The Skeletons... with Lego Creationary... in Space...

First, The Quiet Year

I had a brain fart a week back, when I was cleaning up my office (aka man cave). I have a box of Lego Creationary (the Lego version of Pictionary) that I picked up at a thrift store for $5. I'm not too excited about the game itself, but didn't just want to pour all those Legos into the great Lego pit that is my home.

So, I've taken it, and now I have a box of Lego for use in The Quiet Year. I bring a few base plates, although it can be more creative and fun to play without that, and just use the table! I mean, come on! Three dimension map! The pieces are very simple, but like The Quiet Year, the point is to draw simple and fast, and these Legos suits perfectly for that level of abstraction.

I think similar to The Quiet Year mandating pictures about the size of a quarter and taking less than 30 seconds, I would mandate each "drawing" creation take up to 6 pieces.

I haven't run it yet, but I have it packed for game cons a-coming and want to play test it with some folks.

Next, The Skeletons... with Music

Now it gets really exciting. I've been working on a series of soundtracks for The Skeletons role-playing game (discussed in blog post past). I've garnered about 20+ tracks, and categorized them into the game's four different phases.

Ambient tracks serve very well for the three different Time Passes phases, when you may be sitting in silence for 30 seconds to a few minutes. and also as Intruders.

More paced and flavored tracks work well for the Intruders phase, when action and disassociation occurs.

I have setup 5 separate curated tracklists, that I've named Classic Crypt, Desert Sands, Eternal Soldier, Moving Death, and Space Desolation. I very much want to test these out, as Harry and I both agreed that our session of The Skeletons with background music was very fulfilling.

I'll post the track titles at some point after I do a little testing and finalizing, in case people are interested.

And finally... mashup: The Skeletons + Music + Lego

The plan: To run The Skeletons. In a space scenario. With my Space Desolation tracks. And use the Creationary set as the means for the players to "draw" the ship. You can use pieces like lines to outline things. You can stack things on each other. And I'll even provide little minifigures in space suits, if that takes your fancy.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a genius... but who's kidding who here? 

Feel free to steal the idea! I'd love to hear how it goes if you do anything like this. If not, maybe I'll see you at a con coming soon (Strategicon, GoPlayNW, Big Bad Con...)

Dungeon World with kiddies

Not an ASTG meetup

I had an Indie RPG night planned, but due to various illness, busy-ness, and unresponsiveness (the horrible nesses), it had to be postponed. Kind of bummed because I was hoping to push that Dungeon World + Microscope madness, but now it'll just have to wait, and meanwhile the memories of all that fade.

Emerald Knights Comics and Games

I was already driving around the area, so went in to one of my larger, local gaming stores, Emerald Knights Comics and Games in Burbank. They have a huge collection of comics, and very nice collection of board games. The RPGs that are stocked are the main D&D and Pathfinder fare, with some sprinkling of other larger options, but no indie press stuff. They have a full wall of Reaper minis though, so you can shop and pick things that look fun.

I picked up a few comics, since my daughter is just now starting to get deep into graphic novels. Was looking for Ms. Marvel (heard good things) but it was sold out, and ended up with Captain Marvel for her (on good recommendations), and the first 3 volumes of Rat Queens (for me).

They have events various nights, and I've been here before to do some board game nights. The board game regulars are pretty much board game only. And Thursday night wasn't an RPG night (apparently that's Wednesday). The second floor sits in a circle above the store, so you can look down on the shop. It contains a set of tables used for various gaming, and tonight was wargame night. Lots of tables playing Inifinity (I'm not really familiar with it).

I tried to poach some people, and was looking successful in getting one or two, but in the end they got busy with other things. I did get to read a bunch of Rat Queens though, and that got my juices flowing for some gaming...

A group of kids

I ended up sitting next to a table with Richard (I'm guessing he's about 18) and his younger brothers and cousins (3 kids ranging in age from 8-10). They were all playing Magic, and it turned out older brother had played D&D before. Before I knew it, I had them create some Dungeon World characters (a Cleric, a Paladin, a Ranger, a Thief), and we had about 30 minutes to run through a quick adventure before the store closed.

I worked with each kid, during downtime in the Magic game, to create characters, since I knew we were running short on time. I was absolutely fascinated with how remarkably quick and easy it was for these youngsters to get a character in shape... all said about 5 minutes a piece (and of these youngsters had ever played and RPG; Magic being the closest they've gotten).

They had fun with the bonds, but we weren't really fleshing anything out in any deep way... it was more just to get the kids laughing, poking fun at each other, and having some silly ties. That sounded successful enough to me.

In the end I just did a little thing where they were assigned as a group to go relieve some soldiers from Keep Thornbrush. I figured they'd be on their way there, and possibly get there late, where creepy stuff could start happening. 

I stole an idea I heard Jason talk about on the Discern Realities podcast recently: When Undertaking a Perilous Jouney, question the various players... What is the Scout worried about encountering? What landmark is the Trailblazer looking for? etc. It worked out great having them narrate prior to rolling, and got them immediately in the frame of doing things, rolling dice, dealing with consequences. We started with some fog...  The Scout answered about watching for thieves in these lands, and of course, with the fog and limited visibility, they all got tense. They all loved it that the Quartermaster flubbed his roll, and therefore the ranger's bear got into the food supplies. The Trailblazer answered that he was looking for the mountain, the landmark which meant they were on their way up to the keep. Well, he also rolled poorly, and so they got lost in fog, and got there late, so had to use adventuring gear for torches.

And then zombies. And bites and debilities. And then a nervous transaction with the keep's guards when they got there. And the scared soldiers there ask, "Wait, aren't you the reinforcements that were sent to help us take care of the ghost?"

But 30 minutes rolls quick, and that was all we had time for... but the gold was the look in those kids eyes when they were playing, and the invariable question: "When are you coming back? When can we play again?" Awesome.

Their older brother said he could run it for them. I gave him the link to get Dungeon World for $10, and now it's in his hands. He's a bit heavy handed and seems a bit adversarial in style, but hey, weren't we all at one point?

At any rate, hoping the sparks will fan the flames for more gamers in future days.

ASTG: The Skeletons

I setup an Art of Story Through Gaming (ASTG) meetup this week for my Indie RPG Night series. Issues #2.

Lots of folks couldn't make it, so it was just Harry and I. And I've been trying to get a few 2-player RPGs in the back pocket for just such an encounter.

The Skeletons

This weeks adventure: The Skeletons, by Jason Morningstar (and Bully Pulpit Games). Described as such:

The Skeletons flips the script on the classic dungeon crawl— here you play not the intruders, but the guardians, cursed to spend all of eternity defending a tomb. As time passes, both the tomb and its guardians will change. Ferocious battles are fought and won, and the skeletons slowly remember who and what they once were.

I read through the rules a few weeks back, and one thing that impressed me was the concept of time passing. During many points of the game, time will pass, and that informs how long the players then sit, in the dark, in silence (or with appropriate ambient music playing).

I also liked the way the play seemed smooth and simple, with questions and cues. It has a feeling similar to The Quiet Year in how the way the game directs you towards a narrative, but with a scenario randomizer (in The Quiet Year it's a shuffled deck, The Skeletons it's more like multiple choice choose-your-own-adventure). After that, it's answering questions and creating scenarios in a narrative-driven fashion.

The Crypt of the Six Guardians

You start play by collaboratively drawing your crypt. We never had a name for our crypt, but I'll call it the Crypt of the Six Guardians because there were 6 alcoves total in this rectangular chamber. The "sarcophagus" wasn't a normal shape, but instead had the look of a large, circular, hinged, stone vault door on the floor of this chamber. There was one large archway which had been mostly blocked by a large boulder; this was the main passage in. And there was a set of stairs that went under the "sarcophagus"... to who knows where.

There are 7 skeletons (i.e. characters) you can choose from. Harry chose the skeleton Headless ("Your skull is long gone but it doesn’t matter. You carry an iron mace and a holy symbol."). I chose Outsider ("Your bones are unlike the others. You carry a weapon that suits your frame, and fearsome armor."). The skeleton sheets have a lightly drawn skeleton, which you then overlay details upon. That was a fun element that combines art skills (or lack thereof) with thought processes that start giving the skeleton the beginning of some personality.

Unlike many games, you don't create a backstory for your character, because your character has no memory of their past. Instead, this is something you fill in as you play the game, and begin to answer some of the questions on the sheet.

We went through all three phases of the game, from The Unsealed Tomb, to The Time of Dust, and through The Desecration. Those phases really lend an interesting mood, starting with strength and power, and time passing somewhat quickly... and then leading to long periods of darkness in between events, and the degradation of the crypt and the skeletons.

Slight confusion

The only hiccup was some confusion on the Skeleton sheets, where it says "Answer these as time passes:" for the list of questions. Because the game has a specific mechanical construct called "TIME PASSES", I though that was when the questions should be answered. However during a separate game construct known as "INTRUDERS", it says "Everyone answer one question if they wish", and I believe it's referring to these Skeleton sheet questions. I think the phrase "time passes" on the Skeleton sheets here is confusing. We settled on answering those questions during the INTRUDERS phase, which looks to be the intention.

If that's the case, a different phrase should be used on the sheets. (Although I haven't thought of a good suggestion!)

Props

I like that this game is played with only a sheet. The instructions say a d6 is needed, but we never saw its use. Maybe we didn't encounter a specific question that used it?

We decided to use skeleton minis to represent our characters, as Harry had a bunch lying around. I think it added some fun flavor to the experience, and would recommend it if you have them about.

Musical selections

We both though that the music enhanced the game. The key is obviously choosing the right set of tracks that support the experience. In this game I curated songs off the cuff from a large playlist of "RPG tracks" that I've created on my phone).

I ended up using the following:

• My loop of tracks from the official Full Metal Jacket soundtrack (tracks 9+11+12+13+15). In retrospect, Leonard (track 12) would be an excellent time passes track all on its own, which includes a subtle water dripping type sound that pervades the track for a good underground cave / crypt feel; it plays about 6 minutes long. Ruins and Attack (tracks 11 and 13) would loop well together for an encounter.
• Various tracks from Mark Morgan's Fallout 2 soundtrack (such as Underground Troubles, City of the Dead, Vats of Goo). These worked very well for time passing, and just in general. You could just use tracks like this for the entire game without issue.
• Hologrammic Dub by DJ Spooky, for one encounter
• Analog Wormz Seguel by Mr. Oizo, for one encounter (this one with tomb spiders)
• Sahra Saidi by Gamal Goma, for the final encounter (this was the one that led to our demise; a seasoned group of adventurers... or is just that we've weakened in our old age?)

I think the track Beyond the Last Parsec from Harry Mack's The Last Parsec soundtrack, would be a good one with a little more life (maybe an earlier time passes scene, or an encounter that's a little more "spiritual"). I was looking for it during game, but couldn't remember the name.

Bonus material

One: We took a quick look at the Echoes of War Variant by Sara Williamson, which is included in the game PDF, and it looks like a cool variant. You could just as easily play this instead, as it's simply different flavoring for the same basic game.

Two: I wanted to use this session to help with the world building we started in the prior ASTG meetup with Microscope. And this session with The Skeletons works perfectly. We just created the crypt and backstory for a main part of the Dungeon World session I plan to run for these players in a few weeks.

Running future sessions

I would definitely love playing this game more. Running it a con or game shop could be problematic, as I really think the darkness and a lack of distracting background noise would provide the best experience. However if you are going to someplace like Big Bad Con, with private rooms unlocked due to a successful Kickstarter, that could be a great place to run such a game.

Two guardians

Strategicon Gamex 2016

My 12th Strategicon in a row. There should be a badge reward or something...

New to this one, Jim (aka the head honcho for RPGs) changed the at-con signup process so that only the next 2-3 slots of games would be available at any given time. Friday at 2pm allowed you to signup for Friday 8pm and Saturday 2pm games, however you had to come back a few hours later for the Saturday 8pm game sheets to be available. There was still online registration ahead of the con, but Jim has ensured that only 1/2 the slots fill up with online registration for any given game. All in all, a reasonable accommodation, and I personally think it worked well during the weekend.

Friday 2-6pm: Fallout Shelter: Finding the Descenders

GM: Me.

This was my game for 2016 as mentioned on prior blog posts including Orccon 2016. Players included:

• Brian as Cass, the Food Engineer

• Dimitri as Dr. Maxwell Ricofermi, the Scientist

• Dorian as Fox, the Wasteland Explorer

• Nick and his son as the two-headed Bevis and Butthead the Ex-Overseer

My game is limited to 4 players. It's a hard limit because I have 4 character sheets made out of Lego, but also because I know it becomes too hard to manage after that number, and that degrades the experience. Although limited to 4 players, Nick and son wanted to play; Nick was going to sacrifice his spot for his son (this being his son's first Con as well), but we settled on this hack, where they helped play the same character. It worked well enough.

I wanted a different scenario than prior games, and settled on one that involved "Bob", a vault dweller that emigrated to the other vault. Everyone's questionnaire reflected this by filling in information about "Bob".

As in some prior games, I spent too much time in the wasteland. It's not really a problem, as there can be some fun flavor and role playing, but it does not use the vault itself as much, and if you have a 4 hour slot, I find the players in retrospect want more vault action.

That said, everyone had a great time, and I had a blast with this group, having played with almost all of them in the past. Everyone died due to deathclaw attack in the end. 

Friday 8pm-midnight:  The Extraordinarily Horrible Children of Raven's Hollow

From Jesse Burneko's blog on the subject, here is a description of the game:

The primary inspiration for this game is Edward Gory’s “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” with a dash of the comic “Lenore.” The game is intended to produce a quick grim fairy tale about horrible children who bully each other into dangerous acts that likely lead to their demise.

This blog may be a bit outdated, as it mentions dice, and apparently the mechanics were changed to cards at some point. The players are mischievous children, and play involves a competitive / cooperative card game against everyone else at the table, as well as various adults (NPCs) of the town. It's a GM-less game, and Gretchen Burneko played with us, and did most of the explaining.

I had a great time playing this game. I loved that you play a mechanical card game at the same time as needing to explain in the story how the move looked. The story begins to blossom as time goes on. Each individual event allows every player a chance to intercede for good or ill, but during your turn you normally only have the ability to change who is winning the combat. The card mechanics are at once simplistic, but also allow for some strategy and nuance.

Each card has some number values that are important in the way "combat" works between players, but also have a location listed on the card. Because those locations (e.g. The Graveyard, The Crossroads, etc.) repeat, and must be used in some of the story-driver elements, the cards begin to influence the narrative in interesting and random ways.

The downside was that we had a total of 9 players. Although the game handled it fairly well (it is supposed to support up to 10?), it led to a long session of about 4 hours. I think it would do better as a 5-6 player game (at maybe 3 hours), and look forward to giving that a try at some point. I think you could play this with inexperienced role players to great effect.

I've talked before about postworldgames' Forget-Me-Not game, and although many things including the mechanics were different, the overall feeling of playing a card game and coming away with an intricate story remain.

Saturday 9am-1pm: T.I.M.E. Stories: Pariah Missouri

I've been interested in playing T.I.M.E. Stories, a game put out by Space Cowboys, of Splendor fame. I'd heard something about it being role-playing-esque, and that there is a function of time travel and solving mysteries. But that's about all I knew.

Introducing Andy, who I have started gaming with regularly at this con. He's the author of the Pariah Missouri graphic novels, and after I introduced him to Dread a few cons back, he's been running it like mad.

Andy is a bit of a mad genius. First off, he's got a graphic novel that is a Deadlands-like setting with darkness and magic prior to the Civil War, in the South of the USA. He's taken it, and created a whole scenario for T.I.M.E. Stories. It includes his graphic novel's art as the setting pieces for the game (each distinct location includes a number of cards that create an actual picture of the location). The mystery is fully fleshed out, and the game plays out as a cooperative choose-your-own-adventure mystery, of sorts.

For those familiar with T.I.M.E. Stories, Andy's scenario has additional elements that the base game and expansions could, but don't, have. These include a mechanic for day and night time on the overall map, with locations that appear only during one of those phases. There are some additional cool elements that he's overlayed onto the game.

I won't be rushing to buy the actual game, because I see it a little limited in my groups, and I'm not as big a board gamer as much as RPGs at the moment. That said, I'd recommend this game for those that like collaborate mysteries, and I definitely recommend his version, and hope to see it published. (He's got meetings with Space Cowboys... crossing fingers!)

Saturday 2-6pm: A Time to Harvest: Episode Two Description (Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed)

This Call of Cthulhu scenario was run by Arthur Severance. Apparently it's part of Chaosium's attempt at organized play (similar to Pathfinder Society). From Chaosium's web site:

A Time to Harvest is a campaign unfolding over six months, which will be offered free to all members of The Cult of Chaos, Chaosium's Game Master and Organized Play Program.

The Pros: The GM had most of the scenario ready in his head. The props included many pictures that had a '20s feel on index cards that the GM had put together that helped us digest the overwhelming amount of information. The scenario is very fleshed out, so would do well (possibly) in a long-term campaign.

That said, this was outweighed by the Cons. I was not really a fan of this game. I play Call of Cthulhu for different reasons than organized play. I don't think organized play, in and of itself, would deter me from enjoying such a session, however the session ran information-heavy (tons of NPCs and material), and the GM had to pretty consistently refer to the module notes. Part of the problem stems from the scenario, as having the GM "wing it" can break the story and mystery. Now, as a player at a con game, I don't care too much about the consistency of the story arc, as much as I care about a loose consistency in my individual game. Also, being based on '20s America, it wasn't a very diverse set of characters (if that is an issue in your gaming).

But really it was the constant need of the GM to refer to notes, the mechanical nature of some of the investigation elements, and the occasional retcon the GM thought it necessary to have the story "make sense", broke more than a bit of the immersion for me. 

I'll be avoiding these games in the future. I think they can possibly be done well, and for some gamers they may be quite enjoyable as is, but they feel too much like organized D&D and Pathfinder to me. And that's not what I'm looking for in general, and especially with Call of Cthulhu and horror games.

Saturday 8pm-midnight: Grace Under Pressure (Call of Cthulhu)

On the other end of Cthulhu...

The door to the room were closed. Odd. I open the doors to find a table at the far end of the room with green and blue glow sticks. There are sounds of engine thrumming, mixed with the occasional bubble sounds; a submarine. A man with a fez, a large squid across one side of the hat, sits behind a screen, looking like a flight attendant. I look down and see schematics for a very future-looking submarine. It might as well be a spaceship.

Sitting down, I could feel the oppression of thousands of pound of ocean above me.

The game description gives a good feel for where this starts:

You are on the sea floor, 1500 feet below the surface. Around you is only cold and dark, the sun's rays bring nothing to this world. The pressure in this lethal place is over 600 pounds per square inch. You and your companions are aboard the RSV Wallaby, a prototype research vessel on its maiden voyage. You are not alone.

Ronjon, the GM, throws down a head of information: ship schematics, detailed list of equipment in each chamber, and article about this prototype research vessel that looks like it was printed from an internet article (with ominous advertisements peppered randomly around, if you cared to look). Overload, but in just the right way.

This was the maiden voyage, and none of us are particularly skilled marine biologists... we're mostly either the tech backbone of the ship, or those responsible for its funding. 

The players all got into it. The game had excellent pacing. People started dying around midnight. I jumped out around 12:30pm, since I had some folks ready to play some late night gaming, and my character goes down. I expected the rest to succumb shortly. I was wrong. My friend Howie continued playing, and they were able to pull together and somehow get out of the worst of the craziness.

I highly recommend this game. Absolutely brilliant.

Grace Under Pressure

Saturday Midnight - 3am: Dungeon World

I had a crew who'd mostly never seen much Dungeon World, and wanted to get the flavor; and a few who just wanted some late night gaming. I had 6 players total including Andy, Keith and Brandie, Bob Quinterro and a few others.

The first half of the session was a bunch of character and bond creation.

I had an idea for the second half, which involved a little girl adopted by monks at a monastery. Let's call her Annie. I was thinking maybe she's about 5 years old, but also is a bit of ... spirit? Baby doppelganger? And the holy church is sending their holy warriors out to get her, and she's appeared on their radar.

So instead of just giving the players the ability to make Bonds with each other, I also had them make Bonds with little Annie. And then I threw them into the shit, with a holy cleric threatening her life. Good times!

I have to admit that Brandie (one of the players) was a whisky and ginger ale having angel, and I'm a little fuzzy with the details of how it all played out. I distinctly remember that I was able to hold my alcohol enough to have a coherent story, and the players said they had a good time, so hey!

Sunday

Time to go pickup the daughter. We hit the pool, which was a bit frigid, but fortunately there was a hot tub as well. We ran into another father-daughter pair who incidently had come over from Boston... and it was their first con! We chatted them up and convinced them to join us for the miniature paint-and-take. 

The last time I painted miniatures with the kid, she didn't have the dexterity to do a very good job, but this one came out pretty impressive! I didn't help her at all.

After that, we grabbed a few bites from the Gamer Bytes booth in the main game room. They have hot dogs and chicken strips for exorbitant prices, but at least they aren't horrible. Found out that an apple costs $3. That's some fine bullshit right there.

Showed our new friends Marc and Ariella how to play a few games, including Towers of Conspiracy, and Condottiere, and they brought Lost Cities. 

Some Lost Cities; utterly pleasant being able to just sit back and watch the kids play, with NO interaction from the adults (except for some scoring help).

Sunday 8-10pm: No Thank You Evil

We convinced our new friends to join us for our scheduled 8pm game, No Thank You Evil run by GM Matt Chapman. The game is designed by Shanna Germain and Monte Cook, ran as a Kickstarter a year back, and is listed as "a Game of Make-believe for Creative Kids and Their Families". I funded it at the PDF level, but have otherwise not had time to look at it, so wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.  I was also surprised that the kid actually wanted to sign up for the game a few weeks back, as mostly she's only wanted to play in the few Lego RPGs I've run.

Ariella had never played an RPG, and so Marc and her joined us, along with a father-son pair (Jesse and Johnny) who I've seen around in the RPG area of Strategicons past.

Matt did a pretty great job corralling the kids (and adults) and giving us a good feel for the game. We did a module that comes with the base game. The pieces that come with the physical copy of the game are nice quality, and definitely add to the experience, but don't strictly look necessary.

It's definitely a system I'd be happy to run the next time around, so it's on my short list to prep and test run with the kid and some of her friends.

No Thank You, Evil!

What impressed me was that after 2 hours of gaming, with the game drawing to a close, the kid wanted more. She was disappointed that all the loose ends weren't answered, and actually complained that it felt like we "had only played for 5 minutes". I am proud, indeed.

After that it was time to say goodnight to all, and especially Marc and Ariella, who we wouldn't see as they were flying out the next morning.

The biggest bummer was seeing Andy and crew about to start a late night Dread game, which unfortunately I couldn't join.

Monday 9-11am: Beware the Boogeyman (GURPS)

I have always wanted to play in a Monday game by Mook (a Strategicon regular, and of How to Be a GURPS GM fame). He's always running a session to close out the con. I've played in a few games with him over the years, including his Dungeons and Dragons cartoon game (amazing!). And now I got to play not only in a Monday morning game, but also with my daughter! And with JiB, another regular, friend, and awesome gamer. 

The only bummer was that Gina was supposed to join us (JiB and Gina usually finish the con with Mook's Monday games), and unfortunately she was feeling sick.

But we did have a blast! The premise was:

When the sun sets and the children sleep, the Boogeyman tries to feed on their nightmares. Luckily, the children have you to protect them: a cat, a dog, an action figure, a toy dinosaur, and their imaginary friends (a furry monster and a unicorn). Can you successfully confront the Boogeyman and put an end to his reign of childhood terror? 

The kid played the toy dinosaur: Z-Rex. I played a hand-me down toy soldier. And JiB was the dog, Barkley. An attack by goblins, a dealing with Morpheus of the dream lands, and a confrontation with a dragon and then the Boogeyman.

Also, here's Mook's own blog post about this game, which he ran three times for various groups, at this convention.

And out...

I did have a few regrets: Didn't get to play with Stephanie who was running her ThreadbareRPG (I so wish she had it going on Sunday so the kid and I could play!), and many other awesome GMs and players out there (you know who you are, or not).

From there we grabbed some eats, and then went to the game auction, which was in full swing. We watched for a bit, and I bid and won a brand new, shrink-wrapped Machi Koro for $16. We sat down and had a few plays, but then decided to head on out.

The future looks promising. All I gotta do now is work on my gaming-with-youth skills, and then I can run and play with the kid at more of these things.

Machi Koro action!