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Clash of Cultures or How to Lose Against All Odds

This weekend we finished up a Clash of Cultures game. The following is a recount of just one small encounter between Mike and me and how things can go so terribly wrong…for me.

It all began when Mike made a surprise amphibious assault against one of my undefended cities. He basically walked in and took it. Then he built a fortress there.

I had another nearby city with a two army units in it and I knew if I didn’t take the city back on my turn, Mike would reinforce it and I’d never get it back.

So on my turn, having built a couple more units, I attacked my former city with three army units and a cavalry unit that grants +1 for each army unit with it. Mike had one army unit and the fortress.

The fortress has some special abilities that are only good on the first round of combat. I had a technology to negate those abilities, but I didn’t have the resources to use the technology. Four units plus my +3 bonus should be enough to easy take the city back.

To battle In Clash of Cultures, you roll a number of dice equal to your number of units, add up the total and divide by 5. The result is the number of losses the enemy takes.

At the beginning of the first round of battle, Mike plays a card that allows him to roll a d6. On a roll of 5 or 6 he can destroy one of my units. He rolls a 5 and destroys my cavalry.

Now I’m down to three units and I’ve lost my +3 bonus. Still, I have three units to his one. Worse case I may lose all but one of them and still take the city. I can easily kill Mike’s single army unit.

I attack rolling three dice and add them up. My total is 4. On THREE d6 my total is 4! I don’t even get one hit! Mike rolls and kills one of my units.

Now it’s the second round of combat. Mike’s fortress provides him with no bonuses. All he has is a single army unit. I have two. I should easily win.

Mike plays a card. (Darn those cards to heck!) If he rolls a 6 on his attack die he can reroll it and add the two totals together. If his total is 10 or more he can kill both of my units and save his city.

Against all odds, he rolls a 6!

He still needs his reroll to be a 4, 5, or 6…and he rolls a 5!

He decimates my army! His single unit does die, but the city remains his and I now have two unprotected cities a stone’s throw away from him. On his next turn, his armies walk in and take them. And I’m knocked back to the Stone Age with just a few unimproved cities and a worthless leader.

Next time things will be different!

(He’ll probably kill my leader too.)

Chaos Steve

Good Tips from a Bad GM #1

This is my first of possibly many posts of good tips from a bad GM. This is your opportunity to learn from my mistakes! And I make a lot of mistakes!

My first tip is from a game I ran where the players did something I would not have done. This happens all the time really, but in this case, the players should have run from the encounter and instead, for whatever reasons, decided to stay and fight it out despite the fact they really had no chance.

Once they made their decision to stay, they tried a last ditch ruse to distract the forces against them, and I, as a bad GM, let that ruse work too well. I used it as an excuse to let the players off the hook and get away with all the objectives. I should not have done that.

What I should have done is, well, anything but that. After reflecting I realized any of these other alternatives would have been much, much preferable:

– Have them incapacitated and captured, thus setting up an escape game.

– Have them partially succeed with the ruse (which was very good and well executed), but leave them with problems they will have to deal with, such as permanent wounds or consequences that will take some sort of major quest to resolve.

So next time your players make a bone head decision to fight on despite the odds, don’t feel like you have to let them get away with it. And, you don’t have to TPK them to have their crazy decisions reap consequences. It will make for a more fun game in the end!

– Bad GM

Roll thru the Ages, Splendor, Damage Report

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Hey! We played some games this week! In an amazing coincidence we all arrived at Owen’s house very early. Mike was the last to arrive and that let the rest of us play a couple games of Roll Through the Ages. I think Ben won one and Owen won one. I was last both times. The dice hate me.

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Once Mike arrived we played Splendor. Ben has played this game many times. The rest of us had never played it, so we looked to Ben for strategy tips…and then we did the opposite. (Note: it’s a well proven fact that Ben never follows his own advice either.)

The rules for Splendor are simple. Each round you can take some gems, in the form of chips, or you can buy a card using your chips, or reserve a card so you can build it later. Most cards have victory points and that’s how you win the game. The first to 15 is declared the Supreme Poobah or something like that. There are also some special cards that earn you prestige points. These are just like victory points only you add the word “prestige” in front of it to make them sound special.

The first game Ben hoover-ed up all of the cheap cards, so later he could buy expensive cards. I didn’t mention this before, but you can use the cards you buy with chips to later help buy other cards. This was a winning strategy for Ben…who won…by a lot.

The second game went quite differently. Ben waffled on his strategy which caused him no end of distress and long turns. Mike went for HIGH value cards and this nearly won him the game. He may refine this strategy in the future. I used Ben’s strategy from the first game and ended up winning…just barely. Both Owen and Mike were right on the cusp of being able to win as well.

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Our last game was Damaged Report. Everyone but Mike had played this a couple times before. We lost terribly both those times. This game is a literal race against time. Aliens are trying to destroy your ship and you’re trying to either repair the warp engines and get the heck out of dodge, or repair the laser and blow the aliens sky high. All the while you’re taking damage from those pesky aliens.

The first game we one is about 2 minutes. That’s because we cheated. That’s because Ben told us we could.

The next game was a little harder.

Just like in so many movies the robot/synthetic/android (known as Ben) nearly killed us all by delivering the wrong part at a crucial moment. “I’m color blind” was his reason for bringing the wielding torch instead of the wrench. “Mr. Robot was killed in the laser room with the wielding torch.” That’s what we were thinking.

We recovered though and won, literally, by seconds. We blew those aliens to kingdom come.

Chaos Steve

 

Of Firefly, Trains, and Trucks

Over the last couple of months we’ve played lots of games. Ben is still running us through a Savage Worlds 50 Fathoms game, but we’ve also played a lot of board games. Here’s the “catch-up” version of what we’ve been up to.

Firefly: The Game
We enjoyed this game, although don’t believe the playing time on the box. It says two hours, but it took us three evening of about three hours each to finish the game. Granted, it was out first game and I do have to play with Mike, Ben, and Owen who all fret over making a mistake and thus can take a long time working out their optimum move.

Firefly: Out to the Black
This is a Firefly cooperative card game. We played it a couple time because we lost the first game. We don’t like to lose cooperative games. While we liked the game, we didn’t think it was great. More of a ho-hum Firefly card game. We may play it again…and maybe not.

Great Heartland Hauling Co.
This is a card game that includes wooden trucks and cubes. You basically try to make the most money buying, hauling, and selling goods. We like this game. It is fun, doesn’t take too long to play, and has a good amount of strategy involved. We’ll worth the price.

Railways of England and Wales
This is one of our favorites in the “Railways” series of games. It’s also near and dear to the heart of Ben and Owen who both hail from England. Strangely I like it because I somehow know England’s geography better than the US. This is because I’ve learned all of my geography from games.

Rolling Freight
This is another cube moving train game like the “Railways” games, but plays completely different. In the “Railways” game, the initial distribution of the cubes plays hugely into how the game will go and what cities will be popular. In Rolling Freight, I think which board you use plays a much bigger part in your strategy. We used a different board this time. It wasn’t until it was too late that I realized my strategy from the other board was completely wrong for this board. Oh well.

I’m now all caught up. But you didn’t mention… Shut up.

Below are some pictures from our games.

Great Heartland Hauling Co.

Great Heartland Hauling Co.

Railways of England and Wales

Railways of England and Wales

Rolling Freight 1

Rolling Freight 1

Rolling Freight 2

Rolling Freight 2

 

JimCon Fall 2014

They tell me there was a Jimcon on the 3rd of October. They also say I was there. I don’t remember any of it, but if I was there this is what would have happened…

 

Eclipse

Our first game was “Eclipse”. A game we’re going to say is like a Twilight Imperium III Lite version. We started around 10:40 and by 11:00 Ben had committed his first cheat. There was some controversy as to where everyone sat. Ben prefers Evil Mike and I sit next to each other, thus guaranteeing we’d be at each other’s throats for most of the game. Instead Evil Mike sat between Owen and Ben, I was on the opposite side of the galaxy. It’s never good for Evil Mike and Owen to sit next to each other either.

 

In eclipse we each play a species that have their own strengths and weaknesses. Our goal is to earn victory points by exploring new star systems, researching technologies, and building spaceships for both discovery and warfare. The universe is a small place after all and it’s inevitable in this game that you’ll be fighting battles with the other players…scum that they are.

 

There are many dangers and great rewards when exploring new star systems. Evil Mike and Jim both found technologies that quickly enhanced their space ships into objects to be feared by the rest of us. Ben and Owen discovered supernovas near their home worlds. While filled with vast resources, they could explode at any moment. That moment for Ben happened on round 4. Likewise, Mike and Jim discovered an ancient Hive planet in between them. The Hive ships caused them a lot of trouble and resources as they defend their systems from them. I believe at one point Jim got tired of it all and went on the offensive against the Hive.

 

By round four, Evil Mike’s Cruisers were the scourge of the universe with a 6 armor rating and uber-cool plasma canons. Yet he lost in a fight against the evil ancient aliens. Owen and Mike turned out to be bad neighbors. Maybe that was because of a wormhole that also joined their two space realms. Nearly every round they fought to a standstill over the same star system. Since Owen had his own troubles with Mike, this left Evil Mike free to roam the universe. Besides aliens, Evil Mike also attacked Ben. Beneficent Ben, who hasn’t thought of attacking him? Ben was a little put out by it all.

 

On the last round everyone attacked their neighbor. Final round combat results:

Owen neutron bombed two of Mike’s territories worth 4 victory points. I attacked two of Jim’s territories and lost in both battles. Ben attacked two of Evil Mike’s territories and won one (Evil Mike’s home planet) worth 3 VP. Jim attacked Evil Mike at the central planet of the universe and lost. The final scores were mighty close. Owen won with 33 VPs. Evil Mike has 27. Ben had 24. Jim and I tied at 23 and Mike came in last with 21.

 

Solomon Kane Revolutionary War

Next Evil Mike ran us through a Solomon Kane game that takes place in the America’s during the revolutionary war. Our heroic adventurers meet George Washington at Fort Clinton. The Heroes had been having dreams of impending doom where Washington was at the center of it. To our surprise Washington was expecting us. He gave us a mission to rescue Ichabod Crane from the British held village of Sleepy Hollow. If I remember right, an English general by the name of Hodgson is possessed by one of the four horseman of the apocalypse. Either that or he is possessed by one of the horseman’s “agents”. Either way, he is one bloodthirsty general. Ichabod somehow plays a major part in the whole end-of-the-world scenario that is unfolding.

 

The heroes arrive at Sleepy Hollow just as a company of minute men are attacking the British in the square. We charged into the fray and fought to the doors of the governor’s mansion. Tonto (Owen) goes into a berserker rage and smashes through the front door of the mansion while Sheila the thief (Mike) unlocks the back door and sneaks into the cells in the basement

 

In the meantime Giselle (me), the comely gypsy, and Bar Willis (Jim), the marksman, are off to one side of the square shooting and fighting off charging redcoats. Behind Bar and Giselle two men burst out a building. They are locked in mortal combat, swords clashing. The outcome is swift. One is beheaded while the other is mortally wounded. The healer, Trevor ‘miracle max’ did a miraculous healing and resuscitated Ichabod. Upon returning to the living, Ichabod announces that his love, Katrina, has been kidnaped by redcoats. He will not leave Sleepy Hollow until she is rescued.

 

That evening the heroes begin tracking the kidnappers. Just as they arrive at the bridge that announce the entrance to Sleepy Hollow, a man on horseback attacks us. A man without a head! After a fierce fight skillfully executed by the heroes (well, maybe not) we defeat the horseman. Truth be told, it was mostly Nathaniel (Ron) that defeated the horseman.

 

We hear the sounds of many feet moving through the countryside and discover that the evil English general Hodgson has arrived with a plethora of troops. And he has Katrina held captive. His has set up canons on a ridge overlooking the town. We receive word that if Ichabod is not handed over to him, he will bombard the town.

 

The heroes leap into action. Some help evacuate the town. Tonto and Sheila silently climb the ridge to grab Katrina, while the rest of us stage a distraction. The plan quickly falls apart as a parley with the general goes south and one of our silent climbers rolls a critical failure.

 

We do not want to kill the general, but rather capture him if possible. Somehow, when all was said and done, we are able to do this and save Katrina. Truly, we are the unsung heroes of the revolution.

 

Savage Doctor Who

Saturday morning Owen ran us through a Savage Doctor Who game. The adventure continued where episode 1 left off… Hutch wakes up (Mike couldn’t make it last time, so he slept through it in the tour bus.) The Doctor invites us all to accompany him on a trip to Egypt. We all load into the TARDIS and in no time at all are standing in Egypt…a few thousand years ago it seems! It is baking hot – over 100 degrees, but it is a dry heat so we’re good.

 

Nearby is an oasis and a pyramid. The Doctor tells us to look around. We snoop around the pyramid. A large obelisk stands outside of the pyramid’s entrance. On it is an inscription: “Osiris loves you, Osiris welcomes you”. Written in English! Then the Doctor informs us that it’s actually in Egyptian, but that the TARDIS has translated it for us.

 

We approach the oasis and discover a village. After a tense moment we are welcomed into the village. We meet the village chief. The villagers are quite friendly and we mingle. It seems we know their language too! (Thanks TARDIS!) As it gets dark we see two moons in the sky. We begin to think that nothing is ever what it seems with this doctor fellow. None-the-less we enjoy ourselves. Our evening is interrupted by strange creatures, called Dagots, that emerge from the sand and attack the village. They look like scarab beetles, but are two feet long and have a poisonous bite! The doctor is bitten and falls unconscious. After the battle a celebration is held. It seems that the Dagots are a vital part of the villager’s diet. They get to eat fresh meat. (Dagots tastes like chicken.) Later that night, during the Celebration, a gong rings out three times. The villagers are even happier. Some will get to join Osiris! As a thank you, the chief insists we all take their place with the gods. The next morning, after little sleep, our hands are ceremoniously bound (loosely) with a golden cords. The gong rings out again and a door opens at the top of the pyramid. We climb the steps and enter a room that has no exits (other than the one we just entered.) We all remove our bonds and look around. The only door closes and the floor descends like an elevator. Electronic noises are heard. We arrive at a room with two sphinx statues. (Someone just had to touch one.) They are constructs and begin attacking us. After the sphinxes ravage several of us, Hutch is sure we are missing something. Wu Chan (Ron) then remembers the golden cords that bound us earlier. We bind our hands again (loosely) and the Sphinx stop attacking. Once this happens, a door opens. We follow the steps down to the bottom level. This level has several electronic consoles, two large metal “chambers”, and four pads on the floor. This is not Egyptian technology. As we look around the room, the pads on the floor light up and four men appear. They are actually more machine than flesh. We know these are Cybermen (Thanks again TARDIS!). A fight ensues. A couple of them are taken down, but two more appear. It’s a tough fight during which Wu Chan is mortally wounded. The TARDIS materializes and the Doctor emerges (fully recovered from his reaction to the Dagot poison). He is able to save Wu Chan by using one of the large metal “conversion” chambers. After making many adjustments, Wu Chan is placed in the chamber. When he emerges, he still has his own head, but has the body of a Cyberman. [It is likely that the Doctor will drop him off at a cyborg friendly planet to enjoy his retirement. Ron will have a new character next time.] Doctor explains: There are many pyramids dotted around the planet. The Cybermen are using the planet as a “farm”, ensuring a constant supply of humans that can be “upgraded” [This is the term they use when converting someone to a Cyberman.] He speculates that the original people were abducted from Earth thousands of years ago. He uses his sonic screwdriver to send a feedback pulse to the orbital relay station that causes it to explode thus ensuring that the Cybermen cannot return. Once again we are heroes!

 

Savage Conan

Following on the tails of Doctor Who was a Savage Conan game run by me.

 

On the road to Akbitana the heroes come across a large party of bandits attacking a wagon. Aquilonian guards are protecting the wagon as best they can, but many have fallen to the bandits. The heroes charge in, literally, and eventually overcome the bandits. The wagon’s owner Lortus, an Aquilonian merchant, is extremely grateful. He asks the heroes to accompany him to Akbitana where he can properly reward them. He gives each a purse filled with gold coins and throws a party in their honor. The heroes also meet Lortus’s Beautiful daughter Maeve who is mute and seems rather frail. While most of the heroes throw themselves wholeheartedly into the party, a few refrain from partaking. Amo (Evil Mike) searches Lortus’s large library and finds a tomb containing mystical knowledge. (I honestly can’t remember if Lortus gives him the tomb or if Amo steals it. Let’s say he steals it. J )

 

The next morning Lortus implores the heroes to accompany Maeve to an ancient Acheron temple in the mountains between Koth and Khauran. There the heroes hope to find a pool called the “Tears of Acheron” which will heal beautiful Maeve’s afflictions. The route through the mountains is arduous and at one point the heroes had to leave the wagons behind. They come to an ancient bridge spanning a bottomless chasm. They must cross one at a time for fear of the bridge crumbling beneath them. On the far side appears a demon spawned from the depths of ancient Archeon magic. It attacks them. The brave knight Karan charges the demon doing little to no damage against the foul creature. In return the demon strikes Koran with his massive pinchers, lifting him from the ground and opening him up like a can of sardines. Any other man would have died from such grievous wounds, but not Koran. He lay there in a pool of his own filth and blood, alive, but just barely. Gar the barbarian (Owen) quickly comes to his rescue and sunders the demon with a single blow of his mighty axe! It should be noted that Amo helped out by entangling the demon in sorcerous vines.

 

The heroes arrive at the ruins surrounding the ancient Acheron temple. A priest rashly commands them to kneel or leave. The priest believes that the large beasts his minions hold at bay will be enough to cower the heroes. (He obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with.) The beasts, known as lions, are released. The resulting battle was short and brutal. A intimidate from Amo and a headlong charge and beheading from Karan solved the problem of all the kneeling nonsense.

 

At the temple, the heroes solve the riddle of the barred door.

 

The heroes reach the room that contains the pool called the Tears of Acheron. Soon Maeve will be healed. Chop-Chop (Jim) tries to slide under a big heavy curtain only to pull it down on top of himself. There was much cursing (from Chop-Chop) and much laughing (from the rest of us). Khalim the Silent (Ron) and Gar (Owen) have a bit of a scuffle with a crazy dual-sword wielding Acheron leader. But it was Chop-Chop, now free of the deadly curtain, who rushes in and chop-chops him down.

 

Meanwhile Maeve enters the pool. Much mystical weirdness happens as the pool “heals” Maeve. It turns out she is not really the daughter of Lortus, but some vile changeling now imbued with the powers of Acheron. Amo suspected this. (He’s played in my games before.) Maeve calls forth the spirits of the long dead Acheronians who attack the heroes. During the fierce battle that followed, it was Chop-Chop who rushes in and kills the demon lady (formerly Maeve). I think Chop-chop could have completed this adventure without the extra baggage of the other heroes.

 

Sunday we played board games although there is no record of what games we played or who won them. We all had a great time though!

 

Thanks to Jim for hosting again. Thanks to Ben, Owen, and Ron for helping fill in the missing pieces of what happened that weekend. (Why is this sounding like we all went to Las Vegas?)

 

As usual, we’re already looking forward to the next JimCon in spring.

 

 

 

Gen Con 2014

This is the first year in many years that Mike and I were not running a ton of games at Gen Con for Pinnacle. Instead we made plans to play games with friends we already knew. Our only worry was that we knew we couldn’t schedule a gaming table but would be at the mercy of the Gaming HQs. This turned out not to be much of an issue. We found a table in Union Station and pretty much used it the entire convention. Granted, as you’ll see, we did do some “off campus” gaming too.

 

A big Gen Con surprise was driving downtown only to find all of the parking garages were full (on Thursday). We had to drive another 5 or 6 blocks away to find one with empty parking spaces. After leaving the parking garage that evening, we noticed the next parking garage, 50 feet further away, was $12 cheaper. I should mention that on Wednesday, prior to the official start of Gen Con, we got right in “our” parking garage across from Union Station. The attendant went out of his way to make sure we knew where we were going. Somehow he pegged us as Gen Con attenders. Maybe it was the giant “Savage One” on the outside of the truck. Or the black t-shirts.

 

But enough about parking, let’s get into the gaming!

 

Wednesday

We started off Gen Con by playing a big game of Settlers of Catan. Besides Ben, Owen, Mike, and I, there were also our friends Bob Geiger and Shawn Hurst. We realized after opening Mike’s copy of the game, that a few pieces were missing. Undaunted, Owen pieced together the map and figured out a way to use what we had to get the board correct. (Owen’s a genius.) I liked playing Settlers on a larger board with more players. It gives you the illusion of more options. We all soon discovered that many of those options were just that—illusions. Any options quickly dried up as players hoovered up choice settlement spots. Shawn took an early lead by getting the Longest Road bonus. It didn’t last though as several other players also built bigger, longer roads. I was flushed with bricks In the beginning of the game. I was literally trading 4:1 each turn to get wood. Then I finally got the 2:1 Brick seaport. I’m not sure I ever got brick after that. (Stupid game.) Ben ended up winning and there was nothing any of us could do about it. Nothing, I say.

 

Then I ran a Savage Solomon Kane game for the group. We swapped out Bob for Norm at the beginning of the game. Let’s just say the game wasn’t my best work. In the end, the player’s did rescue the lovely Lady Olivia, but are now stranded on an island filled with snake men cultist. (Little do they know that soon after the game ended the island sank into the sea.)

 

We finished the day with a couple games of 7 Wonders. Norm and Shawn had never played it. There are a lot of ways to score points, so it takes a game or two to realize what you should be doing. Norm seemed to pick it up ok, as he came in second with 55 points. I was able to win with 61 points. Shawn tied Ben for third place with 49 points. Mike had 41 and Owen, having a bad game, had 40.

 

Our second game went quite differently. Ben won with 62 points. Mike got second with 60 points. Owen was third with 58 points and I was fourth with 51 points. Norm and Shawn came in last with 44 and 43 points respectively. This is how the first game should have gone…except I would have still won of course.

 

Thursday

I already mentioned the parking surprise. This caused us to unload at the curb a few times, then have Mike go park. This was also the day we got our badges. I tried to get our badges on Wednesday but there were some issues. At one point we weren’t even sure we had badges to get. Here’s a quote from the Exhibitor HQ:

 

“And now *you* understand. Anything goes wrong, anything at all… your fault, my fault, nobody’s fault… it won’t matter – I’m still not giving you badges. No matter what else happens, no matter who gets killed I’m not giving you your badges.”

 

Ok, actually the lady helping us at the Exhibitor HQ couldn’t have been nicer. She’d did everything she could to give us the badges. (I just like that Big Jake quote.) Jodi Black got the badges all straightened out so we were able to get ours.

 

Our first game of the day was Norm’s Hell on Earth game. This was made a little better because we had Teller in the game. Teller actually wrote Hell on Earth (HoE). Norm was nervous about the game; having never run HoE before and having Teller in the game. Teller immediately put him at ease though, because Teller is a great guy. Norm had prepared a cool game where we met a Domiciles solider who had lost his memory. We were trying to help the soldier get back into his bunker which had been taken over by forces unknown. We did this out of kindness and because we knew the bunker was loaded with goodies (weapons, ammo, food…) We had a lot of fun and nearly bought the farm in the end. But thanks to the heroic efforts of our characters we were able to save Denver and probably the world.

 

Following Hell on Earth Mike ran us through an Agents of Oblivion game that he made up on the way to the bathroom…or something like that. Teller stayed for that game too and we had John Goth join us too. John gave us all cool “Night Train” dice. In Mike’s game out team of agents were sent to Amsterdam. The agency knew something dramatic (i.e., bad) was going to happen there soon and it was our job to to find out what. We were to do this job quietly without drawing any attention to ourselves. Out team being who they were ended up nearly leveling a building in downtown Amsterdam. But we did this quietly and without drawing attention to ourselves. A critical failure reading some runes in the middle of the game caused the gates of hell to open later in the middle of downtown Amsterdam. Our bad. And we worked so hard on those runes too. The demon was summoned in a downtown square. It took all of us to put it down…quietly and without drawing attention to ourselves. It will take several years to rebuild Amsterdam after our visit.

 

Friday

Friday was Lake Day. Mike invited all for a day of boating and gaming on his deck by the lake. It started off rocky with Mike forgetting his bag—we had to turn around—and then McDonalds refusing to wait on a couple of us. I swear we had our invisibility suits turned off! But they failed to see us or wait on us. Later after cruising the lake, we ate at Anthony’s pizza. We all gave it two thumbs up.

 

Back at the dock, we sat on the deck and Norm ran us through a Savage Shadowrun game. It was fantastic. We had an absolute blast! We planned on staying and playing until dark, but circumstances changed and sent us home early. That was ok though, we all got to rest up for Saturday.

 

Saturday

On Saturday we continued playing Savage Shadowrun until dinner time. We really played two games. In the first game our team injected a virus into the lab of some secret facility. In the second game, we were hired to find a missing singer who was a rising star in the industry. The second game pivoted on the first. (Norm’s a genius.) I’m sure Norm will have more Savage Shadowrun goodness for us in the furture!

 

After dinner, instead of finding a gaming table downtown, we went to Mike’s house. Mike ran us through a Savage Tarsa game. Tarsa is a setting that he and his friends (Lee and Shawn) have developed over the years. It’s a sci-fi setting. It was late when we played and I must say I was completely out of it. This is a continuing game and we did move the game forward, but not by much. (I think I blacked out right after Mike said, “Ok, let’s start.”)

 

Sunday

Sunday was dealer room day. We started at the back and walked down every isle. This took us the better part of five hours. We bought a lot of cool stuff and left even more cool stuff behind due to not being independently wealthy. We wore out Mike’s son, Alex. He left us early to find someplace to sit down. He guarded our stuff with Jack Sparrow’s sword though. His Gen Con purchase.

 

We had a great time and are already looking forward to next year!

 

 

 

 

50 Fathoms: The Not-Quite-a-Ghost Ship

50fathoms-e1334040658306
Ben – GM
Owen – Harlow Hinde, Masaquani
Mike – Pete, Kraken
Evil Mike – Ankas, Scurillian
Alex – Reconaki “Green”, Kehana
Steve – Potts, Grael

Last week we left Keira and were sailing to Brigandy Bay (or Baltimus, or someplace else. I’m not the captain, I’m a grael. I go where the ship goes.) We’re carrying a cargo of munitions and two passengers. A princess and a purported magic user.

IMG_1325-0.JPG

We took on a new party member. A krakin by the name of…uh…Pete. We immediately regretted this when he critically failed the first roll of the game. A Notice roll that would determine our future. But fortune smiled on us and a giant red parrot pooped on Pete. The parrot was Carifax who belonged to Tressa the Red. More poop to follow.

We took a wrong turn at some seaweed and ended up spotting another ship. As we drew near we saw no movement on board. The ship seemed in good repair with no obvious damage. We boarded. Then things went dark…for two reasons. A thick fog quickly moved in and Octopons (octopus-like humanoids) cast Blindness on several of us. I think my Grael was the only one to actually go blind. The Grael immediately cast Iron Skin for protection. The increased weight caused him to break through the ship’s deck, twice, and land very ungracefully on the ship’s hull. Several of the party were already fighting Octopons there.

We eventually overcame the Octopons. Searching the ship we found treasure and a few magic items. We decided to keep the ship. With some cleaning up it would make a nice addition to our new fleet.

We continue to wherever, but now have to cut through the Flotsam Sea.

What part of “Chaos Steve” don’t you understand?

2014-08-20 19.36.40 2014-08-20 19.37.18

50 Fathoms: The Great Escape

50fathoms-e1334040658306
Ben – GM
Owen – Harlow Hinde, Masaquani
Mike – Kratos, Kraken
Evil Mike – Ankas, Scurillian
Alex – Reconaki “Green”, Kehana
Steve – Potts, Grael

This week we continued with our “plan” to break Tomas De Orinjo out of the prison at Kiera. To bring you up to speed on where everyone is, here’s a short recap. Evil Mike got himself captured and placed in a cell. Mike and Alex are sneaking in the back way. Alex has since gone back to guard our escape route. (Alex was a no-show this week.) This left Mike to wander alone. Owen and I, accompanied by six crewman from the Valiant along with a lieutenant named Milo, sneak into the prison hidden inside barrels. Let’s see how we are doing…

Evil Mike easily escapes from his cell and begins looking for Tomas. Evil Mike is nearly out of power points and out of Bennies. Still he manages to take out a few passing guards. No luck finding Tomas though.

Mike begins wandering around the rooms of the prison until he’s caught by some guards. Mike easily takes down a few of the guards, but the fighting continues.

Owen and I “sneak” into a tower and immediately run into some guards. During the noisy battle that follows, an officer and 10 more guards appear outside the tower.

Time passes…

Mike finds the remaining guards have more experience and better dice rolls that his character. His character is killed, leaving behind a mound of magic items all bequeathed to Evil Mike.

Shortly after that, Evil Mike makes a new acquaintance with someone who looks like a trustworthy fellow and we ask him to join the party. Evil Mike and the new guy (Mike’s new character) continue to fight their way out of prison, all the while looking for Tomas.

Owen and I are in a pickle. Owen tries to parlay, but with no luck. The Kieran officer has formed up his men and is hell bent on capturing or killing us. I make a d4 Smarts decision and rush the line while intimidating the officer. This works…for six seconds. Then the first row of guards fires their muskets at me. Fortunately my magically enhanced toughness of 15 is enough to get me through it with only a Shaken.

Owen is conflicted. On one hand he knows that my move was completely idiotic and I deserve whatever fate awaits me. On the other hand, he’s Heroic. Meanwhile the men from the Valiant have taken the stairs to the top of the tower. They thinned the guards out a bit with a few shots from their pistols and muskets. Owen finally resolves to help me, and rushes out into the fray. We eventually kill them all except for the cowardly officer who has run inside. I believe that it was Evil Mike and Mike who eventually get him. They also find a very grateful Tomas.

We all gather at the assigned rendezvous spot and escape the prison…but not before Evil Mike loots Mike’s dead character of all of his magic items.

Tomas is very happy to be rescued and gives us the next quarter of the medallion we are searching for.

Note: during the game there were several things of note that people mentioned that I must put in the write-up. If I included any of them, it’s by accident.

Chaos Steve

2014-08-06 17.30.45 2014-08-06 17.31.01 2014-08-06 19.34.18

50 Fathoms: All Part of the Plan

50fathoms-e1334040658306
Ben – GM
Owen – Harlow Hinde, Masaquani
Mike – Kratos, Kraken
Evil Mike – Ankas, Scurillian
Alex – Reconaki “Green” , Kehana
Steve – Potts, Grael

This week we continued our journey to the Kieran Empire. Thanks to the help of our mages (Evil Mike and Mike) we made the journey in record time. “You’ve never heard of the Millennium Dolphin?… It’s the ship that made the Kieran Run in less than twelve parsecs.”

Once in the port city of Kiera we became mired in our search for Tomas De Orinjo, the fire mage. We did sell our cargo hold of wood however for a tidy profit. The captain, Owen, also sold his soul to become a gun runner…but that’s another story.

Eventually we discover that Tomas was accused of burning down a bar and taken to Kiera’s prison. Evil Mike, Mike, and Alex worked out a plan to free the fire mage by approaching the prison from the sea side: they are all aquatic or thereabouts. Evil Mike’s scurillian (giant crab) thief goes first to reconnoiter the area. He’s eventually caught. “All part of the plan.” Could be heard as they led him away to his own private cell. That left Mike and Alex to find their own way in.

In the meantime the captain and I were having dinner with the harbor master. This is where Owen sold his soul. After dinner we headed back to the ship.

Alarms begin to sound as if all hell has broken loose at the prison. At that same time, a boat full of salty sea dogs offer their help to Owen and me in freeing Tomas from the prison.

Check out the pictures of Ben’s prison layout!

Next time we will continue with Evil Mike’s plan. I hope it doesn’t include us getting killed. I hate plans like those.

Chaos Steve

2014-07-23 17.16.51 2014-07-23 17.17.13

Origins 2014

Origins was different this year from past years. 1) We weren’t running 16 hours of games each, and 2) Alex, Mike’s son, joined us. Both of these things made Origins a lot of fun. We arrived and hung out with Norm after eating at Barley’s. We introduced Norm to Ra, the dice game. The first game you play of Ra is always a little different because it’s hard to tell just what you should be doing. Norm caught on fine though.

 

That night Norm ran us through a Savage Gladiators game. His arena was fantastic. We fought through several contests. Norm also added rules for “playing to the crowd” and “playing to the…” shoot, I can’t remember his name for it, but it’s the person that oversees the fights in the coliseum. He who has the power to say whether you live or die. My character learned that it’s not whether you actually kill the minotaur that’s important, it’s whether the crowd thinks you killed the minotaur that’s important. We lost a gladiator or two before the final contest in which we all fought to the death. Evil Mike and Evil Mark (Daymude) survived as the duel winners in the “There Can Only Be One Contest”. This shows just how corrupt the government was in the time of Savage Gladiators. Mike and Mark should have been put to death. Oh, and I shouldn’t have died, but that’s another story.

 

Thursday found two goblins raiding the dragon’s horde. Mike and I were the goblins. I’m not saying whose horde we plundered.

 

The first game on Thursday was mine. I ran a Deadlands game on a Geek Chic table. There’s nothing better than running games on a $2000+ table. As it turns out every game for the rest of the convention was run on one of their tables. In my game, the brave party was hired to guard one of Professor Vanderkook’s newest inventions—an improved version of the submersible boat. Unfortunately one of the warlord Kang’s lieutenants wanted the boat as well. There was lots of kung-fu fighting, an angry giant octopus, and even a compression explosion within one of the character’s diving suit. Just a normal day in the Maze in Deadlands.

 

We all got uncomfortably stuffed at Buca di Beppo’s and then returned to play in Norm’s Savage Conan game. This is a real favorite of mine for two reasons. One, Norm in the GM and two, Norm is the GM. And the third reason is that it’s Conan. (The One, Two, Three was all intentional and for no reason at all.) The adventure led us to the home of a large cave troll. Then we discovered it was really the home to a GIANT cave troll! Several of us went down, incapacitated, during the last scene with the mamma of all cave trolls. Al came to our rescue and was able to kill the creature with a fantastic damage roll.

 

Friday morning Mike got up early and went running with Dave. Dave tried to kill him by taking him over hither and yon. Most injuring was a hairpin curve where something in Mike’s knee went “snap”. That “snap” was nothing that kept Mike from finishing, but his days of running outside on the pavement were over for a few months while that “snap” healed.

 

Friday’s games stared with Dave’s Xcom game. I think everyone except Mike and I had played in one of these games before. Dave got some very cool terrain from Drop Zone Commander Cityscapes. The city layout was made even cooler by the Geek Chic table that enabled us to put the map under clear Plexiglas with the buildings on top. I got to play Deacon, the medic. Apparently the medic had died in all of the previous games. That, along with my history of playing medics, meant I was going to die. I amazed everyone, including myself, as I played the medic as he should be played…as a support team member. (I’ve learned that medics should not be the first into the fight.) Early in the game Gordon’s character jumped off a 10-story building. He thought his personal wingsuit would save him. It doesn’t when you roll a critical failure trying to deploy the wings. With the help of the medic (me), he survived to fight another day. Xcom is all about repelling an alien invasion. We did it with style and had a great time!

 

Friday night Mike and I got together with Bob Geiger and Phil to play some board games. But before that, I talked everyone into going to a pizza place for dinner. It was a big hit. Then Mike and I headed to Bob’s room for board games. First up was a game called Dungeon Fighters. What made this game unique was that combat involved you skipping a die unto a board painted like a target. If that wasn’t bad enough, many times you had special throw restrictions. These restrictions required you to throw the die between your legs, off your nose or elbow, or off your forehead. Dungeon Fighters is a cooperative game. We all died a long and painful death.

 

Next we played Clash of Cultures…until 3 a.m. Bob and Phil had never played before. I won, but only by a ½ point. Phil came in second.

 

Saturday Gordon ran us through a Savage Crackdown Supers game. (As you’ll see Saturday is a little fuzzy, so I may have this all wrong.) We played characters who were agents recruited for their various skills, some of these skills were induced by a drug. This drug has a name. It shall not be revealed here because I don’t remember its name. Anyway, it gave us all various super powers. It might have been called “Starbucks coffee”, but you didn’t hear that from me.

 

Our characters visited a super-secret, super secure containment area. Some would call this a jail. It was our bad timing that a jailbreak occurred while we were there. We fought tons of various villains; some with super powers, some not. All-in-all we had a rock ‘em sock ‘em good time.

 

The last game of the convention was Mike’s Savage IX Corp game. My character was a cybertech enhanced pilot. We were junior officers on a space ship.

 

That’s all I remember of the game. If Mike sends me more information, there may be more about it after this sentence. Let’s go see…

 

(I bribed a source who heard about the game from a friend who was sitting three tables away. This is what I got.) Our ship got sucked through a black hole. On the other side we discovered our ship had been badly damaged. Not only that, but a high percentage of the crew and passengers were dead or dying. Mike put us all in charge of our respective areas. This was a lot of fun roleplaying as we tried to get things done around the ship with a minimal staff. Once the ship was somewhat stabilized, we landed on a nearby planet and found a signal it was giving off. Following the signal, Gordon was killed by a viscous animal predator that he <intentionally> scared into attacking us. We discovered that the natives were enslaved by another race. We had a huge battle with them—the slavers, not the natives. Only the timely arrival of some reinforcements allowed us to survive the fight. Norm videoed that last part because Mike made noises for it. See it here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203238638820205

 

Saturday night we ate at the pizza place again. It was good.

 

Sunday Mike, Alex and I spent the day checking out of the hotel and running around the dealer area deciding what things to buy.

 

Thanks Origins for another great convention!

 

Chaos Steve