Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Ftaghn!

Cthulhu menaced the city of Arkham, but a group of brave and plucky investigators managed to turn the tide and send the incomprehensible presences from beyond time and space back to the cyclopean expanses from which they came.

That's right, the old Busan Board Game Club (myself, Pat, Josh, and Alex, plus Pat's friend Jenna) got together this afternoon to play another round of Arkham Horror, the HPL Mythos themed board game.  And again, it was a lot of fun, but we managed to win without too much risk this time.

For whatever reason, before I arrived everyone had decided to go up against Cthulhu (since he's the toughest of the Great Old Ones in the game), but to counteract that we didn't select our heroes randomly.  I was the P.I., and was the primary monster hunter (and became the deputy).  Pat was the psychiatrist, and kept us all in the game with timely aid in sanity tokens and money.  Josh, as the photographer, and Alex as the researcher, were the main gate explorers/closers.  Jenna, as the doctor, ended up being the primary clue collector, and didn't really need to
use her healing ability much except on herself.

Our team worked well together, and managed to seal six gates while Cthulhu still had three open slots to be filled on its track.  Good thing, too.  Cthulhu would have slaughtered us if it had come to the final battle.

A Rest Mechanic

During the flurry of postings to our Busan D&D Facebook page, and some KakaoTalk between Jeremy and myself, there was a brief discussion of whether or not old school D&D should use a "rest mechanic" similar to 4E (and apparently, I stopped checking the updates, D&D Next).

For those unfamiliar, in 4E they break 'rests' down into Short Rests and Long Rests.  In a Short Rest (5 minutes or so), characters can spend their Healing Surges (limited per day) to recover hit points.  All "encounter powers" also refresh.  In a Long Rest (8 hours), all damage is recovered, all healing surges are refreshed, and all encounter and daily powers are refreshed.

I mentioned to Jeremy that there already is a rest mechanic in Classic D&D/AD&D.  It's called going back to town.  He thought I was being snide at first, I think.  But it's that simple.  If you want to get hit points back, and spells back, when you're playing in a dungeon setting, retreating from the dungeon and returning later is the way to do that.  Sure, you can camp in the dungeon/wilderness (in Ur, we often do that).  That gets some hit points back, and all spells.  But if time is not of the essence (and unless you're running a tournament module or a Dragonlance style adventure path it may not be), then town is the smart way to do it.

Back when I ran some sessions of D&D at our old Board Game Group, that bugged the crap out of Alex.  Josh had a Fighter and a Magic-User with Sleep.  Alex had a Fighter and a Thief.  They went into the dungeon, ran into kobolds, say, and the M-U cast sleep, the Fighters took care of any unaffected, and then the Thief would look for traps, treasure.  With that one monster encounter finished, Josh would then say he wanted to go back to town to rest.  And unless they ran into undead where sleep didn't work, every time he would want to do this.  As a DM, it didn't bother me.  I was able to plausibly bring in reinforcements or think about how the kobolds or goblins would react to the loss of that patrol.  The players got to take on each combat at full strength, but at the cost of having an enemy prepared for them later on.  Alex hated it.  He was interested in covering territory and getting a sense of progress.  Josh was interested in surviving to second level. 

For me, that's the essence of the strategic/tactical play needed in RPGs.  4E style rest mechanics seem like a way for players to have their cake and eat it too.  There's no need to make the tough decision to go back to town and risk having enemies prepared for you versus pressing on and facing the unknown at less than full strength (or darn near it).  And that, Jeremy, if you're reading, is why I will not be using a modern "rest mechanic" in my games. 

Board Game Review: Shadows Over Camelot

Sunday last week, as well as yesterday, I went out to the local English used bookstore/cafe to play board games.  I haven't made it out to a board game meet-up in a long time, and the Busan Board Game club has now climbed up to 50 members on the Facebook page.  It's become a thing.

Anyway, Josh is back in town and he brought a few games, and Bill took advantage of sales on an internet vendor's site and bought a bunch of new games as well.  So I had the chance to play five new (to me at least) games.

The first game we played was Shadows Over Camelot, by Days of Wonder.  This is a cooperative game with an (obviously) Arthurian theme.  The object is for the various knights of the Round Table to go on quests.  Success results in earning white swords to put on the table.  Failure gains black swords.  If the table is full and there are more black swords (or twelve catapults are placed in front of Camelot by the besiegers), the players lose.  Earn 7 or more white swords before there are 12 catapults and the players win.

The wrinkle in the game comes from the Traitor mechanic, which we actually didn't use last week because it was a first run sort of game to learn the rules.  We had planned to play the full game yesterday, but unfortunately Josh couldn't make it.  Anyway, in the full game, one player could possibly be a traitor, trying to sabotage the various quests.

Sidenote: Josh, if you're reading this, and you've got time to play this week, I'm on vacation.  Let's make it happen.

The physical components are really high quality, including some nice plastic figures for the Knights, Saxons and Picts, and the catapults.  DoW even produces and sells the knight figures separately and I may pick up that set just to use for gaming.  They're larger than normal gaming minis, but then my collection is fairly haphazard anyway.  The boards (main board and various side quest boards) all look nice, and the cards are nicely sized as well (unlike, say, Arkham Horror, which has so many cards that they needed to make them all tiny).

I'd been waiting for a chance to play this game for several years.  I had even talked about it on my radio show - way back when I had a radio show.  I wasn't disappointed.  Even playing it knowing there wasn't a traitor, it was fun and challenging.  We managed to win, but it wasn't a given.  If you're in to cooperative board games, it's definitely worth trying out.

Invincible Flying Phoenix Star!

Last night I ran a game of Flying Swordsmen for Justin (DM of our fortnightly Vaults of Ur game), Josh, and Pat (both of the old Board Game Group). 

It was a chance for me to try out a different initiative system for the game.  The original one didn't work so well, and the way we did it last night was fine, but there's still something that calls to all of us about having varied weapon/spell speeds.  So there are still some bugs to work out for the planned revision.

I had them start their characters at 3rd level.  Dragon Fist, the game I cloned, started at 3rd level.  I realized why.  The 1st level characters just don't have enough oomph to feel like competent martial artists.  There also seems to be some relevance in JB's "stages of exploration" posts.  Warning, they're a long read.  Even by JB standards.  Flying Swordsmen is not a game of dungeon crawling.  Sure, there will be hazard sites to explore, but that's not the main focus of the game.  The XP system is designed differently than standard D&D (more combat XP, and lots of XP for non-combat challenges, but none for loot).

When I was putting together Flying Swordsmen, though, the question that came up several times was "Why start at 3rd level in a 10 level game?  That's cutting out two levels of play."  So I think the solution will be to go ahead and start everyone at 3rd level as in Dragon Fist (keeping 1st and 2nd level for flunky NPCs), but add on an 11th and 12th level above what was in Dragon Fist. 

Anyway, I've got two weeks to think of another initiative method to try out.  The guys had some good suggestions, so I'll see if I can work anything out of their ideas.

And if any of the guys want to write up play reports or draw some pictures, I'll happily post them here and award some bonus XP, as in our Ur games.

Arkham Horror

Yesterday afternoon, the old board game group minus Steve (me, Pat, Josh, and Alex) got together to play the board game Arkham Horror.  The premise of this cooperative game is that one of the Great Old Ones is about to awaken.  Monster spawning gates to other worlds are opening around Arkham, Mass (circa 1927).  Investigators have to stop the monsters, explore the other worlds, and then shut the gates before the Old One awakens.  If it does awaken, the investigators then need to fight hard to stop it.

It's a pretty fun game.  The basic turn order rules were fairly simple, but there's a LOT of minutia to deal with, and lots of little things to remember.  We definitely made a few mistakes early on, and I'm not 100% certain we were playing everything correctly even at the end.  If you're into modern board games, this is definitely an "Ameritrash" game, not a "Euro" game. 

In our game yesterday, we were facing the awakening of Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods.  Its powers were that Dark Young (one of the tougher monsters) became "endless" meaning that when killed, they return to the monster cup for recycling, rather than being kept as tokens to be spent.  The other power was that all monsters' Toughness (hit points) increased by one.  So monsters were fairly tough in the game we played, but that didn't stop us from killing lots of them and generally keeping the monster population under control while we explored and closed/sealed the gates.  (Yes, we ended up winning before old Shubby was too close to awakening.)

We had a bit of good luck with our character draws, in that we had some nice complementary characters.  Alex, in particular, had a great character ability which let him declare a reroll of missed dice (keep successes you've already rolled) once per turn.  That really helped a lot, especially with the combat rolls.  My character, the dilettante, got $1 automatically each turn, which allowed me to buy plenty of unique items, scoring two of the Elder Seal cards during the game (Josh also got one of them), which allow for automatic gate sealing.  Six gates sealed is a win condition.

One thing that hampered us later in the game was that the Mythos Card drawn at the end of each turn shows where a gate will open.  But we had a long run of either places where we had already placed a seal or else where a gate was already open, which causes a "monster surge" where lots of monsters appear at once.  Several stationary monsters had collected at one of the gates, and even our best monster hunter Alex (who had lots of good spells and items and that reroll ability) wasn't sure he could take them down.  In the end, though, a few more gates opened at other locations, and we quickly explored them and shut them, winning the game.

I'd definitely like to try this game again.  The fact that you draw a random Great Old One, and random investigators (although some people of course select them) means it's a game that should have a high replay value.  And even though we beat the game on our first time playing it (well, except for Pat who has played it a few times before), I don't think we would be certain of beating it again in the future.

So if you like complex, long board games with lots of randomness (aka Ameritrash), and are a fan of HPL and the Mythos, definitely give this game a try.

Survival of the Fittest on Gamma Terra

Or, how to almost turn friends into enemies, and just barely influence them in the end.

We finished up Josh's run of Gamma World module GW6 Alpha Factor last night.  WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!

Read about our previous adventures in the prelude, here, here and here.

So, having made it back to the Restorationist town in our hot air balloon, we were treated for radiation exposure and injuries, and spent a month recovering.  Linka found out she could now project illusions into people's minds -- useful for an Esper, too bad she's got Int 5!  Wing Lao, my Examiner, found himself with a second brain!  And it gave him direction sense, telekinetic flight, and illusions as well!  John Smith XXXII managed to survive unmutated.  We were joined by Hornsby, a Mutant Rhino Enforcer, bought some supplies, and headed back to the Mind Keep in the balloon.

We first went to the room with all the records and spent a lot of time investigating them, learning of a secret base to the south designed to fight an alien invasion the purpose of Mind Keep (to create psionic super-soldiers to fight the aliens), and some other stuff.  Then we went to the basement level 1, but didn't find anything useful.  We decided to skip the rest of basement level 2 where we had met the obbs that caused our long convalescence and new mutations.  Now we decided to climb all the way to the top.

On the top floor, we found a locked door with some sort of odd panel and slot opening mechanism that we couldn't decipher.  The next door opened easily, but a security bot was right behind it, and came out shooting!  Luckily, it was only using a stun gun.  Hornsby took a hit, and was out for the combat.  Pat had the good idea of trying to lure it into the elevator shaft and drop it. 

We retreated to the elevator shaft and split up.  Linka went right, John Smith left, and Wing Lao flew to take cover behind all the cabling in the center of the shaft.  The robot came in, and Linka used her teleportation to appear right behind it and tried to knock it into the shaft, but failed.  It took a swing at her, but missed.  John Smith fired on it with his sniper rifle, and Wing Lao flew in and tried to stab it with his sword/electrical generation mutation combo, but both missed.  The next round, Linka had a couple of good rolls, and managed to shoulder butt the bot down the shaft. 

It fell, smashed, but wasn't destroyed.   Terminator-like, it then started its slow way up the long ladder with a bad leg and arm slowing it down.  Being at the top of a 12 story building, it had a long climb but we knew we had to think of something to stop it.  We decided bombarding it with heavy objects would be best. 

The room the live metal was guarding was an office with a large desk.  It was booby trapped, but for whatever reason fragmentation grenades only do 3d6 damage in this version of the game, so we took some minor damage opening the desk.  We found a hidden button that opened a hidden safe, but we had no way to open it without the combination.  Another room had the computer we were looking for, but it had no interface.  The final door on the floor was also locked, this time with a circle of eight buttons.  Stymied, we descended to the next level down.  Here we found the Alpha Factor chamber, where genetic modification experiments were carried out, a medical bay with a droid that would cure our two human characters (who had ID bracelets), and medical supplies.

Nothing to drop on the robot.

One more level down, we found Jeremiah, the lone survivor of Mind Keep, who was totally insane, and accompanied by a pair of demon-dog things.  Expecting him to be a very powerful Esper, Linka used her mental boosting power on Wing Lao, who caused an illusion of the giant flying weasel thing to appear.  Luckily, our own party managed to avoid panic, while Jeremiah and his rhino-hide mutts began running around in a panic themselves. 

While Jeremiah was occupied firing his musket (he only had a musket?  Strange module, but oh well...) at the illusion and usually missing, Hornsby was following him and doing a charge/gore attack.  Linka circled around the other way, then added some claw-claw-bite attacks to the mix, and every time she tried Mental Blast failed.  John was taking pot shots with the sniper rifle.  Jeremiah kept reloading and shooting, or making swipes with his rifle butt, but not hitting very much.  Finally, we took him down, and then had the dog things to worry about.

John Smith started worrying about the robot at this time, too, and decided to try to use our final mortar shell (explosive) against it.  He needed Linka's help, though, so she disengaged from the battle (she'd been trying to knock the dog things over the edge of the pit -- she got one, but the other kept at it and eventually started trying to knock our guys over the edge).  Hornsby and Wing kept up the attack on the dog, while John had Linka hold the mortar shell in place with tekekinesis while he aimed and fired on the robot.  Linka, not being too bright, failed to let go of the shell at the right time, causing the shot to miss and blast a section of the ladder below the security bot.

We managed to kill the last dog thing, and dropped its carcass on the robot.  It connected, doing some damage, but failed to dislodge the bot.  We then gathered all the heavy junk we could on the level, and bombarded it.  We smashed it up a bit more, but it kept on coming.  Linka remembered that she had a bomb (as a Zoopremist, she could make them herself).  She went down a couple floors and set it, then we waited for the robot to hit that spot.  When it did, we set off the bomb, but it also failed to knock it off the ladder (good grip on that robot!).  Eventually the robot got to our floor, but it just kept climbing, trying to get back to the top floor.  We made a few more attacks while it was climbing past, and finally managed to shut it down!  Big XP award ensued, leveling up the three survivors of the previous adventures.

Amid Jeremiah's stuff, we found he had a few useful things, but the best IMO was a nice futuristic assault rifle that Linka got to keep.  Hornsby inspected the body of Jeremiah, and found suddenly that his telepathy didn't work any more.  Strange... 

Anyway, we then proceeded to search the lower floors.  That part was a bit of a blur in my memory now, as there were a lot of rooms with nothing much of note in them.  We eventually found the ring that opened the weird panel and slot door above, the combination to the safe in the CEO's office, and the combination to the 8 circles door as well.  Still no computer interface, but it was getting late and although we had only one more floor to explore, we decided to go back up to the medical bay with the medical droid to camp for the night. 

The next morning, Hornsby felt sick, and had a -1 to all checks and what not.  The droid refused to treat him, though, as he didn't have an ID card (and it had taken photos of John and Wing when they presented their cards to prevent trading).  Anyway, we checked out the CEO's office first, and in the safe we found the CEO's level 5 security card and a letter with the location of a secret military base to the south.  The ring we found opened the weapons locker, granting us several grenades, a vibroblade each (sweet!) and a plasma gun (very sweet!).  The next room, with the 8 circles combination code, had a suit of power armor and nuclear fuel cells, but was guarded by two highly armed security robots.  Pat wanted to attack with our new-found weaponry, but I suggested we wait.  Josh suggested Hornsby use his size-up opponent skill, and he learned we'd be out of our league even with the new weapons.  So we finally went back down to the 4th floor, the only one left to check, and finally found the keyboard we needed, and fought a couple of snake mutants. 

Going back up, we accessed the computer, got the info we needed, and left Mind Keep.  We then debated whether to return the mortar to the Ranks of the Fit in Oskar village, or just go back to base.  Linka wanted to go back to base, but Wing didn't mind returning the stuff (in other words, didn't bother me either way).  Pat then decided to go ahead and return.  I suggested we didn't land, but just drop the borrowed gear over the side.  Unfortunately, the leader Timon then threatened to shoot us out of the sky if we didn't land.

We landed, he captured us, and forced us at gunpoint to join his army.  That night, Gene Pool and the Restorationists raided the village, wiping out their army and capturing us.  Gene was about to banish us from the Flower Lands when we managed to persuade him that we were under duress, and would have tried to flee the RotF at the first opportunity.  We finally convinced him, and that concluded our adventure.

An awesome series of games, Josh, and if you feel like it, I'd be up for continuing it with the next module next summer. 

More Gruesome Death on Gamma Terra!

This afternoon, Josh, Pat and I got together to play some more Gamma World.  Jeremy and Adam had to work, and Adam seems to be no longer interested in the game due to the long gap in play.  Anyway, you can read about our previous exploits here.

We quickly ret-conned the ending to the last session.  It was Wing Lao, my Altered Human Examiner, and John Smith XXXIV, Pat's PSH Examiner, who showed up in the balloon.  Tom Petty was ret-conned to have died along with Saeng the Minotaur in the blast (read the previous post for details on that hilarious episode!).  Wing and John joined Jar-Jar-Jar, Pat's Altered Plant Scout, and Linka, my Mutant Cougar Esper.

Well, we found out we couldn't get into the Mind Keep from the roof, where we were, so we climbed down the side of the tower to a plateau below.  We tried to get in a door, but there were motion sensors all around and a live-metal guard (security bot) sent us on our way since our keycard got vaporized with one of the two above fatalities.

We explored a hangar and found a wrecked aircar with a full tank of fuel and a few other goodies, after defeating a flying Grey Ooze type creature.  There were some stone huts out back, which we next explored.  The first had some kind of growling animals, so we left it alone.  A few were empty, one collapsed as soon as we touched it, and another was home to a pair of Jaggets, mutant cheetahs.  The female was home, and scared, and lashed out with a mental blast at my cougar, Linka.  It missed, so Linka fired back with her own mental blast, hurting the Jagget.  Someone else (forget exactly who) also attacked successfully, and she died.  Just then, her pissed husband attacked from behind, but he went down quickly as well.  We searched around, and found some goodies, including a generator buried in the dirt, another key-card, and some various random goodies, including car keys.

Our weather indicator told us bad weather was approaching, so we took shelter in the hangar while it rained torrentially for a week.  Then we got a blizzard for anther week, but this time we sheltered in one of the stone huts to conserve fuel.  We were now officially low on food.  We found another small building that was full of boxes to the south, but it was also home to some weird humanoid mutants with rock-covered skin and lots of hit points.  We had a long fight with them, but Wing's Confusion ability and Linka's mental blasts worked well on them, as they had high AC but low Mental Defense.  Jar-Jar-Jar was severely wounded, down to only 1 hit point by the time we finished them off!  Inside the building, though, we found an intact ground car!  Keys fit the ignition, and we could transfer the generator and fuel from the hangar to get it working again.

Well, now we tried the door to the Mind Keep again.  The security bot accepted John Smith's key-card, and ignored Jar-jar-jar, so those two went inside.  Linka and Wing had to figure something else out.  Inside, the two J's fought another of the flying blob things, and discovered a strange crystal cone creature that ignored them completely.  And they found out that the elevator wasn't working.  Meanwhile, outside, Wing circled the tower and investigated another of the sensors, this one wasn't on.  They were pretty flimsy, so we thought we'd try to destroy the one by the door to keep the robot from appearing.  We fired on it with our muskets, with Linka's shot hitting and destroying the sensor.  Then we waltzed in unopposed and met up with the other two.

While searching that floor, we found more loot, including another security card and a chemex grenade.  We also opened a door to a room full of black mushrooms that began spreading exponentially when exposed to new air.  One chemex grenade later and the mushrooms were no more (Josh letting us know that was a very good thing!).  We still couldn't find a way to get the elevators activated, so we pried open the doors and used the ladder to descend into the basement.

Well, in the bottom floor, the first room we explored was home to three Obbs.  Yikes!  One super-radiation blast from them finished off poor Jar-jar-jar (he'd had so many close calls, and finally met his match).  Wing and John were incapacitated by the radiation.  Linka was merely weakened, so she grabbed up Wing and John and ran out of the room.  She waited until the Obbs quieted down, then quickly opened the door and used telekinesis to get Jar-jar-jar out (luckily Obbs are carnivores, and didn't want to eat a cactus mutant).

Linka got everyone into the balloon outside and with our NPC scout companion (who did nothing but hang around away from danger and offer occasional advice) we floated back to our starting base to heal and regroup.

We decided that was a good place to stop, and spent the rest of our session time just talking and Pat rolled up a new character.  We needed a new Enforcer, so he choose a Mutant Rhino.  But then he rolled poorly for Str, and also got a Size Reduction mutation which upped his poor Dex (but not enough to give a bonus) and reduced his Str even farther!  He also got a Gas Generation mutation (hallucinogenic!), which of course Josh and I insisted to Pat must be a flatulence attack.  Add in a dual brain (Josh again said it must be located in his ass), and telepathy, heightened Intelligence, and I don't remember what, and we've got a fun new character to join the expedition for what will likely be the final session in a week and a half!

[Jeremy, if you read this, don't worry, your new character can rejoin us easily next session.  If Adam decides to come, that's fine, but Josh had Pat erase the Tom Petty character sheet for Pat to make his new one though...  Hope Adam doesn't mind!]

[Barking Alien, if you're reading this, this session I'd say qualifies for 'super-fun.'  We had a blast.]

Bring out your dead!

OK, no dead to bring out, but this is the sort of post that's guaranteed to bring out the trolls.  It's funny, but there are so many people on the internet apparently just waiting for someone to make a negative comment about 4th Ed. D&D so they can sweep in on their pretend moral high horse and castigate someone for having a different opinion and expressing it.  I don't go to 4E players' blogs and complain if they post something negative about Old School games...just don't see the point.  But oh well, bring it on.  I'm gonna get negative again, although there will be some positive as well.

So as I mentioned, there's a guy here in Busan who is putting together a 4E group.  Josh's Gamma World game will be finishing soon one way or the other (only another month before he leaves, and if we don't finish it next month we're never gonna...).  As I mentioned in my comments in my last post, I'm also curious about how the game plays over a longer period than what we, the Board Game Group, tried before.  My old Yamanashi Group got a good long campaign out of it, and had a lot of fun. 

So is it just the fact that a good group of people can have a good time regardless of the rule set used?  Or are my first impressions of 4E somehow skewed?  It's possible that it's the latter.  Pat had us do a few playtest encounters, then ran us through part of Keep on the Shadowfell, a module that has gotten nothing but bad press from what I've read. 

I'm gonna give it another try.  I'm creating a Half-Elf Wizard, specializing in illusions and ice magic (having read the entire Lankhmar series recently, that may be the unconscious inspiration for my guy.  No, he won't be like Khakht (or however it was spelled), but illusions and ice are his theme.

I use the word 'create' above, and bolded it, because I can't say I rolled up a character.  No dice were involved in the creation of the character.  Point buy ability scores, set hit points, pick and choose your class, race and powers.  Not even a roll for starting gold.  Everyone gets 100gp to spend.  Now, I can deal with this, but it's definitely a lot less fun than throwing in some rolls and seeing what you get (and having to work with the consequences, both good and bad).

The next stumbling block for me with character creation is one of tone.  I just can't help but laugh when the rule books give some predetermined arrays of scores that you could create with point buy, and one of the arrays leaves that low 8 as an 8.  Then it says something like, "This character is good in a few areas, but still has a significant weakness in one area."  A -1 to a few checks you likely won't use ever anyway is a  significant weakness? 

Seriously, they've done just about everything they can in this rule-set to ensure that your character really only needs three good ability scores and the rest are dump stats.  All the defenses: AC, Fortitude, Reflex and Will, are governed by two stats, take your pick of the better one.  Most of the attack powers likewise give you a choice of two or three abilities to use for hit/damage modifiers.  And if you've got a crap stat in that ability, you can pick a different power anyway.  So, as I've done, I've dropped that 8 in Strength.  I doubt I'll be doing much melee as a Wizard, and if I have to take a -1 penalty to any Athletics skill checks, so be it.  It's not crippling my character in the least.  It's a minor nuisance at best to have a slight penalty in an ability score I don't need to use.

Finally, there's the choice overload.  I'm playing a Wizard.  I still haven't looked over enough of the other classes to know if there's something I'd rather be playing.  Seriously, there's a lot of reading to be done there to make an informed decision.  Now, if I were a high school kid out on summer vacation, with plenty of time to dive into the books, sure, no problem.  As a working adult, with a wife and kid, side writing projects of my own, and just general other stuff to do, I don't have time to read through the literally hundreds of pages worth of information on all the various character classes.

Now, the good side.  I downloaded the two Essentials character books, Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Forgotten Kingdoms, and used them to build my character.  From what I did see, especially with regards to the Fighter class, Essentials cleared up some of the suck from the original set of rules.  The Fighter looks much more playable, especially since they're not trying to make it work exactly as the Wizard or Cleric (never looked at the Rogue or the other classes enough to really judge).  No Daily powers, and several general purpose At Will Utility powers at first level so the Fighter can enter each fight with some tactical options besides when to use the Encounter Powers (and hope they hit).

That leads me to the final problem I'm having.  There are tons of errata out there, and I'm not reading any of it (don't really care), but it seems like the DM might.  He's asked me several times now to subscribe to D&D Insider so I can get whatever updates and the character builder program and what not.  Sorry, Enzo, not gonna happen.  I've got better ways to spend my money, and I'm fairly happy with the character I created who mixes IMO the best stuff I could find from the two Essentials character books and the PHB1.  There may be stuff I'd enjoy using from PHB2 and 3...there is a 3, right?...but again I just don't have the time or motivation to scour through another 50 or so pages of Wizard powers just because there might be one power that is slightly more advantageous than one of the ones I already picked (and seriously, there's often not much difference between two powers of the same level, other than what minor secondary effect it might have, or energy type).

So, 4E has not won me over from its character creation stage.  Maybe playing it will grow on me.  If it doesn't, I may be out of gaming for a while.

The Death Star plans are NOT in the main computer

However, I did just back up the blog, so everything is saved on my netbook (except for this post). 

In other news, our game plans completely fell through this weekend.  We were gonna play Gamma World, but then Jeremy and Adam had to work late Saturday.  Everyone else was willing to play from a late start date, but my wife wasn't happy about that, so I had to back out.  We tried rescheduling for Sunday, but then at the last minute Josh's wife reminded him that it was one of her parents' birthdays, so they had to have a family dinner.  So no gaming.

There was finally Sumo on NHK, though, so my son and I watched that and "rasseled" a bit ourselves.  How long has it been since I've gotten to watch any sumo?  There was a big match-fixing scandal a while back, so they canceled several tournaments, then NHK didn't broadcast the tournaments live for a while.  Anyway, it was good to watch the matches yesterday.  Too bad with my current schedule, I can't watch any days except Sundays.  And I need to check online to see how my two former Jr. High students, who are in the lower ranks that don't get broadcast internationally, are doing.

I didn't do a damn thing related to Flying Swordsmen over the weekend.  Too much Hobbit on the mind, not enough Jet Li. 

I finished watching Season 1 of the Sarah Connor Chronicles.  For some reason, the DVD player didn't read the files on the USB stick right, so it showed Episode 9 before Episode 8.  And I didn't notice until the end of Ep. 9 that that was the end of the season.  My wife was asleep on the couch through most of it, so I may end up watching them again, so I'll be sure and manually enter each episode rather than just letting it play so she gets to see them in the right order.

And with Terminators on the mind comes yet again Gamer ADD.  I really need to get the guys to do a few playtests of Flying Swordsmen for me, but now I'm wanting to either pull out Star Frontiers to run my War Against the Machines idea, or else recycle my old d20 Modern Aliens/Predator game, but throw Terminators into the mix.  Who am I kidding, though?  I'm too busy to put something like that together, and we've got enough people itching to get a game going at the moment.

Orphaned Books

Went over to Steve's last night.  He's leaving for Singapore to get an MBA soon.  He was giving away books and spices.  So in addition to having a fun chat with him, Alex, and Derek (a friend of theirs who did try out board games once but has other interests) I got some bouillons and masala and cumin.  And rescued some books.

A Concise History of China by J.A.G. Roberts, should be good reading as I prep my Flying Swordsmen world info.

The Scar by China Mieville, the only things I've read by Mieville are essays, where he sounds like a complete pompous arrogant asshole, but I've heard his fiction's good so I'm curious to see if it lives up to the hype.

Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists, by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Sister Nivedita, just because I can never pass up a book about mythology.

The Gathering Storm (WoT book 12), by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, even though I had decided I didn't care any more how it ended when Jordan died, Steve had it, no one else wanted it, and what can I say?  Sometimes I'm a glutton for punishment.  But seriously, RJ planned to write ONE more volume, Sanderson wrote three, and this first of them is 1000 pages?  I maybe should have just left the book at Steve's...

Bum ending to a bum week

So there's no games going on this weekend.

We were scheduled to play Gamma World, but Pat and Alex were out, so Josh didn't want to run it without Pat, since we're nearing the end of the module.

I suggested we do some playtests of Flying Swordsmen, and Jeremy is now wanting to put together a RIFTS game so he wanted to just discuss options.  I'm not so sure I wanna play RIFTS, but I'll hear him out.

Anyway, then Josh's hard drive crashed so he's got to get all the data retrieved.  And my son is now running a fever.

Jeremy is hoping to put together some board games or something now, it looks like, but there's not many left to play with.

Oh well, assuming my son goes to sleep early and sleeps soundly, at least I can get some writing done tonight, and maybe watch some more of the Sarah Connor Chronicles (two episodes into the first season now).

Gruesome Death on Gamma Terra

Warning: a few spoilers about Module GW6 Alpha Factor.

We got together last Saturday evening for some more Gamma World.  We had another new player, Adam, who is a co-worker of Jeremy's.  Another good guy, and a lot of fun to play with.  3E's his preferred system, but he didn't have any complaints about running a simpler system.

We played at Pat's place, which is fairly small, but luckily we all fit.  We may have yet more people joining (Alex potentially getting in on it, another friend of Jeremy's named Chris, and maybe a Korean guy Jeremy knows as well).  If that happens, we'll need a new place to play next time!

Anyway, about the game.  Adam rolled up Tom Petty from The Postman.  A PSH Examiner.  While we were doing that, Jeremy also rolled up a new character just for fun to keep as a reserve.  With a 4th player, we decided we only needed to play one PC each, so I took my Cougar Esper Linka, Pat played his Sentient Cactus Scout Jar-Jar-Jar, and Jeremy played his Bull Enforcer Saeng. 

We joined up with Tom Petty, did a bit more RP around town (finding out that the Ranks of the Fit are paranoid about being invaded), waited out another volleyball sized hail storm, then set out for the Mind Keep.

We made it to the obviously artificial plateau without event, used the grappling mortar we'd been given to scale the sides rather than take the road, which we heard was mined, and arrived in a large cactus patch.  Across the patch, most of the plateau was barren, with several installations and buildings, mostly clustered in the center.  Crossing the cacti, Tom Petty had to ride on Saeng's shoulders because he was the only one in light armor and would have taken damage otherwise.  And we were attacked by mutant lizard-scorpion things on the way.  They had tough carapaces so were hard to hit, but luckily their Mental Defense was low.  They spent a lot of time grappling, and Saeng used Confusion to keep them from doing too much damage to us, while hitting them with his ax.  Linka used Mental Blast to good effect as well.  Jar-Jar-Jar took a lot of punishment, and Tom Petty took some as well, but we managed to defeat them and looted their lair, which had a few not-so-useful at the moment things, like two pairs of downhill skis.

Having defeated the guardians, we proceeded to explore the plateau.  The main complex had lots of skeletons on the roof, so we decided not to try to climb the walls.  We also avoided the obvious front door.  Off to the east, there was a hatch set in the surface.  We tried opening it, but had no luck.  Saeng the Bull decided he was going to charge it with his horns over and over until he bashed it in.  While he was doing that, Tom Petty watched from a short distance away.  Linka and Jar-Jar-Jar went to investigate a small concrete tower we hadn't been able to see from the south side.

The tower was some sort of exhaust port.  There was a metal grate on top.  When Linka jumped up, her fur started standing on end.  Jar-Jar-Jar, who has ultravision, was able to detect an electrical field about 60cm down under the grate.  We called Saeng and Tom Petty over, but Saeng bull-headedly persisted at bashing the hatch.  Tom unsuccessfully tried to find a way to ground or short circuit the electrical field with some copper wire.  Then it happened.

KABOOM!!!

The hatch was booby trapped with an alpha bomb, which vaporized poor Saeng.  His reinforced skeleton ended up flying all the way back to the RotF village, where they erected it as a statue.  Luckily, the rest of us were all over on the vent thing, so we didn't get caught up in the blast.  And we've got a way into the complex now, too.

After a good laugh all around, Jeremy's new character dropped in by hot air balloon, after witnessing the explosion.  If anyone else shows up next session, we'll also be able to conveniently have them also be passengers on the balloon, since we ended the session there.

It was a short game, and not a whole lot happened, but it sure was fun!  Kudos to Josh for running a great session.  Gamma World really fits his style of GMing well, I think.

Shinobi Sunday: Gamer ADD Edition

In the Board Game Group, Jeremy has maybe one or two more players interested in joining Josh's Gamma World game.  But according to Alex, who I talked to yesterday, Josh is thinking of stopping after this module rather than continuing the series.  What's all this got to do with ninja?  Not much, I can hear some of you thinking. 

But Alex is again wanting to run his go-to system, Palladium.  He plans to mix TMNT with Ninjas & Superspies.

Right now he's thinking of running a mercenary campaign, possibly using elements of Recon as well.  I told him yesterday that I'd be all over this game if he actually set it during the Vietnam War.  I grew up on Tour of Duty, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and read quite a few histories of the war in Jr. High and High School. 

Anyway, even if he doesn't set it in 'Nam, a TMNT/Ninjas & Superspies game could be pretty fun.

Into the Wastelands!

Last night we got our Gamma World game off the ground.  We also had a new player join us, Jeremy.

It took quite a bit longer than we'd hoped to roll up characters.  A large part of that was because we were playing at my place, and my son kept interrupting the process.  So while I had thought I'd roll up my guys quickly and then help the others, it was more of me helping them while trying to keep my son from stealing dice or dancing on the table, then finishing up my characters last.

As usual with Gamma World, we've got some interesting characters.  I rolled up an Altered Human Examiner and a Mutated Animal (Cougar) Esper.  Jeremy rolled up a Mutated Animal (Bull) Enforcer and an Altered Human Esper.  Pat rolled up a Pure Strain Human Examiner and a Sentient Plant (Succulent) Scout.

Despite the late start, I think we made some good progress into the module.  We have been given several hooks and a small sandbox area to explore.  We focused on the 'main task' but I think we'll be sure to check out some of the other hooks before we finish.  There wasn't a lot of combat.  We fought one radioactive bird which had no loot, and got attacked by some gamma moths later, which resulted in Pat's Cactus getting radiation sickness and almost dying.  Most of the other encounters were role playing affairs. 

Towards the end, we were all also starting to get a handle on who are characters are.  Jeremy jumped in early with that, making his "Minotaur" into a noble, hard working guy, and his Esper into a crotchety old coot.  I of course made my Cougar into an over 30 female, and since she had an Int 5, she's none too smart so I started trying to make her cat-like instincts drive her at inopportune moments.  My Examiner took a little longer to get into, but I think he's a curious and friendly fellow who has a dream to see civilization restored (he's a Restorationist).  Pat's two characters are a buddy team, sort of like Nobita and Doraemon (if you know who they are).  His Cactus even has a kangaroo pouch mutation. 

Shinobi Sunday vs. Pirates

The pirates are beating out the ninja this weekend, for me at least.

Last night, we (being the Board Game Group core of myself, Alex, Josh, Steve, and Pat) got together to try out one of Steve's new games, Lords of the Spanish Main.

It was an interesting game, but the night was a bit of a bust.  One player couldn't keep his personal baggage from affecting his emotions so took too many things in game personally.  One player was insisting that we stick to the rules (especially regarding turn order) at all times while a few others were treating this as a learning experience and willing to allow mulligans.  One was really upset that the heavy negotiation the game requires was devolving into petty bickering at several points.  One was unhappy that two players were basically playing along with the Spanish "controller" player, giving advantages to that player in return for keeping near him in points, while the other two felt they needed to disrupt the "controller" to keep the game from being a runaway.

Not naming any names this time, as I usually do, because this game rubbed some of us the wrong way and I know at least one of the guys reads the blog regularly and I've sent the link to all of them to read.  (Josh, if you want to chime in, I'd appreciate if you also try to keep it impersonal).  I'm no saint.  I was one of the support the Spanish Controller until I felt I could take over (and if we hadn't stopped the game when we did, I had a good chance to take the lead for doing that--no guarantee I'd have made it or not, I may have acted prematurely there).  I also fall on the side of using the game as a learning exercise.  We played two games that we cut off quickly, but the long game still felt like getting to know the game to me, especially as for some reason I wasn't able to get the rules online.  I kept getting an error page trying to visit the game maker's homepage.

Anyway, I don't hold anything personal against the guys, but while I would like to play that game again, Steve did make a valid point that he doesn't want to play this game again with this group. 

In other pirates vs. ninja news, our plan is to go see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie this afternoon or evening.  So it's a very pirate weekend.

Gamma World Sample Characters

For Josh's upcoming game, I rolled up 4 sample characters to get back into the feel of 4th Ed. GW ('92).  Now, we're thinking that to save time, we should each just pick one to play.  Josh had wanted us to do this so we'd be familiar with the generation process so we could all roll up new PCs together, but Alex and I were both thinking it would be better to save time and roll up PC ahead of time.

I've done everything by random roll, no cheating (really, if they're just sample characters, what's the point in fudging?) and came up with some pretty cool characters.  They're done except for buying starting equipment.

"Pliers" McGee
Pure Strain Human Examiner 1
PS 8 (+0)  THAC Melee +0  Damage +0
DX 12 (+0)  THAC Ranged +0  Stealth +0  Base AC 10
CN 8 (+0)  Health 10, vs. radiation 12
MS 11 (+0)  Mental Defense 10
IN 16 (+2)  Use Artifacts +5  Remain Unseen +2
CH 15 (+2)  Robot Recognition 23
SN 11 (+0)  Perception +0

Hit Points: 28   AC 10  Speed 12

Mutations: None

Class Skills:
Avoid Artifact Disaster +5
Jury-Rig +3
Read Schematics +4
Repair Artifact +4

Equipment:
Tech Level III Took Kit 
Sniper Rifle, 14 rounds

Notes:  Yes, that's an 8 Constitution after the PSH +3 bonus.  Rolled a 5.  Examiners are useful folks, though, even if this one isn't gonna be a combat monster.


One-Eyed Johnson
Altered Human Enforcer 1

PS 15 (+2)  THAC Melee +3  Damage +3
DX 18 (+3)  THAC Ranged +4  Stealth +3  Base AC 13
CN 15 (+2)  Health 12
MS 3 (-3)  Mental Defense 7
IN 14 (+1)  Use Artifacts +1  Remain Unseen +1
CH 11 (+0)  Robot Recognition 16
SN 11 (+0)  Perception +0

Hit Points: 68   AC 13  Speed 15

Mutations:
Physical
Body Change (D): single eye, patches of fur, -2 Robot Recognition
Finger Vines (plant): MP 10, 2 vines, 5m long, 20cm can detach up to 10m away, PS 1, DX 5
Kinetic Absorption: MP 9, blunt damage -10, slash/pierce -5 (min. 1), 10 rounds activated
Mental
Telepathy: MP 11, range 100m unwilling, 200m willing, 5km other telepath, scan 5km for sentients
Mentally Defenseless (D): MS score becomes 3

Class Skills:
Combat Leadership +2
Makeshift Weapons/Armor +6
Size-Up Opponent +4


Equipment: none


Notes: Rolled amazing stats for this guy.  The Mental Defense score was a 14 before I rolled the Mentally Defenseless defect.  Still, this guy looks like a fun combat monster with buckets of hit points and damage reduction.

Zorak
Mutant Animal (Praying Mantis) Esper 1

PS 14 (+1)  THAC Melee +1  Damage +1
DX 17 (+3)  THAC Ranged +3  Stealth +5  Base AC 17
CN 13 (+1)  Health 11, vs. radiation 13
MS 12 (+0)  Mental Defense 11
IN 10 (+0)  Use Artifacts +0  Remain Unseen +0, +2 in green vegetation
CH 15 (+2)  Robot Recognition 16
SN 16 (+2)  Perception +2

Hit Points: 49   AC 17  Speed 15

Mutations:
Physical
Radiating Eyes: MP 16, intensity 7 radiation attack, recharge 1pt intensity/round, head immune to radiation
Heightened Physical Attribute: Dexterity +6 (was 11)
Mental
Heightened Mental Attribute: Charisma +6 (was 9)
Duality: perform 2 actions/attacks per round, ambidextrous
Summoning: MP 10, MHAC +1, mentally call specific species, mental attack on arrival to control for 2d6 rounds
Life Leech: MP 15, MHAC +3, drain 8 hit points per round from creatures within 10m, up to 8 rounds, once per day, heal then gain temporary HP
Telekinetic Flight: MP 14, MHAC +2, Fly speed 7m as running, carry 70kg weight

Class Skills:
Hypnosis +6
Identify Mental Power +3
Photographic Memory +3
Sense Mental Powers +4


Equipment: none

Notes: Got lucky with this guy.  Rolled fairly average stats, but the two Heighten Attribute mutations help out, and I rolled twice for the 'roll two times' result for mental mutations, giving this guy a bunch.  And yeah, Zorak.

Bean Garbanzo
Sentient Plant (Brush) Scout 1

PS 18 (+3)  THAC Melee +3  Damage +3
DX 16 (+2)  THAC Ranged +2  Stealth +2  Base AC 12
CN 13 (+1)  Health 11
MS 11 (+0)  Mental Defense 10
IN 14 (+1)  Use Artifacts +1  Remain Unseen +7
CH 9 (+0)  Robot Recognition nil
SN 14 (+1)  Perception +2

Hit Points: 54   AC 12  Speed 16

Mutations:
Physical
Photodependent (D): 1 hour of darkness = sluggish state, -2 to all attributes, 24 hours in dark = 1d6 damage
Transfusion: MP 13, heal other plants only, 11 hit points in one round, once per person per day, take 1d4 dmg
Dissolving Juices: MP 14, acid deals 3d6+1 dmg over 1 minute, or 2 dmg per round, use once per 4 hours
Heightened Physical Attribute: Physical Strength +5 (was 13)
Oversized Limbs: Legs 70% longer, base speed +5
Shapechange: MP 16, take another plant form for up to 70 minutes, once per 4 hours

Class Skills:
Detect Ambush/Trap +4
Hunting +3
Navigate +3
Tracking +6
Wilderness Survival +4

Equipment: none

Notes: all plant mutations for this guy.  Photodependent is a nice logical defect for this guy, although he won't be doing much scouting at night.  Shapechange was a result of a 'choose one mutation' roll.  Seemed fitting to have a disguise ability like that for a scout.

Gamma World on the Brain

After our game last Saturday, we've been having a little discussion on Facebook about continuing to play Gamma World with Josh while he's here in Busan for the summer. 

Josh is now thinking of running the 3E modules with 4E (as in 1992 TSR 4th edition) rules.  It'll take some modification for the modules either way, but he's not super excited about the 2010 edition, as the monster section is so small.  He did mention that he's considering keeping the Alpha Mutation cards, as we all enjoy the wackiness they add.  Not sure how well all of them would play with the 1992 rules, but that's Josh's problem, not mine, thankfully!

Anyway, the choice of 1992 4E GW was because it's the version I've got on my bookshelf and have played quite a bit (although it's been a few years).  I'm bogged down in yet another paper/presentation for grad school which I should be working on instead of writing this blog right now.  I don't have time to get a hold of and look up character creation or combat basics in 3E GW.  I remember it uses the FASERIP system with the color/bar chart for task resolution, but I've only used that with a brief flirtation with TSR's Marvel Super-heroes game.  4E is good for me, as I still have a lot of its rules and systems not buried too deeply in the old brain.

So I'm looking forward to rolling up a new mutant (or maybe a PSH, which I don't think you can even play in WotC's Gamma World) and exploring more ruins and figuring out what's merely junk and what's a super awesome weapon that we can use to blast some Serfs or Hoops or the Knights of Genetic Purity.

But for now, back to that research paper. 

More Gamma World Fun

It's 1:45, I should be going to bed, but felt like throwing this up first. 

We just finished another game of Gamma World, run by Josh, using our (WotC) Gamma World characters from last time, leveled up to 5th level, but running a module made for (TSR) 3rd Edition Gamma World. 

It was pretty fun.  The module, I think it's GW6 Alpha Factor, was interesting.  It was written in a choose-your-own-adventure style format, so while it was mainly a wilderness hex crawl, at certain keyed events you'd get a video game style railroady cut-scene that took you to the next section, like it or not. 

We had a lot of fun with it, though, and we're thinking about playing some more of the modules, although Josh stated up front if we do more, we'll use pure 3rd Ed. characters, rather than trying to mix them again. 

It was a good game, so I'm hoping we get to play some more.

Got some gaming in yesterday

As often happens with our Board Game Group, we had invited plenty of people, and lots of them had said they'd come out.  But only a few of us managed it.  Some of the guys had gotten together on Saturday to play Axis and Allies though, then were out drinking till the wee hours, so only Pat made it from that group.  Steve, Hong and I were the other players early on.  Joe showed up late, just after Hong left and shortly before Pat and Steve had to go.

Despite the low turnout, we had some good games.  We had a couple of false starts, as well.  We played a round of Medici which I almost won (getting better at that one), We tried Torres (for the first time for everyone but Steve, and he'd only played it once or twice), but something seemed wrong.  We only had the Korean instructions provided by the board game cafe, so we stopped the game after the first Phase and decided to look up the rules and make sure we were doing it right.  Definitely plan to give it a try later.  We played Pueblo next, which I lost spectacularly.

When Hong left, we started a new game of Steve's, Red Dragon Inn.  We didn't get a full game in because Joe showed up and we had limited time before Pat had to go and Joe wanted to give Dominion another whirl.  But Red Dragon Inn was a nice little game.  This is also the sort of game that I'm sure most of my readers would enjoy, as the premise is each player is an adventurer back from the dungeon with gold, and are drinking and gambling it away in the inn.  There are a couple different versions out there.  Steve's copy has a half-ogre, bard, dwarf and um, forgot the other one instead of the ones listed in the link above.

We got our game of Dominion in, then Joe and I played a game of Blokus (the only game I won all afternoon).

We all want to get back to gaming regularly.  One problem though is that everyone's hoping they can pick a time where I'll be able to attend all the time.  Unfortunately, with my schedule that isn't gonna happen.  Hopefully they'll just pick a time, stick to it, and I'll show up as often as I can.

The new HeroClix figures and a confession

The Happy Whisk asked me to post some pictures of my new HeroClix figures.  Here they are in all their glory:

As you can see, Magneto now has his head attached.  Don't know if that will survive the first game we use him in (or even transport to that game if it's not here at my house) but we'll see.

Magneto is the Experienced (blue ring) version from Infinity Challenge.
Dr. Doom is the Experienced version from Clobberin' Time.
Mr. Fantastic is the Veteran (red ring) version from Clobberin' Time.
Superman is the Unique (bronze ring) version from Hypertime.
Batman is the Veteran version from Hypertime.
Wonder Woman is from the new DC 75th anniversary set (no ring).

I hadn't bought any new Clix games for some years, and I hadn't kept up with any rules changes or the like, so I was a bit surprised to see that Wonder Woman came with a card with a unique ability just for her, meaning you'd need to keep the card handy for reference during play.

The card is useful in that it lists what powers she has and why.  But having to manage a bunch of cards as well as a bunch of figures could get bothersome in play, I'd imagine.  It would also make set-up take longer, as you'd not only have to figure out which characters you want to go together, but then you'd have to find both the figure and the card for each of them.  "Where's that Blue Beetle Rookie card?"

And finally, my confession.  When I was into comics heavily (my college days), I rarely read anything DC.  I was a Marvel fanboy, one of those guys picking up multiple X-books every month, along with some other Marvel and indie comics.  But I never followed any DC books.  I'd read copies friends had purchased, but I wasn't buying them.

So most of my knowledge of DC characters comes from movies and TV.  When people mention "post-Crisis" characters, I know they're referring to the Crisis on Infinite Earths, but I have no idea what changed.  When I mentioned the other day that Bats and Supes were friends, I had the Super Friends cartoon firmly in mind. 

Sorry, DC fans.