Uthoroc's Blog

Sweet Agatha

2009-12-06T23:08:25Z

Stef an I finally managed to play Sweet Agatha (which I brought from GenCon this year) tonight - an intriguing thing. We floundered a bit around the middle, but managed to pull it together at the end to a suspenseful climax. The Reader (Stef) followed Agatha into oblivion - or to the stars? I'm not 100% sure, but they are together now. :)

Dragonmeet 2009

2009-12-01T16:25:41Z

I'm back from the Dragonmeet weekend in London - a sure sign the year is drawing to a close.

Stef and I took the train again, and lo and behold, this year no trains got stuck in the chunnel, I didn't forget the ticket, and we arrived in sunny but chilly London on time. Actually we were early enough to find and log two Geocaches on Clapham Common.

We were pleasantly surprised when it turned out robin_d_laws - also a guest at simonjrogers's - had scheduled a game of Trail of Cthulhu for the evening - and we were invited! It's already difficult enough to roleplay in a foreign language, so the prospect of gaming with Robin, Simon and the likes of bar_sinister, oz_librarian, gbsteve and spencerpine was both exciting and intimidating. It turned out to be a very relaxed and fun game as Robin took us through his interpretation of the "The Repairer of Reputations" and very fittingly and enjoyably killed everybody but one of the characters in the process. Stef and I managed to participate and hold our own ... I'm sure wine, port and sumptuous meal helped me quite a bit.

Dragonmeet itself was a bit difficult for me at the booth this year. With virus troubles having taken out the local desktop computer, I had to do with two laptops, one of which didn't even have CC3 installed. But I still had fun and enjoyed the day, dinner at Wagamama's, and late night talk in Simon's kitchen as always.

Sunday took Stef and me safely home, with no travel troubles at all. We even managed to shave an hour off the planned time, as we caught an earlier train in Cologne. It was disconcerting.

Looking forward to next year.

Games Workshop and their fan policy

2009-11-26T09:55:07Z

Yesterday Games Workshop apparently decided to pull most of the fan-created support material for their games from Boardgamegeek.com. Hundreds of useful, beautiful and above all game-supporting reference sheets, optional rules and other materials were deleted from both out-of-print and current game entries, as GW's lawyers requested their removal from BGG. You can find an incomplete list of affected games on this geeklist.

I have bought, enjoyed and painted quite a few Games Workshop games and miniatures over the years. I'm waiting to see more information on this move by GW, but I'm not inclined to buy anymore of their stuff at this moment.

Tavern Battle Map

2009-10-08T09:27:27Z

sashabilton of Axe Initiative Games asked me whether I had a tavern floorplan lying around to use as a battle map for an upcoming Raiders Guild adventure. I remembered an old CC2 floorplan I had drawn ages ago and quickly converted it into a battle map, using a Symbol Set 2 style. I think it turned out nicely. Click on the image to download the 25mm scale battle map.

You can also download the CC3 source file.

Interview with yours truly

2009-08-01T08:22:58Z

Shameless self-plug: I recently did an interview with Kobold Quarterly, which you can now read at their website.

Butterfly on the window

2009-07-30T08:42:26Z

A beautiful peacock butterfly got caught on my office window. I grabbed the camera and got a nice shot. Then I managed to steer it out of the window.

Deadlands - Third session coming up

2009-06-09T10:11:01Z

Our fresh Deadlands Reloaded campaign has been a lot of fun. Last time we set an ambush for a posse of outlaws and mowed them down in a blazing gunfight.

In keeping with the Savage World philopsophy, we've been using miniatures (which is rare for our group). So far, it's been cheap paper miniatures, but now I've started painting as metal minis to at least represent our characters. It's the first time I'm painting Wild West figures, and it's been a lot of fun. I've done half the party by now.

The Marshal is for the the GM (the "Marshal" in Deadlands lingo). The hook for the story was that the new marshal of Coffin Rock was shot by outlaws. momosnyx (the "good" Ralf) is the GM.

The Preacher is fleeing from an ugly past back east, but he's strong in his newfound belief that he's the tool of the lord. When the sinful won't change their ways, he trusts to his double-barreled shotgun to show them the light. He's my character.

The Captain is an ex-Confederate cavalry officer. I don't know (yet) what brought him to Coffin Rock. He's a natural leader and took command of our party in the ambush we set.

The Ronin was on a mission from the Shogunate to America, but events back home (the Meiji Restoration) left him masterless and drifting. He's a master with bow and sword, disdaining the use firearms.

The third session is tonight, and it looks like for the first time we might face the supernatural part of the setting. Looking forward to it.

Star Trek

2009-06-09T07:04:17Z

I saw the new Star Trek movie yesterday, but unfortunately I feel disappointed.

It was just too loud, fast, and hectic for me to enjoy. Am I getting to old for this? I feel like the surfer who tried to ride a perfect wave, but slipped and got washed upon the shore. The wave may have been great, but getting tumbled around within it, I couldn't enjoy the ride.

I'm kinda over-prepared as a mere player...

2009-05-12T06:30:17Z

Monday evening, first game session of Deadlands: Reloaded coming up...

I had just too much fun with the Whitewash City paper model set by Eric Hotz. More images can be found in my Deadlands gallery.

Petition gegen Indizierung und Sperrung von Internetseiten

2009-05-07T09:23:01Z

Wenn ihr bei der Online-Petition gegen das neue Gesetz zur Sperrung und Indizierung von Internetseiten mitmachen wollt, könnt ihr das auf bundestag.de machen.

In diesem Moment sind schon fast 43.000 Stimmen gesammelt. Meine Stimme ist dabei.

3-16 : Of Oozes and Apes

2009-05-03T14:05:42Z

Yesterday I finally had the chance to play some 3-16: Carnage among the Stars at a small convention in Essen, run by members of the DnDGate forum. I picked it up at Dragonmeet last year and have been itching to try it ever since.

So after playing in A Burning Wheel session, getting some food and bagging a copy of the Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition in a round of "Wichteln", I grabbed three players and off we went on our first

First mission: Ooze Hunt

Character generation and explaining the rules went as quickly and easily as I expected. The players spread their starting skills very conservatively, with Sergeant Bicker having 5 NFA and both Corporal Dox and Trooper Daker opting for 6 FA/ 4 NFA. The players reacted to the setting pretty straight up (not over the top), with the sergeant being known as a "thinker", the corporal as "callous" and the trooper as a "gambler".

I started them off on board the "SS Surprise" with the main assault on planet Goya already going on below, while their company was held in reserve. Sergeant Bicker fastidiously studied his field manual and the corporal relaxed with his mitt and ball. Both rebuffed attempts by Daker to get him into a game of poker. Daker had to settle with some of the other troopers and promptly got fleeced by one Trooper Abe (he failed his NFA).

The sergeant then got called to the briefing by Lt. Frinks. The mission was to locate and secure a downed drop ship that had been lost in the first assault wave. The lieutenant hinted at "past misdoings" which had caused the company to be put in a reserve and demanded exceptional performance from his sergeants to make up for their previous (unspecified) incompetence. He felt it unnecessary to impart any information on the nature of the planet and the opposition.

The company mounted their drop ship, everybody splattered the interior in vomit (all failed their NFA), and they learned the importance of keeping your visor open while in flight.

As they disembarked, heavy rain hit them and immediately fogged up the interior of the helmets (rain world). The surface was covered in deep mud and they were surrounded by a forest of spiky and brittle tree-like growth. Cloud-cover was extremely low and thick, creating a dark and inhospitable atmosphere.

The lieutenant ordered the sergeant and his mean to guard the perimeter of the clearing on one flank. Corporal Dox managed to illuminate the forest with a series of flares and suddenly they saw a green glow emanate from the ground below the trees, and fluorescent blobs of almost liquid slime accumulated from the rivulets and puddles of water around them: First contact with the enemy (oozes). The aliens had the best roll for domination (with AA 4 - best NFA minus 1), but the corporal saved their asses by making his NFA roll (the others failed) and preventing an ambush. Still the aliens made the best roll in the first combat round, and messed up everyone. The PCs managed to kill lots of oozes and removed two of the three threat tokens in the encounter, but then the remaining aliens exploded and showered them with very strong acid that quickly ate into their Mandelbrite armor (special ability: suicide attack). But Trooper Daker suddenly remembered his chemistry classes in high school and told everyone to crush lots of hydration tablets on the acid, which neutralized it effectively (he used his first strength).

With the encounter over and everyone patched up back to full health, the corporal noticed a glow on the horizon which seemed to be a reflection of a large fire on the low-lying clouds. On reporting this, Lt. Frinks promptly ordered the squad out into the woods to check up on this.

Just the three of them made their way through the eerie growth, while the rain splattered on their Mandelbrite helmets. Soon enough the tell-tale green glow signaled another alien attack as the oozes coalesced from the puddles and rivulets of rain around them. This time they managed to get the drop on the aliens (they got the best NFA roll) and positioned themselves at Near range. There were too many oozes (4 tokens) to wipe them all out in the first round, despite several oozes exploding in acid showers again (they killed two tokens, I removed a third for a suicide attack, leaving one for the next round). When the aliens suddenly reached them the next round and began to ooze up their legs (best FA success - my dice rolling was spectacular for an AA of 4), Corporal Dox remembered his drill instructor telling him about the "continuous fire button" on his E-Cannon and how to use it in an emergency (his strength use ended the encounter).

Lt. Frinks largely ignored their report of the encounter and ordered them on. Soon enough they reached clearing with a crater in the center. Both had been created by the crashed drop ship sitting in the middle. It's engines were on fire and the dull red glow was what had led them here. A large pool had formed in the crater, half-submerging the ship. They found the corpse of a trooper outside the pool, badly eaten up by the alien's acid. The body lay in a kind of ditch leading from the pool to the rim of the crater and beyond.

The lieutenant ordered the company out to the crash site, but also commanded the squad on site to not waste time and enter the ship immediately to search for survivors. Reluctantly the sergeant and trooper Daker waded into the pool, while the corporal covered them. Soon the water reach up to their breast. They tried to create an easy way into the craft, by blowing some wreckage away, but failed miserably (NFA failures). So they had to circle the ship to find an entrance. On the way, a few green-glowing blobs suddenly appeared from the depths of the pool and attacked them. Luckily there were only a few stragglers (2 tokens) and the sergeant and corporal blew them away quickly (both killed in the first round, no chance for a suicide attack).

The wreck was full of troopers killed in the crash, but the number didn't add up to a full company. It seemed like the aliens had been in there and dragged away a number of survivors and/or bodies. The ditch leading away from the pool seemed to be their tracks. It came as no surprise that the lieutenant immediately ordered them to follow the track as quickly as possible. no time to wait for the rest of the company to catch up.

As the crested the rim of the crater, they saw the land slowly falling off towards a flat expanse, which occasional lightning flashes revealed to be a large lake. The track lead straight on toward its edge. The waters were languid and slightly oily, the surfaced broken only through the constant lashing of rain. And then, as the squad stood on the bank wondering whether they needed to dive into the water, the whole lake began to grow green. Waves of oozes flowed towards them, as they radioed for help from the company (I committed my remaining six threat tokens to the encounter, making it the final one).

The sudden onslaught really surprised the squad and the first waves of oozes washed over them and messed them up (ambush as no PC made their NFA roll, but the aliens their AA). Luckily they quickly recovered their wits, laying the hurt on the aliens who wavered in the storm of bullets and laser fire (all made their FA rolls, aliens failed). Still the acid from exploding oozes ate badly into their armor (suicide attack, then two alien tokens remained). The second wave of oozes threatened to come in (aliens made their AA roll), but the squad was faster on the trigger (two made better FA successes). While the oozes wilted under the fire, the rest of the company came over the ridge behind them, air support started dropping bombs into the lake and this hot spot of alien activity was thoroughly destroyed.

Of course Lt. Frinks got all the praise for discovering the alien hideout, but at least Trooper Daker was promoted to corporal (making his NFA roll and having used a strength). Corporal Dox had made the most kills and gained a level (but failed his development roll), while Daker won the roll for the second level again against the sergeant. At least the sergeant made his development roll and took a rocket pod as an additional weapon.

First mission complete.

The session took about two and a half hours including rules explanation and character generation. It went very well, although we were still feeling our way around the style and detail of the game. For example I was a bit hazy on the movement rules, and we missed the opportunity to move the troopers on the chart a few times. I had planned to run a second mission if the first went quickly and smoothly (which it did), but felt a bit tired from the day of gaming and not quite up to GMing again. Luckily one of the players (Trooper Daker) offered to take a shot at GMing a session himself, and I was happy to do a second session as a player. Another latecomer to the con showed up, and we drafted him into the game too. We rolled up a planet and off we went on the

Second Mission: Search and Rescue among the Apes

I quickly created Trooper Payne, a "crazy bastard" (FA 7/ NFA 3, slug rifle), and our new recruit introduced Trooper Crusher, known as the eternal "ensign" (FA 6 / NFA 4, energy rifle). We joined Sergeant Bicker's squad in the mess as we were told the next mission was to search for some missing scientist from a research station on a "nearby" planet. The journey took "only"several" hyperspace jumps and a couple of weeks in a cramped and stinking shuttle, before we we're finally dropped off on a fast-rotating (4 std hours rotation cycle), almost molten rock under constant seismic stress (volcanic world). Ah, the atmosphere was poisonous too.

We had to make regular NFA rolls to keep on our feet and avoid flying pieces of rock, while we searched for the research station. Finally we discovered it on a little hill. Both he hill and the station had been torn apart by an earthquake and were now looming precariously over a deep pit of lava. We climbed into the remains of the buildings and while no scientist were evident, the sergeant ordered us to retrieve all the research data. Trooper Payne manage to bag a bottle of finest Whiskey from private stash of one of the scientists. He would wonder for the rest of the mission how to take a swig without opening his visor.

When we came back out, we ran into a band of large apes (2.5 meters high), one of which was wearing the remains of a white lab coat. We saw them taking deep breaths from some volcanic fumes. That seemed to send them into a frenzy (special ability: Enhance Ability): and they began throwing rocks and boulders at us. Despite their formidable looks and accurate aim, the squad made short work of them. Despite a base 7 AA and two tokens raising this to 9, the GM rolled abysmally all though the mission, making it quite a bit easier than the previous one.

Following the tracks of the apes, we came upon a row of hills which contained some caves that seemed to be old and stable enough to serve as some kind of shelter. Just then some more apes appeared, again frenzied, and throwing rocks at us from up the slope. There were only a few though. In the ensuing fight Trooper Payne distracted his sergeant and triggered some memories of basic training, causing him fall down the slope (I forced a weakness on him), while the rest of the squad quite handily defeated the apes.

It actually proved more difficult to climb up to the cave entrances afterward. Payne and Crusher were still clambering over the rocks below (failed NFA rolls), as the sergeant and corporal ran into more apes at the caves (the GM won the dominance roll and ruled that we were split among close and far range). Trooper Payne suddenly remembered that he had been ALMOST inducted into sniper training and raised up his slug rifle to bring down the apes with amazingly precise shots (I used my Strength to immediately win the encounter).

Inside the caves we found the bodies of the scientists (no survivors) and the rest of the ape tribe examining them (and wearing their lab coats). The ensuing fight proved to be a one-sided carnage among the apes, as the troopers consistently rolled a lot better than the GM. Finally we were able to call the shuttle and report back.

While Trooper Payne had contributed a lot to the mission (7 hits, 19 kills), Corporal Dox had the most recorded kills with his enhanced e-cannon affectionately known as "Vera" (2 hits, 28 kills). So the corporal gained a level, and among the others Trooper Crusher proved the most lucky. Trooper Payne got compensated by being promoted to corporal rank, and immediately ratted to the brass about the sergeants poor performance, trying to get him demoted. But the court martial vindicated the sergeant completely (I failed my NFA, he made his).

In this session I deliberately played a bit of a wild cannon to highlight the competitive aspects of 3:16, forcing a weakness on a superior, using a strength purely to make my trooper available for promotion and trying to get the sergeant demoted. The mood of the mission was a bit different, more light-heartedly crazy, but also very good and a lot of fun. It took another 1.5 hours or so.

Second mission complete.

Overall we had about 3.5 hours of of good fun. The game was definitely "about the missions", as expected for a starting game of 3:16. But I can see that it might develop into a very different direction with time. Unfortunately this was only a convention game, and we'll be unable to continue the story of Sergeant Bicker, Corporals Dox, Daker and Payne, and Trooper Crusher.

Soup delights

2009-05-01T11:30:42Z

Last night we had princeofcairo's mega-health edition Tom Yum Kai recipe for our now-traditional Thursday night family dinner (my sister, her husband momosnyx, Stef and yours truly). It was as exquisite as so eloquently advertised, and we should now be sufficiently fortified against any assaults of the Mexican flu.

It took a number of trips to the various if few sources of Asian foodstuffs in the area to gather the ingredients, but particularly the substitution of fresh for dried galangal improved on an already delightful dish.

In exchange I'll post one of my favorite soup recipes, which is quick enough to prepare of a night's rpg session, if you have a little time beforehand. It's a recipe by Ken Hom, who's cookbooks on Asian and particularly Thai cuisine opened up a whole new world for me.

North Thai Chicken-Noodle-Soup (serves 4)

Ingredients

250g egg noddles
2 stalks lemongrass
250g chicken breast
1 tbsp Oil (preferably groundnut)
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
1.25 l chicken broth
400ml coconut milk (1 can)
2 small fresh red or green chilis, finely cut and pips removed
1 tbsp Thai fish sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp Madras curry powder*
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp lime juice
1 handful of basil leaves (or cilantro leaves if you prefer)

*This is the secret ingredient. Don't skimp by using normal supermarket curry, the soup will only be half as good.

1. Cook the noodles in boiling water 3-5 minutes. Drain and put aside.
2. Chop the lemongrass in 2-3 inch pieces, then crush with the flat side of a large knife.
3. Cut the chicken into thin strips.
4. Heat a large pot or wok. When really hot, add onion, garlic and lemongrass. Stir-fry for 3 minutes.
5. Add broth and coconut milk. Stir well, then cover the pot and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Add chilis, chicken, fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, curry powder, salt and peter. Stir well.
7. Add noodles, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
6. Remove lemongrass with a skimmer and add lime juice.
7. Serve in a great soup bowl, garnish with basil or cilantro leaves.
8. Enjoy!

Johann Hari

2009-04-02T11:36:16Z

Good stuff.

You know how I came across his site? When doing research for my Congo-based Esoterrorists adventure I ran in 2007, I stumbled upon another article on war crimes in Congo of his. Read at your own risk. Truth is more horrible than fiction.

More Mapping (Guides) for your Money

2009-03-20T14:09:02Z

As Simon posted on his blog, we'll be releasing two free new mapping styles for registered CC3 users next week. It occurred to us that at least one of these should come with a "mapping guide", as we do for the Cartographer Annual styles. This is the map that I created while writing the mapping guide:

(Click on the map to see a larger version)

The mapping guide will be included with the download of the new CC3 styles next week.

From Photoshop to CC3

2009-03-09T17:25:58Z

A few weeks ago, Simon came across a beautiful piece of cartography work in the Cartographer's Guild forum by Pär Lindström. It was done in Photoshop, but when asked he was happy to provide us with the source image, so we could transfer it to a CC3 mapping style. He even volunteered to produce more bitmap artwork for us, to make it a complete new bitmap style.

It was a very interesting process to convert his work into CC3 format and I like the result a lot. It will be released next month as the April Annual issue.

See Peter's original Photoshop map.

And this is my example CC3 map.

3:16 - A custom range map

2008-12-02T19:40:05Z

Just recently I became aware of boxninja's game "3:16 - Carnage among the stars", a small press rpg about space troopers fighting a never-ending war among the stars - obviously inspired by classics like Starship Troopers, Traveller, Aliens, Warhammer 40k, Space Crusade and others.

I read the the short-but-intriguing session report by robin-d-laws and consequently picked up a copy at Dragonmeet. I read it through on the train back home and really liked what I saw. Hopefully I'll get a session together here soon.

I really dug the combat system and the neat range placement mat. And of course the cartographer kicked in, itching to create a CC3 version. So I took the star system template from October's Annual issue and played around with some effect settings to create this little thing (posted with Gregor's permission).

I think it came out pretty nice. Click below to download the large version and see a shot of the printed map with some old Space Crusade minis I dug up.

Large-scale png map (2048x1600px)
Pdf print of the map (150dpi, 6Mb)
CC3 version of the map (needs Cartographer's Annual 2008 and the true type font Aldo's Nova)

There and back again - a Dragonmeet story

2008-12-01T16:00:09Z

Did I say I had hopes for an easy and stress-free journey? I think I did. Well, here are some things to avoid, if you want hopes like this to become true.

- Take the actual train ticket with you, not only the seat reservations. Kudos to both the DB and Eurostar for letting us ride on these alone.
- Contrary to common knowledge, don't count on the high-speed trains being more punctual than your local and regional ones. The 80 minutes safety space in Cologne was more than plentiful, the 40 minutes in Bruxelles had us sprinting to get the connection.
- There's not much you can do to avoid a broken-down train blocking the whole tunnel for 2.5 hours. Well, except for flying of course.
- Don't leave your convention posters in the train when disembarking. Getting back out of the London tube and finding those poster is time-consuming and nerve-wracking. Kudos to both London Underground and Eurostar personnel for being extremely helpful and understanding. And for not giving a terrorist alarm.
- Check the timetables shortly before the trip, if you've booked two months earlier. Especially if there's been a fire in the tunnel in the meantime and damages are still being repaired. It could save you another sprint for the connection.
- Don't rely on the Eurostar personnel - extremely friendly as they are - to give you the correct platform for your connection. It might have been changed without their knowledge. This could save you yet another sprint through Bruxelles-Midi station.

I have to add that Eurostar was so gracious to offer anyone on the train with the 2.5 hours delay a free return-ticket on their next trip. I just hope they still remember that next year. Yes, despite all this, I'd still rather take the train than fly to London.

Oh, and Dragonmeet was a blast, as I'm sure you've experienced or heard.

The Dragons are meeting again in London

2008-11-24T10:20:23Z

Next Saturday is Dragonmeet time in London (Kensington Town Hall), and I'm looking forward to my annual visit at ProFantasy headquarters, meeting Simon, Sasha, Steve, et al. In addition, I'm excited to see Robin D. Laws and Kenneth Hite again who are special guests this year.

This year we'll be taking the Eurostar through the Chunnel. Hopefully the trip will be more relaxing than the usual airport security hassles, cramped Ryanair seating, and annoying Stansted Express transfer.

A Map A Session - Part 3

2008-11-14T11:11:27Z

The third session of my new Jhendor campaign is looming tonight and you will find the third map of the "a-map-a-session" program

I cheated a bit this time, by taking an older map and expanding on it. The map has quite a history, since it is my second ever city map done with CC2, it served as Annual 2008 entry (demonstrating the new CD3 style) and it was included as an example map in City Designer 3. I also created the city of Gwynnin in Neverwinter Nights' toolset based on this map.

The town has changed quite a bit since it was visited last in my campaigns and it's always a joy to be able to quickly change and add things in Campaign Cartographer, something you cannot do with a hand-drawn map.

Here's the A4 pdf file and the CC3 drawing.

.

What we played

2008-11-11T10:18:21Z

I'm back from my week on the North Sea, and it was a real frenzy of board-gaming. I think I've never played as many games in one of our two-week retreats! My count clocked in at 30 sessions played. But what did we actually get on the table?

I'll score the games on a scale of 0-3 (0: No interest to play again, 1: Would play again if asked, 2: Would like to play again, 3: Desperately want to play again). This only represents my personal opinion, not that of our group.

1. Dominion

A card game where you buy cards from a public tableau to build up your own optimized private deck. It was a favorite amongst my friends, but the own session I played left me cold - although I'm not 100% certain why. Perhaps it was the very much pasted-on theme. Score 1

2. Pandemie

A cooperative game where four players try to stop the global spread of several strains of diseases. The game has very clever mechanisms and is easy to get into - a bit too easy perhaps, as I don't see the long-term appeal and it is prone to be dominated by a strong player. I didn't play, only watched, because there was interest from too many players. Score 2

3. Space Alert

A cooperative game where space cadets have to survive their first space mission and bring back their spacecraft safely to base. An time-limited and action-packed command/programming phase is followed by a resolution phase where the players commands/actions are executed to see what happens. I only watched the three introductory games that were played and it looked like a lot of fun, if quite stressful. Score 2

4. Galaxy Trucker

Players simultaneously built their own space truck out of junkyard parts and then navigate their "truck" through hostile space to earn the most money. Fun theme and clever ideas combine for excellent gameplay. I played two games but scored no wins. Score 2

5. Arkham Horror

A sprawling cooperative game where a band of investigators tries to stop a Great Old One who is threatening Arkham. In our first game, 8 players (almost the whole crew) went up against Yig the Great Serpent, but the game was cut pretty short because of some unlikely card draws. Basically the end-fight against Yig started before we had done much of anything. We defeated it, but it was mainly a lot of die-rolling and a bit anti-climactic. I played a second game with 2-players (Stef and me) which was better, even if we still thought the boss-fight at the end a bit dull. Score 2

6. Graffiti

A party-game where one player must guess a word that all other players try to draw in a limited amount of time. The clever bit is that the guessing player gets point for finding out which player drew which picture. Accordingly every player tries to disguise his "style" which is very hard for some. We have a very good comic-artist among the group and his pictures were guess correctly every time to much amusement. Score 1 (it's "only" a party game)

7. Condottiere

An old favorite from previous years, Condottiere is a very clever card game. I didn't play, as I'm not a big fan of (most) card games. Score 1

8. Ghost Stories

Another cooperative game (there are en vogue at the moment), this time about defending a peaceful Chinese village against rampaging monsters and ghosts - and the arch villain Weng Fu. The one game we played was very evocative of the Chinese Ghost Story line of movies (which I love), and we had a blast even though we lost after blowing two chances (one bad one good) of defeating Weng Fu. Score 3

9. Prophecy

This improved version of the old classic Talisman is a traditional "move to a space, fight a monster, collect some treasure" game and does seem outdated compared with the host of clever new game ideas out there. Gameplay is better than in Talisman but still very much depends on luck and tends to become boring and repetitive. Score 1

10. Puerto Rico

After three-years of ownership we finally managed to play our first session of this epitome of "deep" German-style games (or Eurogames). It is indeed a very-good game of role selection, resource management and engine building, although I prefer Agricola (see below). If only the graphic design wasn't so drab and uninspired. Score 2

11. San Juan

This is a simplified card-game version of Puerto Rico, which has strong similarities to Race for the Galaxy (see below). I think San Juan is wee bit too simple and I strongly prefer RftG. Score 1

12. Race for the Galaxy

Race shares the same basic game design of San Juan (and Puerto Rico) in that you select a certain action/role which all players get to execute, but you get a bonus for. It adds some options and radically changes the theme (Galactic Empire-building vs Colony/Plantation building), making it the game I prefer. RftG was probably the most-played game with at least 10 sessions, owing to the facts that it plays very quickly (20-40 minutes) and allows a wide variety of players (1-5). Score 3

13. Agricola

Agricola has been last year's hype on BoardGameGeek - and deservedly so. The theme (farming and family) does scare off quite a few hardcore gamers (who find it boring), but many others love evocative design and the feeling of slowly building up your own little homestead and farm. Almost always a hit with those players who don't come in from the fantasy/wargame angle (but many of those love it too). My current favorite. Score 3

14. Warrior Knights

A remake of an old Games workshop wargame classic, WK tries to bring the old-style medium wargames to the new millennium. Either it fails or I have grown too old for this type of game. I really want to like this game, but gameplay is too slow and just drags on and on. We cut the one session we played short after three hours when a likely winner emerged. Score 0

15. Red Dragon Inn

A very fun "Take that!" type of game where you play a member of a classic adventuring party carousing in the tavern after a successful dungeon haul. The goal is to stay sober long enough and keep enough gold to be the last one sitting at the table. The characters are just brilliant and the gameplay is surprisingly tactical. Score 2

16. Fairy Tale

A quick card-game where you have play certain combinations of cards to score the most points after three rounds. The only thing special is the cute manga-like artwork, if you're into that. I'm not. Score 0

17. Dorn

This game is pretty much unique in that it is a dungeon-crawl without dice. One player (me in this instance) is the evil guy (the Dornkeeper - bonus points for the most stupid character name), the others team up as stock fantasy characters to collect artifacts and finally defeat him. Because of the no-luck combat mechanism the game is very brainy and tactical, not what you expect from the theme and probably not to everyone's taste. The good guys need good coordination and teamwork, which - due to it being the first game - was lacking. Accordingly I defeated them. Score 2

18. Citizen X

One night we played this "Werewolves" clone, where players try to find out which among them are zombies - which in turn try overwhelm the normal citizens before they are found out. The interesting premise is marred by difficult setup conditions (need a TV, DVD, a circle of chairs, enough room and space to hold private conversations) and unwieldy gameplay. Score 1

19. Poison

A clever card game of trick-taking and screwing the other players. Still not my cup of tea, so I didn't play. Score 0

20. Die Sieben Siegel

Yet another clever card game of trick-taking and screwing the other players. You get my drift. Score 0

21. Cheaty Mages

Bonus points for the most easily mis-pronounced title. Another clever card game, only this time you're not taking tricks but betting on a number of monsters, increasing and decreasing their strength with action cards. Oh, and you're screwing the other players' plans. Played it once, but it didn't hold my interest. Score 0

22. DnD 4th Edition

While we were playing something else, a few others rolled up some characters and played a mini-encounter. This was the only role-playing (although I hesitate to call it that) game played this year. Score 0

I might have forgotten the odd game that I didn't play myself, since there was hardly waking minute where not something was played somewhere. Really a crazy boardgame vacation. Great fun! :D

It's this time of year again...

2008-10-31T17:56:14Z

A Map A Session - Part 2

2008-10-10T13:16:35Z

Remember my a-map-a-session program?

Well, my Jhendor campaign's next session is scheduled for tonight and I didn't have my map for the session yet. So I whipped up a quick village map with City Designer 3. This took me about 30-40 minutes, including printing.

The map shows a little trading village that will (probably) be the setting for some of tonight's session. It was created with the Bitmap B style of City Designer 3 and is really a quick-an-dirty work. Even the internal scale isn't really correct, but that doesn't matter for the session.

Here's A4 pdf file and the CC3 drawing.

IKEAcat

2008-09-27T15:08:55Z

Last weekend was almost completely dedicated to that certain well-known Swedish furniture store. We spent one-half shopping, and one-half assembling.

The cat seems to enjoy the results, if not the procedure:

DnD 4E - One more session...

2008-09-26T07:32:30Z

We played our second session of DnD 4E on Wednesday night ... and I remain definitely underwhelmed.

I get the feeling that - at least for us - it is "neither fish nor meat" as we say in German. The role-playing veneer is extremely thin and cracks and blisters under the slightest stress, and the tactical combat aspect is done better in board games like Descent. The Hybrid that 4E attempts does not seem to work for me - although I admit that two sessions is probably not enough to give such a final verdict.

There's some specific criticisms I have though which I don't think time will be able to counteract:

1. As so many "modern" rpg designs, it demands that each player is fairly fluent in the game's mechanisms. A basic familiarity does not seem to be enough or the other players will be constantly telling you what to do or not to do. We have players that would rather say "I run up to him and swing my axe at him" as opposed to "with my move action I move these 5 spaces until I'm next to him, then as my standard action I use my encounter power Flashy Overhead Double-handed Power Strike to attack him." The game does not cater to this type of gamer.

2. The d20. *sighs* It's a nice die, sure. But its variance is way too high. There's nothing as demoralizing as using your super-duper, high-energy, once per-day, mega-power to give that master villain a good kick in the backside .... just to roll a 4. Oh, I missed. Well, better luck tomorrow. Yeah, the possibility of failure must be there, but with the spread of results on a d20 it's much too common.

Our DM had lost of fun it seems and I haven't talked with the other players about the session yet, but I'd rather play a session of Descent or a role-playing game like Delta Green or Savage Worlds next time...

October Annual Teaser

2008-09-11T06:42:11Z

A little teaser image for the October issue of the Cartographer's Annual 2008.