Boardgames

[Hot Heart]

Flick Em Up

I died early on (that's me in between the cacti, cos I flicked my piece a bit too hard near the start, all my other outlaws stayed back. Also it's harder than it'd sound to flick without using a thumb (especially in attempting to not hit cacti)

Also since I know Hot Heart has picked this up I'll let him do the fuller review of sorts..

 

Haha, thanks.

I'll probably try and get it to the table on Sunday.

 

Were you just doing 1v1? I had heard things about tactically leaving a character down (since you only activate those with hats matching the clock colour) or something like that.

[deanb]

5 v 5 (or maybe 6 v 6, whatever the max is). Wasn't aware of any rules for the clock colour stuff, but figured in set up the clock was for counting turns since it's semi-functional.

[Hot Heart]

Yeah, I was probably just overthinking what you were saying (interpreting "died" as eliminated rather than just "shot once") but there's a turns/activation thing regarding the hats and flipping them over at the end of a round, and even if a character dies it wouldn't eliminate you from the game since you just activate another available character.

[deanb]

Oh yeah, I got shot first(pictured above), but I died like a couple turns in. I think I got in maybe three turns tops, and most of that was me feebly flicking the bullet until my last turn where I got in a corker of a shot, that had us scrambling on the floor to find the bullet.

[Hot Heart]

Played a few games the other night. Started with Galaxy Trucker, which I'd never played before (I actually grabbed the app when it was supercheap but need to play it on a tablet, really).

 

It's sort of like FTL mixed with Oregon Trail (or like Orion Trail now, I guess). You are a... galaxy trucker who assembles a spaceship from junk and then travels across the galaxy avoiding hazards and taking advantage of certain opportunities. It takes place over 3 rounds and each round starts with a timed mad-grab for the parts (tiles) that will make up your ship. Here is where you grab engines, guns, shields, extra crew, cargo holds, and batteries for powering the better engines and guns (with some "upgraded" alien crew quarter mods more for rounds 2 & 3).

 

It starts very simple, and there are basic rules about 1 line connections, 2 line connections and triple connectors (work with either) and that any engines need 1 tile kept free behind them and guns need 1 tile kept clear in front of them.

 

The game got underway and I made this:

 

I won't get into deep explanation but this is a terrible ship. I really screwed myself with that first engine placement (I kinda put it down and took my fingers off it then realised a second later what I'd done) so couldn't do anything with that left-hand side. Anyways, I lagged behind in speed, which meant I didn't get to grab any cargo anyway and a big meteor took out my batteries (which I didn't need anyway because anything to shoot got shot by people ahead of me).

 

Note: those numbers on the board represent where meteors will hit from if the meteor storm card comes out (lot of those) so there's a greater chance of things hitting centre (since 7 is the most likely number with two dice). So you'll usually want a gun right there, yeah.

 

It was a pretty terrible first round. Lesson learned. Okay. So I started building a better ship for round two. See, while you're grabbing for these tiles, you can also check the decks of events coming up... but I was too focused on just trying to build a functional ship within the time limit.

 

Anyway, I actually built an alright ship for round two except one thing about ship order fucked me up (something to do with who gets what event greet them first)... which then left me fucked up for a future event which then put me out of the round 2-3 cards before the end. Fun.

 

I was not enjoying the game at this point, although I think a lot of it was just being completely new to it (and there were a few little rules we missed or forgotten during explanation). Anyway, we move onto round three and that's when you get a big ol' space for building your ship and loads more time to build it.

 

So I made this:

I messed up with that shield placement, so illegal stuff goes into a section where you have to pay 1c (victory points, basically) for each tile there. Whoops.

 

So I managed to slot in lots of guns, some alright engines, some shields, both of the possible alien upgrades (brown increases engine power, purple does guns) and FUCKLOADS of batteries. This is fortunate because goddamn meteor storms took out two of my batteries (one of them with a full charge of 3). The round went okay and I actually got myself out of last place (but waaaay behind 2nd and 3rd, I think). And, apparently, I did better than the other guys on their first try (although, they were helping me with some hints about those event cards I barely had time to look at while building as well).

 

All in all, I might enjoy it next time around, but I think it only got better once you got to build those bigger ships and go in for the long haul.

 

Next up, we played Flick Em Up

 

Started with the basic scenario of a simple shootout; first one to eliminate three of the enemy team wins.

 

I was on the team of lawmen (the guys in white) while the outlaws in black were invading our clearly flourishing and lively town.

 

At Dean's behest, and only because of it, I will go over the rules.

 

Thankfully, they're far easier to demonstrate than they are to explain in text. Anyway...

 

The team of 5 characters are wearing numbered hats that denote which character they are (if you look at the stand at the back, that shows the outlaws). This is mainly for tracking hit points (each one starts with 3), but will also be showing who has which guns/dynamite/objective-related pieces in different scenarios. There is also an "initiative pretzel" which shows which character acts first each round. Rounds are actually tracked by a clock tower than alternates between red and blue; when a character has taken their turn, the hat flips over to the other colour to show they'e been used this round.

 

On each turn, you have two actions from three possible options

1. Move

2. Shoot

3. Pick-up/drop/exchange

 

You can do any of them twice and in any order. So you can move then move again, move & shoot, shoot & move or shoot SHOOT! The third is not required in this scenario.

 

Moving is done via that cream disc you can see near the rulebook in the bottom left. You simply pick up your guy and flick the disc from where he was stood. The move is a success as long as you don't hit anything (characters, scenery, etc.) or leave the play area. There is some stuff involving entering buildings, but they are closed off in this scenario. Sometimes, you might just use a movement action to pivot your character; either because you want to make a slender, harder-to-hit target or you need to aim off to the side. This is because of the shooting rules...

 

Shooting is done via the little bullet pieces (there's one to the left of the movement disc, right behind one of the good guys). In terms of where you aim from, you put it one-bullet-piece-width to either side of the character's arm and then flick it. The placement is important because that means you can't be leaning over the character and doing weird sideways shots, you'll want to be facing the general direction of your target.

 

Now, flicking itself has a few, somewhat loose, rules. The flick is done with the index finger and mustn't make use of resistance from the thumb or table. The general guideline is putting your nail right up against the piece then extending the finger straight like a little "kick". This should ensure that no one's flinging wooden pieces all over the shop or into people's faces but it also places an importance on the balance between power and accuracy.

 

This is because when you shoot, the hit will only count if it wasn't a ricochet (even if it was a really cool ricochet) and if it knocks the character over (and any sort of domino effect doesn't count). When a character is hit, they stay down until activated again and can't be hit until they stand up (so you could leave someone down for a while, or they might have to stay down if they've already gone that turn).

 

It was a really fun game and I think everyone really enjoyed even the simple scenario. My partner did a great flanking move early on and the guy even survived a hit with a bullet because it simply turned him ninety-degrees without toppling him (like some Neo bullet dodge, he imagined). The good guys were on course for a victory, mostly standing our ground and then I decided I'd try and finish off the final guy at "long-range" with the option of taking two shots instead of moving and shooting.

 

My friend decided he'd capture it on video in case I made the shot. He made a very wise decision and got a great low-angle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQV0jM22O30

 

So, yeah, highly recommended.

 

Next we moved onto Splendor

 

I'll let Board With Life explain.

 

...oh, right, how does it play?

 

Did you see those chips? They're really nice.

 

So, the game, well, you collect chips. Those things are super nice.

 

*ahem* So, it's essentially an "engine-building" game. On your turn you're either grabbing certain gems (the different colours of the chips), buying cards with certain combinations of gems or "reserving" cards you want to buy (so some arsehole doesn't take that thing you were trying to get!). The twist is that buying a card will then give you 1 of a certain gem permanently for when you buy future cards, so it acts like a discount (or like having resources in 7 Wonders). This is because some of the more valuable cards (most of the basics don't have victory points on) require combinations involving more than 10 different gems when you can only hold up to 10.

 

There are also variations on bonuses for having so many cards of a certain type (4 reds & 4 greens or 3 red, 3 white & 3 green, etc.) The first person to get to 15 points triggers the end and then everyone gets an equal number of turns.

 

It's alright, but it seems a bit lame that some of the starter cards also carry victory points so it's generally easier just to collect those and go for the bonuses (which the "winner by 7 points" pretty much did). Decent enough filler (although, personally, I think Port Royal fits this mould better).

 

Then we finished up with some Coup & Coconuts. No, we didn't combine them. Although...

[Hot Heart]

Not exactly "board games" but Humble Bundle has a whole bunch of Pathfinder books as PWYW

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/paizo-pathfinder-bundle

[deanb]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/steamforged/dark-soulstm-the-board-game/description

 

There's a Dark Souls board game coming out. Model quality looks great.

 

Also SHIELD agents play Dominion.

[deanb]

http://avalonhill.wizards.com/games/betrayal-at-house-on-the-hill/widows-walk

 

Wooh, Betrayal expansion coming out later this year.

[Hot Heart]

Short update.

 

Birthday gathering (mine) yesterday.

 

Tried out Ninja Camp when there was four of us. It's a neat little game where you each have 3 little ninja meeples who are placed on a grid made up of move cards and you start with two basic move cards in-hand. You then take it in turns to playing these cards to move your little peeps about, but each will have different requirements or movement patterns that you must be able to execute. The trick is that you then pick up the card your little guy just left, so the grid gets smaller and smaller as you go. The aim is to collect the most points via move cards that you grab (any you use go into a personal discard pile) before you can't do anything else and must pass. So, generally, you want to stay active for as long as possible to grab the most cards. The hard part is figuring out when to move which guy and which cards to grab (we were mostly winging it, really) to keep you in the game. There are high value (5) cards but they become really hard to actually use once the grid is smaller and everyone's hemmed in. However, I managed to win by just hunting down enough high value cards early on even though it meant I passed about 2-3 turns before the others (there is a special "animal power" each player gets but I didn't even get to try that). It was close though, with the top 3 scores of 31-29-29.

 

Then we moved onto another campaign of Ghostbusters. Honestly, the more I play it the more I dislike it. Everything feels too stacked against you and there's little chance to mitigate a string of bad rolls (which don't have much variance anyway; D6 for most stuff). We wound up losing the second scenario in this campaign because of a relentless onslaught of ghosts.

 

Then once our fifth player arrived, we went onto Firefly with the whole 'verse and a different set up card that emphasises jobs involving Rim Space (two extra board bits that go on the left and right) while using an old story card that rewards crime, smuggling, bounty-hunting and piracy. This was a pretty fun game and the two players who seemed to run into a lot of bad luck actually made out okay for a very tight finish. The aim is to collect 5 goal tokens and hold onto them at the start of your next turn after you declare victory. This is because as part of the story card, piracy jobs can be doubly-rewarding in that you gain a goal token for completing one and get to steal one off that opponent if they have any. So, one of our players had cruised to 5 goal tokens and was sitting pretty to win. However, it just so happened that someone with 4 goal tokens (even 3 would've worked) and a piracy job handy (that's the hard part) was within range to get them. This player had a strong bounty-hunting crew so they'd be good for piracy too.

 

He started his fly action and was 1 sector away when they pulled the Reaver Cutter card. He managed to fight them off and the medic saved his casualty, then the evade that happens got him into the space. He successfully boarded and they had their showdown with him winning by 1. After that, no one could reach him or retaliate so he had stolen victory. And I don't think this player had actually won a game before. Hooray!

[deanb]

So it was ITTD yesterday (or just ITD, I dunno).

 

Played a few games:

Game of Phones

I'd seen this on the shelf as a new game n given it had no writing on it that I could tell certainly turned me off. Anyway it's sort of Cards Against Humanity style game, though game provides purely instructions, with no answers because your phone is the answer. So it's like person with the most dating apps, best last photo they took, having to google things like cheapest continental flights, or to get the most likes on a social network post within a round.

It was a bit shit tbh.

 

Billionaire Banshee

Sort of like superfight to a degree I guess. You each get given a "date" and "deny" card, and in turns you draw a card from the "Perk" and a card from the "Quirk" deck and this is your date and people vote if they think you'd date them. So like I had a person that vomits cheesburgers (that was the "perk") but also cheats on your compulsively.

 

Like it had the mechanics there for a game, but there was like no "win" condition, it was just drawing out silly cards really.

 

Pandemic: Contagion

I've yet to play Pandemic so can't relate how this plays to the main game but basically you play as the virus instead, trying to infect cities. You have a petri dish for your cubes which is neat, always like little thematic touches. I was familiar with the mechanics already since it largely played like Mars Attack Dice: You flood the city with your pieces until it is destroyed and the cities each have special abilities n certain point values. In this you draw out an "event card" each turn that can either help or hinder you (e.g it being new school term makes your Infections worth an extra cube, the WHO doing something knocks some of your points back). You spend some of your turn upgrading your virus too, which helps draw more cards, put down more infection pieces or resist the WHO events somewhat.

 

Galaxy Trucker

My first time playing this and it is a pretty fun game. It's certainly a game where you can get better at it with time, though I still came in a close second so not bad. Mainly in knowing best ways to build up a ship, and what parts you'll need coming up. The best part of all this was the guy who owned the game messed up a bit and we had "Heavy Duty Parts" in play which add weight to the ship, and his maths was off in how much engine power he needed, so he post-creation tweaked his ship. Changed the flight order to put himself at the back to compensate for his minor cheating. He ended the game with only a single piece of his ship left, and in avoiding a 5 credit penalty at the start he'd ended up losing his lead completely.

 

Also played some previous games such as We Didn't Playtest This, Oz Fluxx, Two Rooms and a Boom, n Secret Hitler (kinda bummed didn't get to play Saboteur, there was a few folks wanting to play it new but the "Didn't playtest this" crowd were louder. I'd also brought Abyss with me but it's a 4 player game and a nightmare to get something like that sorted when there's so many people)

[Hot Heart]

"New" games!

 

Sheriff of Nottingham

 

This isn't exactly a new game, and you might have heard about it because of the buzz that surrounded it way back when. I'd never actually played it though.

 

It's a neat, little bluffing & negotiation game involving a sort of "customs inspection" kind of game (sounds super fun already, I know!).

 

Essentially, the aim is to get the most points from money and goods you've brought in. The way you bring in goods is from the 6 market cards you start with each round from which you select between 1 and 5 to put inside your little pouch, complete with important sealing popper. Goods can come in various forms from the four types of legal goods with green borders (apples, bread, cheese and chicken) through to contraband like crossbows, pepper or silk and also "royal goods" which have additional bonuses (if you see the picture above, I have two of the apple ones which also count as double apple cards, which becomes important in endgame scoring).

 

The legal goods are fine and ideally you'll want to be bringing in sets, but to score big you'll want to be bringing in some contraband. This is where it gets interesting.

 

Every round, one player will assume the role of the sheriff while the other players load up the little pouches and then declare what they're bringing in. The stipulation is that the declaration must account for the correct number of cards and of the amount of one type of legal good. So you could have two cheese and one crossbow, but you'd say, "Three cheese" or you could simply have two cheese and two bread but say, "Four cheese".

 

Then it's up to the sheriff to decide whether or not to inspect the bag. If they open that popper then there's no going back; it then comes down to whether or not the importer was telling the truth. If the player who loaded the pouch is caught trying to smuggle in contraband or a mismatch of goods then they lose those and must pay the penalty listed in the bottom-right of the card. However, if the sheriff inspected a pouch and found the claim was perfectly legitimate then they must pay the penalty for those cards to that player. Since they carry much smaller bonuses, legal goods also carry a smaller penalty.

 

Even if the bag is inspected, any stuff that matches the declaration is okay and you get to collect it in front of you as normal. If the bag isn't inspected then the legal goods go by your board face-up as normal but contraband is tucked under, face-down.

 

The further wrinkle is that you can use your money to bribe the sheriff either not to inspect your pouch or to inspect someone else's. I had a fun moment where the sheriff was gradually being persuaded to accept a certain bribe from another player before I took a rough guess of what amounts/gains of contraband we were talking and then made a lower bribe that would actually benefit him more. As it turns out, he would've made 10 gold from accepting the bribe whereas my 5 gold bribe plus the penalty he received from the other player netted him 13 gold. Small gain but an optimal outcome.

 

Anyway, it made for lots of fun situations and some amateurish attempts at reading people. I mostly hedged my bets and took advantage of the "softer" players to get some contraband through, and I think I only lost out once from an inspection. Being the sheriff is actually kind of fun when you have an inkling of what's going on.

 

I managed to run away with the game with 188 points but it was a first time for everyone. I had heard about people complaining that playing completely legit could easily net you the win (partly because getting the most in each type of legal good also nets bonuses from between 5-20 each) but I wouldn't say I agree. Yes, second place was someone playing almost completely legitimate (I think I caught their only two smuggling attempts) but legal stuff needs to be strong to keep things fairly matched and ensure the smuggling remains very significant when it's successful and that it's enough to tip the balance.

 

Fun game.

 

Next up we played the DC Deckbuilding Game. I like it because it's very simple and you can really feel the combos and things from building a decent deck, but it does go on too long for a deckbuilding game of its simplicity. Long story short, I played to my hero's strengths and had a feeling of what was coming so snatched up the Bizarro card when I had the chance. The Bizarro card then becomes worth 2 points for every "Weakness" card you have at the end of the game (these are dud cards worth -1 point each so it's a net gain of 1 per each). One player amassed a bunch of villain attack cards and handed them out like candy. This all helped and I secured a surprising victory (honestly, I thought I'd done terribly).

 

Finally, How To Serve Man which is a worker-placement game (put your "workers" down to collect things then turn those things into other things/points) themed around an alien cooking show (clever Twilight Zone stolen title, huh!). It's designed as a "gateway" game so plays pretty fast and has been tweaked so it doesn't go on past an hour (like most worker placement games).

 

At its core, you have your team of chefs who run around the kitchen collecting ingredients and cooking them in various ways to complete recipes while a panel of judges watches. The judge thing is cool because these are actually score modifiers you collect that will then impact every subsequent recipe you collect or certain things at the end of the game. So you might have one judge who rewards you for using baked humans but deducts points for using boiled humans or one who awards points for any leftover cooked ingredients you have at the end.

 

I liked it, and the event deck also throws out some interesting wrinkles (although, one that hampered me!) like disabling certain cooking stations or forcing ingredient discards ("because they smell funny"). One player actually said it felt too short for this type of game and I agree somewhat (although, the swiftness was the designer's intention). I think you could probably extend things with some tweaks (fewer or no starting recipes, no starting ingredients, higher score for game end, etc.) to make the other elements shine (events and judges).

 

All in all, I think it works well as a light game of its type and it's a cool theme; which is why I backed it on Kickstarter. I've played a few worker placement games that don't flow and just drag on too long.

 

On the Kickstarter note though, they really needed a better editor on the rulebook.

[Hot Heart]

Our Pathfinder GM is busy with his studies so we had a four player session.

 

First, this involved Smash Up. Funny little story in that two people discovered they'd both brought it and then I told them I owned it already. However, the guy who had "The Big Geeky Box" with all the expansions, including the latest, had clearly outdone us.

 

So we did some random selection, which between all of us I don't think managed to turn up a single one of the shiny, new factions. Anyway, we had Cyborg Apes with Bear Cavalry, Mad Scientist Aliens, Spy Pirates (Spyrates!) and Giant Ant Dinosaurs. I knew Dinosaurs were pretty powerful and the Giant Ants are cool because they're all Queen references (like Killer Queen, obviously) and make use of power tokens.

 

I made some pretty strong gains early on, but the Spyrates were being a bit of a nuisance until the others took them down a notch for me. A big problem was both Ant and Dinosaur decks had so many actions for increasing power until the end of a turn, and I had mostly those for a large part of the game.

 

There was a clever little play from the Apebears who had a minion of 3 power with an ability that destroys any minions of a lower power level that get moved to the same base as it; he put it on a base where you earn 1VP every time you destroy one minion or more there and used another card to give the minion +3 power.

 

We got really worried when he used an action to move 5 minions all in one go and gave him 5VP before we realised how the base bonus was supposed to work. The "move" and destroy counts as one thing, hence the "one minion or more". So he managed to clear out a bunch of minions, but only got the 1VP in the end.

 

Panic over, I continued grabbing another base which then allowed me to search my deck and put a minion on the base that was replacing it. King Rex at 7 power was still in my deck so he got down there and a few other cards I'd been hoarding (thank god for the 10 card hand limit) meant it was easy to really lay down a lot of power and score the base for the win. Good game.

 

Then we tried Ninja Camp, with the player who missed it last time. Things went pretty quickly and smoothly. I managed to make some clever moves (I think) and used some different cards compared to last time, which netted me enough points before I backed myself into a corner (for a high-scoring) card, finally to utilise my animal clan's ability and warp to another card of the same type. This was enough for another close game of 34-30-30-29. I like this game. Decent little filler.

 

And onto the main event. A game my friend got from his replacement Secret Santa on BoardGameGeek. Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar.

 

It's one of those eurogames that tries to break your brain with all the things going on. In this, there's the sort of worker placement element like Stone Age in that you're collecting resources, building things, getting food, etc. but there's tech tracks and other little things as well. The big twist is that your workers go into slots on cogs that advance each round and you pay corn to use "farther" or open slots as well as place extra workers in a turn, then you only get the resources/actions when you pull them off (hur hur). So you could go on the 0 slot space and try and leave that guy there for a few rounds to get a bigger reward.

 

However, because you must be placing or removing workers each turn it becomes a seriously finnickly process of calculating exactly where to put a guy to get what you want. It's not the end of the world if you slide past where you wanted to be, but it can mess up combos and then leave you sort of stuck for a couple of rounds at least. The resource track is a fucker because it's easy to skip past what you want at the perfect moment without overspending to get guys down. And this is without anyone upsetting rhythms by making the cogs rotate two spaces when they claim the first player marker.

 

I was sort of managing it and got some sort of lead purely by focusing on buildings and bonuses from those but then it fell apart towards the end when I was completely blocked from getting a space I needed and a couple of other players realised their optimal moves involved taking potential points from me. Not that they needed to anyway, I think even with the stuff I "lost" the gap between me and the actual winner was still too big.

 

Not as bad as I thought it was going to be, and it certainly didn't take too long to play for a first time. The iconography's mostly pretty self explanatory once you learn it (albeit with some required clarifications about limits, exceptions, etc.) I can say it was one of the more enjoyable "euros" I've played. More so than Terra Mystica, Stone Age and Power Grid as well as most other worker placement games purely because of the interesting cog stuff and because you kind of feel like you can optimise a little. It's just not something I'd really ask to play though.

[Hot Heart]

Another four-player session.

 

First up, we played Agricola

 

This was the predecessor to Caverna which we played waaaaay back sometime. It should be in this thread, many pages back. Anyway, I liked that game and I like this one. Where Caverna expands on the farm element by adding the cave stuff, expeditions and many more point modifier things, Agricola is a leaner, tighter thing based around the farm stuff. It's essentially a worker placement game where you put your "family" on spaces to get things, with a sort of twist where certain unused spaces accumulate more and more stuff if no one goes there for a few rounds. Which means it gains a sort of timing element where you have to half pay attention to where others might go in order to get the most efficient/optimal use of your workers. For example, going to the "3 Wood" space could be handy right now, but if you could just hold off, it could have 6 Wood next round! DAMNIT SOMEONE ELSE WENT THERE.

 

We played the sort of kiddie version of the game without the occupations, renovations and minor improvement elements but I don't think the game suffers for it. It still feels open enough to kind of take things at your own pace but incredibly tightly-balanced so that the scores usually wind up very close. How close? Well, at the end, three of us were on 25/25/24

 

... except, as with the dog situation in Caverna, where I forgot something which actually gave me the win after someone else thought they had, I might have done that again.

 

(I know he secretly reads these, so I'll break it down and check my maths).

Here is an image from before the final harvest phase (you can tell because people still had stuff to place and I hadn't collected the second grain from my field). I've left it full-size in case stuff is legible to you guys.

 

Firstly, it is worth pointing out that they let me change something during end-game scoring, but this is likely because I was still just tied for victory.

 

Anyway, I needed 7 food to feed my four-person family at game's end (3 family members at 2 food each, plus 1 for the newborn). With my Cooking Hearth, I can turn boar into 3 food and sheep into 2 food. I'd preemptively turned a boar into 3 food while the others were still deciding on moves when I could actually do it at any time, such as during harvest (but before animal breeding occurs), but figured I'd save a miniscule amount of time. After that, I'd checked the end-game scoring breakdown and realised I could've turned a sheep into 2 food and still had enough while not costing myself 1 point because of how scoring tiers work in regards to number of animals (1-3 sheep is 1 point, whereas I stood to go up to 5 boar which was 1 point extra). So, after harvest, at the end of the game I would've had 1 sheep and 5 boar.

 

So, going through the score breakdown:

2 fields = 1 point

6 pastures = 4 points

3 grain = 1 point

0 vegetables = -1 point

1 sheep = 1 point

5 boar = 3 points

1 cattle = 1 point

4 unused spaces = -4 points

1 fenced stable and 3 clay rooms = 4 points

4 family members = 12 points

Pottery and Cooking Hearth I owned = 3 points

...then an extra bonus point from having 3 Clay at the end, thanks to the Pottery. I think I was an idiot and told my friend I had no bonuses while he was going through the end-game stuff.

So, adding that all together, I think I had 26 points. Whoops!

 

I was willing to accept the tied victory anyway, and I enjoyed it. Good game.

 

Then we had a go at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mouser Mayhem HeroClix

 

A friend who watches the streams on Geek & Sundry is quite keen on playing HeroClix, whereas I just liked having the groups of models as "decoration". However, I had heard the TMNT HeroClix was a good introduction to how it works. So, I figured, if he wants to convince the others to play then start simple.

 

However, simple can also mean boring and easy.

 

Rather than a 2v2 (which under the basic rules here would've just been hitting each other until someone fell down), I decided on the sort of co-op defence game mode it contains, where mousers controlled by AI are attacking the turtles' lair, trying to get to Splinter. As a bonus, it shouldn't take too long. The scenario design was actually kind of crap and it was easy to lock down the mousers' movement, while they were easy to kill anyway (plus, it turns out Donatello was well-placed in the middle with some cool AoE attack). They couldn't even hurt us, so we never even got to click our bases! Still, I guess it introduced the very basics... as if it were for kids, even though the product says it's for ages 12+.

 

Also, as a sidenote, I think the way information is presented is dumb. The way you have altering stats and powers as your health changes is a neat idea, but the text is so small and the colour-coding can be tricky and unless you know it inside and out, you'll constantly have to look up which power does what. And while it should save space on a tabletop, the map it used was fricking huge, like it needs more space than Firefly with all the expansions.

 

That said, I think doing it properly as a versus game could be fun because there you have free-form teams with point values and more tactical options (who to activate with limited action points, or to lose 1 health to give an extra action, etc.). Plus, it means you can have Gandalf duking it out with Superman, Ken Masters taking on Master Chief, Wolverine versus Ezio, etc.

 

And then we finished up with Burgle Bros. the co-op game where you're burglars.

 

We'd played this before as a two-level building, so now we went for the "full" three-floor setup. Things started... okay, then we pulled it back somewhat... and then it all went to shit.

 

Too many times we got screwed by some of the guard patrol card pulls but also whenever we took a risk, it went wrong and whenever we should've taken a risk, we suffered. The building layout was also kind of a pain as well, since we could barely move on the top floor. Lots of minor things against us gradually wore us down.

 

Still, I think it's a fun game with some slight flaws and yet it makes for exciting moments when some things actually pay off. As a bonus, it seems like it should suffer from the "alpha player/quarterback" problem but because the guard movement happens on whichever floor a player finishes, everyone is still engaged and pointing out the ramifications when it's not their turn.

[deanb]

I've some games to add to this, will throw them up here tomorrow. Currently mulling over reviewing some android game apps too since it seems I've quite the collection now.

[TheMightyEthan]

Just finished my first legacy game of Pandemic Legacy!

 

We ended up losing, and now Chicago, Montreal, and New York are in riots, with Atlanta, Washington, Tokyo, Seoul, and Buenos Aires unstable. At the end of the game we got to choose two upgrades, so we added a new starting research center and have the scientist the ability to hold an extra card in their hand.

 

It seriously stresses my wife out that permanent changes have been made to the game, but I love it. I'm excited to try January again.

[Hot Heart]

Haven't played much new except for...

 

Firefly Fluxx

I only bought this because there was an offer and it was meant as a starter game for my more casual friends. It's alright as far as Fluxx goes. It uses cartoony art and the cards are made to look weathered, there's some theming with the goals, card abilities and that a lot of it involves stealing. However, you actually have to be quite crafty with your thieving because there is a really fucking annoying Surprise card that means you get to steal someone else's entire hand whenever they try to steal a Keeper off you. It's won pretty much every game because the one attempting the steal was manoeuvring to win the game.

 

And last night, my regular group had a go at the Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG beginner set.

One friend has bought all three of the new modules (I think there is also a smugglers one and rebels one) and was keen to try them out, opting for the jedi one was the best intro. As far as I'm aware it's set a bit before the original trilogy timing, with the destruction of the Jedi Order virtually complete and the Galactic Civil War ongoing.

 

I think we were all a little skeptical about starting a new RPG and learning a new system, but it's actually pretty elegant. There are some basic stats that govern other things and ranks to take in skills, but it's all built around a system of seven dice. Just like a regular polyhedral set... but different! In this system you have mainly D6s, D8s and D12s and I think there's a D10 in there for Force stuff. At its core, you have certain proficiencies which govern which dice you roll, combined with the "difficulty setting" dice that oppose them. So your basics might be a couple of D8s but you might have some D12s in there if you're more skilled at something, then the difficulty of the task will add dice with symbols that might cancel them out. Combined with that are D6 conditional boosts or setbacks that you might get from allies or give to enemies, etc.

 

So you'll be rolling Successes, Triumphs (not on the basic dice), and Advantages versus Failures, Setbacks and Despair (that never came up but is bad). It sounds confusing explaining it but, essentially, the more, bigger and better the dice you get to roll, the greater chances of success. And, although you might wind up rolling 6 or 7 dice in one go, the opposing symbols quickly cancel things out and simplify it to either a success or failure with degrees of advantages or setbacks relative to both. So, I might swing at someone with my lightsaber and miss but the Advantage symbols I rolled could be spent to recover strain (stamina) or boost an ally. Or I might make a massive hit against an enemy, but Setback or Despair symbols that didn't get cancelled out allow them to cause strain (this never happened in our game, but it seems the system makes it possible). I think the GM could also add little twists, like with critical failures and successes in D&D systems, but there's a handy table of what can be "activated" with different numbers of symbols.

 

And in the system, you've obviously got your different roles with upgrade trees; so I could start using my strain to deflect melee and ranged hits, for example while someone else could improve their healing abilities. Of course, there's the joy of getting to swing a lightsaber around and boost your abilities with force powers and for the most part it's pleasingly intuitive. Some of the skills have some very vague names but I think actually seeing a one-line explanation in a rulebook would clear things up. Overall, we had a pretty fun time on a short adventure. A lot of that was from making silly jokes, admittedly, but then the game didn't bog things down or frustrate at all.

[Hot Heart]

My friend shared this with me recently and I forgot to post it here. So funny.

[Hot Heart]

Scythe

 

 

So, my copy of this arrived and I got to try it out with the full player count last night. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, yay!

 

First off, if it isn't already apparent from the image above: the game is beautiful. The board artwork is both neat to look at and very functional. Villages look like villages that connect onto farms, etc. and the rivers you can't cross at the start or the lakes that most units can't enter are all nice and clear.

 

At its core it's a 4X style game crossed with a "race" playstyle, where you build an "engine" to make the most efficient turns and trigger the end of the game when you're in the best position.

 

You start as one of five factions, each with a set starting position that influences what resources are available to you at the start. In addition, they have different powers as well as upgrades for their mechs/character. What then makes things interesting and increases the replayability is that you then get a player mat for your actions that changes the combinations of top-row and bottom-row actions as well as slight alterations in the costs and benefits.

 

What you'll then do each turn is select a space on your player mat (it has to be a different space each turn unless you're the red Rusviet faction) and then perform the top-row, bottom-row or top-row then bottom-row action. The most efficient playstyles will tend to do both in the same turn but sometimes it might not suit that particular moment of the game (you get a couple of objectives you can complete that rely on specific conditions).

 

The basic top-row actions will see you producing on hexes you have workers in order to get more resources (and more workers if you're on a village), trading for resources you don't have, moving your units around and increasing your combat power. Then along the bottom there are actions for building one of the four buildings, upgrading your actions, deploying mechs or enlisting recruits.

 

The bottom-row stuff is where it gets really interesting because the player mat borrows a concept from Terra Mystica in that moving something off your board then reveals a new benefit (or cost as you deploy more workers.

 

So, using this image as an example. At the start of the game, you will have placed a cube in the spaces that have a little black square in the bottom-right hand corner, buildings in the building named spaces (monument, mill, etc.) you will have lined up 6 workers across the red bar of the Produce action and put a circular wooden piece over the green bottom-right circles in each of the four spaces.

 

What you can then do over the course of the game is build the buildings in order to reveal their benefits for when you take that action on a future turn, or you can uppgrade your actions which allows you to move a cube from the top-row to somewhere in the bottom-row. So you could remove a cube from the Move action, which will then allow you to move 3 units instead of 2 everytime you take that action. You could then place that cube you just removed in on one of the spaces on the Deploy action at the bottom so that a mech now only costs 2 metal instead of 3. The enlist action is for removing that circular piece which then gives you an extra benefit but also means you get that benenfit everytime the player to your left and right takes it. For example, if I figured the people next to me are going to be trying to get all their mechs out, I can take out the circle next to the Deploy action and I will receive a coin every time they do that. This circular piece also goes onto your nation's board and gives you a one-time benefit. Mechs that sit on the nation's boards work in the same way in that they cover different upgrades at the start and then uncover them as they're deployed.

 

The game itself is about pursuing certain objectives in order to place your stars for particular achievements (deploying all 4 mechs, completing your objective, getting all 8 workers out, reacing the top of the popularity track or reaching the top of the power track, winning 2 combats, etc.) so you identify which you of the 6 you can do best and then go after that. The way turns work stops it from becoming overwhelming and because you're somewhat hemmed in at the start (you need to unlock a mech ability or build a mine in order to get outside your three starting hexes), it gives you an immediate focus for the first few turns.

 

This open approach allows for a bit of scope in how you win the game whether you focus on building a great economy or a roving army. I haven't even touched on the Factory, which is a space in the middle that allows you to gain a card that counts as an extra action space on your player mat for some pretty powerful options, or combat which isn't as daunting a prospect as you might think.

 

Finally, there is the popularity track which can be all important because it affects your score multipliers for certain things. If you can see the track on the left of that first image which the heart icons are, this represents how much the people of "Europa" like you, and is split into 3 tiers. By moving up this track, you increase some end-game scoring factors regarding stars placed, hexes controlled and resources owned. I managed to get to the top of it, but the actual winner of our game was only just into the second tier. I'd won a couple of combats, spread over a few hexes and become very popular but the winner had got all his mechs and workers out, spread across a large expanse and had control of the Factory (worth 3 hexes) when someone else (who actually came fourth) ended the game.

 

Overall, very pleased with it. I highly recommend it and look forward to playing it again.

[Mal]

Wait, it's out? Not sure why I was under the impression that it wouldn't be out until next year or so. I would've gotten it during its KS.

[Hot Heart]

Yeah, they had a "delivery time" of July 2016 and they made sure backers got their copies before it hit retail. It should be out in shops now but it's the hot thing this year so I think it's selling out in a few places (Cool Stuff Inc. is where most people in the US go for board games at low prices but it's all out there) and even the spare KS copies from Stonemaier's site are pretty much all gone.

 

There's an expansion on the way so maybe there'll be a bundle deal for that in future. There won't be a KS for that though.

 

Another thing related to the beautiful board. There are some hidden bits in the artwork. You can find Thor and Father Christmas and there are probably some other easter eggs.

[Hot Heart]

A couple of new updates.

 

I'll start with the one I've played a few times now, with a couple of different player counts (5 and 8).

 

Secret Hitler

 

It's a social deduction game that will be immediately familiar to anyone who's played The Resistance or Avalon, with some slight twists.

 

Players will be given a party membership and a role, which is actually more basic than that sounds. You'll wind up as a Liberal, a Fascist or Hitler (who has Fascist membership, no duh). The distribution will result in a Liberal majority (3-2 in five player and 5-3 in eight player) and, of course, one Fascist is actually Hitler. The Fascists get to see each other and know Hitler's identity; however, Hitler has no idea who his allies are.

 

For Liberals to win, they need to either pass 5 Liberal policies (along that blue track above) or assassinate Hitler (through those two darker red spaces with bullets on). Fascists either want to pass 6 Fascist policies or get Hitler elected as Chancellor anytime after 3 Fascist policies have been passed.

 

A round involves a player having the President role, which travels round the table clock-wise, who will then nominate someone as their Chancellor. It's then up to everyone to vote on whether they want this "partnership" to go ahead using their Ja! or Nein! cards. If it fails then the President role moves on and the nomination process begins as well; if the vote fails 3 times then a Policy is taken from the draw pile and passed automatically (more on that in a sec). Note: when nominating, the last successfully elected President and Chancellor may not be chosen.

 

If it passes, then the President draws the top 3 policies, chooses one to discard and hands the remaining 2 to the Chancellor who will then discard one and Pass the other. Policies are simply Liberal (blue) or Fascist (red) but the make up of the deck is 11 Fascist to 6 Liberal (if I recall correctly). What this means is that a) it's quite possible to draw 3 Fascist policies and have no real choice and b) if a vote fails 3 times then drawing straight from the pile favours Fascists.

 

As Fascist policies are passed and placed along the red board, they activate special powers for the President of that round. The second passed Fascist policy allows the President to investigate the party membership of another player (hence the difference between membership and role), the third allows the President to choose the next round's President (normal order resets afterwards), then the fourth and fifth allow the President to KILL PEOPLE. Player elimination can be a bit of a bummer (especially because that player is completely forbidden from influencing the game afterwards) but the game is quick enough that it's no real problem; plus, it's a social deduction game where it's still fun to observe. The interesting thing about these powers, obviously, is that for Liberals to take advantage of them, they have to pass Fascist laws. It's a real interesting dynamic and I failed to take advantage of it in our five-player game. Someone I pretty much knew to be a Liberal had already been killed which meant Fascists could lock the votes 2-2 and let the odds play it out for them but I was currently President with the Chancellor whom I suspected was also a Liberal. I drew 2 Fascist and 1 Liberal policy and discard one of the fascist ones. As soon as I did it, I realised maybe I should've just ditched the Liberal one and taken a shot at killing Hitler (which I would've guessed correctly). The Liberal policy passed but there was nothing we could do after that except hope "top-decking" would give us a final Liberal policy rather than a Fascist (it did not). Playing this down the pub with eight people was far more interesting though, especially the second game...

 

I was on the Fascist side and Hitler was the same guy as from the previous game (where he had been unlucky with someone checking his party membership). Without any discussion, I allowed the more vocal guy to take the heat as the suspicious one. However, after what had seemed like early stumbles, he actually won the table over and had everyone willingly nominating Hitler as Chancellor (before 3 Fascist policies had passed, obviously). I was simply doing my best to subtly cast suspicion on the Liberals who had been caught by the "3 Fascist policies" scenario and I think maybe I had two people fooled for a little while. Things were going well for the Fascists and soon enough we could probably get Hitler elected Chancellor once the timing was right. Then Hitler got given the chance to assassinate someone...

 

... he chose to kill the vocal Fascist who had done all the work for him! I couldn't really protest without outing myself (since even with one death, Liberals would still control a majority anyway) and there was hope I could still get Hitler elected Chancellor. Problem was, I was President next and I couldn't nominate Hitler. After that, we couldn't really do much to prevent Liberal policies passing turn after turn...

 

At the pub, I also got a chance to play Captain Sonar

 

 

That above is the end of a 3v3, turn-based game (there is a real-time version with a larger map).

 

At its heart, it's a hidden movement, Battleships-style submarine hunting game. Two teams go head-to-head as crews of a submarine with different roles: Captain, First Mate, Engineer and Radio Operator.

 

The Captain is in charge of all the big decisions such as movement/actions, tracking that on their own map.

The Engineer has a board with icons in different sections relating to the four cardinal directions the sub can go. Every time the sub heads that way, they must cross off an icon in the related section. The aim is not to cross off icons relating to actions the sub might want to take soon (e.g. torpedo) nor enough that it damages the sub. There's also a trick to the way sets of icons link together across the board; cross off all the connected ones and those ones all automatically reset.

The First Mate charges up the available systems and actions with every move - torpedoes, mines, sonar, drones and "silence" - and lets the Captain know what's ready. Most take 3-4 moves to be ready and reset once used.

The Radio Operator's role is to listen to the directions the other team is giving and try and locate them based purely on that.

 

I wound up with that last role in our first game and thought it would be rather daunting, but I quickly worked out a system and had their location nailed after 10 turns even tracking them after they went "silent" (move 0-4 spaces in a straight line; sneaky bastards just moved 1 space). Essentially, after I had the first North then West, I could begin crossing off lots of possible starting locations (everything south, south-east and east of an island plus the entire top and left rows) while drawing in their route on the movable sheet of acetate. Gradually, once I had a decent amount of starting locations eliminated I could easily slot the acetate around to get their exact location. What also gave it away was when their engineer had to keep warning off moves they couldn't make; after they'd gone silent, I had to track possible moves, so that helped narrow down when they were either at the edge of the map or close to an island.

 

The Captain and Engineer did a great job of keeping us moving and the right systems ready, so we managed to trap them in with a mine at one point and then just picked them off with indirect torpedo hits (it's actually quite tricky to get in range without giving your location away or trapping yourself)

 

We tried the real-time version afterwards but I don't think that is something you can just jump right into. It's easy to make mistakes (I'd switched to First Mate and even that was tricky just keeping a count of your own moves) and is chaotic but not necessarily in a fun way. It ended rather quickly after the enemy got a lucky direct torpedo hit (2 of your 4 total damage) and then we didn't get far away quick enough (I'd been charging "searching" systems rather than silence).

 

Good game though, and the turn-based version would probably make for a real tense experience with some practised players.

[Hot Heart]

Played some new games recently.

 

London

An out-of-print game from the designer of A Study In Emerald, Onward to Venus and Ankh Morpork.

 

Quite a tight little game in that you're "rebuilding London" after the Great Fire of 1666. This is done via card play where you build a part of the city (a line of cards) in front of you by spending a card of the same colour in order to place it. These cards then either have ongoing abilities while they're visible, things they do when you "run the city" (activate cards in the line) or just award lots of victory points. It's a sort of engine-building type game is that you have to carefully make a decent run of cards to activate because every time you run the city it creates poverty (represented by black cubes) for the number of stacks plus the number of cards remaining in your hand (and most cards get flipped once they're activated, which still leaves a blank stack). This can be offset by buyng boroughs in London; so there's a sort of pattern of cards > run city > buy borough. The player with the least poverty at the end of the game isn't punished, but everyone else loses points based off how much more poverty they had than them.

 

I was doing pretty well but then whenever opponents had a chance to ditch poverty on someone, they sent it my way and I just didn't have . I possibly could've won without that (a little kingmaking going on, really) but the top three scores were very close at 41/40/39 (the latter being me).

 

Mysterium

 

If you've ever played Dixit, you'll have an idea of the basics of this.

 

The players take on the roles of psychics/mediums/whatever who are staying in a mansion where a grisly murder occurred. One of the players is the ghost of the victim who is trying to reveal the murderer, location and weapon used via "visions" (cards) sent to the players.

 

How it plays is that every player actually has their own set to identify first; it's the final round where everyone tries to figure out the "true" story. So, each round the ghost has some cards with all sorts of weird pictures on and chooses which to hand to players in order to clue them into which person, location or weapon they should pick. You start with people, then once you get that correct (the ghost can't speak so can only knock once for "no" and twice for "yes" when you ask them if you're right) you move onto location and then weapon.

 

Being the ghost is probably very tricky because the cards can have all sorts of unintended indicators. For example, I had one with a fork or a snain and dishes but also a red ball of yarn with a string going straight across. I was looking at the dishes and thinking it was the chef I had to pick (and other people's clues indicated it wasn't theirs)... but it was wrong. Then I had a chess board and saw the Sweeney Todd-looking barber with the black and white hair... so maybe the yarn was like blood and then the chess squares match the hair... NOPE! As it turns out, I should've picked the racing driver because the line of yarn is like a finish line and the chess board is a chequered flag. D'OH!

 

Of course, meanwhile, I was playing the guy opposite's visions better than he was...

 

Still, it's a fun little game that takes around 30-45 minutes.

 

Dominion w/ Intrigue and Prosperity

 

I'm not big on regular Dominion so wasn't looking forward to playing it when a new friend brought it along to a games night. However, we were using virtually all expansion content which shook things up quite dramatically. There was a slow pay-off card that became more powerful as certain other cards were bought and joint VP/money cards that were very useful, plus ones that offered a free card below a certain value that then provided extra things based on which card was gained. It made for a lot more scope in building your deck and tricky decisions on each turn. And I just managed to end the game before the owner managed to run his slow-build deck once more, sneaking victory by 2 points.

 

And speaking of actually bad deckbuilders, I played Ascension

 

The most restricted, boring, ugly deck builder I've seen. You can be completely fucked by what's in the market and there's no real strategy; you're just fortunate if you can get some constructs to snowball everything else.

 

And played Scythe again the other night.

 

I got to try a different faction (and board) this time which was fun. I'm getting to grips with a bit more and even made a bold, early move in scaring away a player's workers (losing 2 popularity) in order to seize an encounter token (this faction gets to take two options so it's a great kicktstart for your engine sometimes) and it paid off; however, it kind of completely fucked his whole game because the faction on the other side was hemming him in as well (and he made an unfortunate decision in combat), cutting off access to one particular resource he needed.

 

It was a tense game at points as the red faction leapt to an early lead in stars and got to the factory easily (their mechs enable that) even forcing me back with combat once I planted a mech there, but his engine stalled mid-way as the rest of us steadily grew (and I came back super strong a few turns later). It came right down to the wire as an unchecked Saxony placed his sixth and final star just before I was going to, ending with 99 points while I was at 89... but guaranteed to get an additional 13 if I got an equal number of turns. Alas, that is the agony of Scythe. To rub it in, he told me he only made that decision because my building on the previous turn gave him the enlist bonus to bump him up into the top tier of popularity.

 

Either way, I really enjoyed it, although I know a couple of the players weren't so keen...

[deanb]

So this is a thing. You do a survey of sorts, put in some games you like playing n it makes a profile for you. Here's mine:

https://goo.gl/BEFjBz

 

I'm "Low conflixt, relaxed, and grounded"

 

And Cyberrats/MDKII

https://apps.quanticfoundry.com/tabletop/59c045ac46c842a2a1949f48fc53b1d0/

[TheMightyEthan]

Here's mine:  https://goo.gl/wBPdGD, I'm Strategic, Grounded, Gregarious

 

Apparently I like just about everything but immersion (which I don't have a problem with, it's just not super important to me).

[Hot Heart]

You're a robot, Ethan. A ROBOT.

 

This are me: https://goo.gl/rECasy

 

Small update on the board gaming front with some D&D5E musings:

 

Argent: The Consortium

 

You play someone at a magic university (sort of Hogwarts-ish) vying to take over with the chancellor resigning. This is done by using your team of mages to fulfill the desires of the voting consortium, each with their own different criteria (in the vein of "most sorcery spells", "most divinity spells", "most mana", "most gold", etc.)

 

This is a worker-placement game with all sorts of twists. Firstly, the end-game scoring varies from game to game because the consortium of voters does not use the whole deck and nor are all of them known by everyone at the beginning of the game (there are 12 total, 2 begin face up and then players get to "place a mark" each in order to look at another different one). This means that the "value" of certain places will vary depending on what voters are looking for.

 

Secondly, the university itself is incredibly modular, being made up of all sorts of rooms which are also double-sided. This changes the abundance of resources or types of actions available from game to game.

 

Thirdly, your workers are mages of different types. Red mages can wound other mages to steal their slots... except green mages who cannot be wounded. However, you could cast a spell to affect a green mage... but if it's a blue mage, they are immune to spells but not wounding. There are also speedy Purple mages who can be placed as a fast action (a free action before the main action you must take each round) and Grey mages who get to be placed after casting a spell as your main action. Since most of the rooms and their spaces only resolve at the end of the round, there all sorts of fighting over spots or drafting "tempo" teams (purple mage then spell then grey mage to get out 2, possibly 3 mages a turn depending on the spell).

 

Fourthly, the spells! As the game goes on you can learn and upgrade spells which let you do all sorts of weird and wonderful things, each based around its school of magic (sorcery, nature, divinity, planar, mysticism). Some are aggressive, some are defensive, some allow you to manipulate time (extra placements or turns) or enter the shadow dimension (extra slots not usually available). Anyway, if you wanted to wipe out a room of mages with a fireball or use a whirlwind to rearrange a room, it's possible.

 

There is a lot of little stuff to learn but its mostly intuitive and incredibly easy to teach with everything explained on the cards along with icons for "at a glance" experienced players. I think it could get a bit hectic during later rounds with lots of players and spells (and mages) flying back and forth and it's a real table hog, but otherwise infinitely replayable and great fun.

 

Star Trek: Catan

I'd never played Settlers before but I had an idea of what to expect. There are planets with different resource types and numbers, you build outposts and spaceships, etc. What lifts it above normal Settlers, I'm assuming, is that there are Development Cards and uh... People Cards? Development cards are for extra resources, stealing resources or moving the Klingon ship (usually on rolls of 7) while the People Cards are crew members from the original series who let you break the rules in small ways. They are swapped around quite freely so you can try and adapt depending on the game state.

 

That said, it's still about rolling and seeing what you get and then trying to make trades and building/buying more stuff, etc. Simple, relatively relaxed gameplay. Problem is it sounds like 3 is the only viable player count (which we had) but the game dragged on for over 2 hours... It is not engaging enough to last past 1 hour, I feel.

 

D&D 5E

So, with a friend running a cool little Pathfinder campaign for us and getting a few of us into Critical Role, I was inspired to try my hand at creating my own campaign. Rather than use PF, I opted for 5E because it's meant to be the most accessible and it would be something different to try.

 

My general thoughts are that, yeah, this is the best edition if you're looking to get into fantasy tabletop RPGs. You have 3 core books: Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide & Monster Manual, which give you everything for crafting your own campaign. There is also a starter set as well as pre-gen characters if you really want to start with the basics. The SRD is online and completely free which also gives you plenty of options without spending a penny/cent.

 

When the Critical Role DM decided to switch from Pathfinder to D&D5E for the broadcast it was based on it being much easier to handle combat (especially for large groups like theirs) because there weren't so many modifers flying around. Overall, I have to agree, it does a good job of reducing the overheads for DMing and most modified/modifiable interactions inside and out of combat can be handled via contests or applying advantage or disadvantage.

 

It's up front about how modifiable things are in such that maybe Intimidation is normally a Charisma-based skill but if you've got some hulking great half-orc you could opt to make it a Strength-based intimidation instead. And advantage/disadvantage is an inspired little system in that for the D20 roll the character rolls two/twice and takes the lower/higher result. Attacking from stealth? Advantage! Trying to shoot someone in melee range? Disadvantage! It also works for things like ranged weapons. Rather than subtracting 2 for each excessive 5ft or whatever, you just say that out of range = disadvantage.

 

Sure, it doesn't have the most granular detail like Pathfinder but it allows it to be more flexible and smoother, with greater scope for improvisation without tripping over other rules.

 

Anyway, I had fun DMing my first proper session the other night. I'd done a lot of prep with a couple of different paths they could take after trying to tie their party together neatly (first short session was a little introduction setpiece with a collapsing tavern) as well as random encounters to liven up any journeys (and try and get the party up past their squishy level 1 status) but it's true that you can never really have too much prep.

 

To assist their journey I had a trader who would give them a ride in exchange for protection, but stupidly didn't really prep anything in case they wanted to have a conversation with him (I'd assumed they'd mostly want to rest properly after their first near-death encounter). So I was just making stuff up in a terrible accent that went between "farmer" and "Irish". 

 

I think the most fun though was when they got the goblin encounter. Three goblins is classed as "Hard" but then there is a Goblin Boss who is CR1 on his own (equal to a 4 x level 1 party but probably at a disadvantage being only one of him). I decided that the three goblins had grown sick of their boss and tied him up in a chest to go and throw him in a river, so they could fight the goblins then not resist the lure of the locked chest making it a two-part encounter for maximum exp. The party stumbled upon the 3 goblins heaving this chest along and when they were spotted saw an opportunity to attack the trader: cue fight.

 

With the goblins dead, they attempted to smash open the chest but failed and heard a muffled and distressed cry. Worried, the rogue picked the lock only to discover the angered goblin boss inside who still had his dagger and was able to cut his ropes (I still wanted him to have a weapon but not be too tough). They got the story reasons with a quick line "You little shits forgot to take my knife and now you're gonna p... huh?"

 

Everyone rolled initiative but the goblin boss was going last giving the party the opportunity to mollify him. I had not prepared for that!

 

Cue an exchange where the goblin explains what happened in basic terms and manages to get two of the party to return "his gold" from the goblins they killed. They manage to sell him back one of the scimitars before he gets into a heated exchange with the bard who is trying to get him to pay a toll or fee for being rescued. It was hilarious fun as I was scrambling to play how the goblin would treat money (he can't really count very well but knows "lots" or "over hundred" of gold) and where he calls home ("woods") as well as coming up with a suitable name (Grek) which he can't actually spell but tried to explain with a throaty enunciation. After all that, and to the trader's surprise, they let the little blighter go... maybe to be seen again, with the bard even writing a song about him.

 

I think it was a success overall though, and my improvisation was better than I expected (or my friends were very accommodating). Everyone was playing their roles well too, so I look forward to more adventures and I know the areas in which I can improve.