The weekend review this week is from the games we played at Gam3rCon. (just me on Friday)
Friday night, Well I got my first taste of 4e with a foray into Gamma World, and I must say, the taste was non-descript. While the changes from 3.0 aren't as drastic as I had thought they were, it was about what I expected. But onto the Gamma World front, the changes in the way characters play completely changes the existing world, part of what I enjoyed about Gamma World was the exploration for ancient tech, the secret societies, and the good and the bad mutations. Pure Strain humans, mutant humans, mutant animals, etc, made the game really fun. Exploring to find old tech and the slow progression is what I liked about it. So it was different, kinda fun, but I think I'll take a pass on it. If constantly mutating characters are your thing, by all means have fun. The second game I played on Friday was Guillotine, a Wizards of the Coast card game from 1997,which you take part in three days of the French Revolution as a competing executioner, most the nobles are valued from 1 for a rival executioner to 5 points for Marie Antoinette or King Louis, then there are negative cards such as the -1 Martyr or the -3 Hero of the People. . You take turns using action cards to do things such as move a noble in the line, giving someone the next noble in line with the
after you card or even stealing a noble. After the action phase you take the head of the noble at the front of the line, executing any special actions that card may have. It's a very clever game and I highly recommend it for a quick game.
Saturday, The boys and I started out with Outbreak Undead. Now this is a really fun game, while it could probably be played with other systems, the SPEW-AI character creation rules let you actually create yourself (to the extent you answer honestly) and includes an interesting mechanic called Gestalt dice, which are handed out equal to your age as a one-time bonus, to grant use of specific skills you really know, but aren't on the character sheet. The game is designed for campaign play, and I believe the system really kicks in for extended play, for one-shots, it's pretty easy to blow through your ammo and survive the encounter, but what do you do next time with no ammo, and 20 additional zombies.This is on my future purchase list. The next game we played was Zombie Munchkin!! You know how much we love Munchkin, and the boys had been wanting to play this. There was no disappointment, the game played pretty fast, and within an hour or so, we were done, I used the tricky card which allowed me to piggy back off Ian's combat and steal the two levels I need to victory! Now Zombies seems slightly higher power level than regular Munchkin. But having Zombie hordes jumping in on combats tends to make it more hectic, I'm curious to see how it plays out.Boys and I played Guillotine to pass the time before we got into the Outbreak Undead game, they really liked it too.
Sunday Sunday SUNDAY!! Well I was prepping for my own Zombie fun running "28 Sleepcycles Later" Alpha Complex under seige of the walking dead in ZOM sector, but while I was preparing my scenario, Sean got to try out his new ICONS RPG (which he won for the Zombie Kill of the Day, shanking a Zombie with a toothbrush in the eyeball) with Ian, as Chris Czerniak ran them through a quick scenario, the boys really enjoyed it, and I believe THEY specifically will recommend it. After they finished, with Icons, that group came over and played PARANOIA! Running the pure mayhem of Paranoia was a blast, from the mumbling mousy violet citizen with the kill first fine second attitude briefing officer to the PLC room with one clerk, and 2 miles of empty line, 500 windows and a 30 minute break, after the brisk jog to reach the one clerk the Hygiene Officer ran a surprise inspection , which resulted in not one but TWO emergency scrubdowns, the trip to R&D resulted in the first clone replacement as a the tiny closet was ripe for theft by the Pro-Tech secret mission, but the 20 rolled on the sleight of hand caused a hilariously deadly incident. Then it was onto ZOM sector, where more experimental weaponry and mutant powers led to more deaths and a brain scrub at debriefing. I always recommend Paranoia. I know everyone had fun, from the newby role player to the veteran of Paranoia, and I know one was talking about convincing his friends to get into it...My job is just beginning....
Game on!
