After multiple times running the game, it was wonderful to finally have the chance to actually play. My mouse was Fandris Darkfur, the grizzled oldfur patrol leader with a penchant for Weather Watching and Survivalism.
Our adventure started when out patrol was called to Gwendolyn's office. She informed us that the northern town of Dawnrock was currently playing host to the refugees from the nearby towns of Whitepine and Elmwood. Spring thaws and early rains had come together to cause massive flooding in those two towns and many mice had had to flee and seek shelter elsewhere. Our patrol, which consisted of myself, the seasoned scout Patrol Guard Finn, the bold Guardmouse Aria, and the two new Tenderpaws Mil and Ian, were to escort a caravan of beetle pulled carts loaded with supplies up to Dawnrock and assist the city and its refugee population. In an aside after the rest of the patrol was dismissed Gwendolyn also instructed me, as the patrol leader, to watch over a popular politician named Jasper who was also being sent along to help with unrest and morale.
We grabbed out swords and slings and cloaks and struck out into the wilderness, a trio of beetles harnessed to heavily loaded carts, and their handlers coming along with us. Finn led the way, scouting out dangers and blazing a path. Ian, with help and protection from Aria, provided extra paws and a go between for communication between Finn and the caravan. I predicted a clear and sunny day, perfect for traveling. Unfortunately those conditions were actually to be found somewhere else, and more spring showers plagued us as we traveled. We did successfully make our way to the halfway point of Thistledown, but much of our own personal supplies were ruined in the rain and we all arrived quite hungry and bedraggled.
I took it upon myself to find nutritious and hearty food for the patrol, and was able to successfully acquire a bountiful supply of delicious hardtack. After making sure everyone was well supplied with the new rations, and instructing Mil the tenderpaw on the various culinary and military uses for the versatile substance, we settled down for the night and slept soundly.
The next day we enjoyed an early morning meal of hardtack, which is wonderful for the digestion by the way, as well as an endless source of energy for the day ahead, and then we headed out on the next leg of our journey. I took a closer look at the weather signs today and this time was very certain of clear skies and good traveling conditions. Being old, I don't have a good grasp of time, and must have been predicting the next day, for it rained once again. Just as I predicted, as far as I remember. Angered by the terrible weather, but safe in the knowledge of the emergency nautical application of hardtack, I led us forward into the wilderness once more.
Again our veteran scout Finn took lead, with help from both of the tenderpaws this time, Mil scouting ahead with him, and Ian scouting the rear and filling the role of rearguard with Aria. I took it upon myself to make sure the carts and Jasper were well guarded, by staying as close to them as possible. Sometimes a leader must sacrifice for the good of the mission.
Our forward scouts found signs of a snake in our path and reported quickly back to us. I had Finn find us a safe and hidden path through the area, and we managed to get the carts and civilians past the danger; but the snake spotted our rear guard and moved to attack. Ian and Aria boldly rushed to defend the caravan and drive off the snake, while the rest of the patrol moved to join and support them.
The battle was hard fought and filled with danger. Both sides moved cautiously at first, maneuvering and assessing the others capabilities, while carefully striking out when opportunities arose. Ian and Aria quickly became emboldened by their fighting spirit and pressed the attack at every turn. Finn, Mil, and myself continued to harry and harass the reptile, mostly creating a stalemate between us. Finally though, Ian defeated the creature with a victorious blow and drove it off back to the dark depths of the woods from whence it came. The victory was hard won though, as both Ian and Aria received wounds that, while not life threatening, were still severe indeed.
In the chaotic aftermath I stepped forward as leader and brought mice and beetle alike back under control and to a state of calm and focus. With assurances of the nearness of our destination and the importance of our missions I pushed the patrol to continue on and we shortly reached Dawnrock.
The city was in a sad state, with tents and refugees everywhere. We moved quickly to turn over and distribute our supplies, causing much happiness and gratitude from the leaders and common mice alike. Jasper moved among the people, speaking kind words and platitudes, assuring folks of the help that was here and that would come in the future. I to followed this path, speaking specifically to the promises of help and compassion from the Guard. Mil showed her skilled hand at the Healer's arts, tending to the injured and sick; while Finn ignored his own exhaustion and discomfort to scour the nearby area for more healing herbs and supplies to help out.
Ian attempted to do the same, but Finn chastised him for not taking care of himself and convinced him to rest and care for his own injuries. Ian's injury must have been worse than we thought at first, because despite rest and care he was unable to completely recover and still suffered from the wound. Aria was able to overcome her hurts thankfully though. Feeling good about the good work we had done, and enjoying the calming presence of the nearby waters and coast I was able to take some time to myself and meditate and let go of my anger as well.
We close the session out there, and gave out rewards. Most folks played well to their belief or instinct and/or accomplished their goals. Ian was named MVP for the session, Finn received the Workhorse reward, and I was awarded the Embodiment award. We broke there and everyone was quite happy with the game session and the roleplay as far as I could tell. I know I enjoyed the heck out of it. Hopefully I can play more Mouse Guard at some point in the future, though I think for next game day I will be planning on running Dungeon World.
Our adventure started when out patrol was called to Gwendolyn's office. She informed us that the northern town of Dawnrock was currently playing host to the refugees from the nearby towns of Whitepine and Elmwood. Spring thaws and early rains had come together to cause massive flooding in those two towns and many mice had had to flee and seek shelter elsewhere. Our patrol, which consisted of myself, the seasoned scout Patrol Guard Finn, the bold Guardmouse Aria, and the two new Tenderpaws Mil and Ian, were to escort a caravan of beetle pulled carts loaded with supplies up to Dawnrock and assist the city and its refugee population. In an aside after the rest of the patrol was dismissed Gwendolyn also instructed me, as the patrol leader, to watch over a popular politician named Jasper who was also being sent along to help with unrest and morale.
We grabbed out swords and slings and cloaks and struck out into the wilderness, a trio of beetles harnessed to heavily loaded carts, and their handlers coming along with us. Finn led the way, scouting out dangers and blazing a path. Ian, with help and protection from Aria, provided extra paws and a go between for communication between Finn and the caravan. I predicted a clear and sunny day, perfect for traveling. Unfortunately those conditions were actually to be found somewhere else, and more spring showers plagued us as we traveled. We did successfully make our way to the halfway point of Thistledown, but much of our own personal supplies were ruined in the rain and we all arrived quite hungry and bedraggled.
I took it upon myself to find nutritious and hearty food for the patrol, and was able to successfully acquire a bountiful supply of delicious hardtack. After making sure everyone was well supplied with the new rations, and instructing Mil the tenderpaw on the various culinary and military uses for the versatile substance, we settled down for the night and slept soundly.
The next day we enjoyed an early morning meal of hardtack, which is wonderful for the digestion by the way, as well as an endless source of energy for the day ahead, and then we headed out on the next leg of our journey. I took a closer look at the weather signs today and this time was very certain of clear skies and good traveling conditions. Being old, I don't have a good grasp of time, and must have been predicting the next day, for it rained once again. Just as I predicted, as far as I remember. Angered by the terrible weather, but safe in the knowledge of the emergency nautical application of hardtack, I led us forward into the wilderness once more.
Again our veteran scout Finn took lead, with help from both of the tenderpaws this time, Mil scouting ahead with him, and Ian scouting the rear and filling the role of rearguard with Aria. I took it upon myself to make sure the carts and Jasper were well guarded, by staying as close to them as possible. Sometimes a leader must sacrifice for the good of the mission.
Our forward scouts found signs of a snake in our path and reported quickly back to us. I had Finn find us a safe and hidden path through the area, and we managed to get the carts and civilians past the danger; but the snake spotted our rear guard and moved to attack. Ian and Aria boldly rushed to defend the caravan and drive off the snake, while the rest of the patrol moved to join and support them.
The battle was hard fought and filled with danger. Both sides moved cautiously at first, maneuvering and assessing the others capabilities, while carefully striking out when opportunities arose. Ian and Aria quickly became emboldened by their fighting spirit and pressed the attack at every turn. Finn, Mil, and myself continued to harry and harass the reptile, mostly creating a stalemate between us. Finally though, Ian defeated the creature with a victorious blow and drove it off back to the dark depths of the woods from whence it came. The victory was hard won though, as both Ian and Aria received wounds that, while not life threatening, were still severe indeed.
In the chaotic aftermath I stepped forward as leader and brought mice and beetle alike back under control and to a state of calm and focus. With assurances of the nearness of our destination and the importance of our missions I pushed the patrol to continue on and we shortly reached Dawnrock.
The city was in a sad state, with tents and refugees everywhere. We moved quickly to turn over and distribute our supplies, causing much happiness and gratitude from the leaders and common mice alike. Jasper moved among the people, speaking kind words and platitudes, assuring folks of the help that was here and that would come in the future. I to followed this path, speaking specifically to the promises of help and compassion from the Guard. Mil showed her skilled hand at the Healer's arts, tending to the injured and sick; while Finn ignored his own exhaustion and discomfort to scour the nearby area for more healing herbs and supplies to help out.
Ian attempted to do the same, but Finn chastised him for not taking care of himself and convinced him to rest and care for his own injuries. Ian's injury must have been worse than we thought at first, because despite rest and care he was unable to completely recover and still suffered from the wound. Aria was able to overcome her hurts thankfully though. Feeling good about the good work we had done, and enjoying the calming presence of the nearby waters and coast I was able to take some time to myself and meditate and let go of my anger as well.
We close the session out there, and gave out rewards. Most folks played well to their belief or instinct and/or accomplished their goals. Ian was named MVP for the session, Finn received the Workhorse reward, and I was awarded the Embodiment award. We broke there and everyone was quite happy with the game session and the roleplay as far as I could tell. I know I enjoyed the heck out of it. Hopefully I can play more Mouse Guard at some point in the future, though I think for next game day I will be planning on running Dungeon World.
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