Mega Game - Mega Post

So this weekend I had plans that involved DIY – and then I got an e-mail asking me if I wanted to take part in a mega game set in Mythic Greece on the Saturday to which my response was obviously 'What the hell is a mega game?' Having found that out my response was 'hell yes!' and so it was I found my self in an upstairs room of the Royal Armouries with 50 other people at 9.30 on a Saturday morning ready to play 'Of Gods and Men'

So what is a mega game?

If a murder mystery dinner party is a larp with really fixed roles and no game mechanics then a mega game is a larp with lots of game mechanics, no outfits and very little role-playing. Well I say no outfits – but a few people dressed up and I did kind of wish I'd brought my Greek Helmet from the fireplace.

There are three groups of players – the gods, the heroes and the city states. We were the 3 players representing the city state Arkadia (should have been 4 but one of our group was randomly taken up to join the God game). It was our job to decide what we did with the resources of our city -

We responsible for assigning the resources of our city – deciding if we built boats, men, temples or city walls, then sending our boats and men to trade and pick fights either with other cities or far away lands.

The hero's were looking for quests and monsters and needed cards to deal with them while the gods were up to something that was rather unclear but could intervene in basically anything they wanted. The hero's seemed pretty straight forwards but the gods had a really interesting design – there were three players for each god and at any point one was behind the scenes doing something that was never clear, one player was the oracle of the god and could be spoken to and one was the hand of the god who could intervene but not otherwise interact. Created a rather interesting mechanic.

Based on the above you should be able to tell that the three groups of players did not understand each other rules sets – and indeed it was clear that each group was not getting a full understanding of there game space and there was meant to be some exploration over the course of the day.

It was designed with a pretty punishing schedule – a turn every 30 minutes and no break for lunch. If you were out of the room for a wee when something went down – then you were out of the room for a wee. Kudos to them – they kept everything on track for that schedule which could not have been easy.

Just like a larp it had a really big of volunteers supporting the event and making it run – with a really high ratio of GM's (or control in there terms) to players as they had one per a city state stationed who sat on your desk at all times. With other ones for specific areas – trade, overseas combat, gods and quest resolution.

So how was it? I want to tell you it was great – but if I'm honest I found it really frustrating.

I found my self initially a bit worried by the 32 page rule book and not only because it was written and set out in a way which gave me flashbacks to games from the 1980's but it also contained the following sentence...

However, certain heated historical controversies, such as the “New Chronology”, the “Dorian Invasion” and the causes of the “Dark Age”, are treated with deliberate liberty.”.

So this game is written by and for people who feel the need to point out that a game with gods in it might not be historically accurate.

Having seen the game in play, and thinking back to the article about theme, I personally think the designer of the game prized fidelity above clarity and simplicity. When your trying to get 50 people playing 3 separate but interrelated games who don't know a game to interact then your rules need to be simple – not simpler then you might normally use but simple. Take for example the 'prestige gain rules' - they ran to about half a page of text and apply differently for attackers and defenders with a different set of modifiers for each – and it certainly felt like they were often ignored or pointless in favour of (you won – have a prestige). And boil down – basically to – did you get really luck on your dice roll because if you did have more points. Randomness has it's place – but basically that seems odd.....

I know from talking to people that in the hero game there was a fundamental disagreement about how one set of rules about cards were applied – which might well have borked an entire element of the hero game.

In one case we were handed a bundle of divine power to support an attack on Attika – only to find out that mechanic did not work that way and the divine player was doing it wrong. Likewise there were tons of little counters flying around that did things (gain resources – have a re-reoll - +1 on all dice rolls for this city state) which had nothing on them to help explain how they were used.

These things are going to happen – but you can limit how much of this happens – design your systems to be simple with an obvious flow, while making sure the UI helps people know what is or is not allowed. A simple city icon on a card will make it clear where it lives.

Equally if you have rules about how can talk to who – then damn well make sure every player knows what they are – not burried away in the rules. Want to talk to a god – you have to have at least a shrine. I'd read that rule – and so did not talk to gods on the first turn – pretty damn sure most other people ignored that. Hell I think – I think – that you were meant to sacrifice 3 resources to a god if you wanted to speak to them (because otherwise I'm not sure what the hell the petition rules did) but I'm still not sure.......

But what really made it frustrating for me that the game was built to have a resource bottle neck into it – gold. Basically everything cool required gold and there was one way to get it – trading. We invested heavily in boats – I mean heavily – and lost every time. Because apparently that god can flip you down two spaces irrespective of your boats, while that person can cock block because you because they control that province, etc. And this happened turn – after turn – after turn. We lined up gods to help us – and it turns out there not that useful in this place or they wandered off and did something else..... And second place is basically pointless while your progress to what you actually want is reset to zero every turn.

Then you discover that yes – you've got this horrible resource block but two groups of players don't because they just get given a gold every turn you wonder why your bothering and seriously consider going home. The icing on the cake being after the end of the game when you discover that a) you can stop those people getting there free gold by attacking them but nobody did – and when you point out you did attack them (twice) so it seems that rule was being missed and b) that every nation should have had some sort of starting advantage but your control did not give you yours (not that two boats is in anyway equivalent to a free gold every turn in balance terms).

The game also needs to work out what it is – because the game makes reference to internal challenges and alternative victory conditions but it's not that sort of game. It's not an RPG – where I can set some personal goals and still have achieved something because it's got victory points.....

The game also had roles for the city people – specifically the wanex who was required to sit at his table at all times. Gods that was boring – being a wanex locked you to a table and often for no damn point......

So we came joint last – we really came last but we got bonus points for how cool our national sign was and while it was a glorious sign that still feels odd to me.

In case your wandering the two sides you can not see say “Ask us about our man eating horses” and 'This space available for advertising”.

Oh – another thing where got rather screwed was from the monster cards – specifically man eating horses. Now I can now see what they sort of where meant do – monster cards go on your table – hero's want to defeat them and in doing so give you the city prestige. Don't defeat them – you don't get a new one (I think). So when card hit our table that nobody seemed to be able to defeat – then that just ground to a halt. Half the game we had hero's coming up – looking at the specifications and going 'There are rogue cards? Huh?' and wandering off. As a city I'm not sure what we where meant to do about this – but it certainly moved us out of . On the day – the need to clear out monster was a lot less clear – they did no harm to the city and so we did not see the incentive to deal with them. That said – I don't know what we could have done to help sort it out – as a city we did not seem to have any levers to pull.

Looking back I can see what we did wrong – we should have got involved in colonies specifically the ones that give control over gold, we should have been less defensive (but getting randomly attacked on the first turn rather put us on the back foot), and we should have been clearing out monsters.

It's all well and good to say what went wrong – but if I don't provide some constructive advice then what's the point. Some of this is very specific – some of this is very general.

Drop the injury and death rules – it seemed pointless and slowed things down a bit. If you need to – give people an injury token if they lose a dual which gives them a negative for the next turn.

Drop character stats for city players – there basically pointless as it stands.

Invest in a projector -and project something up on the wall which shows a) what turn it is, b) what phase it is, and c) how long you've got left till the next one.

Have some more phases – specifically -split the 'admin' phase into a 'ten minute' negotiations phase and a 'five minute' action phase. So make it clear that people are meant to be moving around and talking in that phase – and the pull them back to quickly do there book keeping and actually do what they have to do. Then split the 15 minute 'resolution' phase into a '5 minute go to your space' phase and a 10 minute actual resolution phase. Under the current design a player (be that god, or a hero) could try and do a bunch of different stuff a turn – which lead to some odd waiting around. We've invaded – but there going to get there hero – and are delaying until he gets there. Wait – can they do that? When we got invaded they said “you got a hero? No – lets go”.

Make player presence important – so having a player at a specific trade location or battle is significant. It's ok to make having a hero matter more but if a player is somewhere make that matter.

Drop the roles for city states – but make it clear if a city state has nobody at it when an attack is launched then they just lose....... It's ok to have somebody be “ultimate decision maker” but just revolve that round the table.

Now I'm into more general stuff. Cities, gods and heros need to meshing more – apparently all gods wanted was a battle dedicated to them (Which is another thing – if it's a vital part of the game – make it a required stage not an optional one.....). The cities needs to be holding more resources which both gods and hero's want – that are limited – in order for there to be proper negotiations and deals. A hero will come and lead your assault because it's better then doing nothing. Specifically I'd make a city sacrificing gods to a God an important thing because it boast a god, while a city can acquire hero cards by spending resources (specifically I'd drop the free ones you give players – unless that was a special advantage).

Things need to be more based around how you are doing – so if a city that is doing well attacks a city that is doing badly then it should be worth less to them. While a city that attacks a nations that is doing well should be rewarded for warning.

There needs to be rules around alliances – and where the prestige goes. This should be a major bone of contention when joining up – rather then the current 'we all get it!'.

The trading needs to be less winner takes all and/or not reset to zero every time and/or less susceptible to dickery so that boats are the thing that actually decides trading. So a god can only remove one of you boats per point of power not just move your whole ranking, or an associated colony gives a special token that worth X boats in that place or you can also spend resources/manpower in a one off boost.

Anyway – bit long but there needed to be a lot of background.

I'll not lie – I was disappointed, I had high hopes, and they were not met. If they come back to Leeds I'd be willing to give another one a try but probably not the same game unless they make some radical changes to it.

Theme or the butler is in fact a flimsy justification for a logical deduction game

Theme is a word that gets used a lot when talking about board games but I consider it to be rather like pornography – in that people know it when they see it but defining it is much harder to do.*

Theme is also often a hot button topic because it is given as the defining feature given that splits Ameritrash from Euro-Style games; and in board gaming terms that the equivalent of the Hatfield-Mcoy feud.

I find it vanishingly unlikely that anybody reading this is not aware of the difference – but I had fun writing this bit about the difference between them so I’m going god damn well use it.

Ameritrash fan: “Textile Merchant – Norfolk edition is dull and dry. All we do is shuffle cubes around; this game could be anything the theme is just tacked on. While I’m at it - why am I not allowed to burn down your warehouses! We should be playing Cowboys Raid R’lyeh! Look at how cool the figures that represent your character are.”

Euro-Style: “Oh god no – that game is unbalanced and involves no skill. The game basically comes down to who ever draws the most Baked Bean cards because there 2.7% more efficient than any other card and 7.5% more efficient than the average card. Also you keep destroying everything I play – so I can never plan my turn. It’s stupid!”

Ameritrash fan: “You mean its fun– that thing your allergic to.”

*Sound of a table flipping*

It’s a fair point  - some games do seem to be a mechanic with a theme lightly brushed on at the end by some naming of resources and the art of the graphic designer .  A friend of mine recently looked up from a game of fresco – in which he was notionally painting a renaissance ceiling  but was actually doing pre-planned worker placement over a series of unconnected mini-games and said something along the lines of “Game designers are strange people - did they ever really think ‘this is a good representation of the life of a jobbing 16th century Italian artist.”  or words to that effect…..

Of course some games don't have any theme - there purely abstract games which is fine.  It's just when it says it's about Pirates and it's really about optimal worker placement and forward planning - that's when people start coughing politely.

But for all that theme is often seen as the battleground – nobody thinks theme is a bad thing.  Nobody ever finished a game and said ‘I enjoyed that game – but honestly the game play was just a little bit to connected to the mechanics for me’.

It’s not even a question of priority (which is more important mechanics or theme) because I don’t think there is anybody who thinks theme alone makes for a good game.  

Theme is actually like salt – for some people a meal without salt is a bland and pointless waste but other people consider it great in its place but don’t think it’s needed in every meal. This analogy might breakdown for you around the concept of ‘to much salt’ but I’m not sure such a thing exists – just look at Canarian Potatoes.

Yes that is salt there encrusted with, yes I've eaten them, yes there amazing - with a chilli and garlic dip.

As I’ve said – I think defining theme is tricky – but something that is often considered an important part of theme is ‘fidelity’ or ‘truthfulness’.

A lot of the time this means historical accuracy which is what the English language game designers of the 70’s and 80’s prized about all else and that leads to Campaign in North Africa *shudder*.  This abomination has a play time 60,000 minutes (that’s not a typo) and rumour has it that one player per a side should just handle the supply trucks while Italian troops use more water on a Tuesday because that is when they eat pasta. No – I’ve never played and never will.

But it’s not just historical accuracy – because Eclipse has oodles of theme – and since it’s about conquering the universe in giant space ship is not accurate to anything.  Then what I think people mean is that it provides  fidelity in decision making – when playing  the game you make the decisions you would get to make in that situation.

A cube shuffling game about the roman invasion might well have you take an action that moves red cubes from one box to another – where as a themed game will have you move the II, IX, XIV and XX legions from France to the Southern coast.  I’d say one of those has fidelity – while the other does not.

Seems reasonable enough – but I think fidelity can take a hike.

I don’t want fidelity – I want my games to invoke feelings and stimulate my imagination.   So when playing that game about invading Britain I want to feel like the person invading England – maybe make little stompy noises under my breath as my men march around crushing trouser wearing savages that’s what’s important to me – that’s what I really mean when I talk about ‘theme’.

But wanting the games I play to be evocative changes things because theme and fidelity are external factors and as such they are subject to review.  Whereas evocation is by its very nature is internal. If you want to claim that Textile Merchant Norfolk invokes in you the feeling of being a 16th century textile merchant then can I say you’re wrong? I might say it does nothing for me, I might say your just plain odd, but saying your wrong seems a bit awkward.

Equally wanting feelings allows freedom from game mechanics in a way that theme and fidelity don’t.  Because you can be making any sort of decision provided it comes with that feeling in you.  Bidding mechanic that invokes being a general – sure! Territory control mechanics that make you feel like a merchant – bring it on! Set collection that makes you feel like a terrified child hiding from the boogyman –it’s all good?

Don’t get me wrong – it’s easier to invoke feelings of being a civil war general with a map, units, and rules about just how unreliable royalist cavalry is (go on – admit it – you thought I meant the other civil war) then it is using some weird movement programing mechanic but I don’t think it’s impossible.

One of my favourite games is battle line– a lovely little two player game – allegedly all about the battles of Alexander and Darius. I say allegedly because if ever a theme is paper thin then it’s this. That’s really clear when you realise that it’s a reskinned version of a game called schotten-totten which was themed around comedy clansmen beating each other up around boundary stones.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/760/battle-line

Despite that it still invokes in me a very strong feeling of being an ancient general. The act of playing a card from my hand and then drawing – somehow – in this game makes me feel like I’m ordering groups of men around while trying to pull them formations in pursuit of my plan while hoping my own plan comes through.  The battle front shifting and changing until one of us claims victory either by sudden push or slow grind.  I should say in complete honesty that it does not in any way really make me feel like either Alexander or Darius…..

So brothers and sisters in board games give up questions of theme, forget the struggle between Ameritrash and Euro-style and ask a simple question.

Does this game invoke the appropriate emotions for me?

And if it does – then go for it and fuck what they think.





“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” Apparently one of the most famous phrase in the history of the Supreme Court - thttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

3 hour Republic of Rome or Euro Tu Brute

I love republic of Rome – I must do-as I played it for 12 hours straight recently without ever having a reasonable shot at winning.  This is partially because I took on the role of adult in the room keeping Rome afloat through the turbulent days of the early Republic (a role I won’t bother with again – let it all burn!)……

But by Jupiter’s Cock it’s long, fiddly, filled with a billion tiny rules, baffling, has a rule book where even the modern version hurts, contains excessive dice rolling, and is basically a crackling example of why the English language board game design of the 1980’s (ok it was published in 1990 which means it was designed in the 80's) got eaten alive when the Germans came along and demonstrated there was a better way.

When two random people asked to join us and take the two empty seats caused by absence we felt it only fair to warn them what they were letting themselves in for but apparently they thought we were joking.  They learned – oh yes they learned (one of them did win so don't feel to sorry for them).

If I'm still playing it some 24 years after its release – it must have something going for it – so what is it?

While ‘the co-operative game’ era is often considered to have started with ‘Lord of the Rings’ anybody who has played it will tell you that if you don’t work together in the early republic then the Republic of Rome will chew you up and spit you out.  It is in fact intensely unfair given that you can be dead men walking after the first card draw (Hannibal on the first Punic war is basically a death sentence no matter how much you pull together).

Well it’s got detail and authenticity – in an era where theme often feels an afterthought you know these rules were written for fidelity; playability and ease of use be damned!

But that's not enough to make it worth playing - and what it really brings to the table is politicking – the horse trading and arguing over what you are going to do – as you try and walk that fine line between saving Rome and lining your own personal pockets.  It's all about what happens once the Senate is open - everything before and after that is just book keeping and clean up to set the sage for the next round of arguing.

While that's the game strong point - I'm not sure the game really helps it self even in the Senate phase.  Often there are too few things to argue over, with too much power bundled together in giant packages reducing the amount of horse trading.  Veto's exist - and swing from very powerful to pointless (as they can be dodged by making tiny amendments over and over again) - and have no negative consequences for the person vetoing.   Throwing your toys out of the pram and bring everything to a grinding halt should be ever present threat, but something that a player is very worried about doing.  It’s too easy to side line somebody – just cut them clear out of the process giving them nothing and the game can have a terrible death cycle.  Doing badly leads to doing badly as you lack the power and influence to do anything.  You will be pulled out of the cycle because you'll be the 'safe' candidate at some point but that might take hours.

Equally the games UI does not do a good job of helping you sort and organise the motions and the results- although the new version at least has a vote tracking wheel so you can see what's votes people have.  It's a step in the right direction at least.

Are there modern game that show how you might do it better?  There is Article 27 - the game of the UN security council that comes with a gavel that you bang to call a vote and there are no many games that do that.

It's a very abstract game - you get given some random tiles that reflect what issues you care about (military, environment) - sometimes you want a there to be action on an area and some times you don't.  The chair sets up a proposal - which will give or take VP's depending on your scoring tiles and then the arguing starts.  Those that are happy are in agreement - while those who stand to lose are against.  The kicker is that any single player can veto - however it costs them VP's and it also costs the chair VP's the chair is often seeking to find the lowest common denominator position while not being sure what people are about.  When they have done enough - gavel comes down - vote happens and if the majority like it and nobody veto's then the scoring conditions are revealed and people see who did well and who did badly.

Sounds complicated to track - but actually the UI of the game helps with screens and voting areas where players can indicate which areas they are happy or unhappy with - which looks like this....

And it takes about an hour and half - which makes it an interesting model to consider if you wanted to make a three hour version of Republic of Rome.  

So if you were going to work on a euro Republic of Rome - what would you do?  

Well you'd have to have concrete things to discuss rather then abstract issues - which means you'd need some sort of underlying co-op game style system that you are battling/puzzling up against.  One that is not actually that hard if you did it as a true co-op - but where unresolved issues have a way of biting you all in the arse. 

You'd make sure that there were a lot of issues/rewards on the table each time - and that each player had a hand of secret agendas that would give them a bonus depending on what happened.  So that province might not look good to you - but if he's got an income boasting card then it might be a reward not a punishment.

You'd need a good UI - that meant that what ever was up for voting would be clear and obvious to everybody.  

You'd want voting to be a more dynamic process - the words 'me and you can outvote them both on everything so what are we doing' is the death knell of fun.  

You'd try and keep the action focused in the Senate - make the rest of the game as minimalist as possible.  So each player quickly does some stuff (like drawing cards for themselves or for the table)- and then onto the arguing. Minimal decisions or dice rolling to be done either side of the senate - the important stuff is in the Senate (although there would be some because you'd want a random factor in deciding battles).  So specifically you'd split the single deck of cards into two - one with cards for players hands and one with cards for the table.  The table cards would contain issues, wars, and events all bundled up together.    

You might want to get rid of the 'people' that Republic of Rome has - and just make each player 'a faction'.  I'm torn on that - they add a lot of flavour and theme - but they also add a lot of fiddling around.

Dice!

So there is an interesting article about dice in board games up at boing boing (there doing a bunch of stuff about board games including some nice reviews at the moment).

Which I mainly agree with because I like dice in the 'roll and then use' sense - but dislike them in the choose then roll sense- which is basically what they are talking about.

But I do  think it misses a trick because it does not really talk about games that use non-numerical* dice.  Those times when you've still got a nice cube in our hand but they don't have a number on at all.  For example roll through the ages  in which the dice have a mix of pots, coins, skulls, workers, and grain on their six sides – and published in 2008 before both alien frontiers** and castle burgundy****.  That's very much a roll and see what you can do with it kind of game (with re-rolls) and a chunk of ‘push your luck’ as you skirt around the disasters.

The 'hey this is new!' tone made me think about other  “not just rolling the dice” mechanic I could think of, which if your me gets you back as far as 1974 with Apocalypse: The Game of Nuclear Devastation (more generally known as classic Warlord apparently) in which while you have dice you don’t roll them – you use them to secretly choose a number that the other person has to try and guess it.

Then I got thinking about how what both Alien Frontiers and Castle Burgundy are doing is using the numbers on the dice as symbols – but allowing the pre-existing relationships between those symbols to carry on existing.  So while the game talks about adding or subtracting one from your dice  - it just as easily could have talked about allowing you to move  1 forward or backwards around some arbitrary track.  They could have easily had A through to F on the dice and it would have been the same (other then that custom dice are expensive and so if you can use a standard D6 then brilliant).

All of which led me onto thinking about the broad type of dice based mechanics I can think off.   

Roll – and then do as the dice dictate (ie move that many space forwards)

Choose action – then roll (pick your thing then find out if you succeeded or failed - the first one might be a subset of this it's just your choice of actions is 1......)

Roll – then choose action (throw dice and then work out what you can do with that roll).

Pick/store a number on the dice (using a dice as a variable value counter)

Some additional things you can do with dice….

Change them (manipulation)- add, subtract or flip them over to their other side

Roll them again- throw them again 

Some dice scoring mechanisms

Every dice that rolls over (or under a number)

Getting over/under an amount in total

Pairs/Tripples/Quads

Straights

Any I've missed?  Any earlier examples?

EDIT - couple of good examples of other mechanisms I've missed.

Rolling for distance - as in the utterly bonkers Konig der maulwurgel (which is odd since I own a copy and introduced people to it.)

Stacking them on top of each other  - as in the rather interesting blueprints .

In both the new example the value on the dice is significant - so in Konig - some roles are 'invalid' and you don't get to take that move, while in blueprints the value determines what can be put on top of each other.

*Some dice have a different distribution of numbers (for example 1-3 twice) but they generally consider the numbers to be numbers – ie one better or worse than the others.  Even something like the fudge dice which had + blanks and - on them are really numeric dice.....

**Side note – I was unimpressed by alien frontiers when I played it – I probably owe it a revisit as lot of people say good things about it.   My problem*** was that having more dice is good, and you get more dice by getting a pair – once you’ve got a third dice then getting a 4^th dice is easy.  Or like me you only role a pair when some bugger with more dice has already stolen the "get more dice" spot....

***From memory – about 4 years ago – I might be totally wrong about the rules.

****Where as I love castle burgundy.*****

*****Apparently this shit is addictive – who know?

Rejection!

So Rock Paper Shotgun asked for submissions as a way of choosing a new junior reporter - and I thought "well why not".  It had to be 300 words about a computer game - so I talked about the Stanley Parable as I'd just finished playing it.....  

Just got the rejection e-mail - 1,300 people applied - so I thought I'd throw this up here just in case anybody was interested.

It's your choice to like it or not - The Stanley Parable.

The Stanley Parable might not be a game, it might be art and it’s almost certain you should play it despite or because of both those things. Which as first sentences go has some serious self-confidence issues.

What is certain is that it's easier to spoil the Stanley Parable than an episode of Game of Thrones. This game is all about the journey and telling you anything about it will almost certainly impact on your own experience.

Cleverly and maybe unprecedentedly (no other example comes to mind) Galactic Café made a demo that is a completely separate experience from the game - not a limited chunk of the game cut out for you to experience but something that stands alone: presentation of the tone and style of the Stanley Parable for you to experience without any of it being the actual game. Despite failing to prepare me for what was to come, it's still the best introduction going.

If having played the demo you are still not sure if you want to play The Stanley Parable, then maybe telling you what you won't be doing might help. You won’t be running, jumping, fighting or shooting. There is no inventory to manage, no experience points to grind, no skills to pick and not a single stealth section. You've no troops to manage, no resources to gather and nothing to build. Even other classic game actions are pretty debatable. Was that really solving puzzles or exploring?

What can be shared are the words of the loading screen since it is literally the first thing you see in the game and seldom has a load screen provided better advice.....

‘e end is not the end is not the end is not…..’

It's been a while.....

....and I'm afraid no game development stuff.  Lots of ideas - but getting anything down and firm appears to be a bit beyond me at the moment.

But it's just been stabcon so lets talk about some games that got played.

First up - Promised Land.  http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/142085/promised-land-1250-587-bc

Which is best described as "History of the World - Jewish Version" and not least because it was written by the Ragnar Brothers who also made history of the world and shares the historical role swamping of such games.  It was actually my Stabcon purchase last time and had sat on the unplayed shelves until now as I know it was up certain peoples street.

I don't want to do a full write up of it but we played it with six despite being advised it was best with 4 - because people were interested - and that was a mistake.  Oh it worked but there was a lot of downtime between your turns with a notable lack of involvement until your next race (who might well be pathetic).  So to my mind it's a good example of a designer trying to increase the appeal of a game to make a sale despite it not being a good idea.

I think it might also be a good idea to do a draft of races - because at the moment it felt a little random as to what you got.

Next up - Eight minute Empire http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131366/eight-minute-empire

It turns out that while I'm not generally a fan of minimalism - I am when it comes to game design.  A pairing away of everything until you get it down to the key decisions.  Which in Eight Minute Empires are - husbanding a very limited (and never to be replenished supply of coin) while using the coins to get the best cards.  Picking between cards that give you the action you want on the board (to control areas that give VP's) or cards that give you the trade resource you want (sets that give you VP's). A nice little bundle of decision making there.  I'd talk more - but there's not a lot more to talk about - see minimalist game design.

The name is a white lie - as I suspect it's "3 people who play stupidly fast might be able to play it in 8 minutes"  - it took us 16 minutes for a game.  But you know what - I'm ok with that because it's was still pretty damn fast.  Would recommend - it's especially good if you might end up waiting for people to arrive or if the main game of the evening ended a little quicker then expected.

I'm certainly going to see if I can find a copy of "Eight minute Empire - Legends" Which is the follow up version.

And finally - Caverna - http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/102794/caverna-cave-farmers

This is Agricola with dwarves.  Seriously if they were not made by the same man somebody should get sued.

If you like Agricola and don't own it - I'd go with Caverna over Agricolaat least partially because of the sheer design elements of it but also because there are tweaks such as the 'imitation space' which removes a bunch of frustration, better balance because most people is no longer the best way to win, and because it's added going on adventures which is a whole other way to develop and play.
If you like Agricola and do own it - tricky especially since at £70 it's not cheap.  I've considered buying it - and it's on my Essen list if I can find a cheap UK version (unlikely) but then I'm an obsessive.
If you don't like Agricola- you might still like Caverna because it's simply less mean and less of a struggle to survive but I'd play it to make sure you do actually like it.

If you've no idea what Agricola is I'd better provide some details (or I suppose if you just want some details).

In Caverna you play a family of dwarves who start out with nothing but a simple cave next to a thick forest - and through sending your family members to do specific jobs you can expand your family, while carving and farming a mighty settlement out of the wilderness.  It's a very well themed game - digging out caves gives you stone and makes space to build new things, having iron mines make iron mine actions more effective, if you've got two sheep at the end of a turn you'll end up with 3 sheep, and dogs can look after sheep without them being fenced in.  This is theme is enhanced by the lovely bits - you don't get a cube for a vegetable - you get a carved bit of wood that looks like a pumpkin.  This is not some mad special edition - that is just the game.  Look at them - there so cute!



All of which combined with the fact it's alleged to play with 7 players (you'd be mad to try that - it's for 2-5 players game) makes the box come in at around 3.5 kilo's.  So if you rate your games by weight - it's certainly worth getting.

The key decision comes from the fact that only one person can do a job - and that a lot of jobs get bonus resources added to them if not taken - so what you want and need to do needs to be judged and evaluated a lot against other players actions.  You've got pretty limited interaction with other players - other then trying to work out if they might take the job you want and needing to take that into account when making your decisions.

It's not a simple game - a bunch of rules of remember - and it does have some odd little tweaks that need to be remembered about keeping animals but it's got good iconography  and most of what you need to know is there on the board.  It's also simply less mean then Agricola - it's less of an uphill struggle to get the food you need to survive while actually developing so you feel like your doing better where as a new player in Agricola it can be a struggle to achieve anything.

What might count against it is that Agricola comes with roles and profession that gives each player a slight edge that can drive your play style where as Caverna does not.  Those role give Agricola a massive amount of re-playability (especially with the number of expansions there are) but they can create a very unbalanced game.  Where as Caverna as rooms that yo ucan build which tweak your game - but it's always the same rooms and there available to all.  It's better balanced but less re-playable that's not to say I don't think Caverna can be played and replayed a lot.

I'll also point you onwards to this review of Caverna - http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/02/18/cardboard-children-caverna-goty2013/ because I do rather love the reviews.

13th Age

Sorry – no game development stuff.  Giant stone head I’ve stopped work on and coffeehouse is going nowhere at the moment.  Maybe I’m more of a game design consultant or critic then a game designer?  That would be depressing….

Anyway – so I’m going to talk about a role-playing game because that is what is currently taking up most of my game related brain power.  Warning we’ve had two a bit sessions so far – so my opinions around session 10 might be very different.

13th Age

It’s been a while since I ran any RPG – and I keep looking at indy games and somehow I just find myself not wanting to run them.  The setting grates, or the rule are odd, or the rules are to complicated and I would need to do the heavy lifting. 

Then a chance comment made me look at reviews of 13th age which turned into flicking through a copy in Travelling Man which turned into buying it which turned into looking forwards to running it which turned into actually running it.

 The best description of 13th Age is that it is the unholy love child of D&D 4th Edition and a story focused indie RPG that wants to recreate the very best of the D&D games you played in your youth but with a games system designed to make that happen as opposed to one you can make work if you work around a lot of the rules.

So it’s very D&D based in that it provides the classic stats, levels, hit points, and rolling a d20 to hit and a bunch of dice for damage.  It takes its main inspiration from 4th edition with characters picking from a list of class talents, feats and powers that have clear game effects.  In fact the whole things is  gamist rather then simulationist – the question ‘is this realistic’ is not important.  However in my opinion it avoids the most common complaint about 4thEdition D&D (it’s a board game) not least by removing the gridded map and counting out movement portion.  So combat was crunchy but reasonably swift with a touch of “I’ll just roll to attack” but just a touch and that might be low level. 
The result leaves a game of decent tactical weight and rules crunch  that  so far has done a good job of providing challenging and interesting fights which is what you want for old school D&D.  It’s an attritional system – fights are about whittling down the players making them use up there recoveries and there one shot abilities so that the challenge creeps upwards and upwards as they head towards a confrontation…...

That what it has taken from its 4th Edition parent – but it’s also taken a lot from its indie game roots.

It’s created a lovely simple mechanic that means your players start off on the back foot but build towards success – just like big damn hero’s should.  The escalation dice – starts at 0 and at the end of turn 1 it hits the table with a value of 1.  The players add that to all there hit roles – which is why the bad guys have pretty impressive resistance – so you might want to save that big spell till things look desperate and the dice is high.  It’s a lovely idea with the rule book outlining how you can play with the concept to create effects in your players for example renforcements arrive – players start losing – drop the dice back down again!

Gone are a clumsy set of skills that never felt quite right for D&D and they have been replaced back backgrounds. Just describe bits of your characters background and spend some of your eight points and your away.  No looking anything up – just a player explaining why that background is the right one for solving this problem.  This immediately starts making your character feel like a character and not a set of sets.

You need to define “one unique thing” about your character.  Something about you that is true about you – and so turns out to be true about the world.  The first chapter in your heroic story is how they describe it.  Some of them are big things and some of them are little things – but again they make you come alive.  But they also make the background come alive – because the background is designed to be vague – open with opportunities but actually missing a lot of detail.  As you play those details get decided – a process that starts with your backgrounds and your one unique thing.
And one final big story telling touch – there are 13 big powerful NPC’s called Icons who represent the movers and shakers of the world from the Archmage to the Prince of Shadows to the Litch King.  Players align themselves with or against these forces and then at the start of the game roll some dice to see what Icons are making an appearance in this story……  Is it the three or the ork lord you’ll be opposing?  Will the arch druid or the Priestess assist you?  And just how will your terrible relationship with the elf queen complicate your life this week…..  This has the prospect of being great but it’s the bit of the game I’m struggling to insert in the way I’d like.  If the great golden wyrm links you up with the other players – is that really you getting an advantage or the GM just making it all work?  And making your interactions ‘positive but complicating’ I’m finding hard to make work.  However I’m hopeful……

The rule book is also written in an open style which manages to give you permission to change and amend the rules in a way that other games don’t.  I mean other games say you can but by having the two writers explain the different rules they use for this – it really make it comes home.
For me at least this system has a lot of potential – it’s got a system that provides tactical crunch so fights matter – it’s got improv so there is no point planning to much – it’s got story telling elements that encourage your players to make the world feel alive – and most of all it allows you and your players to set your tone.  I mean the arrival of an ‘intimate entertainer of unknown gender of the two sided coin’ in my game already means the world stranger then I suspect.  And were still not sure what exactly the two sided coin is…….