Gaming – Page 4 – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

The Quest (calendar) continues… part 5

Having discuss the Quest calendar mechanics last week, the Quest continues where part 4 left off.

As we approached the city, an idiot guard accused me of having kidnapped Victor Fellmont, and attacked me as we were entering! We managed to slip past him after he stabbed me with his spear. Fellmont was soundly chastised by his fater, then I was sent to meet Rufus Saltworth, his head guard, for my payment. I talked him into a bit extra for my troubles, and he offered to hire me to deal with other unusual activity in the city.

As I wandered the city, heading back to the inn, Luc scurried under my cloak as an eagle swooped down at us. He landed on a nearby lamp post, staring at me with a look that said “You’re mine now.” It was not dissimilar from how Luc adopted me. I carefully reached out and touched his head, and the name “Richard” flashed through my thoughts.

He followed me as I wandered through town, picking up some meal rations, getting my bow and arrows fortified, and finally sitting down to a nice meal at the Thirsty Devil Tavern. As I was strolling back towards the inn I stayed at previously, some idiot stabbed me and stole my coin purse. The joke was on him though, I only had four gold pieces left. (I’d better find another job quickly!) Well, except it meant I was empty-handed when I passed some beggars a few minutes later.

I saw a guy pick a merchant’s pocket, then turn around and buy food. Hesitantly, I approached and asked him to return the money. He shouted at me and stormed off, dropping some coins in the process. Then I checked the job board again. The choices were… interesting.

I picked up a job as a chef’s assistant. The title was misleading, all I had to do was taste the terrible food. I threw up all over the kitchen, but earned some coin in the process. Then I tried to find out who was stealing pies – from a better cook, obviously. No luck there. I founded it out by going after rats in someone’s basement, which paid nicely.

Having replenished my coin, I stopped at the Thirsty Devil Tavern again for a drink. There was a table with a game of King’s Cards, so I joined for a bit. I walked away with almost double my starting purse, to a round of groans because I quit while I was ahead. As I was leaving, one of the other players was accused of cheating, which started a brawl. Having no interest in the fight, I scurried out of the way, grabbing a few coins from the floor as I headed to the door. Somebody must have hit me, I woke up under a table during the clean up, just as the city guard arrived and started arresting people. I slipped out the side door before they could grab me. Then I strolled back in the front door and booked a room for the night.

The Quest calendar mechanics

I realized I haven’t talked about the mechanics for the Quest calendar. There are days where you make choices and others, like the main combat situations, where you’re just rolling dice. The back of the previous day’s page has instructions on how to resolve any dice rolls or choices you make.

Attack rolls in combat use a 20-sided die (d20), the character’s attack score (mine is currently +4), any weapon bonuses, and any special skills you choose to use (my companion weasel will add a +2 to an attack once a day). A successful hit results in a damage roll, which I currently have at 2 6-sided dice (2d6). A successful hit and enough damage will usually prevent the opponent from hitting back. (They offered a set of mini-dice as an add-on to the Kickstarter, in case the buyer didn’t have the appropriate dice. Or just needed to compulsively add to a dice collection.)

There are days when you pick from a selection of choices, which allows the various character classes to pick something best suited to their skillset, such as dealing with the grate in part 1. That day offered three choices: pick the lock (using dexterity), force open the lock (using strength), or smash the lock (just a damage roll). My character has a higher dexterity than strength, so I tried that first. If that had failed (like when I dealt with a lock in part 4), I could have tried one of the other options.

The dice roll resolutions are typically two or three ranges… either a basic pass/fail situation (failing tends to incur damage); or pass (great job, no damage type situation), pass (with some damage) or fail (without damage or with less damage than the next level of failing), and fail with damage.

For example, while descending the ladder in part 1, I wrote: “As I climbed down, I was hit by an overwhelming stench. Sad to say, I lost my lunch on that ladder, and lost my grip as well.“

This was a roll against my Constitution, which was a -2. I rolled badly enough on a d20 that my total fell into the “5 or less” result, which resulted in vomiting and falling off the ladder, reducing my health by 2. At the time, my starting health was 10.

There are also exploration pages, either during an adventure (the caves where Fellmont was being held) or between adventures (shopping and such in the city), where a map is presented and you decide which route to take or locations to visit. During the adventure, the extra risk of exploring further brings the possibility of additional treasure.

Of course, the character has to level up at some point, and this is handled by either updating the original character page, or printing out the appropriate level from the Sundial Games character sheet page. The level sheets account for every bit of leveling up except which attributes you want to increase this time. And they have mechanics for resurrection in case of character death.

All in all, they did a nice job of setting up a little daily entertainment while giving the players some choice in how they reach the grand finale.

The Quest (calendar) continues… part 4

I’m enjoying this so much, I’ve already ordered the 2022 Quest Calendar on Kickstarter. My adventure continues where part 3 left off.

Three tunnels branched in the cave. One smelled foul, perhaps their equivalent of a latrine, and another was littered with bones. I choose the tunnel with light from a distant fire, thinking if Fellmont was still alive, he’d be with the goblins. I surprised a goblin, but tripped and missed my shot. It managed to hit me with a sword, then ran off. I snuck further in until I saw a rope bridge, with a single goblin guarding it. I tried to sneak past, but he must have heard me, since he flung an axe my direction.

Further in, I found another band of goblins, noticing them first by the stench. We fought, two of them hit me before fleeing. I only hit one of those two, but killed their big friend, which I suppose scared them off. I paused to heal myself, figuring I was going to run into those guys – or their friends – again.

There were a surprising number of distinct rooms in those caves. I decided to minimize the number I actually entered, listening at the entrances or peeking in to see if they were lit. The stench from some was terrible. The goblins steal food and let it rot. It’s as absurd as leaving those dead horses and feeding people to the wolves.

The only excuse for tripping on that wire was the darkness in the caves. I avoided most of the falling boulders that it triggered. As luck would have it, I found Victor Fellmont in the next room, locked behind wood and bone bars. I failed to pick the lock, so I tried to force it open. No luck there either. I finally just picked up a rock and broke it.

The noise attracted the biggest goblin I had seen yet, along with his pets – another wolf and a bugbear. I got a lucky shot on the wolf, killing it instantly, then engaged directly with the bugbear. We both got some hits in, then Luc helped me finish him off, scurrying between his feet to distract him. His mace was too heavy for me, but the bugbear’s shield – presumably stolen from some deceased traveler – was perfect.

As long as I was looting the bodies, I decided to check the room too, finding a locked trunk. I searched for a key, then gave up and picked the lock. The bugbear had a decent stash of coins and a health potion that I tucked away. Then we snuck out of the caves, getting a good distance away before setting up camp for the night. Victor used a bit of magic to start our fire, and I took the opportunity to ask what had happened to him. It turns out he was apprenticed to the missing court wizard, Godwin the Great, and suspected him to be a traitor, so he set out to find him or related proof.

I was startled awake the next morning by giant bearfrogs attacking our camp. Luc and I took out most of them, but one rammed into me pretty hard before retreating into the water. I quickly packed up the camp, retracing the route back to West Haven. We did pause en route to cook a rabbit I caught, and never ran out of fresh water.

The Quest (calendar) continues… part 3

I’ve certainly never had this problem before… some days, I’m tempted to flip ahead to see what’s coming on the calendar. I haven’t, but it is tempting. I’m also enjoying the daily writing exercise, though it varies how much there is to add. Anyways, the adventure picks up where part 2 left off.

Then I spotted a missing person poster, with a reward of thirty gold! I jumped on that offer, starting with a little reserach on the missing man, Victor Fellmont. It seems he disappeared a few days ago, soon after the court wizard went missing. There’s someone who frequents the inn I’m staying at that may have a lead on where he went.

Of course, it’s a dwarf, though more sober than the last one I tried talking to. He wanted five gold for information on Fellmont’s last known location. I tried to talk him down on the cost, in the interest of saving a life, but in the end, handed over the coins. He marked the spot on a map where his team abandoned the search when they were attacked by goblins.

I realize, as I’m heading into the unknown, both in terms of danger and territory, that I should leave some details about myself. If something happens to me, please deliver this journal to Wiel Leafwind, and inform her that it belonged to her sister, Faris. She’ll likely criticize my adventuring lifestyle, but our parents were traveling merchants – a trade she picked up – and they were murdered by bandits.

Before heading out, I stopped by Filly’s, thinking that rations and health potions would come in handy. A compass would be useful too, but I don’t have that much money to spare. I left West Haven following the dwarf’s map, which led me into a dense forest. The forest smelled so fresh after spending several days in town. Game and water were scarce, so I ate both meal rations. I probably should have bought more.

The next morning, I continued following the map, eventually finding – by the stench – a pair of dead horses. This is clearly where the dwarf was attacked by a handful of goblins. The saddle bags had been picked clean, but the goblins missed a hidden compartment with a bit of gold in one of the saddles.

Fwwwt! Fortunately, I found that before some goblins started launching arrows at me. I killed two of them easily, bounced an arrow off the third, but missed the fourth one entirely. I checked to see if they had anything useful, wondering if goblins even use maps. No maps, and their weapons were in such lousy condition, I’m surprised they could even fight with them. Oh wait… I guess they couldn’t.

They did leave a trail to follow. OK, it included a spiked pit trap that I narrowly avoided, but at least it’s a trail. A bit past that, I found their camp, outside a cave, and thought that maybe Fellmont was held inside. I decided to hide until they went to sleep, settling in for a meal and a bit of rest.

After resting, I snuck into the cave and found a pair of wolves chained up, apparently guarding a small room behind them. Poor things, I wished I had enough time to calm and release them. Instead I tossed a scrap of meat to them and slid past into the corpse-filled room. It seemed this was the usual source of food for those poor wolves. Happily, I didn’t find Fellmont among the corpses.

The Quest (calendar) continues… part 2

My journal is filling up fairly quickly from my Quest calendar adventure, so I’ll periodically update the story. I added a new category called “Quest Calendar,” so there’s an easy way to find these specific posts. They’ll pick up where the previous post left off.

I limped away from the ladder and ran into two more rats. Ugly buggers. I killed one with Luc, my weasel’s, help, but the other bit me and ran off.

I followed a rail of blood downstream, almost walking into a pack of rats feeding on… something. Every so quietly, I turned around and snuck off, moving through a series of rooms. The first room had mice, I’m surprised they stuck around with those rats rampaging through. The second room had spider webs large enough to trap a rat. I didn’t stick around to see the spider! There was a rat in the third room, and I killed it as soon as it snarled at me.

Faris Leafwind Half-Elf Druid character sheet

And then I found the nest, with the ugliest mama rat I’ve ever seen. I hit it a couple times, and it got one good bite in at me before it died. I searched the disgusting room, filled with garbage and carcasses, for anything useful that might be lying about. The rat corpses had a weird purple slime on them, I made sure not to touch it. I did luck out and find some gold coins though. I headed back to the tavern for my hard-earned meal and a night’s rest, along with a desperately needed bath.

I woke up feeling well-rested and somehow improved as an adventurer, having survived my first solo adventure. I went down to the dining room and spent a bit of time talking to people. The elf I spoke with suggested I contact the head guard, Rufus, about working in the city – they’ve been having weird trouble lately. I assume the ginormous rats fall under that category. I tried talking to a dwarf, but he was drunk and passed out. Sadly, he didn’t even win the drinking contest, the half-orc outdrank him and then some.

I found a local job board and decided it was a good way to earn some cash and familiarize myself with the town. Why somebody named their baby hell beast “Fluffy,” I’ll never know, but I found the missing critter and took him home. Also, that was not quite what I expected from a sign that said “missing puppy.” Convincing spirits to stop haunting a house turned out to be easier than corralling Fluffy. And then I picked up a nighttime job protecting some deliveries. All in all, a good day’s haul.

I’m going on a Quest… with a day-to-day calendar.

Many months ago – last April, in fact – I supported a Kickstarter campaign for a 2021 day-by-day “Quest” calendar. It was advertised as a single-player role-playing game that takes place over the course of a year. Having thoroughly the random facts in my 2020 calendar, I thought it would be entertaining to have another daily calendar with an entirely different style to it.

The first couple weeks introduced the mechanics, along with a sample character and adventure. The third week introduced several characters to choose from, along with some bonus characters available on the Sundial Games website.

I had pulled out a blank journal to keep track of equipment, health, and what not for the first couple weeks, finding it easier than writing on the calendar page for Godwin, the Great (Half-Elf Wizard), but decided to print the Level 1 character sheet from their website for Faris Leafwind (Half-Elf Druid), which has ample space for tracking damage, equipment and such. Well, shoot, what am I going to do with that journal now? Ah, that’s what….

My adventures began that day in the tavern, when the innkeeper asked for help dealing with the alley rats. Silly me, I thought he was referring to the street urchins, but these were actual rats, larger than me, and quite aggressive. I tried to calm the beast down, but it bit me before scurrying away. Once it was gone, I took a quick look around the alley. There seemed to be a small bit of blood* on the barrel the rat had perched on, but nothing else stood out as odd.

There was a grate though… the rat could have come from there. Who locks a grate anyways? I was a bit rusty, but managed to pick the lock. As I climbed down, I was hit by an overwhelming stench. Sad to say, I lost my lunch on that ladder, and lost my grip as well.**

*I rolled poorly… the text for better rolls said this was definitely not blood.

**Let’s not even talk about that die roll.

I’m not sure where this adventure will go… that’s a mix of the calendar pages, my choices, and my dice rolls. Also, Faris’s background mentions her twin sister; I’ve decided to name her Wiel. Just in case it ever comes up.

Wizards Unite combat

I mentioned in my previous post on Wizards Unite that I have fun with the Augmented Reality, or AR, placement of my opponents. I don’t always place them near my cats. Here are a few screenshots I took – some at the risk of taking a direct strike – because the placement amused me.

This is an itty bitty werewolf standing on the dash of my parked car. Perspective matters – if I aim the phone at an open room, my opponent can be quite large. But if all my camera can see is a small space, such as my desktop or the dash of my car, I ended up with a tiny opponent. This werewolf was fairly low level, so there wasn’t much risk in taking the screenshot.

Combat uses both offensive and defensive spells. Offensive spells use spell energy – the lightning bolt counter in the bottom left corner. Defensive spells are free, with the amount of damage improving as you progress along your career path. Both offensive and defensive can improve with the career progression. One of my proficiency charms causes my opponent to lose health when they attack me.

The giant spider doesn't look so large when it's in the cat tree.

You may remember Aragog, the Acromantula befriended by Hagrid in the Harry Potter books. Aragog was huge. In theory, so are the spiders in Wizards Unite… when given a large space for placement. This particular spider was placed inside my cat tree, forcing it to a size where my cats could have sat upon it. To be fair, that would be cruel to the spider, Arwen would probably try to eat it. Again, a low level combat, I was just goofing around with different placement.

This Death Eater, on the other hand, had me outclassed; he had almost four times my hit points. He’s actually placed against a wall, which is how I noticed the awesome shadow animation. When he moved to cast a spell at me, his shadow moved as well. I certainly never imagined when I started playing computer games – many with ASCII graphics, like Moria or The Pit – that technology would come this far and be so portable. The icons under our health bars indicate charms in play – I probably had a proficiency charm on myself, improving my abilities, and the defensive charm on him, causing him to take damage every time he attacked me.

This cute fellow is an erkling. I honestly don’t know why he’s one of the bad guys, but since they insist on attacking me, I insist on defending. Well, OK, to be honest, I go into the wizarding challenges and choose to fight them… but he’s on the wrong side for some reason. Anyways, he’s standing on a small sofa that I’m almost done assembling; I thought the color contrast would be nice for some battles.

Wizards Unite, a Harry Potter-themed game

I’ve been playing Wizards Unite (WU) for about a year now, since the app first launched, and somehow haven’t written about it yet. Like Pokémon Go (PoGo), my interest in the game is a blend of geekiness and fitness. In fact, I frequently run Pokémon Go and Wizards Unite at the same time, bouncing between them to accomplish tasks at local inns, greenhouses, and fortresses (WU) and Pokestops & gyms (PoGo). The locations are the same, they’re just used in different ways.

Not surprisingly for a Harry Potter-themed game, potions are important. Ingredients are acquired through visits to greenhouses, both by picking a random ingredient (repeatable every 5 minutes) or by planting seeds that you’ve collected. Ingredients can also be collected from random appearances on the ground, or in some gifts from your friends.

Spell energy is another essential part of the game, and that can be collected from inns, gifts, or random appearances on the ground. All of the random appearances have increased in frequency with the worldwide shelter-at-home orders. Spell energy is used to collect foundables – individual items that have to be salvaged by casting a specific spell – and in wizarding challenges, which take place at fortresses.

Wizarding challenges can be faced alone or with up to four other people. Before the lockdowns, this was always at a fortress with other players that were physically present. More recently, the Knight Bus became available, taking players to the virtual Fortress at Hogwarts Castle, where you can team up with whoever else happens into the challenge level as you’re prepping for battle.

The fortress challenges feature several types of combatants, with each of the three available professions (auror, magizoologist, and professor) having advantages and disadvantages against different opponent types. In an ideal challenge, each of the three professions is represented, and at the higher level, many estimulo, which boost your spells, and healing potions.

A pixie floats above the cat. Quick, defend the cat!

Part of the fun of the battles is to turn on AR, or Augmented Reality, mode. You can have it on for the entire gameplay, at some cost to your phone battery of course, but I find it fun just for the battles. Depending on how open the area is, your opponent’s size can vary. If I’m right up at my computer when I start the combat, I can end up fighting a midget werewolf perched on my keyboard.

But what I really enjoy is focusing on a cat as I’m starting the combat, so I’m fighting to defend the cat. Here you can see Arwen ignoring the pixie flying above her as I fight it. The game actually captures an image as you line up the combat, so if the cat walks away halfway through, your screen doesn’t reflect that change.

Between the two games, I have set myself a minimum walking goal each week, in addition to my other workout routines. Both games initially launched with GPS distance tracking, but later added Adventure Sync, which tracks distance and location while the game is closed. In other words, if I have my phone in my purse while grocery shopping, or in my pocket while using the treadmill, the games count that distance towards in-game goals. So fun and fitness combined!

Dorkstock 2018: Mission Accomplished

Dorkstock has always been a labor of love, a mini-convention run by John Kovalic’s fans within a larger convention. This was our third year being hosted by Gamehole Con, and I think the first time that Dorkstock has been a four-day convention. We had an incredible game schedule this year, filled with assorted Munchkin and Chez games, among other favorites from Steve Jackson Games, and both Steve Jackson and Phil Reed were in attendance. We pulled out some classic Out of the Box games and other, more esoteric games like Cthulhu in the House and Knuckle Sammich.

Igor bars, 3-D Dork Frag, 3-D Dork Tower board game, life-sized Warhamster Rally

But one of our gamemasters goes above and beyond, creating 3-D and life-size versions of some of her favorite games. This leads to interesting e-mail conversations like “is an 18-inch hex large enough for a person to stand in”? (Yes, yes it is.) Among other masterpieces were the 3-D Dork Frag (originally published in an issue of Dork Tower), the 3-D Dork Tower board game (a parody of the classic Dark Tower game), the life-sized Escape from Dork Tower (not pictured), and the life-sized (with 18-inch hexes) Warhamster Rally. Those are certainly a labor of love. I’ll content myself with making the occasional Igor bars and running a few games.

Oh, and planning for next year… Gamehole Con announced their dates for 2019: October 31st through November 3rd. Can you say “Dorkstock Costume Party”?

Let’s play Codenames Disney

Codenames is a fun game where you try to determine which cards belong to your team before the other team does the same. In the original version, the cards show words, which are all codenames for the secret agents. The Disney version shows pictures, with the words (mostly character names) on the back of the cards.

The spymaster (original) or cluemaster (Disney) gives a clue to their team members to direct them to one or more card belonging to the team, as designated by this game’s selected grid. What makes this hard is that you’re only allowed to give a single word clue and the number of cards you’re hinting at. That doesn’t sound too hard, right? But it’s also subject to the other player’s interpretation… the cluemaster isn’t allowed to expand on that word at all during the game. And the more correct guesses your team can get on a turn, the better your odds of winning.

Codenames Disney with 25 cards referencing Disney characters or scenes — Codenames Disney, advanced layout (25 cards versus 16)

On the sample image, you can see a grid in the upper left corner. My color is red, the opposing team is blue, yellow are innocent bystanders… but black is the game-ending troublemaker. In the original, that’s the assassin card; for Disney, it’s “Game-Over.” A possible clue for blue would be “singing,” referring to The Lion King, where they’re clearly singing Hakuna Matata, but it could also refer to Snow White (a red card) and Rapunzel (a yellow card). You must choose your clues carefully.