Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Character Generation Project: The Edge of Midnight


It's been a while since we did one of these, so those of you who are new to the blog can find an overview of what's the Character Generation Project is all about here. Stephanie's overview of her normal approach to character generation is found here.

As usual, the standard questions are in bold text and Stephanie's answers are non-bolded.  Any comments I have are italicized.

Which game is this for?  
Edge of Midnight
As usual, you can click on the sheet to see it larger.
The Edge of Midnight

How long did it take you to generate the character?  
About half an hour

What was your character concept going into generation?  
Lois Lane in a Micky Spillane novel

Did you feel like character generation captured the flavor of the setting?  
Yes

How much control did you feel like you had during character generation?  
A good amount

Did the game help you make the character you wanted, or did it feel like you were fighting the game?  
Yes, but the initial skill point caps were a bit frustrating.
A number of games allow for PCs who are "hypercapable" - that is, they can do everything very easily. To keep players from focusing on one skill, they'll often limit the number of points you can spend on each individual skill. This game gives you a lot of skill points right off the bat, but wants characters who are moderately capable in a variety of fields, and so you have relatively tight skill caps. It means that it feels like you have a ton of points to play with.

Do you like the character you ended up with?  
Yes

Do you think your character fits your concept?  
Yes

Do you feel like your character would be effective and/or useful in a game?  
She’s more of an investigator than a fighter, but I think she would be useful.

Was there anything in particular that you struggled with mechanically?  
Limiting the skill caps meant I was looking to spend the extra points.  Is there any reason not to spend all the points?

Did anything run more smoothly than you had expected?  
Overall, it went faster than I expected.

What changes would you have made to the character generation process?  
Going back to the skill points, either give a character fewer starting points or increase the initial caps.

Did anything leap out at you as obviously broken or unbalanced?  
Gaunts could be broken in a fight, but I think the other drawbacks and limits help balance that.

What led you to choose this game as the next one to make a character for?  
I had the book with me, and I was interested in how the combination of noir and magic would work.

How would you compare your experience with this game to your experience with other games?  
It went very quickly.

Is this a character you would be willing to play in a campaign?  
Yes

Does this character make you want to play this game?  
Yes

Do you have any other questions, comments, etc.?  
I’d like to see if this game would be better for a campaign, or a one-shot.

Have you given any thought to what game you'd like to do next?  
Not sure yet

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Kemet

So now that I'm done with my responsibilities with regards to Kemet, how do I really feel about the game?  After all, I received a copy early specifically so I could write a cover article for Game Trade Magazine about it.  And then I had to write about 800 words about it - someone else's word count to someone else's deadline ...

The fact is, I love this game.  I really do.

It's not difficult to learn, and is the best game I have ever seen for discouraging turtling (which is a real problem in war games).

It wasn't long before I started seeing, "X Tile Is Broken!" on the Boardgamegeek forums - but that was not a surprise.  Because every single tile in the game is broken.  The key is to find the ones that break in favor of your preferred strategy - or which counter what your opponent is doing.

And the reviews have been mostly positive.  People that have played the game have liked the game.  Which matches my perception in person, too.  Every week I fail to bring it, I get requests for it.  Every. Week.  From a variety of folks.  I've only had one friend who was lukewarm to cool about the game.  He disliked that some tiles seemed more important than others - and, while I see his point, I disagree with it.  Which tiles are important depends on your strategy and that of your opponents.  If you are only moving one space, then the ability to bypass city walls, for example, is meaningless.  If you are already bypassing city walls, then you probably don't want to buy the Phoenix - there are better creatures for you.

Are there issues?  A few. But it looks like most of the inevitable complainers are all missing different things, which tells me they are probably only reading the rulebook through once before playing.  Or else they assume they won't miss anything - I miss things even on a third read-through with some games, so I always read through at least twice before trying to teaching.

I am not the wargamer I used to be - I still love Empires in Arms, don't get me wrong, here - but more and more I'm enjoying games I can play in an evening.  And it's hard to find a good war-flavored game that does that.  Kemet fits the bill. An argument can be made for Eclipse, but it's not really a wargame - it's a 4X.

Kemet has earned its place in my car. And it's seeing regular play on Wednesdays - even when I'm not playing, it's occasionally in use.  That, for me, is a sign of a good game.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Character Generation Project: Dark Harvest: The Legacy of Frankenstein

It's been a while since we did one of these, so those of you who are new to the blog can find an overview of what's the Character Generation Project is all about here. Stephanie's overview of her normal approach to character generation is found here.

Stephanie - as you probably are not aware - is a huge Frankenstein fan.  She's read a ton of Frankenstein books, comic books, short stories, and so on.

A few years ago, I wrote about Victoriana.  In that review, I mentioned Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein.  A few days after the post went live, I received an e-mail from Iain Lowson, offering a review copy of the game to me.  I thanked him for the offer, and informed him that I already had the game.

Obviously, I still have it. And last year, a supplement was been released.  So I figured it would not be a bad time to ask Stephanie to make a character for the game.

As usual, the questions are in bold text, and Stephanie's answers are in plain text.

Which game is this for? 
Dark Harvest Page 1
As usual, you can click on the sheets
to see them larger on Flickr.

How long did it take you to generate the character? 
 About 1 hour

What was your character concept going into generation?  
Lady scientist/professor (the boffin from Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan)
 
Did you feel like character generation captured the flavor of the setting?  

Yes
 
How much control did you feel like you had during character generation?  

A fair amount.
 
Did the game help you make the character you wanted, or did it feel like you were fighting the game?  

Dark Harvest Page 2My character ended up a bit darker than I anticipated.

Do you like the character you ended up with?  

Yes.
 
Do you think your character fits your concept?  

Again, darker than I anticipated, but she works better in the setting than my original idea.
 
Do you feel like your character would be effective and/or useful in a game?  

Pretty effective - she can shoot well, and would be good for B.S.ing the party out of trouble.
 
Was there anything in particular that you struggled with mechanically?  

Not so much struggled, but there was a passing reference to magic, but no mechanics around it.  I think it must be in the core book of Victoriana?
 
Did anything run more smoothly than you had expected?  

Overall, it ran pretty smoothly.
 
What changes would you have made to the character generation process?  

It was a little disjointed in how the book was laid out regarding everything you spend Character Points on - it took a little bit of back and forth to make sure I understood everything.
 
Did anything leap out at you as obviously broken or unbalanced?  

The augmentations could potentially be broken, depending on how people roll on the surgery chart.
 
What led you to choose this game as the next one to make a character for?  

One word - Frankenstein.
 
How would you compare your experience with this game to your experience with other games?  

Pretty simple, and reasonably straightforward.

Is this a character you would be willing to play in a campaign?  

Heck yeah!
 
Does this character make you want to play this game?  

See previous answer.
 
Do you have any other questions, comments, etc.?  

I want to read the entire book, because it’s half anthology, half game book.

Have you given any thought to what game you'd like to do next?  

The Edge of Midnight

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Comicon Aftermath

I had a great time at Comicon - not least because it gave me a chance to meet in person a couple of people who have been friends online for a bit, now.

As you probably remember from last week, I was there to run 13th Age demos.

The game area at Comicon was ... my good friend +Wade Rockett joked that they should call it "Mom's Basement" - because we were not very visible at all, and so if you weren't looking for games, you would never accidentally stumble across them.  Which was a shame. And we were in the basement.

But traffic down there was surprisingly steady - I think Wizards of the Coast and Paizo had made a big push to get the word out. And that push was greatly appreciated by everyone in the area.

The tables we had were apparently gifted to us by Gamerati, which was nice of them.

The tables were land-locked (not along an aisle), meaning it was that much harder to get players. But we did what we could.

The first demo on Saturday morning started when a man stopped by and asked, "Can you play a dragon in this game?"

I think the best way to highlight how much fun people had at the con with the demo is to list the One Unique Things which I saw and/or heard about:

  • I was raised by a family of zombies (The character's name was Graaaaaaaar).
  • I have the Mark of the Black Heart, which leaves visible marks on my face.
  • I am the only housebroken dwarf (My response to this was, "Really?"  to which was told, "Well, they live in caves, don't they?").
  • I use mathematical equations instead of rituals to cast spells
  • I was born with a wooden thumb.
  • I am an embarrassing bastard of the Dwarf King.
  • I once spoke with Gorogan's Maw (it's a face that appears on the map).
  • The Great Gold Wyrm revived me as a being of light after my body was destroyed when the Abyss opened.
  • I have an iron cast on my left leg which slows me down so my heart doesn't explode.
  • I'm too old for this shit.
  • I can't tell the difference between dragons.
  • I am slowly turning into living iron, starting with my feet.
So you can tell people had fun.

I didn't run a ton of demos, but I gave a ton of spiels.  We had a number of players who were Pathfinder Society DMs or who were official Wizards of the Coast Demo Folk. And they referred others to our tables, which was nice. And it told me that the game was on target.

I know we made some sales, too.  One guy came in on Saturday with his Escalation Edition PDF on his tablet.  "After last night's demo," he said, "I knew I had to own this one."

Sunday evening, after the convention, most of us headed out for dinner with Rob Heinsoo, one of the designers.  We had a great time and talked about a bunch of different games and the industry and just generally had a great time.