Rants/Raves
A nostalgic look back at early play and pondering the making of a gamer. Where did it all start? Where could it all go? Come share your early gaming experiences and help unravel the mysteries of play.
It's a Friday night after a long week that was both physically and mentally challenging. What better way to start your weekend than with a new system and a bunch of newbies (myself included). The system was Risus, a system where the only goal is humor, and where anything goes.
Ryan Dancey, the former VP at Wizards of the Coast and one of the major players in D&D 3rd Edition and the d20 OGL movement, has posted some rather dire predictions in his blog. But at the end is one small nugget of hope...
Gamegrene is taking some time off to enjoy the holidays. We hope everyone out there has a great holiday season, and that you get many, many gaming-related presents, be they under a tree, in a stocking, or otherwise. Be sure to post in this thread to let everyone know what great gaming gifts you got. We'll see you in 2007.
I've always had ridiculously bad luck when it comes to the rolling of dice. Usually I can get by in spite of terrible die rolls, but a recent experience almost made me want to go diceless forever.
There's an apocryphal cop-out that bad Dungeon Masters are reputed to use whenever they get pissed at their players, or can't figure out how to end an adventure. It's called "Rocks Fall. Everyone Dies." Spoilers (and an explanation) inside.
I got to play my first session of Shadowrun (4th ed.) with our new group this last Tuesday. Boy, was I disappointed! This is me blowing off some serious steam about the game. Arrgh! I'm STILL mad... Fair warning folks, this is going to be a bitch-fest more than anything else.
I'm not sure what else I could have done. They were pissed and nothing, NOTHING I could say would change that, so I just gave up and left. After what I'd done, I couldn't ask them to put up with any more. What did I do? Well, I wasted lots of good karma on a stupid stunt, thats what. More detail? Ok.
Overall, Dark Messiah is a decent enough game, but not for something based on a popular game license and an award-winning game engine. It's an amusing distraction, but that's all, and while it deserves praise for some of its more interesting elements, it hardly deserves top honors.
You want Analog Games? You've come to the right place! This week: Trains around America :>. There are so many games out there, I'll take 'em one bite at a time, and will start with a pair of train games set in the United States. TransAmerica is set in no particular time and expects the winner to able to make use of the other players' networks, as all the trains are communal. Ticket to Ride is set at the turn of the last century (1900) and expects that the winner will claim the best routes as there are no provisions for sharing networks. At least in the U.S. version.
