Games, games, games

I’ve been busy buying new games – both RPG and board – in the last few weeks.

My latest boardgame is World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game. I’ve just had a brief (incomplete) game of it with my students. There’s a lot to recommend it. 2-4 players, takes about 90-120 minutes, and plays a lot like a more complex version of Talisman. Downtime is pretty light and what I really enjoy is how someone else rolls for the monster. Not that there’s any decision to be made, but it feels like you’re doing something.

I’ll write more about it when I get to play it in full. (For my Ballarat friends, I’m busy all of Friday and on Sunday afternoon, but I’m otherwise free and I’d be happy to stay in later one evening to play this…)

I also picked up Chrononauts, which is one of my favourite high-luck games, simply because the theme is so good. You’re a time-traveller from an alternative future, who needs to change history to get back home. Of course, with everyone from different alternatives, things get chaotic. You can also win by gathering artifacts, or just by patching up time and stopping paradoxes.

I’m in the middle of a Castles & Crusades kick as well. I’ve ordered the main rulebooks from MilSims, but I’ve also picked up a cheap PDF ($10) of the Player’s Handbook. Oh, and a bunch of C&C modules in PDF. As I think I’ve mentioned, I don’t think I’ll ever actually play C&C, but I’ve a lot of time for adventures written in an “old school” manner.

Speaking of “Old School”, that explains why I’ve just bought 13 “Dungeoncrawl Classics” from Goodman Games, mostly ones recommended by this thread on EN World. Half-price PDF sale at RPGnow? Cool. I might be blowing my gaming budget a bit, but it’s fun.

A 14th DCC (in print) arrived in the mail for me yesterday, but it’s a DCC conversion to C&C – GG1: The Mysterious Tower. I like this one enough that it’ll become part of my “Greater Castle Greyhawk” and available for the PCs to adventure therein if they feel like it. Castle Greyhawk has, historically, had a bunch of demiplanes associated with it, so I might just slot in my favourite adventures there for my players to experience.

The last PDF I bought today was the official D&D 4e Monster Manual pdf. It’s strange; the Aussie dollar is almost 1:1 with the US dollar at present. So the price was pretty good, even at the “horrible rip-off price” that a bunch of EN Worlders are accusing it of having. I bought this one for the statblocks – cut & paste will be very useful for homebrews. At some point I might get around to getting the rest of the books in PDF, but not just yet. I need a laptop first!

6 thoughts on “Games, games, games

  1. Looks like you’re making good use of your credit card!

    P.S. I’ve been deliberating of getting an EeePC for my tabletop gaming. It’s a cheap, light laptop.

    1. Yeah. I’ve been wondering about getting an eeePC myself; the person I share an office with has one. I think it’d be a lot better for my purposes than a regular laptop.

      1. I suggest the EeePC 901 or if you don’t mind having extremely low memory, the 900 models as their price should be going down with the release of the newer models.

  2. If you’ve played the WoW board game, I’d love to hear how the adventure game compares to it. Are they even comparable, or is it apples and oranges?

    1. They’re really apples & oranges. The adventure game is a much cleaner, faster design, although you don’t get the crazy customization and teamwork of WoW:tBG.

      TBG is all about teamwork with your friends: heading off to defeat monsters, get items, then go on a different quest. Eventually you become powerful enough to take on the Overlord and so you do.

      TAG is a solo affair, and there are more of interest in the quests. Pretty much every turn you fight something, but not always to destruction. The quests can be “visit three locations” or “kill another PC” or even “die!”… that one’s fun. Each quest gives 1-3 VPs, and once you get 8 VPs, you win. Defeating Overlords is worth a lot of VPs as well. I think it’ll be a lot of fun.

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