For the second time in slightly more than two years, we’ve hosted a New Years Day Cosmic Encounter party– this involves recovering from hangovers by drinking and playing Cosmic Encounter as many times as possible. In both cases, this year was no exception.
We had 11 people this year so split into two tables of 5 and 6. One group played with a base set and one expansion (the one with the Hazards) and the second group played with nearly everything except tech and space ports. We had some cracking games, but my first game was the very first time I’d seen the Entropy Beast in action– it devours planets based on number of ships and a draw of a special card from the destiny deck. Once one player is down to 2 planets, the game is over and everyone loses. In most games that are player vs player, the fact that the board would suddenly ‘win’ the game would normally be a bit shite, but in Cosmic Encounter it’s really just par for the course.
Cosmic, again, shows it’s mettle as the best multiplayer board game in existence. We had at least three people that had never played before and they were able to jump right in among the mimosas.
…a giant battle nearly from start to finish. I’d like to coin this as the John Woo Hobbit film. I’m not sure if I liked the movie, but it did not suck goblin schwang like the second film did. Stretching a small book into three films (though including a bunch of stuff from the Silmarillion) was a tough job but in this one the writers had no choice but to grease up and get fucking.
Stuff I liked:
Huge battle with lots of crap going on everywhere. There were scenes where dwarves, men, elves and orcs were all fighting like crazy. For a fan of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and all that stuff since I was a little kid, it was sort of a fantasy battle orgasm, and it should have been. Despite the original author’s rather denuded account of the battle in the book, it was a big show down in Middle Earth, one that had far reaching consequences for the LOTR wars. This was much better than the cartoon movie…
While the tiny parts with Dol Guldor and the Necromancer were really well done, this should have been a MUCH larger part of the second film and had a massive battle going on to finish up– THEN deal with the dragon. Really since it was three films, the Necromancer parts could have been the justification for the vast length– and really it didn’t amount to all that much in the third film. Seeing Saurman and the two elder elf characters destroying the ring wraiths was pretty awesome though, but did they just come alone? Pretty odd that.
I liked the 1 on 1 battles that evolved during the fighting. Since EVERY character had the power and skill of Legolas, it was neat to see the superheroic battles between the main characters. By this film, I knew going in that every goddamn thing was going to be way over the top wuxia so what the hell…
Stuff I didn’t like:
Not enough about Beorn and the bear– that guy should have had more screen time kicking ass. Just one tiny scene? That’s it??
Everyone was Legolas– this was pretty ridiculous throughout the three films that all the dwarves were as spritely and had the combat prowess of legolas… but they decided to go with the superheroic version of the Hobbit, and there we have it. If they hadn’t would we have been bored? I don’t know. This is all part of the ‘if everything is fantastic, nothing is’ issue with many fantasy films.
The armored orks. gone are the rabble-like hordes of orcs from LOTR that looked great, in the hobbit you basically had a generic but FULLY armored ork “bred for war” going on. They had little to no character compared to the LOTR versions, and it was unbelievable that human RABBLE and completely unarmored Dwarves should be able to cut a swath through them.
The dwarf/elf love story. This is was preposterous to me. Despite the fact that Evangeline Lilly is pretty and could just hog all the screen time between fight scenes for all I care, this was stretching the source material too far. A human? Yes, or another elf that dies in the battle (like NOT have Legolas there, but another male elf).
No cool Gandalf spells. He did few spells in the movies overall, I would have liked to see something other than him whipping his sword and staff around. It’s not like the film of the Hobbit fits into the low-magic Sword and Sorcery genre with all the running up falling bricks and Aerial lycanthrope transformations…
No thrush–where was the bird?
This is really on the second film– the meeting of Bilbo and the Dragon was BETTER in the old cartoon movie than the new one! How did that happen?
What this has inspired me to do is eventually have a marathon and watch the LOTR films back to back. However I may skip over the last 40 minutes of the last film– if there is any point where people look to where the seed of these Hobbit films inevitably going to shit it was the last 40 minutes of LOTR.
I survived the steam Xmas sale until this morning when I saw Dominions 4 on sale for 9$. This is well worth the scratch if you like strategery. I have not delved in to 4, but I have spend oodles and oodles of hours on 2 and 3. It’s a super deep game, but what’s awesome is that the multiplayer ACTUALLY WORKS since it’s tick based rather than everyone sitting around on one machine like Matt and Steve and John on HOMM 3.
Don’t let the graphics fool you, this is an awesome game.
I have to work this coming Monday, but it’s just a sprint review and planning and then it’s Xmas vacation! I had a bunch of time to burn this year, so I will carry over about 4 days of vacation, but things got so busy the last few weeks I couldn’t fit any vacation in.
That said, the plan for this vacation is to play some games of BOLT ACTION for sure, an obligatory game of Talisman (my woodlands expansion is still in the shrink!!!!!!) and to get a 6-8 hour session of RUNEQUEST wherein I am converting a Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure. We’ll see how that goes. I must say my handle on the Runequest rules are spotty at best, but Basic Roleplaying is not terribly difficult generally– but some of the specifics will be tough to remember.
Other shit I wouldn’t mind trying is some more 13th Age, POSSIBLY Numenera to try it out and likely lots and lots of the new Ascension expansion which will hold us over until SCROLLS is released on iOS.
Mojang was sold to Microsoft for a lot of money recently and while that should be actually GOOD for Minecraft, what about this other game SCROLLS? The one that caused such a dust up with Bethesda Software a year or so back (with the awesome challenge to settle LEGAL differences with Quake 3 Arena!!!). The game has been in beta for awhile (open like your sister’s legs) and last week it actually came out for everyone at FIVE BUCKS.
So this is a goddamn online CCG. You get a basic deck of cards and can ‘buy’ more with in-game gold that you earn by playing. It’s a typical model that everyone is using these days with all these fucking iOS FREE games and Blizzard’s Hearthstone. While the economic model for getting cards is sort of lame, really this isn’t different from any type of regular CCG like Netrunner, EXCEPT for the fact that you can get more cards by just playing the game. This means if you spend FIVE BUCKS and play, potentially you can get a ton of cards without spending any more. This is my plan.
The key thing here is if the game sucks balls and is just a semi-magic clone with +1 /-1 effects that are super boring. Since Magic itself has this same model of buying in game cards, if you really are going to play one of these games, you better play the best one. Since there isn’t one of these games out for NETRUNNER, I would say SCROLLS is probably one of the better games. I have not wasted money or time on Blizzard’s IP cash-in trash Hearthstone game but per Lord Lobo after 10 minutes in SCROLLS he mentioned it was “Way better” than Blizzard’s feeble offering.
Anyway, after about 7 games, this is what I think in BULLET LIST form.
I like the MAP a lot. It’s got this Heroes of Might and Magic vibe plus DREAMBLADE (which I’m waiting for my kids to get old enough to play). It puts context around playing cards instead of just this amorphous mass of cards on the table. Protecting a location is also very SHADOWFISTY, and that’s good.
The interface is quality. Mojang ain’t fucking around here. There were a couple things a bit wonky (like starting in windowed mode) but during the game it’s very nice.
Cards do interesting stuff. I really think the drive for GAME BALANCE has fucked up modern CCG’s a bit so the mechanics boil down to +1/-1 like Hearthstone. It’s sort of like how Diablo 3 didn’t take ANY chances with any powers PROC’ing because that would rely on some luck and not raw DPS. This made diablo 3 a really shitty and boring game (except for the sound effects).
The factions are generic, but the little miniatures on the board look cool. Each faction is named for a single word– GROWTH, etc. and the cards in each have pretty generic feel to them. When you’re used to JOHN FUCKING BLANCHE and ERIC SABEE art all over the place, it’s hard to get a woody about a faction that has some wolves and stuff in it. The ‘miniatures’ though are sweet.
I’m interested in the tactical depth possibilities. The main thing about a 2 player CCG is if it’s fun to play even if you are getting fucking schooled repeatedly (since this is how you learn). Netrunner is WONDERFUL in this way because it’s always a bit of a nailbiter at the end. Shadowfist is just nearly always fun to play regardless of who wins.
So that’s enough points for now. if you want to dip your toes in, there is a demo of the game, but at 5$– what the fuck. For the next two weeks or so (some of you know how my attention span is for games) I’ll be playing quite a bit. My username is: ajdghlkajhclkA. Not joking. I had to try 3 times to find a name that wasn’t taken (littlemute? seriously??) and it became a random string of letters.
I posted a battle report for Bolt Action to the tube of you. We played the Top Secret scenario and it was a fantastic game even though we fucked up the rules!
I don’t play Numenera but I have read the Player’s Guide and have the (giant) rules PDF picked up on the cheap. The book is beautiful, but I’m not sure about the game– basically there’s probably only one or two people I know that would ever even consider the setting interesting. I talk to a guy on my bus that ran it for about a year and thought the system was OK but then he switched to Dungeon World which is just a flavor-of-the-day spoof.
Anyway, Numenera sets up character generation as a phrase, such as “I am an Adjective NOUN who VERBS” and this site delivers these randomly which, frankly, for a new player is probably the way to go.
My deal with RPG’s is that I always want to try new shit, which is both awesome in that I get exposed to all the new RPG tech out their (which there has been some great stuff recently — looking at you Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Tenra Bansho and Lamentations of the Flame Princess), but the bad side is that SYSTEMS don’t hold my interest very long. Exalted 2nd edition probably had the longest run as an interesting system, but what a beautiful and terrible mess that is.
That said, In seconds I generated the following character. Give it a whirl!
Skills
Trained in all tasks relating to deception, intimidation and persuasion when interacting with characters experiencing pain.
Inability at all tasks involving discerning motives, feelings or disposition.
Training in understanding and identifying numenera
Abilities
Cruelty: When inflicting damage, can inflict 2 points less to decrease difficulty to attack target next round
Practiced With Light Weapons
Two Esoteries from the following: Hedge Magic, Onslaught, Push, Scan, Ward, Aggression, Distortion, Erase Memories, Far Step, Machine Interface, Mental Link, Resonance Field, Sculpt Flesh
Rapid Reforging
Equipment
Valuable memento from last victim worth 10 shins
Clothing
One weapons
A book about the Numenera
Three cyphers (chosen for you by the GM)
One oddity (chosen for you by the GM)
Notes
Pick a non-varjellan PC. You never understand that character’s moods or emotions
Shins
You have 4 shins to spend.
Cyphers
You can bear up to 3 cyphers.
References
Cruel
Numenera Character Options, pg. 20
Nano
Numenera Rulebook pg. 32, Players Guide pg. 21, Numenera Character Options pg. 10
Reforges Completely
Numenera Character Options pg. 73
And an excuse to post a sci fi booty picture (art by Phillip Kruse (http://philippkruse.artstation.com/)
