Billytea, or anyone else around, have you played Notre Dame? I'm trying to go through the rules to play tonight and I'm hoping it'll make more sense when we play.

I have not played that one. I did, however, find a teaching guide that might help: [link]

Just got back from playing the first session of the 4th Edition game I'm in with several guys from work.

I decided to go a with a Human Trickster-build Rogue. In my 20 years of gaming, I've never played the amnesia card as a player, so I decided to give it a shot this time around. My character's memory only goes back two weeks to when he woke up in a dark alley with an ornate dagger piercing his hand and a note attached reading "Next time, we'll take the rest." His goals are simple: find out who did this to him, force them to give him back his memories, and then return their dagger to them, preferably through their eyesocket.

My first impressions:

Each player having index cards with their powers written out on them seems to the be the way to go. The one player who didn't do it spent a lot of time digging through the book on his turn, which was kind of annoying for the rest of us.

Rogues are bad-ass if they can manage to maintain Combat Advantage. My rogue was easily doing 2-3x the damage of any other party member most rounds. It was kind of frightening. Especially since I took Quick Draw and Jack of all Trades as my feats, so I wasn't exactly trying to maximize damage.

The game is fairly easy to pick up: we were playing with one complete newbie, one person who hadn't played since 2nd Ed and one person who had played WoW, but not table-top before and then myself and one other player were experienced D&Ders. There was a definite learning curve, but by the end of the night only the newbie was asking questions every round. The other two only had to ask questions occaisionally by the end.

Healing surges seem like a nice addition. Especially coupled with Healing Word being a minor action for clerics. The cleric never had to spend a turn just healing someone. Which was a definitely problem in previous editions. It seemed like you were almost always stuck playing medic and that any other spells you cast were potentially robbing the other party members of precious hitpoints.

Overall, the powers work pretty well, though there is a tendency to just repeatedly do the same At-Will power most rounds (which really doesn't achieve the goal of giving you something to do other than simply attacking every round). One of my At-Wills, Sly Flourish, was notably superior to the others so I tended to use it constantly, but I tried be creative with describing the distraction aspect of the attack to keep it from seeming too repetetive.

We didn't engage in any skill challenges, so I can't say how well that part works yet, though lousy math aside, I do like them as a concept.

Role-playing doesn't seem any more or less encouraged than in previous editions. The folks who want to RP are going to do it, and those who don't, aren't. Of course, with so many new players, it's going to be awhile to find out who does actually want to RP and who doesn't.

The hardcore "watching encumberance, tracking rations, make sure every hitpoint healed is accounted for, what's the overland movement rate for this terrain, etc" simulationist in me doesn't care for the simplifications, like everyone completely healing over night, but I think 4th Ed definitely manages to be fun in its abstractions.

Notre Dame was very fun. As with many German-style games, there was a lot to read through that made no sense since none of us had played, but once you start it goes pretty quickly (there is a set number of rounds).

I think I may like it better than Catan since I think it is easier to pick up on the first time you play, and play itself is fairly flexible so you don't get locked into a certain style of play based on the initial set-up. I also think it is slightly more obvious what you should be doing. However, if you are more of a strategy type of person, it might get old quicker. There is randomness because you do a card exchange every round, but you have more control than a random role of the dice as in Catan.

We've been using the index cards for years, with 3.5 and Savage Worlds and 4.0, and they are really handy. In fact, one of the things that they got really right with 4.0 is the online character builder program. Among other good things, it prints those cards out with your character sheet.

I think I may like it better than Catan since I think it is easier to pick up on the first time you play, and play itself is fairly flexible so you don't get locked into a certain style of play based on the initial set-up.

I've gone off Catan after a couple of bad experiences. I still rather like a related game called Elasund. It retains the roll-for-resources deal, though the resources have been pared down to gold and favours or council permits or something. Oh, and the robber's been replaced with pirates (yarr).

Notre Dame has rats!

Basically, everyone has their own borough around Notre Dame and you compete for prestige (and influence and gold helps you get it) and make sure to keep the rats at bay. Each round you are basically choosing two actions among three in your hand.

The interesting chance element is that everyone starts with drawing three action cards from their own deck and each hand you pass two of your draw to the left, and then, of the two you get from the right, you pass one.

The interesting chance element is that everyone starts with drawing three action cards from their own deck and each hand you pass two of your draw to the left, and then, of the two you get from the right, you pass one.

I must say, I like that kind of mechanism in Black Lady. And with the promise of rats, this could warrant a look.

And with the promise of rats, this could warrant a look.

[link]

awesome Tom.

That reminds me, I played Mr Jack with Wallybee the other night. Mr Jack is a deduction game themed around catching Jack the Ripper. You have a map representing the streets of Whitechapel, and eight characters, each with a special ability. One of the characters is secretly Jack the Ripper. One player is the detective, the other is the villain. Each round (there are eight rounds), the players will move two of the characters each (note that the detective player may well wind up moving the culprit). At the end of the round, the villain tells the detective whether Jack can be seen. (Characters next to other characters or lit lampposts can be seen.) Through a process of elimination, the detective tries to whittle down the suspects, and then use one of the characters to catch the suspect.

Jack can win in three ways: remain undetected, escape Whitechapel (four exits, two of which are open at any time), or have the detective 'catch' the wrong suspect. The play mechanism is refreshing and there's a lot of replay value. It's currently a favourite for two players.

So Wallybee and I played it the other night. I'm playing Jack (a.k.a. William Gull, the Queen's physician), she's trying to separate the Gull from the chickens. Coming into round 4, there are four remaining suspects, all of whom can be seen (by each other), as they're clustered in two pairs. We turn up the four characters we'll be moving this turn, only one of which is still a suspect - my own Mr Gull. I get to pick first, and I take him, and swap him with another suspect (so they're all still clustered in two pairs, and there they shall stay). Wallybee won't be able to whittle the numbers down any further this turn!

And she doesn't. She just grabs Inspector Lestrade and bounces him through the sewer system to land on Gull! J'accuse!

"How did you work that one out? You still had four suspects."
"You were protecting Gull. It had to be him."
"I was protecting all of them, hhe was the only suspect I could move this turn. I was always going to pick him."
"And you moved him only three spaces from an exit."
"...Alright, it's a fair cop."

She's getting good at this. I'll need to lift my game. (If ever we play again. Right now she's enjoying being able to tell people "Oh yes, I won that one last time we played.")