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Condolences to Digital Eel

Tim Brooks — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:06:56 GMT

Please join us in our condolences to Digital Eel, Glenda Sears and Bill Sears' family as they sadly mourn the passing of artist, designer, musician and Digital Eel co-founder Bill "Phosphorous" Sears who died unexpectedly Friday of heart related troubles. Bill was 58 and left us all far too soon. His influence upon Digital Eel games will be sorely missed as well as his unswerving commitment and deep friendship.

Rod Humble's Eastern Front Game

S.R. Krol — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 02:09:37 GMT

Hey, it's June 22nd! Break out the bratwurst or the black bread and vodka, it's Barbarossa Day!

Rod Humble just released a free game on the conflict, STAVKA-OKH. You can grab it here.

When the game begins the side in which you will be playing is chosen for you by the game. From there you're given three strategic plans to choose from, along with the choice to go along with the Nazi or Communist party. Each plan has a chance of being overruled by Uncle Joe or Der Führer. Choose the plan, see what happens. Eventually one side wins and your personal fate is revealed.

While I find the general gameplay idea a really nifty concept, since I've always wanted to see more games of broad, sweeping player strategies as opposed to the usual God-control, I'm not entirely sold on the end result. The plans are a little too removed, too abstract, for my tastes and it often feels like randomness reigns. Also, while I get the "support party" bit I'd argue that the military issues were not as entangled as Humble sees them.

So, an artsy-pseudo wargame. Worth a few minutes of your time to at least check out.

The Bloodiest Game Ever: John Hill's Battle for Stalingrad (SPI)

S.R. Krol — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 02:40:25 GMT

This weekend SPI's Battle for Stalingrad hit the gaming table. It was the first time I've played this particular title, and though thirty-one years old, I found the design had some clever innovations.

The neatest aspect, and the heart of the game, is the flow of the turn. A turn begins with air strikes followed by artillery bombardments (so far fairly standard wargaming fare) but then deviates into a turn structure in which the Germans keep pushing until the Soviets react.

Basically, the Germans activate one stack of units at a time. If the stack just moves the German player proceeds to the next stack. If the stack attacks a Soviet force after the attack the Soviets draw a reaction chit (or two if controlling the big hill...can't remember the name...Kraygen Mayberry??). There are thirty of these chits. Twenty-four are 'no reaction'. Nothing happens, the Krauts continue their turn. Six have the Soviets reacting.

If the Soviets react the German player ceases his phase and the Russkies get their turn. Sorta. Even though they are now the phasing player they can only activate a small group of units. Once these units are moved play continues with the German player. After the fourth Soviet reaction chit is drawn the turn is over.

At first this seems woefully unfair for the Soviet player. The Germans can push anyplace on the board; the Soviets can maneuver a handful of battalions. But it quickly becomes apparent that it's not that big of a deal, as frankly the Soviets shouldn't be doing a lot of death or glory rides. They just need to hunker down and start making the Germans pay block by block, apartment by apartment. You could easily turn this into a solo game, with the system playing the Russians.

Another interesting aspect is since chits are only drawn in reaction to combat, not German movement, the German player has a lot of freedom in setting up for attacks. But moving near Soviet units and not attacking allows the Soviets to interrupt and launch an attack. So the German player has to move his forces carefully, choosing his battles selectively. While the odds are pretty good four reaction chits won't be drawn one after another, there is always a possibility they come up quick and suddenly the turn is over. Balancing movement and combat is very important.

As cool as the turn structure in the game is the combat system is a little over the top. Just as the turn order does away with a standard IGOUGO structure, the combat system is not an odds-based ratio. Instead, combat is based on how many combat factors are attacking. There are no depletions, disruptions, or retreats. All results end in unit destruction, and it doesn't take that many combat factors to guarantee annihilation. Almost every combat will bring about the elimination of at least one, probably more, units.

While Stalingrad was a meat grinder this gets to be a little over the top. The scale is company/battalion level and even air strikes will eliminate entire battalions in one combat. JU-88s? Apparently we're using F-16s with precision guided munitions. And artillery? Mortars can wipe out three battalions with a single die roll. (Possible house rule: all units are flipped over once they are used in a turn, unable to do anything else until the following turn. Air strikes and artillery bombardments should probably just flip unused units over.)

I don't think I've ever played a game which had so many counters flying off the board. But the end of the first week both sides had a mound of dead units next to the map. It's insane. But in a good way. The upside is the game moves pretty quick since you don't even have to worry about what your die rolls are; you're going to kill something.

Battle for Stalingrad is probably not the definitive game on the battle, but it is a pretty interesting one. I'm not entire sold on the combat system, but I did enjoy the overall mechanics.

Worth checking out. Especially if you hate wimpy CRTs.

Michigan Toy Soldier Company: Of Crime And Punishment

S.R. Krol — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 02:13:48 GMT

Ever buy anything from Michigan Toy Soldier Company? Over the years I've bought a few things but found their online shopping experience rather backwards. But hey, at least they didn't rip me off. Unlike Peter Jackson.

Yep, that Peter Jackson. He orders some stuff online from them and pretty soon he finds about $190,000 worth of unknown charges on his credit card. Russian mafia hacker? Chinese military? Pimply-faced emo-teenager?

Nope, turns out the owner of the store decided to use the credit card as his own personal ATM. I guess he figured with Lord of the Rings money an extra $190K on the bill would only look like an extra buck or two on a regular Joe's bill.

Now he's going to prison, although at ten months it's a fairly light sentence. The store is still open, although it would seem to me like Russian Roulette ordering from them. Frankly, I'm surprised his assets hadn't already been seized by the Feds for restitution.

The upside is perhaps we'll be seeing a massive fire sale soon. Just make sure to pay in cash.

Hail Of Bullets: Perfect Music When Playing War Plan Pacific

S.R. Krol — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 01:22:22 GMT

Tons of high explosives
Plastering the reefs
Amtracs approaching
Offloading LST's
Establishing the beachheads
Perimeter secured
Distant laying battleships
Roaring while harbored

Barbed wire and minefields
Concrete obstacles
Cautiously proceeding
Behind armored vehicles
Say farewell to their comrades
Left in blood red waves
A sudden hail of metal
From camouflaged caves

--"On Coral Shores" from On Divine Winds

Haydn, Wagner, the Carmina Burana, movie soundtracks...all make great backdrops for wargaming. Recently I just discovered a fantastic Dutch death metal band, Hail of Bullets.

Made of of members with extensive backgrounds in the death metal scene, Hail of Bullets' latest release is "On Divine Winds", a concept album of the Pacific War.

Opening with "The Eve Of Battle", a short but epic sounding introduction that ends with a screaming aircraft signaling the start of "Operation Z", Hail of Bullets immediately impresses. Sounding somewhat like Unleashed, Jungle Rot, or Dismember, this is pretty much pure death metal. They're not striving to be a technical band, nor progressive metal, which is fine because sometimes you just want something that gets the blood flowing and your pulse pounding.

Lyrics are all awesome, touching on everything from the Tokyo fire raids to the War in China to the Bataan death march. For a wargamer this is of course perfect subject matter.

Hail of Bullet's first album, "...Of Frost and War" is another killer piece, focusing on the Eastern Front. Considering they hail from the Netherlands maybe their next release could be on Market Garden.

The Slippery Slope Of Game Pricing

S.R. Krol — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 23:07:55 GMT

A recent trend in computer gaming has been the extreme slashing of price points for a limited time. Steam particularly has led the way, with some limited time price reductions being as much as 90% off their normal cost. Here at Shrapnel we've even experimented by offering a bundle of four games for the price of one.

While a goldmine for consumers it is a potentially troublesome issue for developers. Imagine being an indie developer, sinking thousands of your own dollars into project along with hundreds of hours squeezed out between work and family, only to be forced to sell your game at rock bottom prices because that has become the new norm. After all, as a consumer if I've become accustomed to games being discounted 50%, 75%, or 90% off why wouldn't I have the attitude of simply waiting until that game gets cheap?

Several weeks back Ars Technica had a nice article about the phenomenon that is worth reading. More recently, Jay Barnson comments on the issue. Another good read, especially the comments which contain some pretty thoughtful remarks on the situation.

Quote:

"But I do worry about this. Is this kind of thing driving a consumer expectation that indie games should only sell for $5 or less? Are we racing to the bottom of indie game pricing where only those games that can sell a hundred thousand copies are more are profitable?"

Emphasis mine. Interesting observation. Back in the day the idea was that you didn't need to sell 100,000 copies of an indie game to "make it". That was AAA talk (and now of course it's more like 1,000,000 copies to a retail game to just break even). So in effect there is a potential for the indie movement to turn into the very industry it sought to break away from!

Quote:

Nowadays, an iPhone game costing more than a couple of dollars, total, will be met with loud complaints.

While he mentions the app market only in this passing sentence I can't help but feel that this is the root of the problem. When you have software selling for .99 a pop trying to get people to spend twenty, thirty, forty times more than that on a single program becomes challenging. Nevermind that a full featured game is vastly superior in every way to a typical one-trick app, the psychological effect is already rooted in the consumer's mind.

The thing that I really question though is why do most gamers view computer games as entertainment that should be practically free, yet this is never a question in the analog world? In fact, with board games, miniatures, and card games the prices have only been rising, not going down. Someone will happily pay over $100 for the latest coffin-box game from Fantasy Flight but then balks at paying more than a few dollars for a six month old indie game. Whut?

Is it that with a board game you can physically see what your money went towards? Probably. After all if I gave you a choice of having a million dollars presented to you in currency form, or as a painting worth a million dollars, which would you choose? Both are equal in value but a million dollar painting can look the same as a dollar painting but a million dollars looks like a million dollars.

The value of software has always been one of mystery for the most part. Business software sells for more than commercial software. Games decided on a comfortable price point long ago and have typically stayed there.

Is this, as Jay puts it, "race to the bottom" really the way we should be going now? Wouldn't it make more sense to try showing that indie games are just as valuable as those boring, cookie-cutter AAA titles, and thus maybe look towards increasing the prices?

I know, heresy from a consumer's standpoint. But if we reach the point where the only games left are Angry Birds and match-three games was this economic suicide worth it?

A Look Back At 2010's Games Needing Dice

S.R. Krol — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 21:48:34 GMT

Overall, 2010 was an okay year in the world of non-digital gaming. I say okay because while there were plenty of good games released I can’t put my finger on any one that is destined to become a classic. Thinking back nothing really stands out like in previous years. Lots of good, solid titles at least.

So here are some random thoughts on the year that was 2010…

Most surprising game: Space Hulk: Death Angel (Fantasy Flight Games)

Whodyathunk that a $25 card game based off a classic board game would have been so enjoyable? This co-op game of Space Marines versus Genestealers is everything the board game boasts (clever mechanics, tense situations, great tactical decision making) but doesn’t require a massive table to play upon. More importantly, its co-op nature really works instead of the adversarial play of the tabletop game. This is a co-op game that truly is co-op, as opposed to being a code phrase for ‘multi-player solitaire’ gaming.

Most disappointing game: Castle Ravenloft (Wizards of the Coast)

With Death Angel I was skeptical before its release. With Castle Ravenloft I was excited. Co-op dungeon crawl using a random create-as-you-go design, with familiar Dungeon and Dragons’ beasts and rules? This game is going to rock! Then the actual game came out and much disappointment followed. Skimpy and poorly written rules, soulless atmosphere, generic graphic design, and sadistic (and yet dull!) gameplay make this one of the worst tabletop dungeoncrawl games to get. No creative thinking or strategy required to play, just the ability to mark off hit points on a constant basis. French kissing a belt sander is more enjoyable.

Best multiplayer game: Invasion From Outer Space (Flying Frog Productions)

Flying Frog, makers of the excellent Last Night On Earth and A Touch Of Evil, bring the LNOE system to the world of carnival folks and invading martians. If sending the human cannonball barreling through a mob of martians or a rampaging elephant doesn’t bring a smile on your face then you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘fun’. While perfectly playable with only two players the game really shines when you have a full complement of players and the teamwork that ensues. It also helps that unlike LNOE, the heroes actually stand a chance of winning.

Best wargaming magazine: Panzer Digest (Minden Games)

A quarterly digest, each issue is packed with two or three games, game variant ideas, short reviews, and an article or two. The games may not be anything to look at, but what they lack in beauty they more than make up for in great gameplay. If you’re a wargamer you should definitely add Panzer Digest to your shelf.

Best trend in role-playing games: The return of 1st Edition

The most recent RPG to join the ranks of new role-playing games emulating the old school ways of 1st edition D&D was the Finnish Lamentations of the Flame Princess. This is a fantastic box set that adds its own twist to the genre, infusing a dose of Call of Cthuluh with D&D. Of course if you’re looking for more faithful adaptations there’s Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, and many more. I think it says something that right now there are more old school games on the market then variations on new school RPGs.

Most pleasant surprise to see back in print: Fabled Lands

Remember the Fighting Fantasy books? These were solo gamebooks that were a more sophisticated version of the old choose your own adventure books from our youth. In the mid-90s the series Fabled Lands was released, which were meant to be the next step up from Fighting Fantasy, or Tunnels & Trolls solo modules. In the Fabled Lands series players had multiple character types to choose from, the ability to become merchants, and best of all an open-world gameplay element. Instead of focusing on a single type of quest like in the Fighting Fantasy books players were free to do as they please. What was really cool was the fact that the books all made up one big gameworld, allowing players to traverse from book to book with a single character. Long out of print this year saw the reprinting of the first four books (which were the only ones released previously), with two more books being released next year. If these six do well enough the creators plan on bringing the remaining six books of the series to publication. These are fantastic books, so let’s get them some sales!

Most surprising company: Victory Point Games

Victory Point Games has been around for a couple of years now and when they first began I was a tad cynical. It sounded like they were the gaming equivalent of a Philippines sweatshop: game designers would sell them their games and then a bunch of college students trying to pass their course would actually manufacture the games. It didn’t help that their original lineup, while perfectly serviceable, didn’t wow me. That’s all changed now, as VPG has been on a roll in 2010, releasing a number of really creative and truly fun games on a diverse range of topics. These are games that won’t take up a lot of space or time, are easily learned, but provide lots of long term enjoyment.

Best “classic” style wargame: None

I tried thinking of “classic” style wargames I played this year (IGOUGO, odds based CRT, etc) and when I started checking the dates of publication realized that these were all from 2009 or prior. 2010 was a very good year though for non-classic style wargaming, with lots of games featuring chit pull activations, card-driven gameplay, or non-traditional mechanics. While there is nothing wrong with sitting down and playing an old SPI title from the ‘70s, knowing exactly what to expect, it’s great to see the number of wargames coming out today whose designers aren’t confining themselves to old ways. Looking down the pike 2011 seems like it will be an even better year for the new way of wargaming.

The New Battle Cry

S.R. Krol — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 03:29:27 GMT

The second edition (or as WOTC is calling it, the 150th Civil War Anniversary edition) of Battle Cry was recently released. Typical of WOTC it hit the shelves with no marketing or pre-release hype. A shame really, when one considers that the original was long OOP and also happened to be the first published Commands and Colors game from Borg. Not to mention that the Napoleonic C&C game just shipped from GMT giving gamers even more 19th century warfare tabletop action.

The new edition makes a few changes to the original mechanics, but nothing radical. The changes include:

Generals no longer grant a bonus combat die to an attached unit. Instead, the first flag on the unit can be ignored. They also allow attached units to advance into an emptied hex, the same as armor in Memoir '44 (though no follow up attack).
Artillery units now consist of three figures instead of two.
The cards have been standardized with the rest of the C&C games, meaning that tactic cards that allow specific units to be moved also allow players to order a single unit if they do not have the referred to units. Some cards have also been changed, and a new one that allows an reprisal attack while defending (think of the ambush card in M44) has been added.
Units in woods and towns have reduced ranges and chances to hit. I assume this is to represent the lack of a line, and therefore the inability to focus all the fire in one area.
Many new scenarios added. In fact, another sixteen scenarios.

The map is much nicer than the original, losing the horrible borders and portraits. The figures are new sculpts and vary in quality. The artillery figures look great for example, but the cavalry have the riders posed in a very uncomfortable manner. The dice may be better. Instead of dice with stickers the dice have their symbols printed on them. I say may be better because I don't know if repeated use will cause the printing to fade.

The changes are welcome, especially the changes in cards. The new scenarios alone really are the star of this new edition; balanced, exciting, and a blast to play.

Now, to add zombies...

Pain For Pleasure, A Look At Dungeonquest

S.R. Krol — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:06:58 GMT

Quote:

It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure. --Marquis de Sade

I'm convinced that de Sade's spirit lives in the designers of dungeoncrawl games. These are some of the most brutal, unforgiving boardgames you'll ever play. No one makes a dungeoncrawl game with chocolate spouting fountains, treasure chests filled with unlimited gold, and populated by kittens and fuzzy bears. No, they make games like Dungeonquest, the recent Fantasy Flight Games remake of the old Games Workshop game in which one to four players attempt to loot a dragon's lair before the sun sets.

In Dungeonquest you can be brutally killed on the very first turn. Discover a room. Walk in. Oh no, a blade trap. Save or die. Die.

How about being trapped in a hole within a hole? That happened to me over the weekend, as my character first floundered around the catacombs beneath the dungeon before being trapped in yet another hole in the ground.

Meanwhile another character continually bounced from wall to wall in a chamber, victim of the dark and a torch that would not stay lit.

Then there was the third character, who somehow not only managed to walk away unscathed from every trap and encounter, but managed to amass a sizable chuck of loot. He even managed to get some swag from the dragon's lair. Unfortunately he did not make it out before the sun set, trapping him forever within the dungeon.

Three characters, three deaths. And yet we had an absolutely blast.

But why? Why does Dungeonquest elicit schoolgirl-like giggles from us while Castle Ravenloft is frustration incarnation? After all, aren't both games random dungeon crawl boardgames that feature dangerous denizens and terrible traps? Aren't both games almost Kobayshi Maru style no-win scenarios (Dungeonquest with its insta-kills even worse than the Castle Ravenloft death of a thousand cuts...)?

The difference is Dungeonquest is so full of random, crazy stuff from rotating rooms to scorpion infested corpses to the above mentioned holes in holes that the players can't wait to see how the game unfolds. Castle Ravenloft though is so sterile and predictable, once you've encountered the first room you've pretty much encountered all the rooms. Step one, new tile. Step two, new monster. Step three, hit point draining encounter. Rise and repeat. No surprises, and worse of all no real sense of style.

It's also interesting how the wackiness of Dungeonquest infects the players, as the game moves from 'who will be able to score the most treasure to 'let's see who gets shafted the least', and yet it's all good because a story is really being told. A character enters the dungeon, is turned around in a rotating room, falls into a crypt, finds a sepulcher of gold, discovers a rope, escapes only to be whacked by a demon.

With Castle Ravenloft the only narrative that develops is the difference in lost hit points from bland room to bland room.

Of course, Dungeonquest's greatest strength can also be its greatest weakness. If you can't stand wholesale randomness, particularly deadly randomness, you will despise Dungeonquest. And sure, honestly it's not going to be a game you'll want to spend weekend after weekend playing, but if you're getting together with friends and want to blow off some steam it's far more enjoyable than Jenga.

The New Gamma World (Or How WOTC Still Bends Gamers Over And Sticks It To Them)

S.R. Krol — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 01:10:48 GMT

Like my board game collection I own more RPGs than I will ever play in a lifetime. Over the years there have been three systems that have gotten quite a bit of play though: Dungeons and Dragons, Gamma World, and Call of Cthulhu. In that order. So when I saw that WOTC was releasing a new version of Gamma World I had to have it, even knowing full well it used their 4E D&D ruleset as its core mechanics.

Flipping through the rules it appears to be even more gonzo than the original game, which isn't a bad thing. I can't really comment on gameplay since I have yet to play, but I do have a number of comments on the physical components.

Gamma World is sold as a boxed set for $39.99 and contains the following:

160 page manual.
2 fold-out battle maps.
2 sheets of character/monster counters.
4 character sheets.
88 total cards.

Note there are no dice. While gamers will have a set of polys lying around it is still unconceivable to me that you would release a boxed RPG and not include a set of dice. Consider that the D&D starter box includes two manuals, battle maps, cards, counters, and even dice and sells for half the price of the GW box.

The box is square and slightly smaller than a Days of Wonder box. Except for the fact that the counter sheets take up the same dimensions as the box there is absolutely no reason to have the box the size it is. The manual is a digest sized softbound book (remember when RPG books were hardcover?). 90% of the box is taken up by an insert. So, you get a big box of air. Maybe the idea is there is room to store the expansions?

The cards...oh gawds, the cards. The cards are decent enough quality and represent mutations and technology. Now, you may be asking yourself why in the world would you use cards for mutations and technology when some good ol' fashioned tables with entries chosen by random dice rolling would do the trick?

Why, the better to make a buck off the consumer.

As I'm purchasing the game I notice the store has a display of Gamma World booster cards next to the box. I inquired with the shopkeeper and found out that gamers can now purchase--blindly--new mutation and technology cards.

That's right. One of the key mechanics of the new Gamma World is now a collectible card game!!!!!

"You have got to be ____ing me!" I exclaimed.

The shopkeeper promised me that they were purely optional. You had enough mutations and technology in the box game. You'll see WOTC promising the same thing. But c'mon, shay'right they're optional. It's like buying the core ASL game. Sure, all the other modules are optional but only if you never want to play anything but Beyond Valor.

And how much do they cost? Are you sitting down? Retail $3.99. For eight cards.

Which got me thinking...the box set contains 88 cards (80 standard plus they throw in a booster for 8 random cards) which equates to you getting about $44 worth of cards. The box sells for $40. Are we paying for the cards and getting the rules and everything else for free, or vice versa?

Let's hope WOTC receives enough ire from gamers that this particularly troublesome business practice soon ends, never to be seen again. This has left me with a really sour taste in my mouth, and the last time that happened with Gamma World is when they went to the color based skill resolution table (another brilliant idea).

US Army To Discontinue Bayonet Training

S.R. Krol — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 01:24:05 GMT

The Army is doing away with bayonet training. You know, history has shown it's never a good idea when the military decides to phase something out because they don't feel it's necessary anymore. "Guns on jets? This isn't WWII, we just need missiles!" Watch, in a couple of years some unit is going to be wiped out by a bunch of fuzzy wuzzies with spears.

What I wonder is does this mean we should not include melee combat rules for Army units in wargames set in 2011+?

Your Suffering Will Be Legendary Even In Hell

S.R. Krol — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 01:13:43 GMT

Hey, guess what, kids? Playing with more characters in Castle Ravenloft simply means there's much more pain being dealt out on a regular basis.

This is brutal stuff. The problem boils down to two things: there is far too much damage accrued each turn and there is far too little to then heal that damage. With those two thoughts in mind I present to you some house rules that will hopefully alleviate these issues.

Shared XP pool. Experience points are supposed to be kept individually but considering that it's a party versus system game, and in fact if one person loses everyone loses, why not keep them pooled? That way the party is able to cancel an event card, not just the player who drew the event card, whom may not have enough XP to kill it.

Waiting does not trigger events. If a character does not explore in the turn no event card is drawn. Considering that hanging around a room gives no bonus to players (there are no spells in the game to memorize, no natural healing, no searching, et cetera) why punish someone for not advancing to the next room? In our games there have been many times in which we had to stick around and fight someone for a couple of character turns, why add events on top of that?

Leveling does not require a nat twenty. Spend 5 XP and level. Forget only being able to do so if you roll a natural twenty. It's not like second level drastically alters the game.

Events only occur 50% of the time. When you explore a tile with a black triangle roll the d20. On a 11-20 no event card is drawn. There will still be plenty of nastiness in the game.

Disarmed traps count for XP. Disarm a trap and earn 1 XP, unless you're a rogue in which case you get 2 XP.

Healing surges can be purchased. A healing surge can be purchased for 6 XP.
Another thought was this isn't done, but instead healing surges when activated effect all characters. Think of it as resting overnight.

We haven't tried these enough to know if they break the game, or even help, but the idea was to modify the base game slightly but not get so far removed it's not even the basic game anymore. If you try any of these let me know how well they work for you.

An Exercise In Masochism: Castle Ravenloft

S.R. Krol — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 02:05:36 GMT

Ready for some fun? First, find yourself a set of stairs. Preferably cement. Now, grab yourself a case of light bulbs and smash the bulbs so broken glass rests on all the steps. Strip. Coat yourself in sea salt and rubbing alcohol. Find yourself a rabid skunk and attach it to your genitals. Punch it a couple of times first. Grab an iPod and crank up some Justin Beiber. Now leap head first from the top of the stairs.

Congratulations, you’ve just experienced the thrill of the new Wizards of the Coast board game, Castle Ravenloft. And you didn’t have to spend sixty-five bucks!

That’s not to say it’s a bad game. No, actually in the genre of tabletop dungeon forays Castle Ravenloft has some clever ideas. Such as the random dungeon construction which actually works (no M.C. Escher layouts!). Or the GM-less gameplay. It’s you and your friends in a series of co-op adventures against the game system, which handles monsters in a series of essentially IF/THEN statements. IF an adventurer is within one tile then the monster will attack that adventurer with its Croquet Balls of Doom. Works nice enough.

Of course not all is happy hobbits. Considering this is a Dungeons & Dragons branded product and WOTC has access to literally thousands of pieces of art it wouldn’t have hurt to have used some of their vast collection. Except for the monster cards every other card is simply a boring wall of text. They use some flavor text, but even that reads more like a Reader’s Digest version of a Fantasy Flight Games title. Boring. The rules are also very poorly written. Far too brief, they fail to answer most of the questions that will come up in play.

The thing about Castle Ravenloft though is it is a brutal, scratch that, F&@#ING BRUTAL game. Pretty much your heroes can stand still and sing Gilbert and Sullivan and even that will bring down 3 hit points of damage on them.

See, first problem is that when you discover a new location tile a monster pops up, activates, and does its thing. Its “thing” usually involves trying to hurt you. This is a game that doesn’t believe in the Bush doctrine, as heroes will never get a pre-emptive strike. Oh, and get this, most monsters do damage even if they miss.

Okay, so we wait on discovering a new tile until we’re all in a nice tactical formation ready to split kobold skull. Nope. See, if you a hero doesn’t discover a new tile on their turn, or the tile that was discovered is of a certain type, an event occurs. Events are never, ever good. About the best event we pulled was one in which we found a treasure chest. But then we only had like a 25% chance of getting something from it, with the other 75% being the chest doing damage to us. Yes, even the crates in Castle Ravenloft wants to see your maim, crippled, and dead.

How about healing? The party gets two healing surges, which I think is some sort of fancy 4E mechanic. When someone is down to zero hit points you must spend a surge and bring them back a few hit points, depending on their surge value. If anyone cannot be brought back from zero hit points the adventure is over. Your party has failed. Wa-wah.

So you have two chances to bring party members back from the brink of death. Other healing is extremely rare (you’d think healing potions would at least be fairly common), and even the cleric is pretty much worthless. Hey, he can heal one hit point at a time if he hits a monster. Wow, that's umm, impressive. Gods forsaken, much?

At least you can level in the game. Yep, before facing that dracolich you can advance from first level all the way to second level. But to do so you first need to have slain five experience points worth of monster (not terribly difficult) and then while in combat with a monster roll a nat twenty. Great, so at any given time I have a five percent chance of leveling. I’m going to start using a similar mechanic in my tabletop RPGs. In order for a character to level they will have to have the required experience points, it will have to be a full moon, the pizza must have between forty and fifty slices of pepperoni, and finally they must roll exactly between 1,551 and 1,558 on a d10,000 (Yes, there really is a d10,000. You must not play Hackmaster.) Think I’ll have a player riot on my hands?

You know, the more I think about the random dungeon design and the PC slaying nature of the game the more I realize that I shouldn’t look at this as Castle Ravenloft, the WOTC D&D board game, but rather a cardboard adaptation of DungeonCrawl. Then again, even DungeonCrawl isn’t this deadly.

Hopefully the next game in the series won’t be so brutal. Castle Ravenloft still has a lot going for it, just don’t expect to win often. Or at all. Next weekend we’re going to try playing with a larger party and see if that makes a difference. Maybe the secret is having a bunch of meat shields. We’ll see.

A Different Perspective On Charles S. Robert's Passing

S.R. Krol — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:41:47 GMT

Found out today through Consimworld that legendary game designer and father of Avalon Hill, Charles S. Roberts, has died. Considering the past couple of years it has been a rough time for the Old Guard of gaming.

What I found interesting though was how his life was viewed. To anyone who has played a wargame the name instantly conjures up memories of classic wargames, along with the knowledge that without him there may have never been a large wargaming hobby. Yet the Baltimore Sun obituary only gives his gaming background a couple of sentences and instead focuses on his love of the railroad. To us gamers the man was Mr. Wargame but to the rest of the world he was apparently Mr. Railroad.

Chewing on this I have to wonder if the author was someone who never had an interest in games and therefore dismissed his gaming background. I just can't help but think that essentially creating a hobby that still exists decades later should at least share an equal word count with his other pursuits. But maybe that's just the gamer talking.

With A Rebel Yell: Battle Cry 2nd Edition On Its Way

S.R. Krol — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:29:27 GMT

Apparently the news leaked out a month ago but I just saw it this week. WOTC is releasing a new edition of Battle Cry later this year.

Battle Cry was the first game in Richard Borg's Commands and Colors system (though technically second, as there is an unpublished Revolutionary War game using the system that predates Battle Cry) and really opened up to my gaming group the idea that light games can be just as enjoyable as the heavy lifting games. The addition of new scenarios is great to hear, and hopefully the rules will now reflect the current systems such as more flexible cards (e.g. in later games special cards usually allowed one to move a single unit if you can't meet the card's conditions while in Battle Cry you're just stuck) and varied victory conditions.

Between this, his upcoming Nappy game, and the fact that Fantasy Flight Games has been doing a great job releasing expansions for Battlelore, this is a great time to be a C&C fan.