How Economics Ruined My Gaming Joie De Médiocre
A few weeks ago, I had an odd conversation with one of the guys from my gaming group. We were discussing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and he was talking about how much he loved it, and I was discussing how much I didn’t. At one point, he pauses for a moment, and asks something to the effect of “Matt, what’s the last game you actually really liked?”
I had to think about it a minute. Which was bad, because it sort of proved his point.
This took me aback. Not like, kind of aback where you can right yourself and you’re OK again. Like “I’m looking up at the sky and someone has tied me to a pickup truck and is dragging me away” aback. What the hell? I’m not the Angry Videogame Nerd. I’m not Yahtzee. I love games. Games make me happy, not angry.
Right?
The game that first popped to mind that I really liked and had played semi-recently? Dragon Age II. No shocker there. I’m a story junkie, and BioWare does that well. Portal, Bastion, and Batman: Arkham City also made the list.
That’s why I was extremely surprised that I didn’t care for Star Wars: The Old Republic. [Read the rest of this article]
30 For 30
When the time came to figure out what I would be doing for my 30th birthday, I decided to give myself a quest. In the past, I’ve watched all of the Lords of the Rings movies (extended editions) back to back, and tried to drink 26 drinks in a single day each starting with a different letter of the alphabet (it didn’t go very well.)
Being The Game, the answer seemed obvious: 30 games in the course of one gaming party. After a bit of discussion with my fellow partygoers, we further clarified it had to be 30 different games. I succeeded, though with a little cheating. Here’s all what I played.
Game 0: Tetris with my Dishwasher
I didn’t count it, but fitting everything in my sink into the dishwasher with the added time pressure that people were arriving was one of the hardest challenges of the day.
Game 1: Toc Toc Woodman
This is a dexterity game that was recently brought to the US by Mayday Games. I enjoyed this one since the rules are very simple and clean while creating a pretty intense experience. You hit a plastic tree with an axe (two taps on your turns) and keep anything that hits the table. Bark on the edges is positive points, the cores in the center are negative points. A fun game that I’ll happily play once or twice occasionally but probably won’t become a permanent part of my gaming rotation.
Game 2: Fiasco “All The Damn Time”
I’ve wanted to pull this playtest playset out for a while, yet always rejected it since I rarely play Fiasco with a completely experienced group, and the playset heavily cautions against playing it with new people. While I agree it’s on the complex end of the Fiasco playset scale, and it certainly shouldn’t be a GROUP’S first playset, it worked fine with one new player.
This was without a doubt one of the funniest Fiasco games I’ve played in, while simultaneously being mind-bending and, of course, a Fiasco. You all play versions of the same person, unstuck through time and encountering each other. Each person as a result ends up bringing their own interpretation of the same character (as well as their own personality) which mixes quite well with the play. While the playset has the potential for a more introspective game, we went the other way bringing out the time travel tropes at rapid pace. Predestination paradoxes where the main character Sam convinced himself that he’s his own father because of a rumor he told himself, alternate timelines trying to scam each other, a temporal twin sister, a bag of heroin that gets dragged through time, and an aftermath involving Sam punching himself as a baby and eliminating all the others from existence were a few of the many highlights.
Game 3: Dominion, All Hinterlands Expansion
After the intense Fiasco session, I sat in on a game of Dominion using all Hinterlands, which I’ve only gotten to play with a few times. Due to some various action chaining, and some Noble Brigands making keeping high treasure cards difficult, this was a slow match.
However, Hinterlands has gone up to my top 3 Dominion expansions. Its effects that trigger in other times when playing them does make the decisions a bit more interesting than in other sets. There’s a lot to be said for just using my 3 favorite sets together (Hinterlands, Prosperity, and Seaside) along with the promos- especially since my custom box is too small to keep all the cards!
Game 4: La Strada!
My first cheat, especially because I am ALWAYS playing La Strada! And you should too.
Game 5: The Game
You just lost it too.
Game 6: Sorcerer (dice game)
As a third game played while also playing the Hinterlands game, I played this silly dice game with “the designer.” Here is the gist of Sorcerer:
- Start at level 1.
- Roll a d6.
- If you rolled anything but a 1, level up.
- If you roll a 1, you die at that level.
- If you get to level 20, you can roll to try and get into the pantheon of gods on a 4+.
- However, the pantheon is full, so that’s probably not an option anymore.
- If you’re playing competitively, you can stop rolling at any level.
- Did I mention it’s not much of a game?
Game 7: Legend of Drizzt
The latest in the D&D “adventure system” board games, and the only one I hadn’t played before. I played the allied version of Artemis Entrari because assassins are awesome. We kicked Shimmergloom’s draconic ass, even though Drizzt fell in a pit for a turn.
I didn’t realize this version of the game came with more playable characters than the others. We suspect the characters are better than the characters in previous versions of the game, too. There’s a few other cool twists in the cards without adding extra rules to the core engine of the game, which is good. On the other hand, I don’t know if the missions add enough for the game to make me excited about playing it a lot more.
I did ruminate with Sly Flourish (who had brought the game, painted minis and all) that it might be time to combine all three into one mega-game though, and customize it to only contain the most fun stuff. Now that’s tempting, and gives me a few ideas for other games.
Game 8: Rock, Paper, Scissors
I held off on playing this until my friend Mark showed up, who had called it in advance. I had to turn down at least 4 previous offers to play it. And then, I lost. Stupid rock.
Game 9: Hit A Dude
I hit a dude, and play passed to the left. I did not use the player’s guide, however.
Game 10: Get Bit!
A few folks there had never tried it and asked me to play, so we busted out my “primo” copy with all the extras from the Kickstarter campaign. We had 7 players interested, and because of the promo pink robot, 7 player sets. I didn’t want to jump into the Sharkspansion either with new players. I also couldn’t just sit it out, so we tried it with 7 players, which I have never tested before.
As expected, there’s lots and lots of ties early on, and goes longer than I’d like. However, it still works as a game if you don’t mind it being more chaotic and punishing. I wouldn’t recommend it officially for the published rules, though. The Sharkspansion is still the best way to add a 7th player, and in my oh-so-biased opinion, adds a lot to the game.
Game 11: Loopin’ Louie
A friend of ours brought this over, unaware of my tournament-level past. I taught him the tournament rules, and enlightenment was had. And then I won the mini-tournament, showing that my skills have not atrophied much over the years.
Game 12: Crappy Birthday
We had a crowd around, so I busted out this party game from Northstar Games. It was appropriate since it’s about recieving gifts on your birthday, and inappropriate since my party and gifts were not crappy at all.
This is a quick, Apples to Apples-ish party game about giving the worst gift to someone on their turn, from a deck of cards of gifts whose quality ranges wildly. I do enjoy playing this, yet I may try some of the optional rules about giving someone a gift you think they’d like and one you think they would hate, and go from there. Also, it usually ends far too quickly if someone gets a better hand of crappier gifts.
Game 13: Seven Dragons
I busted out this game to play with the “Rainbow Dragon!” guy from the promotional video.
I enjoy Seven Dragons more than its predecessor Aquarius, not just for the Larry Elmore dragons but also for the added gameplay improvements. This is one of those games that I’ll rarely suggest on my own but works well in a group of both gamers and non-gamers.
Game 14: Tic-Tac-Toe
The Main Event suggested this one and threw down a piece of paper and allowed me to have the first move. Somehow, I lost, in plain view of many partygoers. I suspect I’ll have to relinquish my title of “The Game” as a result, and you would not be wrong to take it from me.
Game 15: Hangman
I had my revenge on The Main Event in this game, who also screwed up the rules. Unfortunately, the message was “Y O U S U C K” so it indeed was a victory and great cost.
Game 16: Spot-It!
This real-time game, brilliant party game is easy to bust out for a short amount of time, choose your own preferred rules set with the same basic play (match the symbols on two cards, which is much harder than it sounds), play, and then be done in a few minutes while still feeling satisfying. Simple enough for kids to play, yet fun enough for adults as well (especially when you add swearing to everything), I’d say this is one of the hits of the year for me.
Game 17: Pit
As it was getting late into the evening, and some players were already leaving, I started to push for quick playing games to hit my quota. Pit is an old game, which I jokingly call a “shouting game.” It’s interesting because there are strategies there, and I have seen people (including those who have actually worked in the stock market) do consistently very well at the game. I know some basics and still haven’t figured out what the best way to play is. Still, for a game that goes that quickly and includes a bell, hard to go wrong with this one.
Game 18: Hey Waiter!
Another quick-playing game designed by my friend Anthony, you are given a stack of dishes (represented by poker chips) and try to serve them before your opponents do. We played partnership, which means you look for opportunities to help both yourself and your partner while blocking your opponents.
The design of the cards and the available actions gives it a bit of a learning curve for a pretty simple game, yet there’s some real decisions to make during it that make it fun. If you’re a fan of trick-taking games or similar, this one may appeal to you despite not being trick-taking at all.
This is also the point where I realized I was playing a lot of games with a “!” in the title.
Game 19: Falling
Another of my top 10 games of all time (alongside Loopin’ Louie and Dominion), Falling takes more time to teach the rules than it does to play, which means you can get in a few rounds of it very quickly, and each game still feels like a frantic rush… just like falling from the sky. This is a real time game where your only goal is to hit the ground last (which happens when the deck runs out). This game is hated by many but remains one of my favorites. I almost pulled out my other favorite real-time game (also from Cheapass) Brawl but didn’t make it happen.
Game 20: Jenga
This was one of the most intense games of Jenga I’ve ever seen, including a late game twist where one of the players developed a forceful strike to knock blocks away from the table where they would land with a violent fall. He ended up pulling this off three times, and was among one of the winners. The tower was very tall by the end, and went many rounds past where we thought it would. I also got to regale other players about playing Dread and getting really lucky with my pulls so that my complete bastard of a character got away in the end.
Game 21: No Merci (aka Geschenkt or No Thanks!)
This short yet brutal filler hasn’t seen much play lately, yet it’s still high up there. The rules are really simple: either place a chip (worth positive points) or take a card (worth many negative points.) Getting runs of cards means you lower the amount of negative points you have. That’s about it, except that random cards are removed from the deck, and are hidden, so you don’t know if the cards you need to connect are in the deck. There’s a combination of gambling on what will come up, as well as trying to milk points from other players at the right time and for the right amount.
Game 22: Mamma Mia!
Another great filler. Part memory game, part hand management, you play ingredient cards into a center pile along with pizzas recipes that have different requirements for the cards under it. When the deck runs out, you see if people were able to make their pizzas or not. You play for 3 rounds and see who has made the most pizzas.
I like this game because while there is a memory element, it’s is far secondary to smart card play. I managed to score all of my pizzas, easily winning.
Game 23: Magic: The Gathering Commander
Using two of my decks, we tossed down a quick one on one Commander duel: Kresh vs. my never before played Wrexial deck. I didn’t draw the right mana for most of the game, and Wrexial’s ability to pull instants from the graveyard didn’t end up helping that much. When Phage the Untouchable hit the table, it was over for me. I do have some tweaking to do with the Wrexial deck, yet I still like the idea and play of it a lot.
Game 24: Treehouse
One of the quickest playing Icehouse/Looney Pyramids games out there, I hadn’t played this in so long I forgot how all the different actions worked. Fortunately, I had a trained Looney Game Technician there to help me with it (and I won with a well-timed Aim.)
Game 25: Dots And Boxes
I managed to convince a few players that wanted to get to Risk Legacy (which I wanted as a closer) to help me hit my goal before we could play. Thus, this was the first of a few rapid-fire games.
I hadn’t played this since I was a kid. I won with some friendly assistance. I probably don’t need to play this again until I’m 40.
Game 26: Win, Lose, or Banana
I got a banana.
Game 27: High Card
I wrecked this game by pulling the Ace of Spades immediately. I have mad High Card skills.
Game 28: Texas Hold ‘Em
We dealt out two cards to everybody sitting there. Several people called. I folded my hand in this no stakes, no consequences game, then cashed out with as much money as I started with.
Game 29: Blackjack
Yes, my penultimate game of the evening was Blackjack, a game I’ve never played in a casino. After one hit, my 20 was enough to defeat the dealer. Good enough for me.
Game 30: Risk Legacy
This has been a frequent centerpiece at our Thursday game nights lately. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a game that could potentially define a whole new category of games.
Essentially, the game evolves, and is never the same from game to game. You make permanent changes to the board, the rules, the available resources, the other components: it all permanently changes with each game you play. As a result, a meta-storyline develops. You write on the board to name cities and immortalize the winners of conflicts. When certain events happen, you open envelopes.
In the game prior to this one, we opened two envelopes in the same game, and each was a mind-blowingly awesome twist that forever shaped how later games will be played. I’m trying very hard not to spoil anything just because of how cool it was to experience those.
The game we played was our first chance with the new stuff we unlocked in the previous game, and as expected, it made a big impact on how the game was played, and even had much more subtle repercussions in the strategy of the game I couldn’t predict. When people have asked me about the game, I’ve responded that it’s a really cool idea, but the game play is still Risk, so judge that carefully. I’m not a big Risk fan and didn’t play it much growing up, so I’m at a bit of a disadvantage when I play. Still, despite the fact that I’ve never won, I still look forward to every time I play just to experience more of the story we’re creating with the game.
In short, other than losing again (when so very close), it was a very satisfying close to 30 games in a single party.
Final exclamation point game title count: 6
Improv Pushups: The Movie
A week ago today, in the wee hours of the morning, I bid farewell to one Dave Chalker (who I had been staying with for the week, and who had risen with me to get me to the airport before the coming of the dread Day Star).I came all the way to the East coast for one specific purpose: to game my face off. More specifically, DC Gameday was this weekend, and I wanted to game my face off as close to Congress as I possibly could. Somebody’s got to show those guys how to play nice together, right?
Pre-Con Festivities
Luxury accomodations!
After I landed Thursday night, Dave took me to Looney Labs for one of their weekly game nights. I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, but my mental image of the place involved a sterile-looking office building. That proved to be wildly incorrect, as Dave stopped in the middle of a nice residential neighborhood and we walked into the Looney home. Immediately inside was a huge unfinished mural made out of woodcarvings that made up what I’m pretty sure is some Beatles album art. I also smelled baked goods. My expectations were thusly shattered.
Everybody was really nice there. We played Ascension and some MtG: Commander, and it was not unlike a game night with my own group, except with that totally different people part. There were others playing a few different games including Seven Wonders and some ridiculous game that had everyone drawing Dr. Who having sex with moon rocks or something. I’d get more context but I suspect it would make a lot more sense (and we can’t have that). I will have to find out more so I can play it with my group, I suppose.
Phil and I playtesting D&D 5e.
Friday, we picked up the Chattiest of Phils and brought him back to Fort Chalker, where poor Dave valiantly (and repeatedly) made his will save and continued doing Real Work while Phil and I gamed 10 feet away. It was like a summer day as a teenager. We played the old Mattel electronic D&D game, which I always wanted to try as a kid. It was horrible but TOTALLY WORTH IT. We played some more Ascension. We played lots of World of Warcraft TCG, and Phil was schooling me pretty hard with my own decks. (I think he might be a Shaman IRL.) We even played some oldschool NES games, including Kung Fu, Double Dragon 3, Q*Bert, and (best of all) Popeye. It was awesome.
Friday night, I played in a Magic booster draft. I took dead last, but I had a lot of fun. The new Innistrad set is pretty cool, and very dark and horrorlicious. Even the white cards make you want to hide under the bed, and the black ones make you want to hide in a hole under a bed that’s under a bed disguised as another bed. I played a monoblack deck with lots of regenerating creatures and stuff that could put Shroud on them, which wasn’t a bad plan until I discovered everybody else could fly. There was also one match when I realized my opponent was about to deliberately deck himself, and I was very confused until he pulled out his Mad Assistant to win. [Read the rest of this article]
Piledriver: The Most Popular Game Ever Played
Piledriver. You’ve all played it, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident, but you play it more than you expect.
I can’t name all the times I played Piledriver, but I can tell you when I first knew I was playing Piledriver. I had just bought Settlers of Catan and rather than any one of us sitting down and thoroughly reading the rules, we blew through the instructions, thought we understood, and began to play. We randomly placed our numbers down, built settlements without a care for roads, and committed all sorts of unforgiveable sins that butchered every attempt at elegant and balanced game design, but most of all we had fun. During the evening of play, a friend read the rules and said that we had basically played a completely made up game bearing only slight resemblance to Settlers of Catan. I don’t know why, but when it was revealed we had been playing wrong someone said, “Pileeeeeeedriver!”
And thus, Piledriver was born. [Read the rest of this article]
One Late Gen Con Report
Yes, it’s been a few weeks now since the convention ended. Between some post-Gen Con business and a bit of con crud in the house, it’s been difficult to get back to the blog. But at long last, How I Spent My Gen Con.
Get Bit! Missing in Action
My one real disappointment of the convention was that the new edition of my board game, Get Bit!, didn’t get finished in time to make it to Gen Con. (I’m sure like many Gen Con disappointments, it arrived on Monday, just one day late.) Thus, there was only a single copy there for demo purposes.
I am happy to say that the game is about to become available for purchase to the public. If you’d like to get in on a great price, check out the Kickstarter by the publisher Mayday Games. The Kickstarter runs for just two weeks and ships a short time after it closes, so please contribute while you can. This new edition includes a plastic shark (modeled very closely on the LEGO shark I’ve been giving out for years) as well as revised rules, updated graphics, and still dudes you can pull the limbs off of and feed to the shark. Please check it out.
Missed Opportunities
There were a few games I wanted to demo there, but the opportunity never presented itself:
- Blood Bowl: Team Manager was the big one I wanted to try, being a big Blood Bowl fan and having looked forward to some card game implementation for a while. Every time I walked by the FFG booth during the first two days of the con, nearly everyone in line seemed to be buying a copy. After that, they sold out. I’m definitely going to grab this when it’s available for general sale.
- Super Dungeon Explore blew me away with the miniature designs on their website and was interested in checking out the game to go with it. Every time I stopped by, I wasn’t able to get the attention of anyone working the booth, and there was some kind of weird pre-order anyway, so I skipped it. Maybe I’ll give it another try at another convention.
- Star Trek: Fleet Captains was on my list because of my feelings on Star Trek: Expeditions. While I’m not generally a war game guy anymore, I’m a sucker for Star Trek, especially one with cool pieces. [Read the rest of this article]
Game Previews from GenCon 2011
While at GenCon this year I was floored by the amount of new games that were being previewed and available to purchase at the convention. Checking out these new games is one of the big reasons that I go to GenCon, so today I’d like to talk about some of the games that I got to demo while I was there. This post is titled “previews” because I haven’t had a chance to play any of these games in their entirety, but they all stood out to me either from before I went to the con or while I was walking the exhibit hall.
These are just a few of the games that I saw and was excited about at GenCon. The first two previews here are games that I got to play demos of and talk to some of the people from the companies about the games. The rest of the games in this post are ones that I was hoping to get a chance to play but just didn’t have the time to play or wait for a spot to open up at the tables.
Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan (Alderac Entertainment Group)
This is one of the games that I was excited for even before going to GenCon because I’m a big fan of what AEG has been doing with their Legend of the 5 Rings products, plus I love ninjas so that pretty much sealed the deal for me checking this out. Ninja is a board game that takes place in the L5R universe, and I have a copy of it here at home so there will definitely be a full review of it up in the next few weeks. The game plays with 2-4 players and allows 1 or 2 players to control the ninja and traitor as they secretly move about the board and try to avoid the samurai guards controlled by the other players. The samurai players place traps, objectives, and sleeping guards in hidden locations around the board to surprise the ninja, and every player has a small hand of action cards to add even more surprise into the equation.
Above and beyond the “I love ninjas” caveat, many of our friends (including myself) have been playing the game Letters From Whitechapel a lot recently and I was even more excited to see that Ninja appears to share many similarities with that game. I’m happy to see that Ninja is supposed to play quicker than Whitechapel, and the game also doesn’t end if the ninja or traitor are found but instead they get to kill and/or flee from the guards and still attempt to sneak away.
Food Fight! (Cryptozoic Entertainment)
The stand up displays for this game were immediately eye-catching. By eye-catching, I mean it featured badass looking food wearing combat gear and wielding guns! I jumped into the demo of the game knowing nothing more than that it is a card game, and I was pleasantly surprised once we got into playing the demo. Our first play through involved a dealt out hand, choosing which cards to play for either Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner, and then flipping up cards and battling against other players that chose the same meal that you did.
Food Fight’s cards are all extremely stylistic and, if you’re a fan of the game’s particular kind of humor, incredibly funny. If you think things like Private Pancake, Corporal Taco, and Sergeant Sushi all decked out in army outfits are funny, then this game is perfect for you. However, as we played that first hand I couldn’t help but find it to be a mediocre game at best. That’s when the demo changed completely. Once we’d played one hand to learn how the basic game played, we were each dealt a hand of cards from which we drafted one card and proceeded to pass hands around the table in the familiar card drafting fashion. I can understand why they were demoing the game without the drafting at first, but at least one of our friends ONLY got to play the game with a non-drafted hand and that confuses me. Once I started to draft the cards the game immediately improved for me and I understood the card designs and enjoyed it a hell of a lot more. [Read the rest of this article]
Quitical Hits Review: “Quarriors”
Quarriors is a deck building game that uses dice instead of cards, published by WizKids. 2-4 players gather dice that represent monsters to impress the Empress of their realm. Average playtime seems to be near half an hour, and this review is based on three plays.
Gameplay
Play begins with twelve base dice and you roll six at random for your turn. Resources generated by those dice can be used to summon monsters, buy spells, and acquire new monsters. Each die can come up with resources, a reroll, or a monster/spell. Monsters cost resources to bring out, spells typically happen without paying for them and then have some in-game effect. Some monster dice have different level monsters that cost varying amounts for different levels of potency. Summoned monsters have to survive your opponents turn before scoring. First one to score a preset number of points wins. As a bonus, when you score, you can “cull” dice form your dice pool to cut out your increasingly outclassed starting dice. [Read the rest of this article]
Gen Con 2011: D&D New Products Seminar
As usual, speculation was rampant on what Wizards of the Coast would announce at Gen Con. Given the departure of some high-profile names and based on statements made via the D&D website, the default prediction seemed to be the announcement of D&D 5th edition, or some kind of Basic/Advanced split forked off the current edition of D&D. As it turned out, none of that happened. Sources told me that while that certainly can’t be ruled out for the future (of course), any kind of announcement of that scope will have plenty of advance warning and won’t be conducted in secret (i.e., avoiding the way that D&D 4e was announced.)
That said, there was a major announcement at the end of the D&D New Products Seminar at Gen Con, and it’s one that gamers have been asking for a LONG time. In fact, it’s one that has implications beyond just D&D and to a number of roleplaying games. But will get to that- here’s some of the highlights.
The panel was run by Mike Mearls (announced officially as the head of D&D R&D, or El Jefe), James Wyatt, and Rodney Thompson.
D&D Novels
James Wyatt spoke about all the upcoming D&D novels. A variety of tie-ins are happening with Neverwinter, including the actual book Neverwinter starring Drizzt, followed up by Charon’s Claw. There’s also Brimstone Angels coming in November as an additional tie-in.
The Abyssal Plague cross-world crossover continues as well, with the two origin stories already published, three stories rolling out now as the plague strikes, and then three more stories coming to represent the plague spreading.
Experiments are also happening in the D&D novel publishing arm, including Shadowbane, an ebook only novel packed with what was described as “bonus features.” As well, three classic backlist D&D novels are being released every week, meaning the extensive library of D&D novels are entering the ebook era.
I Haven’t Washed My DM Pants In Six Months And They Smell Like Umber Hulk
When I got home from DDXP last January, the desire to have a gaming group again had been fanned from a wee spark into a roaring flame. I immediately set about the task of inviting people and getting things set up, and before we knew it, we were playing our first game together. As I’ve mentioned in this column before, I am not really accustomed to being at the helm of a gaming group. In past years, I just showed up at the designated place and time every week and consumed cookies and caffeine until something magical happened and I woke up at home with a tummyache the next morning. I knew that being the Dungeon Master was going to be different, but I really didn’t know how.
Now, just a shade under six months from where we started, I’m taking a step back to see how things are.
Formatting
When the group first started, we decided to play D&D every other week, and play various board and card games on the alternate week. We’d had a lot of people itching to play board games where I worked for some time, and I liked the idea of having more time to plan between sessions while I was still getting my dungeon-legs.
Now, after half a year, I find it interesting that the board game half of our game nights seems to be the star attraction (frequently, even to me!). Several of our players have brought friends or significant-other units, and I find myself with a very happy – and very full – dining room. Everyone still likes D&D, but I do think our campaign suffers from the lack of weekly play. There are other cards stacked against D&D as well. If more than 2 people are gone, we typically will default to board game night — which has resulted in 4-5 missed D&D nights. We also only play for a relatively short period (6-11pm, since it’s a weeknight), and we usually need until about 7:30 or 8pm to unwind, socialize, and get the game going. I don’t see this as a bad thing, except that it cuts into gaming time. All of our players have worked at the same place within the last year or so, several of us have either left or been laid off, and this is the only time we get to see each other and hang out now.
I’m not going to lie. This bothered me for a little bit. I wanted to put gaming first and I wanted everything to run super smooth and to have the Best Gaming Group Ever. Then Katherine, one our our players, utilized a particular talent she has in making people make sense. We need that social time. It’s a large part of why we have this group in the first place. It’s why you can go to a convention and have fun playing with a group of strangers, but you don’t have the same rapport and emotional connection like you do with a regular group. Do we need to make sure somebody sounds the Horn of Gaming to get the ball rolling sometimes? Sure. But do I still feel good at the end of the night even if we didn’t get a whole lot done? You better believe it.
Population Fluctuation
Our group has grown by a few members since we started. I had heard from several Smart People that anything above 6 players for D&D was too much, but we let a few more in anyway (mostly at my behest). The brains were correct: we frequently don’t get anything done — but we also don’t get a lot done when we only have 4-5 people either. As long as we have fun, I don’t really care. As for board game night…. I think we’re about to crest a dozen. We usually split into two games and each gets half the table. Sometimes it’s hard to hear, but it’s awesome.
As I mentioned before, all of us worked together or were (b)romantically involved with someone who worked with us. One unfortunate reality that goes along with this is that today’s business world/the economy/mole people etc. have not been particularly kind to said employer and they’ve been laying people off. People like, for instance, me. I was fortunate enough to land another job quickly and locally, but I worry about my friends who are still there. Especially the ones that I’m worried might have to move away, because then I don’t get to see them and/or kill undead with them anymore. My last group breaking up was not a pleasant experience for me, and it also involved some of my favorite people moving away where I don’t get to see them much anymore. We’re not to that point yet, and with the amount of players we have right now my guess is we could soldier on. But I really, REALLY don’t want to.
My Role In All This Play
I’ve talked a lot about the group itself, but not my role in it. Like I said, I’m not used to this, and I’m still not yet. I think I sort of act as a leader for us even today, but it pretty much consists of providing a place to play, making sure everybody knows where and when to come and working out the occasional (thus far almost negligible) issues the players might have. I’ve had a few DM’s that go on a power trip, so even talking about me being all leader-y makes me a little self-conscious even though I’m pretty sure that’s not me. I decided to take the initiative on things just because I knew somebody had to in order to make gaming happen. I’ve seen a couple groups fail because they never could get together or figure out what to do, and I think it happened in part because nobody stepped up. It certainly doesn’t have to be me, but I’m glad to try to nudge us in a gamerly direction, and to do the occasional organizational stuff. There’s not much, but it’s needed.
Speaking of organizational stuff — it didn’t always go right: I did all the pizza ordering for awhile and tried to have it ready by the time everyone got there, but getting everyone’s orders right frequently didn’t happen and we wound up with either too little or too much pizza. It wasn’t a tremendous deal but it was getting unnecessarily expensive. Lately we’ve been going with a “bring your own food” policy that seems to be working well.
I was kind of hoping to have the pre-game DM jitters gone by this point, but they’re still very much there before every session (and inversely as strong as how much preparation I’ve done, which really ought to be a lesson to me one of these weeks). I do think my confidence has improved somewhat. Some of the more… shall we say, experimental sessions we’ve had did have a few grains of method behind their madness. For instance, one side effect of having done a “zero-prep” session is that I know I can make something happen even if I don’t have anything to go on. Granted, it wasn’t very good, but now I feel much more comfortable if I actually do have things prepared and the terror of someone exploding my carefully-laid railplot is insignificant by comparison.
I had a player recently tell me he wasn’t having much fun during D&D, but he still loved playing boardgames and wanted to know if he could just do that half. I sat and read his text message for a moment, bracing myself for feelings of shame and inadequacy, waiting for the defensive response to bubble up into my brain. I was really surprised when it didn’t happen. I simply told him I was really glad he told me, and I’d SO much rather he told me and just did the stuff he enjoyed rather than sitting and being miserable every other week. I’ve been in a group where we were all too chicken to tell the DM we were unhappy and wanted to quit. It was awful, and it wasted everyone’s time. This was not. There were zero hard feelings and it was one of the better examples of communication among rational adult gamers I’ve ever seen. It did, however, make me want to get feedback from him to see what I could improve (regardless of whether he decides to play again later). If I was going to guess at my own flaws: I’ve stayed on the rails too much a few times, went way too far off the rails a couple times, I seem to be allergic to giving out treasure, and I don’t prepare enough. It might be time to poll my players to see what they think.
Appraisal
The uncertain future aside, I’d say we’re doing well and having fun. I don’t really know where this puts us on Chatty’s stages of RPG group development (any given session is a crapshoot between Storming and Norming), but our split format probably throws a few monkey wrenches into things. I’ve personally thought about lobbying to have board game night go three weeks in a row and only have one board game a night. Then again, I’ve also thought about doing the inverse. I feel like we’re having trouble doing a long campaign, and might do better with one or two session D&D adventures (or maybe even trying some “smaller” games like Leverage or Mouse Guard). I’d also like to try running some adventures I didn’t come up with. I think they might be a little easier for human brains to process, and I might learn how to make mine a bit more comprehensible along the way. Once again, probably time to speak to the group to see where we want to steer this thing. I really don’t think anybody cares, as long as we have fun.
So, basically, almost nothing turned out like I expected. Even so, sending out that batch of invites was one of the best things I’ve done in recent memory. I hope we can keep this going for a good long while.
Photo Credit
2011 Origins Report
Cthulhu Sculpture Made From Chains Outside The Art Show
Another year, another Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio. Since Gen Con tends to be both my super busy show and the one with more duties for me as Press anyway, I swore to make this year at Origins more of a “hang out and play” kinda show. That said, the advantage of Gen Con for playing is that it’s easier to just send out a tweet saying “hey, I’m looking for something to play” and actually get a group together.
So, I didn’t get in as many plays as I was originally planning, but that’s OK, I still got to play in a few pretty awesome games. I managed to fit in some playtesting (both of my own stuff and other people’s stuff) and conduct a bit of business as well, so for me, it’s easy to call the show a success.
More important to all of your for sure are the games themselves. So here’s a rundown of my games played, purchased, and perused that stood out. [Read the rest of this article]
