Less Magpie in Magpie Night

This past Monday marked the beginning of a turning point for our Magpie Night RPG sessions.  The night was originally designed to try out a variety of game systems using one or two shot adventures.  We did that for a while bi-weekly, then added a Pathfinder Kingmaker campaign on the off weeks.

This was working quite well for some time, but lately things have changed.  First, we lost one of our founding members when she moved away, and the Kingmaker campaign has been dragging a bit since then.  With another of our players now taking a (hopefully) temporary leave of absence, I made the decision to put Kingmaker on hiatus.

Meanwhile, I have been getting some push-back on the core Magpie concept of bouncing from system to system fairly rapidly.  A couple of the players are either frustrated at constantly having to come up with character ideas, or else have a desire to explore their character concepts more deeply than a single adventure allowed for.

Also, I want to explore some games that require more than a single adventure to get into, so while I do want to still do some more one-shot adventures in the future, I am abandoning them for now and doing short campaigns instead.

With this in mind I created a spreadsheet of all the games I am willing to run, along with ratings as to how great my desire to run them is, my preparedness in terms of understanding the rules, and some other factors.  At the top of that list is Ashen Stars, but Trail of Cthulhu is right below it, and two of my three current players are more interested in it than in Ashen Stars.

Thus, we have started a Trail of Cthulhu campaign, while possibly doing some Ashen Stars adventures whenever I need a break from running Trail of Cthulhu.  Since they are both based on the Gumshoe system, there shouldn't be much difficulty in switching between games.  More on this in my next post.

I'm a little sad to see the format change, but we got through a lot of games over the past year or so, which has been a lot of fun, and which I think really helped some of my skills when it comes to roleplaying.  I'm now looking forward to running some longer games.

Space Marine

I just finished the new Space Marine video game, and it's one of the best uses of the Warhammer 40K IP that I've yet to see.  Certainly the best single player experience in a 40K video game.

Playing Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, I feel like I'm capable of accomplishing exactly what a Space Marine Captain should be able to accomplish according to the fluff of the 40K universe.  I can face hordes of orks and renegade guardsman with ease.  With skill, persistence, and a bit of luck, I can even take down an ork warboss solo.

However, even with the abilities and gear of a Space Marine Captain, if I fail to use proper tactics, then I will die.  As Captain Titus I am a super soldier, but I am not Superman.

The way the game plays supports this.  Throughout much of the mission I am accompanied by two fellow marines, my battle brothers in the parlance of the Space Marines.  They aren't very effective at taking down the enemies they face, but that doesn't break the immersion for me, because they are also invulnerable to taking damage.  This is important, because it allows me to stay immersed in the idea that I am a Space Marine fighting alongside fellow Space Marines.  I never have to make a tactically stupid choice in order to keep one of my battle brothers alive because those battle brothers can take care of themselves.  I can focus on my own goals without having to keep track of my companions at every moment.

The way weapons work also contribute to the proper feel of the setting.  A bolter feels like a powerful weapon, but it still takes a few hits to drop an ork.  Opponents take about as much punishment as you would think that they should according to the fluff.  Maybe a little more than you'd expect in some cases, but not excessively so.

While the story is linear, the little tactical choices you make in combat seem to matter.  This is because there are very few places where the enemy spawns continuously.  If you shoot an enemy, that enemy is gone.  It's not going to be replaced by another enemy until I reach some arbitrary trigger point that turns off the respawns.  This lets me use actual tactics, like sniping the enemy instead of rushing straight into the middle of them.

Where there are respawning enemies, there are usually a limited number of respawns, and they respawn in a way that is consistent with the setting, such as coming through a hole torn in the warp.

There are a few tropes of the shooter genre present that can break immersion, but they are relatively minor.  For example, the ability to swap out up to four different weapons, including heavy weapons, at will.  I'm not sure where I was keeping that lascannon while shooting my bolter, but it's a concession to game play that I think is both necessary to maximize the fun, and is easy to get used to.

The graphics and sound are appropriate.  Space Marines are big.  Imperial Guard troopers are tiny next to them.  Proportions are true to the fluff, not to the tabletop game miniatures, which is good. The scenery is appropriately gothic and war-torn, with jury-rigged defenses created by both orks and humans scattered around.  Nothing gets repeated so much as to become annoying or humorous, neither sounds nor graphics.

 All the vehicles and characters are from 40K designs, with nothing really original to the game itself.  I liked this, as you get to see some things animated that I don't think have ever been animated before.

Vehicles in general make few appearances in the game.  Most of it takes place in confined spaces where vehicles can't operate, but when they do appear, they tend to be impressive.  If there is a sequel, one thing they could do to differentiate it from the original would be to include more vehicles.

Overall, a very fun game, despite an ending that was a bit weak (probably to leave room for a sequel), and I strongly recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of the IP of Warhammer 40K.

Mouse Guard RPG Unboxing

I've had a few people asking about the Mouse Guard RPG Boxed Set, so this post is going to be something I can point people to when they ask. It's been a while since I read or played Mouse Guard, so this is going to be mostly an evaluation of the physical components.

To start with, the box itself is nice. Solid, with nice artwork. Inside is a clear plastic insert to keep the contents from bouncing around too much. Roughly from top to bottom, I'll now go through those contents.

First are the dice. Ten solid six sided dice with engraved symbols, black on off-white. Three sides have a snake eating its tail for the cowards, two sides with crossed daggers for the regular successes, and one side with the Black Axe for the "6" side that can be exploded using fate points. While certainly not necessary, these look very nice.

There are five "mouse pawns" in different colors. These are oversized soft plastic chess pawns with mouse heads on top them. They resemble the pawns Gwendolyn uses in the comic to mark Guard patrols on the map. They don't really have any game function, but could make for a nice prop.

Next up are the cards. Three Action Decks, one deck of Conditions, and one of Weapons. Every card has an illustration and rules summary. The Action Decks have three each of the four different actions. The Conditions Deck has three each of the different conditions. The Weapons Deck has two each of ten different weapons, and one card for the mace introduced in the New Rules New Missions booklet. These cards seem to be the most useful things in the box, and I can see them coming in very handy when playing the game, especially with people new to the game.

Next is the rulebook. This is a softcover version of the rules, but otherwise identical to the hardcover book available separately.

Next is the "New Rules New Missions" booklet. The new rules introduce a variety of specialized "weapons" (really tactics and gear in most cases) for different types of activities, from giving speeches to fighting larger animals. There's also three new towns, a Combat Matrix revised for clarity, and rules for using mounts.

The bulk of the booklet is taken up with three new missions, each with new character templates. I've deliberately not looked too closely at these, but they are comparable in length to the sample missions in the rulebook.

The end of the booklet consists of a description of the other components which can be found in the boxed set. One thing I noticed here is that it mentions the presence of "other cards" beyond the decks I mentioned above, specifically cards with conflict disposition, conflict skills/action, and action mechanics on them. I can find no such cards in the box, and they aren't mentioned on the back of the box. I don't know if they're missing from my box or simply were dropped from production, but I suspect the latter given that they aren't mentioned on the box.

Next up are two pads of sheets. One pad of character sheets, and one of GM sheets. The former are what you'd expect from a character sheet. The latter has one side for summarizing the player characters, and the other is a rules summary.

Below the pads is a 3 panel cardstock GM's screen. It looks like it contains useful information, but I'd have to use it in play before I could fully evaluate whether it's well designed or not. The outer side consists of two panels of artwork, and one of information for the players, which is nice.

Finally, there's a map of the Mouse Territories in 1150. This is the same map found on the inside covers of the hardback rules, but with a little more color.

Overall, this is a nice set. Should you get it if you already own the rules? That's a tough call. If you're only interested in "crunch" then $70 is an awful lot for 44 pages of new rules and missions. It becomes a better deal if you're also interested in the play aids, like the cards and GM screen. If you were considering getting a second copy of the rules anyway, just to make things easier at the table, then definitely consider getting this set instead.

If you don't already own the rules, then I'd find this set an easier recommendation. You're still paying $35 above the cost of the hardcover for all the extras, but they are nice extras, and should make playing the game easier.

Don't Discourage Your Customers

These are some ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while, but I was finally inspired to write them down after reading the following tweet from Adam Jury: "Pricing that punishes late adopters discourages late adopters. Hey, discouraging customers kinda sucks."

In case it's not obvious: discouraged customers are less likely to buy your product.

An example of this is the pre-order discount. This is a common tactic in the hobby games industry, particularly among wargame manufacturers where it's become a nearly universal practice. It obviously works for them on some level, but it does tend to discourage new customers in a market that already struggles a great deal to attract new customers. Sometimes the pre-order discount is so large that you have to wonder whether the final MSRP is being overly inflated to further encourage pre-ordering.

Pricing isn't the only way to discourage customers. Another way is the pre-order exclusive. If the only way for a customer to get a certain substantial thing is to pre-order, and they missed the pre-order, then they're even more likely to become discouraged than they would from missing a discount. By substantial I mean something related to game-play. An adventure, or scenario, or expansion that's exclusive to pre-orders and otherwise unavailable.

In the past I've even seen companies that only offer a legitimate PDF of the product to those who pre-order. This goes beyond discouraging sales to actively preventing them!

Substantial exclusives in general are a bad idea. Whether it's a pre-order exclusive, a con-exclusive, or a direct order exclusive, when customers find out that they've missed out on something, they become discouraged. That means while they may have already bought your core game, now they're less likely to buy anything else related to it.

A combination of the two is the pre-order bundle. Everything in the bundle is available after the pre-order, but at a higher combined price. This is most commonly found in situations where the PDF is offered free with a pre-order, but has to be paid for separately if you don't pre-order.

So, what's a company to do if they want to encourage pre-orders, but don't want to discourage late adopters? Offer bonuses that aren't involved with game play: signed copies, t-shirts, posters, anything that's "cool" but isn't actually used in the play of the game.

Many Kickstarter projects are using this kind of thing effectively. In many cases people are actually paying extra to be an early adopter (in some cases a LOT extra) if it gets them something cool, even though it's not related to the game play. Something as simple as getting your name in the product as a supporter can help encourage people to put money up front.

It's possible to get creative about offering incentives while avoiding dis-incentives.

Diana Jones Award 2011

I still haven't gotten around to doing my own analysis of what would make for a good gaming award, but I almost don't have to, because I can point to the Diana Jones Award.

Instead of being a popularity contest, the Diana Jones Award is chosen by a panel of professionals. As a result, both the list of nominations and the final winner are consistently deserving of the attention given, and this year is no exception.

The nominees were:

Catacombs, a board game

The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game

Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space, a board game

Fiasco, a roleplaying game

Freemarket, a roleplaying game

These were all worthy nominations. I've played the three RPGs, and am familiar with the board games by reputation. While not all the nominees are my personal favorites, I can easily recognize the merits of them all.

The winner was Fiasco, and I think this was well deserved. It's been one of the most successful games I've played in terms of providing a consistently fun experience.

Congratulations to Jason Morningstar!