After Action Report

I revived my lunchtime game, which had faltered after Jess left Flying Lab a couple of months back, to test 4E D&D. It was going to be 8 players, then 10, and finally 13. Many folks were interested in trying the new edition. I split them into two groups and ran first sessions yesterday and today. Players had quite a range of age and experience. Results so far:

3 players really like it.
3 players really hate it.
7 players are baffled, indifferent, or slightly positive.

Some interest things emerge when we break this down. Of the three that really like it, one is a rules junky, one is primarily a minis gamer, and one is a MMO player who had roleplayed for the first time with 3.5.

Of the three that hated it, one is a 1E grognard, one is a 3E fan who just doesn't understand why so much had to change, and one is a hardcore roleplayer (though she does also like to kick some ass; see my previous post).

In the neutral group was one brand new roleplayer and two people who hadn't played in a decade or more. My GMing experience so far has done nothing to dispel my feeling that these rules are not friendly to casual gamers.

Interesting results. We'll see how it goes next when I do second sessions for each group.

It's New, Big Axe Barbie

When gamer dudes talk about gamer women, you hear the usual gender stereotyping. Women aren't interested in combat. They want storytelling, cooperation, and the dreaded shopping.

Uh huh.

Now maybe it's just the type of woman who are attracted to roleplaying, but in my experience the above is not at all the case. I have noticed that many roleplaying women LOVE to kick ass. In fact, they are often more bloodthirsty than the guys. They want a big axe and they want action.

Not that there aren't women who are into character development and storytelling. I just don't think that's the whole story.

A Question and a Comment

So hey, board gaming friends, I've got a question for you. When you play Descent, does your Overlord act like a GM in a roleplaying game or does he/she really try to beat the players? Last time we played to took a turn in the Overlord chair and I found my natural instinct was to act like a GM. For example, when I realized how tough the opening fight with a giant was going to be, I just used the basic giant stats instead of the buffed up ones the scenario specified. Is that common? When you play, is it more Overlord vs. players? And what do you think the game intends?

My comment is on the Lord of the Rings minis game, which I played again last night. I wish the game did a better job modeling the Riders of Rohan. In the books the Rohirrim are the premier heavy cavalry of Middle Earth. In the minis game they got owned in hand to hand combat by Uruk-hai missile troops. You'd think that when your cavalry breaks through and sets upon the unsupported enemy skirmishers, you'd roll right over them. Not so much. Also, it's weird that the Rohirrim cannot have lances or thrusting spears, only throwing spears. Gondorian cavalry gets lances but not the Rohirrim. I want more shock in my shock cavalry.

Fun Time Is Over

My getaway is over, sad to say. Tomorrow it's back to both jobs. The weekend was a blast though. I ended up playing 7 games in 48 hours at Enfilade, something I don't think I've pulled off since GenCon circa 1992. Here's a brief roundup.

I kicked things off on Friday night with a WWII Wings of War game that used model planes on flying stands and oversized maneuver cards. The scenario featured six B-17s with fighter escorts on a bombing run over Germany. I commanded the worst German planes on the table, ME-110s, but I enjoyed the challenge. There were about 20 planes on the table, which was a big chaotic but overall the game was fun. We shot down three B-17s and won the game.

Saturday morning I played "Last Train to Smolensk," a Russian Civil War game in which Reds, Whites, and partisans fought over statue reputed to contain the bones of the Tsar and his family. The game won for sheer spectacle, with hundreds of nicely painted 28mm minis and not one but two armored trains. The rules were a convention friendly version of Heroes of the Soviet Union. I wasn't familiar with them but the one page summary gave all the info needed to play and everyone picked them up quickly. We ultimately had 18 people playing this game, and considering that it went at a pretty good clip. I ended up commanding Red Cavalry in the spirit of Isaac Babel, but unfortunately the table was so crowded and our starting position so poor that I had a hard time getting them into action. We started playing at 9:30 and I didn't roll an attack until 11:20. I think it would have been better with maybe 12 people and 25% less figures but I still had a good time. I don't know anyone in Seattle who has any interest in Russian Civil War gaming, so I'm glad I had the chance to participate.

In the afternoon I played in "King Batuve's Mines", a Sword in Africa game run by ex-TSR designer Steve Winter. In 19th century Africa English colonialists open a diamond mine on the land of King Batuve without asking permission. Mistake! The wily king marshals his forces and tries to capture the mine before a relief column can arrive. I commanded one of the African contingents and attempted to kill whitey. It turned out I was in the right place twice to sacrifice troops to better my side's tactical situation. I lost almost all my troops but King Batuve took his mine back.

That night I played in a "The Sword and the Flame on Mars", a Victorian scifi game that married the Sword and the Flame ruleset with the Space: 1889 RPG setting. This game was great to look at, with spider walkers and other steam engines squaring off on the red planet. I was on the British side, commanding the sole airship in the battle. I evaded Martian rockets, while pounding the ground with cannons and dropping liquid fire from above. It was a close fought battle but we pulled it out. Rule Britannia! This was my favorite game of the weekend.

After that long ass day I should have gone right to bed, but did not. Rick and I hooked up after his Medieval game finished and we threw down with some Memoir '44. I tried and failed to stop an American assault after D-Day, then finally went to bed.

Sunday morning Rick and I got into a classic Battletech game. We hadn't played any con games together the whole weekend and I knew he'd be up for it. I've played Battletech once in the last 10 years, so I was rusty on the rules but the GM was very good and did an excellent job of controlling the pace and keeping the action going. All the mechs started with some damage to even things out a bit, so my 100 ton Atlas was badass but didn't dominate. We had 8 players with one mech each and our team won. I took out the enemy Atlas but then went down in flames. In honor of the biggest Battletech fan I know, Chris Hanrahan, I used the Endgame dice he gave me in Oakland back in February and they served me well.

After that we ended up playing a pickup game of Space Hulk with people we met in the Battletech game (three of whom were also named Rick!). This is another game I hadn't played in a long time. A couple of the guys hadn't played before and they made the mistake of thinking they could fight the genestealers in hand to hand combat. Their squad of terminators was wiped out in less than 15 minutes. Our squad kept fighting and made some good progress but eventually we were overwhelmed by the alien horde. After the game we took our leave of Enfilade and headed back to Seattle.

Today was a holiday of course, so what to do? Hey, how about playing a game? I had Ray and Jon over this afternoon and we played Descent. I was the Overlord and they each played two characters. This proved a good idea, as otherwise they would have been giant bait. The scenario was a bit repetitious but we had a good time.

I call that a successful gaming weekend.

Enfilade

It's Memorial Day weekend and I will be doing my part to honor all the lead, pewter, and plastic toy soldiers who have given their lives in the cause of good gaming. Rick and I are heading down to Olympia today for Enfilade, a historical miniatures convention. I have no business to do there. I'm just going to play games for three days. I haven't gotten to do something like this for a long time and I'm very much looking forward to it. I had planned to attend last year, but we ended up hosting the design summit for the Song of Ice and Fire RPG that weekend. No summits this year though, so I am free.

I am not sure exactly what I'll be playing. The con website put up a preliminary event list but never a final one so we'll be playing it by ear. Rick is throwing some boardgame favorites into his vehicle as a backup, so if we have downtime we can pull those out. I will not have e-mail or web access, so don't expect to hear from me until next week. Once again, let the fray begin!

Business and Pleasure

Nik and Kate are in NYC on a class trip, so I've been left to my own devices here in Seattle. This weekend was pretty much equal parts business and pleasure.

Yesterday I went down to Tim's place in Renton for a final game of Spirit of the Century before Tim, our most recent traitor, moves back to the Bay Area to take a job with Apple. It was a battle royale in Hong Kong, with our intrepid band of pulp heroes facing off against a horde of tong gangsters. We ended on a cliffhanger, with what seemed to be dragons heading to Hong Kong to eject the foreign devils, and we hope to be able to finish up the story when Tim is back visiting at some point. I spent my entire evening in the office, doing Green Ronin work of the most boring sort. Ah, the endless joy of contract writing and administration.

Today I woke up with a full blown cold that came out of nowhere, which was weird. Knowing I had people coming over at 1 pm, I just downed some medicine and went to work cleaning the downstairs. I got things in order and right on time Rick, Jimmer, Ray, Seth, and Wolfgang arrived. We were getting together for an afternoon of boardgaming, which I don't get to do as often as I'd like. Today's game: History of the World. This is the classic game of rising and falling empires. The game is exactly seven turns long, which each one representing an epoch of history. On each turn you play a different empire, while trying to hold together as much of your previous empires as possible. I had the good fortune to get the Romans (thanks, Rick!) and I was able to maintain a lead from that point forward. It came down to the wire, but I pull out a victory despite my various empires getting picked apart. We played a complete game and finished at 6:30. I really ought to try to organize days like this more often, though with convention season approaching I shouldn't kid myself.

Tonight it was back to work. I did not get as much accomplished as I wanted to because this cold is running me down, but I am continuing to check things off my to-do list. I am tempted to take a sick day from FLS tomorrow but I may hold out and take one Tuesday if need be.

Vancouver Report 1: Gaming

Nik and I spent the weekend in Vancouver and had a nice, relaxing time. I'll divide my report into two entries: gaming and eating. First, gaming.

I spent Saturday at Trumpeter Salute, a wargaming convention put on by Vancouver's venerable Trumpeter Tabletop Games Society (established in 1964). I've been meaning to go up for this con for many years and finally had the chance. It took place at a community center near the Metrotown mall and I'd guess there were 300 attendees or so. My goal was simple: play some damn games. I got there at 9 am and was able to get into a WAB game which pitted ancient Egyptians vs. Assyrians, with two players per side. I was on the Egyptian side, which was fine by me. The game started off badly when my co-general sent his chariot unit racing unsupported towards the enemy battle line. It was charged and broken by Assyrian cavalry, routed back to our lines and rallied, and then was charged and broken again. The ensuing panic caused half our infantry to panic and start to run. I used our chariot-mounted general to destroy the cavalry and then reform the battle line. Things went much better after that and the enemy generals capitulated at the end of the session. The game was fun, the other players and the GM were friendly, and the game was in the quietest room of the con. Good start.

In the second session I had to decide between playing Blitzkrieg Commander or a Legends of the Old West game set in the Firefly/Serenity setting. Since I've played BK many times but never got to try Legends of the Old West, I chose the latter. I also knew the GM, Lisa Smedman, who worked with Nicole on Adventures Unlimited Magazine back in the 90s. The rules worked well for Firefly, requiring only a few changes for some of the higher tech items. The basic scenario had six groups in a small town with individual goals, but on turn two a Reaver ship showed up and chaos ensued. I was playing the local sheriff and his posse of townsfolk. Other players controlled the various Firefly characters, a gang of outlaws led by Patience, an Alliance squad, and a loading crew of Rasta-looking dudes. Lisa had built out Serenity using downloadable scifi terrain packs and it looked pretty good. My crew's job was to maintain law and order but with multiple rivals and Reavers in the mix, that was not happening. The Reavers were insanely tough. On several turns I'd have 7 or 8 of my posse unload on one Reaver and if I did even a single wound it was a rousing success. The game was fun but the system strained a bit to handle six players and a GM faction. I have some Western figs I got ages ago from the Foundry; I should bust them out for a Legends game with Rick some time.

Those two sessions kept me busy from 9 am to 6 pm, so that's all the gaming I got to do. I did have a chance to look around at some of the other games being run and there was some beautiful stuff on display. The Pulp Figures people were there and they had a stunning table set up with gunboats, big Buddha statues, and even a waterfall if memory serves. The Blitzkrieg Commander game I did not play in had really well-painted 20mm Germans and French forces in a 1940 battle (it also won "best of session", so I guess it was pretty good). I was amused to note that every single Battletech game there was played on Heroscape terrain. Oh, and one guy was running a Warhammer 40K Apocalypse game of ludicrous proportions. There were a dozen Baneblade tanks on the board, along with 30 or more Leman Russ tanks, and a horde of Tyranids. It looked like tactics were non-existant, basically line up 18 inches away from each other and charge. Still, quite a spectatcle.

So that was the gaming. Food later.

4E Test Drive

I had a chance to actually play D&D 4th edition today. A friend of mine who still works at WotC got permission to run the demo adventure from the D&D Experience at her monthly game day. Since I'm still waiting for WotC to finalize the Game System License, this was the first opportunity I've had to see something of the rules and try them out.

Short Review
It's an interesting system that didn't so much feel like D&D in play; nonetheless, the brand power of D&D all but ensures this will be a success and it may even redefine what D&D means for the next generation.

Long Review
Since the announcement of 4E last Gen Con, a common critique of the emerging rules was that they looked more to MMOs than RPGs. My play experience suggests something else. The roots of the new rules are not in MMOs at all, but collectible card games. Building your character seems much like building a deck in Magic: the Gathering. You have a selection of powers and special abilities that are exceptions-based. Some powers you can only use once per encounter, like tapping a card in a CCG. Character turns have a very specific order, with beginning and end of turn actions used to handle bookkeeping issues. Part of character and party building revolves around power combos. In short, 4E seems to be what people feared was going to happen with 3E after WotC bought TSR, though thankfully without a collectible component.

Now one of my concerns had been that 4E would simply be a revised 3.5. I'm glad 4E is not that. I really felt that 3.5 was just more complicated than it needed to be and I hoped that 4E would simplify things. While it does fix many of the ongoing issues with 3.5, my feeling after today's session is that it's just complicated in a different way. It's not something I think experienced gamers will have a huge amount of trouble with, but it does seem that 4E may be even more unfriendly to new players than 3.5 was. It looks like 4E requires newbs to make too many choices and track too many things to make it truly accessible. Since D&D has always been the entry point for most RPG players, this is my most serious concern.

Of the current D&D players, I suspect most of them will switch over to the new edition, despite the unimpressive marketing campaign that we've seen to date. There are many options for character customization and players who like tactical combat will find a lot to work with. I understand there are some kind of social interaction rules, but I haven't seen them. The focus seems squarely on combat from what I could tell. There were interesting choices to make during fights and it wasn't just a matter of trotting out your best attack again and again. The CCG style of the rules and the changes to the IP did make the game feel a lot less like D&D though, at least to me. And since the rules seem to have been tailored to provide a very particular experience, I don't think they will make as good of a base for the variety of campaign settings D&D used to see. It's pretty clear that WotC realizes this, which explains why they felt the need to advance the timeline and have an apocalyptic event in the Forgotten Realms. I don't think many of the old campaign settings will transition over without a lot of cutting, spindling, and mutilating.

What I think WotC is going for here is what Marvel managed to pull off with their Ultimate line of comics: take the core of the IP and redefine it for a new generation. There will certainly be some longtime fans disenfranchised by this move, but I don't think there will be enough of those folks to hurt 4E. (I do think, however, that there will be enough of those for a third party company to carve out a good business for itself catering to them, but that's a topic for another day.)

All of this is, of course, based on what I've managed to glean so far from released info and today's play experience. I would naturally like to see the new rules in their entirety and doing so may change my opinion about some things. If the GSL gets sorted out this month, maybe I'll get the chance for a more in-depth read soon. If I feel like spending 5K to do so anyway.

From January 12, 2005

I found the following on my hard drive. It's funny looking back now. I do wish the idea of the inquisitor as presented here had been developed, but it was not approved.

In the 40K universe the part of the setting that works best for the purposes of an RPG is the Inquisition. This organization is divided into several sub-groups, some of which root out heresy while others combat the influence of Daemons and aliens. There is also a puritan/radical divide with the Inquisition as a whole, which means there's quite a bit of politics and backstabbing. As you can see, the Inquisition is rife with adventure possibilities.

Now each Inquisitor has a support group of specialists. A typical retinue might include a savant (sort of like a living computer), a hotshot pilot, an ex-Imperial Guard veteran, a techno-magos, and a black ops snoop. In short, a classic RPG-style party. The problem with doing a traditional RPG on this model is the Inquisitor himself. He's in charge, he's a complete badass, and he probably has powerful psychic abilities as well. It's basically the "Indiana Jones" RPG problem all over again.

I've been thinking about this today and I had an interesting idea. Let's say that all the PCs make up characters that are members of an Inquisitor's retinue. Before they make their own characters, they get together and create the Inquisitor they're going to work for. You can think of this sort of like making a covenant in Ars Magica. It's a hugely important part of the game, but everyone "owns" the Inquisitor. Once the details on the Inquisitor are ironed out, people make their individual characters, but again work together so they can create their own "A-Team".

When the game starts, the GM plays the Inquisitor and uses him to send the PCs on missions. The basic conceit is that his time is so important that the retinue is sent off on investigations while he works on a higher level. The goal of the PCs is, essentially, to make the case and rouse him from his other concerns to finish the job. An influence mechanic represents this. Throughout each adventure, there are spots where characters can win influence points by figuring things out, finding important clues, besting opponents, and so on. The players compete for these influence points, while working together towards the resolution of the adventure.

When it's time for the climax, the players compare their influence totals. Whoever has the highest total gets to play the Inquisitor in the final encounter, unleashing all the cool powers. At the conclusion of the adventure, the GM once again takes control of the Inquisitor.

The advantages to this system are:

1) It fits the existing 40K universe like a glove and is totally in line with the backstory.

2) It gives the GM an easy way to start adventures and the PCs the best of reasons to adventure together.

3) It has a fun built-in meta-game with the influence points.

4) It avoids the Indiana Jones problem by letting play of the super character change from adventure to adventure. Hopefully, everyone would get a turn to play the badass from time to time.

5) It provides a solid default adventure model for the newbie GM, with a beginning, middle, and end.

Back to It

I had really been looking forward to Thanksgiving Weekend. Now that it's over I feel vaguely dissatisfied and I'm not sure why. I did some fun stuff, spent time with good friends, and finished several nagging tasks. Maybe it just ended too quickly or maybe I just didn't reach that state of relaxation I was looking for. Hurm.

I did get a double dose of roleplaying over the weekend. Saturday we played Spirit of the Century at Tim's for the first time in over a month. We kicked off a new chapter of the story and it's going well so far. I learned that when you show up at the herbalist shop covered in blood, the most reassuring thing you can say is not, "Don't worry, it's not mine." I still need a tenth aspect but can't settle on one. We've now joked about calling it "The Tenth Aspect" and making it some mystical mojo, but that doesn't quite fit my character.

Sunday we play Ray's old school D&D game for the second time. This is Rules Cyclopedia D&D, where elves and dwarves are both races and classes and plusses on your magic shield subtract from your Armor Class. I must admit that this game is turning into a huge amount of fun. I am just embracing all the things that bugged me about those rules back in the day and going with it. Ray's idea was to run the sort of deluxe game he always wanted to when he was a teenage but couldn't afford. He printed out a huge map of the first dungeon scaled for minis for example. I brought along tac-tiles and two cases of miniatures. So far it's been a blast.

It wasn't all fun and games though. Nik and I watched No End in Sight, an excellent documentary about the quagmire in Iraq and how it got that way. This is a really important film and I think folks across the political spectrum need to watch it. This is not a polemic by a bunch of wild eyed leftists. The story of the war is told in large part by eye witnesses and participants. Soldiers, administrators, politicians, officers, and journalists talk about what they saw and what they did. The film lays out very clearly what was done and shows the consequences of those actions. I could go off on a huge political rant here but instead I'll just say that I highly recommend No End in Sight.

War at Sea

I’m still gluing together Easterlings for my Lord of the Rings warband, so Rick and I had to pick a different game last night. We decided to play Axis and Allies War at Sea instead. This was the second time we’ve played the game and we’ve had a good time with it. It’s a nice light wargame, something you can pick up and play easily in an evening. The miniatures are pre-painted and since they don’t have faces they look OK. The problem with the game is that it’s collectible. That means the boosters are random, so you get ships and planes from all the different nations and of course there’s no guarantee you’re going to get what you want. If I could buy a fleet off the shelf I would. As it stands I’ll probably just play with what Rick’s already got until the game dies and then I’ll pick up cheap boosters from dealers at Gen Con or on Ebay.

I’m not a big fan of collectibility to begin with, but it’s extra annoying with historical games. Unless you spend a lot of money, you won’t be able to field historically accurate forces. The Axis and Allies rules hand wave this, allowing you to field anything Allied or anything Axis in the same army or navy. So last night I had British, French, and American ships in my fleet, and two types of planes that America only used in the Pacific Theater. I fought a fleet based around a Japanese carrier, but it also included an Italian battleship and three squadrons of German Stukas. I will grant you that most folks don’t know as much about WWII as I do, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that part of the appeal of Axis and Allies is its historical background. In other words a World War II game is going to appeal to people with an interest in history. It would be nice if the game offered a way to field more realistic forces other than just buying more boosters. Now that WotC has developed the game and had the minis sculpted, it wouldn’t be that difficult to release, for example, a stand-alone Battle of Midway game that came with full American and Japanese fleets, rules, and a scenario book that let you play through different phases of the battle. I would buy something like that in a second. Lately Wizkids had been doing some fixed sets for its MechWarrior game. Perhaps WotC will follow suit.

Kicking It Old School at FLS

When I first got to Flying Lab, I talked about starting a lunchtime RPG group. Well, it's taken me a year but I'm finally doing it. With the game content complete we have a little time to breathe, so it seemed like a good time. It was no great surprise to find out that the game they were most familiar with was D&D, so I said the hell with it and decided to go with that. Call it a last hurrah for D&D3.

I invited all eleven members of my department, figuring I'd end up with one good sized group. Ten of the eleven said they wanted to play. Since that's way too big for a lunch game, I've split them into two groups and they'll be adventuring in the same locale. This will allow for some crossover and the possibility of joint sessions for big events.

Two of the players have never played a tabletop RPG before, so I've decided to give them a taste of classic D&D. For the first time in like twenty years I'm going to run a game set in Greyhawk. I'm adapting one of Paizo's new modules, Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale, and working in other material (most notable Green Ronin's Escape from Ceranir adventure). The adventure has a nice Keep on the Borderlands vibe and it'll be easy to have two adventuring groups in the environment. I'm setting the game in the From the Ashes period of Greyhawk (hey, I'm a WFRP fan, I like Carl Sargent). Here's the setup.
If this goes well, there's plenty of adventuring opportunity in the liberation of the Lost Lands and the giant-haunted Crystalmist Mountains.

Chronicles of the Lost Lands

It is the year 585 in the calendar of the Great Kingdom. It has been dubbed the Year of Peace because the Greyhawk Wars have drawn to a close—and there's a treaty to prove it. For three years war and chaos wracked all of Greyhawk. Nations fell, hundreds of thousands perished, and the forces have evil conquered vast swathes of new territory. In the Sheldomar Valley, the Kingdom of Keoland stands strong, but the nations of Geoff and Sterich were overrun by giants and savage humanoids. Now exiles from those lands and soldiers of Keoland have begun a campaign to reclaim these "Lost Lands." They know that this is the Year of Peace in name only. A treaty may have been signed, but the war goes on and will do so until Geoff and Sterich are liberated.

The city of Flen is the center of the new military campaign. The soldiers there need tons of food and supplies to keep on the march. The economy of Keoland is straining to keep up. No only did the kingdom lose two trading partners, but also the influx of refugees from Geoff and Sterich increased the demand for goods and foodstuffs. The Yeomanry, whose citizen-soldiers defeated the giant and humanoid attacks, now has become Keoland’s key trading partner. Traditionally, such commerce has focused on the Javan River route, but this is a roundabout way to get to the Yeomanry capital of Loftwick. Not enough goods are getting to Flen and those that come take too long to get there. A faster route is needed.

It was Flen's Merchant Guild that proposed the answer. Once there was a route through the mountains, they claimed, but it hadn’t been used for hundreds of years because it passed through the Bloodsworn Vale. A great battle was once fought there and it was said to be a place of ill omen. The guild masters convinced the military commanders that if the overland route could be reestablished, both Keoland and the Yeomanry would reap the benefits. The Freeholder of the Yeomanry agreed and so the plan was put in motion. Of course, with the military tied up in attacks against Sterich, few men could be spared to clear the vale of savage humanoids and other threats. So the call went out to mercenaries and adventurers to open the Bloodsworn Vale. They were promised gold, and the possibility of land and title. What adventuring party worth its ten foot poles could resist such an offer?

Lots o' Gaming

The stars have been right the last week and I’ve gotten in an unusual amount of gaming. Woot.

Spirit of the Century: Gaming fun started on Labor Day with a Spirit of the Century game. It was a bridge session as we left behind the first big adventure and transitioned into the next one, so not a whole lot to report. I still haven’t picked a tenth aspect for my character. After I said, “I knew I should have killed him when I had the chance,” the other players suggested that’d be a good one. I am considering it.

BattleLore: Thursday night Rick and I played BatteLore with the new Hundred Years War expansion. It’s got some nice new rules, troop types, and scenarios. We played the battle of Crecy and I was sure history was going to repeat itself when Rick drew Darken the Sky on turn 1 and bombarded my army with his longbowmen. It actually turned into a nailbiter though and with one lucky die roll I could have snatched victory from his grasp on the last turn. Much to Rick’s relief I did not pull off one of my patented last minute wins though and the British took the field.

Runebound: Saturday Rick and I went over to Jon’s new place and played Runebound with him, Seth, and Jason. I get together with this group irregularly for boardgames and after the end of the con season we finally had another chance to play. Runebound is like a more modern version of Talisman that learns some important lessons from its forbearer. We enjoyed it but also felt the game had a few issues. There’s a lot of downtime between your turns and the endgame takes too long. I do have some of the expansions and I wonder if those smooth out some of the rough edges.

Ticket to Ride: Yesterday I played Ticket to Ride Marklin at lunch at FLS. I had gotten the game for Jess for his birthday a couple of weeks ago and he was keen to try it. We drafted Cory and Raymond and taught them how to play. This was the first time I had tried the Marklin version and it had some additions I quite liked. The passengers made it more worthwhile to do shorter connections and gave a nice way to score some extra points. I also liked that you had two decks of tickets to choose from.

Tomorrow night it’s back to Rick’s, though I’m not sure what we’re going to play. Maybe more BattleLore. Maybe the Lord of the Rings minis game. Maybe something else. Damn, it’s good to be a gamer.