50 Games in 50 Weeks: 1974 Dungeons & Dragons
While at PAX East this year, I was determined to play a game of original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons, primarily to be able to say that I’d played it. Fortunately, I was at PAX East with the Gamer Assembly, and they were interested in the idea, too. We played the Temple of the Ghoul scenario, my go-to adventure for old-school gaming. It has a skittish village population, an abandoned temple on a hillside, stirges, powerful supplies if the heroes are […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: Take 6
Take 6 is a card game that relies on two left-brained skills, math and probability, which usually cause my brain to leap out of my skull and run away screaming. The game involves taking a hand of cards, each of which has a number on it from 1 to 104. Each player then lays out a card, in turn, building six columns. When building a column, a higher-value card must go on top of a lower-value one. Once […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: Pathfinder Arena
I have a difficult time reviewing this without getting snarky. So I’m going to get a bit snarky. While I was at PAX East 2012, a friend and I walked by a table the size of a Mini Cooper. It was ringed with miniature walls and its surface sprayed with a sandy finish, so it looked like a miniature gladiatorial arena. Beautiful work. We approached the two men who stood nearby and asked them […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: Houses of the Blooded
I’m building an “RPG Tour,” a set of RPGs that, if played, will give one a broad appreciation for different approaches to tabletop gaming. The list includes Dread, Fiasco, Old School Hack, and Dungeon World. I ran my second session of Houses of the Blooded last night, and I’m adding it to the list. Houses is a game of high court intrigue. The players are all powerful nobles struggling to get their way in a complex society. In many ways, it’s […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: Once Upon a Time
This is a weird game. It’s a storytelling card game. Each player has a hand full of fairy tale story elements (swords, siblings, dark places, etc.) and a single ending (“And she was happy the rest of her days,” “And he never saw her again,” etc.). One player begins telling a story, laying down story elements as they appear in the story. However, if another player’s story element appears in the story, […]
Worst Film?
Tonight, I watched Troll 2. This is considered by many to be the worst film ever made. And that’s a tough pill for me to swallow. I’ve seen pretty much every episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I’ve seen some weird, empty films. I see a phrase like “worst film ever made” as a phrase to be challenged. Then I ask myself, Am I looking for bright spots just to be contrary, to “prove” that i really know […]
Doc
In an attempt to counteract the emo tendency of my previous posts, time for some content. I’ve been in a mood for documentaries. We live in a golden age for them, and here’s what I’ve watched recently: Legendary Sin Cities — A CNBC retrospective on the three infamous “cities of sin” of the 1920’s and 1930’s: Paris, Berlin, and Shanghai. Fortunately, the filmmakers take pains to explain the socio-economic forces that brought in all the prostitues and drugs, as well as the forces that ended those […]
Nibelungenlost
I’m reading The Nibelungenlied, because it’s a classic, and classics are good, so I’m reading them. It’s a tough classic, though. It’s the original saga on which Wagner’s Ring saga is based, not that that probably tells you much. Even if you’ve managed to see Wagner’s epic, it only tells a small chunk of the original tale. Apparently, Wanger left out a lot of clothes and riding from […]