Category: Gaming

Dorkstock through an AI lens

At a work-related conference recently, I heard about Google Notebook, which is an experimental AI that can parse information from your uploads. I decided to upload my past blog posts about Dorkstock as an experiment. I uploaded PDFs of six blog posts – 2017 (our second year in Madison), 2 from 2018 (before and after), 2019, 2021, and 2023. Please note that I experimented with Google Notebook because it’s only using my uploaded content, not stealing it from somewhere online. After feeding the blog posts in, I asked “What is Dorkstock?” I’ll note corrections inline.

Dorkstock is a mini-gaming convention held within a larger convention. One person described it as a “tiny little division of Gamehole Con.”

Origin
Dorkstock is a labor of love started by fans of John Kovalic’s work. Kovalic is the creator of the comic “Dork Tower.” [I don’t believe I’ve ever referred to John by just his last name; I either call him John or John Kovalic.]
● Fans wanted to create a convention related to his work and that of other artists published under “Storm Press.” [Missing the word “Dork”.]
● They decided to hold a mini-convention within a larger convention that John Kovalic was already attending.

Games
A variety of games are played at Dorkstock, with both scheduled and pick-up games.
● Some of the games are related to the “Dork Tower” comic, such as “Igor Bars.” [Bwahahaha… “Igor Bars” is referred to as a game!]
● There are also life-sized games, like “Warhamster Rally” and “Escape from Dork Tower.”
● Dorkstock has featured special guests like Steve Jackson and Phil Reed, who are known for games like “Munchkin.”
● Attendees enjoy playing “Munchkin” at Dorkstock, even running Munchkin Block Party events.

Location and Growth
Dorkstock has been hosted at Gamehole Con in Madison, Wisconsin for several years.
● It has grown from a one-day event to a four-day convention.
● There is a “Dorkstock coloring table” at the convention.

Dorkstock has also expanded beyond Madison, Wisconsin.
● There were at least two “Dorkstock UKs” and a “Dorkstock West.”

Personal Impact
For one attendee [me!], attending DragonCon and waiting in a crowded booth led them to the comic “Dork Tower”, which led them to John Kovalic and eventually, to their involvement in Dorkstock.

It’s not a terrible summary of Dorkstock. The follow-up question (prompt provided) of describing an unique aspect of Dorkstock focused on our life-sized games. Speaking of which, this weekend’s Dorkstock features the debut of Greed Quest Live, along with the return of other life-sized games. If you’re near Madison, stop in and see us – most of Dorkstock’s games are in a room upstairs, while the life-sized games are in the dealer’s hall.

All… do what now?

All hail King Torg!

Whether the table next to you is playing Kobolds Ate My Baby! or Knuckle Sammich, you’re going to hear people repeatedly shouting “All hail King Torg!” Last year, as 9th Level Games prepared to launch a new edition of Kobold Ate My Baby! through Backerkit, they included an option to purchase a plush kobold.

Prince Torg, a plush kobold produced by 9th Level Games

I don’t need another role-playing game I’m never going to run (please ignore the two others I’ve bought from them since then), but I definitely wanted another plush inspired by John Kovalic’s artwork. I mean, check out the teeth on that kobold… isn’t he adorable?

When he arrived in March, I wavered on what to name him. He looks a bit young to be a king, yet I wanted to pay tribute to those many games of Knuckle Sammich we’ve played. I settled on calling him Prince Torg rather than King Torg (all hail King Torg!). That led us to last week, when instead of saying all hail Prince Torg, it changed to all hug Prince Torg.

And that seems to fit.

Let’s talk about dice jail

Not surprisingly, I have a Quest Calendar again as my day-by-day calendar for the fourth consecutive year. Because each year is published separately, the rules are continuously improving, adding new mechanics to enhance the experience… that’s a fancy way of saying it’s more fun each time. The characters this year are anthropomorphic, and the first six weeks were spent playing one character a week to get a feel for their abilities. I settled on Quill Mudsong, a porcupine Spell Keeper.

Yesterday, while protecting some travelers, Quill engaged in five rounds of combat. Each round of combat required the following rolls: Wisdom (a failed roll results in the Attack roll being rolled twice, take the lower one), Attack (a successful hit allows a Damage roll), Damage (do enough Damage and stun your opponent, allowing you to skip the Defense roll), and Defense (a successful roll reduces the amount of damage you take).

Dice jail with 20-sided die trapped inside

As you might surmise from the title of this post, some of my rolls did not go well. I passed all of my Wisdom checks, but only succeeded at two of my Attack rolls, and only did enough Damage to stun the beast once. I’m not concerned about the hit points I lost; those can be restored through health potions and rest.

But the travelers I’m protecting… that’s another story. This particular combat came with a special mechanic of losing one traveler for each combat round where I failed to hit. Interestingly, I don’t know how many travelers I’m protecting, or for how long… the instruction provided a couple days ago was to track how many I’ve lost. Between the day they joined me (with a mediocre rolls) and yesterday’s combat, I’ve lost six; that’s half the possible losses across three days. But today’s rolls were made with a different d20; yesterday’s sits in dice jail presumably reflecting on those poor attack rolls.

Dorkstock 2023

Though the website never got updated this year (the logo wasn’t ready until a couple weeks before the convention), we had a fabulous time at Dorkstock, hosted again at the delightful Gamehole Con. We had a good assortment of scheduled games, some pick-up games, and the perennial Dorkstock coloring table which included this year’s logo in black and white. Here’s a copy if you missed out on coloring it at the convention:

This year’s Dorkstock included our Munchkin Block Party once per day – multiple Munchkin flavors running at up to three tables (depending on registration numbers), with an overarching half-hour rule that affects all tables (and change every half hour), and the new addition of stretch goals and rewards for achieving them. For example, one stretch goal was to defeat a monster while cursed; one half-hour rule was a +2 bonus in combat if you were wearing long sleeves. (It was pretty chilly in the Dorkstock room at that point, everyone had long sleeves on!)

Munchkin Grimm Tidings at Dorkstock, using the Crazy Cooks board for level tracking and cartoon figures borrowed from my Cartoon Frag Gold set.

For player convenience, we use a board from one of the Deluxe sets even if that Munchkin flavor doesn’t have one, which is how I ended up running Munchkin Grimm Tidings with a Crazy Cooks board. And just for fun, I asked the players if they wanted to use the cartoon figures I bring for Frag. It turned out to be a great game, with a lot of player interactions – well, Munchkinly ones, like messing with other people’s combat and asking for help against difficult monsters. Amusingly, the winner was the only player at level 8 when they kicked open the door and found a monster they could handily defeat. Another player slapped an extra monster onto the combat – one that could join that particular monster without a wandering monster card – and a third player forced the level 8 player to accept her help in the combat with a card, not realizing that defeating two monsters would give him the two levels he needed to win.

Pavlov's Dogs at Dorkstock, always a challenging and silly game.

We also welcomed 9th Level Games to Dorkstock this year, celebrating their new version of Kobolds At My Baby! with a frequently crowded table of players shouting “All hail King Torg!” We also had Pavlov’s Dogs and Schrödinger’s Cats on our schedule, followed by an impromptu Knuckle Sammich (also including random “All hail King Torg!” shouts). Immediately following the convention, they launched a Kickstarter for Scurvy Buggers, described as “a found family RPG.” It’s fully funded and they’ve already hit their first stretch goal, so now’s a great time to pick up an easy-to-learn pirate RPG. I look forward to playing it at next year’s Dorkstock.

The alternate owlbear at Gamhole Con - the official owlbears, leftover from a previous Gamehole Con and discovered in a warehouse, sold out; another vendor had a different style of owlbear.

Our life-sized games: Warhamster Rally, Escape from Dork Tower, and Kill Doctor Lucky, were located just inside the dealer’s hall, and I’m happy to report that Doctor Lucky was in fact killed in all four runs. (It was really close on one of them, there were less than five minutes left when Doctor Lucky finally died.) Alas, I did not get any photos of the life-size games this year. I did, however, take a photo of this cute owlbear at the Imagining Games booth. (Yes, one came home with me. And yes, I’ve hugged an owlbear today.)

Pokémon Go, Timed Investigation: Master Ball

Pokemon Go screenshot showing Timed Investigation: Master Ball goals

I mentioned a while ago – almost 5 years now! – that I play Pokémon Go as a way to motivate myself to get outside and walk. (In winter, that’s get into the garage and use the treadmill now that it can integrate with Google Fit.) Part of the basic functionality is research goals – timed, field, and special research. The field research comes from spinning stops when they’re nearby, whereas the special and timed ones are generated by the system. The timed ones vary from single day events to months-long challenges, like the GO Battle League challenges and this Master Ball challenge.

If you’re looking at the screenshot, you’ll notice some of those numbers (goals) are quite high… catch 1000 Pokémon! Complete 150 Field Research tasks! The reward is what makes it worth it… in addition to a bunch of stardust and experience points, there’s a Master Ball. And 80 days to complete all of it. (My timing was lucky, it started the day I went to a heavily Pokémon-ed area.)

There are three types of balls normally used in the game: Poké Ball, Great Ball, Ultra Ball. Increasingly powerful and increasingly rare, these balls are accrued by spinning stops and gyms and by opening gifts (received by… spinning stops and gyms) with your Poké Friends. The type of ball you want to use will depend on the level of the Pokémon you’re trying to catch and its difficulty (beyond the level – some are just harder to catch). As a general rule, I use a Poké Ball for anything under 400 CP, a Great Ball up to 800 CP, and an Ultra Ball above that. (For additional context, my highest CP Pokémon is currently 4248.)

Some Pokémon are just harder to catch… they’re elusive, appearing only occasionally, and likely to flee after one successful throw unless they actually stay contained. A successful throw means you hit the Pokémon with the ball and see it captured… it doesn’t always stay caught though. There are all sorts of calculations going on behind the scenes, with better throws (towards a diminishing circle) and curveballs adding bonuses that will help the Pokémon stay caught.

And then there’s the Master Ball… it has a 100% catch rate. When you get one, you save it for a hard to catch Pokémon.

Will I succeed at completing all of these goals? I have my doubts on completing 60 raids and the 120 Excellent Throws (that’s hitting a tiny circle on the Pokémon) in that time, but I’m certainly going to try.

Will you join me in donating to support trans rights in exchange for RPGs?

I have a few things I want to post about – a fabulous movie we watched this week, a book or three I want to share – but this seems more important at the moment. Several states, including Florida, have recently passed bills targeting trans and queer people, including removing books from schools that mention LGBTQIA+ topics. Florida in particular is actively removing topics from their public universities, hampering the education students selected when they chose to pursue a degree there.

I don’t know if the politicians making these decisions honestly believe the bullshit they’re spouting, or if they’re just trying to rile up voters leading into the next (painfully long) presidential election cycle. What really matters is that they are hurting people in the process: LGBTQ youth who are unsupported by family or community as they figure out who they are in life have higher suicide rates.

Back to RPGs, or Role-Playing Games (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, Dungeons & Dragons is probably the most famous of those)… for a $5 (or more) donation, you can buy this bundle with 505 TTRPG-related items. (The TT stands for Table Top, as RPGs are traditionally played sitting around a table.) If you donate $10 or more, there’s an added supplement available to you (woot! 506 items!).

What are you waiting for? The offer is only good through the next 22 days.

Broadway in Chicago presents The Twenty-Sided Tavern

Occasionally, we venture into Chicago to see a live performance somewhere other than the Paramount Theatre, and The Twenty-Sided Tavern has a level of geek appeal that most stage performances don’t: it’s essentially a role-playing adventure on stage. In fact, it includes some of the randomness of your average tabletop game… specifically, dice. Oh, and audience participation. There are no real spoilers, it’s improv with reactions to the dice and audience decisions, so each show will be different.

As you enter the theatre, after scanning your tickets, you are told to scan a QR code to access an important feature of the performance: the audience interaction. Your playbill includes a sticker which links you to one of the three character classes: fighter, mage, or rogue. Keep your phone out – you’re going to need it, and please do take photos, they said.

One of the first audience actions is to pick the character for their class between three offered characters. The results are displayed as the votes are still coming in, and you’ll see this functionality at various points throughout the show. You’ll also see the dice as they’re rolled, zoomed in on each character’s dice tray.

The cast clearly enjoys what they’re doing, though the photo above may be when two of them lost the rest of their hit points due to some overzealous audience participation. To be fair, the natural 20 rolled in the fiery skeletal giraffe’s favor a couple minutes earlier set the stage for that crisis.

Twenty-Sided Tavern is playing in Chicago through January 15th, so you still have a chance to see it!

Beginning a new adventure in the Avatar Legends RPG

Last summer, Avatar Legends: the Roleplaying Game appeared on Kickstarter and was well received – to the tune of 81,567 backers. Not surprisingly, I was one of them, and that was before my gamemaster announced her intention of running a game in that world. It raised over $9 million (which sounded amazing until Brandon Sanderson started his Kickstarter).

Using the Quickstart guide, we each picked a playbook and designed our characters, knowing that some adjustments might be needed once the full book was released. We discussed when to set our adventure, deciding to avoid the well explored time periods surrounding Avatar: the Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, settling instead for the era when Aang has disappeared and the Fire Nation has just unleashed war on the other nations.

My character, Yeshe, is a traveling bard and storyteller, so I decided to write her background into a letter to her mentor. 

Hitomi Nakai
Mistress of Word and Song
Iron Brew Tea House
Ba Sing Se

Day of the Comet
To the noble and esteemed Hitomi,

I hope you continue in good health in Ba Sing Se, and I appreciate your understanding of my reluctance to return to that city which generates the mixed emotions of meeting you and my abandonment, albeit accidental, by the monks of the Air Temple on that oddly fated field trip.  As you instructed, I have set out to gather stories across the Kingdoms, and have landed myself in the middle of what may be a momentous historical event. 

Per your recommendation, upon arriving in Piper Tower I immediately sought out a prominent Tea House.  I had been chatting with the locals at the Mud Pearl, mainly about the occasional difficulties in dealing with stubborn Fire Nation merchants that frequent these docks, when an exceedingly pregnant Air Nomad waddled in.  She had barely settled in on a sturdy bench when the skies began to darken as the hundred year comet approached.  I was gathering my belongings, anticipating watching the comet’s crossing from the docks, remembering how special an event you said this would be for all of you firebenders, when a young firebender burst into the Mud Pearl, shouting that the Fire Nation was attacking.  This was followed immediately by a plop of water hitting the dirt floor; the Air Nomad’s birthing process had begun at a most difficult time, and she yelled repeated about waiting for her young boyfriend, Tora. 

I followed several people, including the young firebender who had brought the news, outside, and heard others bar the door behind us to protect the woman’s childbirth.  In the ensuing chaos, the others fought off Fire Nation soldiers who were actively destroying buildings and harassing people.  I ran up to the less involved, the idle soldiers, asking for the missing Tora.  I began to despair for the young woman’s loved one when a soldier responded “You mean General Tora?”  Now, instead, I despair for the young woman. 

With her infant son in her arms, the young woman fled with several followers from the Mud Pearl, myself included, to her air bison, waiting just outside of town.  En route, we encountered none other than the General himself, who offered to keep the woman, named Bindi, safe from the fate of her fellow Airbenders if she goes with him.  Another fight might have ensued had it not been for a hapless melon merchant, rushing through the street with his cart, who crashed into the General, allowing us to escape.

As we were traveling on her air bison, Rini, Bindi shared the news that she seeks her nephew, who may be the next Avatar.  Good Hitomi, I hope you are able to discover what General Tora meant regarding the fate of the Airbenders, as his statement was most ominous.  I shall travel with these people as far as I am able to see how this story progress, writing always with the turtleduck quills you so generously provided.  

Your loyal student,
Yeshe

Are you playing Avatar Legends? I don’t say this often, but… tell me about your character.

A look at some Wordle variants

As mentioned recently, Wordle has taken the online world by storm, drawing people in with the once-a-day challenge. Like many popular games, it has spawned variants, some keeping the challenge related to language(s), and others branching out into other subjects.

There are, apparently, variants for specific fandoms, such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars (includes dashes so you can guess droids), Taylor Swift, and Pokémon; I only recently learned of those, and would probably struggle with them. I had heard of Lewdle (the name says it all) and apparently there’s also a Sweardle (also fairly obvious). I’m not particularly good at trivia, even for fandoms I enjoy, and my usual vocabulary doesn’t seem to work well for those last two. In addition to the original game, I am enjoying these variants:

Globle, a geography game where you try to guess today’s country. The color of the guessed country indicates proximity to today’s answer. There is no limit to the number of guesses, I’ve ranged anywhere from three (on a lucky day) to twenty guesses so far.

Nerdle, a math game with a calculation to determine. There are only eight spaces, and one of them is always an equals sign, so they’re fairly simple calculations.

WordleGame, not for their English remake – I like this one for the selection of foreign languages. I occasionally remember to visit it and try the Spanish puzzle for the day.

The big one… and I mean that literally, is Quordle:

Quordle image showing 4 squares of completed word puzzles

Instead of one word, you’re trying to match four. The difficulty is that all of your guesses apply to all four quadrants, so a guess that helps you on the first word may give you no new letters on the fourth one. To balance out the increased difficulty, you have nine guesses instead of Wordle’s standard six.

Which, if any, is your favorite Wordle variant?

Quest Calendar’s diverse characters

I wrote extensively about the Quest Calendar last year, keeping a journal of my character’s adventure (starting here) throughout the year. I’m not doing that this year. In fact, I didn’t expect to be posting about the Quest Calendar at all, but I wanted to highlight some of the enhancements they included in their 2022 product.

Like last year, all of the character sheets are available as PDFs on their website. In addition to a new set of characters, they made last year’s characters available on a re-designed character sheet, as well as equipment and inventory sheets. These will be incredibly useful on this year’s adventure.

Six Quest Calendar characters with background and portrait

But this post isn’t about inventory or equipment, it’s about the diversity of characters they chose to include. Last year, they hit most of the main character classes you would expect in a fantasy setting, plus a few extras (with some duplicates due to Kickstarter options, I believe). You pick your character a couple weeks into the year, after working through the mechanics with a sample adventure.

Look at this year’s selection: Machine Artificer (robot? droid?), Half-Demon Swashbuckler, Human Cleric (there wasn’t actually a straight up cleric in last year’s selection), Feline Monk, Draakon Elementalist, and Avian Necromancer. My goodness, what an interesting selection!

Last year, I chose to play the half-elf druid, and Cassandra picked the gnome thief. This year, it was a tough choice. I briefly considered the cleric, and of course contemplated the feline monk, but the final selection actually came down to the avian necromancer and the half-demon swashbuckler. Both of them are entirely different from last year’s druid, and after some consideration, I opted for the half-demon swashbuckler.

I’m not planning to keep a character journal this year, so if you want to follow the story, I’d check their website to see if calendars are still available. If you’ll excuse me, I have to follow some children down a dry well to see where they’ve wandered off to. Their parents are worried.