Cut Your Wins

Time to ramble about losing, again.

So, we lost our first Frosthaven scenario.  I don’t read the scenarios ahead of time, so I keep screwing up the special rules.  But, it was just not all that pleasant to play.  I think on replay it will seem really easy.  I knew the big issue for me was going to be running out of cards …  Well, okay, every scenario is an issue if you run out of cards.  But, it was a 12 round scenario that was explicit about that up front, and I’m not proficient enough on how to manage rests to really maximize staying power.

As much as it wasn’t all that appealing in the specific, I still think it’s enjoyable from the standpoint of seeing different things occur.

So, I have more going on in life in 2024 than in recent years, so I’m not as mentally invested in VTD as I used to be.

VTD 23 was last weekend.

Did three runs.

Friday night was team run.  With fewer players and given recent history, decided to do Nightmare.  It was easy.  Well, NM is always easy, so *shrug*.  I played polydruid and wasn’t able to do different elemental every room.  Cheesed Trollform only in rm6.  We got all of the puzzles with zero puzzle damage.

Saturday morning was Epic Double Down.  This was easy …  I only took damage in rm7 and never bothered to get healed.  Okay, the dungeon was just sad.  I ran monk and did my two attacks a round for 60+ when they hit.

Sunday morning was Anti-Cabal.  We chose Epic for obvious reason.  Not only was the dungeon easy, but the monster ACs were really low.

I died in rm5.  Then, I died again from push damage as we were only halfway through monster.  Rm7 monster killed three of our five party members around round four.  Fighter was only one still alive when time ran out.

Yes, they tweak dungeons over the weekend.  This was not like the others.

One of our players got mad, though maybe less at the difficulty and more at *how* the room was changed.  They changed rm5 so that the two biggest damage sources against monster were autonegated.  Besides that not scaling for smaller parties – consider the solo player who can’t deal any damage at all.  This sort of mechanic has been used in the past and continues to annoy players because it works against what is actually fun in the game.

Crits are fun, even I think so and I’m a sardonic, jaded cynic.  So, monk keeps hitting for 60 multiple times a round and someone else does something unusual and does zero.  It undermines rogue’s only good combat feature – Sneak Attacking for a lot.  It punishes barbarian disproportionately as barbarian has highest base damage.

I enjoyed the last run.  I got to see the failure video!  I would have preferred and even explicitly stated “I wish this was what Epic was like yesterday [earlier in weekend].”

It was a weird weekend where Saturday’s run was pretty much the least enjoyable as there was no good metagaming to do, no metagaming actually mattered due to sadness of dungeon, and it wasn’t really satisfying.  Yet, I still enjoyed it as a game experience.  There is a reason I still try to do at least three VTD runs every weekend.

Trying to relate to topic, I’m probably happier to fail a third of my runs because then dungeons feel like a challenge *and* it gets me thinking about how to metabreak the dungeon.  If just win all of the time, who cares what one’s build is, in which case why have I spent so many thousands of dollars on tokens?

What else am I excited by failing at?

Gamingwise?

Have had a couple RPG experiences recently.  One, I didn’t fail and saved the poisoned dude.  Had second John Carter session.  Unlike the first session, the pace of play here and the flailing about not accomplishing simple things was much more akin to my typical home play in recent years.  Did I fail at anything?  Well, not really in a mechanical sense as made die rolls, including die roll I wanted to make.  I suppose narratively failed to uncover useful information while tagging along on an investigation and failed to advance plot in a meaningful way and failed to interact with NPCs in any meaningful way.  That wasn’t a good thing.

But, this post is all about how awesome failure is.  So, at other times, while a feel bad in the moment, failing leads to interesting story inflections.  I’ve said as much before, though I don’t think I’ve used “story inflections” in this blog in the last 15 years.  I keep looking for failure in our supers play – something that hasn’t happened recently – because supers failing is important to making the bad guys seems impressive.  Not personal failure, so much.  Party failure.

Anyway, failure in RPGs I’ve brought up before, so it’s more that failure in other game types can lead to more interesting results, can lead to being enthused to try to do better the next time.

So, I don’t pay for pro wrestling except the one time I went to Wrestlemania.  I read reviews of Wrestlemania’s two nights and watched various highlights plus I still follow AEW.  One of my frustrations, which may be more of an AEW thing as I don’t watch WWE regularly, is that failure is so boring.  I tune out of a number of matches now not just because I know who will win but know it won’t be interesting in how the match resolves.  We need the disqualifications, the count outs, the non-title matches, and whatever else so that the loser doesn’t just have all of their heat killed.  The way AEW works these days, losers lose square if not always fair.  Then, they make a big deal about people’s win-loss records.

80s NWA, I expected heel champ to lose by disqualification a lot to hold on to the title but put over the face.  Now, you just see losers as losers and wonder why the other stars who aren’t allowed to lose outside of a PPV don’t get title shots for all of the various belts.

It’s just so extreme, when the value in success and failure is that there’s a slim margin between the two.  You know, like how sports is entertaining because upsets happen but not all of the time.

I don’t want to lose Frosthaven scenarios because they are stupidly hard – I want to lose when I don’t play as well as I could have.

I don’t want to lose TD runs because I don’t have every token in existence – I want to lose when I don’t play as well as I could have.

I don’t want to lose CCG matches because only five archetypes are viable – I want to lose when I don’t play as well as I could have.

I don’t want to lose in RPGS … hardly ever because real life is so good for losing, and it’s not a competitive game type, and being an expert in RPG play is not something I really aspire to.  But, it loses impact to succeed all of the time.  My understanding of modern D&D is that every encounter is supposed to be won, just a matter of how many resources used to win it.  That just sounds so hollow … that I have to mention this for a second time in this blog.

Amateur Marches On

Before Lafayette, played a three-player at local store using precons as I had just gotten the new ones in the mail.

Gangrel won as I couldn’t get through with Tzimisce, though my early game seemed pretty good and Papillon plus Homunculus was entertaining.  Gangrel could have taken out Ravnos but let them oust me even though I had no real way to do anything after a certain point.

After Lafayette, the coincidence of having the Prince of New Orleans in town for a couple four-player games.

First game, think the order was Devin (Lasombra blood denial) -> Ian (Salubri precon mashup) -> David (Procurers & friends) -> Brad (Brujah precon).

I didn’t like the number of minions David had as my deck was focused around block denial, but they were so squishy that it didn’t really matter.  I just kept drawing block denial over and over and over without getting any bleed cards.  I kept defensive stuff, including damage prevention even when far away from the real combat deck.  Brad eventually got David under control and got Devin down to 2 pool but couldn’t finish him off.

What I had no defense against was Summon the Abyss.  Oh, sure, it was technically blockable with the intercept cards I had in hand, but I never blocked them.

I finally bled David for 2, and he died.  Then, I survived a bit of combat and got block denial when actually useful to oust Brad with this funky, new card called Govern the Unaligned.  Devin scooped.

Game 2

Ian (Ravnos w/ Pre) -> Brad (Salubri precon) -> David (Lucian Orun bleed) -> Devin (newRavnos Animalism)

I could largely ignore Devin’s deck.  Ravnos SB would have been much harder to manage.  While Brad was away from table, David ousted Devin with bleed of like 9 at stealth.  I put Week of Nightmares in play.  David’s pool, though, was sucky, so he dissolved.  I eventually ousted Salubri as I had enough pool to get four minions in play.

Other

Okay, so I occasionally get in CCG play locally.  Far too infrequently.

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing more Frosthaven scenarios.  It takes 3 hours to get one scenario done on a Friday night.  I’d rather play Saturday but had other stuff I needed to do last two weeks.  This Saturday, may actually get two scenarios in.  I’m thinking I need to adjust playing Deathwalker to two-player play.  I think guides assume you have frontline characters.  I’m still having a really awkward time managing Shadows.  I was one turn from exhausting Friday night, which I guess adds to the drama and makes it feel like scenarios are a real challenge, but I know I’m being horribly inefficient in how I manage cards.

Meanwhile, one of those things I had to do was my first session of John Carter of Mars RPG home campaign.  I am not a Roll20 fan.  The logistics of Roll20 always seem insane to me when I don’t care about looking at maps as I can visualize scenes … in my mind.  Eventually got hang of basic dicerolling through my journal character sheet and the damage dice macro.

It’s early.  I can’t take away much.  But, the lightness of the system is definitely appealing to me.  The players are JC fans.  There wasn’t a ton of narrative development, and I don’t know if sessions are typically like this or not.  If they are, that’s fine.  The pacing is just so much faster than my other RPG play in recent years, so I do need to adjust some if this pace is typical.  Get in a mindset of “action, action, action”, perhaps.

We also did another playtest of Mutants & Masterminds for converting to that in the supers game.  I could totally pad out this post with a transcript of the combat against the Candy Crew.

Round 1:

Princess gets in. Mongrel – wait for others, Perception 25. Victor goes in, Stealth 27.

Princess crits Cinnamon Styx. Mongrel also crits Styx. Two bruises. Victor Dazes Gobstopper (doesn’t need to be passed off, Feint would be passed off). Kid Robot multiattacks Styx, another bruise. Xeno punches Wicked Licorice, bruise.

Styx mental flame aura. Mongrel dodge, 34. Victor, 18. Victor Toughness, bruised and staggered.

Gumball Rally appears and goes after Mongrel with nunchaku. Misses (with a 3). Licorice punches Xeno for no effect. Gobstopper gets gooey.

Round 2:

Victor Inspires. Princess bruises Styx. Mongrel hits due to Inspire, does nothing. Kid Robot bruises Styx. Xeno punches Licorice, crits, Licorice rolls a 1 and collapses.

Styx AoEs. Mongrel 22, Victor 14. Mongrel spends HP to reroll to 18, bruised and dazed. Victor spends last HP to reroll to 22, bruised (2). Gumball misses Victor (with a 2). Gobstopper punches Princess, bruised.

Round 3:

Victor Neural Scramblers Gobstopper, power attacks 2, hits easily, she makes DC 22 Will. Princess goes after Styx, still, misses. Mongrel crits Styx “Rawr, I hate cinnamon!”, bruise. Kid Robot Force Bolts Styx, 3 degrees of success. Xeno Eye Beams Styx, hits. 2 degrees of success.

Styx AoEs. Mongrel makes dodge, fails DC by 10, bruised (2) and staggered. Victor fails both and drops.

Gumball hits Princess, can’t hurt her. Choco-Nut Golem misses Princess. Gobstopper misses Princess.

Round 4:

Princess bruises Styx with all out attack. Mongrel misses. Kid Robot and Xeno attempt teamwork attack, Kid misses. Xeno does bruise on Styx.

Styx AoEs. Mongrel drops. Princess HPs to be bruised. Xeno ignores. Kid Robot ignores.

Gumball hits Princess, who ignores it. Golem grabs Priness, she shrugs out. Gobstopper misses even with Princess’ all out attack. Rerolls giving Princess HP, rolls a 1 but hits anyway. Princess rolls 20 on toughness to ignore it.

Princess all out attacks Styx, hits, Styx rolls 1 and drops … finally. He transforms into human while unconscious.

Kid Bolts/Xeno Beams Gobstopper, DC29, Gobstopper rolls 1, staggered.

Gobstopper throws Golem at fliers. Kid gets restrained.

Gumball doesn’t reappear.

Princess and Xeno both try to punch Gobstopper. End up setting DC37, Gobstopper drops.

So

It’s a lot more like the pre-pandemic days for me.  That’s obviously good in some ways.  I do have to adjust to having more to do week to week.

Also watched end of Wheel of Time season 2.  It’s more of the same – “this was so much cooler in the books”, “what’s going on with characterXYZ?”.  Now, I do wonder if the show can take this in an interesting direction with the Forsaken in season 3, where before I didn’t think they had anything interesting to say.

April is almost here, and it should give me an idea if I’m overextending some.  I haven’t had my regular Tuesday night design meetings or Thursday night Iron Empire sessions, so I may end up feeling quite busy.

I still need to get tokens together to send in a transmute box to figure out where I stand trade goodswise.  Plus, there are non-gaming things to do.

Refreshing to not be worried about L5R for a while?

Gulf Coast Roast – Lafayette

Why didn’t I write this a week ago?

I was exhausted at the end of the trip.  As is typical when I get back from a vacation, besides needing a vacation, I needed to get caught up on things going on here.  I had the time but not the will.

So, I was working up until I took an Uber to the airport Wednesday.  Got into New Orleans Airport around 11:30PM.  I had chosen to stay at an airport hotel Wednesday and Monday under the theory that I’d use the airport shuttle and it be less “involved” than staying downtown.  Sure, I knew that meant Ubering between the hotel and New Orleans proper, but I don’t know what I don’t know.

Like, I didn’t know until close to my trip that the airport shuttle stopped running at 11PM.

I get into room at midnight.  I get up at 5AM to head out to downtown New Orleans around 6AM as people are wont to do.

To get my 7:40AM bus to Lafayette.  So, I get my first experience of the city – I had never been to Louisiana before – by sitting in the bus/train station for over an hour.

Manage to get to Lafayette and Norm picks me up.  We get food, where as a first timer at the chain, they gave me free stuff, which I found curious as to how much they endeavor to find out whether someone has never been to their chain.  I make the mistake of getting a burger, but I wanted something easy to eat.  I’ve got to stop getting burgers when I travel even if the best meal I’ve ever had in London was getting a burger and fries (yes, fries, this was an American style restaurant).  He does some miscellaneous tasks, and I get something of a short nap, then we are off to Vidor, Texas.

Casual play!!

Because we get in early, we go check out the ABnB.  It’s a shack, with storage units on the property and nothing else.  It was beautiful inside.  Modern, straight, I found out the towels were really soft.

We get to Kelly’s store.  Time for six games of VTES.  Of which, I played in five, as I needed some dinner.  Standard thing for me to do in the South and Midwest is to go get some Chinese/Asian food.  I asked them if I could change the protein on one of their dishes, and they did that.  Also, it was actually spicy.  There are Thai places in my hood, you know, the San Francisco Bay Area, where the food isn’t spicy.  Not nearly as spicy as the Thai food got on the Big Island, of course, but not like the “Thai” food I’ve gotten in Northwest Arkansas.

First game, I play Blood Brothers w/ Vic deck.  I only took seven decks as I knew I’d have to carry all my luggage around with me a significant amount.  Logistically, this reminded me in ways of my trip to Stockholm.  I had to figure out how to get from Arlanda to where Henrik was, had time to kill until he got off work so walked around Stockholm’s islands with all my stuff, learned how to ride the bus, learned how to take train to get closer to Arlanda then bus when I left.  Certainly not precisely the same.  But, you learn from doing.

Only two of my decks were new, and one was modified from an existing deck.  Something about having work to do but also leaving things to last minute.

Procrastination for the w- … finals!

I think Clint, my prey, was playing Brujah.  I weathered some fighting.  Chance, my predator, was playing something that also fought, I think, kind of hard to remember as many details more than a week later after playing something like 17 games and drinking lots of sugar.  Then, there was the usual play of Deep Ecology by …

I was an ineffectual predator.  For one thing, I couldn’t get the right combat cards in hand at the right time to threaten prey in combat.  Not even with this geniusy setup.

Block those D actions with the power of Fortitude.  Hey, quiet, there’s actually a Blood Brother in the picture.

Stuff happened, I got ousted.  I was shaking my head when Clint was doing something, and it wasn’t for the reason he thought.  I was just shaking my head at the power of new cards.

I think it was game two I sat out for spicy Chinese food, maybe it was game three.  Game two/three, played Transfusion.  Table was set up well for me, so I got … two VPs.

Yup, set up well.  Good ole Dracon as predator.  Fortunately, I was there to support my good buddy and rescued … it from torpor and put a blood on him with Transfusion.  Then, after he got Animalismed back into torpor again, rescued good ole Dracon again and put a blood on him.  Good thing Transfusion has some use to it, right?

After ousting prey, moved around corner of table.

Fame was on my guy in endgame, with Kelly having 1 pool.  But, he had Edge, and I couldn’t get through and he could.

I, then, borrowed a deck from Norm.  I had his Vampiric Disease deck mostly working.  Norm was my prey, of course.  Chance my predator with Lord Tremere and others.  I would try to get into combat with Lord Tremere, but so did his predator, so Chance’s game kind of sucked.  I lost control of my position as I wasn’t really doing things efficiently and Norm gained pool.  We talked about changes to the deck.  I found the rush combat angle clunky.  Something else seemed off to me, but I don’t remember.

Norm made the deck more blocky and played it in later game.  I borrowed Chance’s Arika deck in one of these games.  Got down to three players, and I kept putting 3 pool damage on my predator, playing Dementation bleed to preserve the three player, ousting Norm with bounce, having double Banishment to buy me enough time to take a game.  Ha ha!  Victory!  With someone else’s deck …

You know, I thought we played six games, with my playing five.  But, I also borrowed Kelly’s Trujah deck and played it badly.  This was the game of infinite (or at least five) Golcondas, including my Golcondaing myself and my prey’s Cock Robin.  I didn’t do well.  So, that’s five games of my playing.

But, I’m pretty sure it was in Vidor that I played Tzimisce SB.  I know I was on the end of the table and just kept bleeding.  I think this was last game as I was trying to play something quick so that we could get some sleep.  I stopped taking pictures … of any of my games, only have food pictures left from my trip as I send those to coworker.

I know I got at least one VP.  That deck just peters out.  It lacks control elements.  The original version – Living Lolita Loca – is still probably better even with the stuff that was relevant when it won and not so much now just because it can swarm and it’s faster.  But, any version of this at this point leaves me wanting more bloat and more control.

We use the shack.  I had leftover Chinese food that I put in fridge and even remembered to get when we left.  Norm and I drive back to Lafayette.  We go to daiquiri place and meet up with Brad and Chance.  I get a burger.  Well, in my defense, this is their main entree.  I was not thrilled.  I also asked for fries crunchy, like I asked at other place for country potatoes crunchy.  I know why I bother – I hate making french fries.  I want some place to exist that does french fries correctly, like the Foster City Red Robin did in the long, long ago.  Of course they weren’t crunchy.  Keep in mind, I don’t drink alcohol (outside of special occasion stuff), so I’m just drinking Dr. Pepper.  Also, the dark environment may be vampire conducive, but I kind of like natural light during the day.  Not direct sunlight – my Fortitude dots are low – but side light.

We get to Sanctuary early enough for some set up and to play a pickup game.  I play Transfusion again as some different players.  Chance is in this game.  I oust Oscar and don’t remember much else from this game.  Was there another pickup game?  I don’t know.  I know there was a smoothie coupon at stake in a game, and Kelly won it, though he passed it to me.

Smoothie time.  So, I go Mocha Madness.  Good.  I spend so much time talking, thinking, and researching food these days.  I don’t really care that much about what I eat.  I care way more about what I drink.  What form of flavored sugar, anyway.

There’s a tournament.

Rd1

Norm (Barons) -> Brad (Brujah) -> Oscar (Nos) -> Ian (Ravnos w/ PRE) -> James (Gangrel)

So, this was a cluster.  Norm and Brad contend all game that they survive.  They contest.  James puts nominal pressure.  Oscar brings out Sheldon, Nikolaus, later Selma.  He keeps dropping Army of Rats, Creeping Sabotage, and … far more importantly … Judgment: Camarilla Segregation.

I bring out Delizbieta.  I feel like I had someone else who got beat up and I sacced to a JCS, but I don’t remember.  I brought out Ezmerelda, who never acted, having to blow up to keep me alive on my unlock.  So, I bring out another Ezmerelda … who never acts, having to blow up to keep me alive on my unlock.  Time’s a wastin’.  Norm is contesting with both predator and prey.  I put Week of Nightmares in play and bleed for what I think was first time in game at around 1.5 hour mark.  James doesn’t block, and I bleed for four.

Judgment: Camarilla Segregation proceeds to oust James.  Then, Norm.  Eventually, Brad goes under from multiple.  Oscar and I play out endgame even though I can’t really do anything to him as I don’t have enough free stealth and I just keep losing pool every turn.  Now, admittedly, the techy play would have been to blow up Delizbieta so that I had no non-Camarilla vampires in play, but I don’t know if that makes any difference.  Oscar can just Creeping Sabotage more or whatever.

Yup, “do nothing until my inevitable victory” kicks in, again.  This also begins the meme of the weekend (for me).  Best card ever – J:CS does nothing but give me game wins.

Rd2

Devin (Beast rush) -> Ian -> Dean (Nocturns) -> [blanking, had same name as someone else, James?] (Banu Haqim) -> Oscar

Devin was busy removing Oscar’s offense.  Banu Haqim had predator and prey both under control.  This was an easy game for me.  Minimum 1 VP.  Pretty much just waiting to get two.  So, of course, I wait too long and Devin gets unleashed and prevents my inevitable victory.

Finals

No decisions for me.

Sidney (Malks) -> Ian -> Kelly (Brujah) -> Devin -> Chance (Ministry)

And, so begins the rushfest.  Kelly placed himself last to give himself time against the stealth bleeders.  We think other positions would have worked, too, but he won, so it was the right decision.  I got Ezmerelda out.  She kept me alive.  Delizbieta learned Dominate.  Maybe I got out Gabrin, maybe I only thought about it.  I wasn’t ever really a threat, though I did bounce to Kelly, which concerned him.  I just weathered the stealth bleed as Kelly and Devin killed Sidney, so I survived two SB decks as team rush eventually made Chance irrelevant.  Obviously, my Sensory Overload on one of Sidney’s Malks was … irrelevant as it just got beat up by rush.

As is usually the case, you don’t want to be my predator with bleed.  Sure, I can’t deal with a lot of decks forever.  Just long enough that you will either die to someone else or burn so many resources can’t finish off a table.  Well, okay, this is just in general.  Next tournament we see me not impacting my SB predator in any way.

I didn’t get bled out.  Kelly backousted me with Reckless Agitation.  Yup, yet again being backousted by vote or crosstabled by vote.  Prevents those inevitable victories.

Kelly wins.

Friday night, I stay at ABnB with Chance, Sidney, and James.  It’s not as nice inside as other place.  Creaky floors.  Well, whatever.  I was comfortable enough.

Saturday morning, I go with Sidney to Waffle House.  First time ever for me.  I do have a picture, but this is a gaming blog (in theory).

I liked my patty melt and hash browns better than the daiquiri place’s burger and fries.  End up at Sanctuary and I get Pomegranate Plunge.  It’s decent.

Were there pickup games?  I assume so.  I remember one other pickup game I played in and it was later.  I don’t remember borrowing any more decks.

Grand Prix

Rd1

Ian (8-cap vote) -> ?? (Toreador gun) -> Clay (Arika & friends) -> Devin (DoC Crescendo) -> Clint (Malks)

I didn’t last long.  Oh, I got to play a number of things, including masters that cost me pool.  My prey did something quite odd.  Discarded Concealed Weapon.  Discarded .44.  Put Haven Uncovered on one of my guys and … didn’t use it.  He did pretty much nothing in the game.  Might have helped me to get rushed to cycle out of combat ends.

Anyway, I could have done 4 pool damage to my predator early on.  It just seemed too early to go that route.  Well, since Clint swept, guess it wasn’t too early.  I could have reduced him to like 4 pool with votes, and Devin may have been able to finish him off.  Because what Devin didn’t have was Shattering Crescendoes to blow up Clint’s board.

Rd2

Felipe (Imbued) -> Chance (Banu Haqim) -> Ian -> Matt (Gangrel)

I so easily could have killed Felipe at any time.  I did hit him for 5 with one vote.  It was argued that I should have backousted Chance late in the game, and that would have worked better than my not being able to get Matt.  Even with the power of three stealth Zip Lines, too much intercept around me, plus I lost vote control to the Banu Haqim.

Game timed out with my demise being the “oh, well” demise.  I tried to collapse the table for one VP, but the table didn’t go for it.

Rd3

Norm (Gangrel) -> James (Gangrel) -> Seth (J:CS) -> [blanking] (Kiasyd) -> Ian

Norm Thinged a lot.  Seth perturbed my predator.  I still ended up getting bled for a lot eventually, though there was hardly any for a long time as I was too busy to block early and lost interest in blocking later.  May have been a bunch of combat in the Kiasyd deck.

I do the usual thing in this meta, I bring out Sarrasine Advanced and Katarina Kornfeld to be utterly immune to best card ever.  As is apparently always the case in the Gulf Coast, someone else’s J:CS ousts my prey and grandprey, and I make sure to have the right pool splashes to sweep, only bringing out Sobayifa when my pool is sufficient.

Finals

I had a choice of seating.  I probably made the wrong choice.  Impact of that choice affected Justin.  Justin wasn’t in a bad position.

Clint -> Kelly (Gangrel) -> Sidney (Ravnos) -> Ian -> Justin (Ghede)

Well, I did virtually nothing.  I called two votes.  Didn’t help that I played masters costing pool rather than just ones giving pool.  Sidney decided to blow up the table.  Dropped Club Illusion.  Kelly won again.

So, unlike other games where I could have started backousting but didn’t.  I did look to begin the process, but it was too late.  My view was that my best chance was to salmon, as all “good” vote decks want to do.  I meet my rush predator in an endgame where I think I have the advantage.  Gives him plenty of time to rip up everyone else to stop problematic ousts, while I suck enough bleeds while salmoning that I can’t just build up.

But, then, other people could have played differently, too.  I think Justin could have started by crosstabling Sidney.  Let Clint do some damage to Kelly before blowing up Clint rather than first rush going after Clint.  Kelly still gets Sidney but may put some resources into defending versus Malks.  I’m hanging around.  Maybe that’s a hard thing for Justin to manage as it takes him time to get Clint off the table.

Last night at ABnB.

Sunday, Chance and I get brunch, where I make the mistake of getting another burger, then head over to daiquiri place.  I get homemade chips.  Now, being from California, I asked what the chips were made of.  While I suspected (and mentioned) potatoes, there’s tortilla and more esoteric stuff that seemed unlikely like plantains.

The potato chips were okay.  Unevenly cooked so some were too soft, some too crunchy.  Get to locale, get Blueberry Bliss.  It is ridiculously hard to drink compared to the Mocha Madness.  Had to drink some of it without straw.

Rd1

Clay (Ariadne Amaranth) -> Sidney (Tzimisce bleed) -> Ian (Banu Haqim) -> Chance (Tha/Vic) -> Norm (Banu Haqim)

And, so begins the day of no Judgment: Camarilla Segregation.  I must of have cursed us.  Us being Norm and me who were playing same crypts for most part.  His deck is much more Second Traditiony, with Anathemas.  My deck is much more Flamethrower.

I Magic of the Smith and get out Ivory Bow.  I don’t have a lot of pool, but I can survive all of Sidney’s stuff.  I DI his first .44.  He eventually gets a .44.  I Machine Blitz, additional strike him into torpor.  What makes me sad is that Clay collapses.  Norm gets Sidney pretty easily as Sidney was trying to play with two minions and doesn’t have much pool.  I get Chance through a lot of low bleeds.

The endgame is rough.  I have Flamethrower to beat Marduk.  Fame on Norm’s guy doesn’t help me much as I’m lower on pool.  We eventually time out.

Rd2

Norm -> Ian -> Jason(?) [yeah, my brain has smoothed over the years] (Choir) -> [sigh] (Tupdog/Nephandus) -> Dean (!Ventrue)

I got 3 VPs.  I maybe could have had more.  I possibly could have had less, where Dean’s game was awful.  My prey was not in a strong position, but he got 2 VPs.  Yet again, Flamethrower wins combats, where I could afford to contest late in the game, too.  Almost timed out.

Banu Haqim combat is really dumb.  My Kalinda with 1 blood tries to hunt and Norm blocks, leading to us both doing three strikes and stealing 1 blood each time.

Finals

I probably choose poorly again.  Being Brad’s prey usually works really badly for me.  I just wanted to be away from Norm, though my recent history of trying to be crosstable from like decks has turned out really poorly for me.

Brad (Anarch unnamed & friends) -> Ian -> Matt (Nos) -> Justin (Clown Car) -> Norm

So, Norm wrecked Justin with extreme prejudice.  I kept hoping to collapse to three-player with Matt and Norm.  Was not to be.  I couldn’t really defend against Brad’s deck.  Sometimes, Anathema and rush are better than Flamethrower.  In the three-player I wasn’t involved in, Brad ousted Matt, which meant he won regardless as to whether Norm got him or not.

At some point, I played my Black Hand deck in a pickup, with Oscar as my prey with boring old Samedi Bear-Baiting.  I don’t know how anyone puts up with the mindnumbing nature of BH decks.  Never again.  I do think I should play more decks with engines.  Just not my CCG style in any CCG.  At some point, I got an al pastor burrito from a nearby food truck.  With both salsas, that was quite decent.

I also got another Mocha Madness.  Was making me cold in the finals.

Sunday night, Dean takes me to my Lafayette hotel.  That hotel was better than the airport hotel in Kenner.  I got breakfast at the hotel that was tolerable.  I considered walking to transit center for my bus back to New Orleans, but I found a reasonable Uber.

My bus ride back wasn’t as nice as my bus ride over – a lot more people.

I walk from bus station to Turkey and the Wolf, which was suggested by card floppers.  I pass by some architecture, but I’m already beat up and need to eat.  I get the fried bologna sandwich, where you could barely tell there was bologna given the chips and Russian dressing and big bread.  It was okay.  My crinkle cut fries were crunchy.  Still undercooked but a marked improvement.

I Uber to Kenner hotel.  And, lie down.  Talk to my friend for like 1.5 hours while lying in bed with TV on.  Next morning, walk over to Daisy Dukes Diner for hot sausage po boy and red beans.  It was fine.  Too much sausage.  After taking half of it off, the sandwich was in a good balance.  Eating the other sausage was not terribly interesting.  Have a pic of this, too.  Never had red beans as a dish before.  I amount it to chili, so I cease to care as I eat chili all of the time, like last night.

I *did* actually consider getting the fish basket to have seafood in Louisiana, New Orleans adjacent.  But, nah.

So, my stages in New Orleans itself consisted of:  sit in bus station, walk from bus station to hipster sandwich shop, eat at sandwich shop.

I can check Louisiana off as another state where I’ve done something of significance.  Still haven’t hit the halfway mark.

Thanks Norm for organizing, for shuttling me around, getting the ABnB, and putting up with my harping on the Normkiller that is Judgment: Camarilla Segregation.  Thanks Kelly for having us at your store Thursday, putting me in contact with Texans to stay with two nights, smoothie coupons.  Thanks Brad for smoothie coupons.  Thanks Chance and Sidney for driving me around and ABnB.  Thanks to Dean for taking me to other hotel.  Thanks to everyone else for making it a really great gaming trip.  It had been so long since I saw Devin, I didn’t recognize him immediately.  I recognized Oscar, of course, and we talked quite a bit.  Really nice to be able to talk and hang out with other players.

My games were really fun.  Even the tournament games.  Even getting blown off tables and cowardly/iniquitously being backousted while at 1 pool.

That was a lot of travel logistics to deal with.  Norm suggested other possibilities, but I had in mind the possibility of actually touristing in New Orleans, so I thought my plans made sense.

What am I forgetting?  I don’t see a reason to post decklists in this post, anyway.  I do have casual play pictures, so I should do a casual play report for a couple different events sandwiching this trip.

Getting Frosty

After abandoning Solomon Kane (boardgame), we moved on to something else I got through Kickstarter and hadn’t unboxed.

Yup, Frosthaven.  To show my level of preparation, we got together at 8AM (on a Saturday) and spent 2 hours punching stuff out, reading the guide, removing shrink wrap from cards, etc.  My friend, who introduced me to Gloomhaven, is much more of a boardgame person than I am and much more of a Gloomhaven person, where he’s reviewing Crimson Scales.  But, since this is my stuff, he let me waste a lot of our time.

We did two scenarios between 8AM and like 4:30PM, with a lunch break.  I’ve since done some reorganizing (can even close the box, now!).  Thought we would do two more scenarios yesterday, but we had to cancel.

I’ve read various reviews.  I’ve even done stuff like watch a video on buildings as what you are supposed to build or even what you can build was a mystery to us.  So, my opinions on the game are colored by other people’s.

I really enjoyed playing Gloomhaven.  I enjoy playing Frosthaven, and setup and breakdown will not be nearly as bad next time.

Can see from that picture that I’m running Deathwalker.  I was extremely rusty on how play works.  I played very questionably in scenario 1, yet we completed just before I was about to exhaust.

My friend is playing Drifter.  I felt like I had too many shadows in play this scenario.  Second scenario felt like I didn’t have enough.  I think after some research that I have a much better idea how I want to play this class.  Because of my poor play, we had to leave a lot of loot lying around.

I don’t need the amount of components this game has, and I’m inclined to believe that many newer games have too many components.  The basic engine of do scenarios and play cards you choose just works really well for us without worrying about the townbuilding.

Now, on a tangent, townbuilding is something that isn’t done enough in RPG play.  How do I know?  Because I keep thinking about running such a campaign, in various settings.  Because I had a recent conversation with a friend about how she wants to do more of it.

It’s nice to just play something fun without baggage.  Sure, it involved 3 hours of setup and breakdown, which is suboptimal, but we have the time.  Hopefully, we play regularly.  Maybe even start building buildings when get enough gold.

DunDraCon 2024

My triumphant return to DunDraCon!

No pictures of the con as it didn’t occur to me to take pictures of any of my games besides the game I can’t share (see below).

I bought a badge.  Been ages since I bought a badge to local con, as I just run stuff.

And, that has been the problem.  Local cons have felt like chores.  I run stuff part of the time.  Help out other events part of the time.  Don’t sign up for events.  Don’t end up playing stuff.  Or, like play a pickup game I don’t care about that I could be doing outside of a con.

So, I made an effort to do stuff at the con.

And, I did.

I submitted my prereg choices like first or second day I could.  I don’t get into either of my Friday afternoon choices.  So, I crash a 2PM game.

Exalted

GM intended a 10 player game for 10 hours where we fight a god.  We have five players, so the adventure gets modified.  Which I think was a good thing in multiple ways, but it did have a problem.

We are Exalted heading to Cadun to find work.  Cadun is looking for superior adventurers to go steal Hephaestus’s hammer.  We talk about just going to find Hephaestus and act as liaisons between the city and him to achieve what city truly wants, which is to be an exporter of manufactured goods rather than raw materials.

We get joined by an all-knowing NPC.  We go through Hephaestus’s labyrinth (a very extensive dungeon).  Our challenges are all puzzles.  We meet up with Hephaestus, talk a bit, become his smith lieutenants piloting fantasy mechs.

So, what was good?  The ending was amusing.  Didn’t bother me that it got very wild.

Cons?  So, this is Exalted.  I’ve played very little Exalted, but Charms are kind of important to making you feel like a demigod.  None of our Charms mattered.  We never got into combat having a slew of combat abilities.  Expectations fail.  I would avoid all-knowing NPCs.  I’ve played very little Exalted, and I still don’t really know anything about the world.  It’s such an opaque setting to me.  And, I own the game!  I just don’t care enough to read more than what I’ve read in the past.  And, it’s a White Wolf resolution system, and those are bad.

Saturday morning, I got into my first choice.

Feng Shui

I have some misgivings about Feng Shui convention games.  Last one I did wasn’t fun.  Too many are just Big Trouble in Little China either as complete replays or essentially the same thing.

This was very good.  The adventure was based on years of a home campaign, so there was lots of content, content I didn’t already know, and it was coherently put together.  The GM knew the genre, so scenes went like they should.

We are all gang members (including the cops, who are functionally a gang in San Francisco).  We are at a sham wedding, where ninja attack.  The whole point of the wedding was to trap a sorcerer who was trying to sacrifice lovers for power.  We take that sorcerer down.  Our cop friend who set the trap dies mysteriously offscreen later, so we reunion to go hunt down the killer.  We uncover a conspiracy to do some magic stuff, with a giant snake shapeshifter being used as an assassin.  We take out a drug kingpin, the snake, and, finally, “The Necromancer”.  They may have been trying to bring back Gao Zhang, but this game wasn’t about the setting’s time war.  I played a sorcerer and got to lean into doing thematic wind magic stuff.  I’m in favor of my convention one-shot characters getting to do things that are interesting.

There was only really one con – Feng Shui system is bad.  I used to love it.  Oh, I thought some parts of 1e were ridiculous.  I thought 2e just made things worse by losing flavor from 1e and for really not being designed for anything besides one-shots.  But, having argued for years on how bad d20 is as a resolution system, how bad percentile is, how bad 3d6 is, up die/down die is just bad.  It’s just not fun.  It feels a system of failure in a genre when failure should be of the botch sort where things explode when you don’t succeed.  The initiative system sucks (and always has).  Attacks are boring.  It plays slow, which is the opposite of how FS should play.  2e schticks are boring.

There’s a reason I created Feng Shui Tu Huo, my homebrew Roll & Keep system to play a FS game.  What system would I use for FS play if not some homebrew?  I don’t know.  I think most systems are inferior.  One of my goals is to play more non-L5R … so that I can remember how much better R&K is than almost every other system.

1e’s schticks are so cool.  I get the IP.  I can tolerate the system when good GMs are doing stuff.  But, this sort of game shouldn’t be saddled with a system that is worse for action than various other systems I’ve played.  I can believe there’s a d20 system that is better for this genre.  It’s possible Mutants & Masterminds is better for this genre; maybe I’ll find out in coming months.

Saturday evening, I didn’t get into my prereg choices, so I went home.  Being old and decrepit, this worked well.

Sunday morning, I got into my first choice.

John Carter of Mars

Our Conan group tried playing Modiphius’s Conan.  We kind of hated it.  The oppressiveness of the metacurrencies was ridiculous.  We could just play d20 Conan, a d20 game I enjoyed despite it being d20 resolution, so why do we need to deal with Momentum, et al?

This was mechanically okay.  Maybe being a one shot and not being Conan, a game we played for 7+ years, helped.  Maybe having individual Momentum pools rather than a single Momentum pool helped.  Okay.  I still find all of these games that pull the player’s attention away from thinking as a PC and thinking like some GM/PC hybrid to be completely unnecessary.

Our group was really slow to do things.  However, the things we were doing were generally fun and mostly appropriate to the setting.  One thing this game brought out is that some of us really like the setting.  It’s really sad that some people only know JC from the movie, a movie I can barely remember which got his personality completely wrong and did some jarring things with the setting.

I was playing a bodyguard/duelist and got to do a lot of bodyguarding stuff for the daughter of our boss.  I didn’t realize for quite a while my character sheet said Firstborn, but I think I was essentially just playing the character as a red martian rather than a black martian.  First Born would make the character’s name make more sense as it didn’t follow red martian conventions.  I got to heavily damage enemies.  I got to avoid doing other things than fighting.  … ??  Yeah, see, I may not be normally into combat that much, and I may normally be into social interaction or knowledge crap or whatever, but I also appreciate being part of a party and knowing my role and embracing it.  In this setting, with this character, the only thing I should be doing is fighting.  If I was on my own, sure, sneak around, learn crap, talk to people.  But, I’m not.  And, I enjoyed fighting or choosing not to bother when the party was just shooting some poor animal to death.

Good game.  I might play more JCoM outside of con.

Playing this game, I missed our Traveller events.  They were very busy.  This just points out how much running stuff interferes with my playing what I want.

Playtest

I hung around in the boardgame room so that we could do a three-player playtest of the boardgame we are creating.  We have a long ways to go.  What’s interesting to me about creating games other than CCGs is that I may overestimate how open-ended CCGs are.  In both the CCGs Jeff and I worked on for extensive periods, I had a sense of play from very little playtesting.  With other games, I don’t get that same sense.  Though, that could just be that I’m a CCG expert in a way that I’m not an expert on other game types.  Or, maybe it’s that CCGs are inherently a much more similar experience to each other than I think.  Or, both.

Different boardgames really try to achieve different experiences.  Agricola is not Settlers.  Chariots Lords is not an 18xx train game.

So, I was reminded of yesteryear with DDC 2024.  I got some good stuff in.  I met more gamers even if it’s unclear how impactful that ends up being.  I saw people I gamed with in the past, including a VTES player that might play in the South Bay.

Am I motivated to run a RPG?  Not so much.  I did think about what running would be like while playing, including what running at a con would be like.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get enthused.  I imagine my running a RPG at a con would be too much like my running at cons in the past.  None of these three games have systems that get me excited by the mechanics of a particular RPG.

I’m planning on running Traveller CCG at KublaCon.  But, if Kubla ends up feeling like a chore, maybe I’ll attend as a civilian more often in the future.

CCG February, Part 2

Sunday was just as busy.  Gaming didn’t start until 1PM, though.

Played two games at Victory Point Cafe.

Game 1

Rick (AUS Ass) -> Ian (I Love Cheap Thrills) -> Mark (Saulot Wall) -> Alex (Newlubri)

Rick brought out Tegyrius, Al-Ashrad, and eventually Tariq.  He rushed me once through Priority Contract and Lost bled me multiple times.

I bring out Marino Reymundo Vásquez, and a Tupdog.  Later, Ladislas Toth, The Torch.  I drew barely any combat cards in this game.  So, Ladislas blocks Saulot’s Magic of the Smith at three stealth and gets beat up.  I had bleed cards early.  Drew bunch of Redirections, which would have helped, but I lacked wakes.  Then, drew Mirror Walks.

Mark tooled Saulot up with a large amount of junk so that he could hit for 6 Agg.  He had three other vamps.  He had early Powerbase Montreal, which I took, then Rick took, then Alex.

Alex got to do some stuff with Salubri, but he couldn’t really deal with the combat around him.

Eventually, Rick conceded to Mark, though it was funny to see someone rush Saulot when he could do 6 Agg at close.

Game 2

Ian (DoC SB) -> Alex (Ravnos SB) -> Rick (Toreador Vote/Bleed) -> Mark (Nefertiti)

I bring out Anarch Convert on turn one, and he gets various bleeds in and some Blood Doll hunts.  I put Yseult and Gael in play.

Alex gets new Ravnos in play.

Rick gets midcaps in play and one becomes Toreador Justicar.

Mark gets Nefertiti in play, brings out Khay’tall right before the end.

Rick just hammers Mark, so Mark is doomed.  Alex drops Week of Nightmares and finishes off Rick.  I bleed out Alex with Heidelberg moving J.S. Simmons around (I did play multiple Aires of Elation earlier, so Alex didn’t have much pool for me to eat through).

My comment at the end of the game, “You have now seen the true power of Polaris Coach.”  I had a Polaris Coach in my hand when the game ended.

Even with VPC being rather expensive place to play, it was a pleasant experience where I got to get home much earlier than expected, even had time to add yet another task for the day on way home.

So, we didn’t do a lot.  What was my takeaway?  I had one, I think.  I need to build new decks.  I don’t have much reason to build certain decks in casual play.  It was different from Shadowfist the day before.  Shadowfist requires far more … well, far more thought, though I’m not sure that’s the optimal word.  Even though the result of the second game was not predicted and not expected, VTES is just much more predictable in what happens.  It’s the surprises on the margin that make it sufficiently surprising, where Shadowfist is too swingy for how I play games.

Obviously, VTES is vastly more comfortable for me.  I understand situations far better.  Alex took out Rick a turn earlier than I might have expected, but it wasn’t unexpected for him to get Rick before Rick got me.  I had good pool after using Vessel, Blood Doll, and Villein with minions that had plenty of blood due to Concert Tours.

But, VTES isn’t so much about deck construction to me, anymore.  What makes the game entertaining is how games play out with all of the individual moves and the impact they have on the other players.  With Shadowfist, I don’t have the context of deck interactions to see the downstream impact of plays.  But, I also can build lots of decks that I haven’t made before.  Ultimately, in any CCG, a bunch of stuff is functionally similar or the same, but it still feels different because of theme.  VTES doesn’t have nearly as much theme to me.  The first game had some pretty anemic combats.  That was great.  I tried to point out that the appeal of soccer is not in scoring but in the potential for scoring, and the appeal (to me) of VTES combat is not in carnage but in the potential for … doing more than 2 damage to an opposing minion.

Playing a CCG, actually, playing any game gives me ideas.  Oh, I don’t necessarily remember the deck ideas I got from Saturday and Sunday.  As I’m attending a game convention this weekend, one where almost everything I preregged for was a RPG event, I’m not in a CCG frame of mind.  I actually have a variety of things to deal with, including getting around to sending in a True Dungeon transmute box.  My new VTES precons just arrived yesterday, so I can try to think of how to use even more new cards.

I’m just rambling.  Playing CCGs is great.  Wish it was weekly and not like quarterly.  Because of the discourse being competitive focused, it would be good if I could actually test tournament ideas, but I won’t be able to do that for … three weeks.

I can only play when other people play, so I hope others maintain enthusiasm for local play.  Deck lists?  I’m not as into posting VTES deck lists as the Shadowfist ones are much funnier.

Obvious next post should be DunDraCon 2024.

CCG February, Part 1

I decided to split this up as I want to post decklists from Shadowfist play, so this should be long.

Saturday, I played, apparently, seven games of Shadowfist.  This was part of our quarterly playday scheduling system.

Game 1 (3 players)

Earl (Monarchs) -> Ian (Multifaction) -> Paul (Multifaction)

My deck shall remain a mystery as it didn’t do what it was supposed to do.  In fact, it didn’t do anything.  Paul’s deck also didn’t do anything.  Earl won pretty easily.  I remember playing some foundations and Paul trying to get his second faction running.  Wait, some of this is coming back to me.

Earl played Flambards.  He played Fire Mystic.  He played Fakhir-al-Din for the win against really nothing.  One of my first two sites was Proving Ground, and Earl took it pretty early, and that was when the game essentially ended.  My Gao Family Banquet Hall slowed him down slightly.

Game 2 (3 players)

Miguel () -> Ian (Corrupted) -> Tim (Scrappy Kids)

I tried to rein in some recursion with Scroll of Pain in response to Inauspicious Return, but I only got one Scrappy Kid with it.  What smaller dudes I put into play just got wiped by Final Brawls.  Miguel didn’t have a lot going on, either.  Tim just kept progressing until victory.

Game 3 (3 players)

Ian (Ancestral River Home) -> Tim (as above) -> Miguel (Butterfly Raid)

I didn’t have a good start in that nobody was coming for my Ancestral River Home.  I finally hardcast Queen of the Ice Pagoda.  Someone did my Ancestral River Home in and I put out White Ninja.  I should have taken a picture of this game rather than the other games as it got dumber.

What was really dumb on my part is that my deck actually requires Monarch resources for certain cards, and I couldn’t get a second resource.  Not that it mattered as I had the game under control pretty much throughout.  Queen got attacked some but never went away.  They were concerned with Netherworld Returns, which of course wouldn’t be in this Modern deck.  Now, if Queen did go down, I could play Fire Emissary to … end up with smaller character and still have only one Monarch resource.

I won without ever playing Fire Emissary.  In fact, in the entire course of the game, only one card ever hit my smoked pile.  I finally got a second resource off of Aide de Camp (after I already had seized Kinoshita House and Fox Pass was doomed).  Miguel couldn’t get in the game as his Butterfly Knights weren’t threatening enough, and I started bullying his dudes.  Tim couldn’t get in the game between not being able to defend from my monsters and because I run Diamond Beach in this deck, which wrecks his strategy.

In the end, Queen had a Hovercraft.  White Ninja had Living Legend.  Beaumains was bullying.

I posted recently that the aphorism “I win because nobody else does” applies well to both my Shadowfist and VTES play.  I can win good VTES games.  But, I only ever seem to win bad Shadowfist games.

Game 4 (3 players)

Tim (Eunuchs) -> Miguel (Ascended) -> Ian (Badger)

Miguel kept messing with my power generation, using Sulphurous Cenote to stop IKTV Radio Outpost flips.  He had a much, much cooler play than that, though, in this game.  He was doing well, and he played Inside Job against me.  Inside Job where you play for free a card in someone else’s hand.

I had two copies of Attack of the Fifty Foot Badger in hand.  What he didn’t pay attention to (not that he would have chosen differently) was that I had a copy of Abandoned Old Shop in hand.  I had already discarded another Old Shop.  I got bailed out by the sheer geniusosity of my deckbuilding.

I play Abandoned Old Shop, bounce Badger back to my hand.  End up playing a Badger.  End up putting Specialist and Stance of the Wandering Toad on my Badger so that it would grow by 2 every turn.  Miguel had some annoying stuff, but he lacked fighting and stuff got cleared out.  I did Brain Tape one of his guys as I didn’t want to do mine when The Emperor left play.

Meanwhile, Tim was just winning.  Wasn’t like we did anything to his Eunuch army.  So, he just did stuff even with a Badger in the ‘hood.

Game 5 (4 players)

Drew (Lotus) -> Paul (Battle-Matic) -> Miguel (Battle-Matic) -> Ian (Corrupted)

Tim was going to get picked up soon and Earl sat out.

Well, I did stuff in this game with my Corrupted damage deck.  … just not Corrupted damage.  I put Stalking Horrors in play, and it had zero damage bonus.

Drew was quite strong for a time.  But, I Poisoned Wound his Infernal Army, and he didn’t have much in the way of characters after.  I never had much in play, though I was a threat for a bit.  Paul wasn’t doing much offensively, but he was in the game.  Miguel won.

So, this was a good game.  Everyone got to do stuff.  This was the game where I commented “If only Lotus had some way to remove characters.” as Drew and I failed to murder the souls of dorks with Battle-Matics.  Actually, if I had another turn, I would have drawn Incendiary Blast.

Game 6 (3 players)

Ian (SWS Ascended) -> Earl (Revivication Shard) -> Paul (Multifaction)

Drew and Miguel left.

This was a sad, pathetic game.  So, of course, I won.

My Bunker Security did a lot of early work against Earl.  This allowed me to burn for power with Old Buzzard and Shamali Storm help.  Earl couldn’t recover, having only Registry of the Damned in play at one point.  Paul was struggling with resources, then I took his Netherworld Trickster with Katerina Sa to remove his only Dragon resource.  I finished things up with The Mouse, never using her to steal stuff as there weren’t things worth stealing.

Game 7 (3 players)

Earl (as above) -> Paul (Monarchs/Lotus) -> Ian (Influence)

I failed my Influence deck.  I overcommitted when trying to clear out annoying characters in play, and Earl played Underworld Coronation.  After that, I had nothing that mattered.  Earl was impaired by Paul’s Sacred Wigwam.  I probably made a mistake not going after that.  We kept trying to rein in Paul, but it’s hard to regulate someone far ahead in three-player, so Paul eventually won.  His recursing Avenging Darkness was so, so bad for me.  Syndicate does not like having its characters messed with, and Catching Bullets never works for me.

Decks

I’m not going to post every deck.  Just the ones with fewer than 40 cards.  Just happens to include the two that won games.

Badger Time!
(30) Jammers/Guiding Hand

Jammers (14)
Characters (10)
4x Absolute Maniacs
2x Attack of the Fifty Foot Badger
4x Netherworld Scavenger

Edges (3)
3x Aftershocks

Events (1)
1x “What’s the Worst that Could Happen?”

Guiding Hand (4)
Characters (3)
3x Wasteland Gardener

States (1)
1x Stance of the Wandering Toad

Factionless (12)
Feng Shui Sites (7)
2x Abandoned Old Shop
1x Ancient Trollbridge
1x Beached Supertanker
1x Echoing Cavern
1x Golden Sky Island
1x Salt Mine

Sites (3)
3x IKTV Radio Outpost

States (2)
1x Brain-Tape
1x Specialist

Echoing Enclave
(35) Ascended

Ascended (25)
Characters (15)
2x Bunker Security
2x Cut-Out
2x Katerina Sa
2x Kennedy Rose
3x Old Buzzard
1x Shamali Storm
1x Street Rat
1x The Mouse
1x The Professional

Edges (4)
1x Deep Pockets
3x Long Term Investments

Events (4)
1x Anonymous Tip
1x Forged Orders
1x Inside Job
1x Playing Possum

States (2)
1x Framed!
1x Ghillie Suit

Factionless (10)
Feng Shui Sites (10)
3x Echoing Cavern
1x Golden Sky Island
1x Isolated Banyan Grove
1x Salt Mine
2x Sunken City District
2x Walled Enclave

River Running
(35) Monarchs

Monarchs (21)
Characters (7)
2x Aide de Camp
1x Beaumains, the Mongrel Knight
1x Fire Emissary
1x Lord Hawksmoor
2x Queen of the Ice Pagoda

Edges (3)
3x Summoning Circle

Events (10)
1x Amnesty
1x Avenging Thunder
2x Blood Lust
2x Brain Fire
1x Deafening Thunder
1x The Warrior’s Calm
1x Twin Thunders
1x Vengeance in the Ashes

States (1)
1x Soul Fire

Factionless (14)
Characters (3)
1x Sprung-Li
2x White Ninja

Feng Shui Sites (7)
5x Ancestral River Home
2x Diamond Beach

States (4)
1x Hovercraft
2x Living Legend
1x Public Enemy No. 1

VTD 21

Not a great sign when my most recent post was also VTD.

At the moment, 2025 token development is in progress, and it has just made me irritable.  I could rant and rave about how players should not be in charge of what game mechanics get made.  Oh, sure, they should provide ideas.  And, it’s not like players really make the decisions for this game.  It’s just constantly exasperating that players clamor for stuff that makes the game worse.  I should expect it.  I should also expect the publisher to care about sales and not what makes their product better.  But, even so, it’s just so discouraging.

Speaking of discouraging, half my runs had discouragement, though only a quarter of them for me.

First run was team run Friday night.  It didn’t go well (mechanically, anyway).  Whenever the group struggles, some players get frustrated.  Yet, to me, if we don’t struggle on highest difficulty with no dungeon knowledge, then where is there any challenge?  Without challenge, what’s the point?

Am I missing how different folks just get utility out of different things than I do?  Well, yeah, of course.  I always see flaws in things.  Everything.  Even if something is enjoyable, it could be better only if …  Well, maybe it can’t be better.  Maybe my expectations are just too high in terms of the types of value activities are supposed to provide.

I get utility from solitaire.  Multiple types of solitaire.  But, my expectations are different.  I don’t rail against the flaws in solitaire.  I know what they are and just flop with it.

It’s just hard for someone with my personality to not be more demanding given that the potential for certain activities is so high.  Or, at least, higher than the average.  Just writing that points something out.  So, let’s say you have a career .320 hitter (MLB) where going with batting average for sake of this analogy.  If I’m a fan of the player or the player’s team, I, of course, want that .320 hitter to go 4 for 4, 3 for 4, 3 for 5, 2 for 4, or whatever.  I want the player to do better than average … every time.  But, then, the average would be higher.  This player is going to have 0 for 4s, 1 for 4s, etc.  That’s the only way to get to the .320 average.

I have a certain level of intolerance with certain things.  Maybe I’ll follow up on this in my next post as my next post will be about CCG play, as I actually had gaming that maybe someone cares hearing about.

Anyway.  What would have made that first run better is if the DM had given us an idea that the final fight was winnable.  Based on my later runs, I think we were only 50 damage away from succeeding.  As a party.  With everyone besides one player dead.  That would have been … Epic.

Instead, it was just a death spiral with no drama.

Second run was Epic Double Down.  I enjoyed this run quite a bit as I was fully cognizant of how much the dungeon screwed melee and because we were so much closer to the right challenge level (still too easy but at least we had risk).  What this run reinforced is that the real value in VTD is doing the same dungeon multiple times.  Change builds, think about party composition, try to find the right challenge level to make it feel challenging even if victory is inevitable.

What about the puzzles?

The first puzzle was absurdly easy.  It was also the same as like two other puzzles in the past.  The second puzzle was so hard that even when multiple people had done multiple runs and knew the answer, still couldn’t figure out how to get to the answer.  When I finally learned the solution (by being told it), well, that was after my third run, so let’s get back to this run.

Third puzzle was failed Friday, got it here.  What was notable was even though my thinking leads to the solution and even though someone else got the answer from my thinking on this second run, I still didn’t understand the answer.  When I figured it out, I mostly felt that the puzzle’s creator and I just don’t think the same way.  To me, the clues are written in such a way to push me away from what was basically just an inversion of my incorrect first-thought solution.

The combats weren’t all that interesting.  The brutal room was the first combat in room 2, and it’s not like learning how to make it an auto-win makes it more interesting.  To me, the whole dungeon had good ideas that just needed editing to be more than good challenges.

So, why was this fun?  Because of the metagaming.  Because the metagaming was severe.  My Will save bonus on first run was +26.  In my three other runs, it was +3, +2, +3.  Knowing what won’t happen in a dungeon is freeing, while knowing what will happen opens up doing things wouldn’t otherwise consider.

I enjoy metagaming in CCGs, too, however it’s much easier with TD where you can know precisely what to contend with.

Third run was Anti-Cabal run.  It was okay.  Why wasn’t it better?  Maybe because I did all of my metagaming already and didn’t really do anything interesting with my build on this run.  Maybe because learned the solution to the second puzzle only by having someone just explain it.  Even the explanation was hard to follow.

So, the puzzle was clever.  Too clever?  Maybe not.  I do try to be consistent, even if I’m not as much as I’d like to be.  Consistency is being okay with the idea that certain rooms in TD are going to be hard enough that you can’t just deal with them after some … token … effort.

The third puzzle changed.  It was easy for pretty much every group as it had the same answer as another puzzle from not that long ago.  I didn’t find it that elegant, but at least there was an effort to create variety.

Room 7 was anticlimactic.  We went first, took monster down in four rounds.  The dungeon’s value to me was so much on the build level and not so much on the play level.

Fourth run, I was just poltergeisting, so it didn’t really matter.  Didn’t matter that I played at all.  Party was way, way overpowered for difficulty level.  My build can be summed up with “I chip in 35 damage per round and … that’s it.”

That didn’t help with increasing enjoyment.

Right this moment, I don’t really care about my damage tracking.  Doesn’t feel like anyone cares that I do it besides me.  I share stuff in part to hear myself talk but the other part, which is fairly important, is for the listener to get something out of my sharing.

I just don’t feel listened to.  That’s not new.  I don’t feel that my VTES comments on Discord penetrate.  I don’t feel that my Shadowfist comments on Discord accomplish anything of significance.  Many of the things I share don’t relate enough to my listeners or are too nuanced(?) to be understood.  Let’s say that nuanced is the right word.  If so, that’s not just on the listener.  The speaker has a responsibility to be understood.

But, right now, I don’t care.  If I can make an effort, listener can make an effort.  Or, they aren’t listening.  Which is a choice.  I guess I control myself but certainly don’t control anyone else.

Well, that was a post.  Maybe my next post will be more positive.

VTD 20

MLK Weekend meant VTD 20.  Yet again, not a Patron at beginning of the year.  But, then, 30 or so less people were this year as evidence of what we expected would happen.

Anyway, had four runs.

Saturday 11:36AM

Team run.  Epic.  We won fairly easily.  First combat was two rounds.  We won initiative like first three fights without having an elf in the party.  Final combat was three rounds.  Other two combats were three rounds.

The damage tracking was kind of interesting.  I made both the monk and ranger builds and the ranger build dealt more damage!  Barbarian dealt most, again, but was only hitting in the 80s with non-crits.  Here are the contribution to total damage percentages for the party of nine:

Barbarian — 18%
Bard — 6%
Cleric — 2%
Druid — 10%
Dwarf — 12%
Fighter — 12%
Monk — 15%
Ranger — 17%
Rogue — 8%

The puzzles didn’t do much for me, especially when the third was solved effortlessly (for the wrong reasons).  But, the dungeon overall didn’t do much for me.  It was extremely derivative of previous dungeons.  I was looking for Chaldea (Peter Adkison’s fantasy Egypt) stuff, and we were yet again on a ship and yet again had tentacles to hack.

Sunday 10:36AM

Anti-Cabal run, Nightmare.  I dwarfed as usual.

This run reinforced my ennui with these rooms.  Normally, this is my best run as it’s the metagame and chill run.  Even though we were actually in danger in room 7, could have possibly even failed, where I was one round from death, I found the dungeon just extremely boring.  So much felt like going through the motions with no meaningful theme to distract from banal mechanics.

Barbarian contributed 28% of damage, monk 25%, dwarf 19%, fighter 14%, rogue 15%.  Combat rounds were only 3, 4, 2, 4.

Monday 1:48PM

Epic Double Down forum run.  I barded.  Played with some big names in the TD community, including first time I think I’ve ever done a normal run with Trent.

I was AC 45 because I’m used to metaing for DDs.  I didn’t get the sense the other players were.  I took no damage in half the rooms due to high AC.  Druid and elf got chewed up even beyond elf cutting himself.  OTOH, elf would do 154 or 200+ damage on first round of combat.

Combat rounds were 2, 4, 3, 5.  I didn’t get individual contributions for two rounds, both first rounds of combats so elf contribution would have been higher.  But, barbarian was 20%, bard 8%, druid 12%, elf 25%, monk 35%!  Elf would have averaged around 110 dmg/rd, where monk averaged 141 dmg/rd!  When are we getting Mythic difficulty level?

The run was not as boring simply because the difficulty was higher, the group was different, and the threat to the party was real due to embracing offense over defense.

Monday 4:36PM

Epic Weird.  10 party members.  I polydruided and got to be each elemental form once as is required under the polydruid society bylaws.

It helped immensely that this was Weird so that the content was different.  The puzzles weren’t that different.  I don’t need Baby Shark playing repeatedly, but I’m also not triggered by such like others are as it means next to nothing to me as someone who doesn’t interact with kids that often.  Room 7, we faced Slimer instead of the librarian spirit.

It was good.  I think the team would be more into things if did Weird runs, though there was a strong player generated theme in my first two runs to add something.

To me, just a pointless dungeon when we should be doing faux-Egypt stuff with Poisoned and Diseased mattering, with Undead Touch Attack Effects.  I won’t be able to go through treasure for a longer than usual time, not that going through treasure gives me much joy.

Rounds were 2, 3, 3, 4.  Monk contributed whopping 22% of damage, elf 17%.  Elf averaged over 240 dmg/rd in room 7, taking off half the rounds.  I contributed 11% where 10% would have been average.  Only run with a paladin and paladin contributed 4%.  Put a different way, monk did 1570 damage on the run, paladin did 289, and I did 775.

I’m increasingly frustrated with paladin builds, though I should just stop trying to make ones for Epic play, as it’s just not an Epic class.  Rogue are still the most frustrating builds for me to make as they have no defenses and the offense is just all about getting 17+ on attack roll/slide.  So much more I can do with wizards, who don’t need to be able to hit anything.

Well, VTD 21 is supposed to actually be in Chaldea, so maybe it won’t be so boring.

I appreciate the work of everyone involved, in particular the extra work that Weird runs require.  But, this doesn’t seem this hard.  We’ve had interesting rooms and dungeons in the past.  Maybe different puzzles is hard, but the combats could just use mechanics used in the past or try something different like The Cube.  Room 7 monsters really need to have physical attacks so that AC matters.

Post Holidays

So, my holidays trip ended weeks ago, yet still haven’t posted anything.

Well, here’s a thing.

Prior to trip, got a three-player VTES game in.  Just usual Jackal play when prey has Ministry and other player has Banu Haqim.

Then, Badger gets busier.  Without much offense, only got 2 VPs.

Part of the trip was wedding and bachelor’s party all less than a week after Christmas.  Busy time for folks.

Brother’s brother-in-law won first two (real) hands as we played through East while Big Trouble in Little China was being watched by others at the Air BnB.  He may have played before, he may not have.  Both hands were fairly valuable, so when we quit, he would have been still like a 1000 points up with my being around even.

The primary activity for the bachelor’s party was riding roller coasters.  Only four of the nine roller coasters were in operation, and we only had time to do each once.  My takeaway was that the order mattered.  We did from most dramatic to least.  That’s not how to tell a narrative.  Felt anticlimactic.  We tried to do first one a second time but were probably 10 minutes too late as we got to the park very late as there was terrible traffic.

The relevance to gaming is obvious.  Should be some element of building to a climax.  Maybe there’s a different takeaway.  I hadn’t been on a roller coaster in so long I couldn’t think of one since riding the mini one in the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai.  I didn’t know what to expect both in general and in terms of advancements.  Oldening has also affected what affects me most.  What changes with knowing what to expect or not?  I’m not sure.  This post isn’t terribly profound, it’s more here’s what I’ve been up to for the last month.

I didn’t get to play VTES during the trip as the organizer for local play was traveling himself for the holidays.

There are always cases of ideas being generated when out of usual environs, but I didn’t really think of anything profound.

I did play Iron Empire while traveling.  We are still at Winter Court.  Mostly going through events.  Since returning, played more sessions and had a side adventure where there was even combat!  Of the three PCs, only my courtier took any damage, and I was in significant wound penalties and got left behind to hide in the muck.  Ah, the true power of playing low Honor character.  Survival before Honor!

When the Denver CRUSH group got together after the holidays, half the players lacked enthusiasm for continuing and our planned conversion to Mutants & Masterminds 3e from Aberrant seemed like it might not happen.  But, looks like we are going to go forward.  I had my first experience with M&M3e in a playtest session.  Our one combat scene took a very long time.  Apparently not just lack of familiarity with the mechanics on the part of myself and our GM (who was playing).  There are obvious benefits to dumping Aberrant as Aberrant isn’t intended for four color comicbook style stories.  It’s early, so maybe the system will feel less grindy when we play more.  But, I do think that rolling the same type of die over and over again feels more grindy than rolling different dice.

I can’t think of much else.  The subject line doesn’t even refer to the activity in past month but rather my situation currently with having the energy to look back.  I do feel that I missed many opportunities to post more, where this blog isn’t putting out much content.

Well, next post is obvious, but I don’t really have a plan for what after that.  We have a Shadowfist play day coming up in February, so something involving CCGs but probably going to be more RPG stuff with maybe some boardgames.  Then, I have a badge for DunDraCon – I have no sense as to what I’m going to end up doing.