Game: Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan

Thread: Re: Great customer service

GerryRailBaron — 2008-11-17T14:32:21+00:00

These guys really ARE great! The copy I bought last year had some sort of major packing error with the card decks. They replaced them all. I think it's safe to say "buy with confidence from these guys!"

Gerry

Thread: Great customer service

chking — 2008-11-15T03:45:31+00:00

I just wanted to say what great customer service APE Games has and to say thank you to them. A while ago my male cat to a liking to my copy of Order of the Stick and sprayed it. Needless to say, the top to the game was ruined. I phoned APE Games up to see if I could get a new top for the game fully expecting to have to pay shipping and other fees. Instead they sent me a new box for the game at no charge. That is great customer service and I just wanted to say thank you to APE Games for doing that.

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cmlobue — 2008-11-13T16:19:17+00:00

The Lemonade Stand of Ultimate Destiny

Thread: Re: So much bashing? What about the people who LOVE IT!

Jpwoo — 2008-09-30T22:37:04+00:00

The only real way to counteract game bashing is to do what you just did, Post enthusiastic support for what you like. You will never convince the people who don't like the game to like it. but you may draw in others who haven't played it and tempt them to give it a shot.

Thread: Re: So much bashing? What about the people who LOVE IT!

iklinck — 2008-09-30T00:32:57+00:00

I love OOTS - I feel it captures the essence of the comic very well.

A lot of people don't like humorous games. It also tends to be a long-playing game, with lots of fiddly bits, which is another turn-off for some people...

Ian

Thread: So much bashing? What about the people who LOVE IT!

HillKing — 2008-09-29T22:54:13+00:00

There is so much bashing of this game on BGG, and i could understand why, so when i bought it because i liked the webcomic i wasnt so sure what itd be like. I thought itd be slow and boring with long and tedious battles, little to no player interaction and just a few laughs.

Well we finally broke it out at a game night and it was the BEST game of the night.

Heres how it went down:
Games we played that night:

in that order

Players:
Mike (me)
Wayne
Erin
Chris

After playing a quick player favorite Chez Geek we broke open the new game and set it up. Nobody else had played it before so i had to teach it. I had gone over the rules pretty well, and all i really didnt know was area effect attacks, which we quickly solved due to Erin's choice to play V.

It started out simple enough, I moved into the first room and prompted Wayne to throw down a monster. Forgettable Goblin. I picked up my Twin Daggers of Doom and killed it (Im Belkar)

The it was Waynes turn, he does the same kind o thing moving into the room next to me except this time its the Suspiciously Large Room, where the battle size is +1. Oh no hes gotta fight 2 monsters. Now Erin AND Chris have to throw down a monster each. Erins a smart guy, so he immediatly picked out the SUPPORT ability of his Ogre monster and told chris that they should collaberate. This was great. The stategic atmosphere and fun everyone was having screwing each other over really lent the night to be the best game night ever.

The game moved smoothly and Erin decided that the only person that should be able to level up was himself, so he screwed over people by playing screw this cards that rendered the killed monsters useless to other people. I only leveled twice, Chris none and Wayne once. Insanity.

Some questions also arose about WHY THE HELL IS THE GAURD MONSTER STRONGER THAN XYKON.

no. sense.

Anywho dont ask me how Chris won, he was dead last the whole time, but has been collecting treasure up the wazoo. Turns out bragging rights mean more than the defeating of an evil lich, go figure.

Chris won every game that night, but only because DOOM is semi CO-OP and he had Wayne and Erin the genious's help.

the end of the game looked something like this, except on a smaller table:

All in all it was a great game night, and the OOTS moved great, i dont know why people bash it so much but hey, to each his own.

Thread: Re: The Girls' Game night

djcack — 2008-09-17T21:10:05+00:00

I am jealous. Any game that the rules take longer than 30 seconds to explain immediately bores my wife. I'm doomed to a lifetime of playing Blokus over and over.

Thread: Re: Solo Rules?

ACuteTriangle — 2008-07-10T21:56:48+00:00

I have played solo. I line up all the character cards in a row and use one of the spare glass beads to indicate which character's turn it is. Other than that, I don't have any suggestions. A big table and the ability to split your personality and work against yourself are useful.

Thread: Re: "Crawl" being the operative word

zuviel — 2008-04-27T02:31:07+00:00

I agree with your conclusion. I love the comic, but this game just plods - especially at the beginning. I suppose seeding the players with random loot would help some, but no one here is willing to play it again anyway.

Thread: "Crawl" being the operative word

truekid — 2008-04-26T04:59:50+00:00

The game
Each player is one of the characters from the Order of the Stick Comic, and you're all here to do a dungeon crawl. Each turn you enter a room, and if it's a new one, an appropriate room-tile-card is added to the map. Then, generally, people get the option to drop monsters on you from their hand. If you win, you get loot and exp, if you lose you get hurt and will either limp away or fight again next turn. You've got a deck of ability cards tailored to your character, and as you gain them you get to impulse through that deck. The loot gained can only be used by you if it has your picture on it, but loot with other people's picture can be used to bribe them to help you. Eventually you'll find the end boss's room, there'll be a scuffle, and everyone will try to exit the dungeon quickly once he's defeated, due to some structural oversights with the architecture. You get points for being well endowed, for smashing face, and for not getting trapped in the rubble.

The good
They did a SUPERB job with their thematic tie-in, and the mechanics and gameplay are generally very reasonable, although some of the rules could have been expressed on the cards a little better, for purposes of getting into the swing of combat a little faster.

The bad
as I'm sure you can tell by the other posts on this game talking about ways to make it quicker, it's too long. While the mechanics and the character advancement are well-executed, it will invariably get very rinse-and-repeat about halfway through. Don't let this dissuade you, it's a fun game, but do take it as a hint to maybe follow some of those game-shortening tips, even on the first play-through.

The ugly
Yes, the drawings are very stick-figure. But so is the comic, so this is a good thing. Again, thematically superb. I also liked that even some cards that did the same thing had slightly different flavors of art (this should be done more often in games), and that the room cards, loot cards, and ability cards were different and appropriate sizes.

------

Do you freakin' love a dungeon crawl? Well then, this game is worth the money. Do you like to be amused, collect treasure, and potentially do a leaping dagger attack at your friend? Then it's certainly worth playing. but do play with a lower floor-count or something, because someone is going to get restless if you're playing for the full 3 hours.

6/10

Thread: Re: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

Carmilla — 2008-04-07T18:45:17+00:00

Played my first game of this yesterday, and totally concur; great fun, but too long. (Although we did have fun with it.) And as for Roy, yeah, with enough sword boosts, yeah, he's awesome -- UNLESS he comes up against something where weapons (or 0 range attacks) are useless. When that happens, he pretty much can't do a darned thing; that bag of tricks just doesn't cut it.

Of course, what I really wanted to do is just sit down and read the cards.

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Martin Ralya — 2008-02-21T01:00:41+00:00

Interior with unopened components (rules not shown)

Thread: Re: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

tired — 2008-02-12T19:15:57+00:00

Agreed. The easiest solution to the system is to just reduce the number of floors or increase shticks with more players. It's still a fun game, just long (from the base system).

Roy can be over-powered but only if he gets his Greenhilt sword boost. I've played him a couple of times and when you don't get the boosts, you are very underpowered.

Thread: Re: The Girls' Game night

deltagreen451 — 2008-02-12T14:15:25+00:00

Probably. I shudder to think of the knives that I will find stuck on my back this weekend

Thread: Re: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

Nikisknight — 2008-02-12T04:23:07+00:00

I played several games over the last week, so I can attest that 4 people didn't find it that boring. For two players, 4+1 levels went well, though for more players I would probably advise less floors--or else start each player out with 5 different schticks if you want to hurry it up.
As for balance, though, we found that Roy's player, after gaining a couple boosts, could wipe out rooms with any number of enemies regularly.

Thread: Re: The Girls' Game night

Hendal — 2008-02-11T11:53:33+00:00

Great report, I think the boys may be in trouble next game session?

Thread: The Girls' Game night

deltagreen451 — 2008-02-11T09:03:07+00:00

I usually spend saturday afternoons playing RPGs, and the evenings playing boardgames over at a friend's place, and more often than not, the missus tags along to chat and catch up with the other members of the "Wives and Girlfriends of Gamers Club".

But last weekend, the tables were turned around, and it was the boys who got to sit at the sidelines and watch as the girls enterd the fray, for the ladies decided to give the OOTS boardgame a try out of boredom. [Dun-dun-DUN!]

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That's the missus in the middle, sorting through her encounter cards during set-up.

My lovely wife randomly picked Durkon the dwarven cleric as her character, and after a short explanation, the ladies were off racing for loot.

It was all very friendly and "Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice" until one of them got shafted by another using the "Screw This!" card to take back a loot offered for assistance in an encounter. From there on, the claws came out and the boys watched in horror as the girls played the game with more back-stabbing and PvP than we have ever done playing this game, or in fact, playing Diplomacy.

The high point of the game was when the missus, who bravely delved into Xyklon's Lair first, was dealt a stack of 15(!) encounter cards (it was an encounter level 4, but henchmen boosts to the monster leaders made the encounter level grow... and grow... and grow!

Not to be detered, she gamely waded into the fight with the hammer (boosted to a respectable +10), and a prayer (Divine Intervention shtick!) against the Attack-22 monster stack and rolled.... a "1", which combined with the Divine Intervention shtick gave a result of "13" + 10, beating the first monster. Things went rapidly downhill for the monsters from there, and when the dust settled, there was nothing but a BIG stack of loot cards in the (now blood-splattered) room, whereupon she calmly played the "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" "Screw This!" card and collected ALL the loot.

The rest could only watch in awed silence.

Needless to say she won the game that night... and now she want in when the boys play boardgames on saturday evenings.

I shudder to think what will happen this coming weekend.

Ye gods! I have created a (gaming) monster!

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deltagreen451 — 2008-02-08T18:41:26+00:00

The Girl's Game Night

Thread: Solo Rules?

ThunderFall — 2008-01-28T13:49:45+00:00

Hi there,

Is this game any good for some nice, relaxing solitaire-dungeon-crawling?

I know... there won´t be any PvP and most of the "Screw It"-Cards would probably would make no sense. Any experiences or suggetions?

Bye there (and thanks for any response),

Thomas

Thread: Re: A few variants.

GerryRailBaron — 2008-01-21T16:05:00+00:00

I really, really like your verbal parrying vs PvP combat. Having just played my first game yesterday, this is an excellent "fix" to the "feel" of the game. AS you say, Roy using Greenhilt on Durkan makes NO SENSE whatsoever, other than the Munchkin rule of "I want to win". Sparring for loot is great alteration!

Thanks,
Gerry

Thread: Re: sneak attack stacking

opey2dope — 2008-01-17T16:01:19+00:00

thanks!

Thread: Re: sneak attack stacking

Ceej — 2008-01-15T21:10:15+00:00

I'm amazed you're only the second person (after myself!) that seems to have noticed this problem. I mentioned it on this thread a while ago:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1618594#1618594

I got a reply which pointed out one corner of the FAQ which implies that this interpretation is wrong - specifically the example of Elan's Bard Song. Having read the FAQ on that card, I think it's probably the case that it was intended that you do NOT get to "stack" boosted bonuses like you suggest.

It really is a problem, though, because the rules simply don't back up this interpretation. In fact, having just re-read them, I can tell you that they're very vague about exactly how and when you should apply bonuses from non-attack Schticks, especially when they're boosted. However, given the picture of one example, and the FAQ entry above, it seems that you're supposed to treat duplicate Schticks as only providing the Boost for the original Schtick, and not providing any effect of its own. That's the only way to get consistent and non-insane results when you get three or four copies of a non-attack Schtick with a boost.

Thread: Re: sneak attack stacking

jayquirk — 2008-01-15T21:01:18+00:00

If you have more than one of the same schtick, you get the normal benefits from the first one, but you only get the boost from any of the additional schticks. So Haley gets a total of +2 attack, +1 defense in your example above.

Thread: sneak attack stacking

opey2dope — 2008-01-15T01:23:50+00:00

I have been unable to find an answer to this question.

Haley's shtick "Sneak Attack" says "your longbow shtick gains +1 attack and +1 defense fighting at range zero"

there is also a boost of +1 attack as well.

If you have multiple sneak attack shticks in play do you get just the boost for the additional sneak attacks? or do you also get an additional +1 attack and defense that the main ability gives?

Or in other words, do multiples of the same shtick stack in their normal bonus and the boost? or just the boost?

Thread: Re: our first game, maybe our last

gmcash — 2008-01-14T18:22:34+00:00

meant a 12, just forgot about kind of die, been a while since i played

Thread: Re: our first game, maybe our last

Laudwic — 2008-01-10T23:23:43+00:00

I'm a huge fan of the comic, and will buy almost anything he puts out as a thank you for the free web comic. While this is not by any means a great game, its good for playing with your DnD or exDnD gamer friends. Otherwise alot of the humor is lost on them. I wouldn't use this one with non-gamers or anyone that isn't a fan of the genre. I will say though, this game, in terms of enjoyment, has the best quick start rules I've ever seen.

Thread: Re: our first game, maybe our last

jayquirk — 2008-01-10T21:42:53+00:00

What's with the 6? Didn't you use the 12 sided die that comes with the game?

The most common complaint is the game length. There's a variant proposed by the creators to speed up the game by having everyone start out with an extra 3 schticks and treasure. Or something like that. This will reduce the game time immensely as you'll be fairly powerful.

Remember to always search for stairs, too. (well some characters should only search in certain areas due to strategy) In general, try to work your way down as fast as you can in order to keep the game length down.

Random monster is good for game length reduction as well, even if it does make it easier on the heroes.

Last but not least, it has been clarified/errated that creatures matching a "Leader: X" can only provide the Leader support to one monster in the room. So if Xykon ends up with Redcloak under him, each additional goblin only provides one extra monster to the battle size, not 2. Another way to think of it is that any creature which matches the Leader support type should not be used to determine battle size.

Thread: Re: our first game, maybe our last

Kengi — 2008-01-10T18:51:50+00:00

Overall, I see valid points in your review, but the idea I'm seeing is that you played your version of this game. The dice rolls, the next level being the final one, etc. You changed a lot of the game to fit the players, when I've always felt that the gamers should play the game that they want to play, or at least try.

I got this game for Christmas, and I look forward to playing this.

Thread: Re: our first game, maybe our last

kixdsky — 2008-01-10T18:33:05+00:00

The game is okay when you play with a bunch of people who all read the comic strip. Much of the time is spent laughing at the various cards and recalling past strips.

The only problem with my group is that we are all way too cutthroat for this game. Yeah, I know this game revolves around trying to screw people, but we were screwing each other over so badly that no one got anywhere. The games would go on endlessly with no one ever getting a solid advantage.

Maybe we were playing too much Munchkin before playing this game...

Thread: Re: our first game, maybe our last

CrankyPants — 2008-01-10T17:48:18+00:00

I really wanted to like this game . . . and I do, except when I have to play it.

It's a great game to read but as much fun as waterboarding to play.

If you're a fan of OOTS and have bought the books -- you may want to get this game just to add it to your collection. But never, never ask your friends to play or they'll quickly become your ex-friends.

Thread: our first game, maybe our last

gmcash — 2008-01-10T16:36:33+00:00

Not sure of the date, so just made one up. I bought this game after discovering the online comic and getting hooked. I read the reviews and all on the Geek and decided maybe this would be a fun dungeon game that the family would enjoy. It had a fairly light theme, it seemed, and some humor to it, which I hoped would offset the dungeon theme which my parents don't seem to enjoy nearly as much as I do (just can't understand that ). So we start up the game and I briefly explain what we are doing, and we decide to start and ask questions as we go along, which works best anyway because no one remembers anything you say when you first explain the rules. I tried a random encounter version because I thought they would not understand when it was best to play a really challenging monster and when not to and thought the stick it to em cards would be hard to explain. So, in this version, encounters were randomly chosen and stick it to em cards were earned as one earned new shticks and then explained if needed. I also made it that if you got a third stick it to em card, one had to be used or discarded.

The game seemed to go very well. It took a little long as things were explained along the way and we learned about assisting and when to use which shtick and all that. Some time wasted looking for rules on specific situations, but all in all not too bad. I had the sorceror (its been a while only remember his/her name starts with a v and yes sex is unknown). Mom had the helpful one and dad had the leader. I was much more adventurous in general, having some experience in these things, but I encouraged them to expand their horizons and we all had fun. I got my good shticks early and started to be able to go to lower levels quicker. Eventually we were tiring of the game a bit, so I said, OK whenever we go down the next level, it will be the final level, which caused that level to come one floor earlier than the game would have allowed by rule. I found the staircase and went down, worked my way through and finally encountered the big bad guy. He got support upon support upon support. Even with all the assistance I could muster, I ended up having to roll a 6 (we used the rule that a 6 won no matter what, and a one lost no matter what). Lo and behold, a 6 was rolled and we all cheered. I won because of the points for wasting the big guy.

Overall I think we all enjoyed the game, but it is hard to talk them into this type of game in general, so I usually play solo. I hope to be able to talk them into again and see if we can make it a regular. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Thread: Re: A Sticky Dungeon Crawler

Stuffed — 2008-01-08T18:24:57+00:00

Hey just wondering which modifications did you use for playing with the two player game? I've tried a couple times and there's a lot less player interaction.

Thread: Re: Equipping loot question? and Wacky Hijinks...

apegamer — 2008-01-02T13:53:04+00:00

Blustar wrote:
Hey guys,

1. I was playing this game with my son and the rules state that you need to have loot equipped with a total of 8 drool value in order to face Xykon...Can you equip any loot card with your face or only ones which say too equip them?

Any loot that you drool over - it doesn't necessarily need to say on the card that it can be equipped (there aren't that many cards in the game!)

Blustar wrote:
2. Do you need to have your loot cards equipped in order to use them to ask for assistance?

No

Blustar wrote:
3.How does Wacky Hijinks work in a 2 player game? Is it just a way to inflict a quick wound n your opponent?

Yeah.

thanks...

Thread: Equipping loot question? and Wacky Hijinks...

Blustar — 2008-01-02T08:05:17+00:00

Hey guys,

1. I was playing this game with my son and the rules state that you need to have loot equipped with a total of 8 drool value in order to face Xykon...Can you equip any loot card with your face or only ones which say too equip them?

2. Do you need to have your loot cards equipped in order to use them to ask for assistance?

3.How does Wacky Hijinks work in a 2 player game? Is it just a way to inflict a quick wound n your opponent?

thanks...

Thread: Re: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

tanis — 2007-12-05T11:25:28+00:00

fusag wrote:
I always figured the length of the game was because the writer/artist/co-designer is an RPG player: their idea is one game session, one game.

Pity. I love the comic and support it buying the print books, but I can't bring myself to buying the game.

Same for me. I love the comic and buy the print books but the game... omg it sounds boring as hell...

Thread: Re: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

fusag — 2007-12-05T09:56:35+00:00

I always figured the length of the game was because the writer/artist/co-designer is an RPG player: their idea is one game session, one game.

Pity. I love the comic and support it buying the print books, but I can't bring myself to buying the game.

Thread: Re: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

Randall Silver — 2007-12-05T07:32:31+00:00

Good review. I agree with what you said there. I enjoy the game (and the webcomics even more), but it's just too long.

Thread: Re: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

tired — 2007-12-05T07:32:14+00:00

We're going to try to reduce the number of levels to get down to reach Xykon. So instead of 3 + 1, we'll do 2 + 1 and see if that makes it any faster.

Finding the stairs wasn't too bad, it was I think just having to constantly do the maths for every single fight and then rolling and repeating. Hee.

Thread: Re: Sequel/Expansion announced

evnafets — 2007-12-05T04:05:28+00:00

From: http://www.apegames.com/news.html
and http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55463

August 30, 2007

At the GAMA Trade Show in March, APE Games announced the Linear Guild expansion for the Order of the Stick Adventure Game would released this fall.

At that time the game was still in development and we have since had additional ideas. While the Linear Guild game will be far better in the long run, these changes will put the game out into 2008.

These changes may also affect the price of the game; details on that are yet to be determined.

Rest assured the Linear Guild game is definitely still in development, though, and will be released "when it's ready". Watch this site and the Giant in the Playground for more information as we get closer to releasing the game.

Thanks for your understanding.

Thread: Re: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

TheSquatch — 2007-12-05T03:09:22+00:00

mikoyan wrote:
I too like this game but it is too long for what it is. Could stand to be a little shorter.

Agreed. I've played this a couple of times and it always comes down to the players agreeing to shorten up and get it over with.

"Can i just put the stairs here without rolling again?"
"Sure"

Thread: Re: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

mikoyan — 2007-12-05T02:44:50+00:00

I too like this game but it is too long for what it is. Could stand to be a little shorter.

Thread: Sticks and stones will break my bones...

tired — 2007-12-04T22:02:48+00:00

Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan is probably one of my favourite web comics. It's such a great mixture of storytelling and humour that checking for a new strip each morning is part of my routine. So I'm not an entirely impartial judge. The Order of the Stick Adventure Game is basically a card game where players take on the characters of the comic strip. Your goal is to make your way through the dungeon, killing monsters and collecting loot to eventually reach Xykon to kill him. At that point, you'll need to escape the collapsing dungeon. Final victor is the player with the most bragging points which is calculated from a mixture of loot, shticks , who got out of the dungeon first and who killed Xykon. Overall while it's a fun game, the general consensus of the group was that it just took too long to play.

Appearance: Very good. The artwork is drawn directly from the comic with a lot of personal touches such as different pictures on loot cards, and a variety of images from the strip or new strips for the various cards. While the artwork isn't Boris Vallejov, it is entirely in keeping with the comic and that has it's own charm. Definitely a major plus for me.

Rules / Ease of Learning: Okay, first off - the 'quick start comic strip guide' isn't. It is really, really long to read (8 pages) and doesn't cover all the necessary important aspects - such as NPCs aka 'what if you don't have 6 players?'. While it's entirely humorous and all, the quick start guide just didn't do it. The rulebook itself, for what is in fact a very simple game is entirely too large and unorganised. While I liked the various tips about how to play each PC to win, I feel the rules itself could have been streamlined and the rulebook clarified. It didn't help that the game came with an entirely new sheet of Eratta.

Players choose (randomly by default) the characters they will be. Each of the PCs is very much a D&D clone (the warrior, mage, rogue, ranger, bard and cleric to be exact) which is of course the point. One thing that was done very well was the balancing of powers of each character with no one PC being overly powerful. They are all also very different, both because of their abilities and the respective characters personalities so their routes to winning are quite different. Very well done here.

Once chosen, players choose their starting shticks - the special abilities. As the game progresses and you earn experience (from killing monsters generally or trading in loot), you'll gain more shticks, increasing your power and ability. You also gain loot cards at the beginning and loot is dropped every time monster are killed. Loot cards have 'faces' on them, indicating which character drools over them. Loot with your face on them are valuable to you, otherwise, you'll need to trade them away for help.

Battling monsters in Order of the Stick is very simple - compare your attack or defense against their attack or defense and then roll a d12. If you beat their attack/defense number, you win. You can also get help at any time from anyone on the same level as you by giving them loot that they drool over ( i.e. have faces for).

The dungeon is created by placing new dungeon cards on the table as you explore, so better have a big and clear table free. You'll need to search for stairs to go down a level, the number of levels dependent on the number of players and difficulty level chosen. And that really is the basis of the game - explore the dungeon by moving, enter the room, fight the monster (you're always defending when entering a room), kill it and pick up loot. Rinse and repeat. You can always fight other PCs too. In that case, you get to steal their loot! And slow them down. Not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you're Belkar.

Lastly, there are Screw This cards that basically allow you to break the rules of the game. Evil little cards generally that need to be played as fast as you can, because once you run out of monster cards, you discard your entire hand.

Actual Gameplay: Order of the Stick amuses me because of its wry humour. All the characters are really true to the comic and their interactions are geared to the way you'll see in the comic. As noted above, the actual gameplay isn't very complicated. There's an interesting level of competitiveness and co-operation in the game, as players can play Screw This, monster cards and attack other players but also, quite often, need the help of other players to win battles. So you can't push your luck too far or else you'll never get any help and watch the other players pull far, far ahead of you.

The rules are messy, and in the interest of making monsters interesting, the monsters have special abilities. These can, unfortunately, take some time to learn so it does slow the game down somewhat. Also, as the game is based around collecting loot and shticks, players are continually exploring the dungeon searching for more monsters to kill. It does create quite a level of repetition, even if the monsters are amusing.

Probably the biggest problem in the entire game is its length. What is supposed to be a 2-3 hour game according to the rules takes nearly 4 hours in reality. While there's always something to do, there just isn't enough variety for a 4 hour game.

Conclusion: Order of the Stick is entirely fun and has a definite novelty factor for fans of the comic. It's also got a level of strategic depth to it beyond 'bash monster'. I like the balance of cooperative and competitive play and there's definite tactical considerations (when to rest, when to fight, what monsters to play, etc.) but the length of the game is a major killer. I'm definitely going to have to adjust the base game since holding the interest of a gaming group for 4 hours at a time is not possible. I'm still happy I have the game, but I feel the need to adjust the base game to make it shorter.

Tao Wong
Starlit Citadel
www.starlitcitadel.com

Thread: Re: The Order of the Stick: will you like it?

TFFL — 2007-12-02T22:39:12+00:00

Randall Silver wrote:
If you don't play this game often, I think it's not a bad buy, especially with some people who know and like the comic.

I really, really (so badly) wanted to get a copy of this game (with my face on it), but forking over 80 bucks seemed a bit too much. If I can get it cheaper I'll be sure to grab a copy though.

You also made a reference to Munchkin, which looks to me to be a cheaper option. You might like it as it's based on a comic based on D&D (Dork Tower I think). They were both featured in Dragon Magazine for a while anyway. Similar kind of game to what you're describing, worth a try: you either love it or hate it.

Thanks for the helpful review!

Thread: Re: Getting hold of Zombie Gamers promo card in the UK?

alexanderastartes — 2007-11-12T17:31:39+00:00

I got one, but it was an apology for having a card missing in my original purchase. It was a nice suprise when I opened the envelope to find two shiny new cards instead of just one

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deltagreen451 — 2007-11-03T15:40:12+00:00

Roy fighting a Lizard Wizard

Thread: Re: A set of variants aimed at a 2-3 hour game

alexanderastartes — 2007-10-23T10:50:56+00:00

I've played 4 games now. The first one, 2 players, was fine, we finished in about 3.5 hours. The second we had other things to do so didn't finish. The main problem though was in the 3rd and 4th, as in both games Xykon was a 27/27 monster. When one of the 4 players is extremely competitive it is difficult to defeat such a monster. I'd love to finish a game, but I'm not sure how to change the rules...

Thread: Re: Speeding up and maintaining spirit of the game

alexanderastartes — 2007-10-23T10:32:29+00:00

My only problem with this is that in restricting searching for the stairs some players strategy is reduced. I usually play Vaarsuvius and as such it is important that I keep all the stairs as close to the dungeon entrance as possible to allow a quick retreat to recharge.
Otherwise yea, these ideas will work

Thread: Re: Sequel/Expansion announced

Hisst Ka — 2007-10-11T01:36:06+00:00

anymore news on this?

Thread: A few variants.

kthom159 — 2007-09-12T02:51:16+00:00

As a longtime fan of the webcomic, I absolutely adore this game, but a few things have come to mind that I think might make it better. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to playtest any of these, so use at your own discretion. Also, only a few of these are designed to shorten the game, the rest will probably complicate it even further.

Variant #1: Screwples!

One of the things that continually frustrates as one plays the game is having a super good Screw This! card, but an opportunity to use it does not come up before you run out of monsters, and you're forced to discard it to get a new Battle Hand. This variant lets you hold onto ST cards, and adds a bit more strategy to the game, while still allowing to pick and choose your monsters.

To start with, separate the monsters and Screw This! cards at the start of the game, and shuffle each deck. Each player gets 4 monster cards and 3 ST cards. This counts as the "Battle Hand" for any cards that affect such.

When any player runs out of monsters, they may draw 4 new monsters, and the normal turn structure applies. ST cards may be discarded and redrawn along with these, but they don't have to be. You can hold onto ST cards as long as you like, with two caveats.

1. You may not draw new ST cards until you run out, or choose to discard all of them while redrawing monsters.
2. You always draw 3 ST cards, and only when you also draw monsters.

For the purposes of this variant, Durkon's "W.W.T.D?" card has special rules. When it's in play, discard all battle cards to the same pile. When it gets used, shuffle the discard pile, and then draw the top 3. This may water down that particular card, but Durkon can also wind up with more ST cards than everyone else with this variant.

The "Ring of Djinni Calling" loot card allows a player to discard their entire battle hand, then draw 4 new monsters and 3 new ST cards.

Variant #2: Extra Stairs

This variant is meant to speed up the game somewhat, by allowing additional avenues of travel. It's really only viable with a 4-floor game (including Xykon's lair).

For every floor, there are two sets of stairs leading down. Stairs may be searched for as normal, but if both sets are not found before the last room is placed, the last room placed always has a set of stairs leading down. If this results in off-kilter floors, stairs are considered to connect to whatever the closest room is on the next level.

The "Up a Level, Down a Level" Screw This! card may be used to automatically place one of the two sets of stairs, or even place a third set if two already exist. As always, only one set of stairs exists for the Dungeon Entrance, and to the Xykon level.

Variant #3: Decremental Floors

Another variant meant to speed up the game a bit. Rather simple. The first floor of the dungeon always has 8 rooms. Each level down from there has one less room than the level above it. The minimum is 6 rooms, and Xykon's lair is still 4 rooms.

If this variant is used with the one above, separated groups of rooms on the same floor are considered connected as soon as the last room is placed on that level. Someone finds a secret door, or something.

Variant #4: PvP Arguments

This variant is likely to extend the length of your game to an appreciable degree, so watch out. This is also a rather long description, so please bear with me.

My girlfriend and I really love the OotS webcomic, and we were somewhat perturbed by the PvP rules. Roy trying to hack down Durkon with the Greenhilt Sword? Vaarsuvius toasting people with abandon? Haley trying to hurt Elan? Belkar . . . well, okay, so he's fine, but still.

So I got to thinking about how to change that side of the rules, and I believe I've come up with something decent. Instead of actual combat, characters have arguments. Rather than a weapon-fueled battle, it's just the typical banter and bickering of a group of highly dysfunctional people. This, to us, is more in line with the spirit of the comic and its iconic bunch. And typically, nobody loses any wound points through this, unless Belkar chooses to get stabby.

Okay, so here's the basics. By default, only Verbal Shticks may be used in a PvP argument, and all Verbal Shticks count as having a range of 3 for arguments, even if they normally don't (such as Ridiculous Bluff). Some special rules can make exceptions to what shticks may be used, but we'll save that for later. Each argument consists of two "rounds", an offense round and a rebuttal round. Whoever initiates the offense round is the attacking player for the whole argument, the other being the defending player.

Starting off, things proceed relatively normal. The attacking player chooses a Verbal Shtick to use as the offense attack, and then the defending player chooses another Verbal Shtick to defend with. If you don't have a viable Verbal Shtick, you may proceed as though you were battling without a shtick. People may ask for assistance, as per the usual PvP rules, and any bonuses from the room, non-battle shticks, loot, or Screw This! cards still apply as though it's a PvP battle. Whomever wins the roll, wins the offense round. Result text from the battle doesn't yet occur, though.

Things then move to the rebuttal round. The defending player now chooses a Verbal Shtick to attack with, and the attacking player defends. They may ask for assistance again, if they so choose, and an assisting player may switch sides at this point (but can still only assist one side per round). Rolls proceed for this round, and this result combined with the other allows for an overall winner to be chosen. Two wins is an overall win, two losses is an overall loss, and a draw defers to the result of the other round. One win and one loss is a draw, and two draws is a draw.

After the rebuttal round, all applicable result text from both rounds automatically occurs. Most of the time, results happen as-is, save for one exception. Any result that would take a wound point away from either character instead causes that player to discard 1 loot from their loot stash. They may decide which loot to discard.

Whomever is the overall winner of the argument then gets to select one piece of equipped loot from the loser to add to their own loot stash, as per the usual PvP rules. Thus ends the argument.

Now, some special rules apply for this variant:

Haley's "Yoink!" Rule - Haley may use Swipe as her shtick if she is on the attacking side of either round of an argument. If she does, the other player may defend with an Armor Shtick, a Hide shtick, or a Verbal Shtick as normal.

Durkon's "I need more power, Cap'n!" Rule - Durkon, being one of the weaker verbal combatants, may start with Incomprehensible Accent in play, and this does not count toward his 3 starting shticks. For the purposes of an argument, Incomprehensible Accent may be used as a Battle Shtick by itself, with +1 attack, +3 defense, and range 3. The result text for using it this way is considered to be "player discards 1 loot from stash". It may be boosted (such as by Megaphone or Get Angry) for +1 attack and +1 defense, also for arguments only.

Vaarsuvius' "Ambiguous Discourteous Verbiage" Rule - Ambiguous Gender applies as normal for arguments, with a die result of 1-3 resulting in a draw for the whole argument. Verbose Recitation may be used on the attack for the purposes of arguments only, and is treated as having +0 attack and the result text "the player loses a turn." When used defensively, Verbose Recitation acts as normal.

Belkar's "Get Stabby!" Rule - Belkar is the only character who may bring weapons to an argument, and as such can also use any Weapon Shtick, not just Verbal Shticks. However, if he does use a Weapon Shtick in an argument, from that point on both combatants may use any shtick for the remainder of the battle. Additionally, results that would remove wound points occur as normal for any argument where Belkar gets stabby.

Screw This! Cards - Karma-riffic! causes the discard of 1 loot from the stash, unless Belkar used weapons during the argument. Saw It Coming lets the player draw 2 loot instead of heal 2 wounds. Traps do not go off for this, but may be saved to be discarded during the argument, otherwise they are discarded after the argument is over. Saw It Coming applies as normal vs. Belkar, regardless of what he does.

And that's all! I made the whole thing two rounds instead of just one, because some characters are keyed more toward defense with their Verbal Shticks, and I wanted them to still have a fair chance in PvP. This variant gets rid of the tactic of using PvP to make other characters flee--except for Belkar, of course--but does cause them to lose additional loot. I think it makes more sense for the OotS characters, all-in-all. And I think this will work fine for upcoming expansions. The Linear Guild can argue, too, and an OotS vs. LG battle can use the regular PvP rules.

Thoughts?

Thread: Re: We must have been doing quite a bit wrong

gamer-geek — 2007-09-04T19:46:17+00:00

I've only played once (three players) but the other two players had played a previously aborted 6 player game that devolved into too much PvP. We opted to play our game cooperatively as much as possible, and there was A LOT of assists and loot passing back and forth, and Roy unflipping my (Durkon's) healing schticks. That made the game go pretty smoothly, although we didn't know all the rules. We didn't know you could trade drool factor loot in for a schtick, and didn't know you drew three schticks and picked one. With three players, we found some loot that had each other's faces on it and would just trade it back and forth for assists.

I'm looking forward to playing it again, although I'm not sure I'd want to go for PvP... unless it was against the Linear Guild with the upcoming expansion!

(And expansion seemed unavoidable, there's so much space left in the tray!)

Thread: Speeding up and maintaining spirit of the game

MaxDraco — 2007-08-10T21:09:45+00:00

Here's a list of rule changes that I've played with:

Stairs: Are only found in last room on a level (no rolling for them).

Battle Hands: Separate out Screw This cards and Monsters into 2 decks.

Players draw 3 Screw This cards. Refill hand when empty.

Draw from Monster Battle deck to fill room. Monsters are stacked by highest to lowest unmodified defense number (ties are ruled by the highest attack number).

Monsters with Support:
Look through Monster discard pile (shuffle or draw from bottom) to find first matching support card and add it to the battle. Supporting creatures will develop as the game progresses.

Xykons Lair:
Contains only the safe haven plus one room. Select a number of Xykon monsters equal to the dungeon level (including Xykon). Handle Supporting creatures as outlined above.

.

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plutonick — 2007-07-29T12:18:38+00:00

Thread: Re: A set of variants aimed at a 2-3 hour game

MitchellW — 2007-07-19T04:45:22+00:00

We used 6 as the number for matching drool factor for our 4 player game. And we did pull one of the NPCs at random. Any loot with *just* that NPC's faces would be discarded and a new loot drawn to replace it.

Took 3.5 hours, and fun was had by all. I think part of what made this particular game take so long was that the dark room was the first room coming into the dungeon, and stopping an extra turn every time you want to heal at the dungeon entrance can slow things down.

We also had a 24/24 Xykon due to 4 support guys, which meant that despite two characters being down on the bottom floor, we were unable to kill him and had to wait for the team to get there to appropriately assist.

So, I think the experiment was a success. the 30 second timer didn't really do too much, there was one maybe two instances where it kicked in.

In future, I would veto turning up the dark room as the first room :-p

Thread: A set of variants aimed at a 2-3 hour game

MitchellW — 2007-07-18T05:22:00+00:00

I really like the mechanics of the game, and it's style. I really do like how much player interaction and PvP options are available, though many feel those slow down an already long game.

My goal with variants is to reduce the amount of time required to play the game without significantly altering the feel of the game and it's mechanics. Some of these variants appear elsewhere and are great, but aren't enough for what I'm shooting for: a 2-3 hour game.

It should also be noted that my experience with game length may be clouded by 3 player games where no one wants to give loot to the other non-NPCs as that helps them win the game.

-If you can search for stairs in a turn, you must search for stairs
-Find stairs on 1-4 instead of 1-3
-Autofind stairs in last room of a floor
-Can pickup loot in room starting in *and* room ending in. Resting still gives bonus (for a total of 3) (this also means that winning a battles results in 3 loot pickup)
-For 3 or less players, Xykon's level has an equipped drool factor requirement of 6 (was 8)
-Start with 6 loot and 6 schticks
-30 second time limit for each person having to decide which monster to lay for the next player

This is what I plan on playing with next, and I'll try and give some feedback on how it went.

I think that these mod's will not significantly affect any player's strategies, Haley being the most affected, as her powers of picking up extra loot faster are slightly diminished. If this makes her too weak comparitively, I might find a way to boost her up a little bit.

Other non-implemented ideas:
-6 rooms per floor (I don't like how this makes range a lot worse
-remove some number of NPCS?
-allow loot trading?

Thread: Re: V's Fireball

warlin — 2007-07-16T09:25:17+00:00

I dont understand the fireball at all.

Do you attack each monster in turn? e.g. perform a normal attack vs each of them, that is throwing a dice and see if it beats its defence? So for instance if you can attack 4 monsters, you throw 4 attack dices.

or do you perform ONE attack vs all of them, e.g. throw the attack dice one time and check vs each of the monsters defence to see if they die.

And do the monsters defend back, if they have a range > 0 ?

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KSensei — 2007-03-21T04:57:58+00:00

Belkar has been here before apparantly..

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KSensei — 2007-03-21T04:57:29+00:00

Durkon finds a Thor-prayer outlet..

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KSensei — 2007-03-21T04:56:05+00:00

Varssuvius finds the Pixar ball?

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KSensei — 2007-03-21T04:55:24+00:00

Elan wanders across the dreaded gazebo!!

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KSensei — 2007-03-21T04:54:48+00:00

Roy in the darkness, if he could only cast magic missle at it...