Gaming Round-Up #1

What's been happening in the Goblinverse since I last wrote. Or at least, wrote like I meant it.

New Acquisitions

New board games this month:

• Mazaza Games's Kavango, of which more later.

New roleplaying games stuff:

• Ben Milton's The Waking of Willoughby Hall
• Blackwell Games's For Small Creatures Such As We, Delve, and Rise
• Lost Pages's Beyond the Pale.
• MacGuffin & Company's From Hell's Heart I Stab At Thee
  
• The Merry Mushmen's Nightmare over Ragged Hollow, Raiding the Obsidian Keep, and The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh, as well as Knock! #2 and #3.
• Twelve Pins Press's The Witch Of The Westmoreland
• Yochai Gal's Cairn 2e Players Guide. 

Some or all of these may or may not be reviewed. Some may already be inspiring things.

D&D 5th Edition

Nominally, I've been playing in a monthly D&D 5e game at my local game store. I say 'nominally', because I've probably missed more sessions than I've attended. Not a terrible loss, since (a) 5e isn't my favourite system, and (b) the principal purpose of that game was to kickstart a new gaming group. Which it has done, despite my unreliability. So that's nice.

Still, it's accounted for most of my potential adventure gaming opportunities since my old 5e campaign finished last December. So it's a shame I've not been able to make it along. The final session of that campaign is in the calendar, though, so I'll be in it for the end. Be interesting to see what they've done to my character.

Apparently, not making him a martyr for his religion, much to his disappointment.

Old-School Essentials

I attempted to run an OSE open-table game for the same gaming group. Sadly, this didn't get off the ground - while the principle of open table gaming might be that you run the game for whoever shows up, it does still require that some people show up.

That might have been me misjudging the level of interest for an in-person OSE game in this corner of the world. It might have been poor timing, with summer holidays getting in the way. It might have been poor communication of the open table concept. I still want to run that game, but maybe later. In the meantime, the plan is to run Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow, either in-person or online depending on who I can round up. A weekly game, wrapped up in a couple of sessions, might be an easier sell.

Tabletop Scotland

I made it along to Tabletop Scotland this year for the Friday and the Sunday. Friday was spent trawling the trading floor, which had a good range of traders in attendance, attending some seminars, and playing Dragonbane. Sunday, I ran Endure - a lightweight survival game - and the 5th Edition version of White Plume Mountain.

Oh, and the Saturday? Day out in Edinburgh with my wife. Went to Ancient Robot Games, though, where I picked up The Waking Of Willoughby Hall. So not a total loss of gaming opportunities.

This was the first year the convention was held at the Royal Highland Centre near Edinburgh. This made it a bit of a pain to get to - not insurmountable, as I have access to a car, but if I hadn't been able to drive I'd have had to give it a miss. The venue being so much larger than the Dewars Centre in Perth did make the convention much easier to navigate, though. I expect that more exhibitors were present, too. It certainly felt that way.

Friday evening, I played Dragonbane. I'd not played that system before, but it seemed to be a nice, accessible system, quick to learn and not too complex. And Free League always has good production values. I still don't get the love of anthropomorphic animals, though. Maybe I'm not the target market for them.

The Endure scenario ran smoothly, but suffered a bit from my inexperience with the genre. The players mostly had fun, but the absence of a 'ticking time bomb' to prompt swift action meant that the first part of the session mostly involved harmless meandering around. I realised the error and started flooding the crashed spaceship, which kicked things into gear more. Probably should have done that from the outset. Also, some of the players expressed frustration that scavenging for supplies was a bit too random. That would be easy to fix if I run the system again. Which I probably will, it made for a fun lightweight one-shot.

White Plume Mountain was a bit of a mixed bag. I used some house rules - in fact, almost entirely officially-published 5e variant rules - to make the game a bit more lethal and fast-moving. But the inventories I produced were probably a bit overwhelming, meaning that players couldn't really master their characters' equipment for problem solving. The power level was a bit too high, though the sense of danger did lead to some good non-violent problem solving. I also had a total novice at the table, which was probably unhelpful for fast gaming. Still, fun was had, though I'd have hoped to cover more ground in the time available.

The major shortfall, in my eyes - and this isn't unique to Tabletop Scotland - was the relative lack of a draw for board gamers. My wife doesn't play roleplaying games, so didn't feel like it was worthwhile to attend. There's probably not a lot that can be done to attract exhibitors (and I'm dubious of the value of established game shops setting up stalls) without players, but I can't help wondering whether offering planned, bookable board game slots might attract board gamers to play games they don't normally get a chance to.

Overall, Tabletop Scotland was a lot of fun, and I'll surely be back.

Kavango

My wife backed this after seeing the game at the UK Games Expo last year. Fulfilment by Zatu was pleasingly quick and efficient, despite that company's reputation giving us the fear that the game might actually get trampled by an elephant then sent off Victoria Falls.

We've played it through three times now. I've won all three. This is usually how it goes: I get the first couple of wins in, then she masters the system and I never win again. But the artwork is appealing, the mechanics reinforce the theme, and it's actually quite simple to learn. Crucially for us, it's also quick to set up and quick to play.

I'd been concerned that it might be too similar to Wingspan, but the mechanics are actually quite different, despite the two games sharing the core idea of 'introduce animals into your reserve'. Here, interaction between players is mostly through shared hands of cards, and it feels strangely cooperative for a competitive game. Though that could just be us.

Though there are opportunities to score points by completing 'research goals' throughout the game, the bulk of the final score comes from the animals a player is able to introduce into their nature reserve. This requires building a food web - lions are valuable, but need a lot of large animals to eat. Hares need only grass. Since each player begins with different resources, each will inevitably start building out different food webs, despite both having access to the same hands of cards.

Thus, in our most recent game, my 'wetland' board was replete with birds and reptiles, but large mammals were scarce. Meanwhile, my wife's 'grassland' board had plenty of antelopes, and big cats to prey on them.

There are certainly some oddities - a crab is a type of fish, lions are not carnivores, and antelope are terrestrial. But this is justified by the need to have a streamlined set of categories. As a player, you always feel short on funds. You are incentivised to do things, not because they are necessarily best for your reserve, but because they will satisfy investors. And yet, each turn spent seeking resources is a turn not spent directly on conservation... not necessarily wasted, but it must be done with care.

All said, an excellent game. It's definitely earnt a place in our collection.