Dungeon World Encounter Decks

I am running a Kickstarter campaign for a companion product to the Dungeon World role playing game. If you are doing any sort of fantasy role playing you should consider backing this product. Dungeon World is about fiction first, so the cards give you flavour and can be adapted into any system. One of my backers was telling me that he plans to use the cards in his Numenera campaign as a way of quickly generating encounters and items.

Review: Dominion by Donald X Vaccarino

Dominion - Rio Grande Games

Dominion, including all of its many expansions, is probably the most played game in our house, and has been for years. This is the game that really set off the deck builder mechanic craze. It is such a simple mechanic too: use the coins in your hand to buy cards that give you more spending power or other game effects (like multiple buys or attacks that force your opponent to discard cards) or victory cards. The trick is knowing when to buy what - buy those victory cards too soon and you end up with a hand of green unable to act, effectively slowing down your progress. The game ends when the most valuable victory cards have been bought up (or any three piles of cards are depleted).

Although this game is so great, not all the expansions fit everybody. My oldest daughter does not like attack cards - for her she'd prefer a game of competitive solitaire. Also we have a few friends who don't like the more complicated (wordy) cards of the later sets - so they are happiest with games from the basic set and maybe some simpler cards thrown in. Personally I like them all, but I'm less enamored with some of the more vicious attack cards in the Intrigue expansion. Also it is pretty much the consensus among my friends that Alchemy is their least favourite expansion (even though I quite enjoy it). With all the options and well themed expansions Dominion is sure to remain a staple of our gaming for years to come.

One other thing worth noting, there are some great digital tools for helping you shuffle up a great selection of Dominion cards from all the expansions you own.

Likes: Tremendous replay value, easy to teach, complexity can scale to players abilities and preferences quite easily.

Dislikes: With all the expansions this is a beast to lug around.

Fun: This game is always fun, even when you get a combination of cards that makes for a painfully long game, winning is just all that more satisfying.
Quality: We use our game constantly, and the cards show it. We've also taken the game with us to conferences where new players are less kind to components. But I have to say that the cards have held up very well. Also the other components, like metal tokens, are of amazing quality. Kudos to Rio Grande for production value.
(re)Playability: Every game of Dominion is different! This is probably the biggest reason that we keep playing this game over and over.

EDIT: Right after posting this I found out about Dominion Adventures. Picked it up and we've taken it out for a spin. Right off the bat we were disappointed with the quality of the cards. They are thinner. Some of the new mechanics are great though, not sold on the events, but the variation on duration cards is quite fun. But I'm still not happy with the component quality.

EDIT: Since this time we picked up Dominion Empires. I think this the best expansion to date. Card quality is back to the original. Events have grown on me. The debt mechanic actually adds something that feels new to the game. Also I am able to get all of the cards into the base box and the alchemy box (no room for more though) and I have a smaller box for the rule books, player mats, and tokens. Much easier to lug around.

Review: Super Motherload by Gavin Brown and Matt Tolman

Super Motherload[SIC] - Roxley Games

The ecofeminist in me hates that I love mining the heck out of Mars searching for a mother lode of minerals and fun! I'll live. Apparently there was a video game version of this, but I'm not much of a video gamer so I missed that. This game plays like a video game, but I mean that in a good way (not a 4th edition D&D way). Players take turns drilling and blasting their way through the mineral rich Martian planet, picking up awesome power-ups along the way and steadily improving their drilling team. The scrolling playing board just adds to the video game ambiance. This is Dig Dug for board gamers. The one daunting aspect of the game is that there is a lot to keep track of, so the game straddles that space between light gaming and serious strategy game - which actually works well with the theme. I discovered this game at the Geek Market (thanks Cardboard Kingdom!) and after a few plays it made my must buy list. Since I picked up a copy it hasn't made it to the collection room yet, just sits ready to play in a pile of favourites in my gaming room. I am in no hurry to find it a home on the shelves.

Likes: Rich theme, great strategy, great art. 

Dislikes: Box doesn't give you enough information to want to try the game (why is there no picture of the game on it?), 

Fun: There is something so satisfying to digging out the minerals, making that awesome combo move with the gem duplicator, and snagging the last fossil before your opponent does. This game is great fun.
Quality: All the components, from the box to the punch out pieces, are high quality. The game shipped with great plastic bags for organizing everything, nice touch.
(re)Playability: With double sided boards and four different work crews, the game offers lots of variety and replayability.

Review: Dread by Epidiah Ravachol and woodelf

Dread - The Impossible Dream

I'm a huge fan of the horror genre in gaming. Call of Cthulhu is a staple. But one thing that is hard to do in a horror game is get a consistent sense of tension. Dread does this brilliantly. Using a Jenga® tower (or reasonable facsimile) every risky move carries a huge amount of tension, and this tension builds with every twist and turn in the story.

I've had a chance to not only play the game, but to run a few games. Using the 13 scenario as well as one I've developed myself (Madame LouLou's Haunted Wax Museum) I've sent a couple different groups on terror romps. When running 13 I was amazed at how much fun the group of teens playing the game had being brutally slaughtered.

The character is all narrative, you simply answer up to 13 questions about yourself (the character self you want to play). Based on these questions, read by you and the GM, you have the parameters for engagement and integration into the story experience. The last question is always, what is your name? This approach should give you a hint that this is not a statistics based system. It runs more like a scripted Fiasco.

The game is broken into several acts. Each act contains its own set of dangers (where the players need to make pulls on the tower) and clues that move the story along. While there is a happy ending possible, it is not likely to happen for the bulk of your players. But that is what makes this game charming. Each act has scenes, basically set-ups for little story happenings. For example one of the scenes in the Madame LouLou's involves a description of a room (enough to make them want to look around) and then an event that can happen which puts one or more of them at risk. The final act usually has some sort of showdown with lots of danger but also a possible resolution.

The one drawback to this system is that it eliminates players. When you topple the tower your character is eliminated from the game in some way. A good storyteller will find ways to keep them engaged in the story until the end (especially whoever dies first). But this requires imagination and confidence. The book though is a veritable smorgasbord of tips to help run a great game - definitely worth the purchase even if you just steal the ideas for other games.

Likes: Best horror role playing experience ever. 

Dislikes: There are a lot of ways an inexperienced GM could create a less than satisfying game experience, this is probably not the game for every group. 

Fun: This is story telling indie role playing at its finest. With the right group the game is hugely fun and satisfying.
Quality: The rulebook is excellent, the game itself is simple and contained on a four page cheat sheet downloadable from the Dread site, but the rulebook gives you 92 more pages of pure role playing gold.
(re)Playability: The scenarios are not easily replay-able. There are only four official scenarios available. I've found a few online so they are out there, but this means creating your own scenarios. Fortunately, this is not that difficult. It requires a bit of work though - I aim for three hour one-shot sessions which is basically three acts. I wrote the bulk of Madam LouLou's in a day, but a full day. This game is not really conducive to campaign play.

Summer is Almost Here

Yeah, I know it is summer already. But I have one more week of lectures to deliver and then I will be on my break. We are hoping to rent a cottage to have friends up and  play games, games, and more games!

I've been a bit too busy to post here, but some of that busyness has been gaming. I've had a chance to play Betrayal at House on the Hill for the first time. The games plays quite nicely, I need to play a bunch more before I can review it though. That's been on my boardgame bucket list forever.

For my birthday this year we kept things quiet, had a few friends over (our regular small group from church) and played an oldie - Ticket to Ride. That game still holds up, it was one of our first eurogames and the first one that the whole family came to love. It still hits the table a couple times a year which is a lot of mileage.

This weekend I'll be trying out the Gumshoe RPG for the first time. I'll be a player for a change and we are playing a Trail of Cthulhu one shot via the Ottawa Pen and Paper Gamers group. Should be a lot of fun.

So what are your summer gaming plans?

CanGames and Open Gaming

It is that time of year again, May long weekend and CanGames (which I think is Canada's longest running gaming con, they've been going since 1977!) I try to make it to CanGames every year, even though it comes right before Congress. The last couple of years I've run Dungeon World at the con, showing off our Dungeon World Encounter Decks and telling outrageous fantasy stories with interesting people. This year I connected with the Ottawa/Indie Games folks, played some great indie games and got to meet some really cool people. The picture is Jason Pitre (creator of Spark) masterfully running a very creepy game of Dread. The setting was a sleepover that went very sideways. The Ottawa Story gamer have a great mechanism they use with all these games, it is simply an X on a card. If at any point the game goes someplace anyone is not comfortable with you pick up the card, the play stops, adjustments are made and you continue. I saw it happen once. No judgment, it made sure the game remained enjoyable for everyone. I'm going to have to run Dread for my oldest daughter's friends, I'll get some pics and to a review. They love scary stories!

I also played Derek Gour's Hope Inhumanity which was fantastic. I picked up a copy so I'll definitely take that to my regular gaming group and get their impressions. This game takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting (you get to create that together) and you are trying to travel to a place you hope will be a haven. Along the way you risk and express your humanity to survive. Lots of tough choices, this game is a great piece of collaborative storytelling using cards to move the narrative along. I also got to hang out with Derek and play Super Motherload which was my big game purchase for the con. So much fun!

My one regret is that I didn't get to play Dog Eat Dog. I linked the review that made me want to play that one. Unfortunately I was booked to run Dungeon World during the time when Jason Pitre was running Dog Eat Dog. Next con for sure.

Review: Lanterns by Christopher Chung

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival - Foxtrot Games

My initial reaction to hearing about this game was exactly like my daughters - "Lanterns? That doesn't sound very exciting." But I followed the kickstarter, I love Canadian games, and decided to take a chance on a game that looked like it might be fun. Yesterday I came home to my second kickstarted game in a week (I'll post a review of Space Junk soon). As it was Monday I knew the boys were coming over so I reviewed the rules. The game is quite simple, elegant even. You place tiles in order to gain and give out coloured lantern cards allowing you to score victory points. So the main mechanic is set creation, which is a staple of great card games. However, the generous nature of the game, when I gain cards I also give cards to the other players, makes this game so gentle and friendly. We played it a couple of times at the beginning of the night and finished off the night with it as well. I would normally wait a bit to review the game, but this is a solid addition to my collection, and I can see this hitting the table a lot.

Likes: Great theme, tranquil game, close scores each time, beautiful wooden components. 

Dislikes: The cool first player token seems superfluous, only four players (but this is a limitation of the tile shape). 

Fun: There is a lot of strategy possible but even without that just placing the tiles is great fun. In fact I'd go so far as to say this is one of the more relaxing games I've played.
Quality: The paper components are average quality, the wooden components are wonderful. The mechanics are simple and easy to teach.
(re)Playability: It is still early to say, there are no components that one would get tired of seeing, such as tiles with special abilities. It has the makings of a modern classic.