Gaming over the weekend...

So, I did quite a bit of gaming this weekend. Here is what happened.

Friday night. Star Wars D6 system

So +Jacob Poss  ran a Star Wars one shot on Friday night. It has been over a decade since I have played this game. I have very fond memories as it had one of my favorite characters of all time…Janus Darklighter. A bad ass Jedi that kicked ass and took names.

So, Jacob started by asking who are favorite star wars characters were. Mine is Wedge Antilles. Survive TWO Death Star runs, leader of Rogue Squadron and in the books helped take down Coruscant!

So, I played the brash pilot template. I had an A-Wing and we also had a Jedi, a tracker, and a fighter droid. We were sent to find certain pirates and get rid of them.

I got to have a cool scene where I kicked pirate ass that were flying Z-95 headhunters (I know, right?). I flew circles around them, killed a few, and then talked the rest out of fighting me, because they would just end up dead.

Things went wrong as soon as I got OUT of my ship. Starting rolling 1’s on the D6 (which meant you are screwed basically). Got shot a bit, could not fight worth a damn and was saved by a teammate that just blew everyone to hell with bombs. The poor Jedi? Was left behind for the most part and had a very passive role in the game.

Saturday Slot 1. The Quiet Year prep for an Apocalypse World game

So, we decided to run a session of The Quiet Year in prep for our AW game coming up at the Gasp Day in Pittsburgh. The people I have talked to about this never really gave this idea much of a chance, saying it was not the best way to setup the other game. That is fine, I went to people for their opinions and they gave them.  If you want to know a bit more about the Quiet Year, go here. As I am not going to talk much about the game itself. I already did on a previous post. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/110152/The-Quiet-Year

But the game went well, as we created a post-apocalyptic world based in Pittsburgh.  It was a nice start to our AW game I think. The map is built out and there are a ton of NPC’s in the game. Or we can choose to play any of them ourselves of course. But needless to say there are plenty of things in the world that won’t like us. A chopper gang roaming the roads, a Hocus that is trying to get followers, the Frost Shepherds, a militant religious order. Just to name a few.

I still it to be a great start to our game.

Slot 2. Dungeon World.

So, I decided to change my character from a fighter to a thief. I am just much more comfortable with this type of character and the game finally lived up to it hype as the session was oh my god, fun! We had a ranger with a demented cat, a halfing druid, a barbarian, and my thief.

The funny thing is that between my backstory and how the session started for me; somehow my thief got caught stealing, not once, but twice. Hmmm. 

So I was inside a mountain, trying to find a talisman for the god Akatar, and started out being captured by kobolds. I know, right? I was rescued by the others and they had found the Heartstone in the previous session and were trying to escape. We then met with the Kobold King, whom turned into a really angry fire creature and tried to smite us. While the fight was going on, I found the talisman and some loot and helped in the battle (or tried I kept rolling poorly). Eventually the creature was taken out and the barbarian became their king. This was really cool and he now has two followers that give him a 3 armor and 3 extra damage in battle. Awesome! We eventually got out of the mountain; I stole the heartstone from the druid and ran. In the most awesome moment I have seen in gaming in a while, the druid changed into a bird chased me down. When he found me, he dove towards me and shifted into a bear. In MID air! Also, he made the transformer noise to go along with it, which had me laughing for about 5 minutes afterward. Needless to say, I gave the stone back and then they finished their mission. Also, we were attacked by ratmen, as I was misled as to the type of deity the amulet was actually for. We took them out with good teamwork.

This was so much fun and I cannot wait to run it again.

Slot 3. Tabletop Blockbuster

So, my friends +John Sheldon and +Brianna Sheldon are making their own game. It is a genreless game that really showcases what an action movie would be like. I have played it three times now in different levels of playtesting and we have been in ww2 setting as super soldiers, a fantasy setting fighting dinosaurs, and this time? A merc group sent into the Korean War to find an occult item of some power.

I am not going to into the system much here, mostly due to the fact that it is still being playtested. But you have power/weapons which give you d6, and then you add relevant skills to it to add more. Then you roll a crapload of dice to see what happens. 5 and 6 are successes and you compare it to what the Gm rolled for the result.

You then create your character by choosing attributes, powers, skills, weapons, and trait.

What makes this game so much is just how actiony it feels. Our three characters were a vampire, The Sarge, and my character the Tank. Nicolas the vampire was the Dracula type, not to be confused with the sparkly, pansy ass vampires of our current age.  The Sarge was the grizzled old veteran driving our awesome military vehicle aptly named the Hammerhead. I was a big dude, with even bigger guns and armor.

There is also a mechanic that allows you to define things in the world, and another to allow you to re-roll missed dice. Very Fate Point in some ways, but nicely added.

One phenomenal thing this game does it that it allows the players to support each other in a way that is amazingly effective…and kickass at the same time. First the Sarge had a power that gave us a bonus if he gave a motivational speech. When he activates this as long as we are near him, we automatically get 3 extra dice to use on our roll. Next, if the Sarge knows I am tussling with that uber werewolf (which I was), he can say he is helping me by distracting it with grenades or something. He the rolls and the amount of successes he gets are added to may roll. Think about that for a second. My character already started with 12 dice (weapon+attributes), plus the 3 dice for the speech. Now I would get however many more dice if he succeeded the roll.

Holy hell, I had so many dice in my hands.

So, he would set things like that up. My character would do things like kick doors down and say cheesy one line. Bad ones like when the Sarge was worried that we were fighting werewolves, I turned to the “camera” and say while lock and loading my gun, “It’s ok, they all bleed the same Sarge”. It was like that all game long and awesome.

I am excited about his game. One because it is fun to play. Two because John and Brie are really good at taking feedback about their game. Everyone says they want honest input, but a lot of people then get offended that you dared say something bad about their creation. Seriously? I have seen the game improve from the first playtest they did back fall/winter. They go about this the right way and actually listen to what people say. Which to me is a no-brainer, but enough people don’t do that that it is nice to see when people actually do.

One last thing, I got to play with +Stras Acimovic twice yesterday and it is always a great experience. So much freaking energy and creativity is brought to any game by Stras. Great stuff.

A gaming update...

An update on things going on in my gaming world.

Hangouts. I have not done much of this lately as my life got super busy in the last month or so. I would still like to get some Fate Core in, and am planning on running Dragon Age and Dungeon World soon. The community I started is still going well. You can check it out here. https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101466247068767710475

I am still trying to find ways to make it better, but that is kind of slow going.

Gaming. Have done a bit of gaming on the weekends, which will continue this weekend at the Gasp gameday here In Pittsburgh.  Going to play a bit of setup for Apocalypse world using The quiet year, then on to Dungeon World and last either some Fate Core, or playtesting a game friends are making.

Fistful of Fate.  I just recently started working on this hack again. There is some interest out there and am trying figure out a good way to do a gunfight (high noon style).  I have made a few of the “classes”, so I am ready to move on with this.

Kushara’s Fate.  I have not done much on our game in the last few months.  Time has been crazy and I have sitting back and watching all the Fate hacks out there.

I do have to say this. I am wondering how much of Fate I actually want to use at this point. The aspects and skills are something I still like. Although I want to change how the skills work since I am a bit tired of the pyramid. It works, but I just want to see something different. Which is why when I played a dragonriding Fate Core game over the weekend, I was surprised to see it did a lot of the same things I was thinking. I am not going to elaborate on that as I don’t want to say too much about his game, but we had a lot of the same ideas.

This is making me wonder if I have waited too long to really make a Fate game? Everyone is hacking it to death and every time I think I have cool idea, I see that someone else has had the same idea. This doesn’t mean I have given up on the idea, but I just want to think hard about how much of it I want to use. There is still a large part of me that wants to use some other kind of dice mechanics (not that I know what), but we shall see.

Either way, I think it is time to start working on the setting itself. We can do that as we figure out what we want to do with the game.

So, I ran a one-shot of Dungeon World last night

So, I ran a session of Dungeon World last night and it was a mixed bag. 

I am still trying to get into the flow of this game. I enjoy it, but there is an amount of flow that you have to have for it to work. I got there eventually, but with only two players it felt kind of forced at times.

Not to mention, one of the players had really bad connection issues, which ended the game before the climax. Not his fault, mind you. :)

The bard and the ranger were sent by the High Priest of Avacyn (goddess of justice) to find the holy amulet that was stolen. Clues led them to a thieves guild that had a tattoo of a tear drop above their left eye. It was common knowledge that they were bad ass to say the least, and those that messed with them ended up with the fishes.

While in the city of Westin, they managed to piss off two different thieves guilds, fight off some thugs of one guild, and get taken by the city watch. Well, the city watch showed up as there were four dead bodies at their feet. The watch commander Celeste gave them a choice. Repair the damage done to the thieves guild or hang by a rope. She was afraid it could be open warfare if this was not resolved. She sent her second in command Johan to keep an eye on them. 

Information was gathered and it was discovered that thieves hung out at two bars. The Dragon Inn, and the Hog's Head. They brazenly walked into the Hog’s Head (after a joke about Butterbeer) bar with the member of the watch and all hell broke loose. You see, Johann was a bit corrupt and had tormented his share of people in the city. As they walked in, they immediately were surrounded and they had a choice. Save Johann, or escape. They tried to save him, and a fight broke out.

Yet, in the middle of the fight, the ranger had another choice...save his buddy the bard or save Johan. He turned in his back on the watchman and he died as a result. They were able to get out of the bar and go to the temple of Avacyn for sanctuary and a much needed rest.

This is where the game ended as one of the players dropped out due to a bad connection.
Unfortunately, we did not get to the finale as Celeste was going to come to the temple of Avacyn (with a couple of watchmen) after hearing what had happened to Johann. She was going to be enraged at the death of Johann (since he was he lover), cut the priestess down and attempt to murdereize our heroes. :)

Overall, fun. I need to read the book again and just do a better job of running the game, but not bad for my first time. I also think they had fun, which is the most important part. :)

Thoughts on running the game. It is certainly an adjustment to run this kind of game. I play games where there is a bit of narrative, but not many that really depend on it…almost like a mechanic. Two people made it harder for me as I had a hard time coming up with questions at the beginning. It is mostly just me getting used to how it runs/plays, rather than a problem with the game.

I did get into the flow after a bit and the game is a lot of fun. I just think I need to read the book again and be a bit more prepared next time. I did this on a whim last night, but it was fun and that is the point.

Gaming yesterday...

So, yesterday I went to the game day in Pittsburgh.

It is a monthly event that you pay five bucks and can play 3 games over 12 hours. Considering I don’t really have a gaming group now, this is a must for me to get to each month.

As usual, it was a lot of fun.

Game one. The Quiet Year. It is hard to explain this game. You play a community instead of a character. You draw a map and throughout the game, you are adding details to it, making the world up as you go. May be more of a card game than rpg, but it has elements of both. Either way, it was a blast to play.

There are four seasons (starting with spring), and each of them have 13 cards. Each turn, you draw a card and do what it says. It can tell you to create a project (or destroy one), or make a new location. There was a bit of variety in what you could do when drawing the car. Then on the same turn you can also do an action. Which was start a discussion in the community about something, start a project, or create something new in the world.

By the time you are done, you have this complexly filled out map and have resolved quite a bit. The interesting thing is when you get to winter, there is a card called the Frost Shepherds. Once that card is drawn, the game is over. So, you have a 1 and 13 chance of that happening when you start winter.

The cool idea was that we can play a session of this game next month, and use it is a basis to play an Apocalypse World game. I thought the idea brilliant.

Game two. Dungeon World.  I have been excited about this one for a while. I got the book this week, which was perfect timing for the game this weekend. I like how it starts with the GM asking questions to everyone, therefore creating the world a bit. You background, what is the name of that forest, why do you have bonds with other character. Things like that. It is a lot of fun to start playing.

I am still struggling with one aspect of the game.

There are not turns, so if you are someone that doesn’t step up to do things, you can feel left out.  I normally do not play fighters, so I was a little apprehensive about how to play it. That is my own issue and not the games fault.

It was one of the oddest sessions I have played in a long time. There was: butterflies, shapeshifting, unicorns, a living dungeon, a barbarian that thinks HE is civilized one, a panther named kitty that did more damage to the ranger than anything else did, and lot of blood and puss that anyone every wanted to have anything to do with. Very odd, but still a lot of fun.

Game three. Ghost Lines.

Ghost Lines is created by John Harper. It is hack of Apocalypse World by Vincent Baker. Harper made another game I very much want to play called Lady Blackbird.

Anyways, so the game is that you are A Bull. Someone who travels the train lines fighting ghosts. It is the only way for people to travel, and someone has to do it right?

The idea is very cool and the game was fun. The only problem I had was I was getting tired by this time and don’t think I played as well as I could have. Not to mention, my dice hated me. J

Since there were only two of us playing, it was very fast. But the problem was that my character was more of observer, and other character was someone that actually trapped the ghost. By the time we got to the end, it was obvious we were in trouble because neither one of us really were fighters.

So the train was out of control as ghosts had taken over the train. We got into the last fight and tried to keep the train from crashing. We did ok at first as my character was wiping out the minions and the other character was taking care of the bad ass ghost.

Then things started going wrong, also known as rolling poorly.

We ended up failing our last six rolls, taking damage and eventually the train crashed into the imperial city and we died.

It was a lot of fun to play. I think you need four people to play it right, as the roles of the game would work better then. But overall, it was a good hack of AW.

Dungeon World the review

So, I finally got my copy of Dungeon World yesterday and here is my review of the book.

Part 1 The Game itself

It has been a long damn time since I have wanted to dungeon crawl. I just don’t play those kinds of games anymore and there are a lot of people out there that do. So, bully for them. But my point is that after I burned out on Dungeons and Dragons, this kind of game never even reached my radar. I was more into the story telling games like Fate.

Then I played the game once about 7 months ago and the narrative control amazed me, and the fact that it was so close setting wise to how D&D was, became irrelevant. The fact that it is such a rules light game also appeals to me since this is why I don’t want to play games like Burning Wheel due to how crunchy those games are.

Part 2 Playing the game

2D6. is what your roll to accomplish things in the game. Yes, you may have to roll a different die for damage, but the basic component is that you roll 2D6.

You have the basic attributes like D&D. Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, Wisdom, and Intelligence. Depending on what your score is, you can get a bonus to your roll.

When you are trying to do something you roll the 2d6, and one of the following happen:

On a 10+ You accomplish your task with little trouble

On a 7-9 You accomplish your task but with complications or trouble

On a 6 or lower you fail and the Gm tells you what happens and then mark XP

There are basic moves like hack and slash (roll+STR bonus), Volley (roll +Dex bonus, Spout Lore (Roll +INT bonus, Discern realities (Roll + Wis bonus) Defend a character (Roll + Con bonus), or Parley with an npc (Roll + Cha bonus).

The other thing that you do is defy danger. When your character acts despite an imminent threat, you say how you deal with it and roll.  For example, to dodge, you would use Dex. To hold on the edge of a cliff could be +Con. And so on.

Oh, and did I mention that the GM never rolls a dice. Not once. Craziness!

Part 3 Character types

This is nothing new to you. The classes are Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Thief, and Wizard.

I don’t need to say what these are, but each has its own starting moves, such as picking locks, spellcasting, shapeshifting, a signature weapons, and hunt and tracking to name a few.  You also can get racial benefits since you can play human, elf, dwarf, or halfing.

You also have bonds with the other players in the game that can be resolved and get xp, but more than that it is a way to get you connected with the rest of the party. I like this quite a bit.

Part 4 The Gm

The Gm has moves as well. They could be as simple as enemies, or a trap. But when the player does not make the roll, the Gm can cause some problems for the player. They could separate the players or even make them lose resources…or my favorite reveal an unwelcome truth.

This is just a small sampling of what they can do, but their job is to keep the story going. When the players decided to do something, they make a roll. Depending on the roll, the GM then looks at their lists of moves and chooses something like mentioned above.

After the first session, the GM then starts creating something called Fronts. Simply it is secret knowledge of dangers and threats for the players.  Things that the player care about and get used against them.  Fronts allow the GM to organize GM’s thoughts their thoughts to create the opposition.

There is good advice here is to how to get this started. By the time you are done you would be able to have Fronts created along with threats, places, people, etc. It was cool to read.

Part 6 The World/Monsters

The first part of this was creating steadings, towns, ect. It is very simple and I love how easy DW makes it to create the world you are playing in. You take a map and start with a few locations and off you go creating the world.

The steading creation gives you a lot of options on how to go about it.

Then there are the monsters that are stated out. Enough for you to definitely get going in the game.

Part 7 Advanced delving

One of the best things about this game is how hackable it is. People take the basic game play and then just go nuts with it. This chapter gives advice on how to create moves, classes, races, etc.

There is some great advice here and I am personally looking forward to doing that at some point.

The overview

Overall, this book is awesome. It is damn hard to make a game where I actually want to dungeon crawl again, and the rules are easy enough for new players to jump in and get going. Sometimes you just need to make things easier to really gain complexity. That is how this game feels. It is so damn simple to see, but there is so much you can do.

It takes everything I used to love about D&D, but only better. I heard someone say the other day that this is the D&D they want to play. 

I agree.

Game on!

Dungeon World!

So, I have been going crazy lately with seeing all of the people on Google + getting their copies of the game. This is a game I am very excited about and the fact that something could even make me want to play a dungeon-crawl game is something that still surprises me every time I think about it.

Here is said book that was delivered today.

I played it once about 7 months ago or so at a gaming day in Pittsburgh. The funny thing is that I was wandering around looking for something to play and someone asked me if I wanted to play this.

I did not.

One listen told me it was too much like Dungeons and Dragons, which I had no interest in playing. It is possible I still have issues with D&D that I have not quite completely dealt with.

So, after getting talked into it, we took off and played the game.

I played a cleric. This is significant because I had not played any type of magic user in about 20 years. All stemming from an awful experience the very first time I played the game. So, I was a cleric of Thor and the narrative gameplay just blew me away.



Now, I finally got the book and am excited to play it again and then I want to run it as well.

It is good to be excited.

Gaming yesterday at OH Nerd.

So, yesterday I went to an event in Columbus, OH, called Nerd OH. It was an all-day gaming event that started ta 12. They also had board games on Friday, and a discussion about game design today. I got a ride from someone I know in Pittsburgh, and we could not stay for the last part. Even if we really wanted too. This was a last minute thing, so I did not have much time to prepare, and then off we went yesterday morning.

So, the first odd thing. When we got there, the person running it was someone I knew back when I lived in NYC named Aaron. We were part of a group called Nerdnyc (which it still is active today and if you live in NYC and want to game…look them up), and it was just bizarre to run into someone in Ohio. It blew both of our minds and he is a really good guy.

So, Aaron ran our first game of the day…Burning Wheel. I cannot say I am a huge fan of this system. I do really enjoy Mouse Guard, which is based on the system, but this one does not work for me. That isn’t saying we did not have a good time, cuz we did. But the system is a bit took clunky for me and I never really connected with it. Not to mention on one of the Gasp days here in Pitt, I tried to join a campaign of this game. After four hours we did not even finish character creation and if that is the case? It isn’t a game I want to play. It was still fun and there many moments of laughter, but BW is not for me.

The second game was Apocalypse World. I really did this game and its rules (which are also the rules for Dungeon World). This can be a gritty game and can turn kind of ugly really quick depending on whom was running it. The person I came up with and I had already had conversations about what our “triggers” are for games. What will make us want to stop playing them? One thing the GM did that was great was the X card. If someone got too bothered by what happened, they could pick up the card and the story would then veer from whatever was taking it in that direction. I have seen this a few times, but it was still a cool thing to see.

The game itself did not work out as we wished, but only due to running out of time. It does take a little while to make characters in the game and we just ran out of time. What we played was fun and it is something I would love to play again.

The last game I played with Cthulhu Dark. This is a d6 light rules game for one of my favorite mythos. That game itself was ok, but it did derail at the end when we had to kill the person that was taken over by the ancient Chinese sorcerer. I am never a fan of Cthulhu when the end result is that you are just attacking them with weapons. Don’t get me wrong, the game was fun and the GM did a good job of the setting (887 A.D. we were monks and Vikings). Just it did fall apart a bit at the end. Still, with Cthulhu, all is good.

I do wish they would have played Fiasco. The person I came with has written a fairy tell setting for this that is just awesome. We played it last week and it would have been a great ending to the night. Or that I could have gotten into the Monsterhearts game. :)

Saying that, it was a blast. I got to play three games I have never played before. Which is always awesome. I also picked up Tracy Barnett’s game School Daze, cuz it was so damn cheap. So, I will be reading that one soon.

Lastly, it was also cool to get to know this new person that came into my life. That was not meant in a creepy way since she is married. But we gamed together last week and spent almost 7 hours in the car talking on the way there and back. It is always a good thing to get to know new people. Making new friends and all that jazz. She is a very nice (even if she doesn’t like to admit it) and the hours went by without either of us really annoying each other. Which is saying something, cuz I can be damn annoying after being trapped in a car for more than about 10 minutes. 

Game day!

My thoughts on yesterday's gaming.

It was nice to get back into it, I have not done as much as I would like in the last few years. 

Game 1. Mouse Guard. I have actually wanted to play this for some time, and even owned it before the awfulness of my storage unit happened and I lost over 800 books. 

The game appeals to me, cuz I like to play the characters that are fighting for a cause or against evil. Making the character was actually fun, and that is how it starts. Making a character SHOULD be fun. 

Saying, that, we got our asses kicked. I played a scout that took too many skills in pathfinding, and not enough in scout. Duh! After 30 minues, one mouse almost dead, one lost, and one robbed and chasing (badly) bandits through the forest.

Game 2. Dungeon World. This is a hack of Apocalypse world (which I want to play). I do NOT like D&D, so when it had some of the same spells and components, initially I was not thrilled. But it is a story game for the most part, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I played a cleric named Wesley "the hammer", and it was fun smiting the undead. Also, I got to kill the evil cleric Sheldar the Cooper (in one strike also), Raj the unholy, and the dreaded wizard Wolowitz.

I also bought a couple of games, since they were so cheap from the vendor at the gaming place. Mouse guard, and Dragon Age. Reviews of both of these game will be forthcoming.

I also, have finally gotten Bulldogs! Which I will review, once I have read it.

I had a lot of fun, and may have even found a few players for our local group. :)