D&D was canceled once more due to low turnout, so we played some boardgames instead.
First up was Monsters Menace America, a game I really wanted to love but couldn't. It's great fun smashing up the States and sending your military branch after other players, but then you get to the end game showdown and you realize that all that carnage was effectively meaningless. There is such a huge disconnect between playing the game and winning the game that it has thus far always left me frustrated and confused.
Next was Formula De, always a good time. The game itself is pretty straightforward and although it can be disappointing to realize very early on that unless the player in the lead makes a huge mistake you will never catch up, it's still pretty fun trying. Myself, I believe that sometimes winning means taking risks, like gunning the turn in 6th gear; however taking risks usually means hitting the wall at 200mph and dieing in horrible fiery agony. Ah well, maybe next time.
No new D&D this week, however I had two things I wanted to talk briefly about.
One, how is it that I keep hearing all these terrible reviews of Crank 2: High Voltage? It's insane, yes. Senseless at times, yes. I guess when someone tells me a movie is senseless well I just get a different image in my head than what I saw tonight. It was bizarre and incredible and I loved the whole damn thing.
Two, here's a comment someone left on Grognardia that pretty well sums up why I hate talking to people on the internet:
a) i thought this blog was for whining about "old school" game mechanics
b) id love to see the actual depth of the worlds people have here when they say these two offered worlds are "nailed down" and "defined". post up your crap anytime so we can check it out (and laugh)
This week in Tom's Kingmaker game I got to roll out my butler/axeman Julian Carlton's new cohort, Durak Gnarglebash the half-orc chef/cleric of Gorum the Lord in Iron (the Iron Chef if you will). Since this week's group was myself, Lori, and Janell, we had three clerics of three different gods, a fighter, and a rogue/druid. This lead to a massive surging slaughterfest of our foes. It was a back and forth with Julian getting knocked up and down the HP rollercoaster.
This week we began exploring an entirely new hex map on a mission to discover the fate of one of our sister colonies, Voldharn. So far the only clue we have to sudden disappearance of the entire population of the settlement is a cat, who is obviously short of details. Some damnable spriggins had camped out in the deserted town so we had a bit of cleaning to do. Big, sprawling battles in the streets, climbing rooftops to chase off rock-throwing goons, and a final bloody battle that almost led to Julian's death several times in a row. It was tons of fun.
I leave you now with a certain viewpoint that has served me well in this campaign: be aggressive!
The move is complete, now begins the brutal aftermath of unpacking a 3 bedroom house into a single small bedroom. It's become obvious that I really need to clear out some stuff that I've been dragging around with me. Relevant to this blog is the game books. Like many gamers I own quite a number of game books, many for games I have never played or will likely never play again; Rifts, Palladium Fantasy, Paranoia, on and on. I've held on to the books for years because even if I don't play that system, I always find something interesting in the books. Artwork, GM advice, interesting mechanics, etc. However the time has come to clean house.
But then again... I really don't own a copy of Call of Cthulhu? Well I guess maybe one more book isn't going to be that big of a deal...
