Back At It
I went to the gym with Seth tonight. It was my first time to the new location in Bellevue and it was very nice, large, and (so far) underutilized. Those are definitely good things, because it was no problem getting the machines I wanted and they were all brand-spankin'-new, so they worked great. I was pleased to find the experience enjoyable. That's the first time I've been able to say that about going to the gym in, um, a year and a half... no, more like two or two-and-a-half years. I'm going to try and go more regularly. There's no poker game Friday, so I may go then.
Work is good. I'm busily trying to get up to speed on things I haven't been involved with int he past, but am now, and working on new things that won't see the light of day for a long time. Some of it is very cool, but none of it has anything to do with any of the games I've worked on in the past, so it's a little weird.
Kim started a blog a week or so ago. You can check it out here, or follow the link I've added at the right of the page. She will, I'm sure, regale us with many interesting things.
I will finish reading the copy of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rulebook tonight. I've commented on this to some friends, but it really does a good job of differentiating itself from other fantasy roleplaying settings, while still offering all the tropes and opportunities of a fantasy roleplaying game and setting. It's much darker than most fantasy settings (even ones that purport to be dark) because its system lends itself to making just about any critter dangerous. I'm interested in trying it out.
That said, I'd love to try to pervert the system a bit and turn the game into a high-fantasy game in which the characters have a lot of Fortune and Fate points, so they wade into fights. I think the system would be fun to try that with.
Tuesday night was the first session of Seth's new DC Heroes game. I worried that we might have too many players, but we'll only have five with any regularity; that makes for a good group. The characters (and players) are: Red Dwarf: super-speeding shrinker (Jason), Cougar: cat-woman (Leslie), Pack: changeling with duplication (James), The Rattlesnake Kid: mystic gunfighter from the Old West (me), and Mike will join us next week with an as-yet undefined character. So far it's a really good time.
I forgot to mention that the Website for the game Shane and I came up with launched today. It's very cool to see that coming to life. There's not much on the site now, but more will be added. Oh, you can check out the cartoons, though.
More later.
posted by Jon @ Wednesday, June 22, 2005
3 comments
3 Comments:
FYI - lumpus is a broken link
Rocketmen looks really cool! I loved the styrene card approach to Pirates, but I was never really interested in the setting. Rocketmen, on the other hand, looks really neat, I love the setting, and I can't wait to see how the ships look. I also love the idea of mining during the game, it brings a RTS feel into the game, balancing development with combat. And I love the idea of customizing the ships with pods (although you could go crazy with introducing new types of pods). I'll definitely be giving it a try when it comes out. A few initial questions from reading the rules:
1) Why are the 18 resources at the start of the game fixed in ratio? Wouldn't it add more strategy to force 6 to be 2/2/2, and allow each player to chose 6 of any type? BTW - does the drop and scatter method work pretty well? I'm curious to try it.
2) Since crew are effectively free in reserve, is it common to have a ship heavy initial 30pts and a crew heavy reserve 30pts? Especially since defensive crew on your base probably won't be valuable in the early game?
3) Are S/M/L equal to standard inch units to allow usage of a ruler? I like the idea, but I guarantee you that my games will require a higher level of precision than overlaying cards (since my main playing partner is, charitably, very picky).
4) How long does a typical game take?
5) Nick Sion is broken! :)
Lou
P.S. I just played a 7 hour game of Mechwarrior:DA last weekend while my family was out of town (used my pooltable as a playing surface and raced the long way). Please tell Jordan, "Nice job" on that Clix idea, but he should have invented it earlier. I wasted a lot of money and time in college on buying and painting W:40K figures.
Hey Lou!
I'm glad to hear you like the way the game looks so far. You definitely picked up on the RTS vibe, but that wasn't where I got the inspiration (I don't think I've ever played a real-time strategy game, they're just not my thing) -- mostly I just thought it would be cool for the players to be fighting for resources that were used later in the game. The idea probably game from games like Settlers of Catan more than anything else.
As for your questions:
1) You're correct that allowing players to choose their starting resources adds more strategy, but we wanted the "official" rules to be as balanced as possible. I'm sure there will be plenty of people who allow you to customize the starting resources so you can get the strategy you're referring to.
2) Yes, you can do that. In testing we found it wasn't actually very helpful, though, because then your opponent just wipes out your ships and doesn't need to worry about your home base at all.
3) The different lengths equal some measurement, but I don't know it off the top of my head. My guess is 3 1/2", 2 1/2", and 1 3/4". This isn't designed to be a game that picky people should play; it's a very loose game that's competitive, but fun.
4) About 20-30 minutes for a full 30/30 game.
I'll be sure to let Jordan know you approve of his idea.
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