Games I Played in 2012

I’m likely forgetting a game or two that was played at a Con or as a one-shot (I can’t find any list of what I played at Gencon and Forge Midwest).

Apocalypse World: Got to play for the first time at Walking Eye Con, at Gencon, and Abram’s game. Finished up the Waterworld campaign at the start of the year, and started a campaign (still running) at the end of the year. A good year for Apocalypse World!

Beacon of Hope: Played a playtest session of this, ran by Shari.

Burning Empires: Played in Sabe’s Game Turbine Malvernus game.

Danger Patrol: Shari ran this at Walking Eye Con.

Dogs in the Vineyard:  Ran a game of this for Tim, Shari, Sabe, and Misha.

Dragons at Dawn Hack: Ran a short game for the Game Turbine, and a session at Chicago Games Day.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Played in a few sessions ran by Doc. Ran a few sessions for the Game Turbine.

Dungeons & Dragons, 4th Edition: Currently running my Godstorm game. Played in Sabe’s Hallowdwell campaign. Ran a girls-only Dungeons & Dragons & Disney game.

Dungeon World: Kevin ran a game at Walking Eye Con. Played in a game at Gencon. Currently playing in a game run by Sabe.

Durance:  Played this as a one-shot with the Game Turbiners.

Feng Shui: Played this at Chicago Games day.

Fiasco: Played a few games.

Final Girl:  Played this!

Fourthbreaker: Did a few playtests of this, ran by Abram and Sabe.

Lady Blackbird: Ran this at Plattecon.

Left Coast: Ron facilitated this for me at Forge Midwest.

Legends of the Wulin: Did character creation for a Game Turbine game started by Sabe. I’m still going to count this one, since it’s just getting going.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Ran a few sessions.

Mispent Youth: Played a session of this at Chicago Games Day!

Monsterhearts: Ran a game for the Game Turbine. Also one shot at Walking Eye Con, Chicago Games Day, and for Mik and Kai at New Years.

Mountain Witch: Tim Kleinert ran this for me at Forge Midwest!

One Last Night: Played a session of this with Tim, Brendan, and Sabe.

Samurai World: Brennan Taylor ran a Day of Thunder Samurai World game at Gencon, which was completely awesome. I played Mirumoto Hitomi and ended up Empress.

Savage Worlds: Ran two different sessions at two different Chicago Games Days.

Shelter in Place: I played this at Walking Eye Con. It probably doesn’t really count as an RPG, but I played it

Stars Without Number: Played in a few sessions ran by Doc.

Unnamed Casino Game Continuing Playtest: Continued to play. Abram ran a session, and it went well.

Edit:  Thanks to Tim for pointing out Dogs in the Vineyard and Durance.  And The Final Girl.

The Genius of Apocalypse World: Part III

So Apocalypse World tells you how to run it. Is this innovative? Don’t all games tell you how to run them?

 

Actually, no. For many, if not most games, the gm advice is woefully inadequate, and often contradictory. (Any edition of D&D, and any White Wolf game, I’m looking at you in particular.) Where the is GM advice, it often takes the form of long, winding suggestions about theme and tone, without giving the GM actual concrete tools. Some GM advice is also actively harmful towards cultivating a fun play environment.

 

The MC advice for Apocalypse World is short and sweet, and tells you exactly how to play. Follow these rules, and you’ll run the game correctly, and it will kick ass.

 

First, you’ve got the Agenda. This tells you why you’re playing:

 

*Make Apocalypse World Seem Real.

*Make the players’ characters’ lives not boring.

*Play to find out what happens.

 

Between these three sentences, you already know a lot about your roles. Verisimilitude is important. Interesting things should happen. And no, it’s not all about your story, or anyone’s story, really. Uncertainty in outcomes is not okay, its desirable, a goal unto itself.

 

Then you’ve got the Always Say rules, telling you what the players can reasonably expect from you”

 

Always Say:

*What the Principles Demand

*What the Rules Demand

*What your Prep Demands

*What Honesty Demands

 

This means that the Principles are rules, that you have to follow the outcomes of the dice, that your notes are fair game, and you cannot lie to the players. It goes further on to encourage you to be generous with the truth and information. (Secrets are there to be discovered.)

 

And then the meaty Principles (with some short notes on purpose)

 

*Barf Forth Apocalyptica (gritty, dirty verisimilitude)

*Address Yourself to the Characters, not the Players (immersion)

*Make your Move, but Misdirect (immersion)

*Make your Move, but Never Speak Its Name (immersion)

*Look through Crosshairs (be willing to destroy your own stuff)

*Name everyone, make everyone human (no cartoon villains or monsters, everyone’s sympathetic)

*Ask provocative questions and build on the answers (involve the players in worldbuilding)

*Respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards. (fuckery in this case means to put your own stamp on things, to take what the players give you and twist it and build on it)

*Be a fan of the players’ characters. (This is such an important rule. I want to see them suffer, but succeed.)

*Think offscreen too. (World building, verisimilitude, future threats)

*Sometimes, disclaim decision making (play to find out what happens).

 

Then the MC has a list of moves, things that you get to do when the players fail a roll or its naturally your turn to do something. Unlike the players’ moves, these are all narrative concepts, like “Offer an opportunity, with or without cost,” or “Announce future badness.”

 

These are a little more interesting, and I found them a little funny to grasp at first, because up until now, a move has been a player driven roll the dice thing that interfaces with the rules. But the MC moves are all about the rules-narrative feedback loop (what Vincent calls clouds and boxes).

 

I’m going to digress here. All rpgs consist of three separate spaces (these are my own terms): the Game-rules space, which includes things like position on a battlemap, hit points remaining, relationship traits, if your game has them, and in game spendable resources (like wealth points or gold coins, in games where shopping matters), the Narrative-space, which includes things like Narrative positioning (“Keeler’s got the high ground, what do you do?”), fictional descriptions of things (“that wound is gushing out blood”), how characters actually feel about each other, and in-setting spendable resources (wealth if your game doesn’t have shopping rules). Then there’s the Meta-space, which includes things like the relationships and drama between the players, the actual physical setting that the game is played in, and the physical components used to play the games (minis, maps, dice, character sheets).

 

All roleplaying is a function of feedback loops between these three realms. Something that happens in one realm changes the others. The object of roleplaying games is to use the Rules and Narrative to provide enjoyment on the Meta level.

 

Roleplaying games focus on the feedback loop between Rules and Narrative. What the mechanics accomplish (in apocalypse world, your PC moves) have narrative consequences. The players push on the game largely with mechanics. The MC pushes back with the narrative.

 

What I think is revolutionary about this is how its encoded in the rules: this is what you do and how you do it. I’m sure this is a functional model of play that’s been done before (doubtlessly by Vincent), but I haven’t seen to many games that champion it. Here, in Apocalypse World, Vincent tells the MC- your job is to wrangle the narrative, and tell the players what’s going on. Play the world. Let them come in with their mechanics, their tools, and try to put their stamp on it. You react with honesty. Let’s play to find out what happens.

The Genius of Apocalypse World Part II: Character Creation is Fun

Why is character creation in Apocalypse World so enjoyable? When I started up a recent AW campaign, one of the players said they could just make characters and have a great time with it. Now I’m the type of person who likes making characters, but I agree, there’s something that makes character creation jump out at people. And that’s the Playbooks.

A Playbook in Apocalypse World is like a Class, but really so much more. What’s the difference?

In a game like Dungeons and Dragons, which is explicitly class based, or White Wolf (where your different splats are effectively classes), your class tells you what you can do, and what play options you get. Often your Class intersects with another gameplay option, to allow for character differentiation (in D&D it’s mostly Race-Class combos, in something like WoD its usually your skill choices.)

In Apocalypse World, your playbook is more than that. In addition to including a mechanical role, if often implies a narrative role. (The Hardholder is in charge, the Battlebabe causes trouble, the Angel provides support). So the mental footprint of the playbook is larger than a class. This is accomplished with the flavor of the name and look lists, and the inspiration provided by the quotation. Picking a playbook gets you into a mindset to act as that playbook.

More importantly, all the character creation rules are in your playbook printout. It’s everyone’s own little character creation menu, oozing with fun options, that they don’t need to flip through or pass around the table. This is key. Think of how many games where you have to pass the book around and flip through to find different things- in a recent game, we had stats, occupations, class abilities, and equipment. Crunchier games might have feats/special powers, skills, magic spells, and all sorts of thtings to look up. With only one or two books, this can get quite cumbersome.

Finally, one of the precepts for the GM of Apocalypse World is Ask Questions like crazy. Character creation has built-in setting and situation creation baked into it. Assigning Hx values will introduce both relationships between the characters, and a backdrop for those relationships.

For example, in my recent game, the Driver assigned a high Hx to the Brainer, because he had to trust the Brainer at one point with driving his car when things went to hell. I asked where that was and what happened, and the town of White Church was born.

Asking questions like ‘where did you get that,’ ‘why did that happen,’ ‘who do you work for,’ and others put world creation on the shoulders of the players. Part of this takes the initiative of the MC to work, but many of the playbooks have wonderfully strange and evocative bits in them that scream at the players to figure out how they came to pass.

The Genius of Apocalypse World- Part I

Apocalypse World is one of the most influential games to come out in a long time. It’s been commented frequently that hacking AW is the new d20. Perhaps not quite, but there’s a lot of AW hacks out there.

 

Why is Apocalypse World so awesome? There’s a couple of reasons. They aren’t all revolutionary (I think one of them is), any one of them in a game is enough to make it interesting, but the pieces coming together make a very awesome game.

 

These reasons are:

*The resolution mechanic is awesome.

*Character creation is really fun.

*The game tells you how to run it.

*The game encourages you to hack it.

*The move structure is a genius insight into how roleplaying games work.

 

Okay, part one: resolution mechanic.

 

The resolution mechanic is pretty simple. Roll 2d6 and add your stat. Note that the GM never tacks on modifiers- you can get mods from other, preestablished moves, but there’s no moment to moment “that’s a hard roll,” which means players can always expect the same level of competence. But more importantly, is what happens when you’ve got your result. You either have a failure (6 or less), a moderate success (7-9), a strong success (10+), or with the right advances, a critical success (12+).

All of these are interesting and fun results.

 

Too often, there are games where the result of a die roll is boring. There’s games with binary success/fail, where success gets stuff, but failure stalls the game. Fail the roll to find a clue or secret door? Guess you’re stuck. Failure often maintains the status quo, which is boring. All dice rolls should change the state of play. A failure in Apocalypse World is a license for the MC to screw with you, and always makes things more interesting.

 

The 7-9 level often involves some scarcity, choosing an option, or a less perfect version of total success- the iconic indie hard choice. The player has certainly succeeded, so they are better off than they were before, but they don’t always get everything they want, and often (depending on the move) there’s some price to their success.

 

On a 10+, awesomeness all around. You rock the house. Everyone loves being awesome. With the right character build, you can get this result a very high chunk of the time.

 

Why does this resonate with people? It’s fun. Every possible outcome of the dice makes the game more interesting, with hard choices, the play advancing, and no status quos.* Rolling the dice becomes exciting, because you don’t know what’s going to happen, and you get to engage positively with the system. Picking choices puts some of the power of resolution in the player’s hands.

 

Also, these decisions- the GM’s hard move on a failure, the hard choices and spending resources- these all happen after the roll. A criticism of explicit stakes systems- those where the consequences of failure or success are laid out before the roll- is that there’s too much ‘play before you play’ and that the aftermath of the roll is an afterthought. There’s none of that here. I don’t know if this was intentional on Vincent’s part, but thinking about it, the gameplay seems to flow much more naturally.

 

Even if one does not take the 2d6 Apocalypse World mechanic wholesale, the notion of the GM getting to make a hard move on a failure is pretty easy to understand and export- after all, haven’t some of us been doing that all along? This codifies it, and gives the GM guidelines for what’s fair and what’s not.

 

*There are a few weaknesses here. Help seems a little weak; I’ve seen several 7-9 help rolls go off that did not factor into the success or failure of the main action, and the MC didn’t apply any cost. Also, a huge fight, gang vs. gang, or a single badass person invading a stronghold can drag out, with many, many die rolls involved.

Rebuilding D&D Boardgames: Monsters, Bosses, and Heroes

Monsters:

The difficulty in building a monster deck is the tradeoff between variety and challenge. More of the same monster means more challenge, but less variety. More monsters in the deck also means the need for more minis.

Castle Ravenloft: 30 Monster Cards

3x Wolf (melee, 1 xp)

3x Zombie (melee, 1 xp)

3x Rat Swarm (melee aoe, 1 xp)

3x Kobold Skirmisher (ranged, 1 xp)

3x Blazing Skeleton (ranged aoe, 2 xp)

3x Spider (melee, debuff, 2xp)

3x Ghoul (melee, debuff, 2xp)

3x Skeleton (melee, 2 xp)

3x Gargoyle (melee aoe, 3 xp)

3x Wraith (melee, 3 xp)

Average xp value: 1.8. Total different monsters: 10

 

Wrath of Ashardalon: 30 monster cards

3x Snake (debuff, 1 xp)

3x Cultist (melee, defuff, 1 xp)

3x Kobold Dragonshield (melee, reinforce, 1 xp)

3x Orc Archer (ranged, 1 xp)

3x Cavebear (melee aoe, 2xp)-

3x Duergar Guard (melee, reinforce, 2 xp)

3x Grell (melee debuff, 2 xp)

3x Orc Smasher (melee, 2 xp)

3x Legion Devils (melee aoe, 3xp)

3x Gibbering Mouthers (ranged aoe debuff, 3 xp)

Average Xp Value: 1.8. Total different monsters: 10

 

Legend of Drizzt: 26 monster cards, plus 4 events

3x Goblin Archers (ranged, 1 xp)

3x Goblin Cutter (melee, 1 xp)

3x Hunting Drake (melee, 1 xp)

3x Hypnotic Spirit (melee aoe, 1 xp)

3x Drow Duelist (melee, 2 xp)

3x Spider Swarm (melee aoe, debuff, 2 xp)

3x Water Elemental (melee aoe, 2 xp)

1x Drow Wizard (ranged aoe, 3 xp)

1x Goblin Champion (melee, 3 xp)

2x Feral Troll (melee, 4 xp)

1x Dinin Do’Urden, Drider (melee, 4 xp)

Average xp Value: 1.85 Total Different Monsters: 11

2x Stalagmite

2x Hunting Party

I like the Legend of Drizzt mix best; it has a variety of multiple and unique monsters.

My solution is a deck that is mostly 2 copies of a card. Double monster flips won’t come up as often, but they still will occur, and it allows for a decent mix of monsters. Now to figure out the most interesting monsters.

1 xp monsters:

All of the main sets have 3x each of four different monsters. I instead pick 2x of 6.

 

My picks: Hypnotic Spirit, Rat Swarm, Wolf, Kobold Dragonshield, Hunting Drake, and Orc Archer.. (It’s a tough call between that and Kobold Skirmisher for the ranged minion slot.)

Next, the level 2s. Again, I go with 2x of 6.

Cavebear, Water Elemental, Blazing Skeleton, Duergar Guard, Grell, Spide

The level 2 decisions are tougher. Spider Swarm is a fun aoe, but there’s already 3 others.

Tough Guys:

I tend to like all the threes.

I go with: Gargoyle x2, Wraith x2, Gibbering Mouther x2, Drow Wizard x1, Feral Troll x2, Dinin Do’Urden x1

I also add both Hunting Parties.  Mwah ha ha!

My monster deck is 36 cards. 34 of those are monsters with an average xp value of just over 2. Also, 2 of the monster flips will be double monsters. Good hunting!

Boss Monsters

There are 22 different Boss Monsters. Some have very large figs, and there’s not quite enough room for all of them. Some of them are also rather boring. Most of the bosses are also double sided, so if you include one, there’s (mostly) no reason not to include the one on the other side.

Ravenloft:

Count Strahd, level 6, Awesome

Gravestorm, Level 6, Awesome

 

Young Vampire, Interesting, Semi-Weak

Zombie Dragon, Interesting

 

Flesh Golem, Interesting

Klak, interesting but weak

 

Werewolf, weak

Howling Hag, interesting, dependent on crypt tiles.

 

Ashardalon, level 6, Awesome

Gauth, level 6, interesting

 

Rage Drake, interesting but fiddly

 

Otyugh, okay

Margrath, meh

 

Kraash, okay

Meerak, weak

 

Shimmergloom, Tough!

Yvonnel Banere, okay

 

Methil, Interesting

Artemis, mostly boring

 

Balor, meh (and really big)

Jarlaxle, interesting

 

Yochol, interesting.

 

So the best ones are:

Strahd/Gravesorm

Young Vampire/Zombie Dragon

Ashardalon/Gauth

Shimmergloom/Yvonnel

Yochol.

The bosses are packed pretty tight at this space, so there’s no room for any more large enemies, which eliminates a couple of options. I want to keep some more space in for weaker bosses that can be encountered with hordes of enemies. I add Methil/Artemis, Kraash and Meerak, and just Klak (no room for a Flesh Golem),

Player Characters

To cut down on setup time, storage space, and such, I’m cutting down the number of characters. With the three sets, there’s a massive choice of characters- 18 of them. I’m limiting the characters to one per class. However, they get to use the powers of the unused characters of that class. Will this make things more interesting? Probably. Will it increase set up time? Maybe. Needs playtesting.

Fighters:

Vistra, Arjhan, Bruenor Battlehammer

Arjhan’s Dragon Breath and Defender are probably the most fun. Vistra’s are useful but not terribly assertive. Bruenor is a bit too funky. Arjhan wins.

Wizards:

Immeril, Heskan

Immeril’s Lore is more useful than Heskan’s Mage Hand, hands down. Heskan’s dragonbreath is cool, but Fey Step is also very useful. Immeril wins.

Rouges:

Kat, Regis, Tarak

Regis has a strong ability (too-strong?) but he suffers from his at-will limitations. The question is: which is cooler: Kat’s Sneak Attack, or Tarak’s Furious Assault. Sneak Attack, bitches. Kat’s trap disarming is icing on the cake.

Clerics:

Thorgrim, Quinn

Quinn’s Saving Grace is much more interesting than Thorgrim’s Aid, and giving Quinn Thorgrim’s at-wills will make him more of a force to be reckoned with. Quinn breaks our streak of all Ravenloft characters.

Rangers:

Allisa, Drizzt

Let’s face it, Drizzt is way overpowered. (His Expert Combatant is also poorly worded, which might possibly allow him to do 2 non-combat actions.) Allisa’s Scout kills him and takes his stuff, and while she’s at it, she get’s Cattie-Brie’s powers too.

Problematic:

Cattiebrie

Artemis

Wulfgar

Athrogate

Jarlaxe Baenrae

Keyleth

 

These are all characters that are a class unto themselves. As mentioned before, CattieBrie gets the axe.

I’m going to try giving the Barbarian powers (many of which deal with being tough and healing) to Keyleth, the Paladin. Her ability is somewhat weak, but she now has an even better selection of powers to choose from. Also the cards are both light blue.

Jarlaxle and Artemis both have interesting powers. Together it’s a decent mix. I like Jarlaxle’s focus on items better, so he get’s Artemis’s powers.

Finally, there’s Athrogate, Battlerager. He just gets the cut, leaving us with 7 heroes, a decent mix.

 

 

Rebuilding D&D Boardgames: Dungeon Tiles

So the first thing I notice, upon laying all the tiles out, is that Castle Ravenloft has by far the most tiles. Once you filter out the Dire Chambers, Wrath of Ashardalon has the least, and Legend of Drizzt is somewhere in the middle.

 

Futhermore, in looking at these tiles, there’s a couple of things to keep in mind: tiles with rules, percentages of black/white arrows, having a mix of facings, and whether or not to keep scenario-specific (“named” tiles).

 

Castle Ravenloft:

40 Tiles

 

18 White Arrows

22 Black Arrows

 

0 Tiles with Mechanical Effect

20 Named Tiles (including 8 Crypts and the 4 Crypt corners. The 8 Crypts have 10 Coffin spaces amongst them.)

 

Tile Orientation:

4 Right Turns (10%)

4 Left Turns (10%)

6 4-ways (15 %)

7 Forward (18%)
6 T-Junction (left/right) (15%)

6 Left T-Junction (left/forward) (15%)

7 Right T-Junction (right/forward) (18%)

 

There doesn’t seem to be any balance particularly of white/black within different kinds of tiles. The more open tiles tend of have more Black Arrows, since they are more likely to be Crypts.

 

Wrath of Ashardalon:

24 Tiles

 

10 White Arrows

14 Black Arrows

 

8 Tiles with Doors (Note that the Vault has a door)

3 Tiles with Mechanical Effect (2 Long Hallways, 1 Tunnel Exit)

1 Named Tile (Vault, which we have special house rules for, making it another Mechanical Tile.)

 

(Note that I’m not counting the Dire/Horrid Chamber entryies or rooms in here, as they are scenario specific tiles.)

 

Tile Orientation

2 Right Turns (8%)

2 Left Turns (8%)

2 Dead Ends (8%)

3 4-Ways (12%)

6 Forward (25%)

3 T-Junction (12%)

3 Left T (12%)

3 Right T (12%)

 

Note that many of the more open tiles have doors on them, making them actually more restrictive in play, and adding elements of risk.

 

Legend of Drizzt

32 Tiles

 

16 White Arrows

16 Black Arrows

Interestingly, Legend of Drizzt is the only set with an even arrow makeup; all the other ones have more black than white.

 

A Whopping 13 Tiles with Mechanical Effect (4 Narrow Passages, 1 Secret Cave, and 8 Volcanic Vents)

7 Named Tiles

 

Tile Orientation

3 Right Turns (9%)

3 Left Turns (9%)

7 Forward (22%)

1 Dead End (3%)

6 4-Way (18%)

6 T-Junction (18%)

3 Left-T (9%)

3 Right-T (9%)

 

TOTAL NUMBERS

96 Tiles

 

9 Right Turns

9 Left Turns

20 Forward

3 Dead Ends

15 4-Way

15 T-Junction

12 Left T

13 Right T

 

BUILDING THE NEW DECK

 

First I take all the tiles with mechanical effect and see what it looks like. That includes all the Doors, Vents, Secret Exits, Caves, and the Vault.

 

This is 25 Tiles, 10 of which have white arrows, 15 of which have Black. I want about 32 tiles, so I want 6 more white and 1 more black. These are the orientations of the tiles so far:

 

2 Right Turns

3 Left Turns

7 Forward

3 Dead Ends

2 4-Ways

2 T Junction

3 Left T

3 Right T

 

So I want 1 Righty, and lots more 4 ways and basic T Junctions. The other numbers look pretty good.

I pick the following tiles, all named: King’s Crypt, Strahd’s Crypt, 2x Dwarven Statue, the Broken Door, the Drow Glyph, and the Rotting Nook.

 

Along with those I pack the Dire Chamber tiles, the start tile from Castle Ravenloft, and the Rocky Lair/Ancient Throne/Surface Hollow in case I decide I want them.

Top Ten Game Changing Cards in Ascension: Immortal Heroes

These cards are some of the most influential cards in Ascension: Immortal Heroes. Game-changing does not mean powerful (although many of these are that)- a Game changer fundamentally changes the way people play, looking for new strategies, or taking different actions. Some of these don’t even half to flip from the center row to change the game: the mere fact that they are there, in the deck, is enough to change the way we look at the game.

 

10: Growmites:

Military is all about having an effective resources to point total payoff. You’re looking to get more points for your fighting than your opponents will get out of their runes, and to do it faster. Normally 2:1 is the baseline from cultists, and a 75% return or above is always lovely. Growmites start at a respectable 3 for 2, but your second one becomes 3 for 4, and it only gets more broken from there. There are five Growmites in the deck, and the threat of a single player accumulating too many of them can drive other players into a panic.

 

9: Void Avenger

One of the more regularly potent ways to get Soul Gems, Void Avenger comes with 3 fighting and a Soul Gem award. My impression is that Soul Gems are more useful in a military deck because they are more likely to benefit from a splash of money; Void Avenger lets you get those gems. With so many good 3-cost monsters, this is also a great buy for a mostly runes deck.

 

8: Stone Circle Elder:

It’s a toss-up whether this, or its cohort Temple Guardian is more broken; both cost 5, both are highly upgraded versions of a 4-cost core card (Stone Circle Druids and Arha Templar), and both draw a card for you if there’s a matching event. The ability to put a Lionheart on top of your deck and immediately draw it and get Unite is not to be underestimated.

 

7: Soulshaper

A great early buy, Soulshaper lets you cull through your deck, getting valuable Soulgems, and banish itself for effect as well. Since most soulgems have an expected purchasing value of at least one point, you still get ahead when you banish itself.

 

6: Souls Unbound

Monsters getting unbanishable completely changes the game, swinging the balance of play firmly towards military, making big beasts like Tarik, Kythis, and Acidic Crawler inevitable. But the Fantatic effect is really interesting, allowing Soul Gems for everyone, as long as they have the cards to discard. Since it hinders center row cycling, it also tends to stick around longer.

 

5: Beast Staff

A mid-game must buy in my opinion, the free fighting is nice, but it’s the ability where Beast Staff really shines. Cull all your starting cards and it’s 1 money for at least 1 point, possibly more. Combo with top-of-deck manipulation like Honey Siren, Stone Circle Elder, or a Fateful Nook Hound for better results.

 

4: Sabre, the Moonlit

We like to call him Sabrecat, after our friend Sabe, this beast is a big fat Starchild that provides fighting and doubles if you have Unite. Unite is already plenty good; combo him with a Wolf Acolyte or Lionheart for 3 draws, or a Spider Witch for a Soul Gem. Arha Sanctuary, Ogo Rising, and The Great Eclipse all help you make sure you get Unite, in different ways.

 

3: Energy Monk:

Experienced players know how much they can get out of Dream Machine: Bouncing a second construct allows one to play it again, getting it’s ability twice. Energy Monk is a 4 cost hero that brings that with him as its ability, and works on any construct, not just mechana. He’s a lot easier to get into your Deck than Dream Machine, and works great with the new Driller Mark IV. He’s a must buy for Mechana strategies.

 

2: Kythis, Rebel Godling

The new big bad, at 8 beefy fighting and 8 points, and a free Soul Gem every turn, Kythis is awesome. If you get Kythis early enough, you will win. You will outproduce all the other players and get so much good stuff you will be unstoppable. When I Kythis, the Guardian’d into Kythis, Rebel Godling the other day I audibly squeed, and proceeded to win. Kythis is a powerful, powerful card.

 

1: Moment of Clarity

This card is a huge accelerator. A free draw when buying an Enlightened card is massively helpful lategame in chaining points purchases, and the Trophy effect allows military decks to upgrade their apprentices and actually get some purchasing power. Not to be underestimated, this is likely to be the most game-changing event when it flips, and will likely effect everyone at the table.

Rebuilding D&D Adventure Board Games: Encounters

Part II!

 

Castle Ravenloft: 45 Treasure Cards

20 Treasures (12 consumable), 25 Fortunes/Blessings

 

Wrath of Ashardalon: 33 treasure cards

All 33 Treasures, (17 consumable)

 

Legend of Drizzt: 36 treasure cards

20 Treasures (17 consumable), 16 Fortunes

 

The sets have different degrees of relying on Fortunes- Castle Ravenloft relies on them the most, with about 55% of the cards being fortunes. Wrath of Ashardalon has none. Legend of Drizzt has 44%. I’m going to go for a 45 card deck, with this same ratio, which would mean 20 fortune cards.

 

Note that out of the 73 treasures, fully 76% are consumable (including the rechargeable ones from Drizzt). I’m not so keen on this, so we’ll see as the cards get dealt out.

 

For Fortunes, I picked only the best ones, because it sucks to draw one that isn’t useful.

 

Action Surge, Battlefield Promotion, Bolster x3, Brief Rest x2, Burst of Speed, Camp, Daze, Eagle Eyes, Guilded Strikes (Blessing), Intimidating Bellow, Lucky Find, Moment’s Respite x2, Quick Strike, Rejuvenating Onslaught (Blessing), Secret Tunnel, Run! (Blessing)

 

For the 25 Treasures, I decided to go with a more even split on consumable/nonconsumable items. For weapons, I chose the fun ones that people tend to like, got rid of some of the more powerful items (Throwing Shield, Blessed Shield, Bracers of Blinding Strikes), and overly complicated ones (Flying Carpet). So 11 keepers, 14 one-shots.

 

Amulet of Protection, Cat’s Eye Headband, Crossbow of Speed, Dragontooth Pick, Dwarven Hammer, Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Holy Avenger, Necklace of Speed, Ring of Accuracy, Thieves’ Tools, Vorpal Sword.

 

When it comes to one shots, my group tends to really hate the use instead of an attack powers, so I used only the best of those. I regretted not having more space for basic items like healing potions and Scrimshaw Charms- this might be a tweak to later versions of the deck.

 

Box of Caltrops, Dragon’s Breath Elixir, Potion of Healing, Potion of Recovery, Potion of Speed, Pearl of Power, Scrimshaw Charm x2, Scroll of Monster Control, Scroll of Teleportation, Tunnel Map, Wand of Lightning Bolts, Wand of Polymorph, Wand of Teleportation

Rebuilding the D&D Adventure Board Games: Encounters

One of the recent game projects I have is consolidating the components from the various D&D Adventure Boardgames (Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and Legend of Drizzt), into one ‘best of’ set, featuring all the things that are awesomest of each one.

So, the first step is the encounter deck.  I feel the encounter deck has a lot of flavor as to what perils the heroes will run into.  So first, I looked at the various sets and what percentage of the encounter deck corresponded to what kind of card:

Castle Ravenloft: 60 encounter cards

8 Environments (13%)

7 Traps (11%)

15 Attacks (25%)

30 Events (50%)

 

Wrath of Ashardalon- 53 encounter cards

18 Events (34%)

4 Traps, 3 Hazards (13%)

6 Environments (11%)

8 Curses (15%)

14 Attacks (26%)

 

Drizzt- 42 cards

19 Events (45%)

9 Attacks (21%)

6 Traps (14%)

8 Curses (19%)

 

A couple of things noticeable here:

The deck gets smaller each explansion.

Events take up half the deck in Ravenloft, less in Ashardalon, and swing way back up in Drizzt.

Traps and Attacks vary a little bit between sets, but stay pretty close to 12% and 25%.

There are no Curses in Raveloft, and no Environments in Drizzt, and the Curses in Drizzt are lame.

 

The aggregate totals: 155 encounter cards

Events: 67 (43%)

Attacks 37 (24%)

Traps (and Hazards) 20 (13%)

Environments 14 (9%)

Curses 16 (10%)

 

My target deck is going to be 50 cards, with the following layout:

Events 19 (38%)

Attacks 12 (24%)

Traps/Hazards 8 (14%)

Environments 6 (12%)

Curses: 5 (10%)

 

Events

Besieged, Bubbling Cauldron, Cave Fisher’s Lair, Cunning Disguise, Cyrus Belview, Frenzy, Lief Lipsiege, Mists of Terror, Occupied Lair, Overrun, Reinforcements, Revel in Destruction, Rockslide, Thief in the Dark, Treasure Chest, Voice of the Master, Volcanic Explosion, Volcanic Spray x2

 

About a third of the events straight up damage the hero/heroes. (In this set, that’s Besieged, Mists of Terror, Overrun, Rockslide, Volcanic Explosion, and Volcanic Spray)

About a fifth to a fourth of the events bring more monsters into play. (This is Cave Fisher’s Lair, the hilarious Cunning Disguise, Cyrus Belview, Occupied Lair, and Reinforcements)

 

I don’t like most of the ones that give benefits (like do this and draw a card), but people seem to have fun with Treasure Chest and Lief Lipsiege, so those go in.

All of the ‘draw a bunch of cards and look for a certain flavor of monster’ ones got nixed.

 

Attacks

Animated Armor, Concussive Blast, Earthquake, Gray Ooze, Green Slime, Howling Ghost, Lurker’s Strike, King Tomescu’s Portal, Patrina Velikovna, Phalagar’s Lair, Spellweb, Sulfurous Cloud,

 

About a third of the attacks target the active hero, and about half target all heroes on that tile. I wanted to keep this ratio.

(Howling Ghost, King Tomescu’s Portal, Lurker’s Strike, and Grey Ooze are the single-target attacks, and two of them involve movement- fun! Animated Armor, Concussive Blast, Green Slime, Phalagar’s Lair, Spellweb and Sulfurous Cloud are the this-tile attacks. Earthquake and Patrina Velikovna are nasty attack-everyone attacks.)

 

Traps:

Alarm, Crossbow Turret, Force Trap, Poisoned Dart Trap, Rolling Boulder, Sliding Walls, Volcanic Fault, Whirling Blades

My favorite traps are the ones that do more than just damage. These include ones that move around (Rolling Boulder, Whirling Blades) and ones that move heroes about (Force Trap, Sliding Walls). Crossbow Turret is there because you gotta have one really nasty trap.

 

Environments:

Blood Fog, Cackling Skull, Deadly Shadows, Hidden Snipers, Music of the Damned, Surrounded,

The best environments are the ones that encourage people to play differently. Hidden Snipers and Deadly Shadows encourage players to either bunch up or spread out. Cackling Skull makes powers riskier. Blood Fog makes combat deadlier for everyone- it’s just fun. Music of the Damned and Surrounded increase the monster threat level, which means more fighting, which is fun.

 

Curses:

A Gap in the Armor, Bad Luck, Bloodlust, Dragon Fear, Wrath of the Enemy.

These all penalize the hero without being overly unfun.

 

Mark of Lloth just isn’t interesting enough. I’d throw one in the deck, but then it becomes completely boring after triggering.

Fourthbreaker

So, 4th Edition is coming to an end. Fifth Edition is coming up, but no one really knows (not even the designers) what it will actually look like; the design goals seem to be “make everyone happy” and “sell books to everyone,” not necessarily in that order.

 

Which opens the door for the 4th edition retroclones/heartbreakers.

 

While 4th edition was the gorilla in the room, there really wasn’t any point to making a crunchy, tactical gamist game. However, since 5th edition is not going to have focused design, that niche is going to be open. And we can take what we’ve learned from 4th edition (which I think is a lot.)

 

The Best Things About Fourth Edition

*Combat is genuinely fun, and an awesome tactical challenge. The rules fully support this form of play.

*Everyone is awesome. The Role system ensures that everyone has a clearly defined niche to pursue.

*It’s pretty easy on the GM. Encounter budgets are extremely helpful; with an expansive enough list of monster the GM can come up with level appropriate challenges on the fly. The fact that monsters and NPCs are not built with the same rules as players makes them easier for the GM to create. (As a GM who ran an NPC-antagonist intensive 3rd edition game, I can’t convey how important this is.)

 

Worst Things About Fourth Edition

*Too Many Choices in Character Creation. The bloat of powers and feats means that character creation is a time consuming task, even at 1st level, and especially at higher levels. Differentiation between characters is good, however too many choices can make those choices less meaningful (and as the number of powers for each class approaches infinity, the distinction between classes approaches zero). Feat bloat is probably the worst offender here, since some feats are absolutely killer, and others are only small bennies, and this increases the chance of “newbie traps.”

*Too Many Magic Items: Remember when WotC said they didn’t want 4th edition characters to be defined by their gear? High level optimization seems to be all about finding broken gear-feat-power combos. And even if you don’t want to play that way, when making a higher level character, damn do you have a lot of money to figure out how you’re going to spend.

*Too Much Optimization is a Bad Thing. This is the consequence of points one and two. Players who are willing to spend the time to seek out and find these broken combos create characters that are much more effective than those who don’t. And then we lose “Everyone is Awesome.” Optimization is fun, but it can enter brinksmanship levels with the GM, who has to create ever absurder threats to challenge the party (and since we’re in Gamist mode, challenge is absolutely essential.) The harder one optimizes, the harder it is for you to be challenged.

*Combats can drag. During the paragon tier, monster hit points tend to outpace character damage output (which catches up again during the epic tier). I’ve had sessions with combats that took all frigging night (some which were designed to, so those don’t count). Contrast to some low-level sessions where I regularly fit 3 to 4 combats in a single session.

*Some characters don’t have enough choices. Particularly at low level play, a character has two at-wills, an encounter, and a daily. This looked like a lot on paper (especially compared to those 3rd edition characters), but in practice once you use your encounter, you’re choosing between two at wills each turn. And if one of your at-wills is situational, you’re always going to be using the same at-will turn to turn. This is a problem.

*The Skill Challenge system needs work. It’s a solid core, and an innovative idea, but it needs some polish.

Building a Better Fourth:

So, how do we solve these problems?

 

*Replace Powers with Stunts.

Each character has access to a certain number of Stunts, or effects that can be applied to attacks. (A fighter might have “extra damage,” “mark,” and “push.” A wizard might have “area of effect,” “elemental keyword,” and “slow,” for example.) These Stunts have a point cost attached to them. Want to use a Stunt? Spend the points. How do you get these points? X points per encounter is one way, but if different classes got points in different ways, that’s another means of character differentiation.

*Character Class as Ability Menu
Your character class writeup becomes much tighter. It’s a menu of Stunts and other constant abilities, like playbooks in Apocalypse World. You pick a certain number of Stunts off your Class, and get more as you gain levels. Some classes get certain Stunts at cheaper levels than others, and some don’t get access to certain Stunts at all. Our first level fighter might have had a chance to pick from “slow” and “prone,” but have chosen the ones in the above example. The wizard might have been able to pick “ongoing damage (low),” “forced movement,” or “damaging zone.”

*Rotes

You can have a certain combination of stunts that you have locked in. These stunts have been predefined, given a fancy name, and have a reduced point cost to use. These are your signature moves. Yup, you can get a cost down to 0 with this, making it the equivalent of an at-will.

Characters should have at least 3 Rotes to start, giving them potentially 3 at-will options, and on the fly more expensive combinations.

*Feats as something special.

Feats, if present at all, should do something special. Get rid of all the minor feats. But at the same time, make them rarer.

*Players Choose the Level of Challenge

Taking a page out of Land of Wealth and Peril, Beast Hunters, and Sword of the Skull, players have opportunity to choose their level of challenge- and therefore the level of reward! This is an explicit numerical value, not a nebulous “gee, that area was really tough.”

*Fewer, but Cooler Magic Items

Players do not get as many magic items, and high level characters roll for their items, not purchase them. Your magic items give you a cool flourish, instead of you being defined by your kit.