Archives: Games

Hardboiled Treasures

paperbacksLook what turned up in the mail the other day! And it wasn’t even Christmas!

The Mighty Hocking had some duplicate hardboiled paperbacks lying about (as well as another Elmore Leonard western) and generously sent them on to me. Feast your eyes upon them.

These things are usually packaged in a tawdry way, often with ludicrous back cover copy that might have sold them in the old days but don’t do much to promote them to a modern audience because you have no idea how good the actual prose inside might be. Here’s an example, from the back of Million Dollar Murder:

A living dead man, tortured beyond recognition. A suitcase crammed with a million dollars in fresh, green currency. An eerie island. A sadistic millionaire. An exotic girl who knew all the answers, but whose lips didn’t look like they had been kissed as often as her manner indicated.

That’s what Sam sailed into. That, and murder: murder and more murder.

Field Commander Alexander

fc alexanderI spent a good chunk of the weekend cleaning and organizing various things around the house. If you’re a home owner sometimes it feels like the weekend is so busy that the week itself is more relaxing.

I did manage to get in, finally, some playing of Field Commander: Alexander, and tried to launch an expedition into Persia. I won the first time but didn’t quite get the rules right, so I tried again and got trounced, alas. But it turns out I still missed out on some rules intricacies. I’m looking forward to a re-match against those wily Achaemenidians next Sunday morning.

I’m a big fan of Field Commander: Napoleon from the same company, DVG, and I’ve been curious about this earlier game for years.

Kickstarting

in search of hannibalTalk about first world problems! There are so many cool Kickstarters running right now that I can’t afford them all!

Longtime site visitors might remember that Hannibal of Carthage was one of my heroes growing up, right up there with Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew in importance to my moral development. Well, I’ve just stumbled upon a Kickstarter that’s a graphic novel about Hannibal’s life, complete with a cool t-shirt and some other goodies that can be ordered. The Kickstarter’s actually over, but you can still join in here. Judging by the amount of money raised, I’m not the only one who grew up with Hannibal as a hero. Wish I’d known some of those other folks when I was a kid…

Speaking of my favorite Carthaginian, the acclaimed board game Hannibal: Rome Vs. Carthage is getting re-released via Kickstarter in just nine days, and it comes with an additional game starring Hamilcar, Hannibal’s father, who led Carthaginian forces through the First Punic War. I’ve been hearing about how glorious this game is for years and I’m more than a little interested in seeing how it will play.

Of Gates and Sherlock

gate in the seaHere’s a sample chapter for my new Pathfinder book, Through the Gate in the Sea. You want underwater adventure with a daring salvager and her lizard man friend, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve been writing some promo spots for the book in the last few days, the first of which will be going up at Paizo soon. I’ll post a link when it’s ready.

In other news, I finally tried out the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective game. If you’re not in the know, it has a venerable history. Decades old, it was a co-op game long before those were in vogue, sort of a cross between a choose-your-own adventure book and a, well, I don’t know what else, because it’s pretty unique. At this point it’s gone through a number of editions, complete with hard-to-find expansions and one-offs that drive completists like me crazy (although not as crazy as my pal John O’Neill, because he sometimes finds games in shrink wrap and then won’t dare open them… so has to buy another, the madman).

Winter Gaming PLUS Brackett

hornet-leaderWith the cold snap in full swing I’ve been looking into my game closet at the increasingly large stack of games-to-be-played. It’s not nearly as high as my books-to-be-read pile, but it’s starting to get embarrassing. Some of these games are pricey and took a lot of effort to track down (they were out of print) or to get trade deals for. And yet many are unplayed or even in shrink wrap, on the off chance I decide I want to trade them away for something else.

I’d been thinking that my collection was starting to get out of hand, but after I poked around a bit I realized that I’ve got nothing on the real game aficionados. I have a few dozen — some friends, acquaintances, and like-minded folks have HUNDREDS. But then maybe they collect those rather than cats or porcelain figurines, and maybe they don’t have other hobbies.

Story Play or Game Piece Play?

game-pieceThe Old School Renaissance is immensely appealing to me. I like a lot of the “simpler is better” philosophy behind the design of adventures and rulesets, and the emphasis on creativity. But I keep bumping my head on one of the common conceits. I think it’s best summed up by this line from the famed module Anomalous Subsurface Environment 1, in which the writer Patrick Wetmore declares, in an advice section for players, “You will probably die at some point. Possibly  repeatedly. That’s okay, rolling up a new character is quick and easy. Don’t take it to heart.”

The thrust of this kind of gaming is centered on problem solving and discovery, and I believe — I can’t be sure — character development and narrative must be de-emphasized. I’ve seen some people playing this way, and the characters are only loosely role-played and the players don’t really speak with their voice at the table. If one is removed from the board, they just drop in a replacement character and keep going.

Raging Swan Rocks

raging-swanGamers, have you ever looked over the products from Raging Swan? I should probably highlight them over at Black Gate to draw even more attention to them. I can’t speak to the adventures they publish — I haven’t read any yet — but the game master material is top notch.

I get notified by RPGNow about their “daily deal” (one of the few marketing lists I’m deliberately on) and some months back learned that a little book called “Wilderness Encounters” was on sale for less than half price. What the heck, sez I, and bought a copy. What turned up was a whole host of lists with interesting, creative, evocative possibilities. Different bandit encounters, different minor events that could happen on the road, different weather events, and on and on. Ideas just flowed out of that book. I was immediately taken with it, and am slowly acquiring other holdings from Raging Swan’s stable.

You don’t have to take my word for it, though. If you want to see the quality and variety, click here for NUMEROUS free samples. Even if you’re not a gamer and are a world builder, I think it’s easy to find inspiration here.

Incidentally, they bill themselves as a Pathfinder producer, and while they started that way, a lot of the stuff is either system neutral or available that way, and from what I gather a lot of their catalog also is available for 5th edition D&D.

Castles & Crusades

adv-backpackA couple of weeks ago I drafted an essay extolling the virtues of the Castles & Crusades role-playing game over at Black Gate, specifically related to the game’s new expansion, the Adventurer’s Backpack. You see, a Kickstarter has recently launched. The product is a go, but I still have fingers crossed that some of those stretch goals will be met. Honestly, I’m sort of confused that only a little over 300 people have signed on.

C&C bring that old school D&D goodness without all the rules exceptions. It’s streamlined and easy to hack so you can add on whatever you want, and feels pretty much like the old game you used to play, minus annoying bits to keep track of. This new expansion’s going to deliver some new character classes (i.e. archetypes), some streamlined hand-to-hand combat rules, additional spells and magic items, and other stuff besides. If fantasy RPGs are your thing, I hope you’ll at least investigate!

Gaming Goodies

adv-backpackIt seems like everything’s coming up Kickstarters! No sooner do I announce that one old school role-playing game is getting to release a new edition, that I see another old school role-playing game is releasing an expansion. Yesterday Castles & Crusades announced that they’re going to print a new book with 13 additional classes, some new rules, and a host of new spells, amongst other things. What’s a fellow to do?

And then right around the corner is DVG’s launch of some new solitaire board games, and Lock ‘n Load publishing’s reprinting of Heroes of the Pacific and release of Heroes of North Africa not to mention a new compendium and their solo expansion… I guess I need to sell some more books so I can afford all of this fun stuff!

(Of course then I’d also need to find time to play and read it all….)

Anyway, the Adventurer’s Backpack for Castles & Crusades is available here. I wish there was some detail about what those classes are going to be, but system fan that I am, I’ve already signed up.