The Glade 4.0

June/July wrap up.

So the last session of Here I Stand ended when Germany became a nation suddenly at the end of turn four controlling all six electorates for a twelve point boost. In short emperor Charles was too busy dealing with the Turks on two fronts to realize the religious dissent happening under his nose was going to turn into a full scale uprising.

Grouse and I started another pathfinder card campaign, with the monk and the sorceress. Both rely heavily on deck cycling so they are a good match.

Tried out game of thrones the board game. got to be king, still lost to those dang Starks. Is Okay, but I'm not really into the IP enough to love it. Feels like Kingmaker in game of thrones, only with Wildling attacks instead of Parliament (There's a joke in there somewhere...)

[url="http://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com"]Sentinels of multiverse[/url] cooperative card game is awesome. I played Legacy (the Superman Archetype.) I enjoyed Legacy (making myself immune to damage and taking hits for my team). Also I like the idea of an increasingly powerful family of metahumans watching over America since the founding from one generation to the next (hence Legacy). It was touch and go but we won. If you love superheroes you must try this.

Looking forward to twilight imperium and another stint as Holy Roman Emperor in weeks to come. I'll keep you posted.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Found it!
What's the Difference between Parliament and a Wildling attack?

Ones a gibbering mass of bizarre humanoids bent on pillage and destruction and the other a fictional creation of G.R.R. Martin.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I thought Parliment was George Clinton's band?

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Raell Kromwell

Maybe...

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Sorry, I was trying to make a joke about the "gibbering mass of bizarre humanoids".

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Raell Kromwell

I know. It's all good.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Nice. Myself, I played my first (and second) round of Super Dungeon Explore last weekend. It was a good time, and turned out a bit harder than I anticipated. Not sure whether I'd go so far as to rank it above Descent 2nd Ed. Charming and pretty easy to teach, for sure.

This weekend, I'm hoping to find time to break out my new copy of Sails of Glory. Reading the rules in preparation is only solidifying my certainty that my first instinct was spot on and I'll really enjoy this game.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Since you brought up descent. Dan is working on rules for Descent style WWII man to man ground skirmish.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

My kids and I have been playing quite a bit of Escape: Curse of the Temple (have to use sand timer because the soundtrack scares my daughter...looking forward to her getting over this) and Forbidden Desert. Hope to have an adult Twilight Struggle session Thursday night. We'll see...

We ceased playing Super Dungeon Explore when we figured out you'd either won or lost once you got done choosing your party and then the Consul chose his minions.

We played Thunderstone a couple of times, although it's hard to say if it's worthwhile. It may be that we don't have a sufficient cardbase, but then the trouble becomes which expansions make it a good game, and which make it worse.

Seasons, on the other hand, is pretty interactive and has some better enjoyability to it.

Seven Wonders is a welcome addition, especially as it supports more than the usual 2-4 players, so we can play that when nothing else is in the offing, especially as there are some people who do not like Talisman.

Talisman is a great game, some people are just self-absorbed spoilsports.

We managed to get a five-player Yedo game, although one of the guys had to bail about halfway through, but then Coro managed to Assassinate the Emperor, which is very hard and he was the recipient of many accolades afterwards. I was the recipient of about three consecutive turns worth of being screwed over by both the game itself and the other players, lost my tempo and ultimately lost the game.

We tried to play a 4-player Krosmaster:Arena, but it's really not made for that type of play, and it shows. Stick to 2-player matches. And don't let anyone use the convention-exclusive characters.

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This is.. basically why I hadn't come to a certain judgement on this one yet. I was looking at some of the mechanics, and some of the party interactions and building options, and came to the conclusion that you could most certainly hose yourself on party selection against some minions -- but I wasn't sure whether there was some well-rounded party that could actually be prepared for a variety of stuff, or whether it essentially boiled down to a rock-paper-scissors selection between the party selection and the Consul.

I've got Seasons, and we've played a few games, but not enough (yet?) for me to really get a handle on the card pool and the interactions and strategy it breeds in more than the loosest senses.

Talisman is a terrible game, and if that makes me a self-absorbed spoilsport to recognize it, so be it.

Seven Wonders is pretty neat, and one of these days I'll actually hone my instincts to perform more consistently with it.

Oh! If "more than 4 players" is something that you need from time to time, Avalon (or the second edition of The Resistance) is great fun. Werewolf/Mafia becomes way more fun when there are a variety of information vectors and you don't have to almost exclusively rely on reading people. It also has the advantage of not eliminating players as the game progresses.

Eclipse plays 6 (or 9, with the expansion) in a great 4x strategy game. I can't recommend it enough, though it can be a bit intimidating if some of your players don't like lots of counters.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

There are a couple of party combinations which are essentially unbeatable. If the players do not choose one of those, there are some minion compositions which are essentially unbeatable. There do not seem to be any matchups which are close enough that tactics will make or break the game.

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We've been picking up our D&D playing in a big way here (especially with the release of the fifth edition, which is easily my favorite yet.) Somehow this has led me to jump into miniature painting as I'm putting together a miniature for each of the player's characters.

Sentinels of the multiverse is indeed awesome. I have at least four expansions for it. I love it. I love how the decks play very differently and they are all fun.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I am waiting for the books to come out before I cast judgement on the new D&D system. I really want to see the monsters manual. I've not messed around with the play test stuff but I did read the rules they put out last week. I like the advantage/disadvantage rules. Once the DM's guide comes out in November and I get a chance to dig into it all, I will make up my mind then. My group might not want to switch but...

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Raell Kromwell

I wasn't impressed with the playtest. I was less impressed with how they dragged their feet on development. The state of the public playtest last year led me to believe that fifth edition D&D won't be ready until 2017.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Not much wrong with pathfinder.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Sentinels has an app for villian/location/hero matching ups, not sure if it is completely random or has some balancing in it.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

We'd played the heck out of the 5th edition playtest, and I'd long been impressed by how easy it is to run while still allowing a lot of options in gameplay. It's the first edition that I've been comfortable with running completely off the top of my head, with no rules or materials on hand; because it is that easy to adjudicate.

Little things like breaking skills away from being so solidly linked also was kinda awesome. (Someone tries to sneak by hiding in shadows? Dex check, as it's always been...trying to blend in with a crowd though? Use Cha for the stealth check.)

For a long time it's been the system we've been using to play during lunch at work etc, too, since it plays fast enough to be able to run a quick adventure with quite a few encounters in an hour.

The three main books will be out this year. That being said, I still don't understand why it is going to take so long between the PHB and the DMG.

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Raell Kromwell

Throughout the entire public playtest, they didn't generate any content. They wrote one or two new classes, removed a class, and added levels 6-10. That's what they got done in a year.

I don't know what they're putting in the three main books.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Shouldn't you release the PHB, MM and DMG all in one push?

I mean, how do you run a game without a DMG or Monsters?

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Holy shitsnacks!

**** if I know. They put out a free PDF file with Cleric, Fighter, Thief and wizard rules and basic combat rules. Some of the spells at first level are way the **** over powered. That is, how I see it anyway since I don't know what a **** monster looks like HP wise.

There are links at the link.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/67890

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Raell Kromwell

First edition AD&D had a year delay between the PHB and DMG.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

There really is a lot of stuff they worked on that wasn't in the public playtest though. (And class progression to level 20 is in my playtest files from September of last year, with multi-classing as well.)



It's actually interesting how they're handling it. For one, the game is set up so that any published adventure you can play with no other purchase required (whether the adventure is published for retail, or one of the free adventures that you can find on Enworld for instance). The Starter Set that was just released plays really well and has enough content to keep most groups busy for a couple months at least (We've been playing it for about 4 hours a week for two weeks now, and still have a lot to go.)

And Basic D&D (the free download) is getting expanded to include some monsters etc. It really is geared such that you can play a campaign up to level 20 without needing to purchase anything, with just a lot more options if you buy the rulebooks.