I don’t know what an essential PnP library is anymore- and why that’s cool

Every once in a while, I try and write about what I think would be a good introduction to Print and Play. What would be good to start with, what would be easy to craft. 

I think the last time I did that was during the lockdown. At that time, I wanted to put together a list for folks who weren’t used to print and play but could use the games. Mind you, I imagine most people reading my blog are into print and play lol 

And it has occurred to me that it wouldn't be as easy to try and do that again. 

And that is because it feels like so many games are available in the PnP format. Mind you, I honestly think that is because of how Covid created a demand for that. But the market for actually buying PnP files really has grown.

When I first started poking around PnP, it felt like most of the stuff out there was free. From what I could tell, most of the files that were for sale were for war games and 18XX games. (I may not have known where to look)

And there are some jolly good experiences that you just have to pay for the materials. 

30 Rails still hold up and you could draw it freehand if you didn’t have a printer. I have tried so many Roll and Writes that involve a six by six grid but 30 Rails still stands out by giving you lots of interesting choices and a train theme that works.

If you wanted to take the extra step of making cards, I still recommend the Decktet. Heck, I have said before and I will say it again: if you only plan on making one PnP project ever, it should be the Decktet. It is a game system that just keeps on giving.

But, if you were willing to spend a little money, I’d say buy Postmark Games’ catalog. Don’t get me wrong. There are other companies like HammerDice or Button Shy are amazing. But Postmark has a small but robust set of games that just require printing out the game sheets and every one is solid. It is an easy and accessible entry point.

I think trying out any of these games would be an enriching experience. I don’t think they are the definitive introduction to PnP but I think they are a good one.

But the idea of an essential library of PnP games? At this point, between what someone’s interests are and how much work they want to put in and how much is available, I have no idea. Heck, I’m not sure what it would be for me.

Railroad Ink hasn’t fired 30 Rails for me

I have finally played Railroad Ink. As someone who is into Roll and Write games, multi-player solitaires and railway games, it’s been a game I’ve been itching to try since I first saw it lol

(I learned and played it via the app but I don’t rule out getting a physical copy. Although which one? Lol) And at some point, I will actually write about just Railroad Ink but, as I learned it, I found myself thinking about 30 Rails.

Okay, let’s be honest. There’s a lot of railroad-themed connection games out there. And there are plenty of connection-based Roll and Write games. But, for me, 30 Rails is one of the quintessential ones.

30 Rails is an exercise in minimalism. Two dice. A pencil. A grid. A chart. If you didn’t have access to a printer, you could easily make a copy by hand. But within those simple elements is a solid game with some real choices and even a smidgeon of theme.

My initial premise, when I originally started working on this blog entry, was that in a vacuum, Railroad Ink was better than 30 Rails but being free and _very_ easy to construct adds a lot of value to 30 Rails. Heck, having 30 Rails made me not bother to try and mock up a copy of Railroad Ink.

And I think that Railroad Ink, by virtue of having more content, does win in a vacuum. Two different types of paths, bonus faces and a bunch of expansions is a lot extra content.

But 30 Rails with a different set of placement restrictions, offers different kinds of choices. 30 Rails hasn’t lost its own challenges. It has solid value outside of being free. It hasn’t stopped being a good game.

I know I will get a lot of play out of Railroad Ink but I am going to still play 30 Rails. I might even play it more because I’ll be in a train game state of mind.

Three games that make me want to play 30 Rails

I decided that I wanted to clear out some light Roll and Writes that had been on my plate in a session with a clip board and a dice roller. Honestly, since they are very light and, to be brutally honest, there’s only one I see myself playing again, I’m just covering them all in one post.

All three games are draw stuff on a grid, possibly the most common format for R&W games.

Easter Egg Roll and Write is a game from Gleason Games and I think (?) I found it on itchi.io. It is identical to their Halloween Roll and Fright. Roll three dice. Two of them will be corrdinates on a six-by-six grid and the third will be the symbol you draw.

And, since it was the same as the Halloween game, I wasn’t surprised that the Easter game was terrible. Having to use two dice to determine coordinates and having no dice manipulation turns games into exercises of frustrations. 

On top of the that, you are drawing flowers, trees and ponds. Spring? Okay. Nature? Sure. Easter as a theme? Really?

Turn on the Lamp is an entry in the 14th Roll and Write Contest. It’s a connection game where the twist was the grid was a ten-by-ten grid and you only had four path shapes. So you roll a ten-sided die and a four-sided die each turn.

Easter Egg Roll and Write did make Turn on the Lamp look good, playing them back to back. But it was ultimately not a satisfying game. The grid is simply so big that you won’t end up using most of it to connect the light bulbs to power sources. And a ten-sided die creates enough variance to annoy me.

The last game I tried was Tabletop Arcade: Roll and Snake, yet another Roll and Write adaptation of the old video game Snake. You roll three dice, choose two, and draw a line that many spaces.

Even thought the grid gets more cluttered in the later rounds, I didn’t find it too difficult. At the start of each round, I’d plot out a route and it was only tricky making sure I didn’t overshoot the last  symbol in a round.

I kept checking and I’m pretty sure I was getting the rules right.

On the one hand, if was playing Roll and Snake correctly, it is honestly too easy. On the other hand, it didn’t annoy me and frustrate me like the other two games.

While it was fun to try out some new games, none of them passed the 30 Rails test: why would I play this rather than 30 Rails? 30 Rails keeps holding its place as a gold standard PnP R&W and a game I’ll recommend to anyone.

30 Rails just keeps getting better

 I recently tried out some shorter, simpler Roll and Writes. Honestly, it was clearing out some backlog, although I am always hoping to find another 13 Sheep.

And the amount of decisions ranged from either limited to not really there are all. Which wasn’t all that surprising. That’s one of the dangers of game designs and these were basically prototypes.

But it made me ask if some of the PnP, R&W games I’d liked before are as good as I thought they were. In particular, 30 Rails. After all, the game has you randomly roll coordinates and rail shapes.

So I pulled 30 Rails to give it another spin. It had been a while. Either I’d have fun or an educational disappointment.

So, yeah, it’s good.

 

I regularly describe 30 Rails as the love child of Take It Easy and Metro and I see no reason why I should stop.

You have a six by six grid in 30 Rails. After you seed the grid with five impassible mountains, one mine and a bonus spot, you put a station on each edge. Your goal is to connect stations to each other in the mine. That’s how you get points and points are how you measure how well you do in the game.

Each turn, someone rolls two different colored dice. One die determines which column or row you are going to add a track in. The other determines the shape of the track. And yes, you determine which die is which before you roll them.

I just tried several games that used to days as coordinates. Now, you would think that only having to choose a row or a column would make a big difference in your range of choices. You would be wrong. It makes an enormous difference. And, in 30 Rails, if you filled in both the column and the row, that number becomes wild.

There’s actually a lot in 30 Rails that lets you make meaningful choices. You get some say in how the board is set up. Everyone gets an override that they get to use once for each type of dice. Heck, you get to rotate the track shape, although just about any tile laying game lets you do that.

However, comparing using two dice to get a maximum of two options with using one die to get a maximum of eleven options (and a potential wild mechanic built in), that makes the difference between a good gaming experience and a bad one.

I went back to revisit 30 Rails to see if it was as good as I remembered or if experience would reveal terrible flaws. And what I found was that the game was actually better than I originally thought.

Some Print and Play suggestions for folks on lockdown

I recently wrote about how PnP has helped me decompress and deal with the stress of being on lockdown. Both in the act of actual of making stuff and looking for things that I can get on the table. And there’s actually a lot less spare time under these circumstances. 

And then I was asked for some suggestions.

With so many of us not able to leave the home and so many game shops not open, print and play is an option really worth discussing. I know that other folks have been discussing this and I also know that I’ll suggest is stuff I’ve discussed before. Still, if I help even one person, I should.

30 Rails - if I was told to suggest only one game for folks stuck in their homes, 30 Rails is the game I’d suggest. It is so easy to build that even folks without access to a printer can make a copy. It can play any number of players, including solitaire. And it’s really good. The love child of Take It Easy and Metro, 30 Rails is a connections Roll and Write game where you draw out paths on a grid. It uses familiar ideas and has plenty of tough decisions.

Outlaw - A dice game that just requires you to print out a couple pieces of paper with no cutting, Outlaw is a Pikomino-style game. I like Pikomino better but not everyone has access to Pikomino. Not everyone has a big game collection at home. For some people, someone else owns the games they play and they may be cut off from those games. 

Okay. Moving onto to a little bit on construction.

Autumn - An eighteen-card tile-laying game, Autumn is very simple but very solid. Between using the pie rule and requiring cards to overlap, Autumn offers some real choices and some real variety in its play. Plus, it has a nice solitaire option. It a game that I’ve kept coming back to for more than two years.

The Decktet - The Decktet is a deck of cards with six suites BUT the cards are multi-suited. It offers a real twist on the deck of cards. More importantly, the Decktet has some very solid games. Games like Emu Ranchers, Jacynth and Magnate. I made my first copy years ago by printing it out on card stock and cutting them out with scissors. And I’ve never looked back.

This is not my final word on the subject. Heck, this is barely scratching the surface of the subject. But I think these four games a good start.

Some mini reviews about some free R&W games

A week or so ago, I posted a blog about some free Roll and Write games you can print out yourself. Some of them I’ve written about and some of them I’m planning on writing about but I thought it would be fun to do a quick paragraph or two about each one.

While most of these games can be played solitaire, I did want to pick games that could be played multi-player. If we switched to solitaire, you got a lot more choices of free R&W. However, playing with other folks is a big part of gaming.

Reiner Knizia’s Decathlon - Being from 2003, this is the oldest game out of the ones I picked basically out of the back of my mind. Okay, it’s a collection of ten mini dice games. That’s the game in a set sentence. Honestly, it’s a fascinating deconstruction and exploration of Yahtzee. Its biggest flaw for me is it can run a little long but it’s still fun with plenty of choices and people are still playing it after all these years for a reason.

Okay, I feel like I should also mention Knizia’s other free dice game, Katego. Yeah, it’s not nearly as good. 

30 Rails - This is the lovechild of Take It Easy and Metro. (I’m going to steal that line from myself when I finally get around to giving it a proper review) You’re filling in a grid with tracks. One die tells you which piece of track you’re drawing in and the other tells you the column or row. Full of tough decisions that will make you throw the pencil across the room. Minimal art and components with very simple rules but it comes together so well.

Bento Blocks - The only game on the list you can’t play solitaire (but the designer used the same ideas for the really fun solitaire Ada Lovelace: Consulting Mathematician) In the game, you use dice drafting to pick out Tetris shapes to fill in a grid that’s a cross between a bento box and a sudoku puzzle. It’s an idea that I believe will at some point get published and then get a lot of love.

Recycling Route - Using path drawing, set collection and I-Cut-You-Pick dice drafting, you drive through the city and pick up recyclables and garbage. There’s a lot going on in Recycling Route, including the ability to upgrade your truck. It feels like 3/4 of a pick-up-and-deliver game. I wish it had the last quarter but it still an amazing piece of work for one piece of paper. As time has gone on, I’ve come to like it more and more.

Welcome to DinoWorld - Welcome To DinoWorld won last year’s GenCan’t game design contest and I can see why. You are not only creating a map, you are creating an infrastructure of dinosaurs and special buildings. As the game progresses, you assign die numbers to different types of buildings so there’s a lot of variety and replay value. It has the meat of a much bigger game on a one-page, three dice R&W.

I also have learned Welcome To DinoWorld is going to get Kickstarted. My response is what took so long? I don’t know if the free version is going to continue to be available but it sounds like they are doing a lot of upgrades and changes so it might. Regardless, I am backing it.

I freely admit that price can make a big difference in my opinion of a game. The fact that you just need access to a printer, a pencil and some dice to play all five of these games definitely adds some shine to them in my eyes. But all five of them go well beyond ‘eh, it’s free, print it’ They are fun stuff.

 

Do I buy R&W or just make them myself?

I recently heard 2018 referred to as the Year of the Roll and Write. (It was on Shut Up and Sit Down, which a friend recommended I try, and during a preview of Welcome To, which sounds like a really fun game) I’m sure someone will actually do some kind of meta exploration of the recent escalation and evolution of designer R&W games but I feel like it’s been going strong for more than just this year.

(From what I can tell, Qwixx is what really got the ball rolling but games like Roll Through the Ages and the Catan Dice Game and Zooloretto the Dice Game proved the market was out there many years earlier. I will also admit that games like SteamRollers are showing how R&W can be have serious depth and meat)

Honestly, I like R&W a lot. Heck, I even enjoy the odd game of Yahtzee now and then. However, I have this problem going out and buying R&W games: There are enough good free ones I can make myself that I almost never feel like buying one. Shucks, add some sort of plastic protector and some dry erase markers and you have a copy that you can use indefinitely.

Off hand and focusing on games that are free, legal, fun and suitable for multiple players, I would recommend Knizia’s Decathlon, Bento Blocks, Welcome to DinoWorld, Recycling Route and 30 Rails to anyone who is interested in Roll and Write. If I were to open it up to games that are exclusively solitaire, the list would explode. And that’s without trying hard.

I am a lazy PnP guy, with a big focus on micro card games that don’t require a lot of work. But R&W Games are the ultimate lazy PnP. You just need a printer, some dice and some pencils. And some of them really are very good.

Let’s face it. Nobody can play every game that’s out there. What we end up playing has to be part of a balance of time and money and personal tastes (both your own and those of the folks you are playing with) For me at least, PnP games balance those elements very well and the ones I’ve mentioned strike me as ones that will do the same for other folks.

At the same time, I have to be fair. It seems like published R&W games are becoming not just more and more polished but also more and more complex. In the case of games like Welcome To, going beyond the PnP may prove very much worth it.

(Also, to be fair, I will and have bought PnP files for R&W games. I like making PnP games)

My July PnP

I knew that the summer was going to be a dead time for PnP crafting for me. And, in particular, I knew July would be bad since we’d be traveling for half of it. (I wondered that might give me a chance to play a variety of solitaire games but it really didn’t. Thank goodness for Onirim) 

I thought about crafting a quick nine-card game, just to get in some crafting in July. But I couldn’t find the energy and enthusiasm. It wouldn’t have been fun, just drudgery for no good reason. Which kind of defeats the idea of this as a hobby.

So I was ready to just post a blog that said ‘Nope. Didn’t make nothin’.’

Then I realized it would be fun and amusing to make the laziest PnPs I could. There are a number of games that just involving printing out one sheet of paper with no cutting or pasting. I don’t consider just printing them out to be PnP crafting but I do consider laminating those pages to be the minimum for me to call it PnP crafting.

So, on July 30, I fired up the laminator and laminated copies of 30 Rails, Hall of the Dwarven King, the new art version of Recycle Route, Scissor Fight and Napoleon and His Marshals: The Dice Game.

I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll play Napoleon and his Marshals but I like the idea of a ‘full’ war game where I just have to make the board and add dice to make it work. On the other hand, I am looking forward to getting in more plays of 30 Rails. It’s a minimalist game in almost every way and so good. I want to play it enough that I feel like I can review it and then play it some more.

And I am very curious about Scissor Fight. The idea of a game where you’re cutting out shapes to put into outlines is very interesting but I don’t know how well it will work in practice. The rules do seem to cover all the loopholes I could think of. Might be a good hand-eye coordination activity when our son gets a little better with scissors.

What does make me happy is that I didn’t craft these games to fulfill some imaginary quota but because I’m actually interested in them.