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RickFest 2013

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RickFest 2013 was quite well-attended.

RickFest 2013 was quite well-attended.

This past Sunday was RickFest V ((Talking with Chris, we’ve arbitrarily decided that this was the fifth RickFest. It may be the fourth or the sixth, but we’ve officially set it at the fifth.)). For those who don’t know, RickFest is my annual day between Christmas and the New Year when I invite all my friends to come and play games with me. Over the years, the number of attendees has grown such that, this year, I needed a bigger space. So, I rented a local community centre for the day.

Sandy and Michael came by to help me haul everything over to the hall around 11:00, and we were pretty much set up by noon or shortly after.

First thing to set up, of course, is the table of games. There are a total of 31 games on the table. Some other folks brought a few games later on, and the game table expanded to two tables.

First thing to set up, of course, is the table of games. There are a total of 31 games on the table. Some other folks brought a few games later on, and the game table expanded to two tables.

 

Food table came next. As with the game table, it soon needed to expand to two tables.

Food table came next. As with the game table, it soon needed to expand to two tables.

And the kitchen full of chill, rolls, soft drinks, and such.

And the kitchen full of chill, rolls, soft drinks, and such.

 

Folks started showing up pretty soon after set-up. Michael and Sandy, of course, were there from the start, and Paul showed up soon after. Dan and Maddy showed up for a bit, then snuck out again, and came back after a while. Things were starting to roll by then.

Folks started showing up pretty soon after set-up. Michael and Sandy, of course, were there from the start, and Paul showed up soon after. Dan and Maddy showed up for a bit, then snuck out again, and came back after a while. Things were starting to roll by then.

The rules of RickFest are simple: come on by, play some games, eat some food, hang out with some friends. Come and go as you please. Previous RickFests usually had one main game going on the dining table, with possibly a second, smaller game going on the coffee table. This year, though, we had plenty of space, plenty of tables, plenty of games and plenty of folks, so there were often three or four games going on at once. It was almost like a mini-convention, which was fun.

King of Tokyo was the first game I tried at RickFest.

King of Tokyo was the first game I tried at RickFest.

It was also my first time playing King of Tokyo. I gotta say, the game turned out to be the belle of the ball at this year’s RickFest. I played six or seven games of it, including teaching it to a number of kids who attended. It was a huge hit with everyone who played.

The kids also played some Dixit, though I'm not sure they knew the rules. Or any rules. Still, they seemed to have fun.

The kids also played some Dixit, though I’m not sure they knew the rules. Or any rules. Still, they seemed to have fun.

The adults took their game of Dixit a little more seriously. Just a little more, though.

The adults took their game of Dixit a little more seriously. Just a little more, though.

Tsuro of the Seas is always a draw. I think it's the sea monsters.

Tsuro of the Seas is always a draw. I think it’s the sea monsters.

Dave and Kevin came by with the X-Wing set-up they use at conventions. It looked like a good game.

Dave and Kevin came by with the X-Wing set-up they use at conventions. It looked like a good game.

 

We got a chance to try out Eldritch Horror, too. It was van, but not a quick game. Eight players, all of us just learning the rules, made things drag a bit.

We got a chance to try out Eldritch Horror, too. It was van, but not a quick game. Eight players, all of us just learning the rules, made things drag a bit.

Forbidden Island

It was awesome to watch the players getting more and more tense as the water rose in this game of Forbidden Island.

Sentinels of the Multiverse

I don’t get a chance to play Sentinels of the Multiverse often, and I wasn’t able to get in on this session. Apparently, it went well. I need to take more opportunities to play this game, because I always enjoy it a lot.

We played a few other games that I didn’t document – Netrunner, The Resistance, and Werewolf. It was the first time I had played Werewolf, and I found that was a really interesting game. I inadvertently managed to kill off the bulk of the townsfolk myself, without being a werewolf, so I guess that’s some kind of accomplishment.

Things started to wind down around 11:00 pm, so we started packing up the games and cleaning up the hall. I gotta say, my friends were ((As expected.)) awesome helping me clean up and load my car. I had one little hiccup closing up, accidentally setting off the alarm, but I got that reset and made it home by 1:00 am.

It was a really full day – a really long day – but a really fun day. The new venue ((Wildwood Park Community Centre, for those who are interested. I know at least one person in attendance wanted the rental information, but I can’t remember who. Whoever it was, the link should help you out.)) worked wonderfully; it was big enough to hold everyone and run multiple games, while not being so big as to make the party with all your friends feel too big and impersonal.

Some lessons learned, though:

  • I made waaaaaay too much food. The party was a pot-luck event ((Previous RickFests, I provided all the food and beverages. This year, I went the pot-luck route to help defray the costs of renting the hall.)), but I learned hospitality from my mother, who always goes overboard. Too may leftovers, even after sending a lot of it home with the other attendees.
  • I also went overboard with the accoutrements of food: plates, cups, utensils, napkins, etc. At least those won’t go bad,
  • I managed to pack all my games to carry them to RickFest into two large packs. At the end of the evening, though, the games wouldn’t fit back into the bags ((Because volume is apparently variable in this reality. Normally, I’m really good at packing stuff into spaces that shouldn’t fit them – it comes from my time working at a bookstore, packing up returns.)). Now, part of it is that I was tired and rushing, but it would have been pretty easy to make up a packing list and order when I packed the bags to make it easy to repack at the end of the evening.

Overall, though, I think this was the best RickFest yet. I’m planning to rent the same community centre next year, because it was about perfect.

Thanks to all my friends for coming out, playing games, and making RickFest the success it was. Special thanks to the good, strong-backed folks who helped me tote stuff, set-up, and tear down.

Tune in next year for RickFest VI, the Eleventh Most Wonderful Time of the Year ((Actual wonderfulness may vary.)).

 

 

Dateline – Storm Point

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Storm Point, What's he playing?
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***SPOILER ALERT***

I’m running Tomb of Horrors for this leg of the Storm Point campaign – indeed, for the rest of the campaign. You may not want to read on if you’re playing the game yourself.

***SPOILER ALERT***

The latest session of our Tomb of Horrors adventure, and the Storm Point campaign, was a little scattered. Not only were the players getting familiar with their newly leveled-up characters and all their new options, but it was the start of the Christmas season, so everyone ((Myself included.)) was very much in the socializing mode. Still, the end of the campaign is in sight, and the players are starting to get jazzed about the new Edge of the Empire campaign, so I played the heavy a bit to get things focused and moving.

Because we spent so much time at the beginning of the game socializing, I glossed over the way they had discovered the next phase of dismantling Acererak’s plans. Originally, I had thought to run a pseudo skill challenge, much as I had done when we started the Abandoned Tomb adventure: asking the characters what they had done to winkle out the information, and giving them a roll based on that ((I freely admit that there are some issues with this approach in that it can cast the spotlight a little more on the characters with the most relevant skills, but it also rewards creative skill use. And it can generate some interesting backstory elements.)), but with time being what it was, I figures we should get right to the encounter.

The fight was nasty – three bloodshard golems, amidst a number of nasty blade traps. Thrun the Anvil, however, pulled off one of the most perfect examples of the Defender role that I have ever seen: he focused on one of the golems and spent every turn knocking it down and dazing it, keeping it completely out of the fight until the party finished off the other two golems and came to put the poor, shamed, tanked golem out of its misery.

I threw one other thing into the fight, because it seemed cool at the time, and the players loved it when it first happened. When the first golem got shoved into one of the blade traps ((Which, according to the adventure, would not activate as long as a golem was adjacent to it.)), I let the impact smash that pile of animated blades, removing it from play. There followed some wonderful convolutions as our heroes worked out the best way to sweep away the blade traps using forced movement on the golems.

It was a moderately fun fight, but high-level fights in 4E do tend to run long because of the huge amounts of hit points the monsters have. We finally wrapped up the fight and ended the evening on a pretty high note.

We’ve got just two sessions left in the campaign. Then, the Storm Point crew will trade in their hippogriffs for starships.

Guess I better learn the system.

RickFest is Coming!

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Several years ago, my friend Chris and I were talking ((Like you do.)). We decided that the stretch between Christmas and New Year’s Eve needed a day when we got together and played boardgames and card games. We basically flipped a coin, and decided I would host it.

Thus was RickFest born.

Each year, RickFest has grown, as those who attended the previous year ask if they can invite someone else. Last year, it became painfully obvious that my little condo could not accommodate everyone who wanted to attend ((And there were more people that I wanted to invite, but that would be madness. MADNESS!)). We closed off RickFest ((Well, RickFest Primus; in a misguided and not-to-be-repeated experiment, I broke RickFest into two days. RickFest Secundus, though fun, was not well-attended.)) last year with a 13-person game of Cards Against Humanity, which completely filled my living area, all my chairs, and a significant portion of my floor.

This year, I’ve rented a small community centre hall for RickFest and, to help defray costs, made the event a pot-luck affair. The fact that the hall can hold up to 50 people meant that I could expand my guest list significantly – if everyone shows up at once, we’ll have over 40 people there!

I suspect that the extra room, and tables, will mean that things work a little more like a game convention this year, with folks grabbing a game and a table and playing. There will probably be a couple of big games going on, filling part of the day – I’m betting on at least one game of Eldritch Horror and Firefly.

Things start around noon tomorrow, and I’ve just got a few little things to finish up today: buying some soft drinks and ice, packing and sorting some games, finishing up the cheese ball. It decided to dump some actual snow on us last night ((I know. Strange for Winnipeg in winter.)), so I’m really glad there’s not much running around needed.

Stupid snow. I hate it. But better today than tomorrow. Hopefully everyone will be dug out in time for RickFest!

Stupid snow. I hate it. But better today than tomorrow. Hopefully everyone will be dug out in time for RickFest!

So, yay! Tomorrow is RickFest, the Eleventh Most Wonderful Time of Year!

The Dolorous Stroke

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The brave Knights of CAMELOT Trigger face off against MerGN-A and her army of Emergents. Illustration by Brett Barkley. Used with Evil Hat's permission.

The brave Knights of CAMELOT Trigger face off against MerGN-A and her army of Emergents. Illustration by Brett Barkley. Used with Evil Hat’s permission.

So, yesterday, I did a post about the Fate Worlds books. One of the settings in Worlds in Shadow is called CAMELOT Trigger ((I got the capitalization wrong throughout the entire post. Also, whenever I referred to it on Twitter or Facebook yesterday. This is the correct capitalization.)), by Rob Wieland, and a couple of folks in my gaming group got really excited about the idea of Arthurian giant robots in space ((Really, who can blame them?)). They’re hinting rather strongly that I should run a game.

Now, I don’t have time in my game schedule right now, but we are moving into the endgame for my Apocalypse World campaign, and are about the enter the last act of my Civil War campaign. That means I’m starting to think about what to replace them with, and so I’ve been considering CAMELOT Trigger.

One of the things I like about CT is that it gives enough detail to give you a good idea about the feel of the setting, and the broad strokes of the current situation. All the elements, moreover, are poised to provide interesting, dynamic conflicts for the characters to resolve, no matter where you want to slot them in. There’s the standard fighty bits one would expect playing giant space knights, but there’s also opportunity for intrigue, diplomacy, mystery, reconstruction, and quests.

What this really means to me is that, to run a game in the CT, you need to decide what the game is going to be. And, because I’ve been talking about it with a couple of my players, I’ve been thinking about that.

First, a caveat: if/when I actually run this game, I’m going to involve the players in designing the campaign, using the campaign creation rules in Fate Core. That just gives you more player investment. What follows is just a thought exercise, me testing to see if I can come up with a decent campaign idea that I like within the framework of the setting ((The answer, for those who haven’t guessed, is, “Yes.”)).

And thus, we have…

The Dolorous Stroke

Some say that the problems arose when Sir Balin, an Edge Knight, struck down one of the Petty Titans, bringing all the careful political balancing that Arthur had done crashing down. But Balin – and his Dai-5H0 armour – has vanished. The disaster brought all the simmering resentments and hidden secrets to the fore. Now, the entire solar system is starting to collapse into warring human states.

After the Betrayal ((Note that I probably want to but a twist on the whole love triangle thing in play, but will be looking to the players to help define that.)), the alliance between the Inner Worlds is in disarray. Queen Valerie has returned to Venus, L4-NC3-L07 has abandoned his rulership of Mars to hunt Emergents in the Wreck. Rumours of a cunning nano-viral attack on Avaluna Base that has incapacitated both the King and MerLN are fed by the fact that John Arthur has sealed himself up in Avaluna Base. And MerLN, once so chatty during transit through the Breach, mutters and laughs to himself, uttering gnomic – and terrifying – prophecies to those Knights he bothers to address.

The Emergents are taking advantage of this collapse to mount new offensives against the humans. News of falling enclaves of humanity arrives weekly, and everyone is pulling back to defend their own borders.

Almost everyone.

A small group of Knights, Arthur’s most trusted warriors, have sworn that the light of Earth shall not be so easily extinguished. Something may be wrong with the King, but something is definitely wrong with MerLN. Fix MerLN, and they will have a powerful tool restored to help them fix the rest of the solar system.

And to fix MerLN, they will need the help of a dead woman. They need Dr. Vyvyan Locke.

So? Whattaya think? I think it’s definitely a gamable little campaign idea.

Worlds Enough, and Time

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The other day, Rob Wieland ((Who is a pretty awesome guy; he ran a Firefly RPG game session at GenCon last year that I was lucky enough to play in.)) let me know that he had hacked together a Fate iteration of 7th Sea, a swashbuckling adventure game set in a fantasy version of 17th-century Europe. It was always a cool setting, but I was never a big fan of the system, so seeing something like this made me very happy.

Actually, Rob did something even cooler than write up a Fate version of 7th Sea. He wrote up two versions: one for Fate Core, and one for Fate Accelerated. Now, using the hacks requires knowledge of the 7th Sea setting ((No, it doesn’t, really. You can use the hacks and make up what the setting-specific stuff means. And they’re easily adaptable to other swashbuckling settings. But if you want to play in the 7th Sea setting, you’ll need info about the setting.)), but even if you don’t have that knowledge, the constructions and choices made for the game are a great example of how the Fate system can be hacked to support a setting. And the fact that there are both Core and Accelerated versions for your perusal means that you can see two different ways to implement a setting.

And, of course, Rob’s posts got me thinking about the Fate Worlds books: Worlds on Fire and Worlds in Shadow.

These books are presented as volumes of settings for Fate Core. Each one presents six different game settings, complete with NPCs, specialized mechanics, and other story elements. Some of the settings are effectively one-shots or short campaign frames that you can use to extrapolate out to full campaigns, while others are much broader. All are eminently lootable for your own settings. Here’s what you get:

Worlds on Fire

  • Tower of the Serpents is essentially a swords-and-sorcery one-shot adventure. The setting is is more implied by the adventure than explicitly discussed, but it meshes with a lot of the examples in Fate Core to give you a solid foundation to start playing a low-fantasy campaign.
  • White Picket Witches embraces all the tropes and tangles of modern supernatural soap operas as you play inhabitants of a small town where witchcraft allow the five families to effectively run the town. There are some great rules for dramatic face-offs, social conflicts that deal with status and dominance. There’s enough stuff here to kick off a whole campaign, and the drama and relationship interactions will just keep generating stories as long as you want it to.
  • Fight Fire is a campaign frame about fire fighters. It splits its focus between the dramas of the fire fighters’ personal lives and some wonderfully detailed rules on how fires work and how they are fought. Even if the whole setting doesn’t grab you, looting the fire rules for another setting can make the idea of a building catching fire far more terrifying ((And thus more fun.)).
  • Kriegszeppelin Valkyrie lets you play a famous WWI fighter pilot of your choice as you hunt down the titular airship to end the Kaiser’s threat once and for all. It’s effectively a single adventure, though one that will probably take a few sessions to play, and it can easily be used as a springboard into a pulp 1920s game.
  • Burn Shift is a kind of post-post-apocalyptic setting. The apocalypse has happened, the terrifying struggle to survive has happened, and now things are settling into a new status quo, and you get to play the folks deciding what that status quo is. You get all the wonderful mutant character options you’d expect in a whacky Gamma World game, coupled with a situation where you can choose the directions society is going to move. The resolution of the default starting situation will probably take several sessions, and will generate more follow-on goals and problems for the characters, building the campaign nicely.
  • Wild Blue is… okay. Follow me here. Wild Blue is a western with superheroes and faeries. It’s got some of the feel of the ancient Celtic superhero ((Oh, come on! The Fenian Cycle, with Fionn mac Cumhaill, has all the tropes of superhero comics, including the fan culture surrounding the heroes! It would work!)) campaign that I keep toying with in my mind, moved up in time to the old west. If that doesn’t grab you, the super power rules are quite lootable for other games. But this is a complete campaign frame with lots of potential.

Worlds in Shadow

  • CrimeWorld is less a setting than it is a setting overlay. It’s written by John Rogers ((Yes, that John Rogers.)), and it gives you advice for bringing cons and heists into any setting you might like. It’s a good primer for anyone wanting to run any sort of caper game in any setting and any system ((I’ll also point you towards the Leverage RPG at this time.)).
  • Timeworks is, as you might guess from the title, a time travel setting. The twist is that Timeworks Incorporated is a small company of time travelers ((Mainly ex- or not-so-ex-criminals.)) employed by corporations to adjust history to favour their clients. The corporate set-up is clever, and the time travel mechanics are solid and flavourful without becoming too arcane.
  • The Ellis Affair takes historical fact – the mysterious death of Earl H. Ellis, a Marine Corps spy in South East Asia in 1923 – and uses it to launch a pulp spy/mystery story. This is a single adventure, though one that will take a few sessions to play through, I expect ((Though I can also see it being scaled down and sped up to get through is a single session for a convention or similar.)), and provides a lot of good advice for running mystery adventures in Fate.
  • No Exit is a single scenario, probably playable in a single session. The idea is that the characters are tenants in a housing complex where they can’t leave. The exact nature of the complex is left up to the GM to determine, and play revolves around figuring out what’s going on and, possibly, escaping. There are lots of nice, atmospheric bits to help play up the isolation, claustrophobia, and paranoia of the setting, and some advice on expanding the idea for longer play.
  • Court/Ship is set in Versailles in 1754. Lots of fancy food, court politics, intrigue, some duels… and aliens. Aliens who are invading in secret. They kill and eat humans, then wear their skins to pass among them. So, into the debauched court of Louis XV comes another scheming faction to mess with folks. The setting has hints for running it as a short, medium, or long game, and plenty of information on the time period – complete with relevant aspects.
  • Camelot Trigger was written by Rob Wieland ((Remember him? Told you he was awesome.)), and takes the Arthurian Round Table and puts them in giant robot armour to battle the robotic armies of MerGN-A out among the planets of the solar system. There are special rules for giant robot armour that can be ported to other giant robot armour games, and the skills get a nice tweak to reflect the space chivalry of the setting. Lots of solid stuff for a lengthy campaign, or for a pleasant session or two of diversion.

So, there it is. If you’re a fan of Fate Core or Fate Accelerated, but are wondering what to do with it, these two books should go a long way towards helping you out. I recommend you pick them up, even if you’re just looking for inspiration.

 

Followin’ Yonder Star

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Imagine Games and Hobbies, all ready for Winnipeg Harvest Game Day.

Imagine Games and Hobbies, all ready for Winnipeg Harvest Game Day.

Yesterday was the Winnipeg Harvest Game Day at Imagine Games and Hobbies, here in Winnipeg. It’s an annual day when the store hosts a number of games, collecting donations for Winnipeg Harvest. As has been my tradition for the past few years, I was down there all day, running a game. This year, it was a Firefly RPG adventure.

Lots of other stuff going on, too:

A Wings of War game, with airships and - I believe - Snoopy.

A Wings of War game, with airships and – I believe – Snoopy.

An asteroid field for X-Wing. The game involved some chocolate spacecraft.

An asteroid field for X-Wing. The game involved some chocolate spacecraft.

A table of boardgames for people to pick up and play.

A table of boardgames for people to pick up and play.

Snacks! You need to have snacks if you're going to be playing all day. Thanks to Wendy for keeping us all fed!

Snacks! You need to have snacks if you’re going to be playing all day. Thanks to Wendy for keeping us all fed!

And here's my post - all ready and waiting for my players to arrive.

And here’s my post – all ready and waiting for my players to arrive.

So, I had a sign-up sheet at the store for about a week, letting people sign up and reserve their favourite Serenity crew member to play. I was slightly concerned, because there were only three people signed up on Friday. But by the time I got in to the store around 11:30 on Saturday, we had seven people signed up – only Simon Tam and Inara Sera weren’t claimed.

Game time rolled around ((We actually got a bit of a late start – two players called and said they’d had car trouble but would be at the store soon. One other player just didn’t show, so no Shepherd Book.)), and we jumped in with a quick briefing on how the rules worked. It took only about fifteen or twenty minutes to give folks a rundown of the system – enough so that they understood the basics of building dice pools and spending and earning plot points.

There’s a twist to these games – Cheat Tokens. To encourage donations, for every dollar worth of food ((Or money.)), a player gets a Cheat Token. These can be used in the game for special advantages. For Firefly, I decided that the Cheat Tokens could be used to re-roll any die, even a jinx.

One final twist is the prize. Wendy ((Owner and manager of the store.)) always goes above and beyond, creating amazing edible prizes for each game. But because there’s a prize, there must be a winner, and that’s always challenging in an RPG. I fell back on the technique I used in previous such sessions: I divided the game into three acts and, after each act, the players voted ((By giving their choice a jingle bell.)) on who had done the coolest stuff that act. At the end of the game, whoever had the most jingle bells was the winner ((Seems simple, but just wait for it.)).

This is the prize made by Wendy for the Firefly game. It's made of fondant, and is edible.

This is the prize made by Wendy for the Firefly game. It’s made of fondant, and is edible.

And here's our crew, ready to misbehave.

And here’s our crew, ready to misbehave.

And so we started the adventure.

The adventure was pretty simple: the owners of three moderate-sized corporations hired Serenity to ferry them in secrecy from Bellerophon to St. Alban’s. They had heard that someone on St. Alban’s had managed to create a satellite power broadcast system that could revolutionize life outside of the Core Worlds. These three businesspeople wanted to form a joint corporation to help the creator bring his prototype into production. Of course, Blue Sun had also heard about this development, and were just a step behind our heroes.

I had three pages of rough notes for this adventure – one of the great things about Cortex Plus, especially its Action iteration ((That’s Leverage and Firefly, so far.)), is that a lot of the interesting stuff comes out of complications in play. It’s a simple system to improvise in ((After a little practice, of course.)), so I just needed a rough outline of events and a few notes about the kinds of things that could go wrong.

It helped that MWP has released a number of adventures in the Echoes of War line, full of eminently lootable NPCs, scenes, roll examples, and other resources. I had them all in a big binder at the table, so I could look up useful bits on the fly.

Some highlights from the game:

  • Zoe blowing up the batteries at the engineer’s cabin to distract the Blue Sun forces. The cabin burned down.
  • Wash plotting a fast course to St. Alban’s to beat the Blue Sun pursuit ((It didn’t work, but it was a damn good try.)).
  • Kaylee and River working together to hide their passengers from a search of the ship.
  • Jayne shooting the Blue Sun thug who was holding a gun to the engineer’s head, thus ending the hostage situation.
  • Mal leading everyone in a complex, sneaky plan to distract the Blue Sun salvage ship while Jayne and Zoe stole the functioning power satellite right out from under their noses, and Kaylee shut it down before it fried everyone.

We all had a great time, and, at the end of the game, each player had three jingle bells. Yup. Six-way tie. They’d been spreading the votes around pretty evenly. So, I tossed a d6, and Karen won.

At which point, Nathan threw down his last Cheat Token, and said, “Reroll that!” There was some grumbling, but in general, everyone was good about it – we had decided that Cheat Tokens were good for rerolls, after all. I tossed the d6 a second time and the prize went to Sarah ((Fortunately, not to Nathan. I think that might have resulted in a riot.)).

Here's the crew, with Sarah proudly holding her prize.

Here’s the crew, with Sarah proudly holding her prize. Nathan is eyeing her rather jealously.

All in all, a fun day.

Thanks to the folks who came out to play Firefly with me:

  • Steven as Mal
  • Karen as Zoe
  • David as Wash
  • Nathan as Jayne
  • Sarah as Kaylee
  • Kelsie as River

Thanks also to Wendy, Pedro, Perry, Matt, and Mike ((Technically Kelsie, too, but I’ve already thanked her, and she doesn’t get two thank-yous. Nor does she get a mind-controlled army of mutant orphans like she did last year.)) at Imagine for organizing, running, and provisioning this awesome day.

And thanks to the good folks at Margaret Weis Productions, especially Christi Cardenas, who eagerly jumped in with some great support for those who participated in the game. This is just one more reason I love MWP – they’re great people, who also make great games.

I haven’t got a total of what was raised this year, but the box of donations was pretty full when I left. Thanks to all the gamers, whether they played my game or not, who brought a little something to help make sure that everyone has a better holiday season this year.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Winnipeg Harvest Game Day

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Once again, Imagine Games and Hobbies here in Winnipeg is hosting a game day to collect donations for Winnipeg Harvest. I will be running a Firefly RPG game this year:

Followin’ Yonder Star…

The job pays well, and it ain’t too hard. All you gotta do is ferry some high-falutin’ business types from Bellerophon to St. Alban’s and help them find some he li ji qun ((Crane among the chickens – someone who stands out.)) there. ‘Course, ya gotta baochi anjing ((Keep it quiet.)), ’cause of some kinda business reasons, but that ain’t so hard.

This one’s sure to go smooth ((If you keep saying it, it’ll be true eventually, right?)).

Game Day is this coming Saturday, December 14. The Firefly RPG game starts at 1:00, and will run about four hours. Entry fee is a non-perishable food item donated to Winnipeg Harvest. Extra food items donated will get you Cheat Tokens that you can use in the game to sway things in your favour.

You can sign up at the store to reserve your favourite crew member to play. Also, everyone who plays will receive instructions on how to get a free download .pdf from the Echoes of War adventure line, courtesy of the fine folks at Margaret Weis Productions.

So, come on down and play with me this Saturday. Not only will it be fun ((And it will be fun!)), but it’s helping out a good cause.

Eldritch Horror

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Trying the solo version of Eldritch Horror.

Trying the solo version of Eldritch Horror.

Last night, I had a bunch of friends over, and we played a game of Fortune and Glory and a game of Cards Against Humanity ((I lost both games pretty badly, but still had an awesome time.)). This afternoon, after I had cleared up all the game stuff from the table, but before I removed the table leaf and pushed the table back into the correct position, I decided to try out my newest board game: Eldritch Horror, from Fantasy Flight Games.

Eldritch Horror is another Lovecraft-themed game from FFG. It’s got the same basic underpinnings as Arkham Horror or Elder Sign – it’s a co-operative game, set in the 1920s, with a Ancient One trying to break through into this reality and mess up all the furniture ((And, by “furniture,” of course, I mean, “reality as we know it.”)). It differs in scale; it covers the entire globe, while AH is a town ((Or a couple of nearby towns, with the expansions.)), and ES is a single museum. So, your investigators have to travel the globe, tracking down clues and information to prevent the Ancient One from winning.

Complexity-wise, EH falls between AH on the high end and ES on the low end. There are more moving parts and options and special rules than in ES, but not nearly as many as in AH ((Caveat: of course, there haven’t been any expansions for EH, yet. This may change; the expansions sure ratcheted up the complexity of AH, after all.)). Turn structure is a simplified version of AH turn structure, with three phases for players:

  1. Action Phase. Players get two actions. This is stuff like moving, resting, acquiring assets, resting, etc.
  2. Encounter Phase. Players get to have an encounter. They may fight a monster, or draw a special encounter card, or what have you.
  3. Mythos Phase. Draw a card to see how the Ancient One tries to screw you over.

Turns seem to tick along more quickly than with AH, and possibly even more quickly than ES, once you remove the fact that I was relying pretty heavily on the rulebook and reference guide while trying to get the hang of the way things work. All in all, I got set up and through five rounds in about an hour, with two characters. About half that time ((Maybe a little less.)) was me checking the rules to see what I was supposed to be doing. So that’s about ten minutes set-up, the big part of which is building the Mythos Deck ((You use a subset of all the Mythos cards in each game.)) and sorting out cards that don’t get used with the Ancient One, leaving about a minute per phase per player.

Of course, if you’re not playing solo, some of that time savings from not relying on the rulebooks so heavily will be eaten up by discussion, planning, and socializing. Still, compared to about five minutes per player per phase in AH, you still come out ahead if you double the EH turn esitmate.

Right there, that’s enough to make me like the game. I mean, I love AH, but it is a huge investment of time to set up and play. A version that sets up and tears down quickly, with speedy play, is just what I want, and I’d have been happy if that was all EH brought to the table ((As it were.)). But there’s a lot more than that.

I mentioned while describing the set-up that you use subsets of different kinds of cards during the game – building a Mythos Deck from a larger assortment of cards, for example. You also have some specialized decks for the various ((Four, right now: Cthulhu, Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, and Shub-Niggurath.)) Ancient Ones that you must battle. These decks allow the game to build strong narratives for each of the different Ancient Ones, setting different goals and tactics for each one.

To defeat each Ancient One, you must complete three ((Or four, for some Ancient Ones.)) Mysteries. These are unique to each Ancient One, and are related to the trademarks of the specific Ancient Ones. For example, you may have to investigate the strange meteor that landed in Tunguska if you’re facing off against Azathoth, or explore newly re-risen R’lyeh if you’re dealing with Cthulhu, or defeat the Dunwich Horror if Yog-Stothoth is your opponent, or break up horrid witch cults in remote corners of the world to beat Shub-Niggurath.

In addition, there are specialized research cards and (for some) encounter decks. These, coupled with the special ways the different Ancient Ones advance the Doom Track, add a lot more consistent and ((To my mind, anyway.)) interesting narrative to play. Facing off against Azathoth is qualitatively different than dealing with Cthulhu, which is great.

There’s also a mechanic for scaling the difficulty of the game based on the number of players. A set of crib cards show you how many gates, monsters, and clues get spawned at the appropriate times, as well as the position of the initial Doom Track marker.

One other mechanic deserves mention here: double-sided cards. These are Condition cards and Spell cards, which have information on two sides. Players can freely read the top side, but are not allowed to turn them over to read the back side until something specific directs them to do so ((This is a little like the Danger/Cliffhanger cards in Fortune and Glory.)). For Spell cards, this is usually casting the spell. For Condition cards, it’s when a certain symbol comes up on a Mythos card, indicating that a Reckoning is due. The cards flip over, you get to read the consequences of your leg injury acting up on you or your bank loan coming due or the downside of messing with powers man was not meant to know.

Players win if they complete the three Mysteries of the Ancient One before the Doom Track reaches zero. Well, they mostly do. When the three Mysteries are completed, there are instructions on the Ancient One card as to what to do next. Sometimes, that’s it, you’ve one. Other times, you must face the final Mystery that is printed on the Ancient One card itself.

The Ancient One wins if the Doom Track reaches zero before all three Mysteries are solved, or if all the investigators are eliminated.

I do worry, however, about replayability. There are only the four Ancient ones included in the game, and each has a deck of four Mysteries, three of which get used each game. Right there, you’re only looking at sixteen combinations. But there is a lot of other stuff going on, too, that adds variety to each game, so it’s entirely possible that my concern is completely misplaced.

Another concern is a common one to Arkham Horror and Elder Sign ((And, indeed to other games with similar rules for getting various stuff to beef up your character, such as Fortune and Glory.)) : once your character starts doing well, he or she can get stuff to help him or her, like gear and allies and spells and so forth. But if you need to succeed at a couple of encounters without that kind of help to get the game currency you need to get the stuff that helps you. If you take some time to get rolling, it can be very frustrating ((Trust me. That’s how I spend a lot of these games.)).

On the up side, it looks like the gate and monster holders from Litko that I got for AH will work just as well with EH. I’ll have to check to see if I have the character figures for the investigators in EH, too.

So, final evaluation? I like Eldritch Horror. It fits nicely into the complexity/duration gap between Arkham Horror and Elder Sign, and does some very cool things that neither of those other games do. It’s not just a simplified version of AH, though it is that too. But it’s a great game in its own right.

I’m glad I bought it when it came out. I’m looking forward to playing a full game with real people.

Dateline – Storm Point

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Storm Point, What's he playing?
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***SPOILER ALERT***

I’m running Tomb of Horrors for this leg of the Storm Point campaign – indeed, for the rest of the campaign. You may not want to read on if you’re playing the game yourself.

***SPOILER ALERT***

We finished off the ((Truncated and slightly retooled, in order to push on through the module quickly.)) last session of the Abandoned Tomb section of Tomb of Horrors last time we got together. I had decided to cut out all the hunts for keys, and let them find the way into the Tomb of Betrayal and face Moghadam right after the fight with the callers in darkness, so I decided whichever way they left the chapel, they would find their way down to his lair ((Yes, this robs them a little of character agency. But it also pushed the game toward the parts of play that the characters enjoy. As Ken Hite has said, players don’t mind riding the plot railroad too much as long as they get to toot the whistle.)).

I kept one simple, but evocative and atmospheric ((Specific atmosphere being, “You’re in the Tomb of Horrors! Screw you, adventurers!)) trap from the Tomb of Betrayal section, and it worked wonderfully. Our heroes found a large room with a raised dais in the centre, topped by a skull with gems in the eyesockets and teeth. They crept in very cautiously, spotted the seam on the floor around the edge of the room, and figured that the floor was going to drop out and the skull was going to animate.

To try and prevent the skull from animating, the cleric lobbed a vial of holy water at it. It hit the skull dead on, shattered, and sent the skull rolling. Of course, the trigger for the trap was anyone messing with the skull or dais. The floor dropped down 90 feet, shattering into jagged, sharp fragments. The couple of characters near the entry tried to leap back to the hallway, but failed, so everyone got nicely battered.

The initial reaction at the bottom was to heal up as they could. I kept them in combat rounds, which caused the following exchange ((Paraphrased.)):

Player 1: Uh-oh. Something else is going to happen.

Player 2: I bet the floor falls away, again.

DM: Nope. I promise I wouldn’t do that to you.

Player 1: The ceiling, then. The ceiling’s going to come down.

Players look expectantly at the DM, who grins.

Players: Fucking Tomb of Horrors.

So, yeah. The ceiling fell on them a few seconds later. Again, those near the entry had a chance to jump free; again, none of them made it. Cue more healing.

On they went, and found Moghadam and his Ruinblade. The first round of the fight, with Moghadam having the initiative, made it look as if things were going to go badly for our heroes ((Brought the ranger down to 9 hp, in fact.)), and I was starting to worry about a TPK. But, once they got a turn to act, the Storm Point boys completely schooled the archwraith ((This despite the fact that I had misremembered how some stuff worked, and gave the archwraith an immunity to physically forced movement. Ooops.)). They kept stunning and dazing the thing, denying it an opportunity to act, while they took it apart.

Once it was destroyed, the swordmage claimed the Ruinblade, and pledged to use it to destroy Acererak, causing the artifact to bond with him and preventing Moghadam from reforming. They smashed the bricked-up archways open and found the library and treasure, and that’s where we called a halt.

I’ve pared down the final adventure to 2-3 sessions, depending on how things go, and then that will put a wrap on the Storm Point campaign. I’ve got a couple of special things planned for the final session, so we’ll see how that goes.

And after that, it looks like the gang wants to start a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire campaign ((Specifically, they want to start a campaign where they play the members of a cantina band. My plan was to run the Beyond the Rim adventure, but we’ll see if we can blend the two ideas. Because playing a cantina band traveling around and getting into trouble has some real appeal.)). I’m good with that.

Apocalypse World: Quantum Canadians

By | | Apocalypse World, What's he playing?
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We’re in the end-game, now, folks. Last session of Apocalypse World was number 9 of 12, so I’m starting to reveal ((And, because of the nature of AW, when I say “reveal,” you can pretty much freely substitute the phrase “make up on the spot.”)) a number of secrets about the world. This particular session has shown the shape of what is probably going to be the rest of the campaign.

One of the things that got revealed was the nature of the apocalypse. Now, I’m guessing that this is not something that comes up in every game, but one of the players is playing the Quarantine. And, the Quarantine – Snow -  has a special start-of-session move that lets him ask or answer some questions about the apocalypse, when he was placed in stasis. This means that, over the course of a few sessions, a rough outline of what the apocalypse was like ((Not necessarily what it was. Just what it was like.)) will emerge. Combining that with Snow’s desire to find his way back to the stasis facility ((A number of the Quarantine’s advancements have to do with the stasis facility.)), and it became… well, not exactly necessary, but logical that the nature of the apocalypse would emerge.

I’d had a feeling that it was going to come out by the end of the campaign, so part of my prep for each session was looking over my notes about the answers I had given to Snow about the apocalypse, and coming up with some ideas that would fit them. I’d try to keep the answers rich in detail while still being applicable to a few different causes, but as they stacked up, some possibilities became unlikely, and some became more probable. So, this session, I had about four possibilities ((No, players in my campaign, I’m not going to tell you what the other possibilities were. I may need to use them for something before we’re done.)), figuring I’d pick the one that made sense if it came up, just like the last couple of sessions.

This session, though, I actually needed it.

Our heroes decided to head out of Roosevelt again in search of the second beacon, which would – according to Snow – lead them to Snow’s stasis facility. Also, they were kind of uncomfortable with the changes that had come to town since Dawning came to “stabilize” things. They had a rough location for the beacon, north of town, along the road to Dawning, but on the far side of the river from the road. They managed to get their hands on a zodiac boat, and took the Dawning road as far as they could.

Along the way, they passed by a large encampment of Dawning soldiers about two hours north of Roosevelt. The soldiers didn’t do anything threatening, but the group still got nervous, and set a guard that night. In the middle of the night, they heard one of their tripwire alarms go off, and went to investigate. At first, they could see no sign of what might have tripped the alarm ((They had a range of possibilities, including Dawning soldiers, Canadians, Yellowhammers, and razor weasels. Oh, and one of the freaky bears that they saw the razor weasels kill.)), but then discovered some hastily-piled underbrush concealing the corpses of two Dawning soldiers. They had each been shot in the head with a high-calibre bullet.

The group figured that meant the Canadians ((Just a reminder, here, that the group that the characters call “Canadians” are probably not from Canada. But they were very polite and apologetic the first time they met, when they got the drop on Nils and Magpie. Less polite when they were trying to blow up Snow with the drone, last session.)) were nearby and, rather than shooting at them, were shooting at the folks sneaking up on them. The way the bodies had been concealed so quickly made JB think that there were at least three, probably four, Canadians nearby: a sniper, maybe a spotter, and two forward men to hide the bodies when the sniper took them down.

Also, they obviously had some sort of night vision apparatus.

Not comfortable with that idea, our heroes decided to chance a night crossing of the river, and trying to lose the Canadians on the other side. This they proceeded to do, heading away from the beacon for most of the day, and finally approaching it at night. It kinda worked: they lost their tails, but the Canadians had found the beacon and set up an ambush there.

There was an abortive attempt at a parley at gunpoint, but that went to hell pretty quick. The resulting fire fight was pretty brutal, leaving JB badly injured, but with the Canadians dead, chased off, or captured. During the battle, Magpie had opened herself up to the maelstrom, and seen that the Canadians were just blank holes in the world, but that the beacon seemed to have several alternate images of itself superimposed on its position.

This bit started to make sense when they interrogated one of the Canadians. After some negotiation – involving the release of all the prisoners but the one agreeing to talk – I got to reveal the cause of the apocalypse.

The seeds of the idea grew out of the latest iteration of Gamma World, Robert Sawyer’s Neanderthal Parralax, random stuff I’ve read about quantum physics, Warren Ellis’s amazing comic Planetary, and a neat video I saw about quantum computers. Now, I want to stress that, if I were to say that I don’t really understand quantum physics or quantum computers, I’d be claiming waaaaaay more knowledge of the subject than I actually have. So, everything I’m using here is based on the cool bits of quantum physics that I’ve picked up from books and movies. Do not use anything I say here to try and resolve a waveform’s superposition. It’ll just get messy.

The apocalypse started because of the invention and use of quantum computers, which use essentially use alternate reality versions of themselves for almost infinite parallel processing power, enabling them to perform massive calculations very quickly. These alternate realities started bleeding together as the computers became more powerful and more prevalent. This accelerated, until the realities became inextricably smeared together, destroying most of the social and cultural and physical infrastructure of the various worlds.

The Canadians are from a different reality than the Roosevelt folks. They created a facility on their reality that shares the position of Snow’s facility on this ((Or is Snow from a different reality, too?)) reality. They’ve been trying to eliminate the beacons that point to their location, and anyone who might have knowledge of them.

One thing the prisoner told them that gave everyone some pause was that some of the scientists at his base have said that the math suggests that the quantum computers create the alternate realities so that they have a place to do the quantum processing. This means that shutting them off might wipe out all the realities except the prime one, and no one is sure which one that is.

That’s about where we left things. Snow now has the location of his stasis facility, but is even more unsure of what they’ll find there.

Of course, I don’t know, either. That’s one of the great things about AW. We both get to be surprised.