Dawn of Worlds - World building exercise

Dawn of Worlds...

What is Dawn of Worlds? It is a free game which is based around cooperative world-building. I first ran across this last year listening to a pod cast (can't remember which one at the moment), but Gnome Stew covers it as well, here.

Over the next few months Epic RPG Blog will be creating a world using these rules. The great thing about creating a world with other people is that it becomes very easy to work off of other people's ideas, perhaps teh creation of a super volcano leads to someone creating a molten race of metal workers. This in turn leads to the creation of a sub-race, dwarves, perhaps, or maybe kobolds? Each race has a pinnacle of achievement they can be known for. After thousands of years, perhaps the race became corrupt, splintered into two races, one good one evil. Who will create the dragons? Civilizations come and go, rise and fall, expand and contract.   Nations are formed, the land changes, Who are the great architects? Who created the finest weapons? All of these questions can be answered through creativity.

We will be incorporating some additional tweaks to the basic rules. The game is free, check it out, create your own worlds...have fun and be creative.

Let's see what happens when ideas collide.

Super Dungeon Explore - The Review

So now that we've played several games all the way through I feel comfortable giving my review.

First Glance: I did a huge first glance with our Unboxing post. 

What you get: You get a lot in this box set. 22 kobolds, 6 wyrms, 8 heroes (+1 large "angry bear" form for the druid.) 2 kobold ogres, which are huge!, and a Dragon, which is a sculptural piece. You also receive 5 spawn points, 2 mimic chests called boo-booty, and 5 chests; around 100 cards and lots of counters. You also get 15 custom dice. You have 5 double sided game boards, which provide lots of different options. The last thing is the Adventure Tracker board, which tracks, loot, power meter, and provides a place for the cards.

A Note about the minis, they are made of plastic which doesn't take super glue very well, so Insta-set should be used. There is some flash, and all the pieces come already removed from their sprues, so for the person who is meticulous in their miniatures will need to do some flash clean-up and some gap fill. I was having issues with the legs of the minis as far as paint due to the scale of them, detail was difficult. I am out of practice though, so that could be part of it.

Main Review: Let's face it, this game is heavily weighted in favor of the heroes, they are heroes after all. The Consul (the game master), have the honor of running the monsters. The premise is this is a video game being played as a board game. Not the first to do it, as FRAG by Steve Jackson Games has been out for a long time, still it is unique, combining a unique gameplay experience with chibi style miniatures [Chibi is a japanese manga style where the head is over-sized with emphasis on the facial features, with characters having toddler proportions.] This is a great game to attract more females into the board game world, and is especially attractive for geek parents young girls.

Hexcast Sorceress, in all her Chibi Glory!

The dice are a unique d6 and an important part of the game, each having a number of stars (*), blanks and a either a potion, heart or combo potion/heart.
Blue Dice have 2 blanks, *, *, **. heart.
Red Dice have 1 blank, *, *, **, ***, potion
Green Dice, the best of the three, have NO blanks, *, **, **, ***, **** and the combo Potion/Heart.

Stats are represented by the dice you roll which applies equally to Monsters and Heroes.
Attack/Armor/Will and Dex.

Attack is used for melee rolls
Armor is obviously always important, as most monster attacks will target armor.
Will is used for Magic and initiative rolls!!
Dex is used for ranged attacks.

Both heroes and monsters have movement (represented by a video game movement pad)
Action Points (represented by a video game button)
Hearts represent life, while each character has unique potions.

The heroes are as follows:
Claw Tribe Barbarian
Deeproot Druid (and his Angry Bear form) Half-Elf
Ember Mage
Glimmerdusk Ranger Elf
Hearthsworn Fighter Dwarf
Hexcast Sorceress
Riftling Rogue Demonkin
Royal Paladin

Each hero has their own unique powers, which makes it interesting, some combos are much more powerful than others. The Ember Mage and Claw Tribe Barbarian are probably the most powerful of the bunch, but they really need to be backed up by a healer.

Gameplay starts with initiative, each side rolling their best Will. The winning side chooses which side activates first. Players can activate a hero, or the Consul can activate 4 skulls worth of monsters. Play proceeds back and forth until all the heroes and monsters have activated. Finally the Consul spawns more monsters. The heroes attempt to destroy the spawn points, once you reach the 16 bit mark, two things happen, the mini-boss spawns and the consul draws a loot card to affect all of his monsters. This can actually be one of the turning points for the consul if he gets certain cards.

There are three levels of play
8 bit: two heroes, 1 mini boss. (1 hour play time)
16 bit: 3 heroes, 1 mini boss, 1 dungeon boss. (1-1 1/2 hour play time)
Super!: 5 heroes, 2 mini bosses, 1 dungeon boss. (2-2 1/2 hour plus play time)

Truthfully, I think I prefer the 16 bit playtime, you get in, get the mini boss spawned, get a dungeon boss out and are done within 2 hours. The game can drag a bit, but I think as we get used to it, it will fly faster.

Family Rating: This can be a great family game, as it's a primarily cooperative game. It's a game that requires the heroes to work in conjunction with each other.

Cost: A Whopping $89.99. Now, you're paying for miniatures, 40 actual miniatures, not including the spawn points, automatically puts some value to that price.

Value: You get a very unique game, with a lot of minis, for an industry standard $90. It's worth it just for the minis.

Rating: Epic! This is a unique game with lots of options, it's good for kids and adults, boys and girls. While some people might not like the chibi style, it makes it endearing and one of a kind. Soda Pop Miniatures bridges the gap between manga and dungeon crawl games in a video game style format.

Gaming Club (Epic Ian & Epic Sean's 1st Post)

Last year, at our middle school, we decided to create a gaming club. Our dad, Epic prime, suggested we start one, because we were already playing some games with the nerdiest teacher at the school, Mr. Schmid.

We started brainstorming more in depth this year. We first went to one of the principals, and she eventually approved. Now we have club meetings every Tuesday.

On the first meeting of the year, we were really surprised at the turn out of people, and we knew the club was going to go uphill from there. The first games we played were zombie dice and munchkin. Some other people were playing the Dungeons and dragons board game. We mostly play those, but had zombie dice donated by The Fanatical Gamers Society. [Epic Prime edit: This was donated the week before when FGS’s James came to the store and donated a Zombie Dice to the club.]

Last week’s meeting, FGS (Shaun, Gail and Paul). They brought Sword and Skulls, Warmachine (which Epic Sean played), and a Greek game called Pente, which was donated to the Gaming Club. Warmachine is a game of huge steam powered machines of great power, armed with hammers and axes, and warcasters with spells that could devastate cities.

For the next meetings we’re probably not going to have any special guests. Two other games we are going to be playing: Super Dungeon Explore, and Frag. Super Dungeon Explore is an awesome fantasy 8-bit boardgame, with valiant Chibi heroes and not as cute snickering kobolds. Frag is another video game turned board game and is all about killing… and winning.

So far, Gaming club is…EPIC! And hopefully it will stay that way.

Favorite Character

So one of the questions we always ask when we interview is "What is your favorite character."

To me character creation is one of the best parts of gaming. Whether it's in City of Heroes Online, or if it's for a D&D or Pathfinder game, I always try to create something special each and every time.

For example, my Chelish dwarf for Pathfinder Society. This character actually has -slag in his name because he was exiled from his homeland for crimes against his own people, he landed in Cheliax worshiping the Law side of Asmodeus' pantheon. The Kicker to make him interesting, he has Asmodeus' laws tattoed on him, all over him, I actually spent 20gp of his 150gp on tattoes, as part of his character.

I picked up running the Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign because I didn't want my character to just fall into oblivion. Not only was she one of Lamm's Lambs, she had fallen for another who had been slain because of her mistake, and she keeps a war razor as her keepsake from that fallen love....it's very tragic, but powerful, her sense of justice channeled into an Inquisitor of Iomedae.

For our Family group for Pathfinder Society, we're going to run a Sczarni crime family. My character is the ringleader of course, an Oracle. His profession (Crimeboss). So between games he'll be raking in cash from nefarious sources, if he needs to use Knowledge (local) many times he'll be able to substitute his Profession.

I almost never optimize in my games, most times I'll have a 16 after mods in my primary stat, and several 14s. Except in rare instances will I dump stat down to 8, but only if it's in my characters backstory, the only character I've really made a dump stat for is my Chelish Monk, because he's cruel and vindictive, and it shows in his charisma.

My favorite character is all of them, because I put thought into each and every character. I try to breathe some life into them because, it's much easier to play them when you care about them. Now, if a character dies, I won't freak out, but I'll feel a sense of loss, but...it is only a game after all. 

Thoughts on Miniature Wargaming

   So my first Miniature based wargame was Battletech, I used to love that game. Then I came across other wargames, Car Wars being my next, now I still love Car Wars, though I'm not sure I like the newest version put out by Steve Jackson Games as much as I enjoyed the old version. It seems to be suffering the Beer & Pretzel mentality as well. I remember reading the various convention reports from the cons when they built these massive  arenas and used Matchbox scale cars. I would soon move away from "tick" based games, as I considered them archaic, it's one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of Rifts, once you get to the mecha, you're dealing with like 700 ticks on the main body of lots of big mecha.

   I started playing Warhammer 40k in 1992 or 93, back when there were Vehicle Data Cards, and the wargear cards, when you could customize like crazy. I had a Howling Banshee exarch on a jetbike with a holofield...beautifully modeled. I also got into Warhammer as I moved down to Fresno in 1994. We also got into EPIC while I was there. That still is one of my favorite games I never play these days. We played Necromunda, and Mordheim when they came out. Back in those days I had time to devote to painting minis, since I didn't have kids. After I got out of the Navy, I got into Warzone. I absolutely loved Warzone, with my Cybertronic army, we even played a big campaign down at Game Empire back in 1998. The system was great, while the miniatures were decent.

   Now as far as the newer games, Warmachine and Hordes by Privateer Press has a big presence, especially after people started becoming disenfranchised by Games Workshop's price increases, and the increase in edition publication. Though their miniatures are starting to creep up in price as well. Mantic is providing both Fantasy and Sci-Fi miniature games Kings of War and Warpath.  The boxes of minis are nicely priced 20 miniatures for around $30, this makes for lots of minis for a nice price.

   However now that the boys are of an age where playing Battletech might be fun, let them get into the design aspect of the game, which was also one of the really fun things about Car Wars as well. With the Battletech 25th Anniversary seeing the Intro Box being released with 26 minis for $59.99 by Catalyst Games, it might well be worth a visit to the past. I bet the boys would love to make new mechs, and as always, it would be a great math exercise.

   For those who like to wargame on the cheap, there's always Savage World's Showdown rules, which can be used to play with stand-up paper minis. (this is where I'm headed.) I have always preferred to play more than paint. Also WarLands, by Aberrant,  is fairly cheap as a post-apocalyptic skirmish game, set in 15mm.

EDIT!:  I almost forgot one of my favorite wargames that I recently played...Dystopian Wars. I totally can't wait to be able to afford a couple armies for that game, it's really fun, nothing like a few frigates getting a lucky shot on a capitol ship, then having it's magazine explode. It's a brilliant system. I also wouldn't mind trying out Spartan Games other systems as well.

Super Dungeon Explore Painted Figures

Well I've started painting....unfortunately my paints are old, so I had to throw some colors away. Also, my good brush is missing, so the brush I have to work with isn't the greatest.

Here are what I have (though when I see the big pictures the errors are glaring!) I'll get a new brush when I can afford one and touch it up.

Unless any of the paint manufacturers want to donate some of course!! heh.

Not too bad considering I haven't painted a mini in many, many years...

Royal Paladin

 Hexcast Sorceress

EpicRPGBlog joins Infrno social RPG site

http://www.infrno.net/users/epicrpgblog

infrno.net

This site is in Beta, we'll have to see where it goes, I'll be available for chat on there sometimes as well.

What is Infrno?