RPGs, Board Games Club
Dark Heresy
Friday night I went to Vern's and created a Void-born Psyker named Lex Vesper. He puts his flesh to death daily through self-flagellation. Years have passed since he took the more permanent step of being chemically geld. When I announced that I would be taking flagellation there was a nice round of flatulence jokes, not to mention all of the remarks about his being less than a full man. We rolled up characters and talked.
DnD
Then yesterday I got a surprise text message from Chris Hori; I haven't heard from him in over a year, but he invited me to come play DnD that night, so I went over and made a human barbarian named Athagar. On the drive over I started creating a persona for a priest, but abandoned that when I found out that there was already a paladin. Chris DM'd, Josh (his roommate) played a sword-mage, and the paladin Broseph of Myraid was played by George. I had a good time. We laid into some giant bats, skeletons, kobolds, and tossed a dwarf. Excluding trying to play 3.0 or 3.5 for a couple of hours YEARS ago, I haven't played since '99 or so and did my best to figure out some of the new mechanics. I also did my best to throw in WoW analogies, however unwanted or annoying they might be.
"The lake spreads out before you..."
"I look for Millie's lost necklace. Is there a chest in the bottom of the lake?"
....
"Are there any lake threshers?"
"Uh, no."
...
"There's a caretaker in this cemetery? Is his name Abercrombie?"
I don't know why I need to incude this? But uh, yeah, I think I was trying to approach 4.0 as World of Warcraft, so when I asked about my swift (or furious) charge and if they get dazed from it, I wasn't trying to be funny. I was trying to be semi-funny, but more importantly in character, when I took the cane away from the old dwarf caretaker and then broke it. I kept tempting the (lawful good) paladin into macho criminal acts.
Even More Gaming Ahead
Tomorrow I am going to play Heroclix with my brother-in-law, Jim, and then probably Star Wars with Harry on Tuesday! It's my Spring Break incidentally.
Board Games Club
The Board Games Club at my school has been having its ups and downs. I'm having trouble spelling it, but Guillitoine is well-liked. WoW Minis continues to be played AND without my direct supervision, which is nice. I announced that we would be having a tournament, which should be the Thursday after we come back. I will be giving away a couple of figures to the winner and have 4 players signed up. I did watch (and offer suggestions) for maybe 5 minutes on Thursday and was pleased to see a decent level of thought going into the game. Stuff like a player commenting on his Boulderfist Ogre's attack "I think it's a little risky, but I like the damage" with him referring to the ticker cost of the attack. I pointed out a couple of mistakes like multiples of Air Drop on the same figure, but overall I was pleased with the WoW play. There were 8 players/spectators.
I also tried out Marvel Heroscape with two kids. We played the basic, but they weren't interested in playing the Advanced, which brings me to some of the downs of the club. I'm way hypersensitive now about negative reactions. The two boys then walked around my classroom to see what else was available, with the veteran offering commentary to the new visitor. He was down on WoW Minis ("Boring") and SW Minis ("He also has Star Wars, which we played last week, but it's boring."), but then was enthusing about Heroclix ("He doesn't have it today, but we played two weeks ago and I was Iron Man! and I shot this and I beat up that ..."). BUT when we did play that game, it went quickly downhill because he couldn't stay focused, doesn't know what he's doing, etc. Part of it is that he's poisoning the well for this new potential member. Another part is that I have lost 3+ of my most promising gamers since I started doing the club. They will come and play for a couple of weeks, but then stop coming.
IF I am able to do this club again next year, by being at the same school, which is unlikely, then I'm going to go through some general concepts with the kids. One concept being MOST GAMES ARE NOT BORING: IF YOU THINK THE GAME IS BORING IT IS PROBABLY BECAUSE YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT OR YOU ARE A POOR PLAYER. Chutes and Ladders is god-awful boring! Apples to Apples is a baaaad game. So I acknowledge that some game design is bad, but games like Aggravation, Sorry, and Stratego are all interesting. I can always accept that certain games are more interesting and so on.
Friday night I went to Vern's and created a Void-born Psyker named Lex Vesper. He puts his flesh to death daily through self-flagellation. Years have passed since he took the more permanent step of being chemically geld. When I announced that I would be taking flagellation there was a nice round of flatulence jokes, not to mention all of the remarks about his being less than a full man. We rolled up characters and talked.
DnD
Then yesterday I got a surprise text message from Chris Hori; I haven't heard from him in over a year, but he invited me to come play DnD that night, so I went over and made a human barbarian named Athagar. On the drive over I started creating a persona for a priest, but abandoned that when I found out that there was already a paladin. Chris DM'd, Josh (his roommate) played a sword-mage, and the paladin Broseph of Myraid was played by George. I had a good time. We laid into some giant bats, skeletons, kobolds, and tossed a dwarf. Excluding trying to play 3.0 or 3.5 for a couple of hours YEARS ago, I haven't played since '99 or so and did my best to figure out some of the new mechanics. I also did my best to throw in WoW analogies, however unwanted or annoying they might be.
"The lake spreads out before you..."
"I look for Millie's lost necklace. Is there a chest in the bottom of the lake?"
....
"Are there any lake threshers?"
"Uh, no."
...
"There's a caretaker in this cemetery? Is his name Abercrombie?"
I don't know why I need to incude this? But uh, yeah, I think I was trying to approach 4.0 as World of Warcraft, so when I asked about my swift (or furious) charge and if they get dazed from it, I wasn't trying to be funny. I was trying to be semi-funny, but more importantly in character, when I took the cane away from the old dwarf caretaker and then broke it. I kept tempting the (lawful good) paladin into macho criminal acts.
Even More Gaming Ahead
Tomorrow I am going to play Heroclix with my brother-in-law, Jim, and then probably Star Wars with Harry on Tuesday! It's my Spring Break incidentally.
Board Games Club
The Board Games Club at my school has been having its ups and downs. I'm having trouble spelling it, but Guillitoine is well-liked. WoW Minis continues to be played AND without my direct supervision, which is nice. I announced that we would be having a tournament, which should be the Thursday after we come back. I will be giving away a couple of figures to the winner and have 4 players signed up. I did watch (and offer suggestions) for maybe 5 minutes on Thursday and was pleased to see a decent level of thought going into the game. Stuff like a player commenting on his Boulderfist Ogre's attack "I think it's a little risky, but I like the damage" with him referring to the ticker cost of the attack. I pointed out a couple of mistakes like multiples of Air Drop on the same figure, but overall I was pleased with the WoW play. There were 8 players/spectators.
I also tried out Marvel Heroscape with two kids. We played the basic, but they weren't interested in playing the Advanced, which brings me to some of the downs of the club. I'm way hypersensitive now about negative reactions. The two boys then walked around my classroom to see what else was available, with the veteran offering commentary to the new visitor. He was down on WoW Minis ("Boring") and SW Minis ("He also has Star Wars, which we played last week, but it's boring."), but then was enthusing about Heroclix ("He doesn't have it today, but we played two weeks ago and I was Iron Man! and I shot this and I beat up that ..."). BUT when we did play that game, it went quickly downhill because he couldn't stay focused, doesn't know what he's doing, etc. Part of it is that he's poisoning the well for this new potential member. Another part is that I have lost 3+ of my most promising gamers since I started doing the club. They will come and play for a couple of weeks, but then stop coming.
IF I am able to do this club again next year, by being at the same school, which is unlikely, then I'm going to go through some general concepts with the kids. One concept being MOST GAMES ARE NOT BORING: IF YOU THINK THE GAME IS BORING IT IS PROBABLY BECAUSE YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT OR YOU ARE A POOR PLAYER. Chutes and Ladders is god-awful boring! Apples to Apples is a baaaad game. So I acknowledge that some game design is bad, but games like Aggravation, Sorry, and Stratego are all interesting. I can always accept that certain games are more interesting and so on.
Comment
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Comment by Rich B on April 6, 2009 at 10:40pm -
Of course, the long set up time for most kids is probably the biggest turn off. The instant action of console games is one of the worst hits to tabletop ever...
Best of luck.
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Comment by GamePunk26 on April 6, 2009 at 9:46am -
First off, say HI to Chris for me if you see him again. There are a couple of RPG groups forming from the ashes of the LoE group and I, for one, would like to have Chris involved.
Secondly, WoW sux. It was a constant bane to my D&D game with jokes, comments, and people not paying attention to D&D and instead talking about their stupid WoW characters. I had to institute a punishment to the players for talking about it, which helped a little, but did not solve the problem. What is really annoying is that it was so distracting that I think if I had been running a WoW RPG it probably still would have been plagued by the same distractions. It is a sickness that there is little cure for.
Third- I know we talked about games at the party, but there are few options for people that are not really interested. Perhaps you could poll the kids and find out their interests. That might give you an idea what they want to play to keep them engaged.
Fourth- Some games are bad. Some are very bad. Chutes and LAdders is for 3 year olds, so it should bore you. If it doesn't, then you may be beyond help. Apples to Apples is not fundamentally a bad game, it just doesn't have the mechanics to pull it out of the mid-game slump it always reaches. People also tend to be predictable with their answers and what they pick when they judge. It is actually a good way to practice reading people and judging their reactions. Monopoly is a bad game. Pictionary is a bad (and divisive) game. Their is quite a bit of shit out there when it comes to games, but a little research can turn up some unbelieveably good games. Check Board Game Geek for info.
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