My 2010 gaming wishlist #3: Roleplaying

Looking back
The bad
That definite hankering which came upon me earlier this year gnaws away at me ever more insistently, and yet we didn't get any roleplaying going. Why? Short form: there wasn't enough interest around the table for me to want to change tack with a successful boardgaming group. Long form: well, therein lies the rub.

Readers with more than passing roleplaying experience will be well aware that clashing playstyles and other social dynamics are core issues which can confound a roleplaying group. They are also very personal issues since they arise from the relationships between friends. Tempting as it was therefore to sound off a GM's frustrations here @RD/KA!, I could never escape the realisation that any such roleplayer's bitching in which I felt like indulging should be kept strictly face-to-face. It's only fair after all.

So I was left with the problem of finding a positive way to address the issue of the lessons needful from our previous roleplaying bash. This has proved more than just difficult; it has been quite simply the single most difficult task RD/KA! has set me since I started writing back in 2005. I'm still working on it.

The good
Of course the roleplaying front wasn't all bad in 2009. I enjoyed a fine session in Eberron back in June with the setting's designer Keith Baker when he dropped in on yours truly as part of the first leg of his 'Have Dice, Will Travel' 2009 world tour.

Though a short one-off Keith's guest-GM session was a reminder of everything I like best about roleplaying:

• Vivid and unique settings turning genre conventions on their ear.
  
• Characters: open to game-changing free expression of a sort essentially irrelevant in boardgames' contested structures.
• Stories: not just asides which interpret the gameplay but the whole point of the exercise.

It was good. Thanks again Keith. :0)

Looking forward
"You did what, exactly?"
When our roleplaying does begin in 2010 it'll be with Donald's Outlaws campaign. At the time of writing it looks like this is just going to be a 3-hander- Donald, Tony and I; which is fine by me because the sessions the three of us played were the highlights of Donald's Flashing Blades mini-campaign back in 2005 (cf. 'The Adventures of Felix Mephisto, Gentleman'.)

I'm enjoying this even before it's begun too, because it's given me motiviation sufficient finally to get to work on a long-delayed project: updating my HERO4 player and GM support materials to the standards of the current edition; a project which didn't even get off the ground with HERO5. Expect to hear more soon.

And for my next trick?
With Donald's Outlaws campaign keeping my hand in with HERO6, you'd expect WFRP3 to top my own list of games to GM in 2010. And it does, naturally enough. But it shares that slot with a golden oldie: Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes. Originally published in 1983 by Flying Buffalo, MSPE is a great game of modern-era pulp adventure using the Tunnels and Trolls system.

We had shedloads of fun playing MSPE back in the early 80's. The game also holds a special place in my affections because it was the RPG with which I finally managed to put together a successful plot-driven scenario for a group that included 2 GMs of godlike prowess. The secret of my success was simple: I just ripped off a Hammer Horror movie, added a few twists, and Bob was our uncle. I was delighted, as you can imagine dear readers. Pity about the sequel though...

I've often thought about revisiting that scenario, especially when I was thinking about quick and dirty one-offs I could run for the Sunday group. I recently realised that simply seeking to repeat past glories was pointless; so instead of rerunning the old scenario, I'm going to run a new one in the same style. More in due course.

**********

Happy Hogmany!

New Year festivities being what they are, I'm not sure quite when I'll be updating RD/KA! again. So if it's not until next year, here's wishing a Happy New Year to all my readers. Make 2010 a good one! ;)

**********

Related@RD/KA!
My 2010 gaming wishlist:
- #1: 2009 back at ya!
- #2: Boardgames

The Adventures of Felix Mephisto, Gentleman

Donald ran this back in 2005, using FGU's quirky old game Flashing Blades. It was a lot of fun and some moments stand out as among the best roleplaying sessions I've ever played. :0)

The Adventures of Felix Mephisto, Gentleman:
- Prologue
Part 2:
- Chapter 1. In which: Felix Suffers for his Naiveté
- Chapter 2. In which: Comforts & Clever Contrivances Notwithstanding, Felix just Suffers
- Chapter 3. In which: A Taste of Pain & Poison Gives Felix a Taste for Bloody Vengance
- Chapter 4. In which: A Taste of Power and the Imbecility of Minions Give Felix Pangs of Guilt
- Chapter 5. In which: Conspirators Are Confronted & Confounded, & Felix Receives His Just Reward

My 2010 gaming wishlist #2: Boardgames

Preceding generalities in particular
I have already noted 2 key items on my 2010 boardgaming wishlist:

• More Battlestar Galactica.
• Other FFG games I'm keen to see hit the table in the new year are:

1. Descent- that old favourite, with a new Overlord at the helm.
2. Chaos in the Old World- a new game of which I've not yet got the measure.
3. The imminent Horus Heresy.

• New opponents to expand the sphere of my WW2 tactical gaming.
• Among the more recently published 2009 additions to my collection which I'm keen to play are:

1. Monty's Gamble: Market Garden: an 'area-impulse' game of Monty's ill-fated attempt to go down in history as the 'general who beat the Germans at their own game and brought the war to an end before Christmas'.
2. Panzerblitz Hill of Death: the most famous and popular WW2 tacsim ever, revamped; the 'Hill of Death' was Hill 112, which were the commanding heights of the Normandy battlefield in 1944, and over which the British and Germans fought several bloody battles before the final breakout in August.
   
3. Storm Over Stalingrad: another area-impulse game inspired by Storm Over Arnhem- Courtney F. Allen's groundbreaking 1981 design; which serves to remind us that the legendary Up Front was neither a fluke nor a flash in the pan.

And particularly?
There are 2 other boardgames the depths of which I'd most like to delve into next year. They're not both WW2 games.

Conflict of Heroes
Regular readers will be aware already of the immediate and strongly positive impression made on yours truly by Academy Games' 2009 Origins Award winner- Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear. Obvious sheer enjoyment aside, CoH interests me because it is a solution to the problems- of modelling WW2 battlefield C3i, radically different from that of the tack taken by Chad Jensen in his already successful Combat Commander series and his imminent Fighting Formations. I'm hoping that such conceptual richness will prove as fascinating in reflection as it will no doubt be thrilling in play.

Space Hulk
Space Hulk's presence on my 2010 boardgaming wishlist should surprise no one (although it did me at first, caught up as I was in thoughts of WW2 tacsims!). I have a shiny new edition still awaiting the application of paint; hulking is one of the peak thrills of contemporary boardgaming; and the rich background of GW's 40K Dark Millenium makes this fan favourite a hobbyist's dream.

I will be hulking in 2010. Watch this space! ;)

Related@RD/KA!
My 2010 gaming wishlist:
- #1: 2009 back at ya!
- #3: Roleplaying

My 2010 gaming wishlist #1: 2009 back at ya!

Something I prepared earlier...
Last December I wrote my 2009 gaming wishlist. Looking back at my 3 wishes I can say that 2 were granted:

• Playing Chad Jensen's second big GMT game, Combat Commander: Pacific.
• Getting my teeth into Battlestar Galactica, and all that entailed.

Unfulfilled was my hope of moving beyond tactical games into the realm of WW2 operations with Corps Command: Totensonntag.

Combat Commander: Pacific
Played a mere 7 times after the 2-year onslaught that was Combat Commander: Europe, CC:P is a game whose surface I've barely scratched. What I've seen so far was great:

• 5 games of Scenario A. Grassy Knoll, the highlight of which had to be the 4-game 'Rumble in the Jungle' with 'Uncle' Martin.
  
• 1 banzai at 'Gator Creek, Guadalcanal.
• 1 visit to the sweltering depths of the Burmese jungle.

Of the various rules changes major and minor, just 3 can be said to be revisions to the core system:

• Stacking and cover.
• Instant kill.
• Night rules.

Treatment of national differences aside, the remaining significant rules changes strike me as having a lot to do with:

• Rewriting the way that firepower works differently in the dense jungle terrain.
• Representing the effects of an Allied technical and logistical superiority quantitatively and qualitatively way ahead of any such advantages enjoyed by either side on the western fronts; something I believe underpins, eg. the design rationale of the oft-queried Asset Denied order.

All I can add here is this: Xmas being and/or having been upon us by the time you read here -

festive greetings- dear readers, to everyone whose interest and support has encouraged me here at RD/KA!; who and wherever you are, I knew you were there and really appreciated that, naturally enough

- means that I'll be pressing Badger to play CC:P. More ASAP. :0)

Battlestar Galactica
Writing last December, I hoped that Battlestar Galactica would "get a few plays in 2009." The mere 8 BSG plays that my BGG records show might suggest the barest fulfilment of this hope, but regular readers will already be aware that BSG was the highlight of 2009's multiplayer gaming, at the table and here @RD/KA! both.

Those highlights were:

• That first moment when I rediscovered myself as a Cylon: this was priceless, a psychological twist profoundly expressive of the paranoid tone of the TV show; and proof positive that the art in games is a quotidian reality and not some highfalutin' diversion from the fun.
• The series of write-ups as I grappled with the highs and lows of our games.
• New insight into the cross-media adaptions that epitomise our culture of the fantastic as I caught up with the TV show after experiencing the game into which it had been distilled.

Getting BSG to the table will be a mission of mine in 2010 as it was in 2009. I've added the Pegasus Expansion to my set, so I'm hoping that 2009's BSG highlights will be carried forward into the new year. :-)

Corps Command: Totensonntag
Corps Command: Totensonntag is only the simplest of several other as yet unplayed WW2 tactical and operational wargames that I've added to my collection in the past year. Regular readers'll probably already've noticed that my diet of WW2 gaming was a bit sparse in 2009. Why? Simple enough: Badger's no longer living the deil tak' the hindmost lifestyle of the bachelor. In fact only a couple of weeks ago he whisked his lady off to Berlin for a long weekend and proposed to her. How cool is that? {}

Badger's not about to become some kind of monastic ex-gamer, but it looks like yours truly will have to find a new opponent or two to maintain that regular WW2 tacsim fix familiar here @RD/KA! in recent years. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
My 2009 gaming wishlist:
- #1:- Combat Commander: Pacific
- #2:- Battlestar Galactica
- #3:- Corps Command: Totensonntag
My 2010 gaming wishlist:
- #2: Boardgames
- #3: Roleplaying

Bargain-hunting strikes not once, but twice!

Girls grabs me
When you find a TPB on the shelf with the striking and seductive cover seen left. When comics luminary Brian Michael Bendis blurbs it thus:

"The Luna Brothers are the future of comics and it's happening right now. This book is essential for your collection. My highest recommendation."

And when it's going for half price at the Borders 'Everything Must Go!' closing down sale, what's a man to do? Buy it, naturally enough.

And? In a phrase: I like it!

Ever since the glory days of the anglophone comics renaissance of the early/mid 80's, I've been interested in comics which bring the medium's quintessential narrative strengths to genres other than the costumed superhero. Stories of everyday life are ones which I've yet to see satisfyingly rendered in comic form in a way transcending prose, although that might just be because I've not looked hard enough. Art Spiegelman's Maus is a landmark example showing that comics can deal with the real world as opposed to the heroic world, even if its 'everyday' isn't quite the big lives of small things I had in mind.

The Luna Brothers' Girls scratched this itch to some extent. Without giving too much away, and on the basis of having read just the first TPB, I think it is best described as a contemporary retelling of John Wyndham's famous 1957 SF novel The Midwich Cuckoos. This means that it is about the everyday world- that of small town America in this case, rendered strange by the impossible. Where it scores as quintessentially a comicbook is that the impossible strangeness is of a kind whose impact would be undermined by a simple description; it derives its power from the pictures, in other words.

That's all I have to say about this really good comic for now, expect to add that I expect to catch up with the whole story.

Wolf pack
As Borders' long drawn out death continued I found myself paying what turned out to be my final visit last Saturday. Among the detritus of the last few pickings I was lucky enough to find a pile of Lone Wolf and Cub TPBs.

I first read this seminal comic by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima some 7 years ago, and loved it immediately for its breathless story telling and great art. Even so my collection remained small because, when I thought about buying some more I could never remember which volumes I owned. So I was pretty chuffed on Saturday when I got 7 at half price without a single duplicate!

These TPBs will be prized, read and reread for years to come. I recommend them without reservation to my readers. If you're a stranger to Lone Wolf and Cub, you can check out this #1 Preview over on Dark Horse Comics (you can find the rest of the series previews with a quick search). ;)

'Twas the game session before xmas

None shall pass!
The choice falling to Gav should he choose to appear on Sunday; and with that existing uncertainty- a Saturday night's partying, doubled by overnight snow; Andy, Donald, Tony and myself played some filler while we waited to see if our main game of the day'd be Risk (Revised) or Roborally. We began with Ivanhoe, a game which doesn't see the table as often as it used to because it turned out that it wasn't as universally loved and admired around the table as'd been hitherto believed by yours truly.

Sunday's game- just Andy, Tony and me IIRC, was an example of the tight cardplay which I love so much in Ivanhoe. Tony took a quick early lead on 3 before Andy and I started swapping wins amid the inevitable 'leads to par' of Ivanhoe defensive play. That opening round or two included- IIRC, my loss of a token because I had to withdraw with the Maiden in play.

All those par hands began to mount up so that, when I finally won:

• Andy: 4
• Tony: 3
• Me: 5

- the number of hands we'd played will've been significantly more than the mere 12 the scores account for; half as much again, easy. Nip and tuck, like I said.

Score
Baron 1
Baron Knights 0
:-)

Moving the goalposts?
Gav's impending arrival was confirmed during our visit to the old fields of honour, so Fluxx v.4 came out to while away our wait. This new edition of the classic cardgame of ever-changing rules has only been played here once before- and by Donald not at all, so it was greeted with a measure of anticipation.

The high draw and play rules quickly made their inevitable appearances, both being knocked on the head once or twice to rein-in the gameplay. The Metarule - for each reshuffle: +1 to Draw and Play 'Basic Rules' - had clocked us up to 3; the new Creepers were out in force: it was looking as if we could be in for a long game. Then Tony dropped 'Play All' out of a 21-card hand. Sure enough, he had a winning play from all that and the rest of us folded in the face of his laydown.

Score
Rules 1
Misrules 1
Errata 0
:-\

Still fighting the last war!
Admiration of the twists in the new Fluxx over, it was time for the main event- Risk (Revised). We were 4 the first time we played, so with Donald new to the game this play would again showcase the quickstart rules. These proved excellent as before, getting the game moving and us into the action with the minimum of fuss.

Donald was the first to gain an objective this time, when he seized control of N. America. The game's next significant event was my elimination in round 2. I'm still not sure how it happened, but it was not only amusing, it was strangely exciting because it was a convincing demonstration of the dizzying dynamic of the new Risk.

Tony was next to fall, flattened by Donald. It wasn't to be Donald's night though; Andy went on to win, holding these 3 objectives:

• Europe.
• 8 cities held.
• 10 territories captured in 1 turn.

Just so you know: in Risk (Revised) you don't lose an objective's victory flash should you no longer fulfil its requirements; once gained, they're yours until you're eliminated.

Score
Rules the world 1
Just rules 1
Rules? I don't need no steenkin' rules! 1
Ruled 0
:-]

Fortune favours...
Tony took his leave. Still reeling from the rapid reaction force that is Risk (Revised)- not to mention the shock of a victory by Andy, the rest of us found ourselves with time for a bit of serious filler. Donald was labouring under a cold and therefore didn't feel up to learning anything new, so off to Catan for a game of Settlers it was.

I won with a strong 10VP against Donald and Gav's 7 each. I must admit to some good fortune which hides the close game behind that margin. Investing in Development cards, I was lucky enough to pick up 2 Road Building cards which helped me build that road right along the coast (Red), securing me the Longest Road.

Continuing to buy Development cards I soon found myself with 3 Soldiers. With the Largest Army that gave me, it wasn't long before I was able to raise the city I needed to win.

As I said: to buy 5 Development cards and get 4VP from them is really fortunate, giving 4VP for 15 resources, or 3.75/VP. The only way to get VP cheaper than that is to buy 5 Development cards and get all 5 of the VP cards, which would be extraordinary. Donald and Gav would both've been in the running right to the last if it hadn't been for this good fortune.

Score
Me 2
Andy 1
Tony 1
Donald and Gav 0
;)

"Worse than being talked about?"

The shadow of hindsight- cast by FFG's announcement last Friday 11th of next year's Horus Heresy big box boardgame, has left that 'Cease and desist' letter GW served on BGG looking perhaps a little more than just another 'eccentric' interpretation of fair use on the part of the company's corporate legal lackeys?

Fanciful to suggest this it might be, but when Purple Pawn gaming newsblog staff writer rjstreet pleads that FFG aren't GW- so that he doesn't have to boycott, passing on this shiny new offering of 40K boardgaming goodness; well I can't help but speculate that this act which has enraged so many across those thar intarwebs these past 3 weeks; that this otherwise senseless purge finds its rational kernel in its peculiar echo of the infamous Exterminatus of 40K lore. The apocalyptic overtones of much of the quite justified outrage just adds to the effect.

Could it all've been just a viral marketing scam with a heavy overdose of grotesque irony? Fanciful, as I said; but what most comments seem to have lacked is any serious attempt to grapple with the notion that this decision might serve GW's interests at least as much as it doesn't serve those of the fans.

Mooted machinations- mildly mendacious or merely meretricious, aside: beautiful and intriguing, the game will doubtless prove irresistable to those legions of loyal fans among whom number yours truly, dear readers. The Horus Heresy- long the thematic heart of GW's Dark Millenium, has recently proved itself to be very marketable. I would imagine FFG will find the same. Me? I'm hoping that Horus Heresy will finally give this definitive moment in the Dark Millenium canon the gaming treatment it's long awaited. ;)

Worldbuilding & HERO #1: Brass tacks

Vast open expanses?
Worldbuilding- AKA. subcreation, is an essential feature of roleplaying; a creative endeavour in which many players- GM or otherwise, love to indulge. As readers will be well aware, this places roleplaying games squarely in a cultural trend the 20th century great grandaddy of which is J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. (Map via: geektyrant.)

The history of subcreation in our own culture of the fantastic is not my subject here, but I cannot pass by without mentioning Greg Stafford's Glorantha. Best known as the setting of the RPGs Runequest and HeroQuest, Glorantha is unusual among RPG settings in that it wasn't a gaming setting at all when it was first created; unusual, but not unique- M. A. R. Barker's Tékumel was the same. The only adventure gaming settings I can think of which might rival these extraordinary creations in their subcreationist breadth and depth are GW's Warhammer Old World and 40K Dark Millenium.

"Less is more!"
I touched on this notion when I wrote about James Ellroy, that modern master of the pared-down narrative. Double-checking the inevitable Wiki via google led me to The Phrase Finder, which confirms (circularly or independently? -: I don't know) that this meme of minimalist design was coined in Robert Browning's 1855 poetic dramatic monologue 'Andrea del Sarto'; and that it entered the vernacular as an aphorism of the 20th century architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Less is more. I find the conjunction of poetry and minimalist architecture in the history of this phrase strangely apt:

• Poetry: roleplaying description in its written form is typically prose to be sure, but the oral form aims at the evocative and vibrant immediacy of poetic performance.
• Architecture: simply an apt metaphor for the interweaving of setting and system that is the structure of most RPG's.

That's all very well you might be saying, but where does worldbuilding and HERO come into this? The answer to that lies in 2 minor subsystems of character creation in HERO:

• Everyman skills: HERO's treatment of the familiar RPG notion of learned attributes that anyone of a given time and place can do; AKA. default skills.
  
• Package deals (now Templates): off-the-shelf sets of attributes- innate and/or learned, which define species, social backgrounds, careers and so on; again widely used in other RPGs.

Both these systems offer worldbuilding GMs more than just points of defintion of PC/NPCs; they also offer a simple framework which can be used to define the species and social variegation of the different peoples in the roleplaying settings.

Starting small
The works of Tolkien, Stafford and Barker exemplify the crucial pitfall facing the unwary worldbuilding GM: overdoing it. Where subcreationists of their magisterial ilk can devote serial volumes to their worlds because exposition of such richness is precisely the point, roleplaying GMs labour under tighter constraints: their materials must above all be accessible- players' appetites for reading background material before character creation is limited; and functional- it should contribute to character creation. So far so obvious I guess.

My approach here was inspired by a truism we used to pass around during the heady days of the early 80's when- filled with the twin enthusiasms of youth and of the sheer novelty of our little games, we discussed this new narrative form at great length, subjecting it to detailed dissection and minute analysis. That truism was that all you need to start a roleplaying campaign is an inn and a dark and stormy night.

A practical example: Fantasy/Medieval Everyman
To move from generalities towards something accessible and functional, here is an example I worked up for Donald's long awaited outlaw campaign. Below is a routine Everyman list appropriate to a bog standard Fantasy/Medieval setting:

• Native tongue 4
• Professional Skill: Specify F11-
• Area Knowledge: Homeland F
  
• Acting F
• Climbing F
• Concealment F
• Conversation F
• Deduction F
• Healing F
• Persuasion F
• Shadowing F
• Stealth F
• Transport Familiarity: Specify
• Weapon Familiarity: Clubs
• WF: Fist loads
• WF: Thrown rocks

"F" stands for 'Familiarity'. In HERO, Familiarities are 3d6/8- rolls (that's rolling 3d6 aiming for 8 or less) which cost 1pt each, as opposed to the 3d6/11- rolls costing 3pts which are the average skill in HERO (NB. the Professional Skill F11- is an exception to the 8- rule). Everyman Familiarities are also 'virtual'. That is to say: you get the dice roll for nothing but not the points, which you still have to pay if you want to improve the skill.

So, I have expanded this single list into Fantasy/Medieval Everyman, which gives different Everyman lists for the key social classes in this classic fantasy genre setting. As I noted above, these Everyman lists are useful to GMs and players both, providing as they do:

• An immediate and concise summary of the setting's social structure.
• Plug-and-play templates to speed NPC creation; a task made all the easier with today's software.
• Minor variations sufficient to encourage players to start to think about the decisions character creation entails in the points-build system that is HERO.

This system material could be finished off with short paragraphs of colour text to evoke the social standing of each class: their typical livelihoods, relationships with other classes, and so on. Pictures too would be nice; finding them is trivial in this internet age.

Last words
All the foregoing aside, I like the Everyman rules for another reason: the way they give the power levels of HERO-driven roleplaying campaigns a recognisable foundation in the everyday. This is because of the way skill Familiarities work. Crucial here are the rulings that neither Skill Levels nor complementary skills can be used to aid Familiarity skill checks. Typically then, HERO NPCs equivalent to the old AD&D 0-level NPCs must take extra time to be averagely competent at pretty much anything. I've always thought there's a certain systemic elegance in that. ;)

Underground, overground!

Bones to crunch underfoot, again!
Hotly anticipated by Tony, Donald's choice of Descent for yesterday's Sunday session was sure to be popular. When Liam joined us I knew it was going to prove interesting too: both the dungeon-bashing theme and the detailed systems put Descent outside the realm of the sort of family games that are the staple fare of the casual gamer, so that this would be the most obviously geeky of the games Liam had played chez yours truly.

I became immediately aware of this 'clash of cultures' as setup proceeded. I mean to say, Liam's a fan of that classic family strategy game Risk, so he's had a taste of boardgames which take a wee while to setup. With Risk though, the setup is a part of the game, in which the players determine their strategies. In Descent on the other hand, a similarly lengthy setup is a simple consequence of the sheer wealth of parts.

On top of all that there were the rules. Liam drew a hero and skills from the decks; I gave him as concise a rundown of the key attributes as I could manage; and helped him tool up. I noticed his eyes glaze over just about when Liam himself knew he could absorb no more: it was time to get stuck in and learn by doing.

We were playing 'Quest 2: the Brothers Durnog', so our goal was to slay Munkar and Nakir, the elder brothers of Narthak, who we slew the last time we played. Our 3 brave adventurers this time were:

• Lyssa: Liam.
• Spiritspeaker Mok: Tony.
• Trenloe the Strong: me.

The tale of our 3 would-be heroes was short and painful; one not destined to be celebrated by the bards, except perhaps for the sake of comedy. The picture below shows that we didn't even get into the first room (well OK, Spiritseeker Mok's pet weasels did, but that's no consolation really).

Liam surveys the scene in shock and horror while Tony has a wry 'been there, done that' look on his face

Lyssa killed once already, we got halfway up the corridor with Trenloe the Strong- the party tank, leading the way; beat a hasty retreat for tactical reasons; then set off again. Donald decided it was time to bring up the giant for some serious thwackage, which was duly delivered. Half-dead and stunned, Trenloe could only swig a healing potion and stagger back down the corridor in the faint hope of survival- his death would be enough to give the game to Donald. Unfortunately Trenloe fell into a spiked pit, there to be finished off by a deadly one-two from the giant and a dark priest.

Score
Evil? One? 1
Nous? Nah 0
:-/

Afterthoughts

As ever, humiliating defeat notwithstanding, I had a great time. The perfectly crafted tactical dungeonbash, Descent is one of those games I just love to play. I think Liam was a bit taken aback by the might of the giant, and by the brutality of Trenloe's demise which brought the game to such a sudden end. I imagine this would've been a unique boardgaming experience for him.

Commenting on the game, Liam made the obvious remark about not knowing the strategies. More interestingly, he noted that he'd never before played a boardgame in which players were cooperating towards a common goal instead of pursuing their individual victories. The rest of us are already familiar with cooperative gaming from roleplaying and from boardgames like Battlestar Galactica, so it was interesting that someone would find this the most striking feature of Descent on their first play.

Not so evil, but still an Overlord
Our efforts at Descent were so feeble that we were left with a surprising amount of time for another game. What else was there to do but to introduce Liam to the queen of the Eurogame: Settlers of Catan?

Fate wasn't kind to Donald as it had been last week, and his curses rent the air as dice throw after dice throw left him without resources. Meanwhile, Liam took an early lead when he grabbed the Longest Road. Donald was able to take it off him, and the pair contested these 2VP into the endgame.

Elsewhere, my development was going quite well and I'd managed to pick up 2 VP cards, which left me feeling quietly confident. For his part, Tony had a strong lumber resource base coupled with the 2-1 lumber port, so that his colony was thriving.

The endgame saw me make and repeat a mistake which could've cost me the game: sitting on 9VP I chose to spend my ore and grain on Development cards in search of an elusive VP card. Of course, I should've kept those resources for that city which'd've won me the game for sure. In my last turn I'd built a couple of roads so as to make a play for the Longest Road, and was about to play Year of Plenty to build another when I was struck by a sudden realisation: I could use the 2 free resources to build a city and win, right there and then. D'oh!

I was lucky I spotted that one when I did: Tony was sitting on a play that'd've given him the game with 11VP on the very next turn!

Score
Overweening Overlord 1
Crazed colonialist 1
Spear-chuckers 0
:0)

Afterthoughts
Liam found Settlers much easier to grasp, as you'd expect. He was unlucky to get caught up in one of those competitions for the Longest Road which can so easily distract you from developing your colony; but he was smart enough to see the strategic implications of this in the post-game discussion. Overall, he seemed to enjoy it quite a lot. As I said before, he'll be back! ;)

Curiouser and curiouser

Flashbacks from a cartoon robot TV
Last weekend's Sunday session – Andy, Donald and Gav making us four – opened with Andy's due choice (my preferred of his last call from 2 IIRC)- Roborally. Preferred it might've been, but the prospect of playing this early Richard Garfield design filled me with a perplexing mixture of anticipation and reluctance. I'm pretty sure that latter sentiment was mostly down to all the lengthy games I've lost against 'Uncle' Martin. What was perplexing was the strength of that sentiment, even if it was only momentary. Let me explain.

My Roborally@BGG stats notwithstanding, I've played this game an awful lot; so much so that my set is pretty worn, the program cards especially- as was noted on Sunday. So I like it a lot. More than that: in a very real sense my fondness for Roborally surpasses my grognard's passion for the WW2 tactical boardgames I love so much to play. The comedy of errors that is Roborally gameplay plays a big role in this, naturally enough; but the game haunts this gaming geek's imagination for one reason above all: Twonky.

Meeting the Twonky (inspired by the 1953 comedy SF movie of the same name; and- on a somewhat wackier note, here too with clips!) back in the late 90's was like a bolt out of the blue for yours truly. Strange to relate, that little robot TV spoke to me with force and immediacy of the ilk I'd experienced when I was creating my favourite dark-night stalker- Katana, all those years ago. I was bewitched by the Twonky's sardonically quizzical expression and it became more than just a playing piece- it became my in-game avatar; and that in a game in which the playing pieces are functionally identical.

All of which might sound peculiar, but it makes perfect sense if you accept the proposition that games are indeed art. Following that line of argument it is easy to suggest that games access the same depths of the unconscious identity as do other art forms, albeit perhaps much less predictably.

What went down
Andy chose the boards and their layout; then- a dash of random selection later, we were ready to race across the factory floor seen below (Twonky marks the start).

Andy, Donald and Gav selected their bots:

• Andy: Zoombot.
• Donald: Hulk X-90.
• Gav: Spinbot.

And we were off.

The events of the game were quite straightforward:

• Twonky got off to a good start, quickly tagging the 1st flag then making a clean getaway.
• Zoombot, Hulk X-90 and Spinbot weren't so fortunate, getting tangled up in bouts of shoving and counter-shoving which cost at least 1 bot a life.
• The result was that Twonky had negotiated the difficult corner belts around the 2nd flag long before the others were making their exits from the 1st flag; this lead was to prove unassailable, and I won comfortably.

Score
Linux OS 1
Windows Vistas 0

Afterthoughts
This game was something of a revelation to me. It reminded me how much I like Roborally, and of how and why that liking is tied up with something which has little or nothing to do with how the game actually works.

The game was also educational for the lads. I had explained the principles of flag placement at least once before, to no avail. This time was different. The sight of Twonky haring off into the distance was enough to convince people of the importance of careful flag placement to determine the kind of race you want to run. I've got a taste for some more Roborally fun in the near future, so people might get a chance to exercise these new insights sooner rather than later.

There were also a few rules issues which came up:

• Checkpoints: "should not be placed in a corner formed by 2 or more walls", Roborally Operating Manual, p.9.
• Wrenches, repairs and options:

1. Drawing an option on a 1-wrench square, or 2 options on a 2-wrench square-'Turbo Wrenches' option, Armed and Dangerous, p.2.
2. The bit about 1 repair and 1 option on a 2-wrench square was a houserule, but it's also an official rule of the new Roborally (p.8).

• Retaining program cards while powered down for the sake of possible locked registers: explained in the Roborally.com FAQ; which notes this is official and "an actual modification to the rules".

That's all she wrote. :0)

Back from the future
Awed by the preceding display of my programing prowess, our tricky trio decided to scupper me by taking us back to a time when there was no electricity, the ever-popular Settlers.

I started with a slightly subpar resource base and needed a key build for which I was in close competition with Gav. Resource roll followed trading request without Gav getting what he needed, and with me heaving silent sighs of relief each time (I didn't want to telegraph anything). Eventually I managed to get my build so that Gav's development was cut off. In the face of his defeatist wails of despair, I reminded him that I'd come back only recently from a similarly bad situation.

Meanwhile Donald was powering ahead on the other side of the island. We entered the endgame with Donald in the lead and Gav and I snapping at his heels. I invested in some Development cards in the hopes of seizing a quick win with VP cards, but to no avail. The relentless advance of Donald's mighty resource base proved unstoppable in the end:

• Donald: 10.
• Gav: 9.
• Me: 9 (including 2VP).
  
• Andy: 7.

Manic machine 1
Dauntless dwarves 1
Abacus-powered goats 0
;)

More than mere marginalia

Just do it!

Participate: The revolution of fan culture. from lori on Vimeo.

The creator of this video is a friend of my old sparring partner Badger, who tells me that it is a student exercise. The video has no authorial overview and is a bit short on analysis, but the interviews more or less speak for themselves so that the end result is well worth watching. I found the video particularly interesting because I believe that the advent of the shared narrative of RPGs' was a pivotal moment in the development of the participatory culture lori takes as her subject.

In a pleasant coincidence, hard at a curry cook-up last week I listened to Paul Merton's The House That Jazz Built on BBC R4 (last chance to listen again Sat. 12/12/09). Fascinating in its own right, this documentary about Ronnie Scott's world famous London jazz club proved apposite because of its reference to the egalitarian ethos of the jazz scene in the early postwar days; an ethos in which the barriers between creator and audience were permeable in a way which immediately reminded me of lori's video. This parallel is doubly apt because some roleplayers like to use the metaphor of a jazz band's jam session to convey the nature of a roleplaying session.

Lori also has her own cartoon blog: Kids Watch Too Much TV (neat title!).
This strip speaks to my geeky heart!

No end of fun!
A recent Stumble! brought me to a page where I could make my own animated snowflake. Something about this was strangely familiar. Sure enough, this was another nifty internet timewaster by Ze Frank, whose Drawtoy featured @RD/KA! in September.

Just as with Drawtoy, this apparently pointless exercise could be of some use to roleplayers. For example, I can easily imagine images like this being returned by a hyperspace scanner; on the grounds that- relative to realspace, hyperspace demonstrates [technobabble]unstable post-fractal geometries and unpredictable spacetime inversions driven by wormhole hyper-tunnelling [/technobabble]. ;)