Board games that I play with my kids that don't require heavy drinking to get through.

Kill me now.

Although I have managed to get in one RPG session with my girls, by and large, we mainly play board games.  If you're like me and have had enough of Candyland and Monopoly Jr., give these a try.  These games are simple enough for younger players, but enjoyable for adults as well. In other words, I can play these with my kids without falling asleep.  At the time of this posting, my oldest daughter (Chaos) is 8 and my youngest daughter (Mayhem) is 4.





Seven Dragons: A domino-like, color matching card game with Larry Elmore art. Link seven dragons of your color and you win. The instructions include several variations of play, including a pre-school rule set (although, after a few games of that, your kids will likely be ready for the full rule set). The advanced game includes use of cards for messing with other players.

Labyrinth: Players shift the tiles of the maze on their turn, trying to create paths to treasure designated by a deck of cards.  Simple to understand, lots of fun to play.

Castle Keep: Each player tries to construct his own keep with tiles that connect based on color or shape. Instead of building your own keep, you can also destroy part of an opponent's keep by playing a corresponding tile on it.

Forbidden Island: A bit trickier than the others, but it is a cooperative game so it is easy to help the kids. After a game or two, they'll have it down.  Players work together to swipe artifacts from the island before it sinks.  You can also scale the difficulty if it gets too easy.

Cave Troll: Each player commands a small band of adventurers trying to gain control of a dungeon. The mechanic is very simple: each room is worth a particular gold value and the person with the most pieces in the room owns the room when it is counted. (Note: I actually own the 2nd Edition which, apparently is hard to find going by the price.  Funny enough, I got it on the cheap during a Fantasy Flight holiday sale).

Tsuro: Each player plays tiles trying to keep their token on a path that keeps it on the board, while trying to steer others off.  Teaches ruthlessness. You got to love it.

Oshi: A chess/checkers kind of game in which you must push all your opponents pieces off the board.  The more tiers a piece has, the more spaces it came move and the more pieces if can push. E.g., a 3 tier piece can move 3 spaces and push up to 3 pieces. Really fun game.

 

Fireball Island: You must grab the gem and get off the island first!  Use of cards to screw over the other players and boost your own play keeps this from being a simple "roll and move" game. I've had this since I was a kid.  A bit pricey nowadays.

Heroica: Probably the best way to relate the whole dungeon-exploration concept to kids.  Lots of fun little parts and sort of includes campaign play.  I have to admit, though, the bloom is coming off the rose on this one for me because it is more or less a roll and move game. However, there is a rule that allows a player to control the monsters... that might kick it up a notch.

The Classic Dungeon: Actually, although I used to love this game as a kid, I no longer care for it much. "I move 5 spaces.  I attack the monster. Rinse. Repeat." Still, nostalgia gets this one some points and if you are going to play a roll and move game, might as well play one with purple worms, liches, and ghouls. It will be interesting to see if Wizards of the Coast improves it all when they re-release it.

Battleground: Crossbows and Catapults: Toys R Us sold these sets dirt cheap a few Christmases back. Now they cost a fortune on eBay, etc.  This version is a revamped take on the classic, with Orcs and Knights instead of Barbarians and Vikings. I haven't tried to use the actual Battleground rules for it yet which are suppose to be pretty decent and more like a war game.  Right now, we just set 'em up and see who can knock down the most figures.

A Day Trip to Origins 2010: Part 4 – Demoing WEGS 101: Old Skool and Elfball

I demoed two more games at Origins 2010.  Next up was WEGS (Wickedly Errant Game System) 101: Old Skool by GameWick Games.  I was intrigued by the flyer they had set out near registration (I’m a sucker for Old School marketing), so I made a point of trying it.  Per their web site, “WEGS is the action-packed, dice-rolling, casino-crazed, sword-n-sorcery system that you and your dice have been waiting for!” 

Was it that?  Well, it was a decent system but, honestly, I’m having trouble remembering its inner workings.  I remember that it only involved d6s and d10s and used various cards to keep track of player abilities. For example, I played a wizard, so all my spells were on individual cards.  I think that the cards were an extra player aid (they were selling a special starter pack at the con which had the rulebook and the cards together).  The game had some interesting mechanics, such as allowing me to pay spell points to keep various spells in play while casting new spells (which also required the use of more spell points).  Every time I cast a spell I had to roll under a certain percentage for it to go off and I could spend spell points to increase my chances of success.  But the game just didn’t grab me.  There is nothing wrong with WEGS, but nothing made me want to pick it up. 

Perhaps it’s more me than this game.  I’ve played D&D so much that it’s hard for me to get excited about another fantasy RPG.  If I want a fantasy RPG, I turn to D&D.  Sure, I like Castles & Crusades, but that is an unabashed derivative of D&D.  I have a newfound love of Savage Worlds and one can surely play it as a fantasy RPG (and it has several fantasy supplements), but I can’t imagine myself doing so. Savage Worlds appeals to me because it isn’t inherently a fantasy game.  For what it’s worth, I’d be more likely to sign up for a game of WEGS than HackMaster Basic as it certainly plays quicker.

On a side note, regardless of the game system, the term “old school” (or “old skool,” as the case may be), has been beaten to death.  What qualifies something as old school?  Does it have to be a derivative of a classic RPG, be it D&D, Gamma World, Traveler, etc., as the OSR blogs seem to indicate?  Or is it simply a style of play? I’m guessing WEGS is claiming “old school” credentials based on its hack ‘n’ slash play style.  I do not have anything against the OSR blogs (far from it, I read a ton of them) or WEGS, but I guess my point is the term has started to lose meaning in the RPG world.

I demoed Elfball by Impact Miniatures last.  I had passed by this booth a couple times and finally figured I’d give it a go.  Obviously, it looked like a Blood Bowl knock-off (see also Battleball, which apparently is going for nearly $50, whereas it was going for $10-we-can’t-give-it-away” pricing at Toys R Us a few years back).  I’ve never played Blood Bowl, but its look and concept have always appealed to me so, thinking this was something akin to it, I gave it a whirl.

So, let me get this off my chest right out of the gate: I hate the name. I like me some elves in my D&D and, sure, their graceful badasses, but, come on, elf football?  I liked the name worse after playing because it’s a misnomer.  There are several different types of teams made up of all kinds of fantasy creatures (which serve as the basis to differentiate team stats), so it's not an elf exclusive game.

Ok, so while I don’t like the name, I did enjoy the game.  It’s really more of rugby game than American football (although I must confess little knowledge of rugby).  The rules explicitly prohibit long bombs (there is an imaginary force field in the center of the field to prevent this) and, the small size of the board forces immediate player contact.  I’d say the game felt like Necromunda football.  It wasn’t overly complex, but each move (e.g., tackle, shove, etc.) involved a die roll on a particular table for that move, with the roll adjusted by various factors (e.g., bonuses for hitting from the rear, etc.).  The demo guy knew his stuff though, so this was pretty painless.

The Momentum tracker was the most interesting mechanic.  During your turn, you can chain together several moves and the more successes you receive, the more your Momentum increases.  Once you have enough Momentum, you can spend these points to perform special maneuvers. For example, the demo guy would repeatedly shove my player, gathering momentum, then execute some special move at the end to cap it off.  I really liked this mechanic because it simulated the momentum you experience with just about any sport (whether playing it or watching it). Sure, it’s intangible, but few would argue that it doesn’t exist. 

The game played a bit slow (and I was a bit antsy, so I didn’t even play a full game), so I can see why the first to score wins (although apparently it’s typical to play 2 out of 3, etc.)  It was fun though, so if you’re into this type of board game, it’s worth checking out (not to mention you can check out the rules for free here: link)

Divide and Conquer – The Board Game

For those of you attending GenCon this year and looking for some board game action, I suggest checking out Divide and Conquer. My friend Hans is the game designer and it’s a hell of a game.  It takes about 5 minutes to learn the rules, but involves plenty of strategy.  Here is how he explains it:

Divide and Conquer is an abstract strategy board game for 3-4 players. As the Commander of a battalion of troops, you plan out and execute troop movements to secure objective regions around the game board. Your opponent’s competing troops will cause you to tangle and engage in conflict taking on causalities and slowing your pace to victory. You must anticipate the other players’ strategies by moving with precision and seizing the initiative. Sometimes your position is defensive to block an opponent from an objective and other times you are invading occupied regions to weaken the offensive of another player.

The game mechanics are based in mathematics and game theory, which provides an additional opponent. If you plan optimally, you will not only defeat the other players, but you will also solve the game with a minimal number of movements.

Give it a shot; you won’t be disappointed.  Tell him, “Frost sent me.”

GenCon Dates and Times:

• Event ID: BGM1010503 - (8/6 10am - Indiana Convention Center)
• Event ID: BGM1010597 - (8/7 10am - Indiana Convention Center)

StruebCon IV

In mid-May, I attended StruebCon IV, a gaming convention hosted by Polymythic Steve. By "gaming convention," I mean a bunch of dudes taking over his house, playing games non-stop, and drinking his beer (also non-stop). The attendees are members of the StruebSquad, most of which are DC area gamers that Steve has assembled over the years. Others, such as myself, are from PA.

So what is with the “Strueb” stuff? It’s derived from Steve’s name. I should point out that Steve himself named neither the event nor the squad, but rather the group named both after him because he brought both the ‘con and the group together.

The guys do a great job with this. Hans worked up convention badges and DohJoe (of LaserPup fame) had commemorative dice made.

It was a lot of fun, although Chaos learned to ride her bike without training wheels while I was gone. It's not easy knowing I missed that. It wasn't intentional (Mrs. Frost didn't make the attempt without me), but was simply a matter of Chaos trying out a neighbor kid's old, smaller bike and taking off on it.

Anyhow, StruebCon is mainly a board game event, with a smattering of miniature gaming and one RPG event (mine). The board game library amassed by the Squad is damn impressive, so it's a nice chance for a RPG guy like myself to play games I've never heard of before.

The big hits of the convention were:

• Dominion – This is non-collectable card game that is a deck-building game. You have to balance amassing action cards with point cards in order to win in the end. I get the sense it’s the Settlers of Catan of the moment (i.e., it’s the hot game going around).
• Ricochet Robots – A real brain tester of a game. You can play with as many people as you want, as long as they can see the board. Players must mentally find the shortest way to move a pawn to a randomized board location. The concept is amazingly simple. Finding the short path (or any path at all) is amazingly tough.
  
  
• Werewolf – This is a blast of a party game. Players sit around accusing one another of who are the werewolves while the wolves silently execute the others. It’s funny, I completely forgot I had played this before as Mafia until Hans mentioned this alternate name on the way home.
• Battlestar Galactica - I didn’t play this myself (I opted for a game of Puerto Rico and Ambush Alley instead). I don’t know much about other than it’s a cooperative game based on the popular TV show remake and involves one or two Cylon (i.e., traitor) players. From the shouts and rants I heard, it looked like a great game. DohJoe played a Cylon and from all reports played it like a damn master. He used the fact that it was everyone’s first time playing (himself included) to his advantage, using his seeming naivety to throw off suspicion.
• Ambush Alley – I’d been looking forward to playing this game and was happy to finally
  
  
  get a chance to do so. As advertised, it was a down-and-dirty miniatures, modern warfare skirmish with a high body count. I played once as the insurgents and once as the US forces. I lost both times, but enjoyed the hell out it. The rules are a bit sketchy at times, but I’ve grown to see that as a plus. We just settled ambiguity with a die roll and move on (e.g., “I’m not sure that is enough cover or not. Hell, evens it is, odds it is not.”)

I myself ran a Castles & Crusades event and I officially became a C & C Ambassador for the event (well, for this and for GASPCon coming up in the fall). I’ll write more about that particular event in a separate post, but in short, it was some good late night fun and God bless the guys for staying up to play.

StruebCon IV was another rousing success. Many thanks to the Polymythic Steve and Mrs. Polymythic Steve for the beer, the brats, the omelets, and the kick-arse gaming.

Chaos Turns 6

May has been a very busy month and I have tons to post about.  Unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to do so.

My eldest daughter, Chaos, turning 6 was the biggest event.  Six is the big leagues.  Six means she is knee-deep in kid-dom. 

She received tons of loot, but here are the gifts ol’ Dad added to the present pile:

- Black Knight Foam Sword and Shield kit.  I couldn’t pass this up when I saw it at Toys R Us.  It came with two swords and two shields.  Chaos wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, but by the end of cake time, she was slaying balloon “dragons.”  I knew I had done well when a few days later she and Mayhem were playing with the swords and Chaos turned to me and said, “You know, I really like this, Daddy.”  It was funny. It was almost as if she was surprised she was admitting it.  Mayhem likes her weaponry as well and the two spend more time slaying imaginary creatures than bashing each other.  I think I’ll pick up one or two of those bopper punching bags for them to slay when I get a chance. 

Also, I think I will get this axe so I can walk around the house saying, "By This Axe I Rule!"

- Mouse Guard Volume 1.  A friend of mine recommended this.  We’ve read a few chapters at bed time and she seems to like it, but has more trouble following the plot than I thought. The lack of words hinders her understanding at points, but she seems interested in it and I think she’ll grow into it a bit more in the upcoming year.



-  The A-Maze-ing Labyrinth board game.  I saw this board game at Toys R Us and picked it up even though I hadn’t heard of it.  I’m always on the lookout for games that are different from the various Candyland-clones out there (i.e., the mindless games).  We’ve played once and Chaos seems to like it.  Players shift the maze layout on their turns in order to move their pawn to specific treasures.  Despite the cartoony look, it isn’t just a kids’ game.  I could easily see playing it with adults.



- Pokemon booster packs.  I’m not a big Pokemon fan but Chaos and the boy down the street are.  She loves animals, so a game with cute little critters is right up her alley.  She and the boy have their own house rules, which seem like some sort of version of War.  The gamer in me has the urge to teach her the “right way” to play, but that same gamer is rather proud she has her own rules and is completely happy playing that way.