I'm So Unwise

My group is running a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons featuring first level characters. As some readers may already know, first level characters are quite frail and no first level character is more so than the magic user. A first level magic user can cast a single spell, can't use any serious weapons, and can be killed by a thrown potato. Playing such a character can be insanely frustrating unless you just love, love, love to roleplay and the other players join in the fun.

As an aside, if that's the case then a first level magic user is a hoot and a holler to play!

A friend has been playing the magic user in our campaign and over the last few games was showing signs of boredom and frustration with his character. The GM asked my advice. He was planning on giving the player a wand that fired magical bolts. Was that a good idea? "Oh no," I replied," that's not very creative. Give him a deck of cards that summon tame wild animals to do his bidding. That's much more open ended and interesting."

After some discussion regarding open ended, tool oriented magic items, the GM thanked me and went to work. That night he gave the magic user two Wands of Magic Missiles. The magic user tied them together to make a magical sawed off shotgun and proceeded to have the time of his life blasting away like a hillbilly on Red Bull. I'd never seen him so happy. So much for creative, open ended items!

GM's Challenge Afterthoughts

A while back I convinced a group of friends to take off a whole Saturday for a set of GM's Challenge Dungeons and Dragons games. The idea was to hand the GMs a random selection of story elements and then run three back-to-back games. The GMs would have to feature the story elements and also segue from the previous game into their own seamlessly.

There were a few things I found appealing about the idea. One was to be thrown the challenge of making a fun adventure that featured elements someone else picked out- including bizarre or silly things like Lurkers Above or the Flumf. I also liked the idea of having to deal with whatever cliffhanger ending the last GM left you with and link your adventure in smoothly. In essence I was aiming almost for Comedy at the Improv, Dungeons and Dragons style.

Of course, eighty percent of live improv comedy is actually pretty horrible and our first GM's challenge left lots of room for improvement. I don't think any of us really considered how to segue from one adventure to our own and so the transitions were not quite as clever as they could have been. Further, I think the idea of an adventure based on an outrageous Dungeons and Dragons creature may be immediately funnier to me than to the other GMs.

In hindsight I think the GMs challenge was a good idea that deserves a second try. I think the other GMs really needed to have the monster theme spelled out- for example, not merely to have a Roper appear, but to base the whole adventure on the city of the Ropers. Returning a lost Roper baby to its worried parents. Or thwarting an evil Roper wizard who seeks to enslave a beautiful Roper princess. It's completely silly but that's the challenge- how much mileage can you get from this absurd monster? It could be wildly creative. But again, for every hilarious improv act you see there are a dozen that just flail and it may take a bit of practice to bring the GMs to the level of Reno 911 or Upright Citizen's Brigade.

Quiet Month

My family and I are getting ready to move! I hate moving (or change of any sort) but it will be for the better in the long run. In the short run, however, it's going to be a little quiet here at Gamenight. I have to figure out how to pack eleventy zillion painted minis, all the games, and of course furniture and our possessions. I have to convince my wife that our 36 inch 1996 Zenith television, the opposite of flat screen since it is actually deeper than it is wide, will someday be a collectors item and should be moved with us. I also have to convince her that paperback science fiction books are better than kreugerrands as investment items and if even one was thrown out it would be a tragedy. Yes indeed, busy days ahead.

Seven Wonders- Great Group Fun

I fall prey to hyped up games more often than I should. I have several AT-43 armies, a copy of Dungeon Lords, and two fleets for Uncharted Seas. So I wasted no time in starting off the new year with a copy of Seven Wonders. This game has been gathering some good buzz and I needed a group game that could accommodate seven players and move along at a quick pace. Happily enough Seven Wonders earns the hype and has been a big hit.

Seven Wonders is a game about building up your civilization better than your opponents build up theirs. Your civilization could include a "wonder" but might also feature trade routes, civic buildings, scientific discoveries, or powerful guilds. The game mechanics of Seven Wonders are twofold. Firstly, each player gets a handful of cards. The players simultaneously play one of the cards and pass the rest to the left. Then you resolve whatever effect the played cards have and repeat the cycle. Eventually there are no more cards to pass and one of three "ages" has come to an end.

The second game mechanic of Seven Wonders involves the cards themselves. A card may represent a civic building, army barracks, a scientific advancement, or a source of resources such as "clay pit." Some cards may be placed for free. Some require you to have already placed certain cards- for example, some buildings require the "clay pit" card to already be in play to simulate having the bricks needed to build. Over the course of an age you may choose to play some resource cards and then later on "build" with the resources and have a "temple" or "library." Overall this is a pretty simple process and the cards are easy to read and understand.

Finally, at the end of three cycles of card play the players are scored for their achievements. In general it pays to have a lot of something so the player with lots of buildings or lots of scientific achievements is going to do well. The scoring process takes one practice game to really grasp but is basically simple.

Seven Wonders has several great qualities. For one, it's fast and there's little downtime spent waiting for other players. You can influence other players to some extent but there's no way to really harm or disadvantage your opponents. I think that's a big plus for families as well as sensitive adults who find cut-throat play dreary. I like building civilizations and Seven Wonders rewards someone who has an imagined goal for theirs. It's fun to say "I would love a civilization based on trade routes and guilds" and that's a winning strategy. Your friend might say, "nope, for me it's libraries, laboratories, and universities," and that could win too. The only option that seems weak is the military one, which is fine with me.

The only real caveats to Seven Wonders are that you do have little effect on other players during the game and it is a bit of a light game. I think there's plenty of replay value but I don't know if it is quite as deep as Race for the Galaxy or Catan. Not a terrible flaw but it should be noted.

Caveats aside, Seven Wonders is highly recommended for groups and families. It's fast, fun, and unlikely to lead to hurt feelings or grumpy, aggressive play.

Buck Rogers- edit edit edit

Left with some free time and being pretty burned out on building train tracks I thought it was about time to introduce my son to Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. I have a compilation of much of the early strip and thought that this would be a good place to start. Ten minutes in I found I was editing the material furiously and in some cases just skipping panels entirely. What a disappointment!

I have nothing but respect for the authors of Buck Rogers but there's no escaping the fact that this is one racist and violent comic strip! Asians are big targets in the early material and once the Second World War starts things take a turn for the worse, if that could be believed. There's also rather a lot of shooting as well as some stabbing, torturing, and pushing into pools of acid. Edit, edit, edit... I left that little experiment with a few lessons learned.

One is that kids love adventure stories. The highly abridged adventures of Buddy Deering and Alura prompted hours of dressing up and imaginative play as the kids dodged patrols of Tiger Men and sword-fought across the mysterious jungles of Venus (and yes, nerds know the Tiger Men are on Mars but I was mixing it up.) So that was fun.

Secondly, the material reminds us that life in the old days was probably pretty nice as long as you were a member of a specific racial group. That group might vary depending on what country you were in but being in the "out" gang was going to be rough. Our country has problems to be sure but at least we are about a million times less racist than we were.

Finally, I left my experience wondering about how much this material affects us as children. I loved Buck Rogers as a child but I didn't develop horrifying racial stereotypes. As a pediatrician I believe more and more that consistent family values are the most powerful formative forces in a child's life. My parents were not racist and eighteen years of exposure to that handily swamped the unseemly bits from Buck Rogers, John Carter, and other terrific but dated material. It's a relief for me to know that as long as my family follows a certain pattern of behaviour our kids are likely to enjoy older films, comics, and books without picking up the worst habits of our ancestors.

Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries- Rocks!

My love affair with Ticket to Ride: Europe continues unabated but the game is not perfectly suited for two players. For that reason I dropped a few hints that Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries (TRN) would be pretty welcome below this year's Christmas tree. My wife came through and we got to unwrap and play this new iteration of a great game system.
TRN is fairly similar to it's predecessors in terms of rules. Players trade in cards to lay down train tracks between cities. You score points based on how many lines you can create and whether you connect certain randomly determined locations. TRN has a few twists. For one, it's designed for two and three players. What's more, there are far fewer destinations and fewer tracks with which to connect them. We found this led to a more cut-throat style of play as every line you create can seriously inconvenience your opponent. In a game of Flames of War a cut-throat game leads to fights and broken friendships. In TRN a cut-throat game leads to laughter and plans for a rematch.

TRN also presents you with a landscape that may be completely novel. I'm sure I should know where Narvik and Trondheim are but I am an ugly American and barely know how to locate Salem, NH. Navigating the cities of the North is in the end a great time and feels exotic and intriguing. Narvik could be a European version of Mineola, NY but I chose to believe it's a snowy fairy wonderland and now I've built a railway to it.

Note: Thanks to wikipedia I've learned that it is indeed a fairy wonderland!

In summary TRN to a fabulous member of the amazing Ticket to Ride franchise. It's a great choice when you're looking for a smaller game and presents just a slightly different twist on a beloved game system. Highly, highly recommended for adults, families, and older kids!

Game Master's Challenge

Businesses in Massachusetts seem to give people the week after Christmas off so we're holding our first GM's Challenge game this week. Three GM's will run an all-day adventure in three chapters. Each GM will manage one chapter and play in the other two. There are two components.

The first challenge is based on something I've wanted to do for a while. The players all look through the Monster Manual and pick out the most outrageous monster we can find. Then the GMs are assigned one of the choices randomly. The challenge is to not only have the monster appear, but have it play an integral role in the adventure. It's easy to make an adventure based on marauding Hill Giants, but can you reveal the unplumbed drama of the Water Weird? Or the badger? So far our band has picked the Ixitxachitl, Purple Worm, Rakshasa, Jackalwere, Roper, Night Hag, Lamia, Succubus, and Green Slime. We shall see who gets assigned what.

The second facet of the GM's Challenge is that it's a chain story. Each GM is assigned a story element which begins their adventure and one that ends it. The elements are deliberately vague and open to lots of interpretation. Phase one opens with "Prison Break" and ends with "Boarding a Ship." Phase two begins with "Attack From the Skies" and ends with "Royalty in Disguise." The last phase begins with "A Trap!" and ends with "Crowned by a King."

One unexpected element of the Challenge is that the GMs are going to have to be ready to deal with the preceding story's setting. Phase one may end at the docks of an island, in the center of a museum, or on a mountaintop! It's going to be fun to create a dungeon or adventure that can be seamlessly linked to a variety of physical settings!

The game is set for a few days from now and we shall see how it plays out. Also apparently it's a costume game. It's lucky I seem to have collected multiple D&D costumes. Lucky or tragic I suppose!