Writing an RPG Part One

So recently I've been trying to write a story for a Tabletop RPG.  I've never done it before, I've never DM'd before and it has been awhile since I've actually played an RPG so it's a long process.  I'm not going to post any details of the story here since I know members of my group read this blog from time to time and I don't want to spoil it incase I get to use it.  I will be posting some updates on how it is going.

Christmas Games Night 27/12/2015

So the festive season is upon us and that means more new games.  I was lucky enough to get two this year, Sheriff of Nottingham and Carcassonne (with the River and Abbot expansions).  This was the first chance we got to play any since Christmas so we got a few games in.  We had started with 6 which was over both games player counts so we started with a few other games until we were down to 4 players.  These aren't as big or story driven games like my last Games night post but they were new games for all of us and I wanted to write about them a bit but haven't really played them enough to do a full review.

Game Night 09/12/2015 "Night of the Living Dead"

I'm going to be doing a quick overview of our last game night, it won't be reviews of the games but just what happened in them.  We only played two games, Dead Men Tell No Tales and Dead Of Winter.

You can see the Board Game Geek plays here, Dead Men Tell No Tales & Dead Of Winter.

Fillers

I like a long deep game dripping with theme, but sometimes you just need to get a short game out, something that you can either play multiple games of in a go, relax between more taxing games of the night or just killing 10 minutes while waiting for people to turn up/get food sorted/pack up the last game.  So I'm going to take about a few of my favorite short games.  

I find that fillers see a lot more table time that larger games, most work with higher player counts so work if we have a large group together and we could just spend the night playing a selection of fillers.  They also tend to be quite light so work with non-gamers.

Munchkin

I'm going to be looking at Munchkin today.  This was one of the first table top games I played when I got into the hobby.  It's still a game I enjoy but I play it less and less these day.  In the game you are a group of adventures moving through a dungeon D&D style (minus the roleplay unless you really want to).  So whether you are a Wizard Dwarf or a Elf Cleric it's time get kill as many monsters as you can and get out with more treasure than your friends.

New and Upcoming games for Oct 2015

I thought I'd talk about a few games that have been recently released or are due for soon that I'm looking forward to or have caught my attention.  Some are re-prints of older games and some are new.  I haven't played any of these and have different amounts of information on each one.

I hope to get a chance to play all of these and a few I do plan on picking up very soon.  This list isn't in any particular order.  I might not go into much detail on some of the games, since they are not always light and I haven't seen the rules for any of them and I'd rather be vague than wrong.  This isn't the definitive list, there are plenty of new and upcoming games but these are a few I'm really excited about.

Revolution and The Palace Expansion

So in this post I'm going to talk about Revolution from Steve Jackson Games and it's 1st expansion The Palace.

We are going to start with the base game but I will explain later why I am combining both into a single review and not doing the expansion separately later.

In Revolution you are trying to gain support for your cause by bribing, blackmailing and threatening people in the city and the winner is the one who has gained the most support by the end of the game.

Blood Bowl Team Manager Card Game - Foul Play

In my last post I talked about the Blood Bowl Team Manager Card Game.  This time I will be looking at one of its expansions Foul Play.

This expansion added 3 new teams, a few optional mechanics and a score track to use a 5th player.

Blood Bowl Team Manager Card Game

Welcome Sports fans!

I'll start by saying I love the Games Workshop Blood Bowl game, I used to play the table top version when I was younger and play the PC version online these days.  That's why I picked up this card game from Fantasy Flight.

Eve Online "So Long and Thanks for the Vagas"

So this is my first Eve story on this blog.  This was back in 2012 while I was living in a Class 4 wormhole. For anyone that doesn't know the entrances and exits to wormholes change after a set amount of time or if too much mass passes through them, so the systems next to you are constantly changing.

I logging into Eve one night after work, it was late and when I got online only one of my corp mates was still online, McBobtronic.  He told me that the wormhole next door was inactive, only a AFK pilot in a POS and a few unpiloted ships floating.  They had an exit to a lowsec system and Bob had found a Harbinger battlecruiser killing NPC rats in asteroid belts.  It seemed an easy target and something to do so I got into a shield fit DPS Hurricane (Bob was in a Myrmidon) and headed out towards the lowsec exit.  I reached the lowsec wormhole and out of habit I checked the mass on the hole to check it before jumping.  When I did I warned Bob that the hole had already been reduced by the mass that had passed through, straight away Bob told me that the hole had just opened when he scanned it down and it hadn't been reduced 10 minutes earlier when he went through.  We knew something else had come through the wormhole and Bob asked me to d-scan the POS that was in the system because he remembered what ships had been floating there.  When I told him the results he told me that an Orca had left the system.

This was a much better target than the Harbinger so we changed our plans straight away.  We checked the maps of the region the lowsec exit was in and found that it was only a couple of jumps through lowsec before you could get into highsec space and from there the nearest trading hub was Amarr.  We had no idea if the Orca had gone there or if it was coming back but we had to check.

Eve Online

I used to play Eve Online a lot, I haven't in a while because I went for a long time with a temperamental internet connection that wasn't great for online gaming so stopped my subscription.  For those that don't know Eve is a science fiction MMORPG where you take on the role of a pilot flying various space ships around a whole galaxy.  It's a sandbox and you can do anything you like within the game mechanics.  The economy is almost completely player run and is designed that even though area's are safer than others no-where is completely safe, even in the safest areas of the game other players won't be stopped from attacking you without provocation, only punished when they do.

I think it is one of the best and most interesting MMORPGs out there and one I played for years.

My main character was Karloth Valois and in my time I have done a lot of different things in game.  I lived in Providence 0.0 space after only a week in game, I moved back to high-sec space and ran missions and tried industry, I lived in low-sec space as a pirate, High-sec as a pirate and war dec mercenary, I have flown in 0.0 sov wars with Fatal Ascension and the CFC and have lived in both high and low class wormholes.

For anyone interested my killboard link is Eve-Kill it isn't the most impressive and I don't claim to be the greatest PvP player.

I decided to start telling a few stories from my time in Eve on this blog since it falls under gaming.  These may not be the greatest stories ever told in a game that is famous for player driven content, but they are some of the experiences I had in the game.

"Friendly Fire" My 1st 7th edition Codex battle VS. Space Wolves

So this was my first battle using the new Blood Angels codex.  I was using models I had for my 5th Edition lists just updated for the new codex.  We were fighting on a small table so only using 1000pts.  We were played Kill Points with Linebreaker, 1st Blood and Slay the Warlord as secondary objectives

My list was a variation on previous lists I have used recently:

• Librarian with Gallian's Staff, Jump Pack and Level 2 Mastery (Powers=Force, Blood Lance, Shield of Sanguinius and the Quickening)
• Chaplain with Jump Pack and Veritas Vitae (Warlord, Traits gave him Rampage and Descent of Angels)
• 2 Ten man Tactical Squads, both with Missile Launchers, one with Meltagun and one with Plasma Gun
• Ten man Assault Squad with Power Fist (Chaplain joined this squad)
• Five man Sanguinary Guard with Death Masks, Chapter Banner, 1 Inferno Pistol and 2 Encarmine Axe's (Librarian joined this squad)

The Space Wolves brought:

• Wolf Guard Battle Leader with Thunderwolf mount and Storm Shield
• Ulrik (Warlord)
• Five Grey Hunters in Drop Pod
• Five Grey Hunters with Wolf Guard and Standard, squad has Combat Weapons, Wolf Guard has Terminator Armour, Power Weapon and Storm Bolter.  Squad in a Drop Pod with Locator Beacon. (Ulrik joined this squad)
• 2 Lone Wolves both with Terminator Armour, Storm Shield and Wolf Claw
• Three Wolf Guard Terminators with Storm Bolters and Power Swords
• 2 Three man Long Fang Squads each with Plasma Cannon and Lascannon.
• Six Wolves (Wolf Guard Battle Leader and Mount joined this Squad)

We set up along the short table edges.  Space Wolves had the 1st turn.  Because I had rolled Descent of Angels as a warlord trait I decided to hold all my jump infantry in reserve and deep strike them in.  Space Wolves were holding both drop pods, terminators and lone wolves in reserve.

Both Tactical Squads are deployed with the Melta in the center and Plasma on my right.  One long fang squad is in the white ruin at the back and the other is behind the wolves and wolf guard battle leader.

The Resistance and The Resistance Avalon

I'm going to do a few posts on some of the board games I have played recently.  The first is Resistance.  I have played this game a few times using the 2nd edition Resistance and the Resistance Avalon as well and I will be talking about both.  The two games are basically the same with just a different setting, so really it just comes down to which setting you prefer.

So 1st up is Resistance 2nd Edition.

So with this setting you are a group of Resistance members fighting against a futuristic corrupt government.  However the Government have managed to get spies into your group and they are trying to sabotage your missions.

Next is Avalon.

This is more of a fantasy setting.  You are in King Arthur's Britain and are his Knights however Mordred's minions have infiltrated the organisation and are trying to Sabotage your missions.

Both games work the same.  Everyone is dealt a card which will tell you if you are loyal or a spy, you keep this secret.  Then everyone closes their eyes and once everyone has the spies open theirs so they know who the other spies are, they then shut there eyes again and everyone opens their eyes (and normally looks suspiciously at each other).  There are rules for different numbers of players so more players you have the more spies there will be.  The spies win if 3 of the 5 missions fail, everyone else wins if 3 of the 5 missions succeed.

Next you look at the board it will have 5 missions with different numbers in each mission, this is the number of people that are sent on that mission.  The Leader picks that number of people to go on the mission.  Once picked everyone votes on if they want the mission to go ahead, if the vote fails the Leader token moves to the next person and they get to pick the team for the mission (and so on until a vote passes).  If the vote passes the players on that mission are given two cards, one fail, one succeed.  A loyal player will always play the suceed card however a spy can play either.  The cards are played face down and shuffled so you don't know who played which and then are turned over, if any card is a fail the whole mission fails and is a point for the spies.  This carries on until all 5 missions have been played or either side has reached 3 points.  Simple.

It's been a while

I haven't been playing 40K for a while.  I plan on playing a few games soon so you will see some battle reports up here soon hopefully.

Since I last played the updated Blood Angels codex has come out.  I've been through it and written a few lists I want to try, some are just updates on lists I already have and some are trying new things to work towards so we'll see what happens.  I have a few thoughts about the new codex but  mostly I like it.  It brings the army more in line with other Space Marine chapters which is good.  The biggest problem I can see is moving Priests to HQ slots instead of 1-3 per Elite slot, it makes choices for HQ's harder.  The other negative I see in the new codex is moving Death Company and Assault Squads out of Troops.  Again it makes choices for slots harder and removes the choice of all jump pack armies. The issue with slots are helped by the Flesh Tearers and Blood Angels exclusive FOCs giving us extra Fast Attack or extra Elite slots.

I also picked up the Exterminatus supplement and the Blood Angels tactical cards, both are really good and the option for a 1st Company army is really cool.  It's something I have been thinking about doing for a while (along with a full Scout Company, but you can do that with a regular FOC) and having something in place to make that easier is really good.

So hopefully I'll be playing some games soon to try out the new codex and I will carry on building my Blood Angels army and trying new things.

So what have I been doing? Well me and my friends have started playing a lot more board games which has been really good.  We are all getting new games for us to try as a group and have been doing semi regular games nights.

A few of the games we have been playing are:

• Zombiecide
• Zombies!!!
• Munchkin
• Resistance
• Betrayal at House on the Hill
• Small Worlds
• Cards against Humanity

We have a few others we are waiting to play and I might start using this blog to do write ups of game play sessions or reviews of the games if I can get the time.  

We also have plans for starting a Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign.  We don't have much experience roleplaying as a group so it will be a bit of an experiment and we will see how it works out.  Again I might start doing write ups of D&D sessions on this blog if this takes off.

Anyway thats what I've been up to and why there haven't been any updates to this blog for a while, but I have plans to put more on here for now.