Some thoughts on what modules really were

When I was younger (and we are talking first edition younger), I read a lot of modules/adventures. You know, the fact that TSR even used the term module says a lot about the war gaming roots of Dungeons and Dragons.

Looking back, I am amazed at how much I read of them, although back in the day, that was so much of what was out there for us to read. I feel like, these days, people remember old school modules being railroad tracks but that’s not actually my memory of them.

This is my memory of those old adventures: that they were maps and area descriptions. That they gave you a bare bones story at best and really acted as a place you could interact with. Potential sandboxes and some of the earliest setting information.

I’m pretty sure that, if I were to go back and actually look at them, I’d find they are a mixture of railroads and sandboxes.

In many ways, setting books, be they straightforward settings or play books for games like Fiasco, have taken the place of modules, at least as far as my recreational reading is concerned. 

That said, adventures are still around and have a lot of uses. Not everyone has the time to make a home brew campaign. They’re kind of essential for any kind of league play. And, hey, what Gm can’t use more maps?

In Ranks of Bronze, the most outlandish war is still Hell

I hadn’t planned on reading a lot of David Drake in 2019 but I’m on my way to doing that. It wasn’t intentional and its certainly not structured (I’m not planning, for example, on reading all the Hammers Slammers works) and it’s probably better than way.

And the book that sent me on this trajectory was Ranks of Bronze, which I reread on a whim. It’s the one where Roman Legionnaires fight aliens.

Lost Roman Legions is a surprisingly common theme, although, to be fair, there really are some legions (particularly the 9th) that we have no idea what happened to them. Being kidnapped by aliens to fight their wars for them isn’t even the most outlandish explanation.

The explanation that the alien trade guild requires people to fight at the technological level of the planet the fighting is going on so they need pet ‘primitive’ armies is a cute one that exists purely to justify the story. And, frankly, who cares that it’s a little silly. (Historically, colonialism does _not_ work that way) We here for Romans fighting aliens.

But Ranks of Bronze isn’t as escapist as all that might make it sound. The plot is simple and straightforward to the point where I would say there weren’t any plot twists.

The real story is the character arc of Tribune Gaius Vibulenus. He grows from a boy to a man, to a seasoned soldier and kind of psychotic. But it’s also clear that becoming kind of insane is the only rational response to never-ending war.

In short, David Drake took a wonderfully fun and silly premise that could have been nothing but schlock fun and gave it some real teeth.

A mediocre game can be a fun PnP project

As comes as no surprise since I am interested in Print and Play and a fan of Cheapass Games, I’ve acquired a lot of files from them over the years. With the Black and White Kickstarter going on, I’ve been looking through some of my older files.

Which is how I found myself looking at Gold Digger again. The one designed by James Ernest and illustrated by Phil Phoglio, not the one designed by Reiner Knizia and illustrated by John Kovalic. 

Honestly, I’m not sure why I impulsively printed it, cut it, laminated it and trimmed it. I mean, apart from the fact that it was really easy to do, even though it’s a ‘larger’ project by my standards.

It’s a forty-card deck. Ten one nuggets, ten two nuggets, ten three nuggets and ten booms. It’s a push-your-luck game. Shuffle the deck. Flip a card. If it’s a nugget, you set it aside. Then you can choose to bank it and end your turn or draw another card. Draw a boom and you bust, losing any nuggets you drew on that turn. Go through the deck and whoever has the most points in nuggets wins.

Let’s be honest. It’s easy to see why Gold Diggers never got published. It’s a really simple game. Not the simplest push-your-luck game I’ve ever seen (I’ve played Pass the Pigs) but the luck in Gold Diggers is flattened. Some simple card counting to track the ten booms might be enough to break the game. The odds are very simple to figure out and whoever has the turn after the last boom card has a big advantage.

Randomly discarding five or so cards might be a way of solving that problem. But even then, there’s not much there. And there’s enough light games out there, even in the world of print and play, that Gold Diggers has serious competition.

(I do want to note that while Gold Diggers is a weak game, it’s not the worst game Phil Phoglio has illustrated. In my experience, that was SPANC from Steve Jackson Games which was a horrible game that they wanted me to pay money for)

However, crafting the game was definitely fun for me. I printed it out on impulse and then kept on going until I was done. Small cards with wide margins meant that it was quick work with the paper cutter. While, for a lazy crafter like me, forty cards is a large project, this still ended up being in easy one and probably took me an hour from printing to finishing trimming.

Now that I actually made Gold Digger, maybe it will get played. If I were into drinking, it’d be a good game to play while drunk.

Does this count as PnP?

I’m a lazy Print and Play guy but I’ve still made a number of projects over the last couple years. And I’m willing to count laminating a roll and write that I printed off as a project.

But I’m not sure how to count these two little projects :P

A couple years ago, I picked up both Qwixx and Rolling America. And somehow it took me this long to say ‘You know, I should really laminate some of these score sheets. Make them reusable and all.” So, I laminated and trimmed four sheets each from the two games. Took me maybe five minutes.

I didn’t print anything off and I didn’t cut anything. I didn’t put stickers on any dice. I just put some plastic on some game sheets that I bought. Maybe this really is just blinging those two games :D

But I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t already making print and play projects.

Yahtzee is best as a solitaire

I recently downloaded a bare bones, no frills Yahtzee app to my phone for those times when I want to play a solitaire game without getting out physical components. I’m sure I’ll add some other, better dice games at some point but for now, this does trick for me.

Playing Yahtzee this way solves what I consider to be its biggest flaw. It’s multi-player solitaire where you have to sit through everyone else taking their turns. Just playing it actually solitaire solves that problem very nicely.

Yahtzee does have other issues. Speaking as a guy who loves abstracts, I think it’s pretty dry and abstract. And it’s ultimately a pretty shallow game, despite having real choices and being a fundamental class in understanding dice and odds.

But it is pretty good for a mass market, everyone-has-played-it game. Which might be damning Yahtzee with faint praise but considering that there’s some really bad mass market games out there, that’s actually saying something.

And that’s ignoring the real big deal of Yahtzee. It has inspired and influenced a ton of other games. Albeit many of them are better, sometimes much better, than Yahtzee.

Frankly, I have a meh-meh relationship with Yahtzee. I don’t think it deserves the hate that it seems to get from a lot of gamers. And I know as a five-minute, brain-checking-out exercise, it will see plenty of play on my phone.

However, I would never suggest it as a game to play with actual other people. For all the good things I can say about Yahtzee (influential, has actual strategy and challenges, portable, easy to teach), it’s not a game I would suggest and I’d only play it if someone was really, really set on playing it. Even if we are just talking about short games that have no theme and are just dice, I can think of better games. (Cinq-O comes immediately to mind)

Even though I know it will get some love on my phone, that doesn’t change the fact that Yahtzee is better as an inspiration than as an experience.

Like a boomerang, Devil Bunny comes back

It will come as no surprise to anyone evenly vaguely aware of my strange and possibly unhealthy obsession with Cheapass Games that I’ve been following their promotional release of PnP versions of some of their old games with a fevered eye. (It’s part of their kickstarter campaign for a history book)

I’d been wondering if they’d include Devil Bunny Needs A Ham since it’s probably right after Doctor Lucky as one of their most iconic games. In part because it’s is a decent little game and one of the cheapest things they ever sold but mostly due to the deranged name.

Then they surprised and delighted me by bundling it with its sequel Devil Bunny Hates the Earth, a game where you play sentient and suicidal taffy making machines trying to lure squirrels into your works to keep Devil Bunny (TM) from  destroying western civilization by manufacturing a particularly unsatisfying kind of saltwater taffy. There’s a reason I used to call it James Ernest Mixes Up His Medication. Again.

Stripped of their deranged names and themes, the two games are a decent little roll-and-move game (better than a lot of roll-and-move games that are out there) and a quirky mancala variant. And I’d cheerfully play either game again, for what it’s worth.

They are also the easiest games in the promotion to make, at least for far. (They could release the Chief Herman Funpacks, which are just rule sets) All you need to do is print the boards. Then add tokens, pawns and dice.

If you only make one game from Cheapass’s Classic Black and White Collection (TM), you might as well make these since they’re fun and easy. Which sounds wrong but you should still do it. Frankly, I will because I think they will be great for kids.

That said, I am really hoping that James Ernest and the gang release Enemy Chocolatier by the end of this Kickstarter. Never actually got to play it but it looked so brilliant.

P.S. I also have to note that the rules explicitly note that if Devil Bunny finds squirrels in his taffy machines, he releases them back into the wild so they’re clearly aren’t hurt by the experience.

P.P.S. I kind of hope this project inspires James Ernest to make more Devil Bunny games! Let Devil Bunny ride again!

The Hip Pocket Line and the path it paved

Back when I was first starting my tottering steps into board gaming, Cheapass’s Hip Pocket line served as a starting point for me. Cheap and portable and many of them had more game to them than some of Cheapass’s larger games.

They might also mark my fascination and love of micro games. They might be a bit high in the component count for the modern definition of micro game (particularly the several that need extra components) but the idea is still clearly the same. Small, short, portable, affordable.

While micro games have long been with us (Hi, Ogre!), Love Letter really marked the start of the golden age of micro games. And looking back at the Hip Pocket line, I think that doesn’t just mean commercially viable but innovative as well. 

I look at Love Letter or Buttonshy’s Wallet Games or Perplext’s Pack O Game line, there’s a lot of variety and even innovation. In comparison, all but one of the Hip Pocket Line was some kind of tile laying game. To be fair, they really explored that design space but later micro games went so much farther.

I’m not trying to bash the Hip Pocket line. Some of them still hold up very well today. I think they mark a watershed for James Ernst’s game designs with more refined mechanics. I think they an important step in micro game design and development. And, someday I will finally play Time Line, which has to be the deepest game in the line!

And to be even more fair, while I think the best of the new generation of micro games are amazing, Sturgeon’s Law is still very much in effect. There’s a lot of bad ones out there. By that standard, the Hip Pocket line is a statistical wonder :D

When I look at the Hip Pocket line now, I appreciate how much fun they gave me years ago and how they helped pave the way for more games down the line.