Jul 4, 2016 6:54 pm
So I just had a mixed weekend of fun at DexCon, and I figured, I should earn that media badge GenCon is giving me. Plus, maybe it'll help you guys find some games you might like. We'll have to see how this format evolves, but I'm going to try to do it every time I find a new game.
Thursday
Roll for the Galaxy (Boardgame)
If you like dice and strategy, you'll probably like Roll for the Galaxy. It's a dice pool building game wherein you roll your dice and assign them to one of 5 actions secretly. You use one of your dice to activate one of the 5 actions, and once the dice are revealed, only actions activated by any one of the players take place. If you assigned dice to an action that didn't activate, they back into your cup. One action earns you money which you use to buy back spent dice. Two are used to buy more planets (of two types) which give you things like more dice or special abilities. The fourth action is used to produce on a planet, and the last to ship. Producing and shipping are the primary means of earning victory points. I wasn't completely sure what triggered the end game.
I'm a fan of dice games like Quarriors, so I really enjoyed this. There was solid strategy, a bunch of different directions to go in. There are a few different dice types, all of which have different face combinations, which means you need to decide which dice to add to your cup based on what direction you want to go in. All in all, a great play.
Apocalypse World - "Noir World: A Good Day For Bad Stuff"
I actually went this game to play so I could understand Apocalypse World. For better or worse, it was a hacked game, so I don't know if I got a good impression of it or not. None the less, it was pretty fun. This was basically a RP game wherein one player led the scene and the guy running it acted as the audience, cheering on decisions and giving advice when necessary. Dice only game out (d6s) to resolve how well or poorly something went.
I really liked the mechanic where every character had secret ties to other characters. It was a big mechanics light for me, but it was a nice light game to break up the otherwise heavier games I tend to prefer.
Star Wars D6 - "The Dawn of Dagobah"
Without realizing it, this was my second game of Star Wars d6, and it was as ok as the first time. It's a system that's only as good as the story around it, and this story wasn't that good. The SWd6 system is basically you rolling a number of d6 equal to your skill. It has a weird profession where it goes xd6, xd6+1, xd6+2, then (x+1)d6. There are stats with skills under them. If you don't have a skill, you use it's associated stat. Pretty simple system.
The game was unfortunately marred by a female player who was upset that none of the 5 pregened female characters fit what she wanted to play. She made a fuss about it over the first hour and a half, and made me wonder again why you'd play at a con game with strangers with a very specific set of play requirements in mind. And as I mentioned, the story here was half doing random research, then a rushed end because the GM didn't time things well, or provide clues on how to advance. We were playing sith in the age of the Old Republic, which was cool, though everyone else at the table played sith with morals and camaraderie and seemed shocked when my character (who had lost half his body trying to gain power) wanted to steal the item at the end and prove his worth, even if it killed them. Common folks, we're sith!
Friday
Black Fleet (Boardgame)
Can't say anything here... I was 5 minutes late due to traffic, they said they were too far into teaching the game to start over, which seems silly for 5 minutes late.
Ghost Pirates (Boardgame)
A simple 2 person card game wherein you have two pirate ships facing each other, with a current in between them. The current is determined by 5 cards with an arrow pointing left or right, laid at random. ships were made up of bow and stern cards, with other ship cards in between. When you add or lose ship pieces (which can be destroyed via a cannon ship piece), they move in the direction of the current card in front of them.
Your ship is manned by deckhands, a captain, and a first mate. You move your pirates around, attacking the enemy ship's pirates, trying to attack the captain, who can't move, except when he's killed, when he moves one ship piece closer to the bow (starting at the stern). When he walks off the ship, you lose.
Over all, it was a neat game, a fun little distraction, I'd probably play it again if someone asked, but overall, I wouldn't buy it.
13th Age - "The Prince of the Sun and Moon"
I've been wanting to try 13th Age since it came up on GP and I considered running a game of it, but was confused by it. I still can't say I understand it, but it makes a lot more sense now. It's a game that is somewhere between DnD 3rd and 4th, with RP elements a la FATE in there. I loved playing it. 13th Age uses the at-will, encounter, and daily powers idea from 4th, though instead of encounters always being once per fight, you have to roll a die to recharge them. I also really liked the Backgrounds idea; instead of skills, you had story elements with a bonus, and you explained to the GM why that element applies to get the bonus. I didn't really understand the icon concept well enough to like or dislike it though.
It was, unfortunately again, not a great story, but the GM was running it at a con for the first time, so I'm hoping to take some lessons from it.
Night's Black Agents - "The Lazarus Sanction"
Another interesting game that is RP heavy and mechanics light. It's a spy game in a supernatural world, namely vampires. You have pips in various skills/knowledges and you expend those pips to add a bonus to your roll. The spy mechanics are the most interesting part of the game. You expend pips in creating covers or networks; the more pips, the stronger the cover/network, and the longer it can last. So you can decide to have a weak cover that's meant to be used once, or a strong network that stands up to scrutiny (like I passed myself off as an F1 driver, complete with pit crew and car). I never did understand how you refresh your pips.
Saturday
Metamorphosis Alpha 1st Edition - "The Android Overlords"
This is an OLD game, out up with the original DnD, and is in fact interchangeable. From what I was told, it was mostly like playing the original DnD, along with characters being interchangeable between the systems. As I understand it, the setting is a post apocalyptic world filled with humans and mutants who don't understand anything more complex than a wheel, and somehow, robots? There's tech all over, people don't know how to use it, but try anyway. It's pretty Fallout-esque. I don't know what to say about it; it was interesting, though not my cup of tea. It was also marred by only one other person showing, a young kid, so the game was unbalanced.
Star Trek, the RPG (Modified) - "Transparent Mudd (Session 7)"
A d100 system, a la Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, this was neat. The system was pretty generic, but this game was part of a long running campaign from a group that meet up somewhat often. The GM was amazing, having put together an entire binder per character with details about the character, their race, specs on various Star Trek stuff. He had toy phasers and lasers, communicators, and sound effects. He had a deck-by-deck map of the ship we were on! All pretty awesome. It was based a few years before Star Trek: The Original Series, but I'm far less familiar with that setting, so it was neat to learn some stuff.
World of Warhammer - "The Streets of Marienburg"
This is the RPG I was most looking forward to, but no one but the GM showed, even though the game was full along with alternates. Oh well, I got an extra two hours of sleep that night.
Sunday
Unlicensed IP
I got to try an in-development game from a big IP; unfortunately, the creator hasn't gotten the license yet, so I can't talk much about it. However, I look forward to him getting the license so I can talk about it.
Tsuro (Boardgame)
This was a great, light, strategy game. There is a grid map (I think 10x10? Or 8x8?) with a great piece of art on it. You place your token on one of the tick marks on the edge (2 ticks per square). You have 3 tiles in your hand, each with winding paths on them. You place it in front of your token and move any tokens that share an edge with it along the path you create. If you run into the edge of the board, you're out; if you run into another token, both players are out.
Very light game, took max fifteen minutes a play, and we ended up playing over and over. It was a blast.
Pickup
Hive
I tweeted this one out. It's chess without a board, but much easier to play and pretty interesting. I'm not sure how else to describe it, but I had a really good time with it and would love to play again.
Thursday
Roll for the Galaxy (Boardgame)
If you like dice and strategy, you'll probably like Roll for the Galaxy. It's a dice pool building game wherein you roll your dice and assign them to one of 5 actions secretly. You use one of your dice to activate one of the 5 actions, and once the dice are revealed, only actions activated by any one of the players take place. If you assigned dice to an action that didn't activate, they back into your cup. One action earns you money which you use to buy back spent dice. Two are used to buy more planets (of two types) which give you things like more dice or special abilities. The fourth action is used to produce on a planet, and the last to ship. Producing and shipping are the primary means of earning victory points. I wasn't completely sure what triggered the end game.
I'm a fan of dice games like Quarriors, so I really enjoyed this. There was solid strategy, a bunch of different directions to go in. There are a few different dice types, all of which have different face combinations, which means you need to decide which dice to add to your cup based on what direction you want to go in. All in all, a great play.
Apocalypse World - "Noir World: A Good Day For Bad Stuff"
I actually went this game to play so I could understand Apocalypse World. For better or worse, it was a hacked game, so I don't know if I got a good impression of it or not. None the less, it was pretty fun. This was basically a RP game wherein one player led the scene and the guy running it acted as the audience, cheering on decisions and giving advice when necessary. Dice only game out (d6s) to resolve how well or poorly something went.
I really liked the mechanic where every character had secret ties to other characters. It was a big mechanics light for me, but it was a nice light game to break up the otherwise heavier games I tend to prefer.
Star Wars D6 - "The Dawn of Dagobah"
Without realizing it, this was my second game of Star Wars d6, and it was as ok as the first time. It's a system that's only as good as the story around it, and this story wasn't that good. The SWd6 system is basically you rolling a number of d6 equal to your skill. It has a weird profession where it goes xd6, xd6+1, xd6+2, then (x+1)d6. There are stats with skills under them. If you don't have a skill, you use it's associated stat. Pretty simple system.
The game was unfortunately marred by a female player who was upset that none of the 5 pregened female characters fit what she wanted to play. She made a fuss about it over the first hour and a half, and made me wonder again why you'd play at a con game with strangers with a very specific set of play requirements in mind. And as I mentioned, the story here was half doing random research, then a rushed end because the GM didn't time things well, or provide clues on how to advance. We were playing sith in the age of the Old Republic, which was cool, though everyone else at the table played sith with morals and camaraderie and seemed shocked when my character (who had lost half his body trying to gain power) wanted to steal the item at the end and prove his worth, even if it killed them. Common folks, we're sith!
Friday
Black Fleet (Boardgame)
Can't say anything here... I was 5 minutes late due to traffic, they said they were too far into teaching the game to start over, which seems silly for 5 minutes late.
Ghost Pirates (Boardgame)
A simple 2 person card game wherein you have two pirate ships facing each other, with a current in between them. The current is determined by 5 cards with an arrow pointing left or right, laid at random. ships were made up of bow and stern cards, with other ship cards in between. When you add or lose ship pieces (which can be destroyed via a cannon ship piece), they move in the direction of the current card in front of them.
Your ship is manned by deckhands, a captain, and a first mate. You move your pirates around, attacking the enemy ship's pirates, trying to attack the captain, who can't move, except when he's killed, when he moves one ship piece closer to the bow (starting at the stern). When he walks off the ship, you lose.
Over all, it was a neat game, a fun little distraction, I'd probably play it again if someone asked, but overall, I wouldn't buy it.
13th Age - "The Prince of the Sun and Moon"
I've been wanting to try 13th Age since it came up on GP and I considered running a game of it, but was confused by it. I still can't say I understand it, but it makes a lot more sense now. It's a game that is somewhere between DnD 3rd and 4th, with RP elements a la FATE in there. I loved playing it. 13th Age uses the at-will, encounter, and daily powers idea from 4th, though instead of encounters always being once per fight, you have to roll a die to recharge them. I also really liked the Backgrounds idea; instead of skills, you had story elements with a bonus, and you explained to the GM why that element applies to get the bonus. I didn't really understand the icon concept well enough to like or dislike it though.
It was, unfortunately again, not a great story, but the GM was running it at a con for the first time, so I'm hoping to take some lessons from it.
Night's Black Agents - "The Lazarus Sanction"
Another interesting game that is RP heavy and mechanics light. It's a spy game in a supernatural world, namely vampires. You have pips in various skills/knowledges and you expend those pips to add a bonus to your roll. The spy mechanics are the most interesting part of the game. You expend pips in creating covers or networks; the more pips, the stronger the cover/network, and the longer it can last. So you can decide to have a weak cover that's meant to be used once, or a strong network that stands up to scrutiny (like I passed myself off as an F1 driver, complete with pit crew and car). I never did understand how you refresh your pips.
Saturday
Metamorphosis Alpha 1st Edition - "The Android Overlords"
This is an OLD game, out up with the original DnD, and is in fact interchangeable. From what I was told, it was mostly like playing the original DnD, along with characters being interchangeable between the systems. As I understand it, the setting is a post apocalyptic world filled with humans and mutants who don't understand anything more complex than a wheel, and somehow, robots? There's tech all over, people don't know how to use it, but try anyway. It's pretty Fallout-esque. I don't know what to say about it; it was interesting, though not my cup of tea. It was also marred by only one other person showing, a young kid, so the game was unbalanced.
Star Trek, the RPG (Modified) - "Transparent Mudd (Session 7)"
A d100 system, a la Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, this was neat. The system was pretty generic, but this game was part of a long running campaign from a group that meet up somewhat often. The GM was amazing, having put together an entire binder per character with details about the character, their race, specs on various Star Trek stuff. He had toy phasers and lasers, communicators, and sound effects. He had a deck-by-deck map of the ship we were on! All pretty awesome. It was based a few years before Star Trek: The Original Series, but I'm far less familiar with that setting, so it was neat to learn some stuff.
World of Warhammer - "The Streets of Marienburg"
This is the RPG I was most looking forward to, but no one but the GM showed, even though the game was full along with alternates. Oh well, I got an extra two hours of sleep that night.
Sunday
Unlicensed IP
I got to try an in-development game from a big IP; unfortunately, the creator hasn't gotten the license yet, so I can't talk much about it. However, I look forward to him getting the license so I can talk about it.
Tsuro (Boardgame)
This was a great, light, strategy game. There is a grid map (I think 10x10? Or 8x8?) with a great piece of art on it. You place your token on one of the tick marks on the edge (2 ticks per square). You have 3 tiles in your hand, each with winding paths on them. You place it in front of your token and move any tokens that share an edge with it along the path you create. If you run into the edge of the board, you're out; if you run into another token, both players are out.
Very light game, took max fifteen minutes a play, and we ended up playing over and over. It was a blast.
Pickup
Hive
I tweeted this one out. It's chess without a board, but much easier to play and pretty interesting. I'm not sure how else to describe it, but I had a really good time with it and would love to play again.