Till now! Enter the newly released Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginner Game, an entry level product designed for novice roleplayers and people new to the system. So what’s inside? Well, let’s have a look in my unboxing video.

I’m going to try and refrain from making this into a review of the beta and try and focus on the beginner game. All I’ll say about the core game is that I’m not entirely sure what I think about it in general. My feelings are definitely positive, but it’s hard to define where this game fits yet. As for the beginner game, I am almost sold. I say almost because I haven’t finished exploring the main rulebook yet (the basic rules are explained in the intro adventure – enough to run your first session). The game has a lot of promise but minor issues do crop up here and there. The first being the quality of the contents. Aside from the box itself, the quality isn’t really bad, but I feel like a comparison to similar products might shine a brighter light on the matter. The recommended retail price of the package is £24.99 (29.95$ for my American readers). This is right in between the Red Box which retails at £16.99 and the Pathfinder Beginner box which retails at £29.99. Content wise, it is almost the equivalent of the Red Box – you get a map, some character sheets, two booklets, a sheet of tokens and some dice. Overall you get more dice than in the Red Box and the character sheets are vastly superior, but it is no comparison to the amount of stuff you get in the Pathfinder equivalent (an erasable battlemat and a 90 page rulebook with character creation and rules up to level 5). So looking at the content to price ratio, Edge of the Empire seems to be the more expensive one – however, it must be said that some of that definitely goes to cover the Star Wars licensing fees, and the price is still very reasonable. The second problem is that there are no rules for character creation. This is a major selling point for some people, and those who love to dabble with characters will either have to get their hands on the beta, or wait for the release of the core rulebook.

The core of the game (same as in the beta) revolves around the dice mechanics. As I’ve mentioned in the video, there are 7 different kinds of dice. Ability dice (green d8) represent your basic skill and generate success and advantage. They can be upgraded to proficiency dice (yellow d12) which have better success and advantage results, and can also produce a Triumph – a sort of critical success. These are rolled simultaneously with difficulty dice (purple d8) which generate failures and threat, results that cancel out successes and advantages respectively. They can be upgraded to challenge dice (red d12), which have greater amounts of failures and threat and can also produce a despair result (a sort of crit failure). Ok. Still with me? So what ends up happening is you roll a bunch of dice and you’ll get various degrees of success and failure. For example, you could succeed at a task but generate threat, which nets you a success but with a negative side-effect. You hit the stormtrooper that was chasing you down a corridor with your blaster pistol but it overheated and became unusable for a round for example. You could also fail, but with an advantage, and so on and on and on. After our playthrough of the beginner adventure my friends commented that the dice mechanic makes it feel very much like Star Wars. Most of the time, even if you succeed – you never get away scot free, which is very much in line with the feel of the galaxy far far away.

Edge of the Empire focuses on the scum and villainy aspect of Star Wars. It’s set within the original trilogy (post Battle of Yaving I believe). The beginner adventure carries that feel across very well. There’s an evil Hutt crimelord hot on our trail, we’re in the dusty streets of Mos Shuuta, Tatooine, there are bounty hunters on our trail and eventually we even get to nab a YT-1300. What I liked about the way the beginner adventure is written, is how it allowed everyone to learn the rules of the game as the adventure progressed. It eliminated the need to just do a massive rules info-dump and allowed them to develop naturally as an extension of the game. Which was great when it worked, but it didn’t always. The rules for Critical Injuries are very vague and even after we consulted the main rulebook we felt a little baffled. Also, the rules for vehicle combat are severely lacking in detail and raised more questions than answers. But these are minor quibbles. After all, Edge of the Empire is meant to be a narrative game and the rules are only a crutch.

One of the best parts were the character sheets. These were done much like the Pathfinder character folios, but with leveling up in mind. The sheet explains everything that players can do during their turn, and after they complete the first half of the adventure they are given some xp and allowed to spend it on new talents or skills. We encountered one minor error in our playthrough, 41-VEX, the droid characater is able to upgrade his Ranged (Light) skill which should upgrade his dice when firing a blaster and throwing a grenade, however the upgrade on the grenade part isn’t accounted for. It’s a minor oversight and won’t affect the game much, and I don’t think I’ve encountered an error-free roleplaying game yet, so this is not a surprise really, more of an FIY to future players of 41-VEX.

After you’re done playing an intro adventure, there’s a link to a much bigger adventure in PDF format. There are also two extra characters giving players some variety of choice and creates the possibility of accommodating a larger game. You can find these resources by going on the Fantasy Flight Games webpage.

One of my favorite parts of the box has to be the map, specifically the YT-1300 interior side, which I can see myself using over and over again in many games to come. It really sparked the imagination of my players and made me really glad  I got the box.

The gameplay itself felt smooth and the innovative dice mechanics forced us to think outside of the box narrative wise. As a GM, I felt like I needed to provide a good amount of description behind every dice roll, which meant that the game was always full of detail – definitely a good thing in my book. Most importantly, it felt very much like we were having a Star Wars adventure and my players looked like they were having fun. So the game was definitely a hit. My only concern is the amount of structure within rules – it is definitely rules-heavy. Thankfully, the gameplay can easily adapt to the style of every group and the focus can easily shift towards narrative. I’d also like to note that the mere fact that the Beginner Game exists says that FFG want this game to be big. DnD big. And I think it’s well on the way to be just that.

So what’s wrong with gaming being in the mainstream? Well, I’d like for you all to take a journey with me to one of my earliest memories. I imagine I was about three or four, it’s hard to say. Kids love candy, so did I. I really liked hard candy – it was the best. I think it was Christmas or another family gathering, but we had all our cousins, aunts and uncles over, and guess what they brought me? A necklace! Dissapointing, right? No. It was made out of hard candy! In wrappers of course, but strung together, and my favorite kind as well. I was so chuffed, I decided I was going to give everyone one piece of my candy necklace, so I started handing it out, piece by piece. And when it came to the last two pieces, it was just my uncle, my aunt and me left. If I were to give everyone one piece, I would have none left for myself. Which, believe it or not, I did. And I remember someone saying that this was a lesson for me to learn. What a shit lesson I tell you.

I am going with this somewhere trust me, but let’s leave it at that just for now. Let us fast-forward to the present, all the way to this article posted in The Guardian a few days ago called Why board games are making a comeback. This innocuous little article quickly made the rounds in my social-media spheres, from Facebook to Twitter, every gamer was posting and reposting this, including me. Gaming is finally OK now, says The Guardian. Gamers rejoice. Furthermore, local hobby shops capitalize on this new trend and increase their attendance and profit. It’s a win/win for everyone.

Ok, why am I being insincere? I obviously have an underlying point. Well, because I don’t think things are so simple. A few days ago I was surfing on the X-Wing forum on Board Game Geek and one comment struck a chord with me. X-Wing is even stocked at Target (to my fellow UK readers, the red-colored American superstore of everything, ever). Which reminded me of the fact that our own Waterstones took the lion’s share of X-Wing stock from Esdevium (the UK gaming wholesalers). Obviously stock to actual gaming shops was limited whilst Waterstones was making profit from Christmas sales and the newly trending gaming culture.

Some of you say that that’s ok. It’s only natural in our economic environment. After all, if gaming companies are doing well lately, why should they not expand into new markets? In the economic world, there’s nothing quite as bad as stagnation. If you are not growing – you are doing something wrong. So is it surprising that FFG and WotC are catering to big brand stores and online retailers? No. In a way, they don’t have a choice.

We do. We have a choice when we buy things. We can choose what we buy and where we buy those things from and big companies constantly monitor this. Statistics are a driving force behind targeted sales, but more importantly, they are very important for R&D.

But let’s back up a bit and talk a little about why we are a part of our gaming culture. What drives us to sit down with other people and roll dice, lay cards and do our worst Chewbacca impressions? Game designers always point out that the most important aspect of gaming is to have fun. That’s undeniable. I would very much like to argue though that games are a form of art. I am not going to, because whilst some would undoubtedly agree, others would probably raise some eyebrows, and that’s not a debate I want to get into here. So let’s just say that games are a form of human craftsmanship. Some guy has an idea, he makes that idea come to life and we, as consumers, embrace it. And I’d bet the hair on my head that quite a large number of us gamers sit down and play these games because we like to appreciate them. We like to observe the creations of women and men and admire them, analyze them, talk about them. We like to share them. This is the same experience that we indulge in when we’re listening to The Beatles, watch Scorsese or read Fitzgerald. We get to share this experience together with some people around a table.

I think the videogame market is the best example of a niche hobby that blew up into the mainstream and became a mockery of itself. Fifteen years ago, would I have imagined every English High Street littered with corporate video game chains selling you whatever console game you’d ever want to play? Nah, I wouldn’t have. Mostly cause I was living in a post-soviet country and buying pirated cartridges for my chipped Sega Mega Drive II from a dodgy man in the local indoor market, as non-pirated ones cost only about a quarter of my parent’s combined monthly salary. Also I had no idea what the English High Street was. But I had a pretty good imagination and that sort of thing just didn’t seem real to me. My point is, video games are everywhere now. And to those of you who played the original Fallout games, Planescape: Torment, Baldur’s Gate, Dungeon Keeper, to those who spent countless hours trying to solve Full Throttle or Grim Fandango, those of you that marveled in the complexity of the original X-Com games and those who bread zerg after zerg in Stracraft I say to you: you and me know that games are not the same anymore.

I really don’t want to sound like an old man, because there are loads of good new games out there. The genre innovates and evolves and from time to time delivers a gem. The difference is that now it is oversaturated with overhyped and overstylized games, and there are people who’ll keep telling you how amazing these games are, whilst all the time you’re wishing that he or she: a) knew better, b) shut the fuck up. And these games only exist because big corporations saw one fact and one fact only. There is money to be made from video games. So companies like BioWare and Blizzard have been bought out and made into money-making machines. They don’t get to craft what they want anymore. The statistics part dictates what people want, so they deliver. It’s the difference between buying a shoe from a shoemaker, or one made by a kid in a factory somewhere in Asia.

The sad fact is that these big companies are now starting to see profit from tabletop gaming. And when this hobby will become more mainstream, it will unavoidably sell more. Companies will be bought out by corporations and content will be created based on statistics and what they think we want. That to me is terrifying.

A few friends of mine pointed out to me yesterday, that whilst they can understand that there are some negatives, they’re finally able to explain to their cousin, who’s only interest is football, that gaming is not as complicated and that they should play some games themselves. And to that I say, let’s not start kicking a dead donkey here. If people want to play games, they’ll play them. Perceptions are important, and whilst some are shackled by them, most people know what they want, and if they want it – they take it. To hell with perception, if we worry enough what other people think of us, we’ll just become shallow chess-jocks who kick the emotional shit out of sportsnerds at school with obscure referential witty puns.

Gaming will become mainstream – that’s unavoidable. But we can still keep it our hobby. A real hobby with real craft behind it. Oh fuck it, with real ART behind it. Don’t buy X-Wing from Target. Don’t buy Carcassone from Amazon. Don’t play Magic: the Gathering at Waterstones. Let these developers and big businesses know that we only want real games and we want to buy them from our local shops. NOT from Forbidden Planet. If you’re buying games from them, you are making our hobby shit.

Oh, and what the hell was that candy story about? Well, spreading the good stuff out makes it too thin. Share tabletop games with the world, and the world might just take it away.

Just a while ago, Elminster’s Forgotten Realms was released. It’s a great, well written sourcebook. It’s ‘crunch’ free, and written by the guy who created the setting, Ed Greenwood. But aside from all those things – it’s a signal. Not only is it edition-free, but it’s also the first new Dungeons and Dragons release that bears a difference in cover style and layout design. Put that and the upcoming product page on the WotC website together and you have this equation. Fourth edition is done. Over. That’s it folks.

Sad, isn’t it? In a way, I feel really nostalgic, but I also feel like I took a lot out of fourth. More than I ever thought I would. I played in a campaign spanning nine levels and DM’ed one that took my players all the way from one to seventeen, ran countless seasons of DnD Encounters (actually, they are very much countable) and quite a few one-shots. But it’s time to move on to other things, new and old, and Elminster’s Forgotten Realms should pave the way and bring us back to a style of DnD much forgotten but not at all lost. It’s a style steeped in detail and lore and, frankly, I couldn’t think of a better book to guide us on our path.

I want to thank Wizards of the Coast Europe for sending me all the wonderful material to review, and I was going to originally post a review of the 3.5 Premium Reprints, and then review this book, but I’ve done that mistake where I opened a book and got so absorbed that I couldn’t put it down. Unlike any other roleplaying game sourcebook, I read this cover to cover. Mostly because I wanted to immerse myself in it and take everything it had to offer.

I think that anyone who has listened, watched or actually met Ed Greenwood knows that the man does not live on this planet anymore. He has written Forgotten Realms for decades and after reading this I’m more than ever convinced that he sees, breathes, eats and lives Forgotten Realms. The man is there, telling us all about it through extended sending rituals. Some sourcebooks I’ve read try to take on an observer’s view point, but this is not quite the same. Ed Greenwood is not just an observer, he is an undeniable part of his imaginary world.

The book is split into six six chapters: Life in the Realms, Laws and Orders, Hearth and Home, Money Matters, Gods and Followers and The Art. Each chapter goes into various aspects of living in Faerun, and it delves so deep into the nitty gritty and mundane, that the mundane becomes fascinating. Whether it’s Cormyrian fashion you’re interested in, or an actual recipe for Baked Stirge on Toast – you’ll find it. Naturally, the book has a slant towards the adventuring career, as, after all, that’s what most player characters are.

But don’t mistake the book for one that’s just Forgotten Realms lore. It’s also Mr Greenwood’s way of sharing his DMing experience with us. He talks about his past campaigns, what preparation he’d done and how he kept on top of things. It’s a vault of knowledge and it addresses some very key issues that have arisen after fourth edition. A particular quote struck very close to heart:

When every player read every rulebook, “module”, and The Dragon issue, all too often every last spell, magic item, and monster would be part of players’ metagame knowledge. So, drown them in too much Realmslore for anyone to keep track of – and presto, it’s real roleplaying time again.

And I think, personally, that’s what I’ve really missed. Real roleplaying time. I’ve missed books that delve deep into lore and don’t let you go and Elminster’s Forgotten Realms is definitely it. What I want, I think, is for anyone who’s ever played fourth edition to pick up this book. And not just pick it up – read it. It brought me back to when I was twelve years old and read Lord of the Rings for the first time and got completely overwhelmed with that wonderful world. It’s the same feeling here. It’s overwhelming – in a good way.

Curse of Undeath is yet another installment in the wonderful miniature-skirmish-card game from Wizards of the Coast. Readers of my blog know that I have a lot of love for this game, and it comes as no surprise that I’m doing a review for this. I’d like to change things up a bit though and not just review the product but also talk about some strategy and share some of the experience that I’ve accumulated whilst playing Dungeon Command. November has been a crazy month with various tournaments and conventions so I barely had time to sit down and play with this new box, but what I’ve seen so far pleases me.

All of the boxes we’ve seen have been thematic and I expect this trend to continue. The theme extends into the art, card mechanics and inbuilt strategy all the way to what’s depicted on the tiles. The set oozes undeath and that’s how it should be. One of my friends pointed out earlier on when the game was just released that the ‘undead one’ will definitely feature some sort of a re-animation mechanic and he was spot on – zombies can come back from the figuratively dead. Although if I were honest, I was really wishing for an order card that would let you resurrect any miniature. This sort of card would be very powerful but there can always be drawbacks.

The miniatures are, as usual, lovely. I think in terms of sculpt quality, cool factor and paint job, these are easily the best out of the four sets. The skeletons come carrying axes but otherwise look exactly like the ones from Lords of Madness, which I think is a really cool touch. It’s a model that everyone liked but they’ve added a little variety to it and now your DnD game can feature an army of skeletons with different weapons. And to spruce up that army you also get another skeleton – with four arms and four swords and also a skeletal lancer on a horse. The other minies round out the undead theme with zombies, vampires, spirits and necromancers. Oh and let’s not forget the Dracolich.

The set focuses on Constitution as the main attribute. The undead are hardy and tough to kill – just as they should be. Every monster is iconically represented in the rules – a vampire will sap life, a zombie will come back from the dead, and a spirit will phase through walls. There is enough variety in the box to bring out various strategies and plenty of ideas for unique custom warbands.

Speaking of which, I’d like to talk some strategy. Many have drawn similarities to this game with Magic: the Gathering and I have to agree. Just looking at making custom warbands makes you realise that you probably have to quickly abandon the idea of a ragtag army of various miniatures and if you really want to play this game competitively – invest in some multiples. Whether it’s buying a second (or third, or fourth) box, or just getting singles from eBay, the fact of the matter is – it has to be done. One box is just not enough. Of course, if you’re not planning to play competitively and just want to play this game with some friends on your kitchen table – that’s fine. One box is probably all you need.

I’ve been toying with the idea of some custom warbands and now that Curse of Undeath is out this is what I’ve settled on for my current army. Since I haven’t had a chance to really play this competitively, it’s hard to know what the meta-game is like. Speaking of which, if anyone fancies playing in a Dungeon Command tournament within a reasonable distance of London, let me know and I’d be happy to organize one if there are enough people wanting to play. But I digress – back to strategy. As I’ve said, it’s tough to penetrate the meta-game without first hand experience, but I’ve decided to settle on a CON and STR based warband. Morale is what keeps you alive and removing your opponent’s morale is what wins you games. My warband focuses on those two aspects solely – hitting hard and staying alive. Here’s the list:

Creatures:

• 4 x Dwarven Defender
• 4 x Feral Troll
• 4 x Dragon Knight
• 2 x Vampire Stalker
• 2 x Skeletal Tomb Guardian

Order Cards:

• 4 x Level Up
• 4 x Defensive Advantage
• 4 x Unbreakable
• 2 x Mortal Wound
• 4 x Undaunted Surge
• 3 x Feral Vitality
• 4 x Killing Strike
• 3x Invigorating Smash
• 2x Daring Attack

Commander:

• Rhynseera the Alarphon

This warband is all about the Feral Troll. His regenerative ability plus an insane amount of hitpoints make this guy a powerhouse to be feared and respected. He is also level 5 STR and CON, which means that he can land Killing Strike after Killing Strike for those 100 points of damage all day long. You want to play Level Up on him as soon as possible and surround him with Dwarven Defenders. Don’t underestimate these guys. Whilst Dragon Knight is the only card that innately benefits from their Shield Block ability, there are four Level Ups in the order deck to make anyone an adventurer. I was toying with the idea of swapping the Defenders with Clerics, but clerics can only heal once per turn. Our army size is always going to be small and we are likely to have multiple hits on one target during the same round. The Defenders just shrug more damage.

The Dragon Knight is a good replacement for when you can’t find a Feral Troll. He doesn’t have regen but he hits just a bit harder and is also level 5 STR and CON, meaning he can play any card in our order deck. The rest of the cast are support actors. The Vampire Stalker is a hardy guy who can deal some decent damage and the Skeletal Tomb Guardian is a wonderful response to being swarmed by a lot of guys.

Some cards in the deck are really self explanatory. I went with a three-of of Feral Vitality and Invigorating Smash to counterbalance bad draws. Whilst Invigorating Smash is easily better, only 8 of our 16 creatures can play the card. Feral Vitality is only inaccessible to the Dwarven Defenders. Mortal Wound is a great trick paired with Undaunted Surge. Talking of Undaunted Surge, this is one tricky card. On the one hand, you’ll want to hold on to it, to play it at an appropriate time to maximize on the effect. However, with creatures staying alive for so long, it makes sense to play it early and stack up on those damage bonuses, especially if you can untap your guys with Daring Attack.

The only thing I’m not entirely sure about in the warband is the commander itself. Her ability to cycle through the order deck is very important because you want to find that Level Up as soon as possible. However, the very small creature hand leaves something to be desired. I’m not sure how the warband plays out with another commander but I’ve been lucky with Rhynseera so far. Your ideal starting hand is a single Dwarven Defender and a Dragon Knight or Feral Troll. Play both of them on turn one and let them hang out or collect some treasure. Your enemies won’t be able to reach you just yet. Pair them up and play defensively. You might lose out on some early treasure using this strategy but don’t let it bother you too much. Build up your leadership and then dish out the pain.

The One Ring roleplaying game is currently in my list of favorite games. I’ve recently ran a mini campaign in my FLGS, Chaos City Comics to a lot of success and after the current season of DnD Encounters is complete we are looking to possibly resume it. What I really like about The One Ring is that, in essence, it is a narrative driven game, but provides a few rules for character customization and advancement to make it interesting to those of us who still like to spend countless hours slaying monsters in dungeons. Loremaster’s Screen and the Lake-Town Sourcebook is a double packaged product that provides exactly what it says on the tin.

The game isn’t without it’s faults (but what game is?). And it might seem strange to release two diverse products packaged into one. What if I don’t want the screen? Or I’m not that bothered about the sourcebook? Well, to be honest, both are  needed. As someone who’s run the game before, having these in my hands feels kind of like a relief. For one, The One Ring is a narrative heavy game but within itself doesn’t include a lot of information on how to build narratives for GMs. Yes, the Loremaster’s Book has some general information on locales, movers and shakers and the world history. But when it comes to specifics the game is lacking. There are many locations within the world like Dale, Woodland Hall or Esgaroth, the Lake-Town itself, but none are thoroughly detailed. Whilst this is really not a problem for someone who’s heavy on Tolkien lore, I myself know very little in comparison. I’ve seen the films, I’ve read the books a few times (ages ago), and I stared at the Silmarillion very hard in hopes of penetrating it with my mind. Still I found myself clearly in need of information about the inner workings of locales. It’s not a detrimental problem as all it takes is a bit of creativity on one’s part. But sometimes it’s just nice to open up a book and let it do all the hard work for you.

And this is exactly what the Lake-Town Sourcebook does. And then some. We get a lovely detailed map of the city, with various locations marked on the map with numbers. Those numbers are then referenced within the text, describing the places of interest. The descriptions themselves provide pretty much what you would expect, some detail on the visuals and information on various NPCs that you might find and relevant mini stat blocks with a few skills per character type. The book then proceeds to offer various other little fixes to the game. The one thing my players were always confused about was treasure. The problem for them was not only that it wasn’t tangible (it’s literally just measured in points of treasure), but that there wasn’t that much to do with it. I understand why it’s been written like that. The focus of the game shouldn’t be on monetary gain. The type of characters played in The One Ring are all bold heroes that put material wealth behind them. But I would argue though that it would need to be either removed altogether or given some purpose. To my delight, there’s not only a system that converts treasure points into a form of currency, but also provides new fellowship phase undertakings (for those unfamiliar with the fellowship phase, it’s meant to represent downtime between adventures and allows you to improve your character) that enables you to spend the treasure within the market to purchase items that improve certain skills, which have otherwise been very difficult to improve.

The sourcebook isn’t all patches though. For such a small book there’s a wealth of material and exciting additions to the game. First of all we get a new culture, The Men of the Lake, which itself is a derivative of the Bardings. There’s also cultural rewards and virtues to accompany the new ‘race’, providing some neat abilities for various types of characters. We also get some information on the Day of the Black Arrow, an archery event meant to honor Bard the Dragonslayer. A chunk of the book is devoted to this event and rules are presented on how to GM this specific archery competition with various skill challenges. A fellowship undertaking of herb gathering in the marshes will allow access to various herbs described in the book, with potential bonuses that aid the party. For the adventurers who like to stray too far into the marshes three new monsters appearing in the booklet might pose a big threat, including a hulking Marsh-ogre, who’s mangle ability allows him to hit twice. The book is finished off with a sample player character belonging to the new culture, and a blank character sheet with the Lake-men specifics pre-filled.

The screen is beautiful. That’s it. It’s just gorgeous.

Oh, that’s not enough you say? What’s behind the screen you say? Well, EVERYTHING. Everything is behind the screen. Every little rule thing that you couldn’t remember before is there.  From healing, to roleplaying, to monster abilites, to corruption tests. Rules for combat. It’s all there. I can see this screen simply becoming invaluable. I have a love-hate relationship with them as I hate having a barrier between me and my players. But this is just so useful, barriers-be-damned. The quality of the manufacturing is great; the cardboard is possibly the sturdiest I’ve encountered in a screen.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the product because it addresses all the little issues that have been nagging me since I started GMing The One Ring. This is clear evidence that the people at Cubicle 7 listen to their players’ concerns and provide answers. Which is all anyone could ask for from a games publishing company. I can’t wait to find out what’s in store for The One Ring in the future and highly recommend the Loremaster’s Screen and Lake-Town Sourcebook.

p.s. To those of you who do own the game (or are looking at owning it), here are a few handy links that you might have not yet discovered.

If you GMed this game before, you know that the index isn’t quite up to scratch. Here’s an updated index from the developer’s website – Index (right-click to save)

The rules for journeys have been revised and now work much better. If you haven’t yet, check out the new journey rules – Journeys revised (right-click to save)

There’s a thread on the Cubicle 7 forum that combines a lot of useful information + fan made content. Definitely worth checking out.

When I say Australia, I don’t mean the semi-successful Baz Lurhmann musical featuring Nicole Kidman and Wolverine, I mean actual Australia. Or the act of colonizing it to be precise. This is what Durance, the new indie role-playing game from Jason Morningstar, is all about. Here’s the premise: the future has too many delinquents. They aren’t bad enough to murder, but too irredeemable to reprogram. So the government has a genius idea of putting them all on a ship and sending them to some far flung planet in order to settle it and, hopefully, in the future it will generate profit. As all government plans, it’s executed badly and people on the colony face starvation and other difficulties.

If you’ve read my previous post, you know that I’ve facilitated this game at Indie Con 2012. I’ve done it with minimal preparation – the plan to run it came together only the day before. I’ve read the rulebook once, and whilst it seemed like I had a pretty good grasp on the concept and rules, I was still a little unsure of how it would all play out (if at all). But this is a general feeling I get with all indie games, and they always work out so I worried needlessly. Here’s what it’s all about.

You start by completing a planetary survey and a colony record. Passing a leaflet around you mark things that you think are true or false about the planet and colony, then you pick a unifying drive, such as status or control, for example. You create a list of notables, characters representing the social strata of the power-ladders for Authority and Convicts and give them oaths, things that they swear to never ever do. Then everyone spends some time fleshing out the details and voila, you have yourself a planet, a colony and some characters, all ready to participate in a story that is played out in scenes, much like Fiasco. The difference though is that one player is always the guide, and his notables mostly don’t participate in scenes (a rotating role). Instead, she asks a formulated question that should help other players decide what the scene is about, what notables participate, and how the oaths might be pushed towards a breaking point. Whenever there is uncertainty in the scene, some dice are rolled to determine which drives take precedence and the scene is played out accordingly. It’s all very clever but I kind of don’t really want to get into the mechanics, they’re there, in the book. If you wanna find out more – go and get it. It’s great.

I really want to talk about my personal experience of playing the game, expectations, outcomes, etc. So, when you hear the phrase ‘the new Jason Morningstar game’, you instantly think: the new Fiasco!, right? Well, as you’re reading the book, you quickly realize that that simply isn’t the case. It has similarities yes. In both games you spend some time creating an ensemble of characters and then play out scenes to determine their fate. That’s about as close as it gets though. Whilst Fiasco has a unifying theme of corrupt characters, it’s genres are broad and settings nearly limitless. Durance is what it is, space colonization with convicts.

My other three players weren’t familiar with Durance at all. I explained the rules for the setup and off we went creating our planet and colony. The book said it would take about fifteen minutes. The book lied. It took us over an hour. Yup. Over an hour. Which is great really. And I imagine that the setup time decreases as you become more accustomed to the game. We’ve ended up with an oil rich planet that ‘changes’ you if you spend too much time outside of the colony. The base itself was a strictly regimented authoritative nightmare that focused solely on expansion and food production was non-existent. Our Governor was a man who didn’t tolerate incompetence and the Dimber Damber, the dismissively named shadow criminal overlord, was deliberately slowing down all production. And the colony was naturally driven by control.

The game itself mechanically is all about breaking oaths. As soon as a number of them equal to the number of players are broken, the game ends. And as soon as one is broken, the dynamics of the planet/colony/status/drives changes. The governor was the first to fall. After numerous incidents he stormed out to arrest the Dimber Damber only to find out that he couldn’t even do that. He tolerated his own incompetence long enough. He broke his oath. The colony fell under corrupt criminal control. Whatever was ‘out there’, started to seem much better. People started to leave. At the end of the game, most of the colony escaped, and the last scene was between the Dimber Damber’s lieutenant and the leader of the bolters, the mutated men and women who have adapted to the environment and became ‘something else’.

Because players always get to establish what the scene is about before it begins, there was always a heavy amount of discussion. We usually dismissed the first idea that came to the table. The instinct was to dig deeper, find something a little more interesting. Whereas Fiasco games are ‘Yes, and’, this was more ‘No, but how about’. And then ‘no’ was usually targeted at self. As in, no, I can think of something better. Which is actually something I prefer I think. The gonzo aspect was almost non-existent. Instead we had hard-hitting drama in a tough environment. You can usually tell a good game apart in the convention by how much cheering and laughter there is. Ours must have looked like the dullest of them all. But we, the players, knew better. We were experiencing a gritty story and it had us captivated.

Every scene usually ended up as a confrontation in dialogue between two characters. It would reach a certain point when we didn’t know which character should give in. We then rolled for Uncertainty (a game mechanic meant to move the game along and suggest options), and proceeded accordingly. If at any point two of the dice return with the same result, an event happens. Strangely enough, every time it happened in our game, the event was ridiculously apt for the current situation. I guess it was partly luck but probably some clever design techniques were involved in writing those events.

The game ended fairly soon. I’d say the total playtime was around three and a half hours. I think we were conscious of the fact that we had a limited time slot and all pushed for a slightly quicker game, resolving character arcs fairly quickly. In fact, two of the oaths were broken in a single scene. A lag (convict) broke her oath of never trusting again when she was trying to escape the colony into the wilderness and encountered an unsure marine perimeter guard, who decided to break his oath of never going ‘out there’ and left together with her. Quickly the last scene followed, giving us a glimpse of the life outside and letting us know that the colony would never be the same again. And then the game just ended. We decided to narrate a little followup on all our notables, talking about their fates. And now I just want to find out what the next story is. What will our next planet be like? How will the power dynamics shift? Durance has me captivated and I simply want more.

Indie con is a hard sell to people who haven’t been to it or don’t know much about indie role playing games. The term ‘indie’ is easy to dismiss, as in they are games that weren’t good enough for major publishers. I won’t try and convince you otherwise. I’ll just say that I’ve had the best weekend this year and played some of the best games to date.

This year it wasn’t just me and Elaine, we took some cohorts with us to share a lodge. The convention worked out at 60 pounds per person with pretty neat accommodation included for four nights and a total of  10 gaming slots ( I only went to 6 and was pretty shattered afterwards (yes, gaming can be knackering especially if you forgo sleep in favor of preparation for GMing)). Aside from Elaine, my other lodgemates were new to Indie con and all of them attested to having a great experience.

It’s hard to single out any game I’ve played/GMed/facilitated as the best one, so I’ll try and briefly talk about each of them. I kicked the con off with Jaws of the Six Serpents, a sword and sorcery style setting governed by a FATE-like system where a character sheet consists of a number of vague descriptors and invoking them in role play allows you to add bonuses to dice rolls. It was fairly straightforward, and a good cast of players plus a  more than competent GM meant that we were well on our way to an amazing game. I checked out the core book later and it quickly went on my shopping list, although I found the art somewhat lacking. Not that aesthetics are really important, but some inspirational artwork can go a long way.

Next I GMed a World of Darkness adventure, which went quite well, but as far as I’m concerned it’s old news so we’re  moving straight on to Fiasco, and specifically the October play set of the month – Back to the Old House, written by Sean Buckley from Leisure Games. I decided to take the observers seat on that one and simply facilitated the game by clarifying rules to first-time players and asking a question or two to move the plot along. It was a joy to watch, the game played out like no other Fiasco game I’ve seen before. Whilst the play set certainly delivers for those who are looking for gonzo, the players went for a more low-key approach and before I knew it, a great Stephen King style story emerged, with a poignant and heartfelt ending.

Afterwards I found myself on a table with a demo of the now revamped 6d6 system and a campaign setting titled 6d6 Hellenic. I’ve played the older version of 6d6 and wasn’t really taken by it, although to be fair, I am not really a fan of generic systems. The new version is definitely and improvement but I still think the game is lacking. It simply didn’t feel finished, many aspects were lacking necessary polish. Kudos to the guys who wrote the Hellenic setting, James and Mark Foster. They’ve certainly done their research and it felt like the world building was carefully executed. The new version has now been fully funded on Kickstarter and I’m really happy for the publishers – my only hope is that the game sees some much needed revision before it hits the printers.

And then I had a chance to play Durance – the new Jason Morningstar (acclaimed Fiasco developer) game of space colonisation gone wrong. This kickstarter funded game has a lot of things going for it. I want to analyse the game thoroughly in a proper review so all I’m going to say is that if you’re expecting another Fiasco – you’re not gonna get it. And the game is all better for it. Durance provides a deep, low-key drama experience with some clever development techniques.

My last game was a yet to be published Sci-Fi Beta Kappa. The premise is simple: you are Alien students trapped in a lousy university on Earth, or Terra, and all you wanna do is throw a crazy party of epic proportions. This is pretty much National Lampoon’s with extra-terrestrials. The game is very gonzo and has an interesting ‘never fail at anything’ mechanic, allowing for the most improbable to come true. Our game, for example, featured, amongst other crazy things, six pink painted elephants pulling the dean’s car as a sleigh whilst we slew a sacrificial x-mas dinner (university mascot and last eagle on earth). I felt like a GM was an unnecessary element and the writer was nice enough to hear out my criticism and promised to send me a copy of the game document so I could try out a GMless variant.

The ones that got away: I really wanted to play Hillfolk, the new drama focused game from Robin D. Laws. Unfortunately, the game I signed up for was cancelled. I also never got a chance to play Microscope, which was a big hit at the convention. My lodgemates also highly enjoyed Dead of Night, Icons, Tenra Bansho Zero and Squadron UK. I’m sure I’ll get a chance to play them on my trip next year. See you there.

As with any expandable game, there are different levels of immersion. You can limit your warband (and your opponent’s warband) to a single box, but as you play the game more, you’ll want to expand your army and it’s capabilities. The Tyranny of Goblins faction pack is a great way to add new miniatures to your batallion and introduce some new strategies to your order deck. The great thing about Dungeon Command is it’s unique ability to blend elements from miniature skirmish games and collectible card games without seeming like it strays too much into the territory of one or the other.

But before we get to the gameplay itself, let’s not forget that terrain is a very important part of any skirmish game, and we get four new tiles in the set with some very interesting features. The tiles have great ways to create defensive forts, whilst sneakily unleashing your reinforcements with cards like Into the Fray. The great thing about the tiles is that when you own more than one faction pack, you can mix and match them to create whatever terrain suits your warband.

All these obstacles are there for a reason. Goblins are sneaky, and if you command and army of them, you have to be sneaky too. With very few hitpoints, they might seem like a pushover army at first, and hopefully that’s what your opponent is thinking when you play an order card that changes everything. He or she might be wiser next time, but there are enough tricks to keep your opponent always second-guessing themselves. For example, playing against the Cormyrians I’ve drawn in my opponent’s army close to my starting area and have left quite a few of his soldiers damaged. Because of my commander, I was able to deploy creatures at the start of my turn, and decided to introduce the bugbear into the battlefield who untaps every time a creature dies next to it. So as long as I could keep killing things on the bugbear’s activation, I could untap him and attack again. This way I took down two enemy miniatures with the bugbear, damaged a third one and finished it off with a different unit.

And yes, the goblins ARE cannon fodder. After they’ve done the damage, they are very likely to die. But that’s OK, as you’ve got bigger things coming from the reserves. Your hobgoblin soldiers are only Level 3 but have a whopping 70 hitpoints and can withstand copious amounts of punishment. It takes forever to take them down, and in the meantime you can wilt away the opposition. You’ve still got the best part of your army in the reserves, that being the Troll and the Horned Devil. Your opponent will have to put everything he’s got to take one of them down, and even then it might not be enough. To be fair, in my first game I never even got to play those two as I’ve managed to strike a final blow to my adversary’s morale without having to deploy them. Having said that, if I did need to deploy them I had a potent combination of order cards in my hand to make sure they stayed alive. Mortal Wound is an instant attachment that prevents all damage but kills your unit during the deployment phase, meaning they have one more activation left in them. However, Rally removes all attachments from a friendly unit, so my big guy stays alive and wreaks havoc to puny humans.

The game still features extra cards that let you use your new minis in the Adventure System boardgames, especially Wrath of Ashardalon where these critters might find a new thematic home. The quality of the things inside the box is the same as the previous sets. The paint-job is OK, but as with all pre-painted minis you might want to do some adjustments of your own. The Horned Devil is definitely an exception to that – I wouldn’t want to change anything about him as he looks awesome straight out of the box. The cards are still made out of the same cardstock but that is to be expected. Don’t be fooled by the aesthetics though – this game is all about the gameplay, which at the moment is unique and unrivaled. And I’ve seen singles sales surfacing on ebay which can only mean that there is demand and the game is doing well.

All in all, I would recommend this faction pack to anyone who enjoys playing sneaky tricks and big brutes – it’s tremendous fun and I can’t wait to play it again. And don’t forget, the fourth faction pack – Curse of Undeath – comes out in November introducing even more variety to the game, followed by the fifth one, Blood of Gruumsh in February next year.

I thought I’d add a few pictures of the miniatures as well, although one of them came out slightly blurry, my apologies.