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. Now, just a shade under 6 months in, I’m taking a step back to see how things are.
2011 Origins Report
Another Origins has come and gone, and as always, there were plenty of games. Here are a few that stood out, both old and new.
2011 Origins Awards Winners
Here are the results of the 2011 Origins Awards, announced at the 37th annual ceremony.
Review: “Conquest of Nerath” D&D Boardgame
Today we see the release of Conquest of Nerath, the newest D&D board game from Wizards of the Coast. Unlike the last two D&D board games from WotC, Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon, which focused on heroes and dungeon crawling this new game is a take on large scale strategy board gaming along the lines of games like Risk or Axis & Allies. At the same time the game includes heroes that can fight alongside your larger armies and delve into dungeons to uncover powerful treasure that will help your armies attain victory over the other factions.
Preview and Interview: “Guestbook” RPG
We talk about the upcoming “Guestbook” RPG that combines collectible characters with RPGs in order to produce 5 minute flash fiction while standing in line and hanging out. We interview the game’s designers, and preview Taco Girl, one of the game’s first characters.
The Old School Job, Part 1: The Temple-Brothel of Monte-Cookus
In which Chatty finally reveals what new RPG hack he’s been working on for so long and starts telling the story of his latest play test game in a mythical fantasy city.
Chatty in Washington: Highlights of DC Gameday
In which Chatty exits his blog silence to share the best tidbits of his Washington DC trip to attend a gaming con.
The Plastic Is Too Damn High: Miniatures Pricing Primer
Like many of you, I was dismayed at the cancellation of the D&D minis line. Understandably, this raised some questions among the community. “Are minis really that expensive to make?” “Why can’t I just buy a box of assorted monsters?” “Isn’t it stupid to reuse sculpts?” I hope to be able to answer some of these questions, with what limited knowledge I have about the situation.
Boardgaming Resurgence
Just over a year ago our group of friends was heavily into the deck building game Dominion. It was relatively new but had been out long enough to have three quick expansions and we really couldn’t get enough of it. Some days we would play game after game for hours on end. As should be expected, we eventually burned out from that pace. Thankfully, over the last two months I have noticed an extreme increase in the amount of board games that my friends and I have been playing and I want to share a few of the stand out games we’ve been enjoying.
Review: Nightfall (Card Game)
Nightfall is a new deck-building card game from Alderac Entertainment Group that is set in a dark world of vampires and werewolves. The game supports between 2 and 5 players and takes roughly 45 minutes to an hour to play. The basic set for the game comes with over 300 cards that include minions you can recruit into your deck, actions that you can play during your turn and other player’s turn, several types of wound cards representing different types of damage taken (bite, burn, and bleed), and draft cards that are used during the game’s set up.
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