Confessions of a one-time would-be career gamer

“He’s not dead yet!”

By the power of
necromancy!

Emerging later than usual from the incommunicado of the long darkness of my annual slough of despond, I found myself drawn back into social networking via BoardGameGeek, as is my wont. One thread which attracted my attention was Deep or Wide: What kind of wargamer are you?, to which I added my tuppenceworth, you can be sure (deep, as we shall see). Before I knew where I was I’d been prompted to make an unexpected return to the keyboard for the benefit of my readers here at RD/KA!.

Never mind the depth, feel the width?

The original and
still the best?

‘Deep’ play- ie. playing a game many times to experience the full breadth of its content and to master its nuances, has been a strong characteristic of my gaming geek since I was a young adult. A quick survey of my 10 most played games shows how strong. Look at my 5 all-time favourite wargames:

September games round-up: not writing, gaming!

Getting back on track

Write-ups of gaming sessions have been a staple here at RD/KA! since the earliest days (the first use of the ‘got game’ label dates to my 5th post back in August 2005, and the label itself is second only to ‘boardgames’ as the most used label). As well as being satisfying to write, these posts have also driven the development of my use of graphics on the blog, which in turn means that they have been the engine of my learning how to use the GIMP. These posts don’t come without their problems:

• They’ve taken ever longer to prepare the more graphic-intensive they’ve become.
• Writing them is very much ‘of the moment’; ie. they have to be written very soon after the gaming session, when my memory is fresh.
• Taking notes during a game- for the sake of adding detail to a session write-up, can be more than just distracting: it can also disrupt my enjoyment of a game and my attention to the flow of the game- at the expense of my decision-making.

Black Hearted Press: classic supernatural re-imagined and sociopathic Significant Others

A small confession

When, last month, I wrote thanking “John and David of Black Hearted Press for the small gesture of faith they showed in an unknown blogger” I was talking about the free review copies they’d given me of comics published by their Glasgow-based independent comics publisher, Black Hearted Press. There I was just sitting quietly in the Scotia when Jim Stewart- of The Astounding Ganjaman fame, pointed this guy in my direction, telling John (for John Farman it was) that I was someone he should talk to. The next thing I knew I had 3 free comics and an article to write. My introduction to David Braysher soon followed, and a fourth comic had been added to the pile of what was my first officially commissioned review.

This is not a blogparty…

A last gasp?

Today is RD/KA!'s 7th birthday, one I honestly barely expected to celebrate after the fiasco that was the 5th birthday blogparty. But here I am, although it’s just a quiet night in this time.

The past couple of weeks have been crazy busy for me, what with 3 games sessions, another foray into the hustle and bustle of Glasgow’s thriving indie comics scene, a visit to the hottest happening in the Scottish gaming scene in longer than I can remember- plus another Claymore; on top of all of which I’ve just landed with family after a whirlwind of a long weekend at a convention in Bradford, where I met a host of new fellow games and comics geeks.

So I’ve got loads of material and a lot to celebrate, but I’m totally exhausted and on holiday to boot. No promises then to those who’re wondering when promised articles will appear, other than that they will appear, and as soon as possible.

The usual suspects?

I had all sorts of things in mind for today's celebration post. Frankly though I'm so tired I just can't be arsed. So I'll just say this: as proud as I am to be celebrating 7 years in the blogosphere, this really isn’t about me, it’s about you- my readers. Cheesy? No doubt, but it’s the knowing that you’re out there- each and every one of you, that picks me up and keeps me going. Thank you all, my dear readers, from your ‘humble’ scribe. ;)

A bit of this and a bit of that

Technical problems stop the Panzers in their tracks

Just don't aim for
the window...

Badger came round last night for what was supposed to be another session of Fighting Formations and perhaps some Combat Commander. Unfortunately events were to intervene in the form of the shiny new desktop PC which I had taken delivery of just the previous day. I hadn't had time to set everything up that Thursday, so on the Friday I decided just to wait for Badger's arrival so that he could offer his assistance. It's not that I'm a complete tech-idiot or anything but there are always risks associated with transferring your old system to a new machine, so I felt it would be useful to have Badger on hand.

Just as well too it turned out.

"Another fine mess..."

Woah, a tale of woe
Well, it was kind of a close run thing this time but here I am, back at the keyboard. There are several reasons why I almost succumbed to the urge just to disappear from the pages of RD/KA!. I'm just going to let them lie. I will however briefly explain why this particular bloglag was so long (at 9 months it's been the longest ever).

Sometimes people just won't own up...

It'll come as no surprise to my regular readers that a serious depression was to blame. Why so serious? Long story short: a home support worker who'd been visiting me for some 4 years took the huff with me one day and indulged in some unprofessional behaviour. The next time we met he manipulated me into withdrawing from the support service against my will. With hindsight I realised that saving his job was surely his primary motivation for being such a shit. We'd talked often of the difficult funding situation in his workplace and of how staff were worried about their jobs. So I think he feared a black mark if I was to ask for him to be replaced, which would've led to questions being asked about why I no longer wished to work with him (which I didn't, naturally enough).

"Kick Ass!" 5th birthday blogparty #4. The final countdown

Life's little ironies or, "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to"
What's a man to do? I mean to say, after some ups and downs you finally hit your blog's 5th anniversary and manage to put together an impressive bunch of prizes for your readers. Just how can you follow that? Ah, I know. How about taking a mood downswing and disappearing from the site for a month? Yeah, that's a really good idea. Really.

Anyway, here I am. I'm not swanning about in sunny Acapulco with all that lovely swag offered up by my generous donors (chance'd be a fine thing). Nope. I'm living la vida loca in the slough of despond in rainy Glasgow. There've been games at least, a lot of games, Dominion especially. So it's not been all bad. But that's not really the point of this post, oh no. This post is about prizes (remember those?).

"Kick Ass!" 5th birthday blogparty #3. First prize draw winners!

Who are this week's lucky readers?
The entries for last week's draw have been counted and the draw has been made, using my shiny Conpulsion 2010 random number generator. I am pleased to announce the winners in the first RD/KA! 5th anniversary bumper prize draw bonanza. My congratulations to all the lucky winners; my commiserations to everyone else. Don't give up yet though: there are still three more draws to go and you can all (previous winners included remember) enter those too.

A Bill King Gotrek and Felix omnibus
Trollslayer.net.
I am delighted to be able to announce that, fresh from the trials and tribulations of flitting, Bill has been able to unearth 2 English-language copies of Gotrek and Felix: the First Omnibus which he has generously donated to the spoil heap. One of these will go to Chazz Kellner. The remaining copy will be added to a subsequent draw.

"Kick Ass!" 5th birthday blogparty#2. Draw the first

Four, weekly prize draws

-#The spoil heap#-

The RD/KA! 5th anniversary bumper prize-draw bonanza will consist of four, weekly draws. This week's draw runs until midnight (BST) on Sunday 22nd August. The draws are all open to all of my readers (yes, that includes friends and family).

Draw the first's prizes
There are 5 prizes up for grabs this week.

A Bill King novel.
Trollslayer.net.
Choose any one.

"Kick Ass!" 5th birthday blogparty#1. Prizes! Prizes! Prizes!

"Lights... Cameras... Action!"
Alighting on this page as you have dear reader, be welcome to the 5th anniversary of "Roll dice and kick ass!". Yes, it's been 5 years to the day since I launched myself into the geek blogosphere with a report on Interaction, the 63rd Worldcon. I took to blogging a hobbyist wanting to write. What I didn't bargain on were the technicalities of creating an illustrated webzine: hunting down links and references, image work, layout; all suprisingly labourious and time-consuming. Enough already with my blood, sweat, toil and tears. Feast your eyes, dear readers, on the booty below...

Matt Forbeck
Hot off the presses, Ghosts of Ascalon — "the first original Guild Wars novel" — is Matt's and Jeff Grubb's spin on the popular fantasy MMO Tyria. I am told that Guild Wars- soon to see its first reboot, disposes of that WoW-grind by the simple expedients of a level cap and rapid character progression; which reads to me like a recipie for playing more characters having more adventures which play out more quickly. That sounds thrilling and action packed. Expect no less from messieurs Forbeck and Grubb.

Prize #1
Signed author's copy courtesy of Matt.

-#!#-

Playing catchup

Turnover has been slow here at RD/KA! lately. My mood hasn't been great, as old hands might already've imagined. More important than that though- and a contributory factor too no doubt, is the fact that I've been living for several months with the burden of undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, which has left me tired and lacking in motivation. Now that I'm know I'm hoping that management of the condition will soon get me rolling again.

In brighter news I returned last night from UK Games Expo 2010. I had a great time and will be getting to work soon on my report. Meanwhile here are some bits and pieces.

Prizes! Prizes!
The response to my Waste World prize draw was sufficient to make a draw necessary so that's a result I guess! I am pleased to announce the results of the draw:

• Grand prize: the Waste World rules and the Hydra sourcebook go to Josef.
• Consolation prize: the A Fistful of Credits starter set goes to the Gnome.

Congratulations gents! If you'd like to email me your addresses I'll get your goodies off to you as soon as possible. Commiserations to those of you who didn't win. Keep haunting ebay and remember: this was the first RD/KA! prize draw.

First grand "Roll dice and kick ass!" prize draw!

Spring is here and we're all celebrating long days and bright sunshine. As RD/KA!'s small contribution to these annual festivities I'm announcing my first ever prize draw.

Late extra!
Bill King's return to the Black Library to write a Warhammer Fantasy trilogy about legendary Elf heroes Tyrion and Teclis will be news only to those of my readers who don't follow the Black Library blog or other F&SF news sites, where the news broke back in February.

Bill is of course best known for his 7 Slayer novels, featuring dwarf slayer Gotrek Gurnisson and his human poet companion Felix Jaeger; and for his 4 Space Wolf novels, featuring Ragnar Blackmane. He may have 2 major characters to whom the phrase 'pointy ears' is simultaneously a term of abuse and a target designation, but writing about elves isn't new to Bill. He co-wrote with Andy Chambers the 4th edition Warhammer Armies: High Elves, in which he created most of what remains the canonical account of Tyrion and Teclis. And he wrote about the 40K Eldar in the novel Farseer.

A singular honour

A belated Easter surprise
The names Paul D. Selman and iL-Logic should already be known to site-visiting readers who have the habit of checking out the various lists of links in the sidebar here at RD/KA!. Paul is a freelance artist with whom I've become friendly after we hooked up online because the guys at EMOTIONALLY FOURTEEN are his buddies, and iL-Logic is a new webcomic written by Adam Di Stefano- who blogs at 52 Short Stories, and with art by Paul.

I've enjoyed following Paul's blog since we hooked up last year. His artwork is always interesting; sometimes hits me right between the eyes; and has lately forced me to rethink my longstanding and largely blind prejudice against abstract art, something which had sometimes made me feel uncomfortable because of the philistine company I would often find myself keeping. I also enjoy reading iL-Logic, checking it out regularly in a way I stopped doing some time ago with all my other favourite webcomics simply because I found myself too busy to keep up with them.

Once more the culture vulture

Springtime for Glaswegians
If it's March in Glasgow it must be Aye Write!- Glasgow's Book Festival, now in its fifth year. Aye Write! had made little impression on me in previous years, despite my seeing the ads and the programmes in my local library each time. This was frustrating, so- determined to do better in 2010, I grabbed a programme as soon as I saw one and started looking for events. The first one which did more than just catch my eye was:

NEW SCOTTISH SCIENCE FICTION
The Early Days of a Better Future?

Presiding: Andrew J. Wilson of Writers' Bloc, Edinburgh

As if the due appearance of SF luminaries Ken MacLeod and Richard Morgan wasn't enough, this event was an instant choice for yours truly because the panel included Hal Duncan and Mike Cobley. Mike and Hal are old pals of mine from the Glasgow SF Writers' Circle, which featured in the first series of posts here @RD/KA!. It was this circle which drew me to Glasgow back in 1989, when I nourished active dreams of being an SF writer myself.

Web 2.0 and tabletop roleplaying #1: the past

A big day for all concerned?
World-historical anniversaries are all very well but today also happens to see my 400th post here @RD/KA!, so I've been racking my brains trying to think of a topic suitable to highlight this latest small landmark in my bloggery. What could be more apt I decided, than a subject which has its roots in my halcyon days- the 1980's; about which I wrote right back when this blog was but a stripling; which represents furthermore one of my major unfulfilled aspirations as a roleplayer?

Phase 1: "When ah were a lad..."
My fascination with what Web 2.0 can offer tabletop roleplayers is rooted in experiences predating the invention of the World Wide Web itself. It all began, naturally enough, with Katana: Sword Against Evil™, that renegade ninja who has set out to destroy the Evil that spawned him.
(Graphic via Trends in the Living Networks)

"To infinity and beyond!"?

Badger's round for a Friday-night Firefight soon and I haven't done a stroke of proper work on any of the pieces planned for imminent posting, but I am pleased to be able to announce that 2010 has already seen a landmark for RD/KA!:- I launched "Roll dice and kick ass!" as a facebook page- AKA. RD/KA!@fB, yesterday. My thanks to the 13 who've already signed up as fans. This is an encouraging start. :0)

I've long been aware of how much the internet could bring to the adventure gaming hobby, and have always enjoyed the best efforts of our geeky ecommunity. So I am naturally very excited at the potentialities of the new social media in this age of the Open Source. This first fB page is therefore an intriguing new venture for yours truly. I'm anticipating a good year here @RD/KA! in 2010! ;)

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.

Geekish grab bag!

As I said on Friday, I want to celebrate the latest small landmark in the life of RD/KA! by looking to what the future might bring for this geek and his games.

Memoir'44
Regular readers will know that Badger and I have recently taken a break from our 2½-year Combat Commander odyssey. We'll be returning to this great game for sure (there're scenarios still unplayed and more to come); and then there'll no doubt be a taste of Chad's next WW2 tacsim- Fighting Formations: Grossdeutschland Infantry Division; but not before we've indulged our taste for Conflict of Heroes.

Superior tacsims all though these games are (or promise to be), none are intrinsically more exciting than Memoir'44; nor do they relegate the game from its well-deserved status of light wargame to some nether region of little or no interest to this grognard. Days of Wonder themselves are doing their bit to maintain interest in the game, with their planned December release of Memoir'44 Battle Maps Vol. 3: Sword of Stalingrad, featuring:

• 2 Overlord scenarios.
• 2 Standard scenarios.
• Summary cards for the previously published Battle Maps and Mediterranean Theater expansion.
• Additional cards for in-game play - the new Combat Deck (see above) specifically designed for urban warfare (DoW News centre).

Dun! Dun! Dun! Dun! I've done the ton!

The winter blues' bloglag hinting at outright blockage since my last post three weeks ago has been all the more trying for yours truly because this post marks another small landmark for 2009 here at RD/KA!:- my 100th post; more in one year than any since 2005, when I began to blog.

I didn't expect to take nearly 4 years to surpass in some 10 months what I'd first achieved in less than 5. So this is very satisfying let me assure you dear readers. RD/KA!'s 5th birthday is next year; if the bloggery continues in this vein, then I would hope to see 2010 marked also by my 500th post. Fingers crossed I guess. :0)

To celebrate I'd like to look ahead at what the rest of 2009 and then 2010 might bring here at RD/KA!. But first, naturally enough...

Happy birthday to RD/KA!

Four years and counting
Today is RD/KA!'s 4th birthday. My gaming blog began life on Saturday 13th August 2005 with the first of a series of reports on the 63rd Worldcon. In those 4 years 350 posts have covered games, comics, movies, books, food, and sundry other topics of interest to gamers; but as the 'Labels' list at the bottom of the page shows, writing about the games I've played has been staple fare. There have been highs and lows as regular readers will know, but you can be sure of one thing: as long as I'm playing games, I'll have something to say about them. Onwards and upwards! :-)

Another Sunday session
We were the four for Sunday games we'd been the last time. Gav was keen for more Risk and Andy was hankering after a game of Roborally, which I fancied too. So that made a plan.

Roborally

Designed by Richard Garfield of Magic: the Gathering fame, and first published by Garfield Games in 1994, Roborally was published in a new edition by Hasbro/Avalon Hill in 2005. I own the original edition and 3 out of 4 of its expansion sets. I've not had a chance to look over the new edition in detail, but I confess I don't like the look of it too much. Or, to be more precise: there are 2 features of the new edition I don't much like the look of.

The first of these is the replacement of the original virtual bots- ie. counters representing each bot, with the docking bay. Virtual bots are a solution to the impossibility of stacking the bot miniatures when the situation demands 2 or more bots occupy the same square, eg. at the start. I'll freely grant that the new rules might be simpler than the originals, but I'm not sure they're more fun. That is to say: I'd like to think there is an extra layer of potential chaos offered by the old virtual bot rules.

One amusing example I can remember involved a bot, a virtual bot and a proximity mine. The 2 bots were adjacent to each other and the real bot dropped a proximity mine. The question arose: would the virtual bot set off the proximity mine? We perused the rules:

• Virtual bots don't interact at all with other bots, virtual or otherwise; they interact normally with everything else.
• Dropped/launched devices are active as soon as they are dropped except to the bot that set them, which has until the end of that register phase to move away.

And so the proximity mine went off under the bot which had dropped it!

The other feature of the new game I'm not keen on is the timer: a 30 second timer is set when the penultimate player has finished programing their bot. I have stoutly resisted suggestions to use time turns in Roborally for years; I'm hardly going to applaud when a new edition makes their use official.

For Sunday's game I canvassed for a board a lot simpler than that we had raced across the last time we played. Winning assent I chose a layout which was fairly open and which used simple board elements, but on which there were still enough different elements for maximum entertainment value. The result was the layout below.

Back Stretch and Pit Row

I cleverly neglected to record the flag locations; but I can remember the start and the 1st flag, because Twonky reached those 2 locations.

The game was entertaining as ever. Highlights among the hijinks were:

• Donald lost his life on the first turn.
• Gav was the first to reach a flag.
• Gav's bot remained virtual for an unprecedented 4 turns.

Most entertaining perhaps were Donald and Andy's encounters with an express conveyor belt. Donald arrived there first. Calculating his move, he figured that he was doomed:

• From the start point (X marks the spot) they were unable to get off the belt.
• Whichever card they played then, the conveyor was going to move them to the edge of the board.
• Once there, they faced 3 equally destructive choices:

1. Let the belt carry them off the edge of the board.
2. Move onto the pit.
3. Move onto the oil slick, from where they would slide across to the conveyor, which would carry them off the edge of the board.

Fortunately for Donald, it turned out that he had an option which could save him: Overload Override which allowed him to rotate and move in the same register phase, thus handily escaping the express conveyor before it carried him to his doom. Andy wasn't so fortunate.

The final insult for Andy was that it was Donald's fault that Andy's bot had ended up on the conveyor in the first place. Andy had picked up the Robocopter option. He had finally decided to use it and his bot began to move at a fair clip. Then he was lasered by Donald: his Robocopter was shot off: and his bot was dumped back on the factory floor. His curses were colourful.

Gav was making solid progress while all these hijinks were going on. He won the game with a solid lead:

• Gav: 4 flags.
• Andy: 2 flags.
• Me: 1 flag.
• Donald: 0 flags.

Score
C++ CPU: 1
COBOL CPU's: 0
:-(

Afterthoughts
I really like Roborally, and this game was no exception. I'd like to play more often, to which end I think we'd have to consider how to stage the game as filler. The key to this is single board layouts, and choosing the right number of flags according to the difficulty of the board.

Risk

With time still at our disposal we turned to Risk as Gav had requested. With hindsight Gav might be regretting this because he was the number victim of circumstance in our game: he was playing yellow; eliminating all yellow armies was my mission; so Gav was the consistent target of my unrelenting attacks.

Missions

• Andy: occupy Asia and S. America.
• Donald: occupy Australasia, Europe, and 1 other continent.
• Gav: eliminate all red armies (Andy).
• Me: eliminate all yellow armies (Gav).

The turn order didn't favour Gav because his turn was after mine. I was able to pick 3 or 4 lone yellow armies with some opportunistic attacks in my first turn. After that I quickly took S. America, which gave me a solid base which was never seriously challenged. Nobody had paid any attention to N. America during setup and it was left untouched until the endgame, so I was able to leave a minor frontier force to secure the South and turn my attention to Africa. This too soon fell to my green hordes.

Meanwhile, Andy was trying to secure Asia. Unfortunately for him his efforts were constantly foiled by Donald's and my attacks from Australasia and Africa respectively; neither of us were keen to see 7 armies/turn appear on our borders.

Elsewhere, Gav finally bit the bullet and launched an attack against my strong Icelandic outpost. No one could understand why I was holding Iceland in such strength. The answer was simple: Gav had territories nearby and I was massing for an attack. Gav pre-empted me and broke through Iceland into the virgin lands of N. America, from where he later fought his way through into central Asia in an effort to put as much distance as possible between his armies and mine.

By this time my position was largely unassailable. I was eventually able to seize N. America with the help of a timely set of Risk cards. My mission long since evident to all, Andy tried to stave off my increasingly inevitable victory by finishing Gav off himself. This failed. I won the game next turn, cashing in another set of Risk cards to amass a huge army which I promptly sent through Kamchatka to finish off the handful of yellow units still on the board.

Final position

• Andy: 9 territories (all in Asia).
• Donald: 11 territories (Australasia and Europe).
• Gav: -
• Me: 22 territories (Africa, S. America, N. America, Kamchatka and Japan).

Score
Puny microprocessor 1
Glorious world conqueror 1
Grunts still counting on their fingers 0
:-)

Afterthoughts
I think I was well served by my mission which, barring lucky setups, I feel is a bit easier than one which involves controlling continents. This is because:

• The mission isn't geographically defined so that it is less susceptible to bad setups.
• Other players's attacks on the player you must eliminate contribute directly to your victory.

It'll take a few more games with these missions in play before I can be sure. ;)