Session Report: [Olostin's Hold] The Leafy Strangler

 

Jastra's Journal (Supplemental, Hagis recording)

The elf-chick G-string likes to keep a journal, so I'm reading it and helping her out. I like to doodle on the pages, flightless bids are my favorite, but I like drawing trolls too. The elf-chick won't mind; She's unconcious.


We let the tree-chick go. She merged with her evil tree. We didn't get any loot. It was boring. We went to find our Dry Cleaner and the Knitter. They were digging a whole together - I assumed they were pre-planning a grave.

The hole was boring too. We headed back to the little shack and I kicked the door in. We poked around the place and the next thing I know, the elf-chick is busy getting eaten by some sort of plant-thing. We beat it off her, but it messed her up pretty bad - I can see her ribs poking out. The Ranger might be able to do something, the rest of us slept through first-aid training in the militia.

We're trying to figure out what to do now. The elf chick is kinda cute and her singing helps us in fights, so maybe we shouldn't let her croak. I'm watching Dhallon to make sure if there's any move to divy up her stuff, I'm in on it.

Dry Cleaner tells us the new dagger is magical, which is handy. Have to make sure Dhallon doesn't scoff it.

Where's our Cleric? Oh right, they left him behind. I'm surrounded by idjits.

Session Report: [Olostin's Hold] Around The Cavern and into The Grove

 

Jastra's Journal:


We helped Hagis down and Murklane climbed down himself. After getting Hagis down to the cavern floor, we noticed that the root system we climbed down had been rigged with various forms of noisemaking devices. One supposes a form of primitive alarm, but with no one seemingly paying attention to the noise.


The group moved off to investigate the strange grove, gardens, and building. First up was the building, being the most obvious sign of inhabitation. It proved to be an odd structure, with no windows and padlocked doors. Dhallon tried to force the lock and then Hagis and Dhallon tried the door, but to no avail. Lacking a locksmith, the group was stymied.


As we approached some of the gardens around the grove, we were challenged by an elemental of the earth. It obviously wanted some particular voice command to let us pass, but we had no idea what that might be. It quickly moved to engage Dhallon and battle was joined. Jastra's rapier did little to it, due to its lack of vulnerable points. Hagis and Dhallon did some damage, but both took a goodly pounding. Murklane fired some arrows and contributed some damage to the battle. Reagan, using his full barrage of Magic Missile spells which bypassed the things resistance to physical attacks ended up being the key to the destruction of this gaurdian.


Next up was the grove. It seemed to have a number of trees of huge proportion. From the largest hung several who appeared to be mercenaries. Jastra thought to climb up and let them down to examine them more closely, but this proved unwise. The evil tree sucked the life out of her, using a dessicating or enervating effect which drained her of vitality and life-sustaining water. She drank down her entire waterskin in an attempt to rehydrate. Selecting a different approach, using rope, she fetched down the two corpses.


After examining the corpses, the remaining investigtion seemed to be investigating the various odd gardens. Cacti, giant ruddy sunflowers, pines covered with a sick looking moss, a series of trees that looked like dead treants, and some plants which looked like ragweed. Unfortunately, our group is singularly unversed in the lore of plants and animals, so little was to be discovered, other than another corpse, this one with an interesting dagger with a jewelled scabbard and a belt full of money. Myrklane felt it necessary to point out that the money was community property, which seemed a strangely obvious thing to say.


Further investigation revealed a locked crate concealed in one of the gardens, padlocked. It contained a female creature, of perhaps elfin appearance, who seemed reticent to answer questions. Perhaps not the brightest of creatures, the suspicion was she was a wood spirit. She herself confirmed this and indicated the bugbears had locked her in this crate. This, however, was not the whole story as there is no way that bugbears turned everyone in Olostin's Hold into shrubberies and trees. Jastra pressed her further and discovered that she was, in fact, the victim of an Evil Treant. Treants are powerful creatures, so perhaps its magics could explain some of the corruption we are seeing.


The thing most perplexing is what could corrupt such a goodly forest-warden? Time? Human predation upon woodlands? Bitterness at not having an ent-wife? Perhaps our investigation would reveal the cause, assuming we can locate the Evil Treant.

We elected to free the forest-spirit, so that she could attempt to cleanse the grove of its evil and perhaps so she could provide us with further information if we must fight Bugbears and Treants.


We are low in magic, quite a few of us are injured. Something tells me recharging our magical batteries and perhaps retreating to our cleric to have him heal us may be the order of the day, before meeting a powerful creature like a Treant or a tribe of Bugbears....


 

Boardgame Review: The Halls of Montezuma

Well, tonight I got a chance to try out GMT's Halls of Montezuma.
BoardGameGeek Link

This is a 2-player, partially card-driven/partially dice driven game with a strategic map, a tactical process for resolving battles, and a variety of victory conditions that mix military and political outcomes. I'd guess a full game might take 4-6 hours to play once you knew what you were doing.

This is no Advanced Squad Leader with all supplements nor is it SFB with full rules from all sources and all options in play. Still, it is fairly meaty. The rules were a tough go. The quick start card helped, but was missing some really key lines. Figuring out what counters went where was a bit of a lag at the start, as was reading some of the stuff on the map.

Neither Lorry nor I knew much about the 1846-1848 period - I knew a bit about the context of the Alamo and why it was so pivotal (mostly by buying time), but that was about it. So, unlike Napoleonic Wars, 1960: Making of A President, or Twilight Struggle, my historical background was weaker on this one. But the other three games turned out to be good, so Lorry bought this one and we thought we should try it out.

There's a good game lurking in there. I'm sure of it. It's heavy, not the easiest to learn, the rules badly need a FAQ or living rules release, the index needs redone, and cross-references need added in quite a few places. Some actual rules fixes or clarifications are also needed. A lot of that stuff can now be pulled off board game geek or ConSimWorld.

But even the turn and a half we did were interesting (we chatted a lot about other stuff which distracted us).

I moved across the Rio Grande on my first action with a smaller force than the US defending Ft. Brown (and they had fieldworks). However, my Zapaderos (sappers) nullified his earthenworks and I managed to score better casualties despite weaker overall firepower (better luck with the dice) and evicted him from Ft. Brown. I then proceeded to try to reinforce, bringing attrited units up to full strength and adding one infantry regiment. I also started converting his fieldworks into a full fortress. That was my good luck this turn.

Lorry, on the other hand, came back at me by sending General Kearney and a small force over to Alte California to capture it for the USA, by way of the Disputed Territories (not currently disputed because my units had all been tied up in the attack at Ft. Brown).

He then got very lucky and rolled high enough to get the USA to declare war at the end of turn one. That's very bad for Mexico - before that, the US fights with one hand behind its back and hte Mexicans have initiative. I'd expect war to normally be declared by player choice or event card by turn 4 on average, but turn 1 was pretty unlucky for Mexico.

The war adds a huge pile of units to the American reinforcement pool and gives both sides bigger hands of strategic cards to work with. More crucially, in the pre-war period, only Mexico can generate reinforcements each turn. Once the war starts, there is an automatic reinforcement every turn plus the US can take a voluntary card based one they were ineligible for beforehand.

We didn't play much further. His reinforcements appeared near Ft. Brown so he had two moderately large forces facing my now-outnumbered single force. My fortification wasn't going as well as hoped - he'd probably get to attack first. Additionally, my baggage train had been left vulnerable in Matamoros and he could have swept around the end and taken it with ease, putting me out of supply before the critical battle for Ft. Brown.

It had the feeling of a very fun, meaty game. We didn't get to explore the taking of states very deeply or the US amphibious options for deep strikes nor what implications the unstable Mexican government had.

The game is interesting because basically it boils down to Mexican political will. If a game end condition arises (dice roll at turn end or perhaps with an event card or a sudden death condition differing for each side is achieved), you look at the political will track for Mexico. If their rating is high enough, they win. If it is a bit lower, a draw ensues. If it is lower than that, they lose. So the US goal is to inflict damage to the Mexican political will. The Mexican goal is to shore it up.

The polticial will is influenced by gaining or losing territories, winning or losing big battles, some events, and the number of Mexican provinces in revolt. Political changes like Santa Anna returning from (and possibly being sent to) exile and change of leaders in Mexico can impact the political will indirectly and influence how the game plays out. Revolts untended tend to spread over the turns but require actions and probably units to quash.

So essentially, the Mexican goal is to keep a stable government, not lose political will quickly, and quash revolts, occasionally kicking the US player for a victory in battle probably helps (and forestalls their adventurism). The US player wants to encourage bellicosity (helps declare war sooner), capture various disputed territories and Mexican holdings, keep the Mexicans out of Texas, not lose battles, and to wait for and/or encourage Mexican state revolts.

You get the feeling even from our short experience that the first game phase involves a few small forces, a few leaders, manouvering and trading back and forth provocations (Crisis phase). When actual war breaks out, the gloves are off on both sides. When the Mexican government collapses (and it may), Mexico is fighting with an extra 100 pound gorilla on its back (similarly a pile of revolts will do that).

The event cards teach you a bit about the conflict and the rulebook includes a deeper look at the events that underlie the cards. I drew Indian Raids twice which brought some annoyance to the US player (they can cut supply lines and increase Mexican political will because they weaken the US). There are certain turn-by-turn pre-ordained events and random ones that come up by card, giving the game an interesting feel.

If we can sort out the unresolved/broken/poorly worded parts of the rules, spend some more time playing this to be faster at it, I think there is a really great game lurking underneath.

Even in our short game, I felt like there were interesting event cards, good tactical possibilities for fights, strategic issues of supply and troop dispersion (for revolts and to counter flanking moves), and political considerations all to factor in. That first round attack was to try to generate some positive political gains, which it did (adding more than 10% to my political will total). So the game integrates a lot of interesting aspects.

I look forward to playing this one again.

Speed: 2 out of 5 (imperfect rules, meaty subject matter)
Strategy: 4 out of 5 (provisional, must play through full game, lots of seeming depth)
Fun: 4 out of 5 (fun might be higher if the rules hadn't been challenging)

The Forgotten Realms

I remember when I first got the boxed set of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons®.

I had never heard of Ed Greendwood (an Ontarian, surprisingly) or the Forgotten Realms. This was the 'new direction' the game appeared to be taking as the Old Gaurd at TSR drifted away - names like Gygax, Mentzer, Otus, Mohan, etc. fading away. With them was fading the Greyhawk setting. It was time for something new to open out some new frontiers and to generate some new income for TSR by allowing them to sell a new line of campaign-related products. Greyhawk was getting pretty long in the tooth by this point.

The Forgotten Realms was a place where you didn't just have hack and slash adventures and where the heroes weren't all knights and noblemen - common folk ended up becoming some of the greatest heroes. And wherever you looked, their was legacy of past civilizations, past races, past communities, and past disasters. There was a sense of age to the world and mystery. There was a sense that there would be lots to uncover and lots to discover in the games played in this world.

We are many years beyond this point now. Advanced Dungeones & Dragons® gave way to 2^nd Edition, then Skills and Powers, then eventually 3^rd Edition, D20, the revised 3.5 Edition and now very lately 4th Edition. Greyhawk is now a dead world as far as product goes. The Forgotten Realms has endured through the years, expanding to include a vast expanse of world space and diverse settings like the Horde (Mongol), Kara-Tur (Orienal), and Maztica (South American). It and the later Eberron campaign world are the current focus. Planescape and Spelljammer seem to have come and went in the intervening period.

But now, the Forgotten Realms has had so many parts of its geography and history filled in, it lacks some of what it had when the first grey boxed set came out: Possibility. The original set gave you a big chunk of the world, but it clued you in that there was a lot more of it. Even of what it did present, it presented chunks with tantalizing references never to be further developed, leaving the aspiring GM plenty of plot hooks he could exploit and create adventures for and the aspiring player many things to wish his GM would develop for his game.

Eventually, I migrated my gaming out of the Forgotten Realms. A few characters I had there were at retirement points, others were dead. Some crazy things had been introduced in the penchant of the publisher to fill every space with a campaign supplement (Ravensgate, it is at thee I am staring with contempt!) - Arch Magi giving rides to children at a fair, Spellfire, Gods rampaging around and impacting the game world directly and without subtlety. These things all seemed to eat away at the air of mystery and sensibility that the original boxed set seemed to present. Eberron was also coming on the scene and it had some pretty slick products and some very interesting and ground-breaking character options.

But now, these many years later, I find myself drawn back into a 3.5 Edition Forgotten Realms game: Olostin's Hold. My friend Doug had a lot invested in this world and has parleyed that into an ongoing game that gives me an excuse to see (or at least talk to) some of my oldest friends on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Sometimes there is more chatting and side conversation than actual D&D gaming. But even so, the game itself is interesting.

Despite all the silly things they've thrown into corners of the world, despite all the stuff they've published, there are still a lot of opportunities unplumbed. The game world is huge and lots of the supplements have laid out adventure possibilities as rumours of no more than one or two lines of text. So there is still a lot for a GM to develop for his own game.

And of course, this has inpsired me to want to run an adventure or two in the Forgotten Realms. I have my own game world of 20 years which I'm very happy with. Many of the players would have characters for it too, but not all. But Doug's game has some momentum right now and I don't want to disrupt that and I don't want to try to distract by running my game interspersed. Instead, I think I could have my fun presenting adventures within Doug's game and allow it to keep up its momentum. Momentum is not a trivial matter in the sustainability of gaming over time and over distance.

So once again, the mysteries of the Forgotten Realms have sucked me in. My urge to get out the pen and start penning adventures from those short summary lines or even from collections of varied short references to places is high.

Until Swords Part....

Boardgame Reviews: Roll Through The Ages & Race For The Galaxy

Roll Through The Ages
on BGG

1-4 players, 25-45 minutes to play, dice-based VP collecting game. Custom dice generate food, workers, various trade goods, money and disasters. Player choices include when to reroll dice (risking disasters or trying to get what you want on the dice), where to allocate workers (building wonders or producing cities which give you more dice), whether to seek food (feeds cities and avoids penalty points), trade goods (money in another form), or money. Money and trade good help you buy 'developments' - things like leadership, irrigation, religion, empire, etc. each of which affects either how disasters impact you, how you produce extra goods or food, how you can reroll dice, or things of that sort.

Played 3 games. Kinda liked it, but got annihilated by enemy dice rolls that generated negative points. You have to watch carefully for when your enemy is going to suddenly end the game on you (having bought five developments or all wonders being built).

Speed: 4.5 out of 5 (fast playing)
Strategy: 3.75 out of 5 (there is some strategy, but you need the dice to cooperate)
Fun: 3.75 out of 5 (was fun, but sometimes the dice just hate you)

Race For The Galaxy
on the BGG

2-4 Players, 60-90 minutes to play, card based game where you are trying to build synergistic engines of productivity. Players use cards from their hand to pay to lay worlds or developments. Developments are things like 'mining robots' or 'star marines' which give benefits to your military rating or production or consumption, whereas worlds tend to offer places to sell things (cycle cards for more cards or VPs) or production centers to produce goods.

This game involves picking which phase of a turn you might want to execute - explore (cycle cards out of the deck into your hand), develop (build non-world developments), settle (settle worlds), trade + consume (cycle cards and produced resources for more cards and/or VPs), or produce (have your production worlds generate goods).

When you've played 12 cards in front of you into your 'tableau', the game ends. The game also ends if you run out of VP tokens (12 pts of VP per player in initial pool).

The point of the game is to get an engine going whereby you can perhaps produce and then sell to great advantage one of the four resources, or where you can play plenty of military planets and facilities cheaply, or where alien tech becomes 'your thing', etc. Whatever gets you to the most VPs the fastest.

The game seems to be a modified version of the popular San Juan card engine. I think it offers more options for strategy, but is also a fair bit more swingy. If you draw well, you can really get a powerful engine going fast. If not, you can somewhat affect this (one of your explore options lets you cycle deep into the deck but you can only keep one card) but it can be tough straights to be in. If you choose a strategy that's a non-starter (military build up, for instance, and you don't draw military worlds), you can languish in the lands of card starvation and VP starvation.

Played 2 games. Got trounced soundly in both. Part of it was card luck, part of it was choices that (retrospectively) would have been better differently. Jury is still out on whether I could have know at the time to go another way. Have to play it a few more times before deciding I'm not fond of it or the random factor is too big.

Speed: 3.5 out of 5 (Not bad, but later in the game you can have a lot of cards to watch)
Strategy: 3.5 out of 5 (It seems like there is strategy, but your draw cards and strategic plans can not mesh well sometimes leaving you languishing in agony)
Fun: 4 out of 5 (The game is flavourful and expansions add a fifth player and actual invade-and-capture of military planets)