Day 181 - Not counted written today - Required 497750, Achieved 473352

For today, that is all, more tomorrow :)

Day 180 - A few days from halfway... Required 495000, Achieved 472133

Symbolic milestone in two days, not sure I'm going to make it, but things are at least getting there, the weight of things removed in the last few days has helped significantly when it comes to getting back in the right frame of mind...

And if I can suddenly write 20k plus words in a day, all will be even better, i'm sure it can be done...

The hero with a thousand faces continues to inspire and I'm quite cheerful about how much raw material it's letting me work through and generate, of course these still need to be turned into a story, but that's not so much of a problem as I was thinking earlier.

To the story group, something will be coming and that right soon, I needed to get some things done and now that they are, things should be back on track, and there will be a lot more as time moves forwards.

But for now

This is John Dodd in the socialist republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Game Review: The Agents

Last year I backed a kickstarter called the Agents 

(https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/673576049/the-agents-a-double-edged-cards-game), in which you play one or more factions of specialists as the agencies that they’re working for are closed down and you battle to make the most of what you can from the different parts of the agency that are still remaining.

The premise is an excellent one, it’s quite literally Spy vs Spy made into a game that’s not on an 8 bit computer and with a significant amount more planning involved rather than just putting an electrified bucket of water over the door and waiting for the other spy to walk through the door.

When it first arrived, I have to say that the rules of the game did have me a little on the befuddled side and it did take some time to get the whole concept in my head before it worked.  I was not alone in this and cheerfully a second edition set of rules has been produced that are significantly less confusing and these are available for free at (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/673576049/the-agents-return-the-double-edged-cards-game-is-b) half way down the page.

Both sides start off with a safe house and take turns to place cards either in their own faction or in their opponents.  The idea is that every card placed has two edges to it, the edge that scores points and the edge that had an effect.  If you have the edge that has points on it, you score the points for the card, and if you have the edge that has the command on it, you have to carry out the command. 

 The restriction to this is that the points are only scored when the arrows on the cards line up and there are a number of cards that change the orientation of the cards while they’re in play, meaning it’s entirely possible to change how the game works within a single turn.  The other thing to consider is that’s it’s a points based game, so while you can spend all your turns just playing for the effects on cards, you’re not actually amassing any points, your opponent is, and that’ll cost you the game before long.  When you add Free agents into the mix that are played and then disappear, the benefit of getting more cards in your hand becomes readily apparent.

Simple mechanics make for an easy learning curve, but the game comes into its own when you start seeing the combinations within cards and the ways in which missions are not only useful but vital for the success of the various factions. The first game will take some time to play though as everyone works their way around things, but once you’ve played through, the mechanics of the game fall in to place fairly quickly and the next game can be played far faster.

Players take it in turns, most suspicious player gets to go first (I did like that…), and take two actions each turn, with the following actions available each turn.

1: Play an Agent to one of the factions or play a free agent.  When playing an agent, the command is resolved immediately and the points are scored immediately after the command has been resolved.

2: Use a command from a live agent that’s facing you (Presuming they’re not dead).

3: Buy more Agents or Missions

4: Trade in Missions or Agents to redraw an equal number from the respective decks.

You can only have a certain number of agents in any faction, so it becomes necessary quite quickly to replace and rearrange agents.  It’s not possible to leave a particular structure of cards in place as everyone can affect factions in one way or another, forcing the game to constantly evolve and change in the way that a war between spies would.  There are also commander cards that are included in the basic game that can be used to make a greater difference between what the players can and cannot do.

Once the players turn has ended, they collect the points for the agents pointing towards them and for any missions that they have succeeded in.  If they succeeded in a mission the turn before and left it on the table and it still has the success parameters in place, they score the mission again, but only an unobservant opponent would allow this to happen.

The game gets very involved when it comes to the trading and changing of cards, and for something that’s essentially a move and sort game at its base concept, the combinations have been very well thought through and the game becomes more involved as more people join in and start to mess with the others well laid plans. 

The card stock (working from first edition here) is passable, there are some protrusions on each of the cards where a cutting machine has obviously been used, but the card stock is good and overall a good number of years could be had playing.  There’s been a second edition optioned and passed through kickstarter and I’m given to understand that there are still chances to get copies delivered.  At the point of going to press, there has not been a mainstream release of this game, but considering the success of the two kickstarters and the clear interest in expanding the game to cover the whole gamut of the shadow war, it can only be a matter of time before some canny publisher picks up on this and takes it under their wing.

The main website for the agents can be found at http://www.playtheagents.com/

And in the meantime, I’ll be behind the door with the bucket of electrified water…

Day 179 - Long Weekends - Required 492250, Achieved 468998

Because 12 hour shifts are indeed a prime example of Sartre...

Not much of an update today, long day at work, and we're a good man down this evening, which always makes things worse for the next day. No kick against those covering for him, but when you've got someone who knows the job inside out and does it every day, it's a hell of an act to follow for those who don't do it every day.

Mum's out, tired, but the op went well and all is looking hopeful.

The new shiny will henceforth be called Optimus (which is the name I'd reserved for my mid life crisis and I've decided I'm not likely to get a mid life crisis better than this, so it's used), and continues to delight me every time I step inside (although note to self, floor mats...)

Beyond that, all is reasonable, if not brilliant.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

A note around the table: Running games at Conventions

Convention Play

In the first of a number of articles regarding the nature of the games we play, I’m going to take a look at a number of things about conventions.  In this, I’m looking at a much misunderstood role that’s central to a whole lot of games, and in particular, the way in which it relates to Conventions and the games played within.

The Games Master

Being the Games Master is more than being in charge of the world, it’s literally the responsibility for every single part of the world that’s being played in, and a lot of people let that go to their heads.  Everyone has stories of the GM that made it their story, of the sudden visits from the Emporer of Mankind when Bob the guardsman refused to pay his tab at the local tavern, of foes numerous and complex (that all happened to share physical or social characteristics with the GM) who proved vastly too cunning and capable for all the players schemes, particularly when the players had outlined them out of character only for the villains to prepare cunning counterplans with information that only God could have provided…

When you’re at home, surrounded by friends that you’ve known for years, that’s exactly who and what you are.  You’ve had chance to get to know these people, you know what buttons to press and what not to press, where the limits are and where you can and can’t go.

You’ve got History with these people.

But what about when you’re running for those you don’t know.

The difference between the game that you run at home and the game that you prepare for people at conventions is that they don’t know you (for the most part, there are a few professional GM’s out there with names that draw attention, but they’re few and far between), so they don’t know anything about you or how you roll, and that causes the first problem.

You’ve got No History with these people

So what do to? 

A lot of GM’s I know have a basic understanding of the rules and a knowledge of the world that extends as far as the scenario that they’re running, and for some, that’s enough to get by. 

To be fair, it is enough to Get By...

Getting by is not where we should be aiming for when we’re running games at conventions... 

When we run games at conventions, unless the system is something that’s been dead and unavailable for some years (Cyborg Commando for example), then we’re acting as a representative for that game and by extension, the company that made it and all the effort that went into making it.  Many people go to conventions to try out the new releases and see what they like about it and what they don’t like about it, so there’s a reason why a lot of companies offer a rewards program for demonstrating their games, or in the case of conventions, provide free entry (and sometimes much more) in return for people running games for them. 

It’s a give and give situation with convention games.  I don’t know any conventions that won’t give you free entry for running games, so from the organisers perspective, they give you the freebie of entry and you provide them with a game that will entertain the people that turn up to that convention.  Most of the smaller conventions have no quality control in place to make sure that the people who turn up are running what they say they are, and even fewer have something in place to make sure that the game was some good.

With that in mind, and I appreciate that it’s my personal perspective on these things and from a time before I started running conventions but went to all of them to run. 

These are the rules that I’ve always lived by:

Rule One: Run something you actually want to run...

Most conventions are happy for any game that people will actually play, and with this in mind, you should consider the games that you’re offering to run for them.  If you don’t like running a game, whether it’s the system being used, the setting, the type of dice used, whatever it may be, it will show through when you’re running the game.  No one likes being made to do something that they don’t want to do and this is never more apparent than when you sit down at the table and it’s clear the GM doesn’t want to be there and is already regretting it, and that brings me to...

Rule Two: Have something prepared that you know inside and out...

Some people, mostly the ones who’ve been around since god were a lad, run things from the top of their head, they’ve spent decades getting good at this and they’ve got the time served in the trenches to know that what they’re doing is the right thing, that they won’t get any problem because they know what the players want and can adjust the game on the fly. 

Good for them.

Presuming you’re not one of them, learn the scenario, learn it till you can run it without looking at the book to tell people what comes next.  It doesn’t have to be a complex scenario, some of the most successful games are wandering people around a ten room dungeon with a boss monster, but it doesn’t install confidence in a player that their GM knows what’s going on when you have to read something straight from the book rather than having that knowledge already there for you to use.

If you’ve got a published scenario, be aware the players may know something of it, and therefore might argue if you get it wrong and they can prove it. If you’re running something you made, keep notes handy by all means, creature stats somewhere you can easily access, but the meat of the adventure, the parts where the players are roleing and not rolling, you need to have that in your head, which brings me to...

Rule Three: Learn the system.

This may seem like common sense, but it’s astounding how many GM’s turn up with only the basics of the system (which dice it runs on, what target number the players need to aim for) and hope to fudge the rest.  In the case of those who’ve never played the system, it’s not a problem, as any issue with the rules can be glossed over with handwavium, but when you get a single player at the table who knows any of the rules slightly more than you do (and worse, has a copy of the book with them), and it’s not the system that looks bad, it’s you.  I’m not talking about the rules lawyers that pick out page 27, paragraph 2, line 3, but the ones who know the basic system enough to know that you made a mistake with the basics.

Some systems (any of the new star wars as a prime example) have specialist dice that you need to be familiar with, you need to know what each symbol means and you need to be able to explain that quickly and easily to anyone playing the game.  If it means learning a whole new book that you don’t want to learn, look back up to rule one, if it means offering a game in one universe while using a system from another one, make that clear when you offer the game up, as it will change the dynamic significantly depending on the system you run things with.  For all those saying that the system doesn’t make that much difference, try running a FATE based game using Rolemaster rules and watch how many players get up and walk after seeing the character sheet.

And on the subject of players expectations...

Rule Four: Give the players the time they booked for...

A lot of scenarios are in the three to four hour range in terms of time allotted.  This means that allowing for a half hours orientation on the game, mechanics, characters and background, you should have between two and three hours game to run the players through.  If your game can be run through in an hour, consider this before you advertise it as four, padding can be done with any game, but too much of it and it becomes very apparent that you’re padding and there’s nothing left in the scenario box.  Equally, if it’s an opera that will take six hours if the players set off at a sprint and don’t ever slow down, be aware that you’ll have to cut something out to get it to fit in four hours or even run down the line of a TPK, which brings me to...

Rule Five: You keep what you kill...

TPK doesn’t always mean Total Party Kill. It can mean Tradehall! Party! Kan’t be bothered! (And if you pronounce Kan’t in an east london accent, you’re likely to understand what your player will think of you if you do this too often) and it’s one of the original ways of making sure the game ends quickly so that you, the GM, can get back to looking around the convention yourself and having a good time whilst still getting your rewards.

Last year, we had a GM come back after an hour saying that the whole party was dead.  When asked what happened, he shrugged, unconcerned, and said “Sometime’s that’s how that scenario goes”. 

His players were less impressed at his nonchalance. 

He was not invited back this year.

At Expo I take particular pride that I (now anyway) hardly ever have to refund a player for a bad game, the people I have running games for me there are all good GM’s, every one of them skilled and able, and as a result, even when a TPK is registered, they’ve had a good time getting there and some game systems (Paranoia anyone?) encourage that frantic method of playing where the players end up shooting each other to bits and have a good time doing it.

But a cautionary word...

Some players react really well to the idea that they just got mullered, some really don’t, and while some element of danger needs to be present in the game or it just turns into a paint by numbers, the challenge should always be tailored to the characters that are present (if using pregens) or the characters that are expected (if allowing or encouraging people to bring their own characters). 

If all the players die within minutes, start over, give them another chance, because otherwise, you’re not just killing their characters, you’re killing your reputation.

And unlike the characters, raise dead doesn’t work on your reputation...

Rule Six:  Don’t be late, Don’t ever be late...

Whether it looks like it or not, the table that you’re running for is your house for the duration of that whole game, they’re coming to you to play a game, and the expectation is just the same as if you had your friends over, if they all turn up and you’re not in, they get confused. I’m not saying that it’s house rules and you need to have the beers chilled and the snacks ready, but when the players turn up, they want to find you there, ready for them, rules book on one side, character sheets on the other, ready to give them their game.

When they turn up and you’re not there, they get anxious

“What if I’m in the wrong room?”

“What if the GM’s in the wrong room?”

“Is the game still running?”

“Should I be here?”

None of this makes for a good starting atmosphere, particularly if you run in ten minutes after kick off and then start distributing things to a table that may have already lost some of the players because they figured the game was called off, and the others have got the impression that you either didn’t know what time you were running, or you just couldn’t be bothered to get there for them...

You might not be getting paid in cold hard cash, but you’re there to do a job and it’s the best job in the world, it’s giving other people a good time, it’s making the world a little shinier, if only for six people for three hours.

What you don’t see as an isolated GM (and I do as the one who looks over all of it), is that those people come back to the front desk and tell me what an awesome (or awful) time they had, and how much they liked (or loathed) the game they played in, and I keep a track of that, and those people I get the good reports back in from are the ones I go to every time.  In the case of the best GM’s, they’re the ones I go to when I have special events that I need quality people for, they’re the ones I organise things around, and when they come to me with ideas for special events, they’re the ones I listen to, and I’m not the only organiser to make those lists.

The list isn’t exclusive, and certainly it only reflects my personal thoughts when it comes to convention games, but I believe that one good GM is worth ten bad ones, because the one GM who provides an excellent game will literally have sold copies of the game they’re running to every player at that table, whereas the ten bad GM’s will have ensured that those players go away with bad thoughts when they think of that game.

Consider which of those the games companies will want running their games...

Consider which of those the convention organisers want to see coming back...

Consider if it’s worth upping your game to meet those expectations...

And let me know your thoughts in return.

Day 178 - Some potential reviews to be carried out, thoughts requested... Required 489500, Achieved 465449

In all, you sometimes appreciate the amount of time saved by being able to do things on line rather than have to take the car, go out to the post office or bank and stand in line to do things...

However, when I only manage 1200 words on a day off and next week is going to be worse, it's not the most reassuring thing in the world to occur...

Spent the day clearing up most of the problems left over by the insurance, such as the declaring SORN of the vehicle (which you can buy a tax disk on line, but you can't get a refund on line, curious how the money only flows one way isn't it...?), then sending proof of the vehicle ownership to the insurers, then putting in the cheque that was sent (Four days to get the cheque, four more to cash...).

Still, mum through surgery, all seems well, we'll find out for sure tomorrow and then we can start to get things back on track regarding the aforementioned.  The new car remains very shiny and is an absolute pleasure to drive (be even better when I get it LPG'd), but things are starting to look up.

Back on track with the reviews next week, I've got the following things to look at and do something coherent with, so thoughts from everyone on what to review next would be appreciated.

Achtung Cthulhu - Investigators and Players Guide - RPG

The Agents - Card Game

Dungeon Twister - Board Game

Eclipse Phase - RPG

And until tomorrow

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day 177 - Words counted, feel slightly better about the whole thing - Required 486750, Achieved 464202

So still twenty thousand and some words down, which sometimes makes things difficult to focus on because you're so far behind, so the advice today must surely be that if you're ever doing something like this, don't have a life and if you have a life, don't let anything go wrong with it...

*Sigh*

Still, tomorrow, we go pick up Ironhide (The name for the Renault, all my cars are named after Autobots) whilst dropping in the Skoda because the insurance finally decided to pay up on it, then we drop the cat in for another round of checking bandages at eighty quid every time, I'm advised that pet insurance isn't worth the paper it's printed on and to be honest, with indoor cats that never go out, I never considered I'd need it...

And tomorrow mum's in Hospital for the removal of the second set of cancer they found, they say that it's a simple procedure and that she'll be out on saturday, which I can only hope is actually the case, because when I was with her through every time that she went for chemotherapy two years back, the only thing in the world that she wanted was out of there, and I have no doubt that this will be no different.

There are times when all you want to do is take the world and shake it by the neck till all the harms fall out and all that's left is the good, but the worlds delicate, and there's every chance that shaking it that hard will kill it...

And we don't want that...

So, with fists unclenched,

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day 176 - So things are better, and things are worse, Still haven't counted the book words, Required 484000, Achieved 457677

But I will be doing soon...

I don't think I'll have 20k of them, but it'll be a start...

Goodnight all, don't let the world end while I'm sleeping :)

Game Review: Shadows of Esteren

A Medieval RPG with a horrific and gothic influence is how it describes itself...

And it’s won a few Ennies...

And the basics are free...

Fair enough, that’s enough of a reason to take a look at it...

I’m going to do this particular review a little backwards, start with the crunch and then move on to the things that everyone is raving about...

The system is D10 base, works on roll plus Domain (Skill) + another mods against target number set in advance by the GM, easily worked and elegant enough.  Character creation is very immersive and they’ve deliberately put it at the back of the all the notes on the world, which I particularly liked.  Some parts of character creation (The setting of the basic defence and speed values, both of which rely on the Empathy level of the character) don’t resonate with my particular view on them, but that’s because as far as I’m concerned, while you have to understand your opponent in a fight, how well you understand their general mental state isn’t that relevant when smack the git is what you’re looking for...

The other is the bias towards younger characters, and on the one hand, I do understand that older people in general don’t like to go out there and mix it up....

On the other hand, I’m 40 and still out there doing stuff I did when I was 20, so I’m not the rule, I’m the exception and I understand that, but for a number of other gamers out there, I suspect the same might hold true.

Age in this will give you negatives, you’ll get an extra skill and a setback (and they’re not easy setbacks) for every additional level of age that you get, so my character has had an episode of extreme violence, a severe illness, and at one point, lost every person that was ever close to them.  But that might explain him becoming a knight and being singularly devoted to the cause, so all is well that ends well.  

Every character has ratings in the different “Ways” of the world, with a Corresponding set of statistics called “Faults” if you’re using the optional sanity system, The ways are Combativeness (Passion), Creativity (Subversion), Empathy (Influence), Reason (Doubt), and Conviction (Guilt).

Combat is swift and lethal, characters can take different fighting stances, and their creativity level affects how fluid they are in the way that they do combat, so while a high combativeness will let you generally fight better, a high creativity will make you a more versatile fighter.  The system is very involved when it comes to the generation of a character, but once the character is generated, it’s very easy to use the rules as they are presented, and that brings me to possibly the most interesting part of the game...

Sanity...

There is a note at the beginning of the book that indicates clearly that the rules for sanity are there primarily for experienced players, and should only be used for the full immersive experience...

I’m experienced...

It’s well thought out, there is some numerical progression within the rules, but it’s been considered from an emotional perspective and considering that it’s to do with your characters mental well being, that’s a good thing.  You don’t just look at the amount of sanity points left and consider that you’re going to make it, there’s a real and definite fear that something unhinging will prove to be absolutely that and not just a few more off the count...

This brings me to the main point of these books.

The Background...

It’s not often you come across something that sits there and makes you pay attention (I know I reviewed Numenera a short while ago, it’s like buses, wait forever, then three at once, bonus pint (and I said pint, not point) for the person who predicts what number three is going to be...), but there’s a reason why this won Ennies for production values and artwork.  It’s always apparent when a studio has built in artists and doesn’t have to source artwork from anywhere else, you can see it in the sheer amount of artwork that appears in the product.  It’s also easily apparent that they’ve got a strong direction from the art team in how the material is laid out and presented.  Barely a page goes by that there isn’t an illustration or a piece of architecture, or a map, to assist with the words that are on the page. 

To say it’s expansively illustrated would be an understatement, I have an understanding of how much art (and good art) costs, I know the difference between a piece of art that was commissioned and had to be explained and something that the artist has been given free reign over, and if these books had not had a salaried and willing artistic crew working on them, they would never have made money from them.

And that brings me to the main selling point for me, which is neither the system, which is imaginative, nor the artwork, which is spectacular...

It’s the world...

I’m a writer, I don’t see things in pictures like everyone else does, the words are my thing, they’re what make the difference for me.  A picture will paint a thousand words, but a hundred of the right words will pull at your soul.

This pulls...

A lot of the world is described from the point of view of someone discussing it, the technique is an older one, but it immediately draws it in because you’re not having it described to you in flat terms, it’s a person telling you the nature of what you’re about to step in to.  For me, that instantly makes it more real, it makes it immediate...

It gives you the sense that someone lives in this world

Of course, there are criticisms, there are many that believe that the information on the world, while lovely and detailed and all manner of entertaining, is being put forwards in small chunks, not huge tomes.  There are some who are saying that the trickledown effect could let the game run for hundreds of tomes and thousands of products before you get the whole story, and I can see where they’re coming from.  While it’s possible that the Forgesonges group are doing it at their pace to eke out every possible sale they can from the matter, it’s also possible they’re doing it at this pace because they want to maintain the quality that they built the game on and see that the only way to do this is to make things at the pace they’re comfortable with, not the pace the market is demanding.

Funny thought on that though.  There’s another game system that’s got hundreds of books out there, each one only advancing things a tiny bit whilst giving people a little bit more to play with in return for their hard earned cash, It’s name?

Pathfinder...

And for me this is a good thing, it means that those who want to go around in the high adventure have a world that keeps evolving for them, and now for those that want their world a little darker, a little more dangerous, but still want to see it evolve, there’s something for them too.

And isn’t that what gaming is all about?

Excellent game, worth it for the background alone even if (like me) you don't agree with some of the systemworks.  Well worth the plaudits it has received, and I’ll likely be getting all the hardback versions of the books shortly.

Shadows of Esteren has the prologue book available for free at http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/109112/Shadows-of-Esteren--Book-0-Prologue, and the rest of the books can be purchased at www.esteren.org

Dear World, A polite admonishment...

We work hard, we've got jobs, we're generally good people, we put what we can by to make sure we've got something in reserve for emergencies...

Note that emergencies aren't supposed to occur every two weeks...

They're supposed to be something out of the ordinary...

So when we take charge of the car that replaced the one that got written off and drop the other one into the garage to see what the squeaking noise is on the front, thinking that perhaps a hub, bearings maybe, at worst a track rod end...

Not a steering rack complete....

*sigh*

So that's the savings out, the insurance payout won't cover the new car and the LPG conversion, but we had sufficient in the savings to do both and be alright...

So much for that theory.

Dear World...

We've had our fair share of hits this year and then some, isn't it about time you f***ed off and aimed at someone else?

That said, at least we've got one functioning car that isn't in for repair at the moment, and it may be ten years old, but...

Well, see below...

And for the record, World?, if you decide that you're going to take this off us as well, I'll be getting a drill and coming down to P*** on your bonfire...

Day 175 - Done a bunch of words but don't want to spend half an hour counting them on the page, update tomorrow...

And have a new car...

Pictures tomorrow...

And then three days of 8k a day should see me back on target for saturday :)

Yeah...

Still, hopeful :)

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Day 174 - Some days have all the fail in one hand and all the win in the other - No change in word count...

But I may have found a car...

68k miles, but it's a honda accord and the engines on those are bulletproof, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem, reliability is through the roof on these things, and all things considered, there shouldn't be too many other problems with it.

It is, however, a 2.4 litre Vtec engine, I'm planning on getting it converted to LPG and even without LPG the MPG will be somewhere near where my Renault used to be, so not so much of a problem.  It's also four doors and plenty of cabin space, every mod con in the world, and it's not that expensive...

Some part of me worries that it's got more ponies under the hood than were featured in the entire series of rawhide, but still....

Anyone with any horror stories about Honda's, let me know...

Before tomorrow...

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Game Review - Cold Steel Wardens

There’s a new superhero game in town and it’s set in the Iron age of comics…

The Iron age I hear you ask, heard of the Golden Age and the Silver Age, but not the Iron Age?

The Iron age (Or more popularly, the Dark age) was an era of comics when things started going very bad for our heroes, it was a time when anti-heroes were rife, the villains finally sobered up and stopped reciting carefully prepare monologues, and in general…

Things were a little bit rough…

I’d like to say in advance that the copy of the game provided for the review was given freely by Andy Klosky of Blackfall Press, who wanted an honest review of the game and book contents.

To begin with, it’s a points driven system, Thirty two points divided between eight stats.  Those stats are Magnetism (Charisma, not innate magneto skills), Accuracy (Weapons and Vehicles), Force (Athletics and melee damage), Intellect (Knowledge and Wealth), Agility (close combat and stealth), Nerve (Hit points and defense ratio), Awareness (Investigative skills), and Psyche (Mental hit points), which also give rise to the name of the system.

MAFIANAP. 

To paraphrase Agent Ward, “It tells me that someone really wanted to spell out the word MAFIANAP”, and that’s not a bad thing if you were going for the zany antics of the earlier time periods, but the focus of this game is the darker times, when the Punisher was almost a regular hero rather than a section 8, so the light hearted touch seemed a little at odds.

The same pool of points is used to generate skills, masteries, specialities, and powers.  Flaws can be taken to get additional points to generate more of the same.  With this in mind, I thought to go with my initial impulse and design the Punisher, more because it wouldn’t take much thought to do so and therefore shouldn’t take me very long.

I may have underestimated that part…

Vitals are the statistics, 32 points divided between them, so in order 3,9,4,3,3,4,4,1.  Accuracy being a stat is a very cheerful thing when you’re the Punisher…

Then 85 points for Skills, with every skill that has at least three points getting a free speciality (and another one at six points, then nine and so on), no skill to go have more than the governing stat plus three in it.  Resisted the temptation to put twelve points into Armed Ranged combat (making the Character Deadshot, not Punisher) and spread about fifty points through skills, leaving me thirty for powers and other goodies.

Then came to the flaws section, of which every character must choose at least two (and you get more points for them), so ended up with Hunted (Mob), Intolerant (Mob, well, they are hunting me…), and Nemesis (Mob, may as well go the whole hog…).  Found the advantages section and got Jaded (Mentally tough), Tough (No prizes), John Woo Combat Style (No lie, you should see what I can do with two pistols), and Assets (Not quite Bruce wayne, but you get the idea).

And finally came to the powers section, in which I found a number of basic powers.  Most of these are in keeping with the generally gritty nature of the setting, you won’t get bulletproof heroes in this, but the power level costs for the powers didn’t sit quite right for me in a number of cases, you can get enhanced toughness for 14 points a rank, wall crawling for 6 points (but beware if someone pours oil down the wall…), Chameleon for 8 points (Mystique, except you can actually change the clothes you wear). 

Or you can get Sorcery for 25 points and replicate any power…

But sorcery would not fit with the character concept (Even though Frank Castle, Shootist Supreme, has a certain ring to it….), so I went with a couple of ranks of toughness and then went back to getting some more masteries.

This done, time to get equipment…

Three pages of weapons and armour with stats, one page of regular equipment with no descriptions or stats, half page of services that can be procured, from Buses that are more expensive than Cabs to the services of Escorts and the general costs for Street and Hard Drugs (the difference presumably being that some you find on the street, some you find on the…).

But there were 7.62mm submachine guns with 150 round clips available, so with my John Woo combat style and no recoil penalties evident (They needed a tripod but there is no entry in the book for where to buy one of those or what the penalty is for using them without), so I got two ….

The Vehicle section is four pages long, including rules for combat and a page of stats on vehicles.

If this sounds like I’m going on quite a bit about the rules, it’s because there’s a lot of them, and while that’s fairly normal (Anyone see HERO recently?), there’s normally a quick start guide to the arranging of things and lists where the various powers and abilities are laid out so that the players can reference back quickly without having to flip back and forth all the time.  The layout of the rules is such that you can read it start to finish completely and be able to put a hero together without having to retcon everything, but if you’re trying to do it in the stages that are listed, you don’t know how many points you need to be holding back, which means that you really have to read through things (or have an eraser handy) when you’re making your heroes.

The next section is the building of the world and the campaign, starting with the chapter devoted to memories, motivations, and stances and the use of the vigilance pool (a collective set of bonus dice in the middle of the table), which the GM refills when the players do something particularly in keeping with their character or group.  The section on organising an investigation for the players to get involved in is equally brief, outlining several different ways of doing things, from the Pyramid setup with the villain at the top, to the flowchart method where all things flow to the Villain, to the Timeline based event, where the events are already mapped out and it’s down to the players to make the difference before things come to pass.  Each section is covered in brief detail, between two and three pages for each, which I honestly felt could have done with some more mapping out considering that it’s a central point to any campaign.

The gamesmastering section can be summed by the last line in the section

“There are no rules for you. Cheat anyway…”

For a game that contains so many rules and details of how to use them, it seems strange that the entire GM section consists of telling the GM to ignore the rules and let things go how they want them to go in the imagined narrative in their head. 

The last sixty or so pages of the book are taken up with thirty pages of setting, and thirty pages of NPC’s, the NPC’s are precisely as described on the tin, stats for various bad guys, it’s the setting that gets the interest.

The setting is a city called New Corinth (Smoke City), based on the rustbelt cities of the America’s as well as Gotham City and New York as depicted in Alan Moore’s Watchmen.  It’s clear that the author knows his comics, and he has a strong vision for what the city is like and what goes on in it, together with the various characters and organisations that operate within and what sort of thing they get up to.

It’s here that I found the greatest shame, because from a number of reports, the author is an excellent GM and a more than competent writer, and this book feels like it’s missing the greatest thing that he can offer and that’s the passion that he has for this world and everything in it.  If this were a setting book with all the Machiavellian weight of his world in it, I’d buy it without hesitation…

The printing is of reasonable quality, full colour on the cover and black/white for the inner illustrations, which are not many, but are appropriate to the section they’re found in and add a level of immersion that’s certainly required.  I’m also given to understand that there have been problems with the printing of the game, so it’s possible that the finished copy may have ironed out all these things, but I’m reviewing from a PDF, so I can only go with what I have.

Cold Steel Wardens is published through Chronicle City, with the main website for the game being

https://sites.google.com/site/blackfallpressllc/

Day 173 - A long day, but getting there. - Required 475750, Achieved 456400

First test drive of a car today, Lexus IS200, nice, very nice, very fast...

No Boot...

And that's only a problem if you're going to convert to LPG, which I really am, with the 30K + miles I do every year, it's either LPG or diesel every time, and between the lack of boot space, squeaking hub noise, and inability to select reverse (the car, not me....), It looks like the Lexus isn't the way forwards, going to look at a few Mazda's tomorrow, see what the score is there, because I loved that car to bits, and if it doesn't feel like too much of a betrayal, I may be going that way again.

Still, tomorrows review is Cold Steel Wardens, a new roleplaying game, and in the meantime, I'm once again looking for things to review or make comment on.

Get in touch...

This is John Dodd in the socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and goodnight England, Wherever you are...

Game Review - All Quiet on the Martian Front

All Quiet on the Martian Front

So a few days back, I posted images of some of the miniatures for All Quiet on the Martian Front, the new 15mm wargame from Alien Dungeon, with the intention of actually providing a review of the game when the rest of the miniatures arrived (Which should have been the end of the week at the latest), sadly the miniatures have not landed yet, but given that the game is going on general release as of now, It would be a shame to withhold the review until everything had arrived.  Thus there will be a post in later days that shows the miniatures when they arrive.

However, playing with the miniatures that I’ve already got, there’s enough of an idea for me to be happy about doing a review on it.  I just couldn’t field all the Martians because it would have been a rout within seconds…

Much like the story itself really…

The first thing I noticed about the game is that they haven’t skimped on the production values, the main book is spectacular, full colour throughout with separate sections for the background fluff, the rules, and then the scenarios and a painting guide. 

They haven’t got in the direction of Warhammer with the “This is our catalogue, you really want to buy these finecast models…”, but it’s apparent that there’s a good number of miniatures and they’re at least reasonable in detail.  With the chosen scale of 15mm (for those not familiar with the scale, 15mm means that the infantry are 15mm tall, it’s the usual scale used for historical games) rather than 25mm, the scale for Warhammer, it’s possible to have a Tripod on the table without having to raise the roof to get it on the table, although in the case of some of the larger models, there’s still going to be space issues.

So rules first, determine initiative and then one side does their entire turn, which consists of move, attack, move, with the second side following after that and so on.  It should be noted that the Initiative roll for the humans is modified by the events of the preceding turn, making it entirely possible for a good round to let the humans win the initiative for the round after and turn what was a bad situation into a terrible situation for the invaders. Martians never get modifiers to the Initiative rolls, but also do not suffer from morale or panic checks, so it evens out over the course of the battle, and it’s a nice nod to the idea that the humans might just seize the initiative if they found they were winning rather than just being juicy little humans…

Combat is a simple affair, D10 base, every model has a Defence value and an Armour Value, roll equal to or greater than Defence to hit them in the first place, roll equal to or greater than Armour to damage them.  Most stands only have a single wound/structural point, so damage it and it goes down.  Most weapons that aren’t artillery are within the 30” range band, so things get up close and personal fairly quickly, and while Martians have a massive edge when it comes to technology, they really have no edge at all on numbers, and it’s here that the system works well.  If it were all base numbers no matter what, then the Martians would roll over the humans every time, but the humans have versatility on their side, and given the number of them on the field at any given time, it’s possible to have so many humans running around that the Martians are just trying to sweep them up before they get close enough to do real damage.  With the possibility of using clamp tanks to hold the Martians in place, the whole system is reasonably well balanced, and with even sides, the battle usually goes down to the wire.

That said, sometimes you get spectacular moments, such as the point in one of the early tests where a squadron of rough riders managed to attach tow cables to a group of tripods, and a follow up battery of fire caused at least two tripods to have to move, which resulted in their immediate destruction very much in the manner of the land speeder assault from Empire strikes back. 

There was much glee and the bikes are forever after called Rogue Squadron J

What immediately struck me about this was that there’s true versatility in the human forces, from fast moving troops to sneak attack to heavy armour single units that can take on whole sets of tripods, making for the possibility of having all manner of different battles with just the basic set.  The Martians are less versatile, but given that to get new tech they’ve got to place a call back to Mars, that had a good degree of logic to it.  Their weapons are engineered to hit a number of humans at once, with the heat rays having two different methods of attack, direct shooting or sweeping the ray across a number of targets in a manner reminiscent of the tripods in the 2005 film of the same name, shorter range and less damage, but more targets. Then Black smoke launchers and Gas bombs affecting multiple units.

There are no additional army lists required, no additional purchases, get the basic set and you’re good to go, which is suitably refreshing for those just coming into the game and while the deluxe manual is worth every penny, it’s not required to get going on the game.

I’ll stress now that I’m not a miniatures man, I don’t collect and paint these things until my default vision setting is “Squint through a magnifying glass”, but I can appreciate a nicely crafted miniature. 

The smaller models are cast from metal, it’s not finecast standard (and for the difference in price, I’d expect it not to be) but the detail is there.  The larger models are easy to assemble (even from a man who doesn’t do this regularly), and every tripod comes with a full set of every one of the weapons that it could use, so it’s possible to change the tripod configuration every time you use it without causing any problems. The rest of the models are easy to assemble, some do require some glue, but most of the multi-part models will snap together if you’re not of a scratch build inclination. 

That brings me to the scenarios section of the main book.  There are ten scenarios at the back of the book (Eleven if you count the introduction), which give some idea of the basic games that can be played, ranging from entrenched humans trying to stop the Martians rolling over them to the dispatch runs where fast attack humans do their best to get past overwhelming numbers of the Red Invaders.  Victory comes in the form of achieving an objective, not amassing victory points, with each scenario having a specific point and not several scattered ideas and that in turn helps to promote the idea that both sides aren’t just turning up for a scrap.

The final section of the main book is the painting guide and it’s a beauty, I can summarise it here…

Here’s some we did earlier, go on the website for detailed hints…

That’s it, and to be honest, I prefer that to a massive guide that just takes up more pages and ends up costing more to print.

In all, in the games that I’ve played so far, which have been limited in scale by the size of the forces that I can field, it’s been tremendous fun, the system is simple and works well for fast moving fights, you’re not rolling 200 dice every time your infantry unit opens fire, and it’s possible for practically anything to damage anything, which is essential to a game like this.

At the point of completion of this review, there’s only the basic models available, but there’s a number of expansions planned, price point is reasonable considering that they don’t have thirty years in the trade to work with, and now they’ve got all the basics out of the way with regards to production, I suspect that there’ll be a lot of support out there for this.

The forums can be reached at http://robotpeanutstudios.proboards.com/ and when you see the discrepancy between the number of posts on the All Quiet board and the other boards, you’ll get some idea of how popular this is likely to be.

The sets can be found at

(UK) pre-order at http://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=6190

(US) Order at http://www.architectsofwar.com/newreleases-3.aspx

And in the meantime, anyone in the Yorkshire area wanting to spend an evening in the company of the music of Jeff Wayne whilst blowing stuff up, get in touch…

Day 172 - A question of Cars... - Required 473000, Achieved 453893

In light of the point that the rest of the martians haven't turned up yet (I suppose it isn't august yet, so the cylinders aren't quite yet due...), I've done a few tests with the models that were available and thus have a functioning review, which I'll be posting for tomorrows game review.

With everything else, all is well, considering new cars now, the question really is whether to go with diesel and get better MPG or go with LPG and get worse MPG but at half the cost....

Or indeed to forget acronyms and just go for the shiniest car....

Decision is presently between a Toyota Celica (and start mid life crisis), another Mazda 6 (which sort of feels disloyal to the one that got totalled keeping me alive), and a Lexus IS200 (after which I'm stuck because I'll never go back to anything less...)...

Thoughts?

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...