It’s time for my weekly game review, but this week is something special because it’s time for a video game review!

 

Shadowrun Returns

TL;DR-Not perfect, but damn fun.  Please help, I can’t stop! 85%

Platforms-Steam and OSX

Graphics-The graphics are serviceable to good.  The view is approximately 3/4 overhead, which brings with it some great and some bad.  The view gives a good view of the rooms, but also leaves some of the details obscured.  Since the game is cross platform with the lowest resolution in the iOS, the best the graphics can do is iOS.  This is not bad, but again not the best it could be.  Also, icons appear that the player can click on.  But, they do not stay visible, and when multiple things are in the same area, it’s hard to click on the proper icon. 3.5/5

Story-This is story is amazing.  I might not thing this game is game of the year, but I can’t stop playing!  It feels Shadowrun through and through.  And since this game is a story game from the RPG, this is the most important part to nail. And they real did nail it! 5/5

Mechanics-There are two area for mechanics: character mechanics and game mechanics. Let’s look at the game mechanics first. This game is point and click.  You point and click.  Point and click.  Battles tend to get a little stale over time as you tend to do the same thing over and over.  Its not bad, but in the longer battles it gets to be a problem.  You click on powers and the click on people to use them.  Players only get so many items before the start of an encounter.  Players have an home base that they go to before missions to buy gear and then recruit new runners to their team.  Character mechanics next.  The Characters have the standard Shadowrun stats that we all know in love.  Beneath each stat is a few substats that build on the standard stats.  An example is Strength.  Below the standard strength stat is close combat.  This replaces the standard skills of the Shadowrun game.  It’s not bad, but it’s different.  All and all, a fun game with a little bit of drag. 4/5

Shadowrun Feel-The game feels like Shadowrun.  Story that feels like a Shadowrun game with characters that are ripped from a Shadowrun game book.  If you can’t find some people to play a home game, this is a about as close as you can get.  Its not completely the RPG, but its damn fine.  Also, when the main game is done, go get some player made content.  I LOVE games that allow players to make content.  This makes the game feel even more like the RPG. 4.5/5

Final Thoughts-So I’ve complained about a few issues, but honestly I can’t stop playing.  Its a lot of fun and makes me want to play some more table top Shadowrun right now. It’s a pretty cheap buy in for about $25 bucks.  Go get it-17/20-85%

TL;DR- Best part of the adventure path 5/5

Plot-Spoilers ahead!- The pirates now have a ship and begin to be pirates.  The player have a chance to grab an island for territory, make some alliances and explore an sunken dungeon.  At the end of the adventure, the players will move from small time pirates to Full Free Captains of the Shackles.

GM Impressions-THIS IS THE ADVENTURE TO MAINLINE PIRATES!  We’re past the level 1 problem of the first adventure.  Now the players get to go be real pirates, and ITS AWESOME!  I had a blast.  The players had a blast.  IF YOU WANT TO PLAY ANY OF THIS ADVENTURE PATH, THIS ADVENTURE IS THE ONE!

Good-You’re FINALY pirates in Pathfinder.  You have a ship, and you set sail.  The PCs can go ANYWHERE!

Bad-This is an improve heavy adventure.  The PCs just go after ships.  The book has some basic ships and a basic village they can attack.  You as a GM have to make it entertaining.  Its not hard, but you have to put in a little bit of leg work to make this fun.   Also, get ready for underwater aquatic combat.  If your PCs hate rules heavy combat, they will not enjoy that part.

Final Thoughts-Best part of the adventure path.  YOU ARE PIRATES!  No random skill checks.  No real control on your PCs.  Just GO!  Be pirates!  As a GM, read ahead, know your rules, and be ready to make stuff up on the fly!  5/5

Game: Storm the Castle!

Players: 1-4

Playtime(setup/play/clean-up): 120 minutes

Set Ending: Yes

TL;DR-A “Fun” game that fall just short of being fun-52.5%

How You Play: Players take the role of different factions trying to invade a castle full of good, heroic people.  You play as zombies, dark wizards, orcs, or dark elves.  Each round the players get gold and draw a card.  Then players do a blind bid to be the overlord.  As the overlord you get to choose two options on when to play and draw a special overload card.  Then play goes round robin with each player taking turns moving pieces, attacking the castle, and trying to defend the castle.  The game ends when a player invades the castle center or after a set number of rounds.

Theme: The theme and theme/mechanics mix of the game are well done in as far as the mechanics are well done.  This game is semi-“co-opetitive” games where players fight one another, but can’t spend all their time messing with one another or they are guaranteed to lose.  Each race gets its own deck of cards that show who they are, and these decks really give each race a flavor.  Some races even get different mechanics of the game like zombies and wizards getting magic, orcs getting some sappers, and elves having archers.  This aspect makes the game feel interesting and enjoyable. 5/5

 
Mechanics:  Here is were the games flat out fails.  There is no internal balance.  When I played, I pretty much dominated the game as the overlord once I got it.  You get extra gold as the overlord and you spend gold to be the overlord, so I just built in that gold to the bid!  Also, there is not enough ways to mess with other players, hence the runaway victor problem.  The final straw in this is the dice.  All events in the game are based on six sided dice, but the dice only hit 1/3 times with the first die having a critical chance where you hit and roll extra dice.  This is not “horrible” but more often than not you end up rolling four dice with zero hits!  When this happens once, its ok, but in the game I played we had whole rounds where attacks and defenders didn’t touch each other.  This makes the game feel less like a pitched battle and more like a game of two children in the back seat of a car screaming at each other playing the “I’m not touching you!” game.  It makes the game grind to a halt and not fun. 0/5

Instructions: Here is where things are worse.  The instructions are full of problems and the game needs errata to be playable.  Even worse the game’s errata doesn’t cover all the problems we faced in the simple version of the game.  Even then the games rules are too long for a simple game. 2.5/5

Art/Components:  Its good art.  The components need some work.  The tokens have two sides for ready and used.  Some of the used sides are hard to see.  Also the turn markers are two sided, but they have different values on the different sides….WHY?!  This makes giving out random turn orders very hard.  DON’T DO THIS GAME DESIGNERS! 3/5

Final Thoughts: Despite my ravings about this game, I didn’t hate it….I see so much potential in this game.  A bit more work and this game would be AWESOME.  I love the races and their differences.  The defenders are great and have personalities.  What kills this game is the crappy dice, the poor instructions and some component trouble. 10.5/20-52.5%

 

One second game fix-Take the dice you get with the game and throw them away in the garbage.  take a bunch of six side yatzhee dice and use them.  1-3 you miss,  4-5 you hit, and 6 your crit (but only one die that you color).  DONE!  Now you get a fifty-fifty miss chance that will make your game that much more fun and feel like a battle!

During the Labor Day weekend, my wife and I finished the first arc of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game.  Let’s give it the run down and I’ll tell you what I thought.  Along the way, I’ll give you my wife’s thoughts as this is a co-op game.

Game: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Players: 1-4

Playtime(setup/play/clean-up): ~30 minutes

Set Ending: Yes

TL;DR-Great game that was a ton of fun to play.  I’m looking forward to the next part of the adventure path.  I am cautious about the future though-80%

 

How You Play: Players take the role of iconic Pathfinder characters and investigate different locations.  How this translates to a game is at start, players build decks of card with different cards in each location.  These cards range from traps, people you can met, monsters to fight, and items/weapons/arms/spells you can find.  On your turn, you flip a card from the blessing deck( a built in timer for the game), and can flip the top card of a location deck you are at.  The card may call for a roll.  Each character has the six normal Pathfinder/3.5 stats and these are represented by different dice type you roll.  Players can play cards to add more dice to the roll.  Combat works just the same as finding an item or evading a trap.  Play continues at a location until the players find a henchmen who they fight and then they can try to close a location.  Players may move between locations and have different types of encounters this way.  This continues until players find the lead main villain who, when beaten, means the game is over and the players have won.

 

Mechanics:  The mechanics of the game are well put together.  Nothing to hard to figure out when you know what you’re doing.  Turns go quick and play is fast.  Nothing comes out of left field that makes the game grind to a halt.  I found it pretty easy and so did my wife.  We both liked the way the game plays. 5/5

 

Theme:  The theme and theme/mechanics mix of the game are “interesting.”  Not bad “interesting,” but “interesting.”  The game does not use a D20.  This fact is kind of strange as the game is based on Pathfinder.  While not horrible and a deal breaker by any means, it does make the game feel a little bit less like the Pathfinder RPG and more like different third party RPGs I’ve played.  I reiterate, that’s not bad, but I doesn’t feel like the Pathfinder RPG.  Also, I and my wife and I a strange revelation.  The way you recharge powers/cards/spells made us think of 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.  Some items were one time use, but a lot of cards had recharge abilities and made us think 4e DnD.  Again, not bad, but it makes us think of other RPGs.  That all said, at WORST the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game makes us think of other RPGs, NOT a card game.  It was a fun with nail biting moments when we HAD to make a roll or I would die and we would lose the quest.  Good time without a person having to DM.  4/5

 

Instructions: Here is where things are not as great.  The instruction book isn’t a long read, but it is kind of difficult to get the important information out of.  This is Paizo’s first real game that I have played.  The book does get the game across, but I had to check out watch-it-played youtube videos so I could figure out different questions.  A major one was the blessing deck.  My wife and I read the rules and both thought you drew cards from it.  We were both very wrong.  Now we both know it is a timer deck that you only place cards on.  The rules don’t have many pictures or breaks.  This is great for an RPG book, but for a game, I need more examples and pictures of play.  It’s not horrible, but it does need outside help. 2.5/5

 

Art/Components:  Paizo has never made crap, and they didn’t with this.  Hard cardboard with a well put together box.  Great stuff.  For the art, a lot comes from the Pathfinder RPG.  Not bad.  If you like the Pathfinder art style, you will like this game.  It’s as simple as that.  I’d like more new, but I got over 500 cards for $80 bucks.  I know art costs, so I’m happy with what I got. 4.5/5

 

Final Thoughts:  This is a great game.  You want to play an RPG and don’t have a group?  Get the game.  You want an RPG and no one want to DM?  Get this game.  Basically, this is a fantastic game that my wife and I love.  My wife and I both can’t wait till the next adventure releases. 80% 16/20

 

Caution in the Future:   What I am concerned with is what will happen in the future.  The game is great, but the mechanics are very similar throughout the entire game.  That is great, but if the next adventure is the same, then I will be disappointed.  The adventure game does vary some things, but I can’t help but compare the game to the Lord of the Rings Card Game.  My wife does not completely agree with the comparison, but she does think that the Lord of the Rings game has more variety.  The game instructs the players to make new piles of cards, the draw differently, to completely make new adventures and go quest alone, and more crazy things.  While some of those mechanics openly do not work so well, the game shows no fear in finding new ways to play.  I would like the makers of this card game to look at that one and see how the Pathfinder Adventure card Game can grew.  I’m cautiously optimistic that Paizo will make something new and awesome, but I also have a touch of bad feeling that something might go awry.

I’m catching up on all the games I’ve bought over the summer.  This game comes from meeting the guys at Albino games at Origins.  What drew me in was their custom Cthulhu T-shirts, and they offered me a deal on two of their games: “Ace of Spies” and “Genegrafter.”  Let’s see what I thought of “Ace of Spies!”

 

TL;DR-This is an excellent game.  Plays very similar to “Ticket to Ride,” but adds in an element of direct competition.  Theme comes out well and the mechanics are tight.  Great game-82.5%

 

Mechanics-Think “Ticket to Ride” with only cards, BUT fixes some of the major problems in “Ticket to Ride.”  In the game you have mission cards.  These cards show a number of symbols( hand lens, suitcase, spy, or location) that are either all one color or a color and grey.  The symbols are matched by cards from one of three decks representing three cities that you must spy on.  When you have cards with all the symbols on a mission card, you can turn in the mission for points.  On your turn you can either: draw two cards, play an agent, draw new mission cards, or discard cards to perform new actions.  The basics of the first three actions is pretty self-explanatory.  Draw cards to make missions.  Play agents for their special agent powers.  Draw new mission cards to score points.  The last is the key that makes this game stand out.  In “Ticket to Ride” when you draw cards that don’t really have a use…..TOO BAD!  The can just sit in your hand till the games done.  This game enforces a 10 card hand limit.  When you don’t want to draw cards, you can discard cards for effects such as forcing others to discard cards or search the deck or discards to get cards you need for each mission.  As someone who LOVES “Ticket to Ride”, but hates being locked out of cards, this is a phenomenal improvement to a “mission completion” style game.  4.5/5

 

Theme-In this game you are all spies working against one another.  Since on any turn you can discard cards to mess with any other player, this is done excellently.  The mechanics really serve the theme well.  Also, each card has some flavor text which is awesome.  However, there is no real story that ties everything together besides any story you bring to the game yourself. 4/5

 

Art-The art is fairly well done.  Its nothing amazing, but its done well and gets the points across.  My only real complaint is that the symbols for points (spyglasses) look like the symbols for the symbols needed to complete the missions.  They are in different places, but still, it might serve to make them different to keep things a bit different. 4/5

 

Instructions-The instructions are pretty well written.  I still have a few questions, and some points are not explained very well.  But, all in all nothing game breaking is in the rules.  4/5

 

Final Thought-As someone who plays “Ticket to Ride” almost daily on my Ipad, this is a breath of fresh air.  It occupies enough room that you can play in a bar on a small table.  Nothing is overly complex, and its easy to teach.  Great game.  And for 35 on Amazon it’s worth the money 16.5/20-82.5%

TL;DR-Better then Ok adventure.  Has some elements that drag on a bit, but its to be expected in a 1st-3rd level adventure.  Definitely worth your time! 3.5/

Plot-Spoilers ahead!- The PCs wake up on a ship after being kidnapped.  They join the crew under the cruel Captain Harrigan.  They work as crew for a bit before joining in on their first pirate raid. The crew is split and the PCs are now under the even crueler 2nd in command and his cronies.  The ship is damaged in a storm and the PCs have to fix the ship, rescue their friends, and finally mutiny against their captors.

GM Impressions-Good adventure, but it does drag on a bit in the first act.  Like any good adventure, the goal is to get the PCs out of the level one “death zone” as quick as possible.  If the PCs take a single crit from a goblin, the show is over before it begins!  To get past this, the adventure does  a series of day job checks.  That’s ok, but if nothing really exciting happens for five days, the PCs are just rolling dice.  As a GM it gets hard to spice up the fifth day of that.  However, the PCs didn’t seem to notice too much and they had a good time.  Its fun to really ramp up the hate from the PCs to a villain and then have them kill that person.  Its cathartic for them.

Good-You’re pirates in Pathfinder.  You don’t have to be good, you’re pirates!  Let’s be bad guys!

Bad-Some dragging moments as they PCs have to do menial jobs.  Its not heroic, but its grunt work for several days strait.

Final Thoughts-Good adventure, but not the greatest.  Memorial cast that you can really ramp up hate for an excellent ending to the adventure.  Keep the drag in mind and maybe skip ahead if your players get bored.  3.5/5

Friday

Orc Stomp 5k-My day started at 5:30, because I hate me.  After going to bed at 12:30, I decided to run.  Why?  ORC STOMP!  This yearly 5k is at 8AM one day and 6AM the next.  These are a great group of guys and gals who put on a race.  This year was even better than the last.  Now, they have time sensors, sponsors, all sorts of great things!  I love these guys and wish them the best.  You can tell that I haven’t been running lately because my 5k time was 38:12.  Not great, but it is what it is.  Either way you should join them if you can!  Join quick because T-shirts are limited!

After a shower, shave, and fruit breakfast, its off to the con floor!

Paizo-I am pretty sure these guys did NOT have a clue how swamped they would be at this con.  This year is their first year as a large co-sponsor to the con.  I had a pre-order of the pathfinder adventure game, and If I didn’t it was SOLD OUT the second  day of the con!  HECK, they had canvas bags for anyone who spent over $100 and those were SOLD OUT of the SECOND DAY OF THE CON!  It’s a damn good day as a retailer when you are sold out of bags with a $100 price tag.  Picked up my pre-orders and was off.  Something new I’ve noticed: line end standy holders.  Lines are getting CRAZY at GenCon!  Now stores have lines to just BUY that wrap around the booth!  Not sure how I feel about this.  Either way, Paizo, you got the most of my money, so you win this con.  Congrats!

After the crazy that was the Paizo booth, it was off to the rest of the con.

Daydreamer Interactive-Ever hear of these guys?  No.  Neither have I, but you know what they did right?  It’s a quick start guide that’s free.  I walked up to these guys and they handed me a free copy of Infinem quickstart guide.  These always make me happy.  Now, I will run a game at my local store.  All those other games that I walked past, if you don’t even have a quickstart PDF I can download when you hand me a card, I don’t remember you.  I never heard of Arcanis from Paradigm before Origins 2011, but now I run two games a month and have bought all their books.  Keep that in mind.  I don’t even need a real book, just give me a dropbox link!

Gust Bustin’ Games-Last GenCon I wandered over to their tables and played Trailer Park Wars.  Since then, I’ve bought two copies.  They are currently making an expansion to the game.  Its due in October, but whenever I see them I like to scream at them “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!”  They always laugh and as I walked away one sales person looked at the manager of the company and said “See, that man wants our product!”  By the way, if you cosplay a character from your game, you get points in my book.  You cosplay a redneck (I know you because I are one)  you get big extra points.  Hence, I’ve bought two copies and will most likely buy two copies of the expansion.

Geek Preacher, Christian Gaming Guild, and Game Church-I ran in to these guys and I always love them.  I’m Catholic, so I tend to be at odds with my religion a lot.  These guys make me happy as they always have uplifting messages that tie my gaming life to my faith.  As I said to them and it became the quote of GenCon “You guys make me not hate my religion!”

Tasty Minstrel Games-I am CHEAP! and my local game store offers 1/5 off the cover price of any game.  For me to buy a game that is the amount I want off a game to buy it outright.  Beyond that you have to give me something extra like a mini-expansion or something.  As I walked around the con, Tasty Minstrel was selling Belfort for 1/5 off and giving the first expansion of Dungeon Roll with a Dungeon Roll purchase.  I love the Secret Gaming Cabal Gaming Podcast(more later) and they vouched for Belfort so I bought it sight unseen.  I also was able to talk with the publisher and an artist at the company.  We commiserated over his low pay and how the convention hall charged $75 BUCKS A DAY FOR VENDER INTERNET!  Always great to talk to the guys who make the games.  It’s even better to pat them on the back as they fake cry over artist rates!  Great bunch of guys.

Modiphius Entertainment-I walked by the creators of the ACHTUNG! CTHULHU game.  We talked about their kickstarter and how progress was going on the game.  I missed their playtest, but we talked about the future and the possibility of a living game.  Great people who are working hard to bring a good product to market.  Looking forward to my PDF!

CritSuccess-THESE GUYS MAKE DICE RINGS!  I had never heard of these, but they are awesome.  I bought my wife won.  And later, I found out DMs get their first one for $5 bucks, so I bought one for me!  About $20 for a ring that rolls!  Lots of styles!  HURRAY!

And with that it was food time and then back to work for Baldman Games and Wizards of the Coast.   I love DnD Next and working with the crew at Baldman.  Good times and fun, strange things always happen at my tables.  Also, nothing like being told you have to game till 1AM or your fired!

After words, one of my friends flagged me down and excitedly told me about his new discovery!  There is this great place for Noodles!  I asked what the place was and he told me its called Noodles and Co.  He had never seen that place before, and it blew his mind.  Laughing as I told him, I talked about eating there most of college and how its just north of Jackson.  We ended up eating there next to a woman in a TARDIS dress. God bless GenCon!

Saturday

3AM is not conducive to a 7AM wakeup, but it happened.  Thank god no running today!

Wizards of the Coast and Baldman Games–  Back to running Confrontation at Candlekeep.  I love this mod and the variability.  As I said before, nothing is as awesome as a battle interactive introduction to a system.  I had tables that ranged from a complete party of monks named Skunk, Punk, Funk, and Drunk to a FULL table of people dressed head to toe as Drow.  I love this job.  Ever better Saturday, I got a chance to be first reader.  This person is the proctor for the adventure and keeps time for the tables.  I loved it, it beat the hell out of me, made me horse, and is MUCH harder than it looks to do well.  I think my tables had fun and I know I did.

Passport Games-Mid game shift, I was able to get 30 minutes to sneak out to get a copy of Tokaido.  The creator was signing games at that time and I got a copy signed for my wife.  These guys still remember me from Let’s Play Green Bay so its good to see old friends again!

Back to the con floor!

Stan!-Before the con I visited a holy site on a pilgrimage through Wisconsin: I stopped a the old site of TSR.  I wasn’t sure about the address, and I reached out to twitter.  Stan! responded and helped me.  We talked for a while and I’m really glad I got to meet him.  He’s a great guy.  Also, he signed my Mazes and Monsters  book.

The Manhattan Project –Stumbling and wondering off (Remember less than 4 hours of sleep and no food at this point), I wondered the hall in a drunken stupor and found a group of guys demoing The Manhattan Project .  Again The Secret Gaming Cabal Podcast recommended this game, but this time I got to try it out.  While not completely sure where I was I was able to win this game by my teeth.  A great game that is awesome.  I was hooked.  Now….to buy……

Secret Gaming Cabal Podcast-At New Years, I decided I would pick up a bunch game podcasts and pare them to a few.  This was one and I’ve keep listening since then.  Good guys.  I like the games they like.  I don’t always agree with the games they poo-poo, but I like what they like.  I hadn’t heard the latest podcast, but I saw on twitter the were doing a meet up at the Ram, then the Omni.  No gaming (sad panda), but you could grab a beer and maybe win some games.  At the meet up, Stephen Buonocore was there and its always a great time to see him.  I thanked him for sponsoring the Orc Stomp 5k.  I also got to meet the Cabal crew and they are great guys.  It was good to put some names to faces, it makes listning to the podcasts that much more relatable.  I was able to win a game Pixel Lincoln.  I thank the guys and then had to head out.

The night ended with me drinking with the rest of the GMs from Baldman games while being regaled with insider information on how game companies work as well as learning the history of my hobby.  God I love this job.

Sunday

Going to bed at 3AM and waking up at 7AM is still a bad idea!  Woke up and got all my gear together and brought it to my car.  From their it’s off to the con!

Church-The Geek Preacher and crew put on a non-denominational church service.  This year is was creation.  Good messages, good fun, lots of puns, and I left with a feeling a faith I haven’t honestly had in a long time.

Catalyst-I thought I was done giving money to these guys at Origins, but I was wrong!  I talked with some of the writer for the game and found they had updated the Firing Line Book.  Good stuff.  I also talked about Battletech and Mechwarrior.  I want to do some gaming, but its hard to find people who do the same thing.  I meet with some more designers to talk about that.   After the RPG stuff, I moved on to trying The Duke.  It’s like chess, magic, and roborally had a baby.  Tile movement that changes, random tile drawing, and critical thinking.   Great game, I plan to buy it.  It was a lot of fun.

Indie Boards and Cards-I’ve always wanted to try Flash Point, so I flagged down a person and asked how to play.  Its simple enough and now I think I’ll buy it sooner then later.  I love co-op games that my wife and I can play when we’re home on a week night, and this fits the bill!

Indie game hall-Across from the exhibitor hall was the playtest hall.  I walked in and grabbed all the business cards I could, and guess what I saw…paper copy of RPG rules quickstart for Mazaki no Fantaji.  Since I don’t turn those down I grabbed it and now I’ve got another RPG to try.  Heck they have a kickstarter right now and they follow my rules for a cheep PDF level so they even got my money without a try of the game.  Good job guys!

Cubical 7-I talked with the guys over at Cubical 7.   These guys recently released World War Cthulhu.  For the con, they had cheaper copies with a  free PDF.  They followed my rule of a con price as well as a free pdf, so as a Lovecraft nut, I bought it.  I also was very happy when I talked with a developer of the game and he told me they didn’t kickstart because kickstarter is for companies that need it, not just need cheep publicity.  That made me happy so I felt that was a good purchase.

Margaret Weiss Production-These Guys made the award winning Marvel game that was recently shut down.  To help them break the curse of stopping an awesome idea before its time, they now made the Firefly RPG…..oh boy…. Well, I wanted to help so I bought a copy and they gave me a free PDF (AS IT SHOULD BE!).  I even was able to get it signed by Margaret Weiss herself.

Minion Games-The makers of The Manhattan Project.  This place was like if I ran a game company.  I got to talk to the creator.  He’s a hard swearing guy who is pretty friendly.  Funny guy.  He and I sat for half an hour discussing making ipad games from board games and if it will drive sales.  Good times.  I did get my copy of Manhattan Project.

Game Salute-These guys sponsor The Secret Gaming Cabal, so I felt it was my job to stop by and say I heard about them on the podcast.  While there, they had Sunrise City for 50% OFF!  So that happened without hesitation.

All and all a great con.  I met lot of good people, discussed the industry, spent WAY too much money, and played 30+ hours of DnD Next.  I couldn’t ask for a better weekend.

Day one of GenCon is always like the opening rush at a food court and the best part of Christmas all crammed together.  It is some of the best and the worst you can experience.  Let’s start with the worst because I want to end on a high note.  Companies are still figuring things out and so are their demo teams.  And, sadly, there is no better way to deal with this as you need the players there to really stress test any idea for play and organization out there.  That makes this like a fast food job as you have a burst of stress that you have to feed of our you will not last long.  If you can, you’re in for a ride.  The best is seeing all your friends, old and new, meeting with industry, and seeing all the shiny, new toys!

I, like many poor, poor, PhD (Poor, Hungry Doctors), can’t afford to just “go”, so I work.  And I work for the best Damn Demo/Gaming team out there Baldman Games!  For this GenCon, I am stationed at the Delve which this year is “Confrontation at Candlekeep.”  Being a lover of the Realms, (If you’re in Jackson, MI, you can find Candlekeep because that my house!) This was a great fit.  Also, its a low level battle interactive, which are my favorite battle interactive.  Just role-playing, monster killing fun.  I ran from 8AM to 10:45PM.  It was a long day, but a fun one.  I meet so met great people ranging from people who may have known the DnD Next rules a bit more then me to a mom and her two small children who never even heard of DnD before.  Always a blast, great group of GMs to work with, and a great person to read/coordinate the event (even if the he never pronounced Asmodeus the same way twice!  One time it was even Amadeus!)

 

If you get a chance, go to the Wizards of the Coast Both, check it out, play the game, and get some $4 dice man!  Chessex can’t beat that price and it comes with a game!  If you don’t want to wait, go around 8AM or 10PM.  Good luck out there!  More tomorrow!

Ring Side Report- 13 Age

 

TL;DR-13th age in a phenomenal RPG.  It combines the best of 4th, 3rd, and 1st edition Dungeons and Dragons all while creating its own soul.  A word to the wise, this system requires more audience and GM participation that most RPGs thought! 9.5/10

 

Basics-13th Age is a new RPG from Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet , some of the paragons from 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons.  After leaving Wizards, this creative group forged 13th Age alone with a few other projects.  This game focuses heavily on role-playing while not giving up on most of the crunchy bits that players of Dungeons and Dragons love.  The game is set in a world where 12 icons control the fate of the people there.  These icons represent things from races (Elf Queen and the Dwarf Lord) to aspects of nature and power (High Druid to Lich King).  The PCs all have a relationship to these icons and this relationship changes what occurs in every session.  In addition, each PC is unique for several reasons.  All PCs possess powers that most of their race to make it know right off the bat mechanically that the players are better than almost anyone.  In addition to this mechanical benefit, players also have a unique “thing.”  This “thing” ranges from being the world’s smartest Gnoll to a dwarf living in the wild wood in a treehouse in the tallest tree.  The uniqueness of the PCs really makes the game enjoyable, and in general keeps the game fresh.  There is a reason this game was on the most anticipated RPGs of summer 2013.

Mechanics or Medians, Means, and backgrounds oh my!–

Basics-It’s not hard to see DnD was the backbone of this system.  Roll a d20, add numbers, compare to other numbers.  Done.  It’s worked since Gygax, and it still works.  Where fun enters is what numbers you add.  For starters, let’s talk about the escalation die.  For this game, each round of combat after the first the GM places a die on the table.  This die is added to your d20 rolls for that round, and some powers trigger or are affected by it.  There are wizard powers that are not used up if used when the escalation die is even.  This brings combat to a head very quickly and ramps up the fun as combat gradually becomes more intense.

Powers/spells– Powers and spells how a strong 3.0 and 4th edition influence.  All characters have the basic melee and range attacks, but these look much closer to 4th edition powers then simple descriptions in the 3rd edition book.  For a layout point of view, this makes the game much easier to read.  I know some people flee at the slightly whisper of “powers” from 4th edition, but writing the spells and some combat abilities this way really makes the book more digestible.  Also, powers/spells have random refresh abilities.  Some powers and spell can be used again if after  use you roll a 11 or better on a d20.  While this makes the game more random, I will admit it makes the game more fun.  All the standard 3rd and 4th edition powers are in the game, so your favorites are there or coming quickly.

Skills-This game has absolutely no skills, but replaces them with backgrounds.  At character creation you get eight points to place in your backgrounds.  Backgrounds are what ever you want.  There is no limit to this except your imagination.  Now your background could be as simple as “climber+4”, but that’s boring!  What if you were the “savage tree hermit+4”!  The second implies more about who you are the just a single ability.  When you want to do anything that failure would matter, the GM will ask for a roll.  You perform the standard 3rd edition math of d20+skill, but now you can look at the GM as a player and say “As a savage tree hermit, Im used to scaring travelers away from my home, can I add my savage tree hermit background to the roll to intimidate the guards?”  Odds are your GM will say yes in that case.  This makes what you were before the adventure that much more important.  The system is an AWESOME change to the standard gaming landscape of skill use and metagaming.

Medians and Means-This game is not super numbers crunchy.  Don’t expect a hard slog through a book full of different way to game the system. This game aims to put roleplaying center, but it doesn’t forget its crunchy, rule heavy roots.  The game prefers to use standard damage for its monsters.  It also advices the players to do the same.  For defenses, the players use the middle of three abilities to find what defense they should use.  Again, this discourages metagaming and power-gaming as it forces the players to take into account how focusing on one ability will hurt their characters.  Characters can still power game, but this new method for defenses makes a person think a bit more in how they build their characters.

Movement-Like many abstract games, this game uses abstract movement rules.  Basically characters are near, far, or engaged with other characters/enemies.  This style really makes the game move fast.  Honestly, I’ve had combat with six things running around end in less than 15 minutes!  In an average Pathfinder or DnD game, that’s at LEAST an hour.  Spells are built to take this in account and it really helps the flow of game play.  I wish more games were designed like that!

Icon Rolls-At the start of each game session, for each point of a relationship with an icon of the world, you roll a d6.  Getting a six means you get a boon from the icon.  Getting a 5 means you get a boon but with some strings attached.  All this is at GM’s discretion, but it is fun.  Keeps the GM from planning too much and makes the world fresh.  I like it.

Odds and Evens-A final note, dice rolls matter, but it tends to be more than just the total.  Some dice rolls look at if the die is even or odd.  Some powers refresh on an odd roll in combat. Some monsters get to add the escalation die if they get even or odd d20 rolls in combat.  Its more random, but its fun.  New mechanics to keep me on my toes.

 

Theme and Story-Here is where you will either absolutely LOVE the game like me or may possibly be turned away.  As a default, the world is very open.  Honestly, the world building section of the book is about 10 pages or less.  This is very much done on purpose and not a lazy move by the writers.  The writers of the book want each game to be its own thing.  You decide if dwarfs love scotch or apple martinis.  There are common elements such as the icons, but how a negative relationship with the icon plays out is up to you.  Its amazingly fun, but it could cause less creative groups to become paralyzed.  As a group, you build your world on the fly.  If you want a more developed world, then you may want to check out other games or worlds such as the Primal Thule kickstarter that just ended.  To use a food analogy, 13th Age by itself will assume that you’re fine with short order cook work rather than already scheduled catering.

 

Writing in the Book-I want to bring some special attention to how the book was written.  This book has the same vibe that Shadowrun has.  Its much less a white washed, corporate generated book.  This book honestly feels like two guys telling you about some game idea they wrote as are handing you the word file via dropbox.  That’s an AWESOME thing.  I like that I feel the authors talking to me via text.  Even more, the two main authors openly debate with one another across the text or give how the bend the rules of THEIR OWN GAME to make it their own!  One a page, you will see a symbol next to some text and it if accompanies by a small section of someone’s thoughts.  Often this is countered by another author’s symbol and their thoughts.  This whole process fills me with happies in my heart!

 

Summary-A great game.  Its got some flaws, but any book will.  It plays fast and makes the GM really make some choices for the world.  Dice mechanics are great and fresh.  Nothing feels stale.  Nothing is just rehashed 3.5.  Players matter and are the crème de la crème of the world.  Its about $50 bucks at http://www.pelgranepress.com/ with PDF as part of the deal.  To me PDF come standard with a book and Pelgrane Press seems to agree.  Go buy it. 9.5/10

 

Living Games-There is a Living game much like DnD encounters.  Want an adventure to test drive this game after you bought the book?  Crown of the Lich King is FREE!  Go to http://www.pelgranepress.com/ and ask nice and they will send you a link to Google docs where you can get the whole document for FREE!  Did I mention is FREE, even for home play?  Go NOW!

Elder Sign by Fantasy Flight Games

 

Basics:  This is a simpler version of Arkham Horror by Fantasy Flight games. Each Player takes the roll of an investigator trying to stop an elder thing enter this world.

 

Mechanics: Players select a location in the museum and roll dice to get combinations listed on the card.  The mechanics are similar to Yahtzee while you look for combination in dice.  Each card lists what occurs when you succeed or fail.  The mechanics are simple yet fun.  Also, the game is cooperative, simple, and goes up to eight players.  All this combines to make a really great time!  5/5

 

Theme: Here is where the game really suffers.  When you play Arkham Horror, the theme really shines through, but in this game unless you make a serious effort, the theme of the Cthulhu mythos can get lost.  It’s fun, but don’t expect edge of your seat terror like you can get in Arkham Horror.  Also, since the events and rooms of the game are random and you use the full deck of each for each elder thing, there is no real difference in game play for each boss monster.  While each elder thing does have a small game effect, it’s not enough.  I have the same complaint for Arkham Horror.  2/5

 

Components:  Fantasy Flight games LOVES to make all kinds of components, and this game does not disappoint in that department.   And, like any other Fantasy Flight game, these components do not disappoint.  Great quality stuff game parts.  Great art.  Slightly smaller than I would like, but the game is in a small box so I understand why they are the size they are.  4.5/5

 

Highs: Playing a fun game with friends that can fit almost any amount of friends.  Make no mistake, despite my complaints, this game is quick setup, easy to teach, and seats one to eight players.

 

Lows and suggestions: No real Cthulhu feel with a kind of flat delivery.  The game plays quick, but it gives up story to make the speed faster.  The mobile app version of Elder Sign has a more set feel with only selected places/events and a more involved narrative.  In Mansions of Madness, the game is much more restricted as only some sets of cards are used for each story.  A similar implementation would have really helped with this game.  Now, I play this at least once every three weeks, but I would love to be more involved in a story.

Final Thoughts:  It’s a great game, fun, but a slightly flawed execution.  Great game, pick it up and play with your friends.  Quick and fun, but don’t expect to be completely swept away by the story. 11.5/15