Weeknight Game Session: Twilight Imperium III

Well, it finally happened. I've played That Game.

I have heard about TI3 so many times. And dodged playing it so many times.

Why? Was it the memories of our sixteen hour Throneworld session scarred into my brain? Was it my growing fear that 4X games have...well...too many X's? Was it my concern that it was more Trash than Ameritrash?

And that box is just so friggin' big!

Well, whatever worries I had, they were unfounded. I had a great time playing what I believe is probably a great game. I look forward to playing it again.

Let's start off with the circumstances with which I played it. I am a man who feels regrets, especially about the possibility of games unplayed. As some of you may know, years ago I was stranded in a sixteen hour Throneworld session that has scarred me for life. You may further know that one time, against my better judgment, I played Knizia's Lord of the Rings co-op fest and ended up spending one whole day of Pseudocon playing in what we still refer to as "co-opacon." It's so easy in a con situation for one regrettable gaming choice to fishtail into another then another and for you to spend the next few weeks bemoaning lost opportunities where you could have been playing 4 or 5 games that you enjoyed rather than the 1 or 2 that you merely endured.

Weekly Gaming Knight -
A Hero for Our Times?

Enter the Weekly Gaming Night (it's so awesome, maybe it should be a superhero - Weekly Gaming Knight - protector of your gaming interests).  What it allows me to do is to play a game with no real fear of missing out on something else. It's a great, low risk place to experiment with a game. I've had many games in mind for this, and my friends TJ and Kevin have given me great opportunities to play things and take gaming risks that I may not have taken outside of a WGN.

So when Kevin's son AJ, on his last multi-player gaming session before he returned to college, broke out his newly-purchased TI3, I was in. Not just in, but WAY in.

AJ had played a couple of times in the tournament at WBC and was able to effectively get Kevin and I up to speed quickly. So, this will be brief as I will not make any major judgments until I've played it more than once. But...

First off, I found that I like the selection of "offices" more than I had expected to. I remember Joe Steadman complaining about the change from TI2 to TI3, especially as it related to what he called the "Puerto Rico" element of the new version of the game. Needless to say, I was concerned.

But the offices had minimal similarities to Puerto Rico. Sure, there is a reward for choosing an office that has not been chosen in a while (a very nice reward, it seemed). There are also advantages to the primary ability of an office along with each office allowing all players to do something. The offices drive the action.

But, for whatever reason, they reminded me more of the action cards in Runewars. They really allowed the player who had chosen the office to perform the primary action, then everyone was able to perform the secondary action. I actually like the Runewars implementation better, where whether or not the secondary effect of the card takes place is more depending on a player's choices, rather than the choices of the other players.

I also appreciated the known nature of the planets. I am of the opinion that the 3X and 4X games have, well, too many X's. TI3 has eliminated one of these "X's", eXploration. And it works. You need to establish your economic and production bases early, and the unpredictability of the random encounters of a Stellar Conquest or, worse, a Space Empires, can leave a player crippled. In TI3, you have an idea of what you can do and what you can't and you can adjust your strategy accordingly.

I found the unique characteristics of the races well done. Each race had its unique ability but it also
the various branches of the "Tech Tree" allowed for each race to start off with a technology or two, further enhancing their unique advantages. (By the way, which "X" is the whole "Tech Tree" aspect of these games, maybe "eXacting research"? eXcellent education system"? hmm...)

One other unique aspect to the races was the inclusion of the flagship. Each flagship represented a kind of "super-ship," capable of the key abilities of any one other ship, but only counting one toward the stacking limit. This ship also had unique abilities. Through manipulation of each ship's statistics in addition to a unique "power," each ship became most effective in certain situations - maybe combat, maybe ferrying troops, maybe exploring and conquering worlds.

The game played fairly quickly as a three player. I can definitely see, with larger numbers, the game bogging down as you watch player after player eXplore and eXterminate. I do think that the offices effectively divide up each player's turn so that, at any one time, you're not waiting for a player to complete every aspect of his move.

All in all, I'm glad to cross this one off my "bucket list" and I look forward to playing it again. Will I play it at a con? Hmm... Remains to be seen. I still think the game could drag on. The end game is there for the taking in each game, but I've seen enough of these games bog down as each player "turtles" and avoids taking those VPs that will end the game. So, the verdict's out on that one. I'd probably play with players I know are fast and who already know the game. But I'll probably still confine this one to Weekly Gaming Night play sessions.

Gaming with Owen: War of the Ring

My son Owen and I have continued our series of plays, but this is the first time I've blogged about it. However, I hope to make "Gaming with Owen" a regular segment in this blog.

Right after WBC, Owen indicated to me that he wanted to play War of the Ring again. It was something of a revival of a game that Owen had cut his gaming teeth on. I was interested in teaching him Titan (because of the free-form nature of the WBC tournament, which would mean he could jump in at whatever time he pleased), but for some reason (maybe the 2nd edition "upgrade kit" I bought, maybe seeing others play it in open gaming), he was more interested in WotR. We decided to try out the new upgrade (but that meant no expansion! -- well, not yet). 

We also had to work this into a schedule involving a return to soccer and a return of the 9pm-11pm open gym sessions at his high school. Oh, and I'm back at work, too (for those of you not in the know, I'm a high school English teacher). So, while we were interested in playing right after we got back from WBC, we didn't actually end up playing until this past weekend.

We played two games of War of the Ring, one on Friday night and one on Saturday. Both were Shadow player wins, probably due to the inability to get the Fellowship up and going. When I defeated Owen as the Shadow player, it was a military victory, with orcs trundling out of Mount Gundabad to add Bree, The Shire (Shire...Baggins...) and the Grey Havens to the already taken lands in Gondor. When Owen won, it was due to Frodo succumbing to the One Ring's corruption at the foot of Mount Doom. Oh well. 

On my BGG profile, I have War of the Ring listed as my number two game (ASL is number one). I don't see it moving down any time soon. Our two plays were great and really highlighted the game's key positives for me.

First off, the action dice. I find dice in general problematic (look out, sounds like a blogging topic). They seem to add randomness and "spice" to games that would be decidedly uninteresting otherwise. Not so with War of the Ring. In general, you can use all of your action dice for something. The Shadow player may get a number of "Eye" results, crippling his armies, but this usually will slow down a Free Peoples player significantly in their quest to destroy the One Ring. The Free Peoples player may get too many military results, but the most militaristic result gives him the option of moving armies OR mustering more forces, which he is always in need of doing. Add to this the ability to add more dice and more actions to the game by meeting certain conditions and the adding of minions for the Shadow player and the adding of the more significant characters (Aragorn the Heir and Gandalf the White) for the Free People. 

Another factor limiting the wild randomness found in many other dice games is War of the Ring's inclusion of the Elven Rings. For each Elven Ring,  you can change the result of one action die. Carefully and strategically used, the Elven Rings can change disastrously bad rolls into tactical opportunities.

I think my favorite part of War of the Ring, though, is the two sided gameplay. The Free People play entirely differently than the Shadow. As Free People, you need to advance the Fellowship. As the Free People, you need to be careful with your troops because, if they die, they ain't comin' back. As the Shadow player, you need to be an offensive juggernaut, while protecting Sauron from those nasty Ents that can pop up.

The hand size limit is also an simple but interesting factor in the game. There is a "use it or lose it" feel to the card play many times (although, late in the game, I may come close to running out of cards). The cards can be used in two ways (as an event or as a combat card), and it can be a somewhat agonizing decision as to how to use them. Many times, the most useful combat card is also the most needed event in your hand (for instance, one for the Free People that allows you to force the redraw of a Hunt Tile, but also can be quite powerful if used appropriately in combat).

So the game plays out with you trying to:

1. Get the Fellowship to Mount Doom (or prevent that!).
2. Take Victory Point spaces while protecting your own.
3. Moving your nations up on the Political Track so that you can eventually build troops.
4. Manage your hand of cards (and manage your decks at some level - I hate to have the trek up Mt. Doom start without all of my special Hunt Tiles in play!).

The rules are so simple, yet I love the feel and play of the game. I've recently had something of a love affair with Middle Earth Quest, but Owen's insistence on playing War of the Ring recently has really reminded me of how superior a game it is.

Can't wait for the new expansion (Lords of Middle Earth). I would put it on my BGG Secret Santa list, but, come on, can I really wait that long??

Upcoming Topics: Titan, Dice and/or Randomness in games.

AAR: Weeknight Game Session with Hearts and Minds and Summoner Wars

Last night, Tom Grant of the excellent I've Been Diced podcast came over and we played a couple of games.

The first game we played was Worthington Games's Hearts and Minds. What happened to the components here?  I look at Worthington as the "little company that could," and back when Cowboys came out, they had really upgraded their components. Linen finish on the board and counters and thicker counters were the component highlights of the -- in the end -- underwhelming cowboys. Similarly, Prussia's Defiant Stand, a worthy addition to the block game lineup had very nice components, and the minis in Napoleon's War were a nice addition. But Hearts and Minds' components are a real shame. The map is too small and the control counters are too big. The cards are of the quality of the Jim Palmer baseball card that I tore off my Hostess Cupcakes box back in 1973 (or the quality of the first edition of Talisman, whichever you prefer). Too bad. It is a high profile blemish on what I actually think is a very good game.

There are a number of things going on in Hearts and Minds that I like, but I'd like to focus on the card play specifically. There are two innovations here. A number of games have the "event or ops" choice, with some notable cards allowing both. ALL of Hearts and Minds's cards offer both options. In H&M, you pay some or all of a card's ops (or even, in some rare cases, more than a card's ops, more on how to do this later) in order to activate the event. This in a lot of ways makes the choice a bit harder because now you know you're going to do something with the ops and the question becomes how many do I really need and is this event worth the price paid?

In addition to this is the idea of stockpile ops (in game parlance RPs). You can squirrel away the unused ops of a card in order to use them later. Most of the time you can add only 2 of these ops to enhance the ops of your card. Sometimes, the event of a card (usually in campaign cards) will allow you to spend more of these stockpiled ops. And sometimes, like in the case of the Tet offensive, you need to cash in a number of these stockpiled ops in order to activate the event on the card.

The game also comes with a red deck and a blue deck, with events uniquely advantageous to each side. But, interestingly, H&M also adds a third deck of black cards which are divided equally and shuffled into each deck, making these decks consistently unique.

I also love the "spend ops for combat" rule, which means that you can keep a battle going in the same turn, the ability of enemy units to occupy the same area on the board, and the ability to move through enemy units, paying an extra movement point to do so if the units qualify as hindrances (if they are veteran units).

The game was Tom's first, and my first in a long time (I think over a year). Tom was a novice and asked me about which side to play and, for some reason, I thought the Blue (US and allies) side was the easier to play. Ummm...I was wrong. The Red player just has so many opportunities to cause havoc and responding as the blue player is a daunting task. Needless to say, the Tet Offensive was overwhelming and in our 1967-1969 playtest, I was able to AV in 1968. (Note: another interesting thing about this game is its ability to be adapted. You choose the start year and the finish year and setup and victory conditions scale accordingly. What a clever idea!).

Even with the lopsided results, our play of the game only reinforced my belief that this is one of the best games published recently. I love new ideas and mechanics (or at least new combinations or approaches to these) and I think Hearts and Minds fits the bill nicely. It is definitely in my Hot Ten again and may be moving into my Top Ten in the near future.

Then we played another one of my recent favorites, Summoner Wars. Summoner Wars is another fascinating game. It has the limited units and board spaces of Manoeuver, along with the cards-as-units aspect of Battleground: Fantasy Warfare. I love the unique aspects of each army. My army last night, the Sand Goblins, were able to get to the board fairly quickly and while they were not very powerful offensively, they had very nice hit point values, making it more difficult to kill the little bugbears. Tom's army was the darkness-themed Shadow Elves, which played entirely differently. I would also like to note my personal favorites, the armies of Ret-Talus, the undead army, which plays so differently due to its units consistently rising from the dead. Tom and I split, with me winning the first game in a war of attrition and him completely outmaneuvering then assassinating my summoner in the second game.

Future topic: War of the Ring with my son (being played tonight)

WBC 2012: AAR

Well, I'm back from my annual pilgrimage to Lancaster, PA. After having to prepare for meetings today and tomorrow, I have some time to blog a quick AAR. Of course, the many discussions at WBC make me want to blog more extensively about some topics (ethics in gaming, for instance), but we'll see what chaos the school year brings.

I used to leave whoa early in order to get to the Wilderness War tourney on Wednesday. But the last few years I've ponied up a bit more and paid to stay on Tuesday night. So I usually arrive around dinner time on Wednesday, eat something fast and crappy (I'm looking at you, Wendy's!), then check in and get to gaming.

A change in plans this year was that we decided to stay on site for the con. I do have some quibbling, but, overall, I really enjoyed staying at the host. First off, we had room 206, which is now my favorite room in the whole place. It was about 3 rooms away from the lobby, as opposed to the last time Scott and I stayed there where I think we had to literally walk a quarter mile to get to the room. And, of course, it was better than staying off site.

My quibbles are few, the major one being that the bar no longer serves food! I loved getting a burger at the bar at off times, as opposed to eating the convention offerings (not bad, just not as good in my opinion). But this year, I lost that option.

I arrived on Tuesday night after a record setting drive of 2 hours and 15 minutes. I don't think I was going particularly fast, but I think my departure time (closer to 2 than to 4) really made a difference as traffic was light the whole way. I must have missed that New Oxford rush hour this year.

After arrival, Owen and I were invited by a young man (about 14 by my estimation) to play Stone Age. I am not very experienced at this game, but I have played a few times. One very nice thing was getting a chance to play with a veteran and getting to play a practice turn before actually playing the game. Got it. Take a farm on your first placement if possible. Due to some mistakes and some luck on rolls, I ended up jumping ahead in farms and, when we had to quit a little early (I would estimate about 3 turns left), I had a lead and was counted victor! A win! A very palpable win!

My friend Kevin then joined Owen and me for a game of Middle Earth Quest. Our little group has gotten way too good at Sauron so the evil one, this time being played by Kevin, absolutely crushed the forces of good. I blame myself for my ineffectiveness. Oh well.

After this, Kevin taught us Cargo Noir, which, while being totally in the Euro category, was not a bad way to pass an hour. Kevin won again.

On Wednesday, my cycle of scheduled open games began with a Space Empires 4x game against TJ. I'm pretty sure I've chronicled my change from tournaments to open gaming and my further change from open gaming to scheduled open gaming. Any way, TJ and Space Empires was first up.

It was my first time playing the game. I was a big fan of Stellar Conquest when I was in college (a LONG time ago) and I found this game an able successor. There was a great deal of bookkeeping in the game, but I did enjoy the customized ships and the discovery aspect of the game. Random initial placement seemed to have caused some problems. In particular, TJ's colonies all seemed to cluster around his homeworld, allowing his income to escalate rapidly to the point that, when I discovered his ships finally, he had built more ships and they were more technologically advanced. This could be an impediment to competitive play, but the experience of exploring and building fleets and colonies were quite enjoyable. I do have some issues with the whole 4x phenomenon (Eclipse, Twilight Imperium, etc.), and concerns with the end game (capturing an opponent's capitol planet), but I think that Space Empires actually is a simple game on the whole which plays relatively quickly. I will be giving it another play.

After Space Empires, I played a game of Kingdom of Heaven with my friend Paul. We played the intro scenario. I am not thrilled with the graphics on the counters, where the stylized "medieval" font is practically illegible to aging eyes. I also find that the CRT, which many times is used to balance out the crazy randomness of a straight die roll, actually seems to do the opposite at the higher levels. I also am concerned at the possibilities of having "dead cards," unplayable in any practical way, in your hand. But for some reason I did like the event cards and the entire feel of the game. I like the diplomatic rules and the harrowing rules which allow a smaller army to cause the larger one to attrit more often, a seeming necessity for the Muslim player. I also really like the variety of scenarios, including one pitting the Mamluks against the Mongols, a fascinating moment in history that I really cannot wait to play out. We were both inexperienced so my Crusaders quickly ran the Muslim armies off the board. Wait. Is that two victories in two days? Wait for it, my friends, you may see a trend.

TJ taught Dominant Species the Card Game to my son and some others while I talked my nephew through the confusing googlemaps directions to the Lancaster Host. After his arrival, we ended up playing a couple of quick games before turning in for the night. The first game up was Cargo Noir, which Chad won. then Owen, Kevin and I lost a game of Battlestar Galactica to Brian and Chad's Cylons. The most notable part of Battlestar (other than another game where all the humans died) was my inability to keep my eyes open. Kevin at one point noted that "In space, no one can hear you yawn."

Thursday morning started with Rune Wars, fast becoming one of my favorite go-to games. I find it the best balance between adventure/dungeon-crawl games and wargames. I like the six rune autovictory and the five year time limit. I also find that while it is easy to make yourself irrelevant (which I have done on occasion), it is also possible to fight your way back. Hemmed in by massive armies? Have your heroes go out and succeed in quests. Out of heroes? Build a massive army and take someone else's dragon runes. I also love the variety of ways to gather resources, both through expanding your empire and through carefully occupying key cities. Any way, the forces of the Uquar the Undying ended up winning in the end through finding a hidden passage through the careful building of armies and playing of tactics cards to go from 3 rune wars to 6 in two seasons. And guess what? I won! Again!

We followed this up with a quick play of Richard Garfield's King of Tokyo. Man, that was a fun game. It was quick, entertaining, a little funny, and very light. If it weren't so expensive, I might just buy it. It's based on Yahtzee with a nice system of spending on power cards layered into the game. But it is a lot of price for such short game play. Did I mention that I won this too?

The next game I played was one that is fast becoming one of my favorites. TJ, Tom the Tinker, John and I played a game of Imperial 2030. While I think I enjoy the original more (especially since there's an app for that), I do enjoy the interesting interplay of investing in a country and actually running it. This also takes care of the "gang up on the leader" phenomenon, this time by having the thematically odd investments in different countries. You can get ganged up on, but it is more important that you take advantages of your opportunities to invest in what will become stronger countries. The 2030 variant seemed to have less of countries changing hands than its ancestor, but the key continued to be investing, not military might. I ended up winning in a slightly controversial way (is a lie really a lie when you meant what you said when you said it but circumstances seemed to dictate that when it came time to honor the deal it no longer made sense -- okay, rationalizing much?). Wait. Is that three wins in a row?

We ended the night with a session of Last Night on Earth, my second game and, by far, the most fun I have played. The game is pure silliness. Roll for move. Lots of crazy card plays. An almost impossible situation for the humans. But if you ham it up enough and take it for what it is, it can be a real blast. My zombies won against TJ, John, Brian and Owen's humans. Highlight? Hard to say. Was it Johnny the former quarterback getting a death hug from the zombie hero Jenny?

Friday began as Thursday ended. With a win for me. What kind of surreal week was this? I played Successors against Larry, Chad, and TJ. The part of the game I most enjoyed was definitely the fact that we all came to the table playing a game we didn't know, but to which we had read the rules. No one was teaching and we all clarified points for each other. Honestly, I'd rather have all my learning sessions go this way in the future. Any way, I like Successors, but it definitely has some Bergish elements. Richard Berg has really great ideas that either end up being overdone in the rules or are cancelled out by other parts of the game that, in the end, make it unplayable. The mess that became Medieval was, at its core, a really interesting game, but it really needed more components and more playtesting. Successors is a much better game. Consider it the proto-Sword of Rome. I like the unique setup of having randomly drawn generals. I also like the extension of the Hannibal rules into a multiplayer format. I further like the tactics rating being the lowest number you can roll on each die in a 2d6 combat roll. Really! A LOT is right about this game. But then there are the parts that are just overcooked (as opposed to the undercooked Medieval). You have Victory Points you're tracking. Okay, I'm with you. You also have Legitimacy Points, indicating the perception of your fit to be Alexander's successor. Still with you. Layered on top of LP is Prestige, a number that you add to your LP in order to find the temporary legitimacy of a particular general  (as opposed to LP, which applies to an entire faction) when things like who the Royal Macedonians will fight for are figured. What? That's just unwieldly. Add to this the problems that all random setups have, that you may end up with a highly unbalanced setup. And, lastly, you really need to understand how powerful certain generals and certain areas of the board are before you start playing. I won with Antipater at 23 VP on Turn 2, but it was probably more due to an inability to recognize how powerful this general and his advantageous position in relation to Greece was. Still, I'll take the victory!

Next up came Slapshot, which I had just bought at the vendors. Well, it was only 23 dollars. Not bad as a fast paced random game, but it's a little too random and a little too long for me. I hope to pull it out during next year's hockey season and get my Munchkin-playing son to join Owen and me for a game, but beyond that, I don't see it getting too much playtime. Well, at least I got to play it. Owen won.

Next up, we were waiting for people to finish other games and join us, so I showed Owen and Brian how to play Dominion. I like Dominion. It's a little boring now that I understand that it's (almost) "all about the money," but I still enjoy it as a quick filler. I won again, but Owen played very well for his second time.

Next up came what I am willing at this point to call my favorite Euro, Dungeon Lords. This worker placement game really clicks for me. I have always seen Euros as building a machine then watching it work. Maybe you're building a shipping or building machine in Puerto Rico. Maybe it's a Province generating machine in Dominion. But I like the idea of my machine being one to crunch up the adventurers. I'm not very good at it after two plays, but I can't wait to play it again. AJ wins against Owen, Brian and me. He runs away with it due to his ability to amass awards at game's end.

We followed this up with a seven player Seven Wonders, another game I enjoy (largely because of how quickly it plays) and which I thought I wasn't very good at. But I won! Kevin made a little illegal play and undid it at the very end to give me the victory, but I'll take it.

We ended a very long day with a tainted zombie win in Last Night on Earth as Kevin and I defeated Joe, TJ, Owen and Brian, at least partially due to a rules misunderstanding. Oh well. At least it was just Last Night.

I also want to insert here the power of the nap. I forced myself on Thursday and Friday to take naps in order to nip the problem of late night dozing off at the table and it worked like a charm. It's incredible how much a one hour snooze can help when you stay up 4 hours later than normal.

Saturday

Well, the last day of the con. We started off playing the sequel to Martin Wallace's Struggle of Empires, called (in German) Age of Reason. This changes some things fairly significantly. Now, instead of building armies, your nations have their military forces represented by cards. Also, instead of the tile draw, you can only have special abilities for the current war, then they become available again. I see this as simulating the nature of technology. One nation goes ahead, everyone catches up, then a nation goes ahead in another technological area. All the other nations catch up, and on and on it goes. Any way, I liked the new game. I can't decide whether or not I like it better than Struggle. It's certainly a different game, one that takes different strategies. For instance, you had better know how your forces stack up against others. The British will NOT get traction in the land-locked German States. And the colonies are where you make bank. Like I said, needs another play. Rick wins the seven player game as Russia.

And one more game. Dominant Species the Card Game. I had heard that this was a quicker Dominant Species. Well, after playing it, all I can say is "Did you play an early prototype or something?" This game had nothing from Dominant Species in it, other than the theme and the images. I ended up feeling that the special event cards really unbalanced the game. I will play it again, but I may try it without those events first. Joe won going away and I felt totally screwed by my cards. Oh well. There's always next year.

So, another great time at a great con. I hope that next year I'm ready to delve into tournaments again, but I will still balance that with scheduled open gaming. DonCon, as it has been called, is still my favorite convention, but I have some others on my bucket list. We'll see how they measure up.

Definites for next year: scheduling open gaming, staying at the Host, napping.

Quick Post: The Dark Knight Rises

Well, I went to see the film of the summer today. Not at midnight or 3am, at 10:40am.

First, let me say that if you're going to see a movie on opening day, 10:40 is a pretty good time to see it. There was hardly anyone in the theater. As I entered the sixteen theater cinema, I was the only person in line for a ticket and the only person in line for a soda (I gave up getting popcorn years ago - I can only afford so much!). The first patrons I saw were in good old theater one and there were about ten of us. I really wanted to stand up at one point and ask them to pause the film so I could go to the bathroom.

I'll keep this short and spoiler-free. I was intrigued by Neil Gaiman's comments that "preferred the last movie [The Dark Knight], but this is a better Batman movie, and, I suspect, a better film." How could you like something more that was not as good a film? I'm not sure. I tried to rationalize it by saying that I prefer  Anchorman, but recognize that The Artist is a better film.

Any way, when it comes down to it, I only slightly disagree with Gaiman. I still think The Dark Knight is the better film. Christopher Nolan is brilliant and takes a decidedly uninteresting villain in Bane (who came across to me as a "cautions on the use of steroids" villain back when he first appeared) and made him somewhat compelling. And Anne Hathaway is great as Catwoman. But neither of them packs the punch of Heath Ledger's Joker. Both movies were epic in their own ways. The Dark Knight played with the entire cityscape and gave us a view of Gotham that was recognizeable, gritty and only minimally cartoonish (even with such a potentially cartoonish villain as the Joker - see Jack Nicholson's portrayal for an example how cartoonish he could be). The Dark Knight Rises does an incredible job of tying together the compelling moments of the first two films into an outstanding climax. In short, I loved it. But I still love The Dark Knight more.

AAR: Pseudocon 23

We had a huge turnout for Pseudocon this year. Twenty three gamers on Friday and twenty two on Saturday crammed into my humble abode to play games and visit with each other, some of us for the first time in about a year.

Before I get started on my reports, I have to make a quick note. The hits of the con were the space 4x game Eclipse and the new sequel to Here I Stand, Virgin Queen. I probably should learn to play both of them, but I had read some negative things about Eclipse that made it a game that, while I'd like to play, I had enough reservations that I allowed the many players who seemed much more interested take priority. As for Virgin Queen, there were two problems. The first is my mixed history with Here I Stand. I want to like the game, but I feel like every time I play people have to tell me what to do. It's very similar to criticisms of co-op games where it feels like I'm an actor in a play produced by one of the other players. I really believe that, were I to play it regularly, I'd end up really liking the game, but I just always move it down on the list when I'm selecting games to play. The second reason was that Pseudocon is about playing as many games as I can with as many people as I can. So I was reluctant to play a longish game. Maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age.

Any way, here's a quick(ish) rundown of my plays for the weekend:

Friday was a day for evil to triumph.

The first stop, of course, for Pseudocon, is the Game Selection Game. Everybody stands around, waiting for something to play, and it usually takes a few stronger souls (in our group, one of these is usually Scott) to commit and get a game going. Last year, TJ came up with a great idea - using index cards. The idea is simple. If you wish to, propose a game by putting it on the central table (in my case, this is my dining room table). Everyone then has an index card on which they've written their name. They place the card on the game they would like to play. It leads to some funny moments with people moving three games together and placing the card on three games at once, but pretty quickly it becomes clear what has support and what doesn't. People then migrate their cards accordingly. Usually, one game fills up and moves off to get started, then another, then the poor two souls who have chosen Dominant Species either play a two player game or change their votes and play one of the other games being offered.

The first round of this led me to play Runewars with the Banners of War expansion. Kevin, AJ and I were the players (this led Kevin to say "why do we do this again?" because that is our usual summer gaming group). I like Runewars a lot. I think it does the medieval fantasy wargame very well. It solves the multi-player problem by making player elimination an outlier as far as options go and one that will inevitably lead to an immediate victory if you're able to conquer one player, which is much more difficult than the other options available. It also does a nice job of folding in the idea of "heroes" and "questing," making it a key component (the easiest way to get new dragon runes) while not having it take over the game. I think it definitely belongs on my "hot list" and may make it to my top ten one day. The expansion adds some excellent options, especially for the weak elves and I love the new "title" card in the game that profound affects your ability to manage your resources. Great game. Kevin won, unfortunately.

A five player game of Battlestar Galactica, Scott's latest favorite game, was the next one out of the chute. Owen and I turned out to be father-son Cylons (kind of an oxymoron - don't they come from resurrection ships?). The game was fun with Scott recognizing my Cylon nature immediately (this isn't saying much, I don't think he's ever had a game where he didn't accuse me of being one). But due to a great run of luck and a great "megacrisis" or whatever those things are called, Owen and I were able to take the population meter to "0" and win the game. Of course, that makes it a Pyrrhic victory because we without any population, who were we going to crush under the heels of our shiny chrome boots?


Next up was Middle Earth Quest. Scott has now decreed that the game is "a quality game," which is pretty high praise from him. We played a three player game, and I, as Sauron, recorded the win. I've documented my love for this game a number of times. It is my truly guilty pleasure. 


We ended up playing until about 2am and then turned in early (for Pseudocon!). 


Saturday brought a few more plays for me, along with one of those games no one really likes to play.

After everyone arrived (around 10am), we again played the Game Selection Game. I tend to lurk around on the edges of this until the very last minute, jumping into whatever game needs a player that I have at least a passing interest in. Willing to play? Passing interest? Sounds like 1812: The Invasion of Canada. We played a five player of this, ending in, of all things, a tie! I have come to really enjoy playing this game, but, for whatever reason, it is one that I am happy to play, just not excited to play. A lot more games are falling into this category these days.

After this came what can become the most painful "game" of the con or any con which you host, The Lunch Game. This is one of those games that's not really a game, like the Game Selection Game. But, if not done properly, it can really go downhill quickly. I thought it would be great to order subs online, get payment, and go and pick up the subs between games. But a major storm had run through the area the night before and knocked out power to the area (except for Fortress White). This meant that the sub shop was packed with people without power AND that their online order taking system was down. Not the order-CREATING site, just the order-CONFIRMATION. So, after placing the order and arranging payment, the sub shop NEVER received the order. Brutal. Two hours down the drain. Thankfully, Joe jumped in and put together a pizza order (phase two of the Lunch Game). Next year, it's back to paper menus and every man for himself (or at least every "sub group" for themselves). It's the problem to be worked out for next year.


After the lunch craziness, we ended up playing Seven Wonders. We played with a number of new players. I like Seven Wonders as a 30 minute filler. It's fast paced and I love the "pass your hand" mechanic. I can't say I play the game well at all, but I still enjoy it. But over an hour of it? Ugh. And that's what I got on Saturday. The main problem was a large number of players (I think we had 7) playing a game that was new to them. Seven Wonders, though, is fast paced! ... Unless you have extensive kibitzing and strategy talk, and that's what we had. I'll still play the game, I just won't play it under the same circumstances. 


Next up was a round of Battlestar with Scott being a Cylon and the incompetent humans never even reaching Cobol. It wasn't really our incompetence as much as it was some really bad luck from the Fate deck. Battlestar is another guilty pleasure. It's quick, too, which helps.


Next up Scott and I played a game of Hannibal. Hannibal (me) made it into Italy, but wasn't agressive enough. Then he was kicked out and pinned a consul up in Gallia. But that wasn't enough. As Scott pointed out, I needed to use Hannibal aggressively, rather than just using him as a threat with no follow-through. Scott slowly accumulated power and fended off my lesser generals and I forfeited right before the arrival of Scipio.

The last game of the con for me was a five player Age of Empires III. Another interesting game. I think, in a lot of ways, it is a better version of Dominant Species (it's tighter and shorter, which I like). And it's also one of those games that I don't own and, consequently, don't play very often. I thought I was making decisions but I didn't triangulate all of the variables very well. And I ended up coming in dead last. Oh well. 


So, the con on the whole was a huge success. We had the largest turnout ever. The T-shirts were something of a success (we'll see how often they get worn), and, when I was lucky enough to be evil, I won a couple of games (one as Sauron, one as a part of a Cylon team). Next con, WBC! I've already started my scheduling of games. Contact me if you're interested in setting something up in open gaming. 

Jason White the --- Roleplayer?

All right. Confession time. I did some roleplaying recently. And I liked it.

Well, of course, the first question (after the obligatory "What the --?") becomes "How did this come about?" Even I didn't really see it coming. Most of my peer group are boardgamers at heart. I myself had given up on role-playing years ago (time slips away, but I think it was in the 90's that I gave up). Our group had hit a point where we didn't meet very often (we shot for once every three weeks and failed to meet even that requirement at times), and a point where we were so individualized in our role-playing that we spent a lot of time working out private details of the adventure with the GM in closed door meetings. And whoever was not in those meetings was out in the living room, waiting.

I came to realize that boardgaming scratched my particular gaming itch much more effectively than roleplaying. I felt that I was spending the first part of every roleplaying session catching up because we met so irregularly and the second half waiting while this person or that person went off by themselves. With a boardgame, you all sat at the table and played. No delay, minimal waiting (especially with the innovations going on in boardgaming at the time where players had very little "down time"), and no consistency problems. Every boardgaming session was unique and was (optimally) completed in one sitting. So I dropped roleplaying and honestly wondered if I would ever come back to it.

Fast forward to 2011. My friend TJ and I had been playing boardgames for a few years. He had come into our gaming circle through the podcast and his great personality and willingness to play anything meant that he had quickly become a regular gaming partner. As I said, TJ would play anything. He still has his CCG's. He has the most complete collection of Up Front cards that I have ever seen (do you have that desktop published set of cards that "corrects" the Italians? I didn't think so!). He plays Descent and Hive and EastFront and Hannibal. After we had played a number of board games together and had set a regular playing schedule for a few months, he broached the subject of roleplaying.

He had his own issues with roleplaying. I think they mostly stemmed from roleplaying's dependence on the people with whom you play. One of roleplaying's major weaknesses is that every group has its unique flavor. It is very easy to fall into a really bad roleplaying game. TJ had decided that if he were to try roleplaying again, Joe (formerly Friend of the Show Joe), Tom the Tinker (another player TJ was playing with regularly) and I would be the guys he thought would have the right attitude and demeanor for such an endeavor. I responded with as tepid a "maybe" as I could safely muster. I was careful not to say "yes" and honestly thought it sounded like one of the pipe dreams where, if you wait long enough, it would just go away.

But it didn't. TJ kept bringing it up. He brought it up with the others and they tentatively said "yes." We spoke about it at Prezcon and Joe and I rode home from the con together and discussed character ideas. This just might happen.

Of course, as you can see from the regularity of my schedule in posting, it was hard to arrange a time where we could all meet. We had a number of delays. Some were from dragging feet in character design. Others were from things like coaching soccer getting in the way of scheduling. Finally, after a number of emails and a couple of false starts, we locked our schedules in for mid-May to mid-June. Three sessions in two week intervals. And after much prompting from Joe, I half-heartedly designed my character, a part-thief, part shepherd named Oswald. He would be the party's scout and "thief" (don't worry, I won't tell you a "character story," but there was this one time...)

We played that first night. And...

I had a good time.

I exited the first session with much more excitement than I had entered it. I actually looked forward for the two weeks to pass and for us to rejoin our attempt to rescue our old "hedge-wizard" friend. The second session involved quite a climactic combat with a nasty that was more powerful than any one of us, but not more powerful than all of us (Joe actually said at one point that he was worried he had made the creature too powerful, but we defeated it -- sounds like a sweet spot for monster design). The third session picked up at the cliff-hanger on which the second session had ended, a "hair-trigger" situation where negotiations with the local goblins had started to go bad.

Another risky combat ensued and we emerged victorious. We returned home in relative triumph. And I realized that, among all the other gaming I was to do, I needed to fit in some roleplaying. Not a lot, not regularly, nothing that would interfere with a somewhat busy boardgaming schedule, but a few sessions every year or so.

This also made me reflect on what it is that I want out of a roleplaying game. We hear some gamer stereotypes thrown around: min/maxer, munchkin, goth vampires, one of those larpers who gets lost in a steam tunnel. I'm none of these. I think what I need out of a roleplaying game is that unpredictable tactical situation that a boardgame can only give you for a short amount of time.

I love boardgaming. It is by far my favorite hobby. But when playing a game, the time I love is that time where you've gone through the rules and everyone knows how to play and you're exploring the game's tactical nuances and possibilities. Some games have a consistent vision combined with a certain strange combination of knowing what is coming while still maintaining a level of surprise and excitement that extend this golden period for a good long time. Napoleonic Wars, here is your obligatory mention. Other games are fun at first, then quickly devolve, either because the randomness overwhelms the tactical possibilities (as in a game like Munchkin or, to a lesser extent, A Most Dangerous Time), or because the game becomes so scripted as to become about proper opening moves and correct reactions to predictable problems (which is one of my frustrations with simpler Euros).

Roleplaying games, when run well, always leave us in that process of becoming. That is, a roleplaying game should always be somewhat unpredictable with the character's knowledge of the rules and a bit of creativity being their main tools in responding to the tactical situations put forth by the GM.

Joe is particularly good about this. This time, the unique challenges were a creature with poison and a prehensile tale and goblins who had prepared an ambush as we exited a cave. Each situation presented its own challenges and we had to be somewhat creative in solving them. And not everything was combat related. In the combat with the goblins, at a certain point, we had to turn a small advantage into a larger one through intimidating dialogue. Boardgames rarely offer this kind of opportunity, usually giving a particular way out of a bad situation. If it's a wargame, fight your way out. If it's a diplomacy game, negotiate. If it's a trading game...well...trade!

So at this point, I don't know how often we'll meet and play a roleplaying game. There was discussion of meeting a few times a year, and I could see myself doing that. Joe's game scratched an itch that I had forgotten I had and it played to some my favorite aspects of gaming, the tactical situation and the creative solution to a problem. So, while I'm still a boardgamer, and of that particular species of boardgamer called the wargamer, there's a small part of me that is a roleplayer. Don't look for me in a steam tunnel and don't look to this blog to discuss my acquisition of a +5 Holy Avenger, but, periodically, especially if I get a chance to talk abstractly about what a roleplaying game brings to the table, you might see this blog discuss roleplaying.