RPG-a-Day 2023 - Week Three

 Here we go with WEEK THREE!!!

15) Favourite Convention MODULE/ONE-SHOT

I don't think I've never played a role-playing game at a convention...?

Finnegan has run a few one-shots that were fun - especially Dungeon Crawl Classics/Mutant Crawl Classics funnel adventures.

I think the funnest I remember in recent history that I ran was a FATE one shot I called "Dude, Where's My Warhorse" wherein the very hung over retinue and attendants of the knight that won the king's tournament the previous day scramble to locate their masters prized warhorse that is discovered to be missing upon awaking after a night of drunken debauchery.... I've run it twice with different groups and WILDLY different outcomes.

I guess I have run miniature games at conventions... and the ones that went the best were ones where all the players were on one side and played against a common enemy run by ME... which is very similar to a role-playing game....? 

The favourite one...? probably the last one I ran - Necromunda where each player controlled a group from a different gang. They each got a character and a small handful of regular gangers. They had all sort of banded together to stop Karloth Valois and his band of zombies and scavvies from getting to a populated area of the underhive and infecting large numbers of (relatively) innocent people and growing his power. Collectively, they had to stop him, If he got through - ALL THE PLAYERS LOSE... Players gained points for taking out Scavvies and Zombies and a bunch for taking out Valois (so a "winner" could be determined), but each were handed a card with a secret agenda on it - something only they got points for and only they knew about. Most of them were "take out the leader of X gang"... which gave them points... but the leaders were very powerful and if they did that too soon, it could affect their collective strength and ability to stop Valois. People REALLY got into it!

I ran it twice, actually, once as a play-test on my birthday and once at ToonCon:

The Return of Karloth Valois - Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash

ToonCon 2020 - Part 3 - Sunday - Necromunda (and Power Grid!)

16) Game You WISH You Owned

I feel like at some point there probably were games I wished I owned or wished I'd never gotten rid of... but I've either tracked them all down or lost interest...? 

Now, there are so many games that I OWN that I'd LOVE to play, but just never get around to it... there really aren't any others that I really long for. Not many that I wish I still had... (board games, miniature games, specific miniatures.... maybe... but not so much role-playing games I really, really wish I had...). 

I guess I wouldn't mind checking out the NEW version of Twilight: 2000. I've really enjoyed reading through Blade Runner, and the new Twilight: 2000 seems to use the same system, and I have SO MUCH STUFF for the original... I have just about all the first edition adventures and sourcebooks in print - as well as pdfs... so... Also have PILES of painted modern troopers and civilians and vehicles and terrain I could use... 

(edit/update... between typing this and posting it... 

...so... not really ANY games I wish I had...)

17) FUNNIEST Game You've Played

Again, Teenagers From Outter Space or the "Dude, Where's My Warhorse" adventure I ran with FATE. 

18) Favourite Game SYSTEM

Ehhhh... I don't know... 

There are things I like about a LOT of different systems. None of them really stand out as better than all the others. My favourite system at any given moment is usually the one I'm currently planning to play. Which changes all the time. 

Right now... FATE seems really elegant, but I just don't feel like I have enough experience with it. Blade Runner and Wrath & Glory seem like they have the right balance of crunchy and streamlined simplicity. 

I really, REALLY liked Savage Worlds and ran that EXCLUSIVELY for YEARS....

I guess, in general, I like anything that's fairly simple and generic and the rules get out of the way of ROLE-PLAYING. Character CONCEPTS are more important to me than number crunching and optimizing within a complex system of rules and chaff. 

I guess I could also say my favourite game system is the ONE I'M PLAYING RIGHT NOW! (which really isn't any, at the moment, so.... maybe in the fall... or winter... when the game room is accessible again...) 

19) Favourite PUBLISHED Adventure

I have a really hard time with published adventures... I like the idea of published adventures... because I feel like it should give a sense of how the game should be run - especially if you're just starting out.. But I always find holes in the plots that I just can't seem to fill. 

Or, if *I* don't find them... my PLAYERS WILL!!! 

The first Wrath & Glory adventure I ran from Dark Tides - the first anthology of adventures. There's a murder of a high-ranking nobility of a hive world, way up in their private spires, players have to investigate. The first thing one of them asks is "well, what's on the security camera footage"... There is ZERO MENTION of security systems or cameras, which, OF COURSE they'd HAVE....!? but if there WERE, that would make it INSANELY EASY to figure out who it was... Oh, they were taken out (how did they access that)... ugh... ground the adventure to a halt when I had to suddenly come up with reasons why there was no security camera footage. 

First game in the Dragonlance series of games. They find the Disks of Mishakal... the GOAL of the adventure... a set of 160 platinum disks, each one-sixteenth of an inch thick and eighteen inches in diameter, held together with a big rivet that runs through one side so they can be shifted out and examined... One of the players asks,  how HEAVY is that... nevermind, they'll figure it out, gets out phone calculates volume of this pile cylender of disks... looks up the density of platinum... Yeah... it's only a few tons... HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO GET THESE OUT OF THE COLLAPSING CAVERN!? I tell them if someone of good alignment carries them, it is as if they are weightless... (making shit up on the spot, at this point) because... MAAAaaaaaGIiiiiic! but wait, what if that person gets in a cart (or a gully-dwarf-powered elevator, is the person carrying them weightless... can a person of good alignment even USE a gully-dwarf-powered elevator - knowing using it will send those gully dwarves to their CERTAIN DOOM!!?? 

I guess I liked the Free City of Krakow for the old Twilight: 2000 - it was less of an adventure, per se, than a detailed location with lots of potential... 

There's a nostalgic little hit of dopamine when I think back to Keep On The Borderlands (and maybe Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh)... the excitement of those first adventures all back in the day, when everything was NEW! But I haven't looked at it in 30 years.... and... I'm a little afraid to in case they SUCK in the light of modern reexamination. I mean... Dragonlance didn't hold up... 

20) Will Still Play in TWENTY Years Time...

I have NO IDEA. I have no idea what I might be playing in a year, let along TWENTY!? 

I just hope I'm playing SOMETHING. 

(I have to admit, I have a difficult time with future predicting. I have a hard time imagining I'll even be alive in five years, let alone ten or TWENTY!? I've been this way since my teens. It's honestly led to some not great life choices... and you can well imagine my shock and disconcert at realizing I'd made it to fifty and had an adult child - all in the same year - last year!? So, at this point, I have to acknowledge it's a possibility... but it's still hard to imagine) 

21) Favourite LICENSED RPG

Right now I'm really loving Blade Runner... Maybe once I try to RUN it I'll be less enthralled. 

Wrath & Glory is, technically, a licensed product... but a licensed RPG based on a miniature skirmish game that I've played like a role-playing game... so it feels more like an extension of a game I've already played and less like something someone else made up... Regardless, it is a licensed product, I do like it... so...

One of those two, I guess. 

I really liked the CONCEPTS in Tales from the Loop... but it just didn't work out for me running it... 

Who else has a favourite one-shot or a game you wished you owned, a favourite system or tell me the funniest game you've played? What's your favourite published adventure? 

WHAT GAME DO YOU HOPE YOU'LL STILL BE PLAYING IN TWENTY YEARS?!!

Do you have a favourite licensed game?

Please let me know in the comments!

My Little Pony

I'm... not even kidding... 

My son Finnegan picked up the My Little Pony Role-Playing Game and I'm hoping I'll be able to convince him to run it for me and a few lucky friends... 

In the meantime, I obviously had to start sketching character concepts... I started off with a generic punk rawk pony... and then it kind of just got silly...

Generic Punk Rawk Pony... I don't have a name yet... maybe something like Annie Archie...? Ideas?

Billy-Joe attempt #1 (too dark)

Billie-Joe attempt #2

Jon Bon Pony

(I'm... I'm so sorry....)

Will I be doing miniatures for this game... probably not... but you never know!? 

(I did see some My Little Pony dolls at Dollarama for $3-4... I mean... that's less than your average role-playing/wargaming miniature, so....) 

RPG-a-Day 2023 - Week Two

Here we go with another weeks worth of answers to the RPG-a-Day 2023 Prompt list...

8) Favourite CHARACTER

Not one of MY characters, but one of the characters that always made me laugh was Mad Willie - a gunfighter scotsman in a sci-fi campaign I ran using Savage Worlds - using elements of traveller and highly inspired by Firefly/Serenity. the characters were the crew of the Muttonchop Express - owned and flown by Captain Burt Jackson. 

Mad Willie did not believe in lasers. Lasers were the most commonplace weapon in the game. He believed they were nothing more than flashlights and his cognitive dissonance would generate the most outrageous excuses for any damage caused by lasers... "ooh, Look, you've got SUN SPOTS!?" 

You can read more about him here:

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Willie

9) Favourite DICE

I don't know that I consider dice enough to have a favourite... I do like the LARGE d20s I have - for playing D&D or Frostgrave/Stargrave, etc.. 

I used to have a set of sharp edged, different coloured, translucent dice that looked like gemstones... they were pretty... not sure what ever happened to them. 

I do like the dice that came with the Lost Tomb of the Bitchen Chimera dice - that had the Dead Milkmen Logo on it... 

I like any dice I can read across a table... I CAN'T STAND dice that are mottled or are so lacking in contrast that they are difficult to read! 

10) Favourite Tie-In FICTION

That would be the Ciaphas Cain novels by Sandy Mitchell. They are set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and Cain is an Imperial Commissar. They are presented as memoirs he wrote in later age about his exploits as a Commissar in the Astra Militarum - that have been edited and annotated by Amberly Vail - an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos. While deeply steeped in the grim dark future of the 41st Millenium, the stories - and Cain - do not take themselves TOO seriously. They are, in moments, quite hilarious. It's sort of a bit like Black Adder Foes Forth meets 40K.... 

11) WEIRDEST Game You've Played

There was a game of Teenagers From Outer Space that I ran in High School in the late 80s that was just BONKERS... because it was so light on rules and you could just do anything... people felt free to do just... ANYTHING... Some bat-shit crazy stuff went down... 

Do you think I can REMEMBER any of it, at this point...? No, not really. I do remember one character fell into an open man-hole, tumbled through a series of pipes leading through the centre of the earth and finally popped out a dunny door in Australia... but because FUCK PHYSICS, he just kept falling and grasped a large antennae before continuing to fall into the Australian sky... Like Luke falling out of the underside of Bespin in the Empire Strikes Back. Luckily his friends arrived in their flying car convertible just as he was losing his grip (just like Lando and Leia in the Millennium Falcon flew up and rescued Luke before he fell!) and flew him back to Canada before his fifth period class.... 

12) Old Game You STILL Play

Do newer editions of older games count...? 

I haven't really played a lot of role-playing games in the last year... So far, in 2023, I've only made characters for Hellboy. so I'm not sure there's ANYTHING I "STILL play"... 

"WOULD STILL play"....? 

Ehhhhhh.... I don't know. I don't have any particular love or nostalgia for any older systems. I have a TONNE of adventures and source materials for a lot of older games.... Which I would LOVE to play sometime. Would i use those original systems? Probably not! I'd convert it to use with something newer and simpler - Like Savage Worlds (which I have done a lot of in the past!) or FATE or something. 

13) Most Memorable Character DEMISE

I might still a just a little bit bitter about my friends using MY characters as meatshields when I couldn't make it to the final session of Temple of Elemental Evil in grade nine...

14) Favourite CONVENTION PURCHASE

I don't really go to conventions... and the few I've been to haven't had a lot of people selling stuff. I guess both Fallcon and ToonCon have had auctions and I've bought stuff at those... but I can't, for the life of me, REMEMBER any of them. Pretty sure none were role-playing games....

Oh, wait... I think one was a board-game-tie-in to Legends of the Five Rings - which had a role-playing game - (Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan?) which I got for $5 or $10... and have never played... 

How about the rest of you? What are YOUR favourite character and dice and tie-in fiction and convention purchases? What was YOUR most memorable character demise? What old games do you still play...? 

Not Dead Yet - Necrons and other Kill Team Stuff

 For the last few weeks... (maybe a month...?). I've been getting together with a couple of friends on Discord and having a paint and chat on Sunday afternoons. I haven't been doing much PAINTING, though, mostly assembling. Over the last two weeks I assembled some Necrons from the Kill Team: Shadowvaults box...

Turns out I dislike assembling Necrons ALMOST as much as I dislike playing against them... But they're done! Well... ASSEMBLED, at least. 

In the last month, I've also assembled and primed all the miniatures from the Kill Team: Ashes of Faith box set. I was tempted to try and knock off the Sisters of Silence - as they seem easy and maybeFINISHING some stuff might get me motivated to PAINT MORE!!! But I've decided to try and finish ASSEMBLING all the stuff... and THEN worry about figuring out what to paint and when. 

Although... I'm tempted to paint Necrons as well, now... I could go with very simple paint jobs on them - just to finish some stuff. 

Will I ever PLAY with the Necrons...? I don't know... Maybe just to try them out. A more likely (relatively speaking) is that I might use them as opponents in a game of Wrath & Glory. 

We shall see... 

RPG-a-Day 2023 - Week One

 It's that time of year again... and I forgot about it until a friend posted it on the second. I won't be doing daily updates on the blog... maybe weekly...? We shall see...

1) FIRST RPG played (this year) 

That would be the Back of Beyond Campaign I ran earlier this year. I wasn't using any system in particular... I guess it was similar to Diplomacy, in a way. I had six players, each representing a warlord in control of a faction in the Far East starting in 1919. There were Tsarists and Bolsheviks and Warlord Chinese and Western Interventionists. They sent messages to the other warlords to negotiate or threaten or bully each other, as they saw fit, and at the end of the week, submitted a movement order for their army in the field. I played out any battles using One-Hour Wargames and reported the results on this very blog... and the negotiating began again. Some REALLY GOT INTO THEIR ROLES - writing verbose communiques and proclamations in the "voice" of their "character". 

2) First RPG GAMEMASTER 

Like, ever...? That would be my dad, I think. I somehow convinced him to buy the red box Dungeons & Dragons around 1982 or 1983 and he tried to run it for me... but very quickly I took over and ran it for him for a time, until I found other kids my age to play with.

3) First RPG BOUGHT (This Year)

I can't remember if I bought the Hellboy RPG at the beginning of this year or the end of last year...? 

If the latter, then it would be the Blade Runner RPG I bought last week.

4) Most RECENT Game Bought

That would be either the Blade Runner RPG or Tiny Epic Galaxies...? 

If we're talking RPGs... Blade Runner. 

Speaking of recent purchases, though, Finnegan bought the My Little Pony RPG and a game called Thirsty Sword Lesbians the other day! They sound fun and I hope I'll be able to convince him to run a game or two for me and some friends. 

5) OLDEST Game You've Played

The oldest Role-Playing Game I've played would be D&D... though it was relatively NEW at the time!

If we were talking about a game that was OLD when I played it - like the game that had the largest amount of time between when the edition I played was published and when I played it... That would probably be quite a bit different! 

Oldest GAME... like the physical copy I played...? Or the old game invented...? Probably Monopoly or Crokinole or Snakes and Ladders...? 

6) Favourite Game You NEVER Get To Play

Honestly, when I've been playing as little as I have the last little bit, EVERY game seems like a game I never get to play and wish I could play more.

Also, I don't think I lament not being able to play any particular game as much as I miss getting to play with certain PEOPLE...

I guess Wrath & Glory is the one I've thought about most over the last year and just never seem to get a game going...

Or FATE...

7) SMARTEST RPG You've Played. 

I don't know... There have been some with new things, clever mechanics and such... 

I really like the simplicity of FATE. It seems very elegant. I'd like to try it more. (though I just went out and bought Blade Runner...!?) 

How about the rest of you? 

July Games

 Welp... another month has gone by. Here's what I've been up to... 

Saturday, 1 July 2023

Canada Day!

Kicked off the month with a game of 1754: Conquest - The French and Indian War. This is part of a series of games from Academy Games. I have two of the others in the series (1775: Rebellion and 1812: The Invasion of Canada) but have not played them in... eight years...!? I played 878: Vikings: Invasions of England (also using the same general game mechanics), but that was six years ago. 

I was playing the British Regulars and John was playing the Provincials (he had never played any of the games in the series). Brent was the French Regulars, and Kurtis was the Habitants. They've both played these games more recently and had both actually read the rules this week... so they kind of won... also, Brent could not NOT hit when he rolled his dice and I couldn't hit anything... so... 

Setting up for the Halifax Hammer... no, wait... that's a different game... 

This was where I set up my extra guys at the beginning of the game. On the first turn four more cubes were deployed to the port and I tried a two pronged invasion of Louisburg. I succeeded in capturing the port, but the fort remained in French hands the entire game. I did briefly capture Quebec as well - and even moved up to Trois Rivieres where one of the Habitant spawn tokens was... but that was short-lived. The game only lasted three rounds. 

Boom! Played as many games on the first day of July as I did in all of June! 

Wednesday, 12 July 2023

With Jasper back from his month-long sojourn to teh family cabin in the woods, we met up with Brent to play Wingspan! 

We played at Jaspers - to break in Jaspers brand new copy of the game (which he received as a going away gift from the high school he'd been teaching at, as he's been transferred to a different one for the fall!) 

Brent just destroyed both of us in the first game, scoring 113 - and we weren't even playing with nectar!? I think he said it was the first time he'd scored over 100 points when not playing with the Oceana Expansion! 

We played a second game... and points-wise I did so much worse... but I got a lot more birds out there... and, like 17 points from Bonus Cards! 

We ALL did worse in the second game, for some reason!? Brent still won. Jasper swore he would play one hundred solo games befroe we were allowed to come over again - so he could get better at it... I don't know... This is over fifty games I've played, and I don't feel like I'm doing much better than when I first started!? 

...and... that was it for gaming.... 

On the plus side, I did a fair bit more cycling. Every week I did a bit more than than I did the previous week. It's not nearly as much as I would have been riding in previous years... all while still playing games... but... it's something. 

I also got together with friends on discord for an online "paint and chat" the last two Sundays... though I wasn't painting. I DID assemble all of the miniatures from the Ashes of Faith box set, which I picked up back in May. 

Earlier in the month I'd been assembling and prepping other things - The Beastmen from Kill Team: Gallowfall and rebasing some other stuff... and Skaven... and spaceship terrain... back to the old bouncing around between too many projects to actually COMPLETE any!? 

I... um... also bought a few new games!?

The first was Alien: Fate of the Nostromo. It was an impulse buy. I was looking on Amazon for something I actually needed... and this popped up and was DEEPLY discounted. Like normally $50CAD on for $20... It had miniatures (but, like, only SIX!)... Co-op or solo... (though It turns out the miniatures are HUGE - closer to 40mm!? Or more!?) 

Also... I'd been thinking about picking up the Alien role-playing game and thought these miniatures could be used (as if I didn't already HAVE enough generic sci-fi crew...). At one point I was even thinking about picking up Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps (I wonder if the miniatures are a similar HUGE scale or if they're closer to the more traditional 28 or 32mm? they are made by a different company...?)

In the end I DIDN'T pick up the Alien role-playing game... instead I picked up the Blade Runner role-playing game. (it seemed like there was less stuff for it and I would be less inclined to go ALL IN and buy EVERYTHING!?). I've had a brief look at it and it seems interesting. I might try and run a few adventures in the fall when the game room is operational again... 

Finally, I happened to be at McNally-Robinson - one of the only books stores left in Saskatoon - certainly the BIGGEST - I don't go there often as it's on the other side of town. But I happened to be out that way with Keiran and I though they might enjoy going into the two book stores out there (there's also an Indigo Books) (They were indeed THRILLED - and a little overwhelmed - but showed great restraint and only came home with three books!). 

Tiny Epic Galaxies was on a table with a few other board games and puzzles in the Bargains section and was marked down 50%, so I got it for less than $19 including taxes... I remember them selling for $50-60 just after the Tabletop episode came out featuring Tiny Epic Galaxies (as EVERYONE suddenly wanted one!). I don't recall much about it... but I remember thinking we should pick it up... but then coudn't find one... and then couldn't find one for any sort of reasonable price and gave up. 

It's small, so hopefully we can set it up on the kitchen table and play it sometime this summer while waiting upon renovations to finish up. 

Game Plan 2023 - Q3

Holy Carp!? How are we already half way through the year!? 

Lets start by looking back at the Q2 Game Plan...

Games

I didn't really have any idea what sort of games I might play for any sort of Quarterly 5x5 Challenge... I did end up getting sort of close to playing five different games, five times! And, despite only playing ONE GAME in June, played over thirty in April and May... 

Here are the games I played this past quarter: 

• One-hour Wargames x5
• Wingspan Asia x4
• Clank! In! Space!: A Deck-Building Adventure x4
• Wingspan x4
• Agricola x3
• Century: Golem Edition x2
• Tinderblox x2
• Azul x1
• Beyond the Sun x1
• Boss Monster 2: The Next Level x1
• Castles of Mad King Ludwig x1
• Cryptid x1
• Imhotep x1
• Lords of Waterdeep x1
• Shakespeare x1
• Splendor x1
• Tyrants of the Underdark x1
• Vinci x1
• Xenos Rampant x1

What I've played, so far this year... 

• One-Hour Wargames x20
• Codenames x11
• Wingspan Asia x7
• Splendor x5
• Wingspan x5
• Clank! In! Space!: A Deck-Building Adventure x4
• Agricola x3
• Century: Golem Edition x3
• Codenames: Pictures x2
• Tinderblox x2
• Azul x1
• Beyond the Sun x1
• Boss Monster 2: The Next Level x1
• Castles of Mad King Ludwig x1
• Cryptid x1
• Hellboy: The Roleplaying Game x1
• Imhotep x1
• Kingdom Builder x1
• Lords of Waterdeep x1
• Shakespeare x1
• Terraforming Mars x1
• Terraforming Mars: Prelude x1
• Tyrants of the Underdark x1
• Vinci x1
• Xenos Rampant x1

Any possibility there might be a 10x10 in there...? Certainly there could be five games I'd play 10 times this year (One Hour Wargames and Codenames I've already done, it would be easy enough to get in five more games of Wingspan, Splendor and Wingspan Asia)... If I actually got going on playing Kill Team and Warcry, it would be easy enough to get in ten games of each of those... but that's only seven. Maybe if I ended up running a role-playing game in the fall and/or another online campaign...? 

Maybe I just need to try and play some games and see what happens.  

Miniatures

I didn't get a tonne painted... and I DID buy a few things... but I don't really see any need for any more purchases in the foreseeable future (Unless I got playing 40K on the regular and decided to pick up a few Harlequins or other Aeldari to fill in holes in 40K armies...) 

Q3 Game Plan

Things are still very much up in the air. The basement renovation still drags on and there is a lot to do before it's going to be finished. Demolition is complete, the last of the plumbing has been upgraded and concreted has been repoured... But things are kid of on hold now, until the end of August, when the contractor we hired to do all the finish work is available. So, I probably won't have full access to the game room or a proper hobby area until Q4...  That will limit what kind of gaming and hobby projects that can be worked on.

Also there are a few vacations being planned for this summer. Amanda and Keiran are heading off to visit Amanda's folks and sister and her family later in the summer. Then Amanda and I are theoretically going off on a vacation of our own afterwards  (as well as maybe a few shorter excursions earlier in the summer...?) 

Still... I would like to get going on some games of Kill Team and Warcry. I'd like to finish up a few of the new kill teams and Gallowdark terrain and a few more skaven for Warcry.

Hopefully we can still play a few board games from time to time. 

Not much of a "plan"... but... It's about the best I can manage right now. 

Hopefully by Q4 I'll be back into the swing of things...