Dresden Files Co-op Card Game: Hot, Fast, Replayable

I’m a board gamer, a terrible one, as well as rpg enthusiast. I’ve got a decent BG collection and a terrible win rate. I prefer games with just enough luck that I can blame something else for my loss. Cooperative games serve that purpose as well- I can point to “collective” bad moves rather than my dumb play. So I dig Castaways, Marvel Legendary, Pandemic Legacy, and related games. Evil Hat’s new Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game falls squarely into that niche. And it’s one of my favorite games of the year.

RITUAL COMPONENTS

DFCCG’s set in the Dresden Files universe (aka “Dresdenverse”). As I’ve mentioned, I have an “GM prep” level of knowledge about vs. a reader’s knowledge. This game delves deep into that world. On the one hand you have character sets, each with a divider, two special cards, and a twelve card deck. Each has a nice flavor and decent illustrations. They cover all of the biggies. None of the DF experts I played with went “Oh, they should have had X.” They also have thirteen card case decks, each one built around a particular novel complete with those events and characters. There’s also a larger “Brief Cases” deck if you want to randomly generate case.

The board has two rows of six cards. You shuffle and deal out the case cards to those rows. Each card has a “range”, so those furthest to the left are at range 1, furthest to the right are range 6. Card effects can only reach a certain distance. Each case contains enemy, mystery, obstacle, and advantage cards. You add damage tokens to enemies to remove them; clue tokens to mysteries to clear them. Obstacles and advantages have specific cards to clear them. In the end, you’re trying to have more mysteries cleared than enemies left on the board. Do that and you win. Anything else, you lose.

Each player shuffles their deck and draws a number of cards based on player count. More players, fewer cards. Here’s the thing: unless a special ability or card result triggers it, you don’t draw any more cards. That’s it. Those cards are a huge resource. Fate Points are the other resource, you have a shared pool of these you spend to play cards. To get those points back, you have to discard a card as your turn, regaining FP equal to the card’s cost.

You also have Talents, special tricks which usually activate when you discard for fate, and a Stunt you can (usually) only activate once per game as an action. If you know the Fate rpg, you’ll recognize the game’s terminology. For example, you play a Create Advantage to gain Advantage cards with an immediate benefit. You play an Overcome to remove an Obstacle card which has a global negative effect. As well, you use Fate dice for randomization. I dug that and it didn’t get in the way for non-Fate folks. In fact, I’m kind of hoping it might serve as a gateway for non-rp players into DFAE or the regular DFRPG. It’s clever.

THE LAWS OF MAGIC

Throughout the game you have a tight, tight economy. You can use your Stunt once, and it’s usually potent. You have a limited hand of cards; you can talk these about generally but can’t show or give the specifics to other players. The table has to to negotiate about the use of fate points and replenishing them. Timing means that you may have to discard a valuable card just to keep the game from ending. If you can’t do anything, you have to pass—but that costs a fate point.

Which brings us to the end game. If you have to pass and there’s no FP, you go to the Showdown. If you try to play a card with a randomized FP cost and it’s more than your fate pool, you go to showdown. If the team agrees that you’ve hit all that you can do in the main play, you can go to Showdown.

Each case has a Showdown card. In this phase, you get one more shot at any enemy or mystery with at least one token. You roll a number of Fate dice listed on the case’s showdown card. Positive results add more tokens, potentially taking the card out. If your group has Fate points to spend, you can *slightly* raise their odds. The costs and odds depend on the case. That makes deciding to go to showdown an important calculation. It’s a neat shift and breaks the gameplay up. You finish a collective discussion on how to mitigate chance and risk. It’s a different kind of puzzle than you’re facing the first part of the game and makes a distinct final act.

HITTING THE TABLE

Puzzle’s a good way to describe DFCCG. But it’s not a fixed one. You have several set up variables. First, the character selection impacts play. Each one has different abilities and a different balance of card types. The latter’s helpfully noted on the card dividers. Second, you have how case cards actually land on the table. If a problematic Obstacle’s further away, you may suffer under it longer. If you have a clot of bad guys at the front, it will be harder to solve mysteries. That changes up your play every time. Finally you have what you actually draw to start the game. There’s ratio of different cards, but your hand still might end up heavy in one aspect, forcing you to shift strategies.

DFCCG has the same modularity as Marvel Legendary, and that’s something I adore. The Brief Cases cards I mentioned earlier have a set guidelines for different case deck compositions. That’s complemented by different Showdowns you can pick or randomly choose to shape the challenge. There’s a lot of replayability. I’ve played the first case (Storm Front) six times, with player counts from 2 to 5. I didn’t get tired of it. Playing on easy (the max starting Fate in your pool), I’m 50/50 win/loss. Each game felt tight. The second case, which I’ve played once and lost, feels different than the first. There’s smart design across the board here.

It’s also a game you’ll finish in 30 minutes, often less. Player count doesn’t heavily change that- it played well at all sizes. Even including teaching time, I don’t think we’ve broken that range. I love, love Legendary, but this game has the advantage over it in play speed and set up time.

SHOWDOWN

I backed the Kickstarter, so I got the full spiel. Dresden’s base set comes with five characters, five cases, plus some side jobs cards. Each of the three expansion sets have two new characters and two cases, plus add-ons for the side jobs deck. I think you could easily play and get a solid value out of just the base set. The expansions augment rather than change, so I’d say pick them up if you dig the game. They add a lot.

With seven plays, I’ve only just begun to dig into the game. We haven’t pushed past Case #2 (Fool Moon), but I’m looking forward to it. I’ve enjoyed it and all nine other players I taught and tried it with dug it. It has gone over with Dresdeverse aficionados and newbs equally well. This is definitely going to be my go-to ‘fast co-op’ game as well as a pick-up game I’ll always take with me. 

Eurosmash Amerigame: My 2016 Board Games

IF IT ROLLS OFF THE TABLE, FIGHT TO THE DEATH

Since it looks like I won't get any boardgaming in until New Year's Eve, I'm posting my pick for the bg's I dug the most this year. They're not necessarily new or even new to me. But they're the ones I got the best experiences out of. 

I present these in no particular order. 

• Mission: Red Planet: Steampunk Mars Colonization. This has been a surprisingly solid game. I thought it would be fun, but I didn’t realize how well it would scale to six players. At our game gatherings, six people presents the most difficulty. Do you split into two three-person games? A two and a four? Or does someone wait out while the others play? Our group isn’t as big on “social” games like The Resistance, so that cuts out the options. MRP uses a variation on the role selection with the countdown from Citadels. That’s combined with an area-control mechanism. It’s easy to grok and plays much faster than you’d expect. I’ll be taking this one to most of our gatherings.
• Libertalia: Pirate Booty Distribution. Like MRP, Libertalia works well with six, not as well, but it holds together. It has more text and some odd mechanics that pose a teaching hurdle. But if you have someone who knows the game and keeps things moving, it can click along. It uses role selection as well. All players get the same random set of cards from a range of thirty characters. They play most of these on a round, with the remaining ones carrying over. That means by the third round, each player likely has a unique mix of cards. I wish it had a few more treasure tokens, but overall Libertalia works.
• Kanban: Automotive Office Politics. Crazy complex and weirdly satisfying. I love how all the different mechanisms fit together. After a couple of plays, I’m still not sure what would be a good strategy. The game seems to end quickly, but we’ve gotten a chunk done by the time that hits. The board's one of the most complicated I’ve ever seen and the rules took multiple read-throughs. Not a game I’d recommend to anyone, but if the idea of being executives in a car manufacturer grabs you, watch a review. And I literally mean executives: you get job reviews and have to present your ideas at department meetings.
• Imperial Settlers: Chibi-cute Colonialism. This remains one of Sherri and I’s favorites. It’s not as much loved in our wider gaming group, but I keep taking it. I like the arc of the play and how each game feels different. I bought the Atlantis expansion but I still haven’t played with that. I also haven’t bought the 3 is a Magic Number expansion. Part of the problem is that more cards means you have to tune the decks. I’d rather have something I can play right out of the box. I could put everything in, but that dilutes any of the expansion mechanics (see Suburbia for an example of this). Still it’s the only boardgame I’ve blinged out. I splurged on the unique Meeples for it.
• 51st State: Post-Apocalyptic Faction Competition. Portal put out a pre-order special for this and I took the bait. I dug the old 51st State board game, but disliked the complexity and strange exceptions in the rules. This new edition makes it closer to Imperial Settlers (built on the same engine)- at least in terms of clarity. It cut out some of the corner-case mechanics. I like playing from one common deck- it removes some of the accusations of imbalance and forces everyone to work from the same astarting place. That being said, some of the faction boards seem stronger than others. Overall I think 51st State's a solid game and good reworking of the system. My friend Chris Charlwood disagrees. That’s too bad since he’s the person I play with most. In the end, if I had to pick one over the other, I’d choose Imperial Settlers. That could change if they support this game with some expansions.
• Marvel Legendary: Modular Superhero Battles. After the lunacy of last year’s Secret Wars Vol. I & II big-box expansions, Marvel Legendary took a more leisurely approach with two small expansions (Deadpool, Captain America) and one big (Secret Wars). I love this game, but I still haven’t had a chance to play with any of those new cards. Ugh. More disappointing because I finally broke down and bought a wooden artist’s box to put everything in. I actually played Legendary Big Trouble in Little China more than Marvel this year. That’s fun, but itis pretty much the same game (as opposed to legendary Encounters).
• Pandemic Legacy: You Lose. We’re still only halfway through this game. Why? Because it makes me super tense. I have to great my courage together before I can play another session.
• Three Kingdoms Redux: Romance of the Card Draw. I’m not much of a wargamer, but I have been known to try out some monster games (The Virgin Queen, Here I Stand). I took that plunge primarily because of insane designs and a historical period I find interesting. But these days, a board game had better be awesome if I’m spending more than three hours playing it. Three Kingdoms covers the Warring States period of China. I know enough about that to recognize which characters appear in the Dynasty Warriors videogame. TKR’s an abstract wargame. You bid for actions in the center using your generals. That lets you build resources, developments, and forces. Eventually you attack regions between you and one of your two opponents. Once you take a region, it starts generating points for you. But you also expend one of your generals doing that and it costs you resources. It’s a cleverly designed balance. Felt fun without being too “chit pushy.”
• Roll for the Galaxy: Space Hyper-Yahtzee. I didn’t like this the first time I played. It took reading through the rules myself to finally get a handle on how it operates. RftG is simple and much, much faster than you’d expect. At heart it’s an abstract game, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Plus I love rolling all the different dice. On the one hand I’m surprised they haven’t released another expansion for it, on the other I don’t think it really needs more stuff.

My Top Pick

Millennium Blades: CCG Simulator. This game is crazy and awesome. In it you play Collectible Card Game collectors and tournament players. I have to talk a little more at length about this one. Imagine a setting where a Yu-Gi-Oh-like card-game has become the world's most important sports event. That’s the premise. You’re playing competitors trying to buy booster packs, assemble a deck, sell cards, and eventually compete.

You start with a character card, showing a personality and special ability. I was a heartless robot whose lack of human emotion made him a master player. There’s a “friendship” mechanism where you give tokens to sweeten trade deals. We didn’t get to that in either of my plays. You also get a starter deck, a few cards with some related tech and elements. Beyond that the box contains a massive block of cards. Besides the base cards there are several dozen distinct “booster sets”- packs of related cards. These parody existing CCG games and expansions (MTG, Yu-gi-oh, Pokemon) and various pop culture properties (Mouse Card, Symphony of Destruction, Galactic Caboose, etc). That makes it a huge, modular game like Legendary.

Millennium Blades has two distinct parts. First you deck build. You have some starting cards, you get a bunch more, and you can buy face down “booster packs” cards from the center. While you never know exactly what you’re getting, the backs have icons showing what’s more likely in those packs. You’re also selling your cards to a market and maybe buying other players’ cast offs. It’s a messy, chaotic, information-overload segment. It’s also timed: 7 minutes. Then you get more cards and do it again. Then you actually put your deck together. You’re trying to make a working deck even as other point scoring opportunities distract you.  

Then you flip your player board over and go to the other, completely different part of the game: the CCG tournament. Everyone plays cards into their tableau, scoring rank points, zapping other players’ cards, and causing weird effects. Order’s important as some effects work on adjacency or location. At the end you generate final rank points from your cards. The player with the highest gets total game VPs.

Then you flip and do another round of deck building. Twice more.

There’s a big argument about the importance of theme in board games. These designers have created an Ameritrash game of wild randomness. They know their CCGs—every card has a joke or reference on it. You even score points for your deck matching the “meta”. But there’s also strategy. Cards of different sets actually synergize together. In one game a player managed to get an actual “engine” going with cards that used tokens. It’s crazy. It’s so big. How would you playtest for balance? I guess the vast number of elements going in all directions do that. 

Here’s the big thing: I didn’t get tired of it as I played. You’re always doing something- first in parallel and then in semi-opposition. I thought it might drag, but the level of engagement required gives it energy. It’s a game I want to play more.

OTHER BOARD-GAMEY NOTES

Games I’d Like to Play More of in 2017 Not on the List Above

Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn, Vihnos, Edo, Shogun, Orleans, Fury of Dracula, Madeira, Fields of Arle, Caverna, Rococo, At the Gates of Loyang

Games I Wanted to Try But I Didn’t Get To

Scythe, Imperial Assault, The Gallerist, Thunder Alley, Roads & Boats, Feast for Odin

Games I Fell Out of Love With in 2016

• Bora Bora: I like many Stefan Feld games, though some find his designs polarizing. Notre Dame, In the Year of the Dragon, and Bruges click for me (though Castles of Burgandy doesn’t). I felt completely lost the first time I played Bora Bora, but I felt there might be some strategic core I was missing. Nope. Second showed me it the heart of this chaotic mess of a game.
• Goa: I’ve probably played Goa more than any other Eurogame, except for Carcassone. I loved it. I have an old, well-worn copy. Then when we played it this year it fell flat. I felt like I’d gone through these motions too many times before. I didn’t feel like I needed to ever play it again. A little sad.
• Among the Stars: Highly-regarded space-station building game. It uses drafting, which I like. I even bought the expansion. But each time I’ve played this, I’ve liked it a little less. It feels boring now. I’m not sure why.
• Yggdrasil: The first time I played this, I thought “what a wild and brutal co-op game!” The second time I thought ugh, this is just random bs. We barely have control. Even superior strategy can get blown away by the whims of fate. Super subject to the alpha player problem. 

Thoughts? Refutations? Commiserations? 

Right of Succession: Tabletop Deathmatch

OK, after some months of waiting…the Tabletop Deathmatch videos have begun to arrive. And I’ve been anxiously awaiting my turn.

That day has finally come. And while I look fat, I look less fat than I imagined I did.

As I posted before, my board game Right of Succession got picked for Cards Against Humanity’s “Tabletop Deathmatch’ competition. I was one of sixteen finalist designs and we got to show our games to a group of judges at Gen Con 2013. It was an amazing experience and the first year for CoH’s competition- they’re making some tweaks for next year.

And they had Graham Stark from Loading, Ready, Run film it- and so I got to meet him and that was awesome.

Which brings us to the reality video series they’ve been releasing. So perhaps you want to go check it out? If you want, you can also read an additional interview I did on the TTDM page which show just how rambling I can be when I talk about games. If the game looks interesting to you, you can sign up for our information list over at Age of Ravens Games.

Tabletop Deathmatch: The Series Begins

WHO RUNS BARTERTOWN?

As I mentioned last year, back in April of 2013,  Cards Against Humanity announced their Tabletop Deathmatch competition. On a whim I submitted the board game I’ve been working on and playing for the last couple of years, Right of Succession. To my shock, I made the cut for the final 16. I went down to GenCon in August and pitched the game to a panel of 16 judges. They also had the team from Loading Ready Run film the competition. Cards Against Humanity planed to make that into a web series. They told us they hoped to have the series up by the end of September, but it didn't quite happen that way. 

Last week they put Episode Zero of the series up for viewing. Over the next several weeks they will be release up episodes featuring each of the designs. My episode's scheduled for May- I have no idea what that's actually going to looking like. It could be great- or if reality shows are any indication, I could come off looking truly goofy. At least I didn't slap or yell at anyone (I'm pretty sure). I'm nervous to see what this looks like. They're doing a showing of all the episodes in Chicago, so I hope to go see that. I'll give details if I catch that and once my episode's up online. We will be Kickstarting the game after the series wraps. So wish me luck with all of that. 

You can see the prologue video here and find out more information about the competition. CoH will be running another of these in 2014. 

SO WHAT’S THE GAME?

(Repeated from my earlier post on the blog) I’m glad you asked, fictitious voice in my head. In Right of Succession you take the role of a noble house, trying to rise and gain influence over several generations. You do that in a couple of ways. You add new branches and key leaders to your house, eventually marrying and creating new lines. Each key person has an area of expertise and a rating- so you might have a branch with a Grand Dame (Society 3) and a Pamphleteer (Activism 1). Those roles allow access to different actions which can be used to modify your house, gain influence, generate money, or affect other player’s houses.

More importantly, you’re trying to build up values in the different areas to match the agendas of the current “Real Power,” the figure within the royal household who actually has power. That may be the king, a sneaky vizer, a young prince, the grand inquisitor, or even the royal consort. Each has differing interests. By matching your house’s development to that, you gain more influence (aka VPs). But the trick lies in the way those royals operate. In each generation, one of three people may be the “Real Power”- and through actions and money you can affect who has command. A generation lasts for two turns, and then another rises and takes its place- forcing you to calculate how to match their desires. You can see a couple of turns ahead, allowing for strategic planning.

I enjoy board games, but I’ll admit I can get burned out of even a good game after a half-dozen plays. I’m hugely biased, but we’ve been playing this game for the last couple of years pretty much every week and I’m not tired of it. I still find new approaches and I still look forward to playing. I’m managed to build a game that really hits the sweet spot for elements I enjoy when I play.

ORIGINS

Right of Succession came out of two distinct game elements I enjoyed. The first came from classic board games which had better ideas than execution. GW published an epic kingdom-building game called Blood Royale in a giant box. We played it, I think twice. It ended up too long and too boring. It had some great ideas in it- I loved the concept of the goods and treaties. I used that to craft a "Model Feudal Council" at an academic summer camp. It allows me to bring together some fantasy elements with training in Robert’s Rules of Order. I figured that would serve them well if they later wanted to do Model UN, Arab league, or the like. The more interesting idea from Blood Royale was the creation of a lineage- with marriages, family evolution, and the changing of generations. I wanted a game with more of that. I picked up Avalon Hill's Down with the King, hoping it would do that, but it was just a weird hyper-long and detailed game. (That’s one that needs to be reworked and rebuilt for a new era).

So I knew I wanted a game with multiple generations of families. To that I brought another mechanic that I really loved: Demon Fusions from the Shin Megami Tensai video game series. In that, you can merge two demons to create a higher rank one. What you get depends on what you combine. More importantly, there’s a game to trying to carry over the right skills to the new beast. When you play, you try a merge and if it doesn’t exactly give you the right combo of abilities, you back out and try again. And again and again. It’s a weird grind that’s strangely satisfying. I worked trying to figure out how to use that mechanic elsewhere. In the end, I used it as the basis for the marriage system in Right of Succession.

Which I hope doesn’t say anything bad about me.

Tabletop Deathmatch: After Action Report

PRELIMINARIES

I enjoyed the sweaty, exhausting, and sometimes aggravating Gen Con of 2013. I didn’t get a chance to say hi to as many people as I wanted to. As I expected, I picked up a ton of Pelgrane Books 13th Age, Double Tap, Owl Hoot Trail, Eternal Lies, Hillfolk, and Blood on the Snow. I’ll probably write about some of those in the next few weeks- I’m generally really pleased by them. I think one of the most amazing things about Pelgrane is that each line has a unique and distinctive graphic presentation, all of amazing quality. The Hillfolk books look completely different from the Night’s Black Agents volumes- but they don’t feel like they share a house style. White Wolf does striking layout, but you can tell when you’re looking at one of their books based on the shared design elements. I picked up a few other new things- a couple of figures from a new Bushido line of samurai miniatures, Monsterhearts, FATE Accelerated,  and the Warbirds rpg (imagine Crimson Skies with the serial numbers filed off). In the Chimera shop buy one get three free I bought two bundles including This Favored Land, some Star Wars books, the revised Grimoire for Ars Magica 4e, and a couple of old Mayfair Role Aids sets.

But all of that was mostly a distraction to keep myself occupied until the final showdown.

Tabletop Deathmatch

TO BATTLE

The actual TTDM process went well, broken into several slices. I had to do an interview for the first part late in the day on Saturday. I played in an rpg, Trash Planet by Shoe Skogen, for the first three hours and then had to duck out. Unfortunately that meant that heading back to the main building I crashed straight into the costume parade which locked me up for about thirty minutes. I stopped by where I’d stashed my copy of the game and then headed over to the meeting place- but then I got a text that they were running a little behind. Luckily I managed to find a free comfy bench and sat down- trying to let the adrenalin burned gently off rather than completely crashing.

When we finally went to the interview, my hopes were confirmed. I’m an unabashed fan of LoadingReadyRun- I started watching everything they did after I saw they started Unskippable on the Escapist. I watch all the videos- even the MTG podcasts and the "Loading Time" Behind the Scenes stuff. So when Graham from LRR walked up I went pretty much full fanboy. I also met Trin from Cards Against Humanity, and a nice camera operator who’s name I either didn’t catch or went out of my head. We had to wander around the convention for fifteen minutes to find a place of relative quiet for the interview. I thought that went pretty well- though trying not to look straight at the camera’s a talent I clearly haven’t developed. 

Then we went down to the board game hall when they shot an unboxing video of Right of Succession: setting up the board and walking through a turn of play. Finally I had to stand there while they shot me making a “Grrr” face for the Deathmatch promo materials. It had the wiff of the absurd. I did hand off copies of some of the books I’d done to Graham, so I was pretty happy when all was said and done. The TTDM contestants had arranged for a small gathering at one of the bars later Saturday night, but I was exhausted by that point and others in our party were as well, so I unfortunately skipped out on that.

The next morning I had the actual pitch before the judges. I think I was the absolute last person to go. I took along Mark and Derek for moral support. I wasn’t sure how the pitch would be structured- if it would be a good idea to have a team in the room. As it turned out, it wasn’t set up for that so they waited outside. I did have a chance to meet a couple of the other contestants- Robert Huss who created The Shadow Over Westminster and Mark Major and his partner (another name I blanked on) with Jupiter Deep published through Game Crafter. It also turned at that time that our pitch would be five minutes, not ten or fifteen as indicated in the earlier emails. I wasn’t expecting that would be too much of problem- I’d practiced a ten minute pitch, but that was a lot of time to fill. We talked for a few minutes and I was pretty calm.

…Until I actually walked into to give my presentation. It looked like something out of Shark Tank, with fifteen (I think) judges arranged in three rows. Heavy, bright lights, and no A/C in the room. I can’t imagine how wearing that must have been for the judging team over four days. I set up my game on a table in the middle, and then launched into my spiel, trying to keep an eye on the enormous red timer ticking away. My voice cracked, I repeated myself, I don’t think I hit everything I wanted- but you’ll see all of that when they actually post the video.

After the pitch (I think I did it in 4:30), I moved the game board up to the judge’s table, distributed extra copies of the rules and one-sheets and then went to the Q&A portion of the program. There I felt much better and more confident. I know and love this game and enjoy playing it. I didn’t get any real curveballs. Probably the strongest knock against it would be that we haven’t yet done any blind-testing. We’ve played it would probably four dozen people, but we hadn’t yet had the chance to give the final version a run through to get that kind of feedback. One judge asked an interesting question about the scoring logic for some of the end-game bonuses. That pointed out a piece of theme that I had in my head but hadn’t made explicit in the rules, i.e. why do the players actually get these bonus points? But the best part of the Q&A came when one judge asked if I’d heard of Blood Royale, which as I mentioned in my previous post, had inspired me to create this game. It was really satisfying to have someone spot what had been a thematic inspiration for me: at least I’d done that job well.

After that I went out and we did a brief exit interview. And then I was done. We gathered up the crew, did a final buy of product and then head out. And I pretty much collapsed on the ride home. We stopped off to eat BBQ and after that I desperately fought just falling asleep for the next two hours. Eventually I landed on my couch, my sweet delicious couch and slept for two or three hours. 

THOUGHTS

I don't know what my chances are- some of the contestants have already published and marketed the games they've presented and they look quite nice. I built my prototypes myself- with the exception being the cards I recently had done up through DriveThruCards. I'll be curious to see how many of the others have done blind testing, as that could be a serious black-mark against me. I'd have liked to have played some of the others' games- I think several of us suggested they arrange a get-together room for that next year. I'm looking forward to the video though- in some ways. It will be a great tool for exposure and publicity  provided I don't look like too much of a buffoon on screen. 

Tabletop Deathmatch: Right of Succession

WHO RUNS BARTERTOWN?

August is the cruelest month for blogging- with the daily pressures, the tidal wave of Gen Con information, and schedules up in the air. I think we’ve lost at least half our monthly play sessions to the whirlpool. Today I want to mention/shill for a game project. A couple of months ago Cards Against Humanity announced their Tabletop Deathmatch competition. On a whim I submitted the board game I’ve been working on and playing for the last couple of years, Right of Succession. To my shock, I managed to make the cut for the final sixteen.

Seriously, shock.

So I get to go down to Gen Con and pitch the game to a panel of judges. I think I’m going absolute last on Sunday, which hopefully won’t mean people are too punch-drunk and burned out. I’d showed the game last year to a couple of people- which was a learning experience. I spent a number of years as an acquisitions editor for an academic publisher. That meant I took pitches and worked with authors, which gave me some expectations about that process. In any case, I’d planned on going down to Gen Con this year already- if only to pick up my stuff from Pelgrane. We may have a kitten arrive this weekend, so Sherri may well be acclimating that new beastie in while I’m gone.

Apparently they will be taping the Deathmatch process, with an interview plus the pitch session itself. They’ve gotten LoadingReadyRun to do the production on that for a web-series. I’m really, really hoping some of the LRR people will be at the con itself. I’m a huge fan of their stuff and it would be awesome to actually meet them.

SO WHAT’S THE GAME?

I’m glad you asked, fictitious voice in my head. In Right of Succession you take the role of a noble house, trying to rise and gain influence over several generations. You do that in a couple of ways. You add new branches and key leaders to your house, eventually marrying and creating new lines. Each key person has an area of expertise and a rating- so you might have a branch with a Grand Dame (Society 3) and a Pamphleteer (Activism 1). Those roles allow access to different actions which can be used to modify your house, gain influence, generate money, or affect other player’s houses.

More importantly, you’re trying to build up values in the different areas to match the agendas of the current “Real Power,” the figure within the royal household who actually has power. That may be the king, a sneaky vizer, a young prince, the grand inquisitor, or even the royal consort. Each has differing interests. By matching your house’s development to that, you gain more influence (aka VPs). But the trick lies in the way those royals operate. In each generation, one of three people may be the “Real Power”- and through actions and money you can affect who has command. A generation lasts for two turns, and then another rises and takes its place- forcing you to calculate how to match their desires. You can see a couple of turns ahead, allowing for strategic planning.

I enjoy board games, but I’ll admit I can get burned out of even a good game after a half-dozen plays. I’m hugely biased, but we’ve been playing this game for the last couple of years pretty much every week and I’m not tired of it. I still find new approaches and I still look forward to playing. I’m managed to build a game that really hits the sweet spot for elements I enjoy when I play.

ORIGINS

Right of Succession came out of two distinct game elements I enjoyed. The first came from classic board games which had better ideas than execution. GW published an epic kingdom-building game called Blood Royale in a giant box. We played it, I think twice. It ended up too long and too boring. It had some great ideas in it- I loved the concept of the goods and treaties. I used that to craft a "Model Feudal Council" at an academic summer camp. It allows me to bring together some fantasy elements with training in Robert’s Rules of Order. I figured that would serve them well if they later wanted to do Model UN, Arab league, or the like. The more interesting idea from Blood Royale was the creation of a lineage- with marriages, family evolution, and the changing of generations. I wanted a game with more of that. I picked up Avalon Hill's Down with the King, hoping it would do that, but it was just a weird hyper-long and detailed game. (That’s one that needs to be reworked and rebuilt for a new era).

So I knew I wanted a game with multiple generations of families. To that I brought another mechanic that I really loved: Demon Fusions from the Shin Megami Tensai video game series. In that, you can merge two demons to create a higher rank one. What you get depends on what you combine. More importantly, there’s a game to trying to carry over the right skills to the new beast. When you play, you try a merge and if it doesn’t exactly give you the right combo of abilities, you back out and try again. And again and again. It’s a weird grind that’s strangely satisfying. I worked trying to figure out how to use that mechanic elsewhere. In the end, I used it as the basis for the marriage system in Right of Succession.

Which I hope doesn’t say anything bad about me.

ANYWAY

So we’ll see how this goes. I’m looking forward to being able to show off the game. Maybe I’ll even get a chance to play it with some new people at the con. I hope I run into some readers and fellow bloggers.

Wish me luck. 

Twenty Years Out: Ten Games

OLD DUDE GAMES

Thinking back I remember more the board games I didn’t play than those I did. I’m not sure if that’s buyer’s remorse or something else. As much as anything it feels like a judgment on the attention span or younger me. I remember many games I only played once: tons of Microgames (Rivets, Chitin, WarpWar, too many Melee solo adventures), longer pocket games (Swordquest, Intruder), oddball games (Barbarian Prince, Struggle for the Throne), and bigger ones (Alpha/Omega, Blood Royale, Up Front, Warrior Knights, Rogue Trooper). I subscribed to Strategy & Tactics and Ares, but only remember actually getting to play a couple of those. Then I had bigger games that never saw the table (Gunslinger, Vampyre, Ambush, Grav-Ball, and many more). My sister gamed, and we played a few games- but the age and interest gap was pretty wide. My dad never wanted to learn the rules to anything more complex than Mastermind, so we never played anything together. I remember setting up Berlin ’85 and World War 1 in hopes of enticing him to play. He read the rules to the latter but then told me they were too much for him.

RPGs remain my first love, but I love board games. I don’t know why- I’m not very good at them. I never did well with CCGs, any wargames I’ve won have been flukes, and I rarely manage to think more than a couple of turns ahead. But I love mechanics and mechanisms- I love watching how they work. Even as I’ve moved to more streamlined rpg experiences, I’ve come to appreciate how game engines operate. This weekend I played several small games with simple concepts that created amazing play and interaction: Love Letter, Hanabi, and Skulls & Roses. That’s a far cry from many of the games I played when I was young.

The most recent Top Ten from The Dice Tower got me thinking about this. They presented their Top Ten of boardgames from 1993 or before, anything over twenty years ago. And they left off many games that I adored. Not great games, but games that I actually played multiple times and stuck with me. So here’s my list with some comments. As a side note, I read/skim many geeklists. I’m guessing I’m pretty normal in checking title and paragraph one to see if I want to read further. I’ll admit I tend to skip nostalgia lists like these. I normally wouldn’t put one together, but I’m curious about how much my experience parallels or differs from those of my generation.

I suspect my preference for RPGs shows through in this, with many of these having a heavy narrative.

10. Axis & Allies

Our group bought and played all of the various Gamemaster series from Milton Bradley (Samurai Swords, Broadsides & Boarding Parties, Conquest of the Empire, Fortress America). But none of them survived as long as Axis & Allies. Some got a single play (B&BP), some more (FA), but eventually we'd return to this game. I bought a second set just to have more pieces and the updated rules. Then after multiple plays we hit the road block of figuring the game out. In particular the Russian/German moves and plays became a problem. I remember at least three sessions where one player quit within fifteen minutes of play when their opening gambit failed. After that A&A gathered dust. I tried a couple of times to bring in some of the fan-published expansions to extend and change the game, having new poster maps printed. However those did add much and usually just made the game longer- with people having to go home after a while. So I gave up on it. Even the release of new versions and area expansions couldn't grab my interest. I remember the early plays fondly, when everything was new.

9. Swashbuckler

An odd game I remember playing a handful of times and really enjoying. It had programmed movement and a role-playing aspect to it. You made up characters and fought with them in a bar-room brawl. I wish I could remember why I stopped playing it- perhaps I couldn't find anyone interested in it. I'm not sure. I played several arena style games in the same era- Arena of Death, Man to Man, Melee, Gladiator- but I don't recall any of them as fondly as this one. Perhaps I just had a really good time the few times I played.

8. Starfire

Yes, I played Star Fleet Battles. I had binders of the rules and SSDs. I played only rarely, but bought everything. Then I quit. Then I went back and bought everything again. Then I played against someone who knew SFB and played it competitively. Then I quit and never played it again. SFB remained a rarity, an occasional game with a terrible money to fun ratio.

On the other hand, Starfire was relatively cheap. I had the original bagged game and the expansion. It was small enough I could sneak it into middle school and play at lunch or on breaks. I loved the concept of the simple ship listings and the way that different guns and systems interacted with that. I still love that concept- easy record keeping which offers all kinds of interactions with other ships. I think someday I want to figure out how to use that with the many space ships I've accumulated from Silent Death and Battlefleet Gothic. I've got a ton of the Heavy Gear 25mm figures- perhaps I could adapt Starfire to that for a fast game.

7. Ace of Aces

Flip books- what could be easier and more appealing? We never played with any of the advanced rules, instead settling down to flipping pages and checking for hits. I bought some of the additional books- Ace of Aces: Powerhouse Series and Ace of Aces: Flying Machines, but generally I just liked the goofy pleasure of trying to guess what would happen if I did X. It wasn't so much trying to outguess my opponent as trying to figure out how to actually fly my plane. I liked telling stories in my head about my pilot. Sometimes I'd play it solo, making the game more a toy than anything else. I enjoyed one other implementation of this system, Bounty Hunter: Shootout at the Saloon which I wished they'd done more with. Strangely I never got into the Lost Worlds series which spawned from this.

6. Snapshot

I know Traveller was an important early rpg for many people, but it never really caught on in our group. Some of us had copies of it, but we never played out a full campaign. Instead we would spend sessions rolling up characters and seeing what happened to them- a weird push your luck game. We had cool character sheet pads we burned through, making up PCs and coming up with backstories. But I don't recall any actual play. Sessions of Snapshot came closest to actual play. We did it as a competitive board game with each player having control of several characters and trying to gun one another down. We loved the maps and the crunchy, detailed combat mechanics. I wouldn't be the last time I'd see an rpg engine used as a battle game. We spent hours playing "Open Combats" with Champions. Since it had solid and mechanistic combat rules, you could have everyone make up 250 point characters and just go at it.

5. The Sorcerer's Cave

My sister had this and Ariel Games version of Mystic Wood. I really can't tell you much about the actual mechanics of play. I just remember going into the dungeon or woods and slowly getting killed. I don't think I ever won. But putting out the cards and building the scene was awesome. Mind you the art was pretty mediocre, but it was still cool looking at the final board. I enjoyed this more than other "adventuring" games I played in the same era: Dungeon! and Talisman. The former felt stagnant and boring after a few plays. The latter just wouldn't end. That got worse the more expansions people brought to the table. I know at least three times I drew the black void at the end of the game- killing me and sending me back to the start.

So kind of an rpg, in that you could define your character a little and tell a story. I used to 'borrow' this out of my sister's room and play solo adventures (and die).

4. Spies!

A game I must have been miserable to play with given my age. This ended up being the only large "wargame-y" big box game I ended up playing multiple times. I really liked the idea of it. I'd read the LaCarre novels early, but more importantly I'd watched the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies, several of which dealt with spies and the same period as this game. I loved the idea that events and secrets could push the time track forward- creating alternate histories and progressions for the lead up to the war. Spies could have been a Euro-game if it hadn't had a whole set of extra complexities. I picked up a copy of this a few years ago. I've been trying to figure out how to redo it to make it a more modern game with less fiddlyness. I've also been thinking how it could be used as a background to an espionage rpg campaign.

3. Cosmic Encounter

Man, I owe an apology to all of the patient teens and adults who played this with me. I had to own all of the expansions for this, despite my sister having a copy. I tried to play it with others my age- and a few of them enjoyed it in a goofy throw cards at each other way. We played with multiple powers, hidden powers, switching powers, any goofy option. That meant that when I went to conventions and played I could be truly annoying and unfocused. I'm sure negotiating with me drove others crazy. Ugh. But I loved the game, not perhaps for the gameplay, but for all of the crazy alien races. I used to take those out of the box and just read through them. I had all kinds of stories about what the galaxy must be like filled with these bizarre people.

I picked up the Avalon Hill and recent Fantasy Flight version of this, but I still haven't played either of them. I suspect it has been at least thirty years since I've played this.

2. Illuminati

I find it bizarre that this didn't appear on the Dice Tower's list. We played this dozens and dozens of times. I had a couple of copies of the plastic box version of this and the expansions. I've heard some people dislike it for the cheating options, but we never played with those. In grad school we played the boxed set with the much better poker-chip megabucks. I enjoyed the back and forth and the tension of the play of it. I think it hit a sweet spot for me: negotiation, straight smart play, and just enough luck to give me an excuse for losing. When INWO came out I dived deep into that as well. I bought the most recent edition of Illuminati and hated it: garish art borrowed from the CCG and terrible card stock. I have that packed up and haven't played it in years.

1. Man O' War

The first game I played with my future wife. Before that, she only knew me as the guy who ran the game room and was a terrible Magic: The Gathering player. I'd bought into the GW kool-aid pretty heavily by the time MoW came out: 40K, Mighty Empires, Rogue Trooper, Dr. Who, Judge Dredd, Chainsaw Warrior, WHFRP, Blood Bowl, Space Fleet, etc.). But I loved Man O' War. I was simple, fast, and fun. Even wish the expansions you could get a solid and satisfying combat done in under two hours. Players could easily create cool and striking terrain pieces. It had randomness and some strategy- with goofy turn-arounds and overpowered vessels. Most of all you didn't have to buy a ton of ships to be able to play, though I did. That meant many people who might not otherwise have bought into it invested and played. But it also meant that MoW looked like a product dead-end for GW and then quickly stopped supporting it. Most players, following GW's dog-whistle, moved on to other games. My stuff's gone now- a chunk lost in the fire. I thought briefly about picking up Dreadfleet, but the reviews made it look terrible and the price point seemed high.

Five Game Ideas: On the Drawing Board

BLOOD WARS

In the early heyday of CCGs when everyone and their brother's company tried to make a collectible game, you could count on at least one person in our large and extended group to try out each game. We had brief dalliances with early Netrunner, Over the Edge, first edition Legend of the Five Rings, Dragon Storm, Illuminati, Doom Trooper, Wyvern, Heresy, Kult, Shadowfist, Mythos, and Jyhad. Some hit for a little while and others had some legs. Some clicked with the group and everyone bought into it right away...as happened with Blood Wars.

This was TSR's other CCG besides the pretty bad Spellfire. Most of us picked it up because we really loved the art work and concept of Planescape. Plus the decks were reasonably priced and TSR pumped out the expansions quickly. Many bought a ton of it before even playing  the game. But eventually they did and realized how bad it was. Not terrible- just not good, at least in two-player. Multi-player was another story. Blood Wars let players dogpile on the leader. The moment anyone got slightly ahead of the pack, they were smacked down and the game effectively reset. I remember playing a single game an entire afternoon before we just quit.

Anyway, I ended up with many of those cards. They're somewhere in the house. When I took peoples' various extras I had an idea: perhaps the cards could be reworked and a new rules set built to accommodate them. Perhaps an all-in-one stack game like INWO? I spent some time thinking about it and then put it aside. But today something occurred to me and now I have to root around and find those cards. Perhaps I could come up with a way to make Blood Wars into a deckbuilder. I'd need to go through an isolate which cards I have multiples off and then look at the keywords and numbers on them. It could be a fun project and a chance to look at that amazing Planescape artwork.

IMPERIAL GLADIATORIAL FEDERATION

For the recent superheroes game I ended up doing some research on Pro Wrestling. That had never been my cup of tea growing up, despite having a neighbor that worked the Chicago circuit. But I'll admit I was intrigued by the spectacle of it- and I used some of what I saw for a Luchador arc in the campaign. As well I picked up a copy of Eternal Contenders on a whim. I've only gotten a little ways into it. I'm a fan of video game fighters- though I'm terrible. But I love weird back stories like those for Soul Calibur and Mace: The Dark Age.

Anyway I started thinking about WWE characters aren't really like modern-day gladiators. There's some risk, but the gladiatorial contests of Rome and most fantasy settings have real lethality and risk. But gladiators are stars- they can be celebrities. But in order to do that they have to survive. So I've been thinking about what gladiators as WWE-style characters and celebrities might look like in a campaign with magic, especially with healing magic. Those who do well and enjoy the favor of the crowd, fans, and their management can spend money on restoration and recovery. It becomes an engine to keep people alive- perhaps with some Frankenstien-like effects. Actual magic in the arena would be forbidden, and perhaps there could be an alchemical doping scandal. Healing would have to be rare and expensive- and only take care of physical injuries (so infection and illness would be a real danger). Gladiators who don't seem to feel the pain- perhaps from too many healing bouts would lose the crowd's approval.

Not sure what i want to do with that- might make a nice background detail or plot for a fantasy setting. Perhaps just a setting for EC. 

REVERSE ENGINE

I love board games and the last couple of weeks I've been able to play some cool new ones. One classic kind of BG, usually Eurogames, has you slowly developing and building your "victory point engines" in order to most efficiently generate points by the end of the game. Caylus and Agricola would be good examples of these. Even Dominion operates a little bit like that as well. There's a pleasure to that kind of crafted efficiency.

I'm wondering if you could do a game that does exactly the opposite. You begin the game with a solid engine, but then events occur and you have to figure out how to deal with the problems. Units get lost, sub-systems break or redirect. You'd be trying to get the best patches in place and figure out contingency approaches. I think it could be interesting- especially if you could make the game move fast. Players don't like negative events and this would be a downhill run. Perhaps a card based game? Not sure.

BOARDPUNK

This past weekend we recorded a couple of upcoming episodes for our podcast Play on Target. In one segment we talked about games we no longer play. Cyberpunk popped up and stuck in my head. I never ran it- except as a Watchmen-style superhero game. But my late friend Barry ran quite a bit of it and some people really loved it. Strangely no one in our group played Shadowrun, CP’s strange step-child. I did enjoy Cyberpunk, but mostly when we were on directed an specific jobs- with set goals and obstacles. However those often ended up being the least satisfying for Netrunners who ended up sitting on their hands- at least as Barry ran it. He never got the balance between the two right.

I think a pseudo-rpg boardgame using some form of Cyberpunk could be pretty cool. Think of Descent, Warhammer Quest, Fury of Dracula or other games which pit the most of the players against a single adversary serving as the GM. The “Administrator” would have a limited set of resources to put against the group- tricks, traps, ICE, distractions, and the like. Each player would have a role- Fixer, Street Samurai, Netrunner, etc with different abilities and resources. The actual operation wouldn’t be gridded or tactical (like minis moving on a building map), but would be abstracted with locations. These could be built by random cards on a board, with the Admin able to shift things a little. There might be some set scenarios with different goals and perhaps some agendas for additional VPs.

The Netrunner would be playing a slightly different game- or at least one operating under different rules. They would be using their rig and mods to assist the group or change things around. You could do that with card play or something more interesting. I think a variation based on Bejeweled could be neat. Imagine a Boggle board with d6s of different colors. The runner would use his programs to match and remove elements from the board or shift things around. Doing so would allow the Netrunner special actions. Failures or leaving things open for the Admin could result in damage to their rig or themselves.

CENTAURI 7

I want reskin the boardgame 7 Wonders to Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. I think it could easily work. Each player would have a different faction with slightly different rules and benefits. Secret Projects could appear in each of the ages- operating like Leaders or Cities from the expansions. Importantly you’ve have military force, but also Green Technologies. Essentially polluting technologies could affect a Planet timer- potentially triggering events. Different end game conditions (World Council, Enlightenment, Military) could change how things get scored at the end of the game. I don’t think it would be that hard to do and make it feel pretty different from 7 Wonders.