Never send a minion to do a god's work.

Glory ,'The Killer In Me'


Gaming 1: You are likely to be eaten by a grue

A thread for the discussion of games: board, LARP, MMORPG, video, tabletop RPG, game theory etc. etc. and all attendant news, developments and ancillary subjects thereof, as well as coordinating/scheduling games either online or IRL. All are welcome to chime in, talk about their favorite games or learn about gaming of any sort.

PLEASE TO WHITEFONT SPOILERS for video games, RPG modules or anything for which foreknowledge of events might lessen one's enjoyment of whatever gaming experience.


amych - Apr 25, 2008 4:43:10 am PDT #103 of 26133
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

That sounds incredibly fabulous. And like just the thing for after work on certain days.


Aims - Apr 25, 2008 4:45:18 am PDT #104 of 26133
Shit's all sorts of different now.

Amy, it so totally is. It's wonderful. I want to create one similar wherein you get to "create" a work place - like Sims or something - and then you go in and FUCK IT UP. Detroy the office and burn it down. Very theraputic.

I'd call it Office Space: The Home Game. Everyone fights over who gets to be Milton.


Miracleman - Apr 25, 2008 4:45:42 am PDT #105 of 26133
No, I don't think I will - me, quoting Captain Steve Rogers, to all of 2020

Hey, can you tell me some more about this Fantasy Grounds deal? Is it D&D, D20, something else?

It's an online tabletop RPG facilitator. And I think you can configure it for a variety of games, so d20 or multi-dice or all six-siders...

Here. Fantasy Grounds


billytea - Apr 25, 2008 4:46:14 am PDT #106 of 26133
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

I gamed a lot when I was in school during the '80s. Then I moved to DC and never found a group to game with, and I kind of drifted away. So I'm more the era of Nuclear War/Nuclear Escalation. Oh, and Kingmaker -- can't forget Kingmaker.

I loved Kingmaker, but it too had serious balance issues. My usual strategy was 'get hold of an heir and go sit on an island somewhere'. On the other hand, the card-based combat and event stuff was a revelation. There's a whole slew of wargames out these days that have taken that card thing even further - Paths of Glory is a well-regarded WWI card-based game, and War of the Ring makes good use of them too. (I so wish I could find someone to play that against.)

Oh, another card-based strategy, if not war, game, is 1960: The Making of the President. Wallybee and I played that just tonight. (She was Nixon, I was Kennedy.) It was a tight game. She was dominant in the West, and cherry-picked New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan our of my stronghold. (And, like Kennedy, the Dems took Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, but they threw their votes to Byrd.) End result - I won by pretty much a single state. If Mrs Nixon had grabbed Ohio or California off me, she would've pulled it off.


billytea - Apr 25, 2008 4:49:58 am PDT #107 of 26133
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

It's an online tabletop RPG facilitator. And I think you can configure it for a variety of games, so d20 or multi-dice or all six-siders... Here. Fantasy Grounds

Thanks for that. I've bookmarked it.


Aims - Apr 25, 2008 4:51:50 am PDT #108 of 26133
Shit's all sorts of different now.

amych - I think it's called Burnout.


Miracleman - Apr 25, 2008 4:53:00 am PDT #109 of 26133
No, I don't think I will - me, quoting Captain Steve Rogers, to all of 2020

Yes! Burnout! Or Burnout Revenge or something.

All I could come up with was some generic racing game title like Super Fast Bad Ass Mega Turbo Thrust Grand Racing Turismo 3!! or something.


amych - Apr 25, 2008 4:57:41 am PDT #110 of 26133
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

I want to create one similar wherein you get to "create" a work place - like Sims or something - and then you go in and FUCK IT UP. Detroy the office and burn it down. Very theraputic.

The original Sim City was a lot like this. At least it was the way I played it. After a while, the city was all carefully built up by tweaking the zoning laws, and all the ungrateful little shits who lived there were rioting over taxes even though you had tried to give them nice things like sports stadiums and other such bread and circuses, and it all just got incredibly, incredibly boring once the city reached a certain equilibrium. And that's when the temptation to hit the "tsunami" "earthquake" and "godzilla attack" commands all at once came into play.


Frankenbuddha - Apr 25, 2008 5:06:14 am PDT #111 of 26133
"We are the Goon Squad and we're coming to town...Beep! Beep!" - David Bowie, "Fashion"

Other board games I've played over the years, semi-regularly:

Axis and Allies
Rail Baron
Ironclads

Also used to play a bunch of different RPGs, but they were all pretty much custom designed games.

And I've done a LOT of wargaming - mostly medeivals, civil war and modern armor. Also, pretty much custom gaming systems.


Jessica - Apr 25, 2008 5:28:33 am PDT #112 of 26133
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

My favorite game is the World's Greatest Travel Game.

It's a bingo-type game with a 5x5 grid. Inside each square is a cube with 5 pictures and one [X] side to flip to when you complete a cube. Each picture is valued from 1 to 5 in order of difficulty. You can either set all the squares to one value and play only that level (bo-ring!), or you can set them all at 1 and play from 1 to 5 (this is the way the experts do it). A picture is scored when you see that thing outside the window of your car. Rules vary as to whether images of that thing count - in the modern era of highway travel, it's nearly impossible not to count images, since the game assumes you will be driving through lots of small towns and therefore will value, say, "mailbox" at a level-1 even though your chances of seeing a mailbox on the Pennsylvania Turnpike are pretty slim.

My mom and I still talk about the time when we wound up following a car with a poster on the back showing a hammock hung between two palm trees, allowing us to score 2 nearly impossible level-5 cubes at once. This was nearly 20 years ago.

The WGTG is the reason I love long-distance driving. I used to play over and over and over on the 18-hour trip to Canada every summer when I was a kid, and I can't wait to pass it on to Dylan when he's old enough. My copy is a battered one missing 2 cubes that I paid way too much for on eBay because my parents wouldn't give up theirs. (I have, however, stolen 2 of their cubes to round out my collection. I picked two at random - hopefully neither was the one with the snake or the hammock.)