Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
This year I'm going to attempt at running a semi-regular, monthly, game and a flick. I usually fail miserably, so we'll see how this goes. After hosting War of the Ring Collector's Edition last week, it gave me the itch to start hosting stuff again. I have tons of deliciously meaty games that haven't seen the table in a while, or are new and needing some quality hours. Then, I'll report back on our session, and our movie.
I also decided to pack it in with some background cinema weirdo, so I present to you Chapel's Dance Card 2012: February edition
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
Sorry Charlie, but it's too good to pass up.
As some may know, I am not much of a game evangelist. I've always stated that I believe that a gamer is born, not created. So I thought I'd support my pseudo science with a never ending barrage of empirical data collected by myself in a tainted lab of the real world. That being my family.
There's no doubt that I have always had the competitive urge to game, and probably always will, but is this a social construct or a hereditary one?
This weekend I had one of my bi-yearly gathering of my sisters, mom, pop, and all their significant others. Here I always like to experiment with more and more complex games to see what they could handle or enjoy. I've had great success with games like Bohnanza, Ra, Blokus, and a few other lighter wares. Recently I've tried getting Settlers of Catan, which went over pretty good. This weekend I decided to spring Agricola on them. And while it's a fairly straightforward gameplay wise, it does look daunting from the sheer amount of "stuff". I set up the metric ton of goodies sprawled across the table, and watched their glazed over eyes wondering what the hell mike got us into this time. But fear not, after a few rounds they had gotten the flow of the game, and finding that killer strategy became goal #1.
Yes, my family is competitive. Especially my sister, who really goes for the kill when either me or my brother-in-law start turning the screws. The gamer bug surely have to be in my genes after watching them play this game a couple of times. I don't think I really even need to convert this bunch with so called "gateway" games. They are receptive to almost anything I serve up, because it's in our blood. And I really believe this when dealing with other members outside the family looking at us like we are mad scientists playing these weird oddball board games. Muggles every one. My sisters quote by the end of the first playing of Agricola the next morning:
"I dreamt the whole night about how I can destroy you at that farm game. We must play again, now."
That's right, the tiger blood runs deep in our family. You should see the intense games of chess I play against my dad.
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
The year was 1996. A mere 15 years ago, and my gaming tastes evolved yet again. And that new flavor was Warhammer 40K. I just couldn't defeat the lure of those colorfully painted space marines with their ribbons, and giant crosses. It felt like the movie Excalibur crashed into the movie Aliens, and it left me wanting. I bought a nice 2100 points worth of Ultramarines. I had a squad of terminators, those walking tanks which couldn't outrun a turtle, but were damned near impossible to kill. I had two separate Dreadnaughts. Those holy encased fallen brothers of the Astartes living in a umberhulk of lost technology. The Ultramarines. The 13th legion, the untainted Astartes under Roboute Guilliman. And they were bad ass.
My blue and gold army fought the alien Tyranids at the battle of Macragge. Killing those slashing creatures of death with fire and bolts. They fought the "Da Boyz" ork armies and their infernal machines. They fought glorious Eldar and wave after wave of Harlequins. And of course they fought CHAOS! My army wore many badges of campaigns against the World Eaters, the evil magics of the Thousand Sons, and those vile bags of disease ridden Death Guard.
So many memorable battles.
But on the other hand so many regrettable battles. As in those days sometimes fun always mixed with bickering. You had to deal with people and their metric tons of conflicting rules, or new features in the latest White Dwarf. Many things to unbalance the entertainment, so much so that it became overwhelming after a while. That on top of GW's pricing that was out of control, and I'm sure as it is today. I had gotten rid of Magic the Gathering because of uncontrolled collectible spending, and jumped right into a cauldron that was even worse. Of course I was a poor college student back in those days, and I am a little better off today.
Which brings me to my stroll down memory lane. Recently I started reading this series of novels called "The Horus Heresy". A series that covers the historical events where the world of Chaos met up with the Imperium of Mankind. A period that I was always interested in from the source material. I will give 40K one thing, they did have a GREAT setting. The events of the heresy happened 10,000 years before the current setting of Warhammer 40K at a time where religion has almost been dissolved, and technology was at it's pinnacle. 40K however was quite the opposite. It is a time of lost technologies, and where gods and demons walk with men and beast. The only thing that hasn't changed in all that time was the never ending war. The first novel is called Horus Risingby Dan Abnett. This book covers the Luna Wolves, a company of the Warmaster Horus. Most favored son of the emperor and his campaigns during the Great Crusade. A crusade to bring all the splintered groups of humanity across the galaxy under the control of the Holy Emperor. It's a great read. And has only festered an itch that I hadn't felt in many many years. The itch to play me some 40K!
Yes, please flog me now! Purge this demon from my gaming soul before it's too late, and I get the smell of primer on me! I'm gripping a ruler and have a line of site to the game store. I already feel the mark of Slaanesh surging through my mind. Someone call my an Ordo Malleus!
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
My office became a buzz with the sounds of frantic voices. The curator for the antiquities museum of Arkham with an angered look, sweat beading down his squat bald head, bellowed at me and my comrades. Through his tirade of obscenities we could make out that his missing colleague had not been in touch for many months, and had only left behind a mangled and stained manila envelope. With me was Kate Winthrop and Peter, whom I had met in the South American amazon a few years prior.
Kate a budding scientist at Miskatonic. She always lived in her head, solving equations that only she could see written in the in some hidden chalkboard in the recesses of her mind. And Peter, or "Ashcan" as he was called, well he was the muscle Kate hired in hopes that would beat off whatever the dark alleys might throw her way. Her research did little good in the laboratory. Ashcan carried a guitar, and would strum it whenever the debate became too heated.
As I tore open the blood sodden envelope, I could smell the distinct stench of burning hair. It contained a note and a poor drawn map. The letter from our charge written with a pen of desperation, told of a wealthy heir and his travels into unknown places in the world. I could sense that he was far past his own comprehension level. I had seen it before. For I am Harvey Walters, aging professor temporarily assigned to Miskotonic. And the things he wrote about, I was intimately aware of, and the dangers that lie within.
The map took myself and my companions to an unkempt mansion on the outskirts of Arkham. Apparently a family summer home. It had looked unlived in for quite some time. Peter knocked on the moldy door. No answer, except for the whining sound of the door as it slowly crept open. We entered what looked to be a large foyer, laden with paintings of inhabitants long dead.
As Peter made his way towards the kitchen, a howling wind made it's way across the room. It almost sounded like a human in great pain. But no sooner than it appeared, it vanished, leaving Kate a little un-nerved. We decided to split up. I and Kate ascertained from the note that we should make for the garden to search for possible answers to where our victim had gone off to. Peter decided to check out the kitchen after hearing a noise that sounded like metal scratching against metal.
Daring to leave his side, Kate followed me reluctantly up the stair well and into the office. Where we found little of interest. Scattered paperwork, but nothing of our victim. On the east side of the room, we made out a flickering through the bottom crack of a door. Kate opened it what looked to be a darkened operation room. I dare not wonder what research at been done here. Kate had figured out how to bring up the lights and found a few interesting trinkets which she pocketed before allowing me to view them myself. We found the the door to the garden locked with an odd mechanism I had not seen before. The words engraved on it talked about a word to be spoken. After many attempts, we decided to check out the bedrooms for more clues.
Peter entered the kitchen. The lighting made for too many shadows and spaces that felt dangerous. As he looked under the dining room table he felt a presence in the room. A feeling that came not too soon to see gentleman wielding an axe with the look of madness glaring in his eyes. Through his drooling mouth he screamed,
"I hate your face! YOUR FACE!"
And swung the axe with great force towards Peter. With great swiftness Peter jumped over the table evading the madman's thrust. Peter then slipped on a trail of flour and found a scribbled on note tied to a silver key. He grabbed it and ran through the back door into the atrium. This evasion did last long, as the thug smashed through the door. This time however the axe smacked against Peter's leg forcing him to drop his only weapon the guitar. The slash took a small piece of Peter's ear as well which brought a wicked smile to the madman as he picked it up and ran out of the room. Peter wondered why this monster would leave him behind without finishing the job, and knew this wasn't a good sign. He grabbed his goods, and ran after the beast.
Dashing into the main hall, Kate started to become anxious, maybe a little too anxious. The need to find an answer drove her faster and faster across the house. She came to a large bedroom. This had to be the masters suite, as it had a large crowned bed on one end. The bed however was occupied. As Kate ran into the room, the occupant came alive, but it wasn't really alive. It was the man whom we had been looking for. But he had been slashed and carved in many terrible ways, yet the blood from his body no longer flowed. With an empty stare of death he moved toward Kate. As the creature jumped from the bed, he became ablazened with an eldritch fire. Kate tried to evade the creature's gaze and slammed into another locked door. It had been too much more Kate as she fumbled through the trinkets she carried. She began to mumble,
"Need more things. More things to stop these nightmares!" Then she ran out of the room with the flaming effigy behind her.
Ever vigilant, while investigating the closet in the operating room, I came across an ancient puzzle box. I knew the solution to this problem quite easily as I had seem it many times before in my travels. The chest contained a shotgun, in which I thought at this moment would come in quite handy. With the weapon in hand, I dashed into the main foyer to the flaming vision as it was barreling on top of Kate. ON the other end of the room, I could make out a man wielding an axe and a gibbering smile running up the stairs. Peter running right after it. I didn't have time to even think. I cocked the shotgun, adjusted my spectacles and shot at the undead apparition in front of myself. However his screams had made me stumble and I shot into my very own foot. The pain drove me out of the room.
Kate with a look of fear eyed Pete as he held a silver key in one hand. She screamed "Give me the key!" As Peter dashed past her running after the madman he drop the key at Kate's feet. The flaming dead then lunged at Kate, taking a large lock of her hair. The running down the stairs after the the axeman. As I gained composure once more, and through the haze in my pain, I head Peter yell, "Doctor! We must stop them, give me the gun!" As fast as I could cobble he handed me the guitar and I handed him the shotgun, and we made way up the stairs, chasing un-named horror.
Seeing the stairs to the basement, Peter looks at the guitar and then to myself, "Listen, put your finger on this chord. When I tell you strum it and sing, "come". Do it now!". I grabbed the chord and played the single note, and through the soot of smoke that came from the fires of the undead I coughed out the song. This slowed the beast down long enough for Peter to aim the weapon and fire. This time the weapon found its mark, and the zombie fell back and lit the room ablaze. This left Peter stunned and this gave the monster enough time to exit the basement. As wel tried to make out way through the fires of the basement a thunderous sound as if a giant bell had been rung reverberated throughout the house. Then a screeching that sent shivers through both our spines. "Peter! They have summoned a beast! The shoggoth! We must stop it before it becomes loose in the night!". We heard it bellowing through the basement hall. It was close. "This is where we part ways doc. Find Kate. If I don't make it, do whatever you can to stop it" Peter hummed in a voice of resignation. Then he pushed me into the stairwell, and slammed the door shut behind me. He found a large apothecary stand and jammed it in front of the door all while the flames began to spread across the basement. No longer than he had time to do that, did the horror slam into the room, tentacles flailing in all directions. It slammed into Peter with such force, that it cleanly snapped his arm. Pete fired another shot into the darkness of pain, but was unable to meet his mark. The shoggoth's great maw lifted up the apothecary and the door along with it. Now I met the nightmare's gaze with great fear and ran headlong into the blazing room. "Doc, get back into the hall, you must lure him back. Play the song!" He screamed. I ran into the back hall and planted myself into a corner, and with my charred fingers began to strum. Peter continued to pursue the beast firing shell after shell into it's carapace. Nothing working.
Kate, while on the other side of the house, finally made her way into the gardens. The the right key words spoken the door opened and Kate ran out into the gardens. There she found a marble ornament that had been smashed into several pieces with words jumbled in the back. She then pieced together the puzzle and spoke the words aloud. The peace of the garden began to change as the ground crumbled beneath her as another undead visage of a young woman emerged. The creature rose and with a scream grabbed Kate by the throat and tore into her flash. The world went dark for Kate, and the last thing she heard was the shriveled screeching of her dying yells.
All hope was lost. As I tried to lure the shoggoth back into it's lair, the mad axeman attacked me from all sides. I knew I would be unable to stop his advances for long. Peter couldn't hold back the monster as it made it's way into the foyer to the front door. Peter was almost into pure madness by now as he fired round after round. His arm broke, blood pouring from his wounds. The end would come quickly. We were through.
But at that moment, outside the house, a car slammed into the porch, and out came a man. Joe Diamond was his name. A local police officer who had received a call about intruders entering the house. As he exited the car he heard the great shrill of a women and the gargling sounds of death that followed. From his holsters he grabbed his two heaters, raised them into the air and kicked in the massive door into a splintery mess. Through it he was greeted by a giant beast of unspeakable evil barreling towards him.
"What the fuck are you!" He screamed. But Joe stood his ground with firm conviction and pointed the cold steel of his weapon towards the giant as it came at him, and fired. The one in a million bullet found a mark so deep into the flesh of the vileness of a beast. Deep into it's dark workings that couldn't be considered a heart, but a machination of evil. The bullet shattered the gears of death that enabled the creature to live and walk the earth. With it's final breath the shoggoth let out an aching shrill...
So it died.
The madman dropped his axe and fled screaming undecipherable laments from my sight, and the undead creatures fell slump into the slumber of natural death. I will never forget that night for all my days. I now write this journal entry in hopes that the world would soon understand that the madness of our nightmares are real, and we must defeat them before it becomes to late, and we fall into the darkness forever.
Yours Truly, Dr. Harvey Walters Doctor of History and Archaeology, M.U.
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
It's a term I hear more and more from people I've gamed with to people who's been on the scene for a long time. "I no longer have the patience for...". IN the mid-90's we had games like ASL, and Civilization, or Space Hulk, and each one had many factors that took time. Be it setup time, prep time, or length of play. These games had depth, character and feature. You didn't play a "session", you played it. It was the primary function of the gathering. I remember days where you didn't plan a game nite, but instead it was a 40K night. Then you would spend the next week plotting out army lists, powers, and terrain. All for one sitting.
But we have become single serving hobbyists. Where the games now need to be consumable as fast as possible, and on to the next. But we've lost the emotion and thought of the whole experience. I remember once my wife wanted to go see a movie one night. She had a list of movies that we could not decide on, so she suggested that maybe we should just see a couple one right after the other. And I remember telling her that just doesn't work with me. The reason for this is that I like to absorb a movie, and spend time thinking about what I just experienced. That all becomes muttled if I try and force one movie after the next. The experience and the emotion gets lost. Same goes for my games. I would so rather spend a game night playing one gratifying game, then try to pad my Nickel and Dime list by seeing how many rinky dink games I can shove in in a night.
"I no longer have the patience for..." This however kills me the worst. This is a term I am hearing more and more by people who used to think the way I do about games. I am losing to the MTV generation of board gaming. I mean, can you even think of a half way heavy game that Knizia has done in the last 5 years? Me neither. Games like 7 wonders rising up the ranks like a bat out of hell, then read the responses to a recent review of Earth Reborn with comments like "too much going on, too much setup. I haven't got the patience for..." I actually like 7 wonders, it's a fun and cute game. But it's an appetizer, the side salad, not the main course.
Am I a dying breed?
Lucky for people like me, there are those small publishers like Serra Madre, and Martin Wallace that are still confident enough to pull together some meaty titles, even as the market is turning fast food all around us.
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
This is about character development in which I take very seriously. I don't roll play, I ROLE play. And today's character is for Hunter: The Vigil a World of Darkness (nWoD) campaign setting. In this campaign we are just a bunch of muggles that have crazy theories about the madness of the world, Bigfoot, UFO's, alien abductions, black helicopters and weird cults. But what happens when you are shown the reality that all of your conspiracies are in fact...true.
So we begin.
I decided to go with an off-kilter Vietnam Vet, lets call him Colonel Kilgore. Yes, that Colonel, "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning". That tough as nails character that is un-phased by anything, and who has seen the true darkness that lurked in the jungles of the Mekong Delta. Murder, Men, and not so much men. Kilgore is now retired, but what he's seen he cannot forget, and cannot let go.
The Colonel is a man of stature, 6' 2". Lean and built like a bull-whip. In his mid sixties now, but don't let that fool you. He sports a pair of highly polished steel toed combat boot with black and yellow laces. Tucked into those romper stompers, olive drab bdu's. A hip holster belt with a shiny brass buckle. In the holster is stuffed a hand cannon 28 gauge shotgun pistol called "The Raging Judge 28". A pistol he can reload with shells festooned around his belt...
He wears a clean white and pressed tee-shirt that covers a bullet proof Kevlar vest, and a black leather pilots jacket with various tool pockets down the front. On one collar he sports his golden full bird insignia, and on the other a golden badge "U.S.". Under that he sport another shoulder holster in which he keeps his ivory handled Vietnam era M1911A1 at the ready...
ON his right hand he wears a gold ring from west West Point. And on his left...A HOOK! Yes, this is the one armed man. He isn't partial to the fancy prosthetic of today, but instead he has an old school clawed hook of his adornment.
And finally, on his noggin he wear a pair of Ray Ban Aviators, a high and tight crew cut, and black cowboy hat with the insignia of the Air Cav Army division...
At any point and time he will be smoking a corona rubusto, and sporting a thousand yard stare.
Today he's runs a tourist helicopter business from his Hughes 500 MD, black with the Air Cav insignia.
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
Yes, here I am playing yet another session of High Frontier by Sierra Madre Games. And yes, yet again I am having to teach it to new players. And yes, that will be the last damn time I teach this game!!!!! Argh. This is a freak of a game, and you will not have a gaming experience this year like you will playing HF. It's just so immersive and thematic, and GOD DAMN HARD. Yes, not only just hard to grasp rule wise, but also hard to wrap your mind around strategy wise. You look at that piece of art work map and think, how the hell am I going to get this measly 6 burn rocket over to that lonely size 10 dried up husk of a planetoid? How indeed. It's hard to grasp conceptually. And for a new player, this can be frustrating. You find yourself asking the same questions over and over again hoping that an overall view will make itself known if you just keep asking.
But seriously, High Frontier is not that hard to grasp, IF you just take your goals and target and break it down in scope. FIRST, the moon. Fuck the moon, it is too damn hard to land there. There's no getting around it. Not matter how fancy you want to make a rocket, and no matter how close it looks like to HEO on the map, forget the damn moon. SECOND, Mars. Mars is like the candy bar. It's sweet, cheap, and easy to get your foot in the door. It's a milk run at best. ALWAYS shoot for mars. THIRD, you are going to need better product, and to get better product you are going to need a factory. Build one! On Mars for instance. Or even Mercury. And while Mercury takes a lot of burns, it a breeze to prospect and plop a factory on. SO you say, I've gotten a couple of nice products. A sweet thruster and a ISRU0 robonaut? Then get the heck out of the "inner sphere" There's a cornucopia of goodies on Saturn and Jupiter, ripe for the taking. But for some reason, people think it's just too hard to get there. It's not that bad. Try it! FORTH, dirt rockets. Yeah they sound cool, but man they suck on thrust. Sure I can refuel at any dried up husk of a rock, but a full rocket with these high mass drivers are slow as pigs, and just can seem to crash land on a planet bigger than a tennis ball. Screw regolith rockets.
There, that wasn't so bad was it?
I love this game, but it is brutal. It's meant to be brutal, that how it works up in space. We are just a barrel of monkeys tied to a bottle rocket...we are bound pop every now and again. And the rules, those rules need several plays before you really say "Hey, I get what's going on now". It does, and you just have to take your lumps, but from now on, I am only playing with people who've already gotten their bruises and are ready to fight. I'm not teaching this damn game again, but dammit I want to play again SOON! It's that awesome. Believe it.
Entertainment for those who don't think young & don't think old
