‘Born of the Gods’ Wish List

Born of the Gods is just around the corner and the preview season has once again started. Its not in full force just yet, but will probably be next week, so its a good time to look at what we’d want from the set. Problem here is that its the middle set, so we can’t really know what to expect as some of the cream of the block will undoubtedly be in the Journey into Nyx. I can still wish, though.

Now that we have a Simic (or Kruphex) planeswalker, we can cross that one off the list, but there are other things I would really like to see. I don’t necessarily expect to see any of these, but that’s not the point.

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RPGs and What We Can Learn from ‘Understanding Comics’

I recently read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Its a very early take on comics (although as its from 1993, this tells us more about how comics are or were regarded as unimportant than anything else) presented as a nonfiction comic. This form is actually great as the repeated visuals are much better way of bringing back concepts than just referencing them. It seems quite highly regarded by other comic artists and writers.

One of the major themes of the book is what the artist can leave to the imagination. For example: Two disparate pictures will force us to make the leap between them. But there’s more.

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Getting Back to Painting

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Once upon a time I was an active Warhammer Fantasy Battle player and even more active with painting and converting minis. I have been away from the hobby for a couple of years and with the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign ahead I decided to do some minis for the game.

What did not surprise me when I went to get new paints was that they were in fact new. Out with the shades and familiar names, in with a completely new range of colors and types of paints. Though they are again named with overcomplicated names they were not too different from what I had used to deal with.

Base colors are apparently what was called Foundation a couple of years ago and Shades have replaced Washes. Regular colors are now called Layers and then there are couple of new comers (at least for me). Continue reading

Zombie Dice

One of my pet peeves with boards games is too much randomness in games which take a long time. With high variance, its possible that I spend most of a long game doing pretty much nothing. This has happened to me in Arkham Horror many, many times, where I feel like I can’t contribute at all after taking an early hit and then spending most of the game half-dead and without equipment. Also, I very much dislike games where an early mishap means I can’t ever catchup.

However, this applies only to long games. In short games, which will be over shortly anyway, this is actually beneficial. Losing early doesn’t mean I’ll be just an onlooker for the rest of the game, which can last for hours. I might have things to do, but if I know I will never catch up, that’s not going to make the game fun for me.

… and then there’s Zombie Dice.

In Zombie Dice, you are a zombie and you are out for brrRRAAAIIINS!! Gladly, these are not the stupidest zombies. They have the ability to somewhat discern the dangers presented by their prey. On the other hand, that doesn’t really stop them that often.

The game is played with thirteen dice, six of which are common prey (green dice), some are pretty dangerous (yellow dice) and some are vey dangerous (red dice). Each dice has brains on some of its sides. This is what you want. You’re goal on each of your turns is to collect as many brains as possible without taking too many hits from shotguns (another one to three sides of the die, depending on the color). The dice also have footprints on them on some sides. Those you reroll.

Zombie dice

By Lauri Maijala

Your turn goes as follows: Take three dice at random and roll them. Move all the brain dice to one side and all the shotgun shots to another side. Then replenish the dice randomly and roll again. You can stop after any roll and get points equal to the number of brains you have. However, if at any time you get three shotgun wounds, you lose all your brains and its the next player’s turn.

So, all in all, a very basic push-your-luck game. However, since this only takes minutes, its great. Basic strategy is pretty simple, but there definitely is decision making. It isn’t just a pure luck game. You need to know when to roll the dice and when to stay where you are.

I like it. Its quick, its fun, it has nice flavor. Not very in-depth, but no need for that in such a short game. It doesn’t take much room, so you can take it pretty much anywhere, although the container is pretty big and awkward compared to the contents, but its also a great tool for the game.

Vikings: Berserkers

We’ve previously established that one of our major themes and keywords is berserkers. Berserker means the following: Whenever the creature is blocked or blocks, you can pay some mana and trigger the berserker ability (although its not worded as a trigger, but an activated ability). This gives the creature some temporary bonuses on power and toughness, as well as indestructibility. However, each of them comes with a negative consequence. Its hard to try to contain a berserker, after all.

This is actually the real challenge. The game has shied away from drawbacks since the early days. Although they have returned somewhat in the past few sets, there currently isn’t a real tradition of those. Well, gladly, finding enough flavorful ones for each color is pretty easy. So, here goes (in the priority order set previously, meaning RBGUW).

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Lauri’s New Year’s Resolutions

I might begin with quoting Aki’s post about resolutions. But screw that. I’m cutting (almost) straight into the good stuff.

Role-Playing Games: Finishing What I’ve Started

I’ll finish writing Wayward Sons and write the finale to the Master of Shadows-campaign for Liber Fanatica. The AWhack is more likely to happen but I am still so ashamed that I haven’t written the last part of this WFRP campaign that I just have to do it.

Role-Playing Games: RopeCon to the Max

This year’s Ropecon was more or less lost to me but next year I’ll GM something and try to participate at least into three sessions.

Role-Playing Games: More is more

I’ll be running too campaigns next year and I promise to keep them both afloat. I’ll try to catch as many games as I can, which should be relatively easy if Aki keeps his promise to run more games. This might mean that I’ll have to sacrifice some time from EDH but that’s no big deal. I think I’ll get enough of that once summer comes.

This Blog: More Everything

I’m constantly harassing Aki to use more images and others from our gaming group to write something. I will promise to write more by myself next year. I wont promise that I will write more than Aki. I can try to write at last half as much as him.

That is a lot of writing. And mostly in English. Therefor I promise to write something in Finnish too. It has been too long since I’ve done that.

Aki’s New Year’s Resolutions

I think New Year’s resolutions are a pretty stupid idea. Humans are weirdly programmed. Generally its enough to talk about something we want to do. People who share their goals don’t reach them as often as people who don’t. You get some of the sensation of accomplishment simply from talking about it and for most people that’s enough. Actual accomplishments require actual work and that’s hard. Today’s culture is much more about instant gratification than hard work.

Although that’s clearly a generilization, you should not – under any circumstances – make New Year’s Resolutions.

With that in mind, here are mine.

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Normal People (as Characters)

Look, you might not know it, but your life is boring. Tedious, tiresome, dull, monotonous, uninteresting, trite. You might not realize it, as you are living it, but if anyone would have to watch your life for more than a minute at a random moment of your life, what would they see? You sleep, work, eat, shower, use the bathroom, consume some entertainment often passively, stare at your computer’s screen, whatever. Your life is very, very boring. Its probable that even your sexlife would be boring from the perspective of someone simply watching it, unless they have very voyeristic tendencies.

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Structure of an Adventure

Couple of years back I bumped into this video:

If you don’t care to watch it, I fully understand. The basic message is this:

During the time it takes for you characters to rise one level, they should encounter the following:

1 easy combat encounter,
3 standard combat encounters,
1 hard combat encounter,
1 very hard combat encounter,
2 skill challenges, and
2 roleplaying challenges.

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