Our First Guest: Uncle Rob!

As we've said before, we are a family of gamers. Today we have a surprise for you... a guest appearance by Angie's Uncle Rob; her first Dungeon master, lifelong gaming buddy, and all-around cool guy. Katie adores her "Uncle 'ob", he's always been an important part of our lives and we're excited to share this post about his favorite game. But first, a cute nostalgic picture from the archives to set the scene:

Rob and Angie, around the time he first taught me D&D (1985ish)

My favorite game....

by Rob

A few weeks ago I promised Katie-bird that I would write a short post about my favorite game and at the time I'm sure I was thinking about the game that I am currently enjoying very much: Lord of the Rings Online. But upon reflection of my life-long love affair with games I have came to realize that my current favorite game is not even close to my all time favorite game. Why? Well for one thing its not the game I like as much as it is my love of Tolkien's lore and the chance to dynamically experience Middle-earth, a world that I have been in love with since first reading The Hobbit some 35 years ago. I mean, I have been aware of MMO's since the early days, I have tried EQ, WoW and the others and because I have no interest or investment in the lore of those worlds I never played beyond the free trials. If you took LotRO and changed the story and stripped it of its Tolkien influence, I would drop the game in a heart beat - so how could that be my favorite game?

So what is my favorite game? I am very tempted to award that dubious distinction to Dungeons and Dragons, which was after all such a big part of my teen and young adult life. I have very fond memories of all the time me and my brother Dave, spent designing dungeons and role-playing each other through those grand adventures . I can still see the delight and wonder of my wide-eyed niece, nephews and children as i ran them through their firsts adventures. But if you asked me to play it today - I would probably decline. Even though I occasionally consider picking up the dice and books and playing it again, It justs takes so much effort and investment of time that I just don't think I can make that much of commitment of my life as it exists today. So how could that be my favorite game?

What game would I play without hesitation every time I was asked? That certainly must be my favorite game - right?

Well – maybe, and maybe not.

For example, me and my son Bryan are currently involved in a chess tournament, I'm not really that good and he beats me most of the time (which of course is followed up with much gloating, humiliation and shame) but i drop everything and play him 2 or 3 games every time he visits home and asks for a game. But chess is not my favorite game and I hate to lose.

So maybe its pinochle, or spite and malice. Card games that I would play anytime, anywhere, anyplace. as long as its with my family - no. can't be because, honestly - I really hate pinochle.

So what could it be?

Well from these examples I'm starting to see a trend. Sure there are games that stimulate my intellectual curiosities and rev-up my imagination into overdrive, there are games that challenge me. And there are games that drive me bananas, Some games are just fun to play. Some, not so much, but the thing that really drives me is the time that I shared with my friends and family - I cant say the word "pinochle" with-out being flooded by a thousand and one memories of all the good times I have shared with my family playing that stupid game. D&D was all about sharing time and ideas with my best bro in the world and later sharing those experiences with my nieces and nephews and then much later my children. Beyond the Lore of Tolkien what really gets me to log on to LotRO is the time I share with my bro in that game - time and miles might separate us but through that game we are instantly 12 again and it is as if nothing ever changed. And even though we don't always play together we are both just a /send tell away.

So Katie - here's the short post I promised...

My Favorite game...

Is the one that I am going to play with you.

Love ya

Uncle 'ob



Katie and Uncle Rob's first game: impersonating each other (July 2006)



Cooperative Board Games

Us Versus... Them? It?

Cooperative board games are an interesting genre. The basic idea in a nutshell is that everyone works together to defeat "the board". Usually this amounts to a series of increasing challenges that are randomly thrown at you in an attempt to simulate artificial intelligence. The team of players figures out a way to overcome these challenges and either easily wins or is swamped with another wave of even bigger problems. This formula often amounts to some fun tension, provided you have the right crowd of folks, and that some players aren't way more familiar with the game than others. The problems arise when you have an over-bearing player (or players) who wants to tell everyone exactly what to do, or someone who has figured out "the solution" (ie the optimal way to play in order to beat the board) and either intentionally or inadvertently takes away the mystery and challenge of figuring it all out. Or when the game just sucks, which happens sometimes. As you've probably guessed by now, this isn't exactly my favorite type of game to play. I'm not a hater, but I'm not a fangirl either. I'll play a cooperative game with friends here and there and have a good time with it, and after thinking it through and trying to decide on a favortie I've realized I think the genre has come a long way and is heading in a good direction.

Rising Stars

There are a few cooperative games that I think do a better job of creating fun and interesting problems than others. Some of the genre favorites such as Pandemic really don't hit that sweet spot for me of a game I want to rush back and play again and again. I enjoy Arkham Horror for it's theme, depth, character options, and interesting story, but it can be such a long (and sometimes tedious) endeavor that I don't play it very often. There are 3 cooperative games that really stand out to me as heading in "the right direction"; not perfect games, but something I'd be interested in playing and seeing more of in the future.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a fun, story-driven, cooperative horror game in which you play explorers adventuring around in an old haunted house. You all stumble around discovering rooms, finding equipment, and stirring up trouble until suddenly "the haunt" begins and one of the players becomes the traitor. The traitor then gets some special rules and everyone else continues to work together to do whatever heroic action is required by the scenario. This game usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour, is different every time, and has a fun level of interaction and intrigue. The traitor mechanic usually allows for a thinking opponent which keeps things challenging and unpredictable in a way that most cooperative AI's can't. I have many fond memories of this game, and while it was long out of print (and very expensive) there is a new edition out and it looks like it's only $20 on Amazon right now! That would have easily made my top 5 games under $25 if I had seen it. (It might be a holiday sale, so don't quote me if you're reading this on a day other than the one I'm writing it on)

Ghost Stories is one of my favorite cooperative board games right now, and I think it has some staying power. This game sets up the players as taoist monks working to exorcise the ghosts plaguing thier villiage. With the help of the villagers, the monks fight off the hoards and hoards of vicious ghosts until a final showdown with the incarnation of Wu-Fen. This game provides a good level of tension and strategy, and has players working together to solve problems and use special powers in a way that makes it feel like teamwork and individual strategy are both important, while remaining accessible to family gamers. I think the only downfall of this game is that sometime you just get buried in ghosts you can't defeat. such is life as a Taoist monk I guess. Or maybe that's the whole "random heaping of problems" complaint I have of games in this genre. Overall though, this game is a strong showing and one i would highly recommned trying out.

Finally, the "winner" for the day, Space Alert. I have not gotten to play this game as much as I would like to, despite it's relatively short playing time (20-30 minutes per game, but you'll never play just once!). It's complicated. It's hard to learn. It's HARD. The main reason I haven't played it much is because I feel like I would need to get a team of friends together, TRAIN them on how to play through a series of drills (provided in the book of course!), and then we would need to learn to work together and strategize in order to be successful at this game. And that's exactly the reason it's the winner. It manages to take the idea of a cooperative game a rachet everything up a notch. It's problem solving and teamwork and stress and awesome and it makes my brain hurt. It all happens so fast and more and more keeps happening that you have to react to and all your careful plans fall apart if someone isn't in the right spot at the right time to power up the shield or refill the battery from the reactor core or do whatever thing that is needed to make the plan all work. I've stood there time and time again punching a button to shoot a laser at an oncoming enemy ship only to discover my teammate who was supposed to be powering my gun station instead sent the power to the shield. Or got lost. D'oh. Who was supposed to be taking care of these battlebots? Aren't you out in a fighter drone? Who is on shields? Batteries!?! Miscommunication! Stress! Tension! Teamwork! Blowing stuff up in space! Yes, this is the direction I would like to see cooperative games go in; games that make us think and actually work together and learn to be a team while having a blast. Literally. Haha.

In retrospect...

I guess I like cooperative games more than I thought. Anyone wanna team up?


Challenge Link:

Check out Cool Factor 5 for more thoughts on cooperative games from one of the only crew members to ever survive a Space Alert mission with me.

My favorite campaign setting: Iron Kingdoms!

My favorite roleplaying setting is the Iron Kingdoms (IK) campaign setting by Privateer Press. Originally a series of adventures released in the early days of 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons, later releases expanded it to a full-fledged setting that really pushed the limits of the d20 System (for those unfamiliar, this is the system that D&D uses). What makes the IK great? Let me tell you.

      

The Iron Kingdoms is set in the land of Western Immoren, a land where nations war upon one another with swords, guns, magic and warjacks. What is a warjack, you might ask? It's a magical steam-powered robot. That takes orders from a wizard. In power armor. Seriously... digest that. The IK is a world that isn't quite steampunk (it's too fantasy for that), but melds the elements of an industrial society with a world evolved from the medieval fantasy default of standard D&D.

One aspect of the flavor I love is Mechanika. Mechanika is the fusion of magic and technology, and yields some interesting results. What that means for the adventuring heroes is that most over their magic items will be battery-powered... yes, you heard correctly. You're going to need to recharge accumulator (magical "batteries") to make your magic sword work. Of course, standard magic items exist; they're just rarer, and making them can attract unwanted attention from otherworldly beings.

I ran a campaign set in this world for about 2-3 years, and I loved it. The setting is also shared with a couple miniatures combat games (Warmachine and Hordes), so there is a lot of supplemental material to draw on as sources for conflicts in the world. I used these to create the feeling that while the PCs were definitely heroes, the world was much larger than them and that wars were raging around them. Good times. I recommend taking a look at this world. Good starting points are the Privateer Press site for the Iron Kingdoms at http://privateerpress.com/iron-kingdoms or by picking up the recently released PDF of the hard-to-find Iron Kingdoms Character Guide from http://paizo.com/. Enjoy!

Want to hear about someone else's favorite setting? Why not check out Cool Factor 5, our friend's excellent gaming blog.

Variety is the Spice of Life

My Favorite Game Mechanic

I've been thinking about board game mechanics and what makes a game "fun". One thing I've realized (after staring at my game shelf for a long time and thinking about which games I like to play most often) is that I really enjoy games with variable player powers. I'm not even sure if that officially counts as a mechanic, but it sure does make a game more interesting and replayable for me. What I mean by variable player powers is that I like it when each player has something special in a game that only he/she is allowed to do.

Many games have this feature/mechanic, so I am just going to highlight a couple examples from our frequently played games shelf. These are games we pull out time and time again from our collection.


The Big Daddy

One of the first games to really showcase variable player powers in a big way is Cosmic Encounter. In this game, each player plays a unique race with a special power that lets them break the rules of the game in a different way. This game helped inspire many later games (including Magic: The Gathering) and is different and fun each time largely due to the combinations of powers and the fact that players can not all do the same thing, or the same strategy they used last time.





That Farming Game (No, Not Farmville!)

Another great example of variable player powers in present in one of my all time favorite games, Agricola. In Agricola, each player starts with 7 occupations and 7 minor improvements that they can choose to use or not use during the course of the game. This allows players to each have special abilities or points that no one else has, and creates a dynamic game that is never the same twice. Players don't inherently have a special power, but they can choose to create a strategy based around their available options.



Working Together For the Common Good

As I thought about games and game mechanics, one striking revelation occurred to me... variable player powers are one of the main features of most popular cooperative games as well. Ghost Stories, Pandemic, Shadows Over Camelot, and many other cooperative board games (games in which everyone works together to "defeat" the challenges the game presents) includes giving each player a unique power or ability. One of the main considerations of these games is trying to figure out how to coordinate various special powers to be most effective. It provides a way for each player to do something special and be part of the team, and also keeps things interesting and challenging from game to game. This stands out even more for me in cooperative games because they inherently don't have the "thinking opponent" on the other end to push your strategies in new directions. The inclusion of special powers, and sometimes the exclusion of certain powers, requires you to think differently and work out new solutions to familiar problems.

Challenge Link:

Read about another favorite game mechanic at Cool Factor 5. And of course feel free to share yours here or there!