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Archive for Mike Ricotta
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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My wife might tell you that she became a widow last Tuesday. She is of course overstating things a bit. I haven’t played Diablo III that much! I’m only in Act II with one dude and the middle of Act I with another. Most of the time I’m actually holding or feeding our newborn. I have developed a way to play one handed you see!
So my main dude is a wizard. For a while I was running with no ranged spells whatsoever and have been mainly a close combat mage. Currently I have one ranged spell going (disintegrate). Basically the current plan of attack is to run in, use the armor spell (1000+ damage absorbed), the freezing skin thing (enemies slowed by 30% and people who hit me get frozen), then the blast explosion thing and then force push. Blast the stragglers with disintegrate. Signature spell (the free one) is still the blades thing. It's just too strong to give up. It does something like 135% and an additional 35% bleeding effect. Ranged ones never get to 100% it seems...
I just got the gem guy on my team. I really like the new direction of gems. Finally you can pull gems out of sockets without destroying something. You know what that’s like? Real life…
If anyone misses the damnable scrolls then they are foolish. Waste of time those dang things were.
I know it’s been called the dumbing down of the series by some but I am actually growing very fond of the skill system. I didn’t think I was going to be in favor of it at first, agreeing with the dumbing down people. After a while with it I’ve really began to enjoy it. Finally I’m free to try out different abilities without spending one of my precious skill points. No longer am I required to save skill points just waiting on a level. I like to be able to play around. Also I don’t have to fear the unusable build anymore. I can sleep easy at night once again.
I have been using the auction house a bit. I just sell all of my rares that I don’t want for gold. Made a few thousand. Better than throwing them into the wood chipper for magic dust at least. I’m probably underselling the market but I’m far to lazy to actually try and figure out what things are selling for. When real money goes live I’ll give it a shot. If I can make a few bucks here and there more power to me! I do find it funny that Blizzard charges a 15% commission when you sell something for GOLD. It’s not like they gain anything out of it. We are just moving bits of data around their servers. I can understand the 15% on real money though, there is some cost there of course.
My major complaint is that of the plot. Tristam to desert again? Sneak into the palace again? Use the sewers again? Come on now, think up something new! Make Act II in space for all I care…
Haven’t done much multiplayer but again I’m excited about it. Not having to race for loot drops is awesome. No player killing is awesome. Everything that drove me away from D2 multiplayer is gone. I want to solo through the game at first but eventually I’ll get into some multiplayer I’m sure. (Also I only have 2 friends who are always on different sections than me. They don’t have wives or kids you see)
So I am indeed happy with the game. Sure the always online thing sucks. Sure the server things suck. Thankfully I haven’t had much dropout. I can understand it though. I remember the days of cheating on D2. Not fun, not fun at all…
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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So now that I’ve got the two boys (2.5 years and 7 weeks) I want to bring them into this little hobby of ours. I know that some of you may say “Aren’t they a little young?” but I disagree. They are the perfect age to play my new game! Please note that this game requires you own a baby and a toddler. Sullen teenagers are optional.
The Children’s Crusade
This is a miniatures style wargame. All units need to be made out of cardboard or a paper material however. Units come in 3 varieties, Infantry, Calvary and artillery. Each cardboard piece is required to have this written what it is on it. Otherwise unit design is up to you.
Units of measure. The standard unit of measure is one baby. The baby may be of any size/age as long as both players agree on the baby. Each player may want to use their own baby though. This is possible but it gives the advantage to players with taller babies. If you are willing to exploit your baby’s size advantage in this manner you will go far in this game. Babies over 12 months old are not recommended. Making cardboard cutouts of babies instead of using actual babies for measure is FROWNED UPON.
At several times in these rules there are measurements given such as 1/s Baby. It is imperative that YOU DO NOT ACTUALLY CUT A BABY IN HALF for this. Perhaps a playsuit with a stripe down the center?
Set up
Select a play surface. Put some terrain on it. Try not use pointy things, there are children involved here. Each player selects 10 units. They may choose what units they want. Finally each player selects a side of the table.
Place chosen units within ½ baby of their table edge. Whoever provided the baby goes first. If you are using two babies the younger baby owner goes first.
Finally place several full glasses of water around the edge of the table. I think you know where this is going….
Gameplay
If you have sullen teenagers available each player texts their teenager. Whoever gets a response first gets to go first. If this takes to long or no teenagers are available roll two dice, high roll goes first.
The active player selects one unit to activate. That unit may move then fire. Artillery may move OR fire. Once the activated unit completes it activation the opposite player activates a unit. Once all units have been activated the turn is over.
RANDOM EVENTS
If someone (I’m looking at the toddler here) knocks over a cup of water a flood has occurred (literally and figuratively) if you can no longer read the unit type written on your cardboard unit it is removed from play. All wet areas of the board are now considered to be mud.
If the toddler gets to the play area and moves or destroys a unit or piece of terrain, well that’s an act of god. Live with the results. You may want to place candy near you opponents Artillery Park. Just saying…
If the toddler steals a unit, don’t fight him for it, it’s gone man, it’s gone.
End of the turn
If all of your units have been destroyed you have lost the game. If the baby has pooped and you can’t find your wife to change him then the player with the most remaining units is the winner! If there is no winner start a new turn.
Movement
Calvary moves 1 baby. Calvery must stop when they enter rough terrain or mud. They may move normally next turn (finish crossing the encountered terrain.
Infantry moves ½ Baby and must stop for rough terrain. They are not effected by mud.
Artillery may move ½ baby and must stop for mud and rough terrain.
Combat
Each firing unit has a range. Target must be within the given range and the firing unit must have line of sight to the unit. If the firing unit can see any part of the target they may fire at it.
Roll a d6 on a result of 5 or 6 the target is damaged. The result is modified per the following:
Target has cover -1
Target is wet +1
Target has been damaged by the toddler +1
Target is artillery +1
Artillery firing at ¼ baby or less -1
Ranges:
Artillery - 2 Baby (good luck with that)
Cavalry – ½ baby
Infantry – 1 baby
If the unit is damaged give it to the toddler. After he puts it down determine if it has been destroyed or not. If the unit is not destroyed place it back where it came from.
And that’s how you play….
Please note that this game is 100% fake. Our discussions last night thought using a baby as a measuring device was a funny idea. Perhaps it is…
Plastic Hell on the other hand is a real game and much better than this. I promise…
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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So I didn’t play any Plastic Hell last week (but fear not there is some more discussion of it below). We played Dystopian Wars instead. The FLGS got in the small fliers and I was interesting in trying them out. They look nice but the functionality of them is questionable at best. Well at least the models point cost is low. The game was my Japanese against the Prussians. It was a great game. Full of those moments where one marine bravely fights off an entire boarding party or the AA amazingly takes down a rocket barrage but the ship is destroyed by gunnery later. Turns out forcing a battleship to collide with one of your gunships may not be the best idea ever but it is effective. I think we are indeed getting better at running our fleets. When we first started playing we often forgot about boarding, collisions and such. Now it’s all part of how we play.
While I didn’t play the Plastic Hell I did some thinking / research. I was thinking of expanding the available models from Army guy, Firemen, Cowboy, Indian, Dinosaur, and Spider to include Musket Guys, Pirates, Ninjas and Police men. Police guys are available at the dollar store so it seemed like a good option. I looked at the models and couldn’t really think how to make them different enough or interesting enough to be their own force. Pirates and ninjas are available at Toys R’ Us for a bit more than a dollar. Musket men I had a good concept for but I couldn’t find any locally available (Toys R Us, Dollar Store and so on) so I’m going to have to shelve it.
So in the end I think the correct choice here is to simply expand what we already have to support whatever you want to play with. I see no reason why ninjas and Indians couldn’t have the same rules, they both use low-tech weapons (meaning they have a lower range (only 6”s) then Army guns (12”s)) and can move silently (do not trigger opportunity fire). The special power that allows all the Indians on the board to gang up would work as well I would think. Call it infiltration or something.
Pirates and cowboys can also be grouped I would think. The weapons are both pistols (10” range) and the special ability of a dual works well. I also think Police men and Fire men are close enough as well. The idea that they are willing to work with every unit type still makes sense, they are going to serve and protect!
I’m still a little sad I couldn’t include musket men. They just weren’t easy enough to get a hold of. I could have ordered some over the internet but somehow it seems to violate the spirit of the game. The plan was to give the musket around a 10” range, allow for some kind of volley fire effect (another musket man within 6”s of the firing unit may fire at the same target after the combat results are applied) and a special power that allows them to build a fortification (ignore some combat results). You could use Civil war guys, Napoleon guys, or American Revolution guys. I guess we can add these to the expansion! Vehicles are also expansion fodder of course!
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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As you may recall (I’m not surprised you don’t) I had turned to talking a bit about game design here (it’s trendy). Yes there really is a game, yes people have played it, yes they claim to have enjoyed it. It’s called Plastic Hell and is a miniatures game designed around things I found at the Dollar Store, Army men, Firemen, Cowboys, Indians, Dinosaurs and spiders. The real point though is to make a game that is fun and deeper than the dollar store toys make it look. Besides, who hasn’t wondered what would happen if a dinosaur fought a cowboy?
So the playtesting is going well I suppose. Still making tweaks here and there, how some specific points should work, insuring no units are overpowered (I’m looking at you bazooka guy) and so on. Of course I’m going to re-jigger the CRT again. Jiggering the CRT is my sacred right! Also I love CRTs. (Also it appears jiggering is a real word).
I’ll cover the basic here quickly.
All the units are put into a bag and mixed up. The first player pulls a guy out of the bag and decides if he wants to keep him or reject him. Rejected units form a pile (not returned to the bag). If you keep certain units you get a bonus draw (if you keep an Indian you can draw a bonus guy from the bag or from the reject pile). The next player than can pick a unit from the bag OR the reject pile, if they pick from the reject pile they also get a second unit from the reject pile on top of any bonuses the first unit gives. So if I took an Indian from the reject pile I’d get to take another unit from the pile AND a unit from the bag or pile, the bonus units do not give extra units however)
Terrain is placed, units are placed near the edge of the table and it’s time to play. Basically it goes like this. Both guys flip cards from a deck, face cards are set aside, when the total you flipped equals 10 or more they stop. The total is the number of 6 sided dice they get for the turn. These are assigned to the individual units. Army men can have a maximum of 3 dice for example.
Now players take turns. On your turn you activate one unit. That unit then spends at least one die. The dice are used to move, shoot or perform special actions. Moving units are subject to opportunity fire, units performing opportunity fire are subject to covering fire. Of course these actions cost dice, and that limits what else they can do. Dice are indeed a precious commodity!
Remember those removed face cards? They are used to activate special powers and leadership powers. Your special power is determined by what the majority of your units are. Mainly army men? You get the artillery strike! Mainly Cowboys? You get the high noon duel! Leadership powers include healing, damage reduction and group fire. Another tough decision is how to spend those face cards!
The round ends when all the dice are spent. First check to see if any unit has died (taken enough wounds). Yes you don’t realize you are dead until the end of the round. Well you can be killed outright during the round but you get to spend all your dice on a retaliatory strike! No dice are wasted! (except for all those ones I rolled) Next you check victory, if you roll a singe d6 and its higher then the total number of guys you have left your army runs away! It’s possible that both armies run away on the same turn. Then no one wins, or both people do, fight about it.
I’m eventually thinking of a few alternate victory conditions, capture the flag and perhaps I’ll get a big dinosaur from the dollar store and have a boss battle scenario. Right now the dinos I have are the same size as the army men.
So, I think I’ve got something pretty good here. The enigma is what to do with it! Do I just through it out there for free (but then I get me no $$$ and rich and famous and stuff). Do I mess with the ever popular kickstarter? I think that way I’d get some seed money to set up a webstore and sell digital copies. But if I do that do I have to set up a buisness? Get copyrights or something? I don’t know anything about it. The third option is something like shareware (remember shareware?) where you get some of the rules but then pay me for the rest (you’d get the army men but pay for all the other unit types). This is probably my least favorite option. Finally can I sell it to a real company? How much would they pay for something like this? If I do end up selling electronic copies I want it to sell for $10 or less.
Wed Apr 18, 2012 12:58 pm
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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For some reason or other I’ve been watching more children’s show than I used to. Mainly the ones that are appropriate for a two year old. Perhaps I’m reading to much into these things but I’ve determined that most of these shows depict a world of nightmarish reality. They may seem all nice and happy but there is a dark side, ohh there is!
So, the shows we watch are: Sesame Street, Fresh Beat Band, and Yo Gabba Gabba. While Sesame Street is probably the best universe to live in, it’s a nice version of New York City really, it’s not without it’s own special problems. Yo Gabba Gabba is a good show but it would be a nightmare to actually live there.
Sesame Street
Big Bird is often minding his own business when he is forced to go on some adventure to find Ernie. This is done by following a set of clues. There is no reward. So basically, every once in a while Big Bird is forced into this game. I think I found the plot for the next Saw movie. I wonder what happens if he doesn’t find Ernie? Can he refuse to play or are the consequences to drastic for that?
Elmo’s home must be a living hell. Seriously. The furniture is all sentient and it doesn’t often do what he wants it to. He often has to argue with the door just to get it to open. Imagine if there was a fire and the door was feeling moody. The computer runs around and often refuses to stop so Elmo can check his mail. The drawer repeatedly tries to kill the poor red monster by slamming into him (which often sends him flying). I am convinced that Mr. Noodle (and Mr. Noodle’s brother Mr. Noodle and Mr. Noodle’s rarely seen sister Ms. Noodle) is just a creepy perv that hangs around outside little kids windows. I mean why else is he always out there? That whole Noodle family just creeps me out. I often end up feeling bad for Elmo! (on a side note I often wonder why none of the babies Elmo kisses aren’t terrified of him)
Fresh Beat Band
Sure it seems like a nice place to live. Everyone is friendly and happy. Sadly they all seem to be ruled by the Fresh Beat Band with an iron fist. No one ever complains when their shops are destroyed and they aren’t compensated. They are forced into dance numbers at a moments notice. The only band they ever listen to is indeed the Fresh Beat Band. While not terrible to listen to a little variety people! The only available education is some Music School that probably doesn’t teach math or science! I’ve never seen the band even think of paying for the smoothies and pizza they scarf down! Lord forbid you don’t attend one of there shows….
But don’t think your safe if your actually in the band. Ohh no, you can be replaced. Poor Mariana seemed like a happy drummer, but she must have upset the powers that be since one day Mariana was gone and there was a new Mariana in her place. Same color scheme, still played the drums, still a cute redhead, just a different person. Perhaps the old one angered the gods in some way. The Junior Beats (the kid version of the band) changes all the time without rhyme or reason. It’s probably some kind of super competitive training program.
Yo Gabba Gabba
If there is one thing we know, it’s that you must please the all powerful DJ Lance Rock. You see DJ Lance owns you and will only let you out of suspended animation so you can please him with your antics. You will dance and sing for him or it’s back in the box with you! When he is tired of you it’s back into the box, you have no say in the matter. It’s also been shown that he owns your family and if you have earned it he will let them out for the day (Muno got to spend the day with his family once, they are also kept in a box). Never forget, DJ Lance Rock owns you and everyone you hold dear.
Also I feel bad for Plex. He doesn’t even have his own land to play in. No one loves Plex.
Perhaps I’ve read too much into these programs? Lack of sleep? No, I think I’m onto something here, I’m sure of it…
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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My wife gave birth to our second son on Sunday
So there isn't much gaming activity to blather on about. Unless you count TUMMY TIME! (and I do)
Clearly I'm teaching him to play PS3
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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So last time I wrote about some game design. I want to keep up with all the “cool kids” and turn this into a design blog. When design blogs go out of fashion (NEVER!) I’ll change it again I’m sure. I don’t claim to be the worst blog for nothing dang nab it.
Anyway, to re-iterate (since I’m SURE you all read the last entry) I am working on a miniatures game that uses miniatures that you can buy at the dollar store, usually for 30-60 for a dollar. Alas, my dream is to make a good game, not just some kind of joke. Recently my game has been called “the anti game workshop”. I’m sure that in addition to it being a comment that 2 people can play for ~$5 in miniatures they meant I won’t make any money.
To emphasize my cool factor I’m going to start up a kickstarter. Funding goal of $50. Anyone who gives a dollar gets a PDF copy. Anyone who gives $2 gets TWO copies. Give me over $20 and I’ll say you designed the game.
The playtester has told me he enjoyed the game. This is a good start I assume. A few things got updated, a new rule to help leaders live a little longer, a force allotment fix, and a re-jigger of the CRT. I believe any change to a CRT is indeed a re-jiggering.
So the current list of unit types is, Army Men, Firemen, Cowboys, Indians, Dinosaurs, and Spiders. That being the extent of what I bought at the dollar store. The dollar store also offered Policemen and farm animals. No one wants to get the police involved. The debate here comes down to the farm animals.
Remember this is a serious game people.
So, the idea is that the farm animals are mobile foodstuffs that units can eat to remove wounds. But what if my army is vegetarian? (vegetarian armies being the weakest kind) Well, ethical questions aside we press on. Each guy can take two wounds until he is killed. So curing one wound is kind of a big deal. This is of course tempered by the fact that farm animals shouldn’t have any combat capability. I also was thinking of a meat shield ability that lets you shift combat results to farm animals. Project hide behind the cow. Plus I like the term meat shield.
So I’m up in the air about farm animals for a few reasons. First is it too silly for my serious dollar store game that features cowboys fighting dinosaurs? Is it overly powerful? Do I have $1.05 (tax!) to spend? Will I ever be a famous game designer or at least a kickstarter superstar?
Of course if I can ever find Civil war (musket men) guys at the dollar store I’d be all over it. No luck so far. Other guys I’d have no problem adding: Aliens/future guys, ninjas, and pirates. Come on dollar store, get your act together. Don’t you know I’m designing a game here? GW won’t be destroyed overnight!
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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It seems like all the rage these days to have a blog about whatever terrible game you are designing. What the hell, I can’t be left out of this! I mean come on now, fame and fortune await! Anyway I have been working on a little something for a bit over a year now. Every so often I’ll pick it up and mess with it. Gives me something to do. I “finally” “entered” play test yesterday so it is moving right along.
Let’s start at the beginning, I had a bunch of plastic army men left over from a photography project. I took a black and white photography course a while ago and was more into installation type photos over nature, people, animals and whatnot (I was interested in certain aspects of the female form and photography but my wife wasn’t so understanding eh?). So I came across the army men and thought, there should be a game for these (as I think about most things in my garage). I looked it up on the internets and only came up with one rule set and they wanted $20 for it. Absurd! So I dove in and started writing my own.
So I came up with a basic philosophy of what I wanted and wrote a confusing giant rule set. I’m pretty sure this is how most things start (I said there are a lot of design blogs, not that I read them!). Every once in a while I’d open up the file and cut things or clarify them until it got to a reasonable size. I’d call this version one. It was exclusively an army man game. It had tanks and such as well. It never got to a table, something seemed missing, that special bit that makes a game fun.
A while later I was in the dollar store looking for something in the toy aisle (actually something for another game project of a friends of mine) and saw some different figures in the same vein as army men. Here I got the idea that I think makes the game. Why not use all kinds of guys and not just army men? Taking the old rules back to the drawing board I added into it the idea of other types of figures.
So, what are we talking about? A run down
Title: Plastic Hell
Philosophy: A fast paced, interesting miniatures game that has an investment of ~$5 for two players. A game that isn’t simple nor overly complicated. Fun!
Concepts:
Army building is done by randomly pulling guys out of a bag (although there are more rules to it)
CRT! More games needs CRTs
Dice assignment, at the start of the turn the dice units are going to use are assigned to it. So Army man A gets 3 dice, Army man B get 2, the cowboy gets 2 and the indian doesn’t get any.
Balance. There shouldn’t be one guy that is way better than any other. Everything should be balanced in some way, be it fire power or the number of units you can put on the field.
Opportunity fire, every game with guns needs opportunity fire dang nab it.
The basics go like this, after players get their armies together (randomly drawn from the bag) they deploy them to the board (after terrain and all that, it is a minis game after all). Then you use a deck of cards to determine how many dice you get for the turn and how many leadership / special powers you get. Place the dice on the units you want to use. Players alternate activating guys. Want to move a guy, pick a number of dice that you had assigned to them (you don’t have to use all of them) roll them and move that far. Want to fire, same idea, pick up assigned dice and use them! Opportunity fire is similar, a guy has to have the dice before he can call it!
So, what units did I end up with and what makes them unique? Each unit has the following characteristics:
Range – How far it can shoot
Dice – How many dice you can assign to it
Special Power – A cool power!
Bonus – What else you get when you draw this unit out of the bag
A note on the special power, you only get the special power of the unit that you have the most of, so if you have 5 army men and 3 cowboys you only get the army power.
Army Men
Range 12”
Dice 3
No Bonus
Special Power – Artillery strike (a hard to use powerful ranged attack)
Army men are strong ranged units with no bonus draws and a fairly weak special power
Firemen (Dollar store had them!)
Range 12”
Dice 2
When you take a fireman you can return any guy you took before and draw a new one
Special Power – Smoke screen (blocks LOS)
The thing that makes firemen good is that they can combine fire with any other unit type, normally combined fire is only available to units that have the same type
Cowboys
Range 10”
Dice 2
When you take a cowboy you get another guy as well
Special power – High noon (a dual to the death! With an advantage to the cowboy)
An average unit with a cool ability, the bonus guy lets you have a bigger force.
Indians
Range 6”
Dice 2
When you take an Indian you get another guy as well
Special Power – Tribal meeting (all the Indians on your side get to move, for free, to the unit that uses the power
Indians are kind of poor with two exceptions, one they move silently so they can never be the target of opportunity fire and they can always use the special power even if they aren’t the majority. The teleporting Indians is a lot of fun!
Dinosaurs
NO RANGED COMBAT (They don’t have thumbs!)
Dice 3
No bonus
Special power – Rampage! Leaves a trail of destruction
Dinos are the melee specialists, they get a bonus in close combat, and like the Indians they can always use their special. However with no range they are a hampered, but once they get into position they can wreck shop
Spiders
NO RANGED COMBAT (again, the thumbs)
Dice 1
You can potentially get a LOT of spiders if you are lucky
Special Power – Swarm! A lot of spiders just rushed you!
Alone spiders suck, they do get a bonus to close combat though, the real bonus is the swarm, which will suck for whatever it hits.
Well that’s some of the basics. Our first few play test games were a lot of fun. It’s fast deadly game play. Some of those nail biting scenarios where if a few things go your way it would be awesome…But if they don’t well that’s another story. Of course there are a few things that need work, some of the bag draw stuff was a little hinky and I think that leaders died to quick (leaders are a whole separate topic) but for it’s stated goals I think we are closing in on a good time!
If anyone seems interested I’ll keep posting updates, eventually the whole thing…
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Perhaps the only way anyone could ever get me to play magic again (once in over a decade!) is an unglued/unhinged draft tournament. I really like the comedy cards and the silly combinations. (I came in second in the tournament, take that long time players). Since the only card game I play in any regularity is Dominion I want a light hearted overly broken Dominion expansion! I don’t think there is enough comedy in board games in general, so lets see what we can do to fix that!
Now the best part in my (not so humble and always correct) opinion one of the better parts of unglued is the goofy actions, arm wrestling, not touching things, having to say catch phrases and so on.
So I had a few ideas for cards in my comedy set, I give you the pretend secret history of Dominion: Comedy Gold Baby!
Another Expansion!
Randomly add another set of kingdom cards.
All other players must bitch about this, if they fail to do so they gain a curse.
Deck Builders galore
Play another deck building game
Argue if it’s better than Dominion
Winner of the argument gets +1 Card
The Govenator
+1 Buy
+3 Gold
If another player reveals a Sea Hag you gain a curse
NOTE: Arnold had an affair with an unattractive woman!
NO DRINKS ON MY TABLE
+1 Card
+1 Action
Anyone who has a drink on the table gains a curse
That itchy burning sensation
Play in front of another player
Draw only 4 cards while this is in front of you
If another player touches this card it is then placed in front of them
Do not discard this card during the cleanup phase
The dreaded seven
+7 cards
you may not buy a province this turn
you must say “the dreaded seven” when you play this. If you fail to do so discard your hand
Village village
+1 card
+2 Actions
gain a village if you played 3 or more villages this turn
Note: Every set needs a village…
C
hain of Laboratory
Just draw your deck and save us all some time
Dumpster diver
gain any card in the trash
proclaim that it is “still good”
Defining the theme
Pick one category: People, items, buildings
Everyone reveals their hands. Discard any cards that do not fit into the chosen category
Cost Overruns
+1 Action
Every card (including those in your hand) now cost one more then the printed cost
What from where?
Flip the top card of your deck. Perform the following action based on what set it came from :
Dominion: Intrigue - The next player to talk gains a curse
Dominion: Alchemy - Everyone gains a Potion!
Dominion: Cornucopia – Starting with you gain one action card for free, then each player, in turn order, gains an action card that has not already been gained by another player
Dominion: Hinterlands – Gain 3 silvers
Dominion: Prosperity – Trash a treasure or VP card. Gain one that costs up to 3 more
Dominion: Seaside - Add any card from your discard pile to your hand
Dominion: Promo Card – Pick any of the above!
Well that’s enough for now. What ideas do you guys have?
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Mike Ricotta
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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So I go to two conventions a year. Mainly that’s all the ol’ wifey will let me get away with. I just go on Saturday, not spending the weekend or anything. The last one was the Williamsburg Muster, which is held in Williamsburg VA (I live in Norfolk VA about an hour away). Williamsburg muster is an interesting time. I think the crowd tends to be a bit older, more interested in historical, and mainly miniatures. Also there aren’t any 40k players which is a nice touch. (feel free to substitute Magic for this joke)
So a few friends and I car pooled to the convention early Saturday morning so we could get there around when the doors opened. Probably a bit too early, but I usually get up at 5am (and at work by 6am) during the week so it’s not too early for me! Sadly it may have been to early for everyone else since the convention attendance was sparse that early in the morning. Ahh well.
Now I was running a game in the afternoon time slot (1pm) so I had my morning free. Looking over the schedule I saw a few options. I’d say most of the games being run were using some kind of home brew rules. These guys have spent a ton of time designing and setting up a scenario and building awesome terrain for it. Walking around there was a cool cowboy town, massive battlefields, and plenty of other stuff. Some of the cooler set ups I saw included a massive 6mm WWII game, a pulp fiction style game where the British regulars were attacking some Native African tribes, the massed infantry of the Napoleonic era and some very large Victorian science fiction flying boats/spaceships.
Well in the morning I tried out a game of Close Action. Close action is an age of sail game. Every player runs one ship. So we had a battle between the British and the Americans. I ran the only 64 gun ship on the Brit side (everyone else was smaller). We had 5 ships to the Americans 4. The basics of the game are each player secretly plots there movement for the turn, then all movements are done by the game master. Then gunfire is secretly plotted. The really cool part is that the players aren’t allowed to talk to each other. We are on different ships you know! The way players communicate is with semaphore. The players write a message at the start of the turn. It is a maximum of 4 words. The message is delivered at the end of the turn. Mainly this consists of the admiral trying to issue instructions to the fleet. When the cannon smoke cleared the British had carried the day. The Africa (my ship) did nothing of merit and was basically out of position the entire fight. Turns out ship handling is not my forte. The game was a ton of fun though and the game master had some very nice ship miniatures that made it look cool. It was an exciting game as well with lots of damage, near misses and even a few collisions.
After a quick pulled pork sandwich from Pierce’s (yummy!) it was time for Dystopian Wars. Now we had been working on this scenario for a while in an attempt to figure out a solution to what I think is a major flaw in the Dystopian Wars game. The problem is that there aren’t any rules for transporting land units over the water. There are rules for using portals, but no amphibious landing ships or anything. Portals act like semi reliable warp points (enter one, roll a die on a 3-6 come out any other one, roll a 1 spend a turn lost in the warp, roll a 2 your opponent picks where you come out). The map we set up features a big coastline on one side and ocean with some island on the other. The land had a large radio tower on it (that looked like the Eiffel tower (cause it was an Eiffel tower model I bought at Michael’s for $1). The object was for the invaders to destroy the radio tower. To overcome the transport problem we developed the long range teleporter. I placed 4 dice along the coast each set to a number (1-4) and two dice on two outlying islands (5 and 6). I also set a line (using some oil rig models a friend had) in the ocean a bit off the coast. When the attackers got a unit past the line they could activate the teleporter. So, if a large unit crossed the line a large (or smaller) could teleport, a medium allowed a medium, and so on. To use it you picked the unit you wanted to transport and rolled a die. The result dictated where the unit showed up. The dice I had originally placed showed this. Once rolled the placed die was a permanent portal.
We had 4 players, each side brought 1000 points following the standard force construction rules. It was a fun game. The turning point was when the invaders got a large tank in range of the tower and put an amazing shot into it doing so much damage it became evident that they had won. The game was nicely set up and the models all look great so we had lots of people taking a look!
Finally I played in a game of Polyversal. Polyversal is a minis game my friend is writing and is in the playtest phase. The idea is that you can take any 6mm science fiction models you have and make an army. It’s a good game with a neat system. There are still a few wrinkles to get worked out but overall it’s a good time. The scenario was the UN forces trying to restore order from some evil rebels that had shown up (I played the UN side). Giant robots, tanks and even some infantry duked it out. MY huge warlord walker got hit early on and became immobilized. Luckily it’s guns had enough range to keep it in the fight. After a good fight the UN may have had a slight edge when we stopped.
It was a good convention all in all. We got home around midnight or so. The wife made me get up with our son (at 7am) the next morning of course.
I just added a picture of our setup, ready for battle!
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