Pax East 2013: The Games We Played (Part 3)

Make sure to check out Parts 1 & 2!

 

3 days of Pax + 2 Tabletop Gamers = 15 Games Played.
We came, we saw, we played.
And we had a blast!

 

I talked about the first three games played in Part 1 (1. Story Wars, 2. Forbidden Desert, 3. Oz Fluxx), before we went into panel mode. After Saturday morning's workshop, we turned our sights to games and started with the (4.) DC Deck Building Game. I was lagging a bit and thought I would watch but the couple demoing the game convinced me to play and I am glad I did! It was easy to learn and a whole lot of fun. We randomly received a Super Hero card and I ended up with Wonder Woman. Yeah, you know I was happy about that. I was even happier when I won the game. Mhm. Ben bought a copy of the game right after we played, so I'm pretty sure there will be a full review here at some point, but I'll sum up by saying we both loved it and I may just have to buy a copy myself.

 

We had promised to check out a card game called (5.) GUB by Gamewright, the same company who brought us Forbidden Island. We popped over to their booth and gave it a go. The object was to collect as many free GUBS before the word GUB was spelled out via the cards. It was a cute game and would probably be a fun one to play with the kids. After we finished the game, the woman demoing asked to show us how to play (6.) Iota. This is a big game in a teeny box. The box reminded me of a band aid box, but a little smaller. The game is a puzzle/pattern game where you build rows of tiles that are either the same or completely different. This is actually a game I would like to pick up and try again, I love patterns and strategy and could enjoy this quite a bit, but fatigue was overwhelming me and I needed a break.

Pax East 2013: Panels, Panels, Panels (Part 2)

Missed Part 1? Check it out HERE!

Friday evening continued with panels. We were lucky enough to get in to the Game Design Workshop and end up at a table full of friendly people. There was even a Canadian who apologized for being Canadian. He was a lot of fun.

The panel began with the speaker talking about the characteristics you must possess in order to design games. These were very much personality traits that everyone would do well to enhance, such as the ability to communicate. He then turned it over to the workshop portion and instructed us to each design a two player game that could be played in five minutes and contained a story of some sort. There were playing cards, index cards, dice, and paper on the tables and we were free to use any or all of the materials. We had ten minutes to design our game and then we were to partner up with someone and run playtests.

I had a great time with this and immediately put together a simple storytelling game using plot cards and a D4. It came as no surprise to me that Ben designed a space combat game utilizing dice as ships. It was cool to see what we could come up with in ten minutes and I believe both ideas to have potential. Plus, it was simply a fun workshop!

The panel we wanted to attend next was in that very room, so we got right back in line outside the door and waited. Our last panel for the night was Murderous Ghosts, an audience participation ghost story! We had met the authors of this two player storytelling game at Connecticon and Ben purchased the game, which we had played once with our spouses. As I run a monthly game night for my local writer's group, I was interested to see how it was adapted for a large group. 

A friend of the author played the ghost and the audience was the player, with the author leading us through our choices. She was such an energetic person, she pulled us all into the story immediately and a good time was had by all. The game is played similarly to a Choose Your Own Adventure, with the twist being that you and the MC (who plays the ghost) are creating the adventure. We played through once and most of the audience stayed for a second round, until the room was needing to be emptied. I would call that a successful panel. If you happen to be at a con running Murderous Ghosts, give it a try. It was a lot of fun!

There was one more panel we both really wanted to attend before we turned our focus back to the game play; Science Fiction Worldbuilding Workshop. This was first thing Saturday morning and we were glad to see Jack Graham, one of the authors of Eclipse Phase, as one of the panel leaders. We had the opportunity to play an Eclipse Phase scenario that he ran at Temple Con and (despite our own exhaustion) really enjoyed his enthusiasm.

We once again found ourselves at tables for this panel, as each table was given a number and considered a team. Several choices were listed on a screen and the entire room voted for the specific type of sci fi world we wanted to build. Despite the number of Browncoats present, the winner was not sci-fi western but more of a cybertech world, which interestingly enough is the category Ecplise Phase would fall under.

The screen changed and it became clear why there were ten numbered tables (with an eleventh as a wild card). There were ten different sections of the world to build and each table was to design their section. We were table two and in charge of The Night Market. The six of us had quite a bit of fun coming up with the underbelly of society, throwing out ideas (an all male brothel just for the ladies was mentioned at one point) and discarding them until we hit on something we all liked. We ended up with a city unto itself in the engineering section, dubbed Wonderland. It was run by a powerful and mysterious woman named Alice and was a lot like Burger King, where you could have it your way.  Whatever that may be...

The different groups connected with each other when needed and at the end each group shared what they had come up with, creating a pretty well fleshed out world for an hour's work. The best part of all of this is that the results will be available online under a Creative Commons license and we will be able to do what we like with the world we built.  (Yes, we will share that link when we have it!) As a writer, this was definitely a fun experience and I can't wait to see the end product. Another highly recommended panel!

Although there were more panels that sounded interesting, we decided that we were ready to spend the rest of the weekend playing games. And that is exactly what we did. Tune in to Part 3 for games, games, and more games!

Wonderland Conversion: Part 3

Previously I walked through how the character conversion worked, this time I’m going to look at Stress/Complications and how I used Madness to get the “feel” of Wonderland.

First thing that we need to establish:  Characters in this hack of Wonderland No More are not natives of Wonderland.  In the novels, when Alice arrives in Wonderland, whether it's a dream or she physically enters the world, her physical appearance does not change.  She is still the same girl.  This is not the case with this hack.  When a character enters Wonderland, again whether it is physically or in a dream, they are not the same person.  They become an amalgamation of their real selves and their Wonderland counterparts.  This is an important difference, especially when we get into Madness later on.

Pax East 2013: Tabletop Gamers (Part 1)

Pax East is an awesome con for gamers of all types. This year we headed to Boston with friends who prefer to focus on the video game side of things, while we remained focused on the tabletop. There was so much to do for both types of gamers that we rarely saw the other two except to crash in the hotel, and the four of us put together still could not manage to taste everything Pax had to offer.

We did our best to fit in as much fun as possible, attending five panels and playing a total of fifteen games! It still wasn't enough. I have the Post Pax Blues and already can't wait for next year. Highly, highly recommended if gaming is your thing.


So what did we play? So glad you asked.


Friday began with a game of Story War, which I had already backed on Kickstarter and was excited to see there, demoing the game. We sat down to play and I jokingly stated that I had time to back out of the Kickstarter if I hated the game play, but no worries, it was quite fun. I'll be sharing a review here in the future, but if you like quickly paced story games that encourage imagination, check it out.



From there we sat down to play Forbidden Desert, a new game from the makers of Forbidden Island. It was similar in play to Forbidden Island but different enough to keep it interesting and make both of us interested in purchasing it when released. When we finished this game, we handed a card for Geeks Playing Games to the man we had been playing with and were shocked when he stated that he had been on this very site the week previous. It was rather funny how excited we were. We love knowing people actually read this stuff! (So let us know! You make our day!)



He asked about games for his 7 year old daughter, so we grabbed a table in the free play area to teach him Oz Fluxx. This is a recent favorite, quick to learn, easy to play, and constantly changing. Great card game for both kids and adults.



At this point the 4am wake up was taking its toll and panels seemed a better use of limited brain power. We headed to Want a Good Story in Your Game? Get an Indie!, waited in line for an hour (that's a Pax given, so be prepared) and then sat down. Unfortunately, we were so tired and the panel so video game focused, that it became the nap panel. But it is fondly remembered for granting us a bit of a second wind!

Next up was The Future of Dungeons & Dragons, where we became quite excited about the new free to play MMORPG, Neverwinter. This was not something either of us had been interested in, but as one of the creators shared we both found our jaws dropping. This is an interactive, customizable MMO like we could not have imagined. It would seem that you could play as you would a regular MMORPG or you can use it to run your own campaigns and your own players through the adventures. It sounded, in a word, amazing. And we both left Pax with beta keys, so hopefully we will have first hand feedback to share at some point.



They also discussed D&D Next and their plans for that, sharing that the rogue and fighter were currently in need of the most feedback at this time and that they were very interested in hearing from the players and making something that works well. The DM Challenge that took place Friday and Saturday nights was also mentioned, but as we managed to get in and play on Saturday, I will leave that for now.



The panels continued with a game design workshop and an audience participation story game, but I will pick that back up in Part Two. Hope to see you return for more of our adventures at Pax East!

Wonderland No More Conversion: Part 2

As I mentioned in part one, my first attempt to convert Wonderland No More from Savage Worlds to Cortex+ was to try to make the Marvel Heroic RPG model fit. I was moderately successful, but there were a lot of issues; things that just didn’t feel right. About this time I was just getting involved in the Google Plus Cortex+ community. I asked the following question, mere hours before the Cortex+ Hackers Guide kickstarter was announced:

I have been a fan of the Marvel Heroic RPG since I first played it last year at PAX East. Is there a Core Rulebook for the Cortex Plus System, or are the RPGs that use it the only source? I have the Cortex System book, and I have played the Serenity RPG (the systems namesake I'm guessing), but I am curious if there are any plans on making a Cortex Plus System book?


In response I got many helpful insights, including:

The general consensus from [Margaret Weis Productions] and Cam [Banks, lead designer on all Cortex+ games to date] has been that, because the system is overhauled so much between the different games that use it, you can't really put out a Core Rulebook, and I'd have to agree. The games are completely different approaches to capture the source materials through their rules, and a Cortex Plus Core system would probably be little more than "Create a dice pool, roll and add two; 1s create opportunities for the opposition; use plot points to [buy] extras"; almost anything beyond that is unique to the system in a way to capture the required feel (emphasis mine).



This idea of customizing the rules to “capture the required feel” appeals to me, I have never been a fan of taking an existing rule set and just jamming a setting in and making it fit. I believe this is why converting Wonderland No More to a Marvel RPG clone didn’t “feel” right. Thus began my quest to find the right “feel.” I looked at the Smallville RPG with its relationship focused rule set, and knew that wouldn’t fit. The Leverage RPG with its action focus was closer, but still not quite right. I then found the quick start rules for Dragon Brigade, and knew I was on to something, but it still needed some tweaking in order to fit.

The first change I made to get the feel of Wonderland was taking Dragon Brigade’s 5 Action Traits and making one of them a constant; Muchness. Instead of following Dragon Brigade’s lead of rolling 2 appropriate Action Traits, Wonderland characters will roll Muchness and 1 appropriate Action Trait. The Action Traits I decided to go with are: Belief, Brains, Brawn and Burglary. I know Burglary is a bit a of a stretch, but “alliteration is always awesome.” Muchness represents the character’s willpower, strength of spirit, their overall presence, as well as indicates the character’s “level". Belief represents how much faith they have, whether that faith is in a religion, a code, or their trusty revolver makes no difference. Brains is the character’s intelligence, common sense, wit, quick thinking, etc.. Brawn is their physical strength, toughness, and vitality. Burglary covers all things sneaky, agile, acrobatic; all the things that a burglar relies on, whether the character is a burglar or not is irrelevant.

Both Savage Worlds and Cortex+ use dice ranging from d4 to d12, whether to represent how well a character knows a skill/specialty or their ability regarding traits. So I decided for playtest purposes to keep them as close to the original as possible. There were some areas that I had to make some changes, but I want to see if it works. For example, Savage Worlds regards a d4 as the first step in a skill and the starting point of all traits. I kept the traits starting at d4, but a skill at d4 would be considered a hindrance, so there are some d4s that are made d6s in the conversion.

I want there to be a standard for creating characters, to keep things balanced. I also want there to be a way to indicate a character’s “level” so I have decided that Muchness will be the indicator. A character’s Muchness would increase as the characters gain confidence in themselves represented as follows: d6= “level” 1, d8= “level” 2 etc.. A Muchness of d6 would be a starting character and would have 17 points to spend in Action Traits, Specialties and Talents.

As I mentioned earlier, Action Traits all start at d4 and 1 point will increase the trait one step, each step is a die type. For the playtest, points spent on Action Traits are limited to 4 and no die can exceed a d8 for starting characters, which translates, in most cases, as 1 d4, 2 d6 and 1 d8. The Tweedles are the exception because they aren’t known for being sneaky, smart or having an abundance of faith in anything, but they are strong. As they are really 2 characters played by 1 player from 1 character sheet they get to double their Brawn die. In most cases a Tweedle’s Action Traits would look like this: Belief d4, Brains d4, Brawn 2d8, and Burglary d4. It still costs 4 points as you have to pay for each d8 separately. There are always exceptions and the above should only be looked at as a guide. It is just an effort to “capture the required feel” while maintaining a degree of structure.

In most cases the number of points spent on Specialties will be 11, this is based on each character having 2 Talents that require a Plot Point. 1 point buys a d6, 2 points buys a d8, etc. No specialty should be taken at a d4, unless there is some distinctive character quality to justify it, as a d4 is considered a hindrance. A character can have as many Specialties at d4, except the “magic” specialties, for free but with no added benefit (ie. you don’t get more points to spend by taking a d4). In regard to the “magic” users, each step in their relevant specialty (Cooking, Haberdashery, Miracles) will grant them 1 Signature “Spell.” So for example, the Maniac Haberdasher has Haberdashery d8 and therefore has 2 Signature Hat Tricks, whereas Chef Ala Carte Blanche has Cooking d10 and therefore has 3 Signature Recipes. A specialty above a d8 in a starting character should be rare and should only be used when the character concept supports it.

Each Talent that requires the player to spend a Plot Point costs 1 point, and most characters will have 2. Just to recap, 4 points in Action Traits, 11 points in Specialties, and 2 points in Talents equals 17 points. If the character concept can justify it, a player may spend 2 points on a Talent that costs no Plot Points. This should be rare, and used only to get the “feel” of the character across. The Tweedles, for example, have 2 Talents that require no Plot Point. These are attacks that represent the 2 character 1 player feel (see the Tweedle character sheet for details).

I really wanted to avoid anything having to do with races, I was hoping to just get the concept of the character across without having to specify a race, but it wasn’t working so we have Racial Traits. In Wonderland there are 6 Races: Animals, Chessmen, Cards, Humans, Plants, and Tweedles. Using the Edges and Hindrances listed in the Wonderland No More setting guide, I came up with workable Racial Traits. Some of them need work, and I hope to get some feedback from the players after the playtest, while others are, in my opinion, pretty good. Each race has distinct traits that you can see on the character sheets. As of now I have not come up with any generic Human Traits, as in Savage Worlds Humans begin the game with a free Edge, and am still working on that.

The last thing I need to mention about character creation are distinctions; characteristics that set your character apart from other individuals of the same race/class combinations. For the conversion I just went through the Wonderland No More character sheets and picked out any edges or hindrances that were not covered by Specialties, Talents, or Racial Traits and made them Distinctions. It was kind of a catch all for the conversion. That wouldn’t be the case in the creation of a new character. Each character gets 3 free distinctions that will either help you by adding a d8, or hinder you by adding a d4 and giving you a plot point.

Next time I will cover damage, complications and the other significant “feel” change; Madness!

Character Sheets
Bishop Weiss
Chef Ala Carte Blanche
Gunflower Stan
Jack o' Kent
The Cheshire Kit
The Maniac Haberdasher
The Potboy
Tweedledodis/Tweedledodat

**Disclaimer: I want to give credit where credit is due:  Marvel Heroic RPG, Smallville RPG, Leverage RPG, Dragon Brigade Quick Start Rules, and Cortex+ are all the property of Margaet Weis Productions, any and all ideas that I got from them for this belongs to them.
Wonderland No More setting guide and all the character names and descriptions are all the property of Triple Ace Games
Savage Worlds and all the Skills, Edges and Hindrances that I used to come up with various parts of my character sheets belong to Pinnacle Entertainment Group.
There are some things in here that are from my brain, but most of it is respectfully copied from the aforementioned organizations.

Hull Breach!

Last month at TempleCon I had the opportunity to play many new games, most of which I mentioned in our after action report. One of those games that I played, and really enjoyed, was Hull Breach!

One of the things I like to do when I first arrive at any gaming convention is quickly cruise the floor and check things out. While doing just that I came across the Hull Breach! table and had a brief conversation with one of their team. I was intrigued, but didn't want to commit to anything yet, as I still had several halls to cruise. Then I blinked and it was Sunday and I still hadn't made it back to check out the game. Fortunately, my buddy Seth asked me to go with him to check out this card game that had piqued his interest. The card game in question was Hull Breach! and I am very glad I did. We played their “alpha” version of the game with a couple of preconstructed decks. The game is set up so that you can pretty much jump right in and have the rules explained as you go. Seth and I had a great time as I wiped him and his space station from existence.

Total Confusion (TotalCon) 2013

TotalCon describes itself as New England's largest game convention and yet it takes place in a rather small venue. The irony made me grin and I wondered how they could make that claim when there are so many larger cons in the area? It only took one walk through to answer that question.

This is a con about gaming. Period. Every inch of space was being used for board games, card games, RPGs, tournaments, etc. There were a few panels and workshops offered, as well as shadowcasts by the RKO Army, but the focus was tabletop gaming. I believe this was their 27th year and I can see why they are still going strong, as gamers flocked to the tables to spend a weekend enjoying something they love with others who love it as well.