Sunday, April 18, 2010
D&D 3.5 Adventure Begins!
The very first tabletop D&D adventure is scheduled to begin on April 24th at about 7:30/8:00 PM-ish at Richard and Bethany's house. This will be our first session ever so it's not too late to create a character and join the game. Rob is going to be our DM. So far, the party consists of first level sorcerer, rogue, druid, and ranger.
April 17th Session Report
April 17th turned out to be the game night for Border Board Games. We had two new local people, Eric and Jessica, show up ready to game and we had a Tyler, Alex, and Sarah make the trek over from Burlington to join us. In addition, we had the usual suspects of Beth and Richard, Kim and Homer, and Rob and Angela.
Kim and Homer and Rob and Angela showed up later so to pass the time until they arrived, we broke out Dominion and Dominion Intrigue. Tyler taught Eric and Jessica how to play with the base game of Dominion and Richard, Beth, Alex, and Sarah played using both the original set and Intrigue.
Tyler used the recommended setup for first time play. Eric won their game by one point! I think it made a great impression on Eric since I heard him say that Dominion is now a game on the 'must get' list.
For the second table of Dominion, the cards were Saboteur, Village, Woodcutter, Workshop, Spy, Harem, Garden, Wishing Well, Masquerade, and Tribute. Tribute was a favorite card for many of the players and the points were very close in the end. Richard ended up winning by one point!
Once both Dominions finished, we split into two tables once again (Kim, Homer, Rob, and Angela had arrived). At one table, we had Richard, Eric, Sarah, Alex, Homer, and Kim playing Power Grid with the France board. And at the other table, we had Bethany, Angela, Jessica, Tyler, and Rob playing Space Alert.
In Power Grid, Homer spread across southern France like a rash and quickly started earning some mega cash. Alex was content to sit on his nuclear plants only to realize his network wasn't growing as quickly as it needed to. Kim and Richard were marginalized with our cities located in the southeast corner and eastern territories, respectively. High connection costs prevented them from spreading their electric empire. In the end, Homer was victorious with a late surge in cities that Eric was unable to prevent. Both Eric and Homer tied with the number of cities they could power, but Homer had the largest network. Props to Eric for coming in second. He had never played this game before and everyone else at the table had.
Space Alert is a cooperative game where the first phase of the game is played in real time. Players are volunteers on a Sitting Duck class spaceship whose job is to protect the ship while the ship's computer maps a sector of space. During this 10 minutes of mapping, hostile aliens, cosmic forces, and crappy machinery conspire to complicate the lives of the crew.
This game was completely new to everyone at the table, including Bethany, who stumbled through the teaching of the game. The game is setup with tutorials to help players learn through play. Since no one had actually played this game before, we started from tutorial number one, Test Run #1. This game uses a CD soundtrack that is to be used during the first phase (Player actions). During this phase, players use their cards to determine whether their crew member moves or pushes a button to fire a cannon or put up shields for each of his turns. The player action phase lasts 10 minutes in real time. The CD track acts as a timer as well as announcing alien threats or other actions such as each player receiving another action card. And, not to forget, the CD track also creates an ambiance that adds to the game (As Jessica put it, 'This is so cool!').
The crew failed the first test run and our ship got destroyed. So, we tried again, with test run #2, and passed! We decided to move on to a simulated mission which added some more components to the game such as being able to fire the rockets, add damage to sections of the ship, and adding serious threats in addition to the common threats. The simulated mission went surprising well and we managed to squeak by at the end and be victorious.
There are more training mission to Space Alert that add more complexity but, alas, we only got as far as the first simulated mission.
Another nice aspect of the evening is that a lady from the church next door popped in and spoke with Richard and Bethany. The church had thought of having a game night and saw that we had organized something first and asked if we would be willing to combine our efforts. We thought it was a great idea and hopefully for the next Border Board Games we will be able to attract some more local people (and maybe some from afar too!). In addition, Richard will be writing a story about Border Board Games in the Barton Chronicle. This should hopefully help spread the word.
Kim and Homer and Rob and Angela showed up later so to pass the time until they arrived, we broke out Dominion and Dominion Intrigue. Tyler taught Eric and Jessica how to play with the base game of Dominion and Richard, Beth, Alex, and Sarah played using both the original set and Intrigue.
Tyler used the recommended setup for first time play. Eric won their game by one point! I think it made a great impression on Eric since I heard him say that Dominion is now a game on the 'must get' list.
For the second table of Dominion, the cards were Saboteur, Village, Woodcutter, Workshop, Spy, Harem, Garden, Wishing Well, Masquerade, and Tribute. Tribute was a favorite card for many of the players and the points were very close in the end. Richard ended up winning by one point!
Once both Dominions finished, we split into two tables once again (Kim, Homer, Rob, and Angela had arrived). At one table, we had Richard, Eric, Sarah, Alex, Homer, and Kim playing Power Grid with the France board. And at the other table, we had Bethany, Angela, Jessica, Tyler, and Rob playing Space Alert.
In Power Grid, Homer spread across southern France like a rash and quickly started earning some mega cash. Alex was content to sit on his nuclear plants only to realize his network wasn't growing as quickly as it needed to. Kim and Richard were marginalized with our cities located in the southeast corner and eastern territories, respectively. High connection costs prevented them from spreading their electric empire. In the end, Homer was victorious with a late surge in cities that Eric was unable to prevent. Both Eric and Homer tied with the number of cities they could power, but Homer had the largest network. Props to Eric for coming in second. He had never played this game before and everyone else at the table had.
Space Alert is a cooperative game where the first phase of the game is played in real time. Players are volunteers on a Sitting Duck class spaceship whose job is to protect the ship while the ship's computer maps a sector of space. During this 10 minutes of mapping, hostile aliens, cosmic forces, and crappy machinery conspire to complicate the lives of the crew.
This game was completely new to everyone at the table, including Bethany, who stumbled through the teaching of the game. The game is setup with tutorials to help players learn through play. Since no one had actually played this game before, we started from tutorial number one, Test Run #1. This game uses a CD soundtrack that is to be used during the first phase (Player actions). During this phase, players use their cards to determine whether their crew member moves or pushes a button to fire a cannon or put up shields for each of his turns. The player action phase lasts 10 minutes in real time. The CD track acts as a timer as well as announcing alien threats or other actions such as each player receiving another action card. And, not to forget, the CD track also creates an ambiance that adds to the game (As Jessica put it, 'This is so cool!').
The crew failed the first test run and our ship got destroyed. So, we tried again, with test run #2, and passed! We decided to move on to a simulated mission which added some more components to the game such as being able to fire the rockets, add damage to sections of the ship, and adding serious threats in addition to the common threats. The simulated mission went surprising well and we managed to squeak by at the end and be victorious.
There are more training mission to Space Alert that add more complexity but, alas, we only got as far as the first simulated mission.
Another nice aspect of the evening is that a lady from the church next door popped in and spoke with Richard and Bethany. The church had thought of having a game night and saw that we had organized something first and asked if we would be willing to combine our efforts. We thought it was a great idea and hopefully for the next Border Board Games we will be able to attract some more local people (and maybe some from afar too!). In addition, Richard will be writing a story about Border Board Games in the Barton Chronicle. This should hopefully help spread the word.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Now Playing! (April 17th)
With Border Board games a little over 48 hours away I fugred it might be time to throw out some gaming options for the weekend's gametastic evening.
On the menu board with flashing red lights and warning klaxxons is: Space Alert
Also liable to appear in a cloud of acrid smoke accompanied by the odor of treachery: Dominion and its companion set Dominion Intrigue
Do you have what it takes to run the most successful plantation in Puerto Rico?
Hoist your sails, run out the cannons and avoid Blackbeard and the Royal Navy by escaping back to Pirates Cove.
Nothing there catch your fancy? Other games coming along and begging to be played include: Settlers of Catan, Age of Empires III, Powergrid (Italy and France to boot!) and whatever else will fit in the Big Frakkin' Bag.
On the menu board with flashing red lights and warning klaxxons is: Space Alert
Also liable to appear in a cloud of acrid smoke accompanied by the odor of treachery: Dominion and its companion set Dominion Intrigue
Do you have what it takes to run the most successful plantation in Puerto Rico?
Hoist your sails, run out the cannons and avoid Blackbeard and the Royal Navy by escaping back to Pirates Cove.
Nothing there catch your fancy? Other games coming along and begging to be played include: Settlers of Catan, Age of Empires III, Powergrid (Italy and France to boot!) and whatever else will fit in the Big Frakkin' Bag.
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