Not an actual review of Elfs

I just finished reading Elfs and look at their thinking about writing a review of it. However, I really just want to comment on one mechanic.

In Elfs, you play nasty little elves who engage in a lot of potty humor and depraved sexual behavior. Frankly, that sounds like regular dungeons and dragons in high school and freshman year in college. In other words, I am not sure that you need a system that describes the way a lot of people already play role playing games. Is it really satire if you're just describing regular behavior?

OK, to be fair, The point of the game is to do this intentionally and explore the meta game behind playing characters where you are is more important then success. Which isn't really a surprise. The designer, Ron Edwards, has kind of made a point of exploring meta game.

The most significant exploration of the meta game and by far the most interesting to me is the concept of Dumb Luck. It's a special stat that you use the _player_ and the _character_ have different goals. It's a fascinating idea that really mixes up the idea of getting in your character's skin.

In fact, it is actually the reverse of bleed. Bleed is when what happens to the characters emotionally affects the players. In Elfs, the rules make it perfectly clear that the characters are just there to dance for the players' amusement.

While this is interesting and I'm pretty sure I can find examples of games I've played where you could argue there is anti-bleed (Toon or the Parsely system might be examples of that), this isn't what draws me into role playing games. Elfs doesn't interest me as a game I want to play. I also am not sure how it works as satire when it basically has you play the way plenty of people legitimately play fantasy RPGs.

With all that said, if it had been a Three Stooges RPG, I might have been more interested. 

Boy meets girl, girl leaves boy, boy gains super powers

By reading Just For One Day, I've now actually finished the first tape in the Indie Megamix Mixtape. Which means that I still have two more to read :D

Of course, when I first started reading through the micro RPGs in the collection (about a year ago... really?), I knew that I was going to take my time and try not to binge on them. If I did that, I would end up getting burnt out quickly and I wouldn't be able to judge each game on its own merits.

(One thing that has happened as I've read them is that I've gotten more aware and interested on the actual songs that inspired the games. I wonder would it would be like to actually make a mixtape of the songs. And I wonder if they would be good to have around for emergency games of Ribbon Drive. Kind of defeats the purpose of that game, I know, but it's still tempting)

Just For One Day is a game for three players. Two of them play a couple (romantic or otherwise, although the structure really seems to be geared towards romantic) while the third player plays the world.

The mechanics center around seven cards that you make at the start of the game, each one having some kind of trait that either helps or should help hold the relationship together. As the game goes on, they may get reversed but every scene will be tied to them.

The game has three stages, using the deck each time. The first stage is establishing the relationship. The second is having the relationship fall apart. Then, the character who was left gains super powers and develops a neurotic Superman-Lois Lane relationship with the other player.

Okay. Which of those stages is at least a little bit surprising?

Really, by the standards of RPGs, a romantic drama getting hijacked by super powers isn't that weird. I mean, the game before this one is about undead Mesopotamian kings playing rock music. By that yardstick, Just For One Day doesn't even register.

Still, the theme of Just for One Day is the most interesting part for me. For one thing, I like superheroes. For another thing, I like that you build up to it, developing and destroying the relationship before super powers come in. Although the mechanic of returning to the same concepts in every stage has potential.

While I'd rather play Breaking The Ice, I will give Just For One Day credit for examining how a relationship falls apart.

Reiner Knizia's Decathlon still has legs

GenCan't has let me revisit Reiner Knizia's Decathlon. It's actually been an interesting experience since I have played a lot of both light dice games and print-and-plays since I last played the Decathlon.

The Decathlon is a well known Print and Play. Part of that is definitely because it's by a well known designer. Part of it is because it's easy to make. Print out a page and grab some dice. But part of it is because the Decathlon is a decent, although not brilliant, game. 

As the name flat out states, you play out the ten events of the Olympic Decathlon. The twist is that each game is it's own distinct dice mini-game. And both the strengths and weaknesses of the game are tied to that.

On the one hand, most light dice games are repetitive. You're doing thats same thing over and over again. In the Decathlon, the events are just different enough that you have to adjust your thinking for each event. That gives the game a distinct feel, even after all these years.

And you have a limited number of rerolls in each game. That both keeps the game moving along and keeps the tension high. There is weight to every roll you make.you have to decide how far you want to push your luck.

On the other hand, lets be honest. None of the mini games are strong enough to stand on their own. No one is going to sit down and say let's play a few rounds of the 400 meter dash. The overall game is and has to be greater than the sum of its parts.

(Moving on to neutral elements)

The Decathlon has the odd quality of being pretty dry and pretty thematic at the same time. If the theme was fixing ten parts of a space ship or fighting ten battles of Alexander the Great or operating ten different rail lines, it wouldn't work nearly as well. The Olympic Decathlon gives it a unifying theme that makes each mini-game flow together. But it's still pretty dry.

The Decathlon is also a bit longer than most light dice games. I'd pull out Cinq-O or Zombie Dice if we wanted a quick, low thought activity. The Decathlon is just long enough and (maybe) just complicated enough that it's more of a planned game rather than a spontaneous one.

All in all, Reiner Knizia's Decathlon still holds up. I'll admit some of its value comes from the fact that the files are free and it costs almost nothing in time and materials to make. But that alone doesn't make a game worth playing. It also has tension and interesting decisions to make. It's not perfect and I wouldn't want to play it every week. But it is a game I'd play again.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6955/reiner-knizias-decathlon

2017: the first year I went to GenCan't

Another GenCon has come and gone and, as had been the case since I moved to the other side of the country, I didn't go. This year, however, I found out about GenCan't so I got to celebrate the weekend anyway.

(Incidentally, almost all of my friends who went to GenCon for shopping and open gaming have stopped going. It has become too crowded for them. So I just heard from my friends who went for business reasons and for the spectacle. So I got a much happier description of the con :D)

As I've mentioned about seven times in this blog, I found out about GenCan't through the Roll and Write contest. Which has been a lot of fun. There are some games in that library I could see being published and doing well. I probably won't play them all but I definitely try some more.

However, I have gotten to have some other fun with GenCan't, participating in one of the MegaKaruba games and the unofficial Knizia Decathlon tournament.

Many years ago, I swear I read how Alan Moon ran a game of Take It Easy with over a hundred players at a convention. Now, of course, I can't find a citation of that event. However, I love the idea that   number of boards limits the number of players who can play a 'bingo with strategy' game. So MegaKaruba was something I really dug.

Of course, while it is a game I've thought of picking up, I don't actually own a copy. So I made a set of pieces with pencil, straight edge, glue, card stock and a paper cutter. I used matching pairs of dice for the explorers (one pip) and temples (counting down from five to two as the values decreased)

This was my first experience with Karuba and it was a crazy, silly way to try out the game, the moves live-streamed so that folks around the world could play the same game. I don't know how many folks outside the US played (or how many folks played period) but it was a fun time. Memorable introduction.

On the other hand, between being someone who is a Knizia fan and has had in interest in PnP, I'm no stranger to Reiner Knizia's Decathlon. However ever, this was the first time I played competitively, instead of solitaire. That definitely added some excitement to the game. Plus, I somehow won the tournament. Honestly, it gave me a whole new appreciation for the game.

Yes, going to GenCon would have been a bigger, possibly overwhelming experience. GenCan't can't compare to that. However, I got access to a library of PnP games that are fun and will probably push me to finally making a binder of solitaire games. I got to try out a new game and play with a bunch of people and even win a tournament.

Most importantly, I got to participate. I wasn't able to make it to the biggest convention of the year (or the one fighting with Essen for that title)  but I was still able to be a part of the weekend. And that felt really good.

Gene splicing dinosaurs all by yourself

GenCan't Roll and Write Library - Jurassico

Since there are over forty games in the library, I have realized that I probably won't get through them all. So I've decided that I should make sure that I get in the finalists and the winner. I'm not going to save the best for last.

In Jurassico, you are commercial geneticists who are working on bringing the dinosaurs back. Amusingly, the winner of the contest, Welcome to Dino World, is about running a dinosaur amusement park. So I can see playing the two games back to back :D

Jurassico is designed as a solitaire game with a built in, robot opponent. I can see playing it multi-player but you will always need the robot to really keep the pressure on.

You are working on bringing back five different dinosaurs species. You do this by filling in the numbers on five color-coded columns. Each round, you roll five dice (red, yellow, green, white and blue) and make pairs with one die left over. 

You can cross off the sum of a pair from the column that matches one of the colors of the dice in the pair. The white and the blue are the bottom six numbers of 2d6, the green and yellow are the top and red is the even numbers. You also get some genetic meddling that lets you alter each color in some way twice in the game.

The fifth die? That goes to your competition, Embryonic, who are trying to make the same dinosaurs. You just check off a box in their unnumbered columns. They have fewer boxes than you in each column AND you check them off at the start of the game. The number depends on how difficult you want the game to be.

Whoever finishes a dinosaur species first gets two billion bucks. If the other side later completes that dinosaur, they get one billion. If you get to six billion first, you win. If Embryonic does, you lose.

Out of all the games I've played so far in the library, Jurassico may be the mechanically simplest. However, it's a very tight, tense game within that simplicity. The die rolls give you some legitimate choices, particularly with the genetic meddling thrown in.

However, what is absolutely key to the game is your competition, the robot company Embryonic. Even at easy level, it keeps the pressure on you and it is genuinely difficult to beat. The robot player just takes the game to the next level.

Even if I were to play Jurassico multi-player, I would keep Embryonic in the game. I would just have each player check off different boxes in Embryonic.

I'm not normally a solitaire player (although the GenCan't Library is definitely testing that :D) and when I do play a solitaire game, I want a fairly short one. I just use them for mental breathers, as oppose to an evening's activities. From that standpoint, Jurassico is a great game for me and I know I'll be pulling it out regularly.

Talking? We haven't tried that before

Session Nine of the Late Lurkers

This was the session where we got all the stuff for our first fetch quest, the components we need to cure the druid of lycanthrope. It was also the first session with a new player who promises to completely change the party dynamics. But in a good way :)

The two big scenes in the session were a straight up fight with an ogre zombie in an old battle field (where we got the jawbone of a horse slain in battle needed for the cure) and an encounter with a cult of some kind of elder god.

The first was fun because we really had to get tactical against a monster who could potentially drop party members in a hit. For the second week in a row :D

However, the significant event was out encounter with the cultists. And not just because it hinted at Lovecraftian horrors (and as a Call of Cthulhu lover, I like that)

Ulric, the new guy and the warlock who might turn out to be evil, has a much higher charisma than almost anyone else in the party. We do have an occasionally played bard but he's a skald whose motto is literally 'I advocate violence' 

(To be fair, not only has the DM not implemented alignments, I am really not prepared to describe any of the characters as good. Loyal to the jarl is as good as it's going to get. Ulric is just a different flavor than the rest of us)

He managed to talk our way OUT of that fight (as opposed to our dwarf cleric who does the opposite) Since we were outnumbered, that may have been a good thing. Particularly since the DM said that afterwards. And we didn't even desecrate their sacrificed member in the name of looting afterwards.

Yes, we've reached the point where we are really asking ourselves what is our moral compass. And since we are in a fantasy ninth century Norse culture, that might not be all that altruistic or nice. But keep in mind, this is fun. 

When we started the campaign via Roll20, we focused on the mechanical side of the game. We were learning how to use the interface and, with sessions being two to three hours long, that really meant that combat was the centerpiece. And I was cool with that being what would we get.

Instead, characters are developing. And I wonder if we will be pushing more towards more and more of a sandbox environment with the players setting the goals.

It's a free PnP about brewing beer. What more can you want?

GenCan't Roll and Write Library - Six Sided Stout

In Six Sided Stout, you are a home brewer brewing up a stout for a beer contest. It's designed as a solitaire game but, for reasons I'll go into, I suspect it will be the more fun as a multi-player.

The centerpiece of the game is the beer grid, a six by six grid of diamonds with an open space in the middle that contains water. You will be filling the diamonds in with malt, hops and yeast that you gather throughout the game.

The game lasts ten turns and on each turn, you can do one of two things. Go to the market or roast malt.

The market is where you get your malt and hops and yeast. You don't start with anything but a blank grid. To buy malt, you roll two dice and place them in your pale malt storage. To buy hops, you roll two dice, divide by two and then immediately write that many hops in on the grid, one per square. Yeast, same deal but you divide by three _and_ yeast must either touch the water in the middle or another yeast.

Roasting is simply moving two dice worth of malt from pale to caramel or from caramel to chocolate. And you can move malt onto the grid after any market or roasting action.

There are some restrictions. Because everyone is trying to get ingredients, you can't go after the same ingredient at the market two turns in a row and you can only roast two turns in a row. All the ingredients on the grid have to be connected. And you will score zero points if you don't have all three ingredients.

But you also get some special powers in the form of experts. There are four, one-use experts who can let you roll three dice and take the best two at market. One for each game ingredient and one who can work for any of the three ingredients. 

(I'm not sure why a home brewer knows and has easy access to all these guys. I bet there's a story involved. Maybe you actually work professionally at a brewery and your work is also your hobby. If that's the case, I bet the other home brewers hate your guts)

After ten turns, you score your grid. It's actually pretty interesting. Each malt is scored based on its roast, with pale being only worth one but chocolate worth five. Hops' score is based on the malt it is touching with the paler roast being worth more. Yeast is based on the malt it's touching, multiplied by the yeast's contact with water. (Which means it could be zero)

Six Sided Stout is a very quick playing game, seeing as how it's only ten rounds. At the same time, it has a surprisingly high number of decisions. Even by solitaire standards, it's very much putting a puzzle together but the pieces are going to be different every game.

The one thing I do wish was that there was some kind of rating for scores. While I can always try to improve on my last score, it would be nice to have a yard stick. I can understand why there isn't because both yeast and hops add some real deviance in scoring.

And that's why I think Six Sided Stout would be best played as a multi-player game. Yeah, there would be no interaction but you would have other people to compete with. Yeah, there could be some serious point deviance but it's a short enough game that it would still be fun.

In the current incarnation, there are two boards per sheet. I am thinking of blowing it up so there's one board on a single sheet to make it easier to play with dry erase markers.

While I do wish there was a better way to measure how well I'm doing (although keeping track of my score will eventually do that), I like the process of playing Six Sided Stout.