The Tournament Scene

I enjoy playing a variety of different games, but for the most part, do not enjoy playing in tournaments. In both card games and miniatures games, I have played in a number of them. I remember being a kid and heading to a nearby store to play in Magic: the Gathering tournaments before I really knew how to make decks, and I continued playing in them through Legend of the Five Rings, Lord of the Rings, and Warlord. I played in a bunch of Warmachine and Hordes tournaments in my day. But I've only played in one Malifaux tournament (Warstore Weekend) and I had to be asked several times just to get involved in it.

Frankly, it comes down to the fact that I do not enjoy tournaments as much as I enjoy playing pick-up games. And largely, that comes down to the fact that I don't like the way I respond to tournaments.

When it comes down to it, I want to win. And my enjoyment of a tournament is largely dependent on how well I do in that tournament. I have been "that guy" in tournaments before, and it didn't sit well with me. Rather than deal with it again, I just prefer not to put myself in that situation.

Now my positive experiences from tournaments far outweigh my negative ones, and I can probably count on one hand the bad experiences, but those have stuck with me far longer than the good experiences. And I find the flip side is true for my pick-up games. A bad pick-up game will stick with me in the short term, but the games I remember long down the road are the ones where they came really close, or the game was a lot of fun. It's not that I don't want to win in friendly play, but I don't take it as poorly when I don't win.

I'm not going to say I'll never play in another tournament, because situations always come up where I might. But I'm not throwing myself into tournaments like I used to with Warmachine. They just don't offer me what they used to.

True Grit

Possible Spoilers Below!

Last night I finally caught True Grit. I've been a huge fan of the Coen Brothers, and seeing them reunited with Jeff Briggs was just too good to pass up. I had expected this movie to be a departure from their normal humorous bend of movie, delving into a bit more seriousness and... well... grit. They did take this movie to a few dark places, certainly, but they kept their good humor in as well. The sheer number of one-liners from the movie is just fantastic. Every character had a distinct way of talking about them, from the over-intelligent and driven 14 year old girl to the drunk and dry-witted US Marshall to the desperate-for-people-to-approve-of-him Texas Ranger.

Rooster Cogburn: We'll sleep here and follow in the morning.
Mattie Ross: But we promised to bury the poor soul inside!
Rooster Cogburn: Ground's too hard. Them men wanted a decent burial, they should have got themselves killed in summer.

The movie was slow in parts, and lacked a lot of the crazy gunfights and high-adrenaline chases that are standard in most cowboy movies, but instead filled the time with colorful scenes with fantastic characters talking and engaging in all manner of adventures. I felt like, as I was watching, this could have been how Cold Mountain was if it had some humor to it instead of being serious the whole way through. Even the bit characters, from the Undertaker to the man who sold the horses to the dentist/doctor were all fantastic to see.

In short, if you enjoy colorful conversation and surprisingly rich characters, this is the movie for you. It's great to watch from the beginning to the end how each character grows in relation to each other, and how despite the short time they all spent together they all ended up somewhat changed from the journey. Highly recommended.

How I Create Roleplaying Games

As a GM, there are several ways I try to go about starting ideas for a new campaign.

First, the genre method:
Sometimes the reason I want to run a game is because there is a particular genre that I really want to run a game for. Could be that I’m really stoked for a post-apocalyptic setting, or a sci-fi setting. Or maybe I want to run a city-based game, or a game taking place in childhood stories. Regardless, I first think of the basic setting and start from there. What do I see in this setting? For a superhero genre, I may decide that the things I really want to see happen are the superheroes not being accepted by the general public (like X-Men) and a combination of five set powers (like Push). In this method, I start macro and slowly put together what the world I want to play around in looks like. From there, the story starts to form as I figure out how things interact.

Second, the story method:
The flip side to this one is where I have an idea for a story I want to tell, but that’s about all that I have. I don’t know what system I’m going to use or what the world surrounding it is. In this method, I have the main pieces of the story and build everything else around it to fit what I need. If I find that I needed a large corporation as a villain, suddenly there is one in the world. I remember doing this particular style of story back a while ago when Sadam Husain was captured and his trial was going on. I decided I wanted to tell a story about a group where the major villain of the story started the game already defeated and captured, but that the players could not simply kill him – they had to get him to stand trial. Meanwhile, other factions were trying to free him, etc.

Third, the system method:
This is probably my least favorite way to start a story, but it does come up from time to time. I may find a system of game that I think is so interesting that I have to try to run a game of it. I look over the basic rule book, figure out the story it’s intended to tell, and try to work from there. Generally these stories are the least interesting for me because, when it comes down to it, I don’t bother with game systems much anyway.

Most campaigns I run can be traced back to one of these inceptions. Which do I prefer? Well, with the system method taking a clear third place, I can’t really decide which of the other two methods I like more. It just depends on what has been inspiring me – a world or a story. Both have their merits and, in the end, I think they both can come up with fantastic stories.

I'm Famous

Over the weekend Bill and Jay asked me to join them on their podcast, the Gamers Lounge for a special Malifaux-centric episode. Head on over and check it out. I'm the smart-sounding one.

Lilith and Leviticus

Last night I headed out to Huzzah to get a game of Malifaux going. I finally transferred my models to a larger carrying case so they all fit without me leaving an extra tray on top. Made me much happier carrying things around.

Dan came by and we set up a game. He is planning on attending a tournament in Pennsylvania in a couple weeks and wanted to get some practice in with his master of choice for the tournament: Leviticus. He said he wanted to play a list with some speed to it, so either Lilith or the Dreamer.

I opted for Lilith, wanting to try a new build with her. So in the end, here's what we had:

Lilith, Primordial Magic, Lilitu x2, Lilu, Terror Tot x3, 7 stones
Leviticus, Rusty Alice, Belle, Killjoy, Necropunk, Canine Remains x2, 5 stones

I wanted to give the twins a try with Lilith. The design of the list was to, rather than rushing into my opponent's face, bring my opponent to me through Lure and Transposition. I brought two of the Lilitu's to maximize that movement, and brought one Lilu to partner with Lilith as a melee beast. The three Terror Tots were there to replace any twins that got killed off, or to mature into Younger and Mature Nephilims as possible.

Lilith flipped Turf War and announced Bodyguard and Kidnap (both dogs and the Necropunk)
Leviticus flipped Claim Jump and announced Breakthrough and Bodyguard

We played on one of the store boards, but added some more terrain pieces to it. We've found that the boards have a lot more open LOS than they probably should what with the recommended 18-21 pieces of terrain minimum. It helps prevent the first-turn shenanigans like Zoraida obeying from the get-go.



Even with more terrain, we still had some action on the first turn. Dan killed one of his puppies to create a second Hollow Waif. With the revised rules (v3) to Leviticus, I decided not to follow my former strategy of finding a way to kill Levi and instead spend my time killing everything else. He also brought a Necropunk up to the middle of the board, poising for something - who knows what. My Lilitu's lured the little guy into the open near my side of the board and Lilith rushed out and smashed him to death, grabbing some blood and taking care of the second of the three kidnap models. Leviticus tried to get a shot off at Lilith, but was a little too far out. He died and summoned back nearer to his Waifs.

On turn two, we had a little more maneuvering. I had to get Lilith out of the middle of the field, so I had the Primordial Magic Transpose her with a Terror Tot. Dan tried to Lure one of my Lilitu's with his Bell and was 18 1/2" away, and then moved up. Lilitu happily lured her back towards me instead, bringing her into my lines and killing her with Lilu. Dan miscalculated his wounds and ended up having to sacrifice the Steampunk Abomination he had created killing my exposed Terror Tot to bring in Killjoy. Killjoy then flattened Leviticus (Dan found out in the second game he played that you cannot attack your own Masters, but we didn't realize that here, so we were fine with it).

Turn three came and I had a Killjoy within charging distance of a mob of my models. I drew my hand and despite drawing 8 cards and keeping 7 of them, I had nothing above a 9, and only one of those. I figured if I won initiative, it would be a good time to withdraw to a better spot. I could have gotten everyone out of range of Killjoy before he activated with a chain of Companions, but instead he flipped a 10 or so - not worth the stone to try to win initiative. Besides, I still felt in good shape.

That is, until Killjoy charged and killed one of my Lilitu's straight out, and engaged my Primordial Magic, Lilith, Lilitu and Lilu. How annoying. My Primordial Magic went and cast Earthquake, knocking Lilith and Killjoy 2" away, removing Lilitu and the Primordial Magic from combat. I got Lilitu over to LOS with the last puppy and lured him in, killing him, and grabbing the last kill for Kidnap. As long as I kept Lilith alive, I was at 4 VPs already. Lilu killed Killjoy with three triggered Flay attacks, but Killjoy used slow to die, flipped the Red Joker for the attack, and then severe damage, and got to attack again with Onslaught, killing the Lilu. I had no cards that I could cheat with. Lilu died and Killjoy remained on the table with full health. Lilith, fortunately, killed him off herself, but with Leviticus dropping the other Lilitu down to one life left, she was going to die at the end of the turn. I lost all three twins in a single turn. Ouch!

At this point, the game was down to Levitcus, two Waifs and Rusty Alice against Lilith, two Terror Tots and the Primordial Magic. I had three significant models and he had only two. That would give me the advantage when it came to trying to hold points. I mistakenly thought that he could turn the token on the board into a Steampunk Abomination to get another significant model and decided I had to kill Alice. I Transposed a Terror Tot with Alice and Lilith killed her dead. Leviticus tried to kill the Terror Tot but I had a few high cards with which to cheat to resist. He was already out of stones, so he couldn't do much about that. I ran my models to the other side of the board to grab my objective, and he got his models to his Claim Jump. Unfortunately, with only one significant model, he could not capture his Claim Jump and his Breakout at the end of the game.

Game over, 8-6.



Very tough game, and interesting new way to play Lilith. I enjoyed trying to make his army come to me rather than the other way around (which is how I play with the Tot/Younger/Mature grouping). I never got a chance to grow any of my Tots, or swap them out for any of the twins, but by the end of the game, Lilith had four blood tokens. If I had better cards at the right time, I would have been a bit more successful in bringing around more powerful twins. Next time, perhaps...

Three Sisters Against Zombies

Allow me to introduce you to the three sisters who will be fighting against the walking dead once we get our next game of No More Room In Hell campaign going. These three sadly lost their parents when the undead hordes began rising. They found each other and stuck together, fighting for survival against impossible odds. Each one has learned to deal with the nightmarish situation in their own way.



There is Alice, the oldest. Home from college, she was out for a night on the town with her boyfriend when the undead struck. Her date turned undead before her very eyes, but she did not waver. She knew exactly what to do. A card-carrying member of the NRA, she drew her hand cannon out of her purse and blew his head off, followed shortly by the heads of every other zombie in the restaurant. She keeps track of her two sisters, making sure they're safe. Just being near Alice inspires them to stand firm.



Next in line is Rose, who was just entering middle school and suffered greatly from middle child syndrome. Constantly rebelling against her parents, she would often be caught by the cops trying to vandalize or steal. Her parents did not know what to do with her. Numerous trips to the shrink's office just ended up costing money and solving nothing. When the zombie apocalypse struck, she was already sneaking out of the house anyway. Phone books on the seat and tin cans strapped to her feet, she stole her parents' car and went for a joyride. She excels at sneaking around and driving is the only way she feels at peace anymore.



Finally, there is sweet Katie, happy to be entering the third grade. She's something of a tomboy and enjoyed beating up the neighborhood boys and climbing trees. She was, unfortunately, home when the undead struck and her parents were taken. Now undead themselves, her parents tried to catch Katie themselves. The little girl did the first thing she could think of, grabbed her bat and went to town. By the time Alice returned home, Katie had already re-slain over fifteen zombies. Alice shot her way through the horde around the house to get to her sister and when all hope seemed lost, Rose pulled back down the street honking the horn. Alice and Katie jumped out the window, rushed to the car, and sped away with Rose. The three made a pact to never leave another behind and to always look out for each other. Because if you don't have family, you have nothing.

No More Room in Hell

Last night Dan brought a game over to give a try - No More Room in Hell. It's a zombie skirmish miniatures game where everyone makes their character and starts fighting against the zombie hordes. You can make uber-heroes, decent back-ups, or hordes of sheeple, as they call them - relatively useless mobs of people.

We had five players, and to make the intro games go quicker, Dan went ahead and built the characters before the game started based on what people wanted. I loved the idea of the sheeple, but Ellen had a better concept than what I was thinking of (she decided to make a football team based on the poor guys in Beetlejuice - "Coach, I don't think we made it..."). Dan, Eric and Tanya were all playing hero types, so I decided to go with another group of people - the Three Amigos.

Dan did awesome in finding the perfect abilities for them.

Lucky Day was good at leadership and giving inspiring speeches ("In a way all of us have a zombie to face..."). The football team took to calling him 'Coach' because he'd stick near them and make sure they didn't book it.

Ned Needlelander was a crack shot, and had the fast draw abilities letting him shoot more at zombies that were carrying on around him.

Dusty Bottoms had the ability to disguise himself as the zombies and make sure they wouldn't come to kill him. I thought of him as disguising himself as "Jose the zombie!" when he was being hidden.

So the first game we played, we had to either baracade the farmhouse we started in or we had to get the truck outside and get everyone out. Since Dusty could hide from zombies, the Three Amigos rushed out of the house to go for the truck. Meanwhile, the football team started boarding up the farmhouse in case it was out of gas or anything, and the heroes started shooting up the zombies. Dusty got to the truck and found it filled with gas and had keys in the ignitiion. What luck! The Three Amigos started driving the truck around, running over zombies when they could, and Ned and Lucky kept shooting out of the windows while it was moving. We'd pull up to the front door, then drive the truck out of there.

The truck could hold six people in addition to Dusty. The first stop, four football players jumped in the back ("Thanks, coach!"). Couldn't get more because Lucky and Ned were in the truck too. We drove out, leaving the others to the zombie hordes. But Dusty came back with the three Amigos. This time we gathered Dan and the last three football players. At this point, the zombie hordes swarmed the building but Eric and Tanya fought away and jumped into the truck as Dusty brought it back for a third time we booked it off the table as the house was overrun by hordes of zombies.

For the second game, the truck ran out of gas on the highway. We started trying to cross the highway only to have dozens of zombies start jumping out at us. We were trapped! We split into two groups as two of the football players were pulled down and eaten. Eric, Tanya and the rest of the team went around the right side of the highway while the Three Amigos and Dan went around the left. The zombies started swarming after us, so the other side started trying to lure more zombies their way to give us a clear path. Dusty, pretending to be a zombie, managed to clear off the other side of the highway first. The luring of zombies by the football team ended up doing too well and one of them got pulled down and eaten. Meanwhile, the Three Amigos (minus Dusty) and Dan finished off our side of zombies and booked it for the end. The rest of the football team escaped, as did Tanya, but Eric, who had stayed back to try to clear out more zombies with his machine gun, got swarmed by a group of several dozen zombies and eaten.

All in all, a really fun game. It has a campaign system, so we might give that a try. We were looking at Hasslefree Miniatures (great site - check them out here) for some miniatures to use. I think my new trio will be the following:



Alice, the older sister, who acts as the leader to the trio. She is decent with a gun, but more useful for keeping her sisters from going crazy in the face of the zombie hordes.



Katie is too young to realize the danger she's in. She loves smashing zombies with a bat and is fairly reckless.



And finally, Rose. She is the driver of the group (I just love the idea of a 9 year old girl or whatever being the best driver in the group of survivors). Carries around phone books to sit on so she can see over the dash, tin cans to tie to her feet so she can reach the pedals, and the gas mask disguises her from zombies so she can sneak through them easier.