The Core Worlds

I have to confess that I’m not a great fan of collaborative board games, which is odd considering that I do enjoy RPGs - which are extremely collaborative (at least for the most part, from time to time a game comes up where backstabbing, lying, cheating and general conniving is expected to take place between players, but that is the exception).

So when people suggest a game of Arkham Horror, Order of the Stick or Shadows over Camelot, I’m last to say “yes”, and in the case of SoC I’m usually crying “Oh no, please not Shadows over Camelot”. This weekend, however, I bowed to the will of the group and gave it another try.

It turns out that this game is much better when you aren’t playing as the traitor (the possible random player who works against the group while trying not to look like they are an enemy) during your first go at the game when you are still learning how to play.

It also turns out that if you play after you’ve had a few drinks it rapidly descents into an exchange of pseudo-Arthurian speeches designed to identify which cards have been drawn by the other players.

It would be simple to say “I drew a grail card” or “I’m putting a one point card on the Black Knight attack spaces”, but that is against the rules. Instead we get “Verily, My Lord, I hath news of the Grail!” and “My Leige! The Black Knight hath caught his foot in his stirrup.” Bewards to imbibing too greatly though, else phrases such as “My-th Leige! Thine Blacketh Knight hath caughteth his foot inth hith stirrupth” might start arriving at the table. (Maybe we shouldn’t go to Camelot - it is a very silly place.)

Anyway, we roundly defeated the forces of evil that surrounded Camelot and I was left with a much better opinion of the game.

I’m still not fond of collaborative board games in general, but this is better than most - just so long as you aren’t struck trying to learn it without helping the other players win, as the traitor must.

Well, I said it was all about superheroes in my last entry, and I couldn’t repeat myself.

The latest from Wizards is minions, a concept that worried me when I came across it. In a nutshell, minions are foes who are a decent threat to the PCs but whom only have a single hit point. Once you hit one, it is dead.

My initial reaction was “Oh no. Ogres that die with one hit. That’s rubbish. So much for Willing Suspension of Disbelief.”

Wizards can’t be that insane though, can they? Well, yes, they can, but not in this instance. While killing Ogres with one hit seems silly, it becomes less so when characters get to very high levels and going up against mature dragons and nasty demonic princes. At low levels, I would assume that the minions would be goblins, and it isn’t unreasonable to expect a low level character to have no trouble dispatching a mere goblin. 

The concept works in other games, Spirit of the Century springs to mind. So I’m cautiously optimistic about this particular change for D&D 4e. 

It might make the fireball spell interesting though.

The more I hear about D&D 4e, the more I think it is going to be even more high powered and grid based then 3.5. The latest bit of news (via RPGpundit) doesn’t break that pattern.

I don’t know if this is an entirely bad thing. From time to time, I rather enjoy tactical skirmish games (and I like grids as they solve all the questions about facing and distance — you get edge cases in 360° tape measure games). 

That said, I’m fairly happy with 3.5 for tactical skirmish, and I’m delighted with Exalted for the high powered style of game, so I’m doubting that I’m going to get much out of 4e.

I’m after something with a bit of grit, plenty of sword work, and a distinct lack of magic items and spells being the answer to every question. This has led me to take a look at alternatives, and RuneQuest is looking increasingly like it might be the answer. 

My first real exposure to D&D was with third edition, which features a wonderful economy… OK, so it doesn’t. It features an insane system where the raw materials to construct anything, anything at all, costs exactly one third of its retail price. This is compounded by the wonder that is the price list.

A ladder consists of a pair of ten foot poles with a number of rungs between them, but this costs less than a pair of ten foot poles. It is feasible that an enterprising merchant, given a large enough supply of nearby adventures, could make a living chopping ladders in half and selling the pieces to passing adventurers while having the rungs left over for firewood!

The Wizards of the Coast website is previewing 4e, and I’ve been keeping half an eye on it. I was pleasently surprised when I read:

Be sure to return Wednesday for a look at the economy!

What is this? Could they be making the economy sane?

No, of course not.

It seems that treasure is going to be made available to Dungeon Masters in preprepared baskets to hand out to monsters and NPCs. I wonder if they will be gift wrapped?