So I posted this innocent idea of how the humans could win by, maybe, the 6th player-turn of BSG..
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/643605/hypothetical-fastest-human-win-possible
I won't re-quote it here, you can go read it.
The response for the fastest Cylon win on the first player's first turn was equally sane; perhaps even more sane and less convoluted; it could probably happen once in a thousand games.
But pretty insanely, a player figured out how the humans could (hypothetically, purely mechanics-wise) get a Win on the first player's first turn. I'm in awe. It involves the fact that State of Emergency doesn't limit you from playing more State of Emergency on your turn.
So, if you manage to shrink the Leadership deck down small enough (with, say, overloading a check and having Adama draw and keep all the green cards), and trigger enough card-draws from it, you can effectively keep drawing and re-playing State of Emergency, getting an effective infinite number of player-actions, including a Cylon on Caprica drawing crises (it requires losing a food, but you can lose a food at 0 and keep going; you just need to gain 1 food back before the loop ends).
That's pretty awesome, even though it will never happen in practice.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
What Nebula? PGWJ BSG session report!
Finally, a game of BSG with Ionian Nebula!
Last night, at our PGWJ gathering, we had 5 players for BSG. Everyone had played the game before, and so we dug out the Trauma Tokens and Allies and got started with that.
Here are some brief highlights:
Players were:
Matt (Roslin - post-sleeper-phase Cylon)
Me (Chief)
Shaun (Cally - pre-sleeper-phase Cylon)
Jesse (Apollo)
Kevin (Tigh)* (Cain)
Very early on in the game, Admiral Tigh got a chance to check out somebody's loyalty. Wisely, he chose Cally. Pegged her as a Cylon, which, as we all know, means that there's a 50/50 shot of either one of them having a shiny red spinal column.
We were not left in suspense for long, because Cally has a fairly straightforward way of resolving that uncertainty.
On her next turn, she tapped Tigh on the shoulder, and he departed from this world, showing that he had been Human.
Admiral Cain came in to replace Tigh, and soon returned the favor, using her uber-brig ability to flush Cally out of the airlock and into the Resurrection Ship.
That set the tone for the rest of the game.
A lot of location-damaging happened in this game, which led to Pegasus's destruction and the humans' eventual demise, but also it allowed the Cylon players to cycle their Trauma tokens, which was a mechanical (no pun intended) concern from the beginning. No worries at all for them.
As for the rest of the Ally Mechanic, it worked out pretty well.
Two notable moments:
We were running low on fuel, and after encountering Boomer in the Armory, Cain drew Seelix (beneficial effect: +1 fuel). So, seeding Seelix with "positive trauma", Cain was able to pick it up later and help us out.
Notable moment #2:
Pre-sleeper-phase, President Roslin had to place Aaron Doral on the board, seeding him with negative trauma (Damage Galactica), and strongly advising that we do not go visit him.
After the sleeper phase showed Roslin her true Cylon colors, which happened to be the "Reveal and Damage Galactica" card (with Doral's picture on it, of course), she conspired with Doral to blow up Galactica in a really bad way.
The ship was so hurting, the Basestars were firing well, and we were dealing with Centurions at the same time.. we made it to Distance 5 and didn't even have the chance to Blind Jump, before Galactica disintegrated into tiny bits.
Even without seeing the Crossroads Phase happen, I enjoyed the spice and intrigue that the allies added to the game.
I'd love to try it again.
Maybe next time!
Last night, at our PGWJ gathering, we had 5 players for BSG. Everyone had played the game before, and so we dug out the Trauma Tokens and Allies and got started with that.
Here are some brief highlights:
Players were:
Matt (Roslin - post-sleeper-phase Cylon)
Me (Chief)
Shaun (Cally - pre-sleeper-phase Cylon)
Jesse (Apollo)
Kevin (Tigh)* (Cain)
Very early on in the game, Admiral Tigh got a chance to check out somebody's loyalty. Wisely, he chose Cally. Pegged her as a Cylon, which, as we all know, means that there's a 50/50 shot of either one of them having a shiny red spinal column.
We were not left in suspense for long, because Cally has a fairly straightforward way of resolving that uncertainty.
On her next turn, she tapped Tigh on the shoulder, and he departed from this world, showing that he had been Human.
Admiral Cain came in to replace Tigh, and soon returned the favor, using her uber-brig ability to flush Cally out of the airlock and into the Resurrection Ship.
That set the tone for the rest of the game.
A lot of location-damaging happened in this game, which led to Pegasus's destruction and the humans' eventual demise, but also it allowed the Cylon players to cycle their Trauma tokens, which was a mechanical (no pun intended) concern from the beginning. No worries at all for them.
As for the rest of the Ally Mechanic, it worked out pretty well.
Two notable moments:
We were running low on fuel, and after encountering Boomer in the Armory, Cain drew Seelix (beneficial effect: +1 fuel). So, seeding Seelix with "positive trauma", Cain was able to pick it up later and help us out.
Notable moment #2:
Pre-sleeper-phase, President Roslin had to place Aaron Doral on the board, seeding him with negative trauma (Damage Galactica), and strongly advising that we do not go visit him.
After the sleeper phase showed Roslin her true Cylon colors, which happened to be the "Reveal and Damage Galactica" card (with Doral's picture on it, of course), she conspired with Doral to blow up Galactica in a really bad way.
The ship was so hurting, the Basestars were firing well, and we were dealing with Centurions at the same time.. we made it to Distance 5 and didn't even have the chance to Blind Jump, before Galactica disintegrated into tiny bits.
Even without seeing the Crossroads Phase happen, I enjoyed the spice and intrigue that the allies added to the game.
I'd love to try it again.
Maybe next time!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
BSG card idea
This was just a brain-dump of a thought I had. Feel free to skewer it.
(Cross-posted to BoardGameGeek)
People don't often suggest new skillcards, because it's really not the kind of game where you can just substitute a card like that in.
But I came up with this simple idea, and felt like sharing it with the peanut gallery.
VIP Shuttle
Politics
Value: High (3/4/5? Maybe even 6?)
Movement: Move to a location on another ship. Roll a die. On a 6 or higher, put this card back into your hand. This ability is only usable if you are in a ship location.
Can't be played on New Caprica or while piloting (wording could be better about this), but _can_ be played in the Brig.
You won't Strategically Plan the roll (probably), because you might as well just discard the Strategic Planning to move.
It needs a high value because the movement ability isn't useful incredibly often.
(Cross-posted to BoardGameGeek)
People don't often suggest new skillcards, because it's really not the kind of game where you can just substitute a card like that in.
But I came up with this simple idea, and felt like sharing it with the peanut gallery.
VIP Shuttle
Politics
Value: High (3/4/5? Maybe even 6?)
Movement: Move to a location on another ship. Roll a die. On a 6 or higher, put this card back into your hand. This ability is only usable if you are in a ship location.
Can't be played on New Caprica or while piloting (wording could be better about this), but _can_ be played in the Brig.
You won't Strategically Plan the roll (probably), because you might as well just discard the Strategic Planning to move.
It needs a high value because the movement ability isn't useful incredibly often.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A night with Matt's MoM
Last Wednesday, the PGWJ group (Matt, Max, and I) got a chance to try out Mansions of Madness.
Pardon me if my details are incomplete, but there are the issues of both "secrecy" and my memory.
I'm also typing this entry from the ipad as an experiment, so I'll be brier because the keyboard is less than perfectly comfortable.
Matt played the Keeper role.
Max chose the old professor. I played the gangster.
The flavor text and story clues really did seem to add to the game. I liked that.
The game was really close; it looked like we investigators had already lost and we were just "playing it out", but we ended up pulling off a victory. I liked that.
I am still conceptually concerned about replay value since there are fixed scenarios, but I don't think I'll personally play the game enough times for it to make a difference.
I'll rate the game a GRRR.
Pardon me if my details are incomplete, but there are the issues of both "secrecy" and my memory.
I'm also typing this entry from the ipad as an experiment, so I'll be brier because the keyboard is less than perfectly comfortable.
Matt played the Keeper role.
Max chose the old professor. I played the gangster.
The flavor text and story clues really did seem to add to the game. I liked that.
The game was really close; it looked like we investigators had already lost and we were just "playing it out", but we ended up pulling off a victory. I liked that.
I am still conceptually concerned about replay value since there are fixed scenarios, but I don't think I'll personally play the game enough times for it to make a difference.
I'll rate the game a GRRR.
Monday, March 28, 2011
How about a crawl?
Yesterday, got together with the Tufts Gamer Crew (or at least a subset of the current subset of it) for some gaming.
The GM of our "regular" (i.e. invested some time in character creation and had at least one Full Session) RPG game could not make it, so we had other options to consider.
Of course you know that I would always advocate Board Gaming over RPGs.
I even brought both my ipad, and my Huge Box Of Overly Separated Small World Bits.
But, consensus was to dungeon-crawl, and I wanted to play something with my friends instead of bickering about what to play.
Plus, crawling is also likely to get silly which is a good thing.
**
The game system was D&D 3.25-ish, with GM Mike's "low Hit Point world" rules (only 1 HP per level, with an extra full die of HP every few levels, armor provides DR instead of AC, very low magic, a few other rules).
I was Oorf, a 12th-level Halfling Barbarian (me), riding his trusty Dire Badger.
After my clan of near-feral Halflings captured a traveling Human Fighter, we found that he had a treasure map. Along the way, we fought some bandits and met up with a Gnome Monk in search of adventure.
We made it to the location on the treasure map (which the Human claimed was his home) without much incident, where we encountered some insect-like creatures, but deep within their lair was a hoard of gold and assorted Dungeon Crawler's Treasure.
Of course, guarding this gold was a Dragon. A Gold Dragon, so it happens.
Due to the nature of the mechanics of the system, it was a dangerous battle (i had about 40 HP as a 12th-level barbarian, and attack/weapon damage is not scaled down). But with my magic Keen Shortsword and some lucky rolls, and of course the help of the party, we managed to defeat the beast and take home whatever treasure didn't fall down the inevitable trap we discovered.
It was a short cliche adventure, but it was fun.
The GM of our "regular" (i.e. invested some time in character creation and had at least one Full Session) RPG game could not make it, so we had other options to consider.
Of course you know that I would always advocate Board Gaming over RPGs.
I even brought both my ipad, and my Huge Box Of Overly Separated Small World Bits.
But, consensus was to dungeon-crawl, and I wanted to play something with my friends instead of bickering about what to play.
Plus, crawling is also likely to get silly which is a good thing.
**
The game system was D&D 3.25-ish, with GM Mike's "low Hit Point world" rules (only 1 HP per level, with an extra full die of HP every few levels, armor provides DR instead of AC, very low magic, a few other rules).
I was Oorf, a 12th-level Halfling Barbarian (me), riding his trusty Dire Badger.
After my clan of near-feral Halflings captured a traveling Human Fighter, we found that he had a treasure map. Along the way, we fought some bandits and met up with a Gnome Monk in search of adventure.
We made it to the location on the treasure map (which the Human claimed was his home) without much incident, where we encountered some insect-like creatures, but deep within their lair was a hoard of gold and assorted Dungeon Crawler's Treasure.
Of course, guarding this gold was a Dragon. A Gold Dragon, so it happens.
Due to the nature of the mechanics of the system, it was a dangerous battle (i had about 40 HP as a 12th-level barbarian, and attack/weapon damage is not scaled down). But with my magic Keen Shortsword and some lucky rolls, and of course the help of the party, we managed to defeat the beast and take home whatever treasure didn't fall down the inevitable trap we discovered.
It was a short cliche adventure, but it was fun.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
On second thought, maybe we shouldn't go to Camelot. It is a silly place. PGWJ Session 2 BSG report
I should post this before I forget.
We had six players for a game of Battlestar Galactica at our second official gathering of Play Games With Josh.
Since one of them was a complete newbie to the game (albeit a fan of the series), we decided once again to forgo the alternate endings and take a trip to Kobol.
I stuck to my guns with the "no house rules" house rule, for what it was worth.
Our newbie Shaun chose first: Baltar
To his left: Kat (Tony), Cally (Matt), Tigh (Max), Josh (Boomer) and Kevin (Cain)
With no Cylon Leader, we played with the basic-game Sympathizer. This is very important to the story.
We had a few comical messups with the Loyalty Deck, which required 2 re-deals, but once that was over, we got started.
The pre-sleeper-phase was pretty typical. Nothing noteworthy that I can remember, until we were at Distance 3.
At Distance 3, the strangest thing happened:
CRISIS: Legendary Discovery
All of our resources "in the blue".
So the humans endeavored to cause this Crisis to fail, to avoid an evil Sympathizer. That's the first time I've ever seen the humans tank this must-pass Crisis.
(hence the title of this post, which I unfortunately didn't think of until a re-edit ;) )
Soon thereafter, our Morale was one tick in the red, and everything else was in the blue.
A "President Chooses" crisis came up which had a choice which included +1 Morale or -1 Morale, and a Jump Icon.
Our savvy unrevealed-Cylon President Baltar realized that he actually wanted to give us +1 Morale to have a Sympathizer Friend. So that's exactly what he did...
... but it backfired upon him, when our destination put Fuel into the red anyway.
So, Tigh was the (not-automatically-Cylon) Sympathizer, I (Boomer) went to the brig, and we carried on.
Sweet little Cally did what she tends to do: Chartered a shuttle to the President's Office and used her Once Per Game to blow away Baltar.
Sure enough, he was a Cylon, and he spent some time on the Basestar Bridge for most of the rest of the game.
Typical for Boomer, I was also dealt a You Are A Cylon card, along with a Final Five card (if you examine this, Cylon Ships are Activated).
I sat in the brig, Launching Scouts at the Destination Deck and Reconning the Crisis Deck, begging to be released but alas it would not happen.
Somewhere along the way, a Crisis gave a choice of executing a player, and Saul volunteered rather than waste resources in the brig. Along came Apollo...
... Eventually, the Humans were getting too close to a win, so I revealed (unfortunately before using my own OPG). My Super Crisis sucked, so I sat in the Basestar Bridge while Baltar went off to Caprica.
We had an Epic Battle, when the Pursuit Track popped and filled the main board with raiders.
But, alas, I didn't even get a chance to activate the "move the Jump Tracks around" Basestar Bridge location before the Humans made their final victorious jump.
It was almost not so victorious, down to a die roll.
Cally had a Personal Goal that would have cost 1 population, pop was at 4, and Apollo was activating FTL. Cally hinted that she should be XO'd to press FTL herself (because she could have revealed her goal as an action first), but that didn't happen.
The die roll succeeded, and the Galactica Crew safely reached Kobol with one Population and the rest of the dials in the red.
Overall this was a pretty great session of Galactica.
I can't wait to play again, and finally try Ionian Nebula!
Side Note: At 6 distance, Cain did use her OPG (without scouting), so any house-ruling of her wouldn't have mattered much anyway. And it didn't seem disruptively powerful in this case.
We had six players for a game of Battlestar Galactica at our second official gathering of Play Games With Josh.
Since one of them was a complete newbie to the game (albeit a fan of the series), we decided once again to forgo the alternate endings and take a trip to Kobol.
I stuck to my guns with the "no house rules" house rule, for what it was worth.
Our newbie Shaun chose first: Baltar
To his left: Kat (Tony), Cally (Matt), Tigh (Max), Josh (Boomer) and Kevin (Cain)
With no Cylon Leader, we played with the basic-game Sympathizer. This is very important to the story.
We had a few comical messups with the Loyalty Deck, which required 2 re-deals, but once that was over, we got started.
The pre-sleeper-phase was pretty typical. Nothing noteworthy that I can remember, until we were at Distance 3.
At Distance 3, the strangest thing happened:
CRISIS: Legendary Discovery
All of our resources "in the blue".
So the humans endeavored to cause this Crisis to fail, to avoid an evil Sympathizer. That's the first time I've ever seen the humans tank this must-pass Crisis.
(hence the title of this post, which I unfortunately didn't think of until a re-edit ;) )
Soon thereafter, our Morale was one tick in the red, and everything else was in the blue.
A "President Chooses" crisis came up which had a choice which included +1 Morale or -1 Morale, and a Jump Icon.
Our savvy unrevealed-Cylon President Baltar realized that he actually wanted to give us +1 Morale to have a Sympathizer Friend. So that's exactly what he did...
... but it backfired upon him, when our destination put Fuel into the red anyway.
So, Tigh was the (not-automatically-Cylon) Sympathizer, I (Boomer) went to the brig, and we carried on.
Sweet little Cally did what she tends to do: Chartered a shuttle to the President's Office and used her Once Per Game to blow away Baltar.
Sure enough, he was a Cylon, and he spent some time on the Basestar Bridge for most of the rest of the game.
Typical for Boomer, I was also dealt a You Are A Cylon card, along with a Final Five card (if you examine this, Cylon Ships are Activated).
I sat in the brig, Launching Scouts at the Destination Deck and Reconning the Crisis Deck, begging to be released but alas it would not happen.
Somewhere along the way, a Crisis gave a choice of executing a player, and Saul volunteered rather than waste resources in the brig. Along came Apollo...
... Eventually, the Humans were getting too close to a win, so I revealed (unfortunately before using my own OPG). My Super Crisis sucked, so I sat in the Basestar Bridge while Baltar went off to Caprica.
We had an Epic Battle, when the Pursuit Track popped and filled the main board with raiders.
But, alas, I didn't even get a chance to activate the "move the Jump Tracks around" Basestar Bridge location before the Humans made their final victorious jump.
It was almost not so victorious, down to a die roll.
Cally had a Personal Goal that would have cost 1 population, pop was at 4, and Apollo was activating FTL. Cally hinted that she should be XO'd to press FTL herself (because she could have revealed her goal as an action first), but that didn't happen.
The die roll succeeded, and the Galactica Crew safely reached Kobol with one Population and the rest of the dials in the red.
Overall this was a pretty great session of Galactica.
I can't wait to play again, and finally try Ionian Nebula!
Side Note: At 6 distance, Cain did use her OPG (without scouting), so any house-ruling of her wouldn't have mattered much anyway. And it didn't seem disruptively powerful in this case.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
PWGJ "Session 2" coming soon..
I haven't forgotten about you, blog.
I owe you some news about gaming on my ipad, and stuff.
But just came here to say, tomorrow night we're definitely going to have enough people to play Galactica, possibly with Ionian Nebula.
I've been wanting to try one of the alternate endings for a long time now, but it has been suggested that since we might have a relative newbie, we might not want to make the game more complex with an alternate ending.
All the more excuse to play more, of course. But hopefully we can work something out.
I owe you some news about gaming on my ipad, and stuff.
But just came here to say, tomorrow night we're definitely going to have enough people to play Galactica, possibly with Ionian Nebula.
I've been wanting to try one of the alternate endings for a long time now, but it has been suggested that since we might have a relative newbie, we might not want to make the game more complex with an alternate ending.
All the more excuse to play more, of course. But hopefully we can work something out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
