2014 Briefing

Getting ready for another Flames of War game this week Dan and I stepped into the games room and this is what we found...

The thoughts of finishing last weeks game were crushed as Dans daughter had attempted her own game. It puts a whole new meaning on the phrase 'panzer parking lot'. So we decided the only possible solution was a pint at the pub and plan out 2014.

We discussed three key different gaming activities to be on the cards. Number one of course gaming and more specifically Flames of War. We decided to stress the fact that this was not just gaming, but training as Dan and I want to give competitive FOW a shot.

Board-gaming is number two. There are lots of games out there we want to give a shot. I am hoping to get a copy of Twilight Imperium an epic space game at some point. There are also a few new games on the shelf like Galaxy Trucker and Firefly the group is keen to take for a spin.

A stegosaurs has taken over the galaxy in Firefly

Lastly we want to give RPGs another shot but break away from D&D and it's shoddy combat mechanic (see details of our last adventures here). We have had ideas over the last while of Call of Cthulhu which has more of an emphasis on role-playing and investigation rather that combat. Cut out the bad and in with the new I say.

Happy Gaming for 2014!

Just a small side note. After last weeks Flames of War game I have had inspiration and have got back into painting. I just have been bogged down by my large american armoured rifle platoon so it is taking a while to finish. Photos of at least the infantry by the end of the week... hopefully.  

Dungeons and Dragons thoughts.

The last month or so we have been playing D&D with our gaming group. It has been a good way to introduce some new people to, ahem, more geeky games. The campaign we have been playing is led by Dan and is around the "Deck of Many Things" and Gardmore Abbey which we are slowly making our way towards. Click here to see a session report from the start of our adventures. So here are a few thoughts that have cropped up over this adventure. 

Some of our adventurers. Looks suspiciously like LOTR figures.

Sensible Role-Playing.

Getting into the role of a character can be hard for new gamers, of which I am one. There seems to be a fine balance of  sensible roleplaying, and speaking as if you were the character. Err not sure if I described that well so maybe an example:

Our version of roleplaying, "We would like to trade this pearl for that ring."
What the actual character would say but we are to sensible to say, "Oh good sir! I propose a trade, how about this fine pearl for one of your rings?"

Anytime I try to act out my character authentically I feel things becoming more awkward. Naturally this means I don't do that often. However I watched an episode of TableTop (a youtube show where Will Wheaton plays board games with supposedly famous people) where they played a RPG Dragon Age (converted from a video game). They got into it and seemed to have a lot of fun doing it, perhaps an inspiration for whenever I timidly overstep the boundary of sensible role-playing. Feel free to watch it if you have a spare hour, here is part 1.

Character Names

D&D persists with ridiculous fantasy names, which I guess makes sense as it is a fantasy setting. I was quite sensible during my first ever D&D campaign last year where I chose the name Carlos for my Eladrian Warlord. I chose this because of an episode of Freaks and Geeks where James Franco's character played a game of D&D and called his Dwarf warrior Carlos. I tried this time to get a bit more in theme calling my character Lucien (a Dwarf cleric) inspired by Lucien from the Sandman graphic novels.

Dan spinning a story as the DM.

Combat and Theatre of the Mind 

I think if I was going to pin down and say what the most annoying thing about Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition would be, that would be combat! Combat takes ages when you are lv6, it wasn't so bad at lv1 mind you. The main thing which seems to change as you level up are more hit points and more powers, however these extra combat powers often, though cool, don't do more damage. I find that combat ends up being a long drawn out process where you wait 5-10min for your turn to come around, you select a power to use, you roll a dice, do some damage and then wait for your turn to come around again. Obviously there is more strategy to it than that but it doesn't feel particularly intuitive and it is kind of boring after you have done several combats. 

Us fighting a couple of Owlbears, I used a pretty swish technique pushing the Owlbear who looks like the goblin king (what gives) giving my fellow adventurers a couple of opportunity attacks. 

Apart from the models looking cool I think we could do without them. I wan't to try out D&D 1st ed or some other RPG where combat is done as 'theatre of the mind'. It is what they did in Dragon Age (above) and it seems to be both fun and quick, letting the story and the role-playing take more prevalence.

Conclusion

I like D&D, it is a lot of fun when we are solving puzzles and acting as our characters while the story unfolds. However I just get bored during combat, as that takes up about half the time it can get a bit frustrating. I hope there is a RPG out there which doesn't do this as much, perhaps Call of Cthulhu. After this campaign is done I think we will give the Call of Cthulhu RPG a shot. Although going back to Will Wheaton's TableTop he just did a video post about some indie RPGs he likes, one was called Agents of Oblivion. Will sums it up as

You are members of a super secret global espionage team, your entire purpose in life is to stop Cthulhu and the great old ones from coming into the world.

I mean whats not to like about that?

Just to finish up, if you haven't seen the IT Crowd, a BBC comedy, I would recommend it in a flash. One of the episodes involves Moss playing an RPG with some hot-shot businessmen visiting who would normally be entertained by being taken to a brothel. Here is the clip:

An RPG Excusion: Gardmore Abbey and the Deck of Many Things

A book written specifically for our group

In large part, this is a blog about table top miniature gaming and boardgames.  But the history of our gaming group lies as much in Dungeons and Dragons as it does in war gaming.  For me, an interest in war games only developed when I was in my mid thirties (around 2-3 years ago) whereas my teenage years were all about DnD back in its heyday in the late 80s and early 90s.

So with that background, I have happily played the Dungeon Master for a few DnD games and get the occasional hankering for a few sessions.  Last games night I developed a scenario around the discovery of a card from the "Deck of Many Things".  The scenario was designed to pull the party into the Madness at Gardmore Abbey adventure path but also to be able to end that night if no one wanted to keep going.

The cast behind the DM's screen waiting to come on

The setting was the entrance to the crypt at Moonstone Keep in Fallcrest.  The adventurers each summonsed by Berrian, the master of the guard at the keep.  None of them know why they had been summonsed and they each wait to be let inside.  Once Berrian comes he explains that the Lord of the Keep has gone mad following the discovery of a card and he enlists the help of the adventurers to destroy the card accordingly (which he has stolen from his Lordship and is about to give to them).

At this point the Lord makes an appearance - angrily using his powers to throw Berrian against a wall and summons zombies (always good to reuse those EOTD zombies I spent so long painting).

Rather than run headlong into combat I then handed over to each of the party a mission personal to them.  One was to kill Berrian, another to protect him, another to get the card for themselves and run etc.  So the party each had personal goals that conflicted with the corporate goal (and with each other's personal goals).

The Battle in Progress

It was interesting to see how it played out - Matt almost died trying to kill Berrian and there were a series of small skirmashes between the party over who would get the card which cooled down before anyone got seriously hurt.  It also got them into the Deck of Many Things and made them pause to think whether they wanted to collect these cards or destroy them.

After negotiating the first combat they all then proceeded to the wizards tower at Gardmore Abbey on the understanding that he could destroy the card.  There was much debate about that, but they finally decided it was the best thing to do.  I gave them two puzzles to solve to get in.  The first to determine how many times to knock to open the door.  The first had a horsehoe with words written into it: see http://puzzle.cisra.com.au/2009/B-1-Snip.pdf. The riddle that accompanied it was worded as follows:

To know how many times to knock

Look at the horseshoe from the top

Rearrange the words half and half

Three of them will show the path

The second to get out of the antechamber involved arranging eight queens on a chessboard so each was not able to take another.

The Solution

Again it was successfully negotiated, but only just in time as the walls that were closing in around them only had a few minutes to go before they were crushed.

The good thing about DnD is the collaborative nature of it.  Whereas war gaming is naturally competitive, DnD is social and for that reason can be a lot of fun.  There is a lot of talk about different versions of DnD which I simply don't get into - the fourth edition that we play might be a bit simplified but that really is exactly what we need.  A good break for any war-gaming group - expect updates as the adventure continues this year.