Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Wasabi! now Sushi!

December 6, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Product– Wasabi!

Producer– Z-Man Games!

Price– ~$50 here

Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 45 minutes (2 to 4 players)

TL; DR– PLAY AT A SUSHI-YA! 98%

Basics-Irasshaimase! In Wasabi, you play a sushi chef trying to make as many orders happen as you can. Each player starts with a recipe book, point tokens turned over to the number of ingridiants side, and a bowl for wasabi. To start, players go around the table selecting three pieces of sushi that are handed to the next player, so you don’t get to pick your starting sushi. After this, each player then chooses three different types of sushi to make ranging from easy two sushi piece combinations to the extremely hard five piece sushi. Once every player has their three sushi pieces and their three recipes, the real game starts. On your turn you can do two things: place a sushi piece or discard as many recipes as you want and draw new ones. When you place sushi piece, you check to see if it creates any of the recipes you want to create. If you do, you get to turn over a point token possibly gaining extra wasabi cubes (points and tie breakers), gain a power card, and draw a new recipe. If you don’t finish a recipe, then you just draw up to your three sushi pieces. Power cards allow you to change tiles on the board, place on top of other tiles, remove other pieces, and even place two tiles. You can only gain one power card per turn, and you can only use one power per turn. Discarding and drawing new recipes is pretty simple; discard what you don’t want, and draw up to three recipes. The game continues until someone finishes all their for point recipes tokens, or until no more legal moves can be made. The best chef is the person with the most points and wasabi cubes.

Mechanics-This is a fun one that can be pretty frustrating if played poorly. There are some strategies that will work like doing your five point recipe first, then moving to your four, and so on while keeping a few easy two piece recipes in your plans to keep getting power cards. That kind of makes the game less fun as there are less smart ways to play than different way to play. However, if you want a simple game that is a much smarter version of tic tac toe, this is a good one to have on hand. 4.5/5

Theme- The game starts you out with soy sauce bowls and recipe books that look like menus from a Japanese dinner. That right there fills that game with some awesome theme. The board looks like a matt, and the tiles all look great. I have never played this game and not left hungry for sushi. You will feel like you spent 45 minutes in a sushi restaurant staring at the menu. 5/5

Instructions– The instructions are done fairly well. There are a few minor English issues, but overall they communicate the rules well and explain the game quickly. 5/5

Execution– I love chunky cardboard! This game has a ton of heavy cardboard pieces with all kinds of sushi ingredients on them. The board is nice, and the art is great. You will leave this game hungry. Also, I flat out love the menus that serve to hide a player’s pieces and the soy sauce bowls for wasabi points. 5/5

Summary-This is a fun, quick game that anyone can play. Players don’t need the in depth strategy that some games require. It’s a simple tile laying game that you learn in a minute, and master in about five. Some of the mechanics can lead to players losing through no fault of their own, but overall it’s a blast to play. Moreover, all the different ingredients will leave you hungry! The theme is so awesome that you will want to go to your favorite Sushi restaurant after playing this one. 98%

Ring Side Report-Dungeon Master’s Guide

November 30, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 3 Comments

Product-Dungeon Master’s Guide

System– Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition

Producer– Wizards of the Coast

Price– ~$50 here http://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Masters-Guide-Core-Rulebook/dp/0786965622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417382314&sr=8-1&keywords=dungeon+masters+guide

TL; DR– Bands all together, let’s rock! 98%

Basics– Let’s get ready to roll! The Dungeon Master’s Guide is the final book of the core three for Dungeons and Dragons. This book covers all the behind the Dungeon Master’s screen aspects of the game. It is roughly broken into three sections: creating a world/universe, creating adventures, and the math of the game/how to run Dungeons and Dragons.

Mechanics or Crunch– Ya’ know what I HATE in a RPG designed for the Dungeon Master? No random tables! Yes, I know they are a crutch that bad GM’s use when they don’t prep for an adventure. But, I don’t want to have to figure out what I’m doing every second of the game, and sometimes the players will want to do something and having a random answer will really help make their choices happen at a moment’s notice. This book as random tables out the wazoo-from making a complete random dungeon to a random adventure and the encounters between! Also, this book goes into great detail on how to make the adventures in a non-random thought out way. From the math behind monsters to how to hand out items and treasure, the book does an excellent job at making your life as a DM as simple as it can explaining how to set up a game in a manner where it won’t crash and fail from problems on the DM’s side of the screen. Also, found the missing monster by CR guide from the Monster Manual! It’s good to see it here, but it would be better to see it also in the Monster Manual. 5/5

Theme or Fluff-This book is full of content and absent of any content in the right ways. The book goes into how to make a game work as a story and how to fill that story with people to meet and to kill while providing the default multiverse a bit of background too. From the geography of the multiverse to how a circle of elders works in a feudal village, the game explains how to design a world and a story. It’s a little light on advice on how to handle players. That’s an experience thing, but some more sage wisdom on how to handle different kinds of people is always appreciated my new RPG fans. The book does point to a reading list of books on how to GM, so that does cover kind of what I was hoping this book would have for the newer GM’s out there. Overall, it’s got great story and tips on how to build your own story! 4.75/5

Execution– Just like the other two DnD 5e books, this one is well done! There are enough words per page to inform, but not enough to bore. There are lots of pictures to make the reader think of ideas to throw at their players, and almost all of them are new! I used to play “spot the old art” in my DnD books, but I only saw one reused piece of art in this book which makes me extremely happy (along with the random tables!). And, the new art is awesome! If you want to learn how to make a book great from a layout, art, and design sense, then it’s this and Paizo’s books. 5/5

Summary– Look, if you’re running DnD, you bought this on Black Friday like the rest of us. It’s that simple. WotC spread out the core three books, and if you’ve bought the first two, then you bought this one too. If you’re new to RPGs, then get this book as well as the Player’s Handbook and Monster Manual. This book has an awesome layout, great story ideas, and some randomness to help you get your players into the action as quickly as possible. If you love Dungeons and Dragons, you need this book. If you want to learn how to run Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, this is an awesome book that will give you all the tools you need to build the games you want and have a blast doing it. This is a great capstone for the basic trinity of 5th edition DnD. 98%

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Shadows of Malice

November 30, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 1 Comment

Product– Shadows of Malice

Producer– Devious Weasel

Price– ~$50 here http://www.amazon.com/Devious-Weasel-Games-IMPDWE1000-Shadows/dp/B00NAG5YCK

Set-up/Play/Clean-up-2-6 hours (2 to 8 players)

TL; DR– Say yes to being a God in the American style game. 86%

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Basics-Fight the darkness! In Shadows of Malice, an ancient evil is stirring, and the players take the rolls of avatars of light trying to stop it. To do this, players must find the hidden strongholds of light among all the strongholds that have fallen to darkness before the vile Xulthûl. Each player starts with an item, soulshards, and a special power. Over a series of turns, the heroes move across the map revealing towns, mystics, monster lairs, and strongholds while shadow tries to find the strongholds of light. Each turn, players roll two six sided dice, one for movement and one for fate. If the player rolls doubles they draw a fate card. Fate cards range from great effects like doing extra damage to horrible effects like permanently getting a negative on all dice rolls. Fate cards last until they are spent or until a new fate card is drawn. The players can then spend movement points to move across the map. If player end on tokens or monster lairs on the map, they can encounter what’s there. In towns, you can spend soulshards to get items like potions or treasure. Mystics will heal or remove fate cards and make potions. Monster lairs and stronghold have monsters. When players encounter a monster, they roll to see the monsters type, the monsters power, and how many abilities the monster has. The type affects some powers and treasures, but provides flavor for the encounter. The power determines how much damage the creature does, how much the creature adds to its attack, and how much life the creature has. The abilities add new flavor to each combat like preventing damage or adding to the monsters attack. Combat is pretty simple. Both sides roll a six sided dice and add bonuses based on treasure, monster’s power and other cards. Before each roll, players can spend soulshards to activate abilities or to increase their dice rolls. Whatever side has the higher combat check does one damage to the other side. Some treasure, abilities, and powers allow monsters and character to possibly do extra damage depending on random dice rolls. Combat continues over these rounds until one side runs away or until someone dies. If the players win, they gain soulshards based on the powers available and have a 50/50 chance to gain clear soulshards on a one for one basis for each the monsters life points. If players travel together (forming a band), each character beyond the first player add an extra six sided die to the player’s combat roll. After the players turn, the shadows take a turn. Shadows randomly remove one seal from their realm each turn. Then, either spawn a new shadow or randomly move a shadow present on its own game board. If a shadow moves onto the spawn point, it gains life. However, if a shadow moves onto an open portal, the shadow moves to the player’s side. From now on, this shadow will move one to two spaces toward the closest stronghold. If the shadow gets to that stronghold, and the stronghold is a light stronghold, then the shadow becomes Xulthûl and fights the players. Players can fight shadows in the normal world to prevent this, or kill Xulthûl. Play repeats like above with players having a turn, then the shadows. The player’s goal is to find the hidden light strongholds among the shadow ones. For each light one found, the players gain power. However, for each shadow one found or uncovered by the shadows in the main world, the darkness gains power and all monsters are harder to fight. Once players find the one light stronghold per map tile, they win!

Mechanics-The mechanics are pretty simple with lots of randomness from the dice. When you know what you’re doing, you can generate monsters and end fights quickly, moving the game closer to two hours rather than the six.. The randomness can really bite you in some cases, but since you roll tons of dice, the swingyness of the dice is counteracted by probability. This game feels a lot like Arkham Horror with moves, combat, and some events determined by dice. That’s some good company to be in. 4.5/5

Theme- This game really excels at the theme. The game starts with an interesting story, and adds random elements that are on point. The game is a quest to discover things and defeat monsters. You get the feel of combat and exploration with lots of variation. Some changes are pretty cosmetic like the type of monster, but even those simple changes do allow you to build a story in your mind. It’s not perfect as some elements like the monster abilities can randomly generate monsters that don’t make sense (vampire ooze with an exoskeleton!). But, you get the chance to start on a story from the book and build on the story of being a god if you want too. 4.5/5

Instructions-I don’t like how the rules are laid out. The rules use a numbers system with subsections numbers, kind of like a legal document. I haven’t seen that done really well, and that kind of hurts this book. Also, this book really needs a quick turn-order page. The order of turn actions is all in the book, but the book is a bit unorganized and you will get lost for a while trying to determine how turns work. However, if you read a rule a few times, you do get a decent sense of how to play. And, this document does list all the pieces (AND give little pictures of the pieces!) and what they do instead of assuming each piece will make sense. Those details really do help make the game that much easier to understand and play. While I try to just read the rules when I play, Devious Weasel has several videos explaining the game. They do a good job, but by themselves, the rules do a decent job of explaining how to play this game. 3.75/5

Execution-This game is as third party as they come. It’s from a smaller company. I have to admit, even as a well versed gamer, I’ve always been a bit hesitant to play games by smaller, local companies. They sometimes don’t have the production quality or art skill of larger companies. I’ve seen quite a few badly drawn maps with cheap quality cardboard pieces that just don’t stand up to any plays. This game convinced me to give up the prejudice. The pieces are nice, chunky cardboard. The art is generic but well done. You can tell this is a small company, but it’s not bad. In fact, I’m pretty happy with what’s in the box. Heck the box is even well done! My problems are with the dice. I would like a few more different colors instead of different size dice. Also, turn guide or turn order cards and extra terrain/monster generation cards would have really knocked this one out of the park. 4.5/5

Summary– If you’re looking for a fantasy version of Arkham Horror, this is the game for you. Honestly, I had a blast playing this one. It’s got simple mechanics that generate a near infinite series of combinations of games as players get the chance to explore a new world every game. It’s not perfect as randomness can make some games simply not fun to play due to some crushing difficulty, random monsters that don’t make sense, or just monsters making all the right moves. However, if you can get past the standard problems of American style games, you will get to be a god and save the day! If someone asks you to play a god in Shadows of Malice, SAY YES! 86%

Ring Side Report-Concert of Europe

November 30, 2014November 30, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Product-The Concert in Flames

System– Victoriana

Producer– Cubicle 7 Entertainment

Price– ~$20 here http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/138588/Victoriana–The-Concert-in-Flames

TL; DR– Great adventure, but only for the GM. 87%

Basics-Can you stop Europe from burning? An ancient evil is being awoken by a small group trying to upset the tentative balance of Europe and bend a fiend to their will while the fate of the Concert of Europe rides in the balance. This book also provides GM with extremely detailed notes on the geopolitical standing of the Europe countries in 1856.

Mechanics or Crunch-This is NOT an option book, but that doesn’t make it a bad book. This book adds some new mechanics like new races and a new country specific creature or enemy for each of the different regions discussed. It’s good, but you should not expect some new options and creatures each page like a player’s option book or monster manual. The countries do have great write ups describing the make-up of each country, so you can quickly create things like a group of upscale Russians if you need them at a moment’s notice. The adventure has simple stat blocks for each enemy which will make running the adventure easy and quick. What’s here is well done, but you cannot go into this one hoping for tons of new crunch. 4.5/5

Theme or Fluff- This is where the book truly excels. Just like the base book, this book could almost be an excellent historical reference if you strip out the steampunk and magic elements. Each country in 1850’s Europe gets an in-depth write-up. The adventure itself has a ton of depth as well as a great story for your players to run amuck in. The story has elements of government intrigue, magic, religion, and some trans-country train adventure. It’s great steampunk fun. 5/5

Execution– While the fluff and crunch are great; the execution has a few problems. There are some art to break up the text, but there are too many pages with just black text on grey background. This is a classic case of textbook problem. I do like some the way the book is divided. But, the font is a bit too small. And, there is just too much of it. This book also makes an inexcusable error for any fantasy book discussing geography. There is NO detailed map of Europe! Nor is there a map of the adventure train routs. While the countries are basically the same as real world 1856, a better map would have really helped with adventure design and the adventure in the book. I do like the pictures from the adventure as you get some nice hand drawn pictures of some of the major characters. All together, this isn’t a badly executed book, but some flaws do hurt the overall presentation. 3.5/5

Summary– If you want to take your players across Victoriana Europe, then buying this book is a no brainer. GM’s get all the information they need to make each European country feel distinct from one another with far more depth than there is in the base Victoriana book. If you want crunch options, then this book isn’t for you. The adventure in this book is a fun romp across Europe as the players try to keep the Concert of Europe from falling apart. If that’s the kind of adventure you and your players want to play, this is a great adventure. However, if you don’t want to control the fate of the world and just want to play a game in London, then this is one to pass. There are some concerns I have with the execution, but those won’t prevent you from enjoying this book if you want some excellent write ups describing Europe. If you want some cross European intrigue and a great adventure to start that controversy, go get this one. 87%

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Lost Legends

November 19, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Product– Lost Legends

Producer– Queen Games

Price– ~$50 here http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Games-QUG61063-Legends-Board/dp/B00EFKA14G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416372470&sr=8-1&keywords=lost+legends

Set-up/Play/Clean-up-2 hours (3 to 5 players)

TL; DR– Lot’s of little errors really hurt this game. 70%

Basics- Want to be the hero? In Lost Legends, players take the roles of different heroes as they try to kill the most impressive monsters. The game is roughly divided into two phases: equipping your character and killing monsters. When you equip you character, you take a hand of cards and select one card. You can use that card in one of three ways: equipment, money, or skills. You can discard the card to gain money to buy other equipment. You can turn the card upside down and place it under you player mat with the bottom part showing to gain some skill to equip and attack with new items. And finally, you can pay the card’s cost in money, and place it on one of the four areas next to your player mat. The equipment range from swords and wands to spells or armor. You then pass the remaining cards to the next player as you receive a new hand of cards from a different player. Play continues this way until you have two cards. You select one of the remaining cards and discard the other to the center discard pile. After the equipment phase, players then take turns fighting monsters. Monsters are damage by your equipment. Some cards do damage, then do damage based on the number of skill icons you have, and can do extra damage by exhausting the card. Exhausted cards cannot be used again until the equipment phase. If you kill your monster, you take the card and turn it upside down and place it under your player mat with the bottom icon showing. You gain points based on the monster icons you have killed with extra points ranging from getting four different monsters to three monsters of the same kind. Also players compete to see who’s killed more of a particular type of monster. The first player to get the extra points for a specific goal gets extra points with the last player getting the least. In addition, you also gain experience which allows you to get extra money, health, or mana. If you don’t finish the monster, it damages you, and the next player fights his/her monster. Monsters can kill of players, so planning how you fight the monster is important. If you start your turn and don’t have a monster, you can take the current face up monster next to the monster deck or take a randomly drawn monster from the monster deck. When there are no monsters, the round ends after everyone has one more turn. The game goes through two more cycles of equipment and monster fighting. The player at the end of the game with the most points wins.

Mechanics-The mechanics of this game are pretty simple. You draft for a few cards, and then you fight the monster in front of you. No monster? Draw a new one. When the monsters are all gone, you repeat till three rounds pass. That’s not bad, but the random nature of the monsters really hurt this game. You have the drafting mechanics for the items, but the monsters just end up either killing you or being a cake walk, and that has everything to do with the random draw. It makes the draft work against the second part of the games randomness. 4/5

Theme-This game has some great art, but beyond that, there isn’t really a theme. All the items are cool, and they give the world a feel. However, the rule book has less than a paragraph of story. I had fun, but I didn’t feel like I was really in a different world fighting monsters. 3/5

Instructions-These rules are confusing! The rules have out and out misprints leading to some problems, but beyond that the examples have extra information that major rules don’t, the flow is hard if not impossible to follow, and cards don’t really make sense when you look at them critically. If you have the rules, board game geek’s forums, and some understanding friends, you can get through this game and have fun. But, don’t expect your first play through to be an easy one by any means if you only have these rules to go by! 2.5/5

Execution– I didn’t hate what comes in the box. The parts and markers are reasonably well done, if a little small. What will CONSTANTLY annoy you is having to pick up your player mat to play more skills and monster cards. It’s extremely hard to do without any nails. I would have really liked a chunkier cardboard player mat, so I could pick it up! 4.5/5

Summary– I had fun playing this game, but don’t think it I’ll get this one to the table soon. It’s a drafting game where half the game is random. It’s a game where you might be equally able to play without the rules as with them. It’s a game that I reasonably enjoyed, but couldn’t play some of my cards as I don’t have long finger nails. If you want to play Seven Wonders but want a DnD theme on it, this isn’t a bad game. If you want a drafting game outright, you may be better with Seven Wonders or Among the Stars. 70%

Ring Side Report-Crawl! No.8: Firearms!

November 19, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Product– Crawl! No.8: Firearms!

System– Dungeon Crawl Classics

Producer– Stray Couches Press

Price– ~$3 here http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/121302/Crawl-fanzine-no-8?term=crawl%21+firearms

TL; DR– You brought a wizards to a gun fight! 93%

Basics-How about adding some guns to your DCC RPG game? This book provides rules for adding firearms to your game spanning black powder cap and ball guns to laser rifles.

Mechanics or Crunch– Overall, the rules in this book are really well done. This book provides different types of guns for however advanced a GM wants the guns to be in his/her home game. The guns from different ages have distinct feels. In addition to the standard gun y does x damage, there are new rules for duels as well as critical hit and fumble tables. I like most of the added mechanics, but some of the things like a critical hit that disarms you I don’t like. It’s good, but some things you might not completely agree with. 4.5/5

Theme or Fluff- DCC RPG has some of the best gonzo fantasy rules and themes of any RPG. I love what I see here. You can have modern day armies show up in a DCC RPG game and start drawing on your wizards and rogues. It’s a blast! 5/5

Execution-This one was reasonably well laid out, but some of the tables were a bit off. I could read everything well enough, but I would have liked the information separated into a table and then had a larger description of the tables contents in a separate area. It felt a bit cluttered. Nothing is horrible, but it wasn’t my favorite layout for a Crawl! magazine. 4.5/5

Summary-If you love DCC RPG as much as I do, then you are going to buy this anyway. If you are not an addict, this is a good one. It’s not my favorite, but it’s a good addition to the magazine. There are some great rules for adding guns to a fantasy game. It’s all optional, but if you want a touch weirder game by giving the warrior a blaster, this is a great way to handle the rules. 93 %

Ring Side Report-Victoriana 3rd Edition

November 19, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 2 Comments

Product– Victoriana 3rd Edition

System– Victoriana

Producer– Cubicle Seven Entertainment

Price– ~$25 here http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/116730/Victoriana-3rd-Edition?term=victoriana+3rd

TL; DR– You can’t go wrong with Steampunk, Lovecraft, Penny-Dreadful Shadowrun! 93%

Basics-Ever want to mix steampunk with Victorian sensibilities and add a ton of Middle Earth to the equation? That is the mix for Victoriana-an RPG set in 1856 where magic is semi-common place, steam power is beginning to conquer the world, and “heroes” are called from all walks of life. This is a whole RPG in one book, so let’s break this down into its important parts and numbers.

Mechanics or Crunch– At this games core, it’s a simple d6 pool game. Let’s see how that plays out on each level:

Base Mechanic- Victoriana is a d6 dice pool game. Each task you do will be a combination of an attribute and an associated skill. Shoot a gun? Dexterity and firearms. Ride a Wyvern? Presence and Animal Handling. A few small things make this game amazingly fun and different from other dice pool games. One is the numbers you want. You are looking for 1’s and 6’s. Even better, 6’s explode and you roll them again counting 1’s and 6’s. AND THE 6’s KEEP EXPLOIDING! I love the dynamic addition of exploding dice in any game!

Task Difficulty-Most tasks you perform require two successes with some task allowing partial successes. That is a quick and easy mechanic for deciding failure and success. The system builds on this simplicity by adding “black” dice. Want to mix dangerous chemicals on a bumpy train ride? Well you roll your normal Attribute and Skill, but you also roll 3 BLACK dice. These black dice work just like normal dice, but they take AWAY successes. AND, they explode like normal dice! AND, THE PLAYERS ROLL THEM! This puts some of the pressure on the player and it’s just pure fun as a GM. If you have negative successes at the end of a roll, then you have a foul failure. These situations are where the GM gets to absolutely play with the player. Guns break. Mechanical arms are ruined. Spells summon crazy monsters. It’s the whole nine yards of bad things for a player. Some tasks have opposed rolls like attacking and dodging, but black dice can still be added to both sides of a combat. If you’re shooting in the dark, and my bad guy is dodging while on a slippery floor, both sides get to add black dice to their rolls. Whoever has more successes wins.

Combat-You could have an RPG without combat, but why!? Each round players can choose to do one action (move, attack, cast a spell, etc) at no penalty. However, a player can do up to his/her dexterity in actions per round. Each action the player performs divides the dice pool for that action. Run and shoot? Divide your pool by two. Run, shoot, and mix a bomb? Divide your pool by 3 for EACH action. Your black dice are NOT changed as your divide your pools! You can do anything you want, but the more you do, the worse you can fail! Damage also is dependent on d6’s. Each weapon has a damage value. If you score more successes than your target, you get to roll a number of d6’s equal to the damage value for your weapon counting the 1’s and 6’s as before WITH EXPLODING DICE! After you count your successes, you add your initial number of successes to your count and the opponent subtracts his/her armor and takes the difference as damage.

Character Generation-Character generation in this system is divided into two broad categories: completely homemade or guided. If you make your own character from the soles of your feet up, have fun! If you want a little more guided approach, then you can build your character by selecting your background, breeding (social standing and race), build package (where you fit in the breeding and background), spend attribute and skill points, and earn and assign extra build points via drawbacks and other abilities. It’s pretty simple, but flexible allowing all kinds of different characters to populate the world. As a word of caution, this system has the kind of flexible that a few example characters could help to keep players from killing themselves during character generation.

Magic and Machines-It wouldn’t be magic and steampunk without magic and machines. Magic is divided into a few different categories. Basically, each mage has training in one of these areas of magic and makes still tests as previously discussed. It’s simple and quick. The different types of magic all feel different as hermetic wizards throw around all kinds of elemental magic, while people of faith have much more religion based magic like healing and exorcism. All magic uses another metric called quintessence. Quintessence is spent to cast spells and is recovered over time and rest. Also, if you don’t have quintessence, you can just take damage. I LOVE cast till you pass out systems! This is only the tip of the iceberg, but magic does feel like magic and not just another skill roll. Machines on the other hand are built once and then never have to be paid for again. They may require fuel like steam or gas to run, but the different machines fell like they have different functions. Most of these functions have different actions than magic, but part of the theme is how magic is beginning overtaken by the age of steam. Some of these devices even require magic to be built! Whatever steampunk idea you have in your head, based on the marvels here, you can build your favorite toy!

Order and Chaos- Victoriana’s spiritual fight isn’t between good and evil. Don’t get me wrong, good and evil are here, but the major fight is between the forces of entropy and order. The RPG spends some time outlying that order isn’t necessarily good as a crazed priest of order can easily be as evil as a demonologist of chaos. Players can decide to side with one or the other, and when they do an action that advances their side, they can get dice depending how advanced they are on the cogs of their faction. Order provides a straight bonus to an action, while chaos provides many more dice than order, but you have to roll these dice to see if you succeed. It’s a fun addition to the game, but one that your players and you will have to choose to get deep into.

Summary-I love what is here. It’s simple in a good way, quick, and flexible. It’s got a fun feel with action and puts some of the dirty, hard choices in the players hands themselves with black dice. I love when I make the players be the bad guys for a change! 5/5

Theme or Fluff-Victoriana is an “almost Earth” setting. Even with elves, magic, and steam powered robots, people are not all that different. So, this book assumes that history will pretty much follow the same path to 1856. And, you know what? It works really well! I liked the world this book built. Also, if you remove all the “wizard/steam robot did it” references in the setting back story, the first half of the book is a well done summary of European history till 1856. Honestly, a world with different races (really different races not just Spanish compared to English, but Ogre compared to hog-faced beastmen soon to be German Chancellor) explains the wars in Europe better than the petty motivations that have occurred through all of our real history. The story of this world drew me in, and I sat and read the intro fiction as well as the world guide. It’s a well done world with lots of depth to help you understand the world and live in it as you game. 5/5

A note on history, truth, and the “isms”- Victoriana is set in a time when it was amazingly awesome to be a white, European, rich male. For every difference from that standard, things got steadily worse. This RPG introduces the realities of that life, but doesn’t dwell on them. It leaves how much of that you want to throw into your game up to you. That’s important since some players might not be too comfortable roleplaying in a time when a husband could not technically rape his wife. And, if you wanted to, things could get worse from there. Sexism, racism, and specisim are alive and well here, but the book walks that line well and wholly lets the GM and players decide how much of the more horrible parts of history and alternative history they want to explore. I feel it’s important to note that there are some possible adult themes, but they are handled well. If you just want some pulp steampunk with orcs and magic, then you can easily get that from the system too.

Execution-I liked this book, but the problems I have with this book are not getting enough book. What’s here in this book is great, but could use a bit of help to distinguish information from background text. The book is black and white. That’s not a bad thing, but some of the information isn’t as highlighted as well as it should be. My next major complaint is the lack of examples. Combat and character generation could both really benefit from an example of creating a character and how to systematically tear another character to bits via combat. I liked the layout in general. The pictures did a great job explaining the world and people and keeping me engaged. Even with this complaint, my comments are positive. 4/5

Summary-If you want some steampunk, some magic, and some Victorian history; you can’t go wrong with this system. Character generation is easy, actions have the players doing more thinking then just roll one die, and combat is quick. This RPG runs like a good watch-it looks like lots of too complicated moving parts, but when you really get down to it, you see its got a simple, elegant design. Magic and machines are there, but the subsystems that make them run are not overly complicated. A new player could easily play with either of those systems with no trouble. My only complaint is I feel more examples of combat, encounter generation, and characters in general would have really helped players get into the system easier. It’s not a game breaker, but it’s something to note. Overall, I love this system. If you’re looking for your steampunk Shadowrun fix, you cannot go wrong with this one! 93%

Full disclosure: I was provided a reviewer copy.

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of City Hall

November 5, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

It’s election day. How about a board game of political maneuvering?

Product– City Hall

Producer– Tasty Minstrel games

Price– ~$60 here http://www.amazon.com/Tasty-Minstrel-Games-TTT1010-City/dp/1938146840/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1415154750&sr=8-3&keywords=city+hall

Set-up/Play/Clean-up-2~2.5 hours (2 to 4 players)

TL; DR– Influence might be you favorite addition to gaming too! 93%

Basics- Want to be mayor? In City Hall, each player is striving to win enough public support to become mayor of New York. To do that, players try to our maneuver or out influence each other through action selection and territory control. Each round, players take turns placing a meeple on one of seven offices in the town: tax assessor, surveyor, campaign manager, lobbyist, zoning board, deputy mayor, and health commissioner. The tax assessor position provides money based on the locations owned on the board and current population score. The surveyor allows a player to buy new positions on the board. The campaign manager increases your approval rating. The lobbyist gets the player more lobbying cards (more on that later). The zoning board allows a player to build on places that the players owns on the board. The deputy mayor changes the order of players. And, the health commissioner grants players population based on the number of stars the player has on the board with the player with the most getting 4 population while all other players get slightly less population. What makes this action selection game stand out are the influence cards. When you choose an office, you bid a number of influence cards. Every other player in turn order can increase that bid, bid the same, or not bid at all. When it gets back to you, you get to either pay the highest bid to the bank or take influence cards from the highest bidding player and they take your action with that office instead. The game is also a territory control game. When you use the zoning board to build on a location you own, you choose one of four different buildings from your hand that range from factory, park, tower, and housing. Factories are worth $7 when you are the tax assessor, but only one star. Housing is worth a maximum of five stars, but has no tax value. Towers are a combination of the two with one tower being a max of three stars and $3 for tax. In addition, you can build parks which are worth no taxes and no stars. All buildings are worth nothing by themselves, but gain and lose stars depending on what buildings are adjacent. (Location, Location, Location!) Towers, housing, and parks always increase stars, but factories decrease the values of nearby housing. Thus, you have to carefully plan and capitalize on situations so you can have the most stars. Stars help you when you take the health commissioner action. Each player counts their total stars on all building with the player who got the commissioner action either adding three to their score or doubling their score. The player with the most stars then moves up the population tracker by four, the next by two, and the third place player getting 1. Each time a player selects the zoning board in addition to the action of gaining building cards and building on a location, a token moves up the approval rating, and when either that token or a player’s token gets to five approval, the game is over. Players multiply their population total by their approval rating for their points. Additional points are given out for most parks, most influence, and other factors at the end of the game, and the player with the most points wins the election and is now mayor.

Mechanics-This is a fun one. I’ve seen the combination of action selection and territory control before, but the addition of the influence cards really knocks this game out of the park. The different actions are simple and quick so the game moves at a good clip. Also, the game has a built in end. You only get so many moves to build, and letting your opponents have any of those moves could be devastating. When you steal an action with influence is such an important part of this game, and in my opinion, influence is the most fun part of this game. Honestly, this might be my favorite game from Tasty Minstrel Games for the influence mechanic alone. 5/5

Theme-This game feels like political maneuvering, but it doesn’t feel like an election. Influence and stealing turns feels like politicians fighting over what gets to make what happen. It’s an amazing game in that respect. However, I didn’t feel like I was running for an election instead of just maneuvering to get people to move to my places across town. It felt more like I was running a chain of hotels and businesses than a true mayoral race. 4/5

Instructions-These instructions are done pretty well. The rules by themselves teach how to play well. I was left with a few questions such as are your cards secret? These were minor questions however. Also, I would have liked a few more pictures in the rules, but overall the rules were clear and easy to read. 4.5/5

Execution– I like the way the game is produced. I would have like bigger cards, but the card size keeps the total game size down. The board is easy to read, and each player gets a player board to help them understand what each position does. That really helps speed play up. However, I have a major problem with this game. There are not nearly enough stars! The game comes with a single sheet of punch out stars. That is about half of what you need for a good sized game. I know I am not the only one who has had that problem. 4.5/5

Summary– This game might have one of my favorite new mechanics. I’ve seen action selection before. I’ve seen area control/management before. What I haven’t seen is action bidding/stealing before. That’s a small change that really adds a ton to this game. This game isn’t perfect as some small problems in the execution, instructions, and theme hurt this game a bit. But, what is here is a quick, excellent board game with lots of political maneuvering that I want to get to the table as soon as I can again. 93%

Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Pathfinder Society Scenario #6–05: Slave Ships of Absalom

November 1, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ Leave a comment

Product– Pathfinder Society Scenario #6–05: Slave Ships of Absalom

System– Pathfinder

Producer– Paizo

Price– ~$4 here http://paizo.com/products/btpy9985?Pathfinder-Society-Scenario-6-05-Slave-Ships-of-Absalom

TL; DR– Some problems hurt a good story that’s part of this year’s metaplot. 83%

Basics-Someone is selling tainted slaves in the Inner Sea! A slave at a party had a spell cast upon her that allowed someone to eavesdrop on the guest. Can you and the rest of the Pathfinder Society make some friends by discreetly finding out who is behind this?

Mechanics or Crunch– This is a reasonable short adventure as it’s designed for Pathfinder Society play. However, some major missteps happen over the course of this story. One is the players can fail a few rolls and be completely out of luck when it comes to the mystery. In addition, like most PFS modules, there are some roleplaying and 2-to-3 fights. However, one of these fights is pretty tough and can easily wipe most parties if the GM doesn’t pull a few punches. This isn’t a bad module, but some of the Pathfinder mechanics work against the fun your players could have. 3/5

Theme or Fluff-Overall, I liked the story of this one. There is a decent amount of roleplaying that can happen while still having the combat that some players crave. However, some of the story seems off. A character won’t help the players even after the players save that person’s life! That kind of seems out of the realm of believability even with magic and elves about. Also, this module is about slavery, so some players won’t like working for NPC’s who openly own slaves. 4.5/5

Execution– This is done by Paizo. They know how to layout a book. It’s easy and quick to read. The art is good, but as always I’d like a bit more. What is here is well done. 5/5

Summary– This is a short, fun adventure that isn’t without its faults. I enjoyed running this for my players, and they enjoyed playing this adventure. It has the standard problems that can plague a Pathfinder game: combats based on CR alone and rolls killing investigation/roleplay. Those are some problems that can really gum up this adventure’s gears. Also, this is a module that deals with slavery. If you’re players are not comfortable with that, then this will not be fun for them. If you want a module set in Absalom where you have a decent mix of investigation and combat, this is a better than average module. Also, if you want to get deeper into the Year of the Sky Key, then this an good start to the metaplot. 83%

Ring Side Report-Board Game Review of Belfort: the Expansion Expansion

October 30, 2014 ~ fineyoungmisanthrope ~ 2 Comments

Product– Belfort: the Expansion Expansion

Producer– Tasty Minstrel games

Price– ~$20 here http://www.amazon.com/Belfort-The-Expansion-Board-Game/dp/1938146832/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414638034&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=belford+expantion

Set-up/Play/Clean-up-2.5~3 hours (2 to 5 players)

TL; DR– Some great things, some ok things 93%

Basics- Belfort was one of my favorite games (reviewed here https://throatpunchgames.com/2013/12/10/ring-side-report-board-game-review-of-belfort/). I loved to play it, but I wanted some new options to spice up a classic. The Expansion expansion enhances the game by adding new building expansions (hence the expansions expansion) that add on to your current building as well as providing assistants who help you throughout the game. The building expansions provide new ways to get points at the end of the game while the assistants provide new powers like preventing other players from building in an area to avoiding paying taxes all together. Other than these additions, the game is played exactly the same.

Mechanics– This is a (semi)mixed bag. I love the addition of the assistants. They provide new powers that really shake up the game. The assistants change each turn with the players with the fewest points choosing first and working up the point scale to choose each assistant. You might get stuck behind the eight ball on who gets what assistant if you run away with points, but the assistants help prevent the runaway point problem happening through some elegant game design. That I really liked. However the building additions are a bit more cumbersome. I like the expansions in theory. But, you have to have the base building, and most of the costs to build are a bit too cost prohibitive. It makes a player do more calculations to decide if building an expansion is worth it, but I feel most of these costs are a bit too much to make them worthwhile. Also, building expansions are collected when a player doesn’t use an assistant’s power. However, if you’re playing smart you won’t have a turn where your assistant isn’t hard at work. 4/5

Theme- The addition of the small elements in this set really does hammer home some themes missing from the first one. All the assistants do things that their fantasy races would do. It makes a ton of sense and does draw you in a bit more. The building expansions also all make sense like an inn getting a pool. The costs to build some of these items are a bit off (sacrifice a token to build some buildings). But overall, this expansion has a ton more theme than the original game. 4.5/5

Instructions– These instructions are short and to the point. Also, each part of the expansion gets a write up to help you understand the finer points of how the building and assistants works and how to build and use them. I love when instructions answer the difficult questions that will come up during game play. There is some humor in this book, but it’s all in good fun as well. 5/5

Execution– This is small box, but not an empty one. The box comes with several cards for the expansions, cards for the assistants, and wooden blocks for some of the assistant’s powers. In fact, this expansion fits into the original box. I’m not complaining. For the cost, you’d be hard pressed to pick up other expansions out there that are done as well! 5/5

Summary-Overall, I like this expansion. The best thing this expansion does is enhance the theme of the original game. The game does feel more fantasy now with the addition of the assistants. Before, the theme was there but a bit too dry. What I don’t like is the building additions. I don’t think you get enough bang for your buck for building them. Maybe if you play smarter than I did, you will see some combinations I didn’t. I had fun, but the random nature of the buildings you can build means the starting buildings in your hand and their additions will dictate how you must play the game. That’s not horrible, but it can be a bit of a pain. Nothings in bad here, and if you want some added life and strategy in your Belfort, this is a great expansion. 93%