Tiny Adventures is less like an RPG and more like a slightly more interactive Progress Quest. You choose a character class/race combo, which matters very little; it’s not like the wizard casts spells while the rogue sneak attacks or anything like that. No, there’s a bit of a stat difference between every class, and there are some equipment differences (no heavy armor on your wizard, but they use orbs) but otherwise adventures are going to play out the same.
And how is it that they play out, you ask? Blindingly simple. You choose an adventure; let’s pick “Glacier of the Frost Giant.” Different adventures have different numbers of encounters to them, up to (I think) 20. Each encounter has a cute bit of descriptive text to it, and then you make a skill check against a difficulty number. So, when I encounter the deathrattle viper in encounter 1, I have to make a Wisdom check on a d20 against a difficulty of 15. I’ll get to add my Wisdom bonus (I’m not explaining all of D&D to you…) as well as any bonuses that might be provided by my magical equipment. Win or lose, I’m shown results (damage received, treasure found, experience points earned) and then a timer ticks down to the next encounter.

That timer is the beauty of the whole thing. There’s anywhere from 5 minutes to more than 16 minutes before you can see the results of the next encounter. In that time you might tweak your equipment (take off the +2 DEX boots to put on your +3 CHA slippers) but otherwise you simply go do something else until the clock strikes “0:00.” Why would you change your equipment out? Well, different encounter terrains favor different skill checks, and you can replay adventures so you may very well remember that a CHA-heavy environment is coming up.

Treasure Chest in Action, click to enlarge.

Alternately, you can make use of two very important additional tools (at least, if you’re planning to geek out on D&D:TA). One is the fan wiki, which keeps comprehensive information on adventures, encounters, classes, loot… everything, basically. The other, at least if you’re using firefox, is a greasemonkey script called Treasure Chest that, among other things, drops helpful encounter reminders right into your TA page. Other tidbits of fun are the ability to buff your friends, providing universal +1 bonuses to their checks, and multi-generational advancement: when you character reaches 11th level they are retired, and your next char starts with a progression of benefits for you having retired increasing numbers of characters.

By the by, if anybody plays and wants to friend-up for mutual buffing (particularly if you use Treasure Chest, I don’t get buffed a tenth of the times that I buff others) post it here and we’ll hook up.

Man! Six-player Monopoly is a whole different kettle of fish. For pete’s sake, somebody had developed a complete set before the first go-’round was completed by anyone! Sly dog, but as he himself predicted he over-extended himself and went down in 4th or 5th place. Deals flew across the table rapidly, egged on by everyone’s relative rustiness at the game and inexperience with it in general. In other words, some awful trades were made.

My own series of early turns lead to some pitiful opportunities, and I never had more than three properties to my name… However, that led me to adapt my favorite Civ / Magic: the Gathering strategy - look harmless, but remain unharmed. When I was propositioned for a trade of one of my measly collection, I pointed out that I’d be completing a monopoly for the other player, without being any closer to one for myself. “So,” sez I, “how about I never pay you rent, ever?” I managed to get the two strongest players to accept these terms, although in both cases there was a moment of hard feelings when they realized that all of their properties were included. Strangely, that was never mentioned but they both assumed it. Ah well… My turning point came when I had a chance to make a deal either for my own monopoly (of the dark purples, just past Go) or for immunity from the last of three players with a decent shot of winning. I figured I had to have one decent revenue stream, so I took the monopoly. Sure enough, that third player was the last one standing, but I think I made the right decision.

Anyway, for a bunch of gamers totally prepared to go with the flow on rules issues or questionable trades, Monopoly is a whole lot more fun than you may remember from your childhood. Enjoy!

PS - did you know there’s a strategy guide at Hasbro? You do now.

Just one more game, honest...

The brilliant xkcd published this comic awhile back. I knew it to be true instantly (me and a million others, it’s not hard to see the artists’ smarts) but I couldn’t remember a specific game that had caught me recently.

Well, pshaw. I’ve found a game that I cannot get enough of, and like all good disease carriers I must now bite your elbow innocuously so that you may keel over and die.

Yes, I’m too fond of metaphors.

The game in question is Curveball. It’s blessedly simple. In rough 3D, you are playing a Pong-like game against an AI opponent. Just like in Pong, you win a point by getting the ball past the other player. Unlike in pong, you’re playing in a rectangular tube, so the ball can bounce off of four walls as it goes back and forth. Last and most crucial, the physics engine allows for ridiculous amounts of english to be applied to the ball, making for some hair-raising exchanges as you progress.

Give it a try for yourself and see what I mean.

Click to Play!

Early screenshot from Elemental

Hot diggity damn.

Stardock, after teasing us for more than a year, has officially announced that they are producing a spiritual successor to the classic Master of Magic. The new title, Elemental: War of Magic, does not actually build off of the MoM license. However, MoM was a Magic: the Gathering / Civilization double rip-off with just enough differences to avoid the infringement police, so turn-about is fair play. :p More on the game in a moment.

Stardock, you may or may not recall, was the software development company that mostly did applications, with gaming as a kind of sideline hobby. Then, they released Galactic Civilizations II without any DRM. A Russian company that makes DRM then pointed to torrents of Stardock’s game as proof that piracy was a problem in their own forums. Widely seen as a blatant extortion attempt along the lines of “you sure got a lot of nice stuff here, be a shame if somebody started a fire or sumthin’,” the story went huge in the geekosphere (slashdot, digg, etc…) which had the secondary effect of giving far more publicity to GalCiv than Stardock ever would have paid for. Since the game was awesome, this led to massive sales and, almost overnight, Stardock was a major game company. Their latest game, Sins of a Solar Empire, has also been rapturously received (it’s a hybrid 4x/RTS, and I don’t have the twitch reflexes for RTSes, so I’ve sadly passed).

Stardock does a lot of things right, in my opinion. They have the most open lines of communication with their players that I’ve ever seen. The updates to their games often amount to what you’d pay for in an expansion pack for other games, and their expansion packs are absolutely nuts. The no-DRM issue isn’t huge for me, but I respect the stance they take. (I suspect the Gamers Bill of Rights is the subject of a separate post.) They also recently emailed their annual report to everyone who has registered with their website.

Back to the matter at hand, though. For a long time now they’ve been only a little coy about the fact that Master of Magic is a game they thought should be remade, and were only a bit more coy about the fact that they were messing around with the idea. In fact, they spent some(?) amount of time negotiating for the license to make MoM2. In any case, the small but incredibly dedicated fan base for MoM should be thrilled to know that a fundamentally sound developer who really, really gets games is developing this title for early 2010.

the company that made a big splash with their no-DRM policy*, which then brought attention to their amazing Galactic Civilizations II,

Apple to Apples: the Apple Crate Edition

I recently met a new couple that I really like, and they live incredibly close to me. It so happens that another couple with whom my partner and I have been friendly also live close by, and we’ve all said to each other at different times that we should hang out more than we do. So, what the hell, I introduced them to each other and suggested that we all get together. In the back of some of the involved minds is a similar thought: “D&D Group!” But that’s not something you just jump into, so we’re getting started with simpler games first. It’s been almost a decade since I’ve had to host a gathering where a bag of dice wasn’t all I needed to entertain; how’d it go?

I knew everyone involved was a game-player to one degree or another, so at least I had some hints. It also was not a dinner party, so food was simple enough. I peeled and cut some carrots, opened up some great Dorito-like chips for Trader Joe’s, got out some pretzels, and chilled some wine and soda. Simple enough. Now to pick games, and here’s where I made my only serious mistake. The game I led off with was Twitch, a Richard Garfield game that’s sort of a mix between Uno and War (or Egyptian Rat Fuck, or any other speed-based card game you can think of). The thing is, while the rules are fundamentally simple, it’s a difficult game to be any good at right off the bat, leading to a lot of frustration for all but the savviest game players. I wasn’t even that good at it, as it’s a game I’ve admired but almost never had a chance to play. We gave it a few minutes, I took stock of the grimaces and frowns, and pulled it off the table.

Fortunately, I wised up and fell back on the game I usually break out for this sort of thing: Apples to Apples. (I note with mild astonishment that, when I went to find a link, A2A has a Wikipedia entry….) If you’re ever planning on having friends to your home for an evening, and they can read, buy this game. Anyone can understand and enjoy this game within moments of picking it up. It’s this simple:

Each player has a hand of red cards. On each card is a noun, most proper but some common: Madonna, London Bridge, Republicans, rock n’ roll, My bedroom… there are thousands of possibilities. On each turn, one player sets their hand down and becomes the judge. As the judge, they pull a green card from a deck and read it out loud; this card will have an adjective on it. Funny, sad, melancholy, sexy, etc… the other players will play face down from their hand a red card that they think is best described by the adjective. Then the judge will mix them up (so as not to know whose is whose) and select the card that they think does the best job. They announce the winning card, which is only then claimed by the winner. The game goes until a person reaches X number of green cards (decided beforehand) or until time runs out and you count up your wins.

Here’s a quick example of play, which hopefully shows why this game is so fun:

I’m the judge (yay me!). I set down my hand of red apple cards and pull a green apple card. “Ok. This word means dastardly, evil, and opposing. (Every card has descriptive text or examples, to make sure nobody feels dumb for not knowing what the card is talking about…) The word is villainous.” Ethan, Jen, Lisa, Siobhan, and Steve now search their hands for cards that they think are described by “villainous” and play them, face down, in front of me. I mix them around dramatically and then pick them up. “Hrm,” sez I. “Well, kittens” I say, snapping down the first card, “do, in fact, grow up to be cats, which are all assholes, but until then they’re pretty innocent.”

“Oh come on!” Steve moans, “the little furry Nazis can’t be trusted!”

“”Nazi kittens” would’ve been a good one,” I agree. I snap another card down. “Villainous fruit punch? Right, moving on…”

“Guess who didn’t have a good answer and was sick of looking at fruit punch…” says Lisa.

“Republicans. <snap> I see what you did there, but I don’t think my parents have a death ray in their basement….”

Steve wants to throw me off, so he says “Just you wait…” Sometimes you can tell who played what card, but most times people will play nice and try to keep it a secret.

“Nice,” I reply. I snap down another card. “Now, I have to say in most hands Wile E. Coyote would have been an amazing play, but it’s still baseball season so I have to give the nod to <snap> George Steinbrenner.”

“Oh come on!” yells Siobhan. “Hot damn!” grins Ethan, scooping up the green apple card that he just won.

And so on and so on. It’s an amazing, conversation-generating game that everyone should have in their closet or on their shelf.

The evening comes. Our fair heroes re-approach the warehouse, devising their plan of attack along the way. This may seem last minute, but compared to the previous campaign this is Operation Overlord. Sebastian is sent back up to the rooftops in order to have a better vantage to watch things. The rest of the party decides to make like they were supposed to at this meeting the whole time. True, there’s no logic to it, but mostly they’re hoping to use the momentary confusion to take control of the potential battlefield.

Sebastian takes up his position as planned, and he thinks he hears someone moving around on the 2nd floor with him. Meanwhile, the party knocks in a side door and walks in like they own the place. Sure enough, they’re met with an incredulous look from “Doffel,” soon to be known to Our Heroes as Vagger. After an Abbot & Costello routine (”this is our illicit meeting place!”, “no, this is our illicit meeting place!”) Vagger shouts for “Laucio” to attack, and a scrum ensues.
Two on five sounds like an unfair fight, but one oft-forgotten rule (for us at least) is that a combatant is considered flat-footed until their first initiative pass comes around. Vagger, a rogue, calmly moves up to Sasara and hits her with his shortsword; with the sneak attack damage figured in, and this being first level, she drops immediately. Laucio pops up from his hiding place on the 2nd floor and sticks an arrow in Azhnok, and it’s on. The middle of the fight is pretty standard fare, with strikes traded back and forth until Vagger drops. Laucio leads several PCs on a chase around the 2nd floor ediface until he makes the mistake of leaping to the ground floor - which gives Azhnok the idea that he promptly improvises upon. He leaps to the ground floor at, “coincidentally”, the exact spot where Laucio is standing. So, that’s that then.

The party interrogates their two captured foes (still keeping count?) and, eventually, squeeze out of them that they are intermediaries for Toridan Cran; they were paying Ortry and Darrel half of what they themsleves were paid to kill Phon, and were in fact going to kill those two and keep it all for themselves. Our Heroes, seizing upon their strange sense of humor, they scavenge rope and red dye from the warehouse. Then they dye the rope and take their prisoners to the Warrens (a wretched hive of scum and villainy) and tie them up. Thus is the legend of the “Red Rope Gang” born, God help me.

Now they have competing concerns - sorting out just who and what “Toridan Cran” is, and investigating the chaos cult that Irontusk gave up to them as the culprits behind the theft of the key from Sebastian’s friend Theldrat.

Not discreetly enough, however, as our friend Irontusk suddenly breaks away from an innocent-looking transaction and tears ass down one wharf. What follows is a pretty intense chase across rocking boats and slippery docks as players make difficult leaps (or else hit the water) or plot long paths on land to try and cut Irontusk off. Every now and then he ends up alone with a PC and a brief exchange of blows occurs. With blood on the planks but nobody dead, they eventually bring him down. Irontusk, it seems, is a middle man for a chaos cult that wanted the key stolen; siccing the two dimwits to rob the shop afterwards was meant to create white noise in any investigation.

It should be noted at this point that the party, despite partaking in several adventure-like activities, had created a body count of exactly *1*. Just, you know, something to keep in mind.

Investigating the chaos cult will have to take a back seat to another task, however, for it is nearly time for the PCs to meet up with “Doffel,” the man behind the attack on Phon.

WARNING: In addition to spoiling Ptolus Chapter 33, I’ll now be spoiling Mad God’s Key from Dungeon Magazine, although I significantly altered it for my purposes.

The next morning, bright(ish) and way-too-early, Sebastian wakes up to a banging on his door. An old friend, Theldrat, is in a panic. See, Sebastian’s “day job” is as a locksmith, and the ’smiths have an informal association with each other; there aren’t really enough of them for a Guild, but they stick together by their own devices. Theldrat is a senior member of this community, following in his father’s trade. Anyway, Theldrat wakes Sebastian up with a plea for help - he’s been woken up himself to a warning that his shop is being broken into even as he speaks to Sebastian.

Sebastian lives near Chomsky, so he rushes to the gnome’s home, rousts him, and then sets off to Theldrat’s shop. Sure enough, the front door is busted in and, for better or worse, it sounds like the place is in the process of being looted. Undaunted, the two of them run in… only to have their first encounter with firearms in Ptolus. A tense battle of duck-and-cover, diving behind furniture, and slowly trying to close distance ensues. Chomsky is wounded, but eventually the two of them prevail - one foe lies dead, the other severely wounded. From the wounded man they discover that they’d been tipped off that the shop would already be broken into, leaving it ripe for the plucking; the news seems to have originated from Irontusk, a local no-goodnik. From Theldrat’s sudden outcry, they discover that a family heirloom has been stolen: a key made by Theldrat’s locksmith father. Professing not to know why anyone would steal the key, Theldrat still implores Chomsky and Sebastian to find it for its sentimental value. Rewards are promised etc… and our heroes venture forth. Well, they venture forth to the pub to meet everyone else.

Gathered back together, the party figures they have time to sort out the Irontusk / key business before going to “meet” the man behind Phon’s attackers.

The darkness would prove difficult to navigate for lesser bands, but half of this party has darkvision and Aten (the NPC priestess of Gaen) bears a permanent light source, so it isn’t so bad. At least, not until they stumble upon magical darkness in the first passageway. They work around that as best they can, scouting out what turns out to be a rough loop. There is a door set into one wall, and they also discover a secret door. Sebastian the “locksmith” decides to handle the secret door first, whereupon he is struck by a poisoned needle that he overlooked. Losing 5 points of CON in just a few minutes (failed the primary and secondary damage saves), the party quickly changes its mind about pressing on and they work out a retreat. Before leaving, however, they check out the room he nearly died for. They discover that it is full of bodies, whose disposition leads them to believe they are culled from the streets of Ptolus.

Making their escape to the Keep on the border(lands! hur hur…) of the Necropolis, they hole up for a couple of day - sped along by the use of Mercy Buckets, pails of cheap healing “potions” that are incredibly dilute. Refreshed and repaired, they head back to the scene of the crime, aided by the assignment of a patrol that “coincidentally” covered the same path, clearing the way of nuisance obstacles. Reaching the Temple entrance again, they go for Door #2 and Sebastian manages to save some face by completely bypassing the trap he finds.

They descend into the Temple itself…

And boy, they could have used him this week.

I didn’t exactly start the night by saying “roll for initiative,” but pretty close - there was a brief attempt at “what happened last week,” but the last session had been pretty disjointed, and the session before that had been a one-off due to absence, and past that we’re talking months of fog, so what the hell, we dove in. First up for the evening was a passle of zombies. They did manage to remember that large clusters of zombies could, in this environment, “Voltron” together to form an uber-threat, so Sasara (the sebeccai swordsage) dove into the largest bunch of them; put another way, she allowed herself to be surrounded on all sides. The combat was lengthy but relatively painless for the party, which I thought was a good way to let everyone remember where their dice were, what to roll when, what their characters were capable of, etc… In case I needed reminding, the large-sized warblade is capable of dishing out tremendous damage, but he doesn’t have a particular tough hide; he needs to be constantly engaged by enemies to keep him from taking over the whole scenario.

From there, the party pressed forward until they reached their goal - the reputed entrance to the Temple of Blood Everlasting. As they approached, a fresh batch of undead detached themselves from various tombs and attacked from behind. These nameless beasts (a custom job for the adventure) were failed attempts at making intelligent undead, so they were tougher and had a few minor abilities. This battle was much more tense, with almost every character hitting the ground at 0 or fewer hit points at least once. Azhnok (the afore-mentioned warblade beast) burned a Hero Point (I’ll cover this later in detail, basically a rare and valuable wild-card resource) to negate some extra damage-by-special-ability that would have rendered him kaput. The assailant, recognizing that this put Azhnok at 0 hp, actually moved away and taunted him - an attack of opportunity would drop the big guy into the negatives. The player had to debate with himself for awhile before deciding it was in character, if not tactically sound, to take the swing, but fortune favored him and he took out the undead before dropping himself.

Once they cleaned up from this battle, they had to make the tough decision of whether to press into the Temple or head back to refresh (which would risk having to fight through obstacles all over again on the way back). At the risk of breaking my arm patting myself on the back, this is the sort of tension I used to be miserable at causing. What they finally came to was that they couldn’t guarantee their ability to keep the entrance open without their rogue’s help, so we ended with them pondering this very decision. (It was a good stopping time anyway, if not the best pause in the action.)

So, next week they’ll figure out the entrance, one way or the other, and proceed into the endgame of this particular adventure line. As far as over-coming the long delay, I think the session moved along better than our average game, so we’ll chalk it up as a success. Two or three more of these in a row and I think we’ll be back on track.