2014 review and 2015 preview

Ah, the end of another year... And I am glad to see it come. This year has been one of drama and problems and was just not good. But, I'm not here to talk about my drama, I'm here to walk about games!

Kickstarter:

This year was a bad Kickstarter year for me. I thought I was going to be moving this past summer, so I didn't invest in several good games that came up because I didn't want to have to deal with changing my address at the last minute and I didn't want to have things shipped to my mother's address.

That said, I've got one Kickstarter I've been waiting on for over a year now and it's leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

That said, I've funded a few projects, as shown from the brief posts about them.

Wargaming:

With the drama between Pano and myself, followed by the closing of his game store, I haven't done any wargaming in a long, long while. I haven't painted anything, only primed three minis, and have tons of half-finished projects laying around. But, let's start on the games.

SpineSpur:

Oh, SpineSpur. How I have missed you so! I haven't played since the last battle report in January. I love playing this game but it's so hard to get games in. Since no one seems to play it, but you can't just show up at a store with a force and play, like Warmachine, Infinity, or Warhammer. No, for me, I have to get in touch with the two people I've taught how to play and figure out the when/where/how of getting a game together. Not fun. But, I'm going to work on changing that. 2015 shall be the Year of SpineSpur! I'll be working on recruiting new players, be finishing out my queue of minis, and starting a new series of articles: The Streets of SpineSpur! More coming on that soon.

Road Kill:

Not that long ago, I wrote up a 'Let's Review' of this game. Now, I'll be doing a series of articles repairing and expanding the game. Hopefully, I'll be able to sucker a friend in to playing a game or two with me. I'll also be painting models for this game and posting them up here.

Warhammer 40,000:

I know what you're thinking. Why am I writing about Warhammer after saying I'm done with it? Well, Jay and I have discussed playing some Zone Mortalis games. Since I already own a ton of minis for the game, there's not much I need to update to play. I have the most recent Chaos Space Marine codex (I bought it from Remi when we were still friends) and I just acquired the new Imperial Guard codex. All I need to do is buy a copy of Dark Vengeance, which I'll be doing on eBay, and I'll be ready to roll. I'm not buy any new minis (except what I'll get from the DV set), I'm just going to play with what I have already.

Also, my issue with Warhammer has more to do with GW's business decisions than the game itself. The game is fun, but it just happens to be owned by some real jerks.

Malifaux:

One of these days, I'm going to finish up these minis and actually play this game. That day, however, may be very far off...

Card Games:

Not much going on here. With the WoW TCG now dead, I don't play a single 'active' card game. While that might seem sad to some of you, it does save me quite a bit of money. And while the WoW game is dead, I've picked up quite a few lots on eBay for dirt cheap. Which is about the only good thing to come out of the cancellation. I wouldn't mind picking up a new card game, but I am yet to see one that appeals to me in the slightest.

RPGs:

Due to the collapse of my gaming group last year, I haven't done any gaming in so long. Since I'm not playing RPGs, I'm not really buying them or paying too much attention to them. Lately, I've just been buying things I missed the first time around. 

 

Articles:

As I'm sure you may have noticed, I've been adding some articles to this blog. My goal has been to expand the scope of this thing and I figured this was the easiest way to do it. As anyone who has looked over the early entries has noticed, this blog was formed to talk about Warhammer 40k. Since the other contributors have left and I'm (mostly) out of the 40k game, I've been trying to generate content here.

Blast from the past:

This is one of my favorite articles to write. I have so many old RPGs laying around that never got any love. It's nice to dig them out, look them over, and just talk about was (or never was). If you look over the list of games page at the top of the blog, you'll see that I have a lot of ground to cover before this series comes to a close. For right now, I'm trying to put out one of these a month. This series will also include settings for old systems as well. If you have a game you'd like to see written about, leave a comment and I'll add it to the list. Right now, Hunter: the Reckoning, Teenagers From Outer Space, and Big Eyes, Small Mouth are being worked one. Stay tuned for those.

Gone But Not Forgotten:

This is new series for me and it will probably be on of the shortest ones, as I don't play a lot of collectible games anymore. For right now, there's only two more games for me to review: Doomtown (which will be rolled in a larger series of articles about the Deadlands settings) and the Axis & Allies minis game. I might buy some starter sets of older games, provided they're cheap and unique. If you have suggestions, feel free to let me know.

Let's Review:

This is a fun one for me. I don't have a huge list of things for this one. Yet. As I get things from Kickstarter, I'll be adding them to this series. It's also a chance to talk about games I love that you can still buy and are still supported. This should be a long-running series, if random in updates.

How-To:

I had originally intended to do more How-To articles from the beginning of the blog, as well as getting the other founding members involved in writing some, but no one wanted to. So, since I live in the 90's and don't have a smartphone nor a digital camera, trying to do How-To things without pictures proved to be too much of a drag to do. However, I would like to share more things I've discovered, so I'll be doing some of these this upcoming year. I hope.

Others:

I have a few other articles planned for this year. I've mentioned a few already but there might be others coming as well.

In addition to all this, I'll be posting battle reports, painted minis, and everything else. Stay tuned!

Blast From The Past: EverQuest Role-Playing Game

Welcome to the world of Norrath, player!

Say hello to Fironia Vie. The 'hot' elf. You'll be seeing her a lot...

One of the first MMORPGs was EverQuest. Based on many elements from Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy games, it was a wild success and started the MMORPG crazy that is still going strong today.

Since EverQuest was based on RPG elements, and had a fanbase that were role-playing nerds, it was inevitable that an official RPG would be released. The game used the D20 System, which was all the rage in those days, and the Swords and Sorcery system, which wasn't that common.

The world of EverQuest was rich and expansive, full of interesting details and characters. Don't believe me? Just check out the list of races and classes below:

Races:

Human

Dark Elf

High Elf

Wood Elf

Halfling

Barbarian (Nordic/Scottish sub-species of human from the frozen North)

Dwarf

Gnome

Eurdite (Magic user sub-species of human)

Half Elf

Iskar (Lizard people from a far-away continent)

Ogre

Troll

Vah Shir (Cat people. From the moon. No, I'm not making that up.)

Big list, isn't it? Like D&D 2^nd edition, only some races were prevented from taking some classes and they would take experience penalties when the group gained XP. 

... Because they used her in ALL of the advertising...

 

Classes:

Warrior

Shadow Knight (AKA Death Knight/Anti-Paladin)

Paladin

Beastlord (Druid/Fighter mix)

Monk

Ranger

Rogue

Wizard

Magician

Necromancer

Enchanter

Bard

Cleric

Druid

Shaman

The pen-and-paper RPG is almost a complete port of the computer version which causes some... Issues.

So, there's almost every race... And Fironia...

Mana and spell slots: Just like the video game (and many others for that matter), the EQ RPG included mana. While the classes generate a goodly amount of mana, you have to balance the spell level, the mana cost, and the slots you have for spells. You get six spell slots no matter what your level, but you can't have any spell memorized in more than one slot and it takes time to re-add a spell to a slot. For many coming from D&D and the like, this system feels a bit off. In the video game, resting for a few minutes allows you to take a quick break and get something to drink. In a role-playing setting, it's annoying.

Faction: In many MMORPGs, you have a variety of factions you have to deal with. When you decrease faction with groups, you can expect to be attacked on sight when you enter areas they control. This makes sense in a video game, where the monsters and guards seem to magically communicate this to each other. However, in a role-playing game, you don't assume that sort of thing. Sure, NPCs talk to each other and you expect that. But, being instantly attacked when walking in to a city when you're not a member of an evil race just doesn't jive with most players.

Quests: Oh, we all know quests. Every video game has them. Since video games don't have a DM/GM who can control everything and the worlds are much less free-form, it makes sense that you need to provide rewards and motivations to players. In the RPG, they've included many of the common and important quests, but they didn't seem to think out the rewards very much. In the video game, they would give a player a faction reward and an item reward. But, in the RPG, they don't add additional rewards when a group takes up the quest, and the monetary rewards kind of suck. CR 5 quest and 3d10 GP reward? Um, what? That doesn't make a lot of sense when magic items are few and far between and cost tens or thousands to hundreds of thousand of gold.

Magic Items: One of the best things about any fantasy RPG is always the magic items. D&D has thousands of them, varying from the questionable to overpowering, from utilitarian to the humorous, they're always creative and fun to read about. EverQuest is no exception. While the list is limited and many of the items are very expensive, the items are unique to the setting. One thing that I find interesting is that almost every item adds a stat boost (ranging from +1 to +3 to several different stats), a small HP bonus (around +5 on average), and other minor bonuses.

Trade Skills: I'm sure anyone who has played a video game RPG in the last few years is familiar with these kind of skills. Things like fishing, tailoring, brewing, and etc were very popular in EverQuest. The RPG uses them to allow players to create the items they need. Because everyone wants to waste game time with creating items instead of paying for them at ten times the cost...

Order/Disorder: Not going to lie, this is by far my favorite thing in the game. I don't know if it comes from the Swords & Sorcery system or not, but it makes Alignment so much easier to understand. Rather than 'law' and 'chaos' which are more nebulous concepts, Order and Disorder are far more easier to understand.

Delay: In a video game, swinging that Amazing Great Axe Of Asskicking as fast as you can mash the button can unbalance it. But, in a RPG, you already have a better way to balance that Amazing Great Axe Of Asskicking. Unfortunately, they included Delay in the RPG, so you'll have to deal with it effecting your Base Attack Bonus. Thankfully, they also included spells to reduce Delay.

Level Cap: Here's one of the cooler things about the game- The level cap in the Player's Handbook is 30. So, you have a long way to go before you have to worry about trying to track down an Epic Level Handbook for the game.

Its an Iskar... And Fironia...

The setting:

This is why I bought the books. The setting was what always fascinated me when my friend was playing the game religiously. In general, the setting is why I buy a game. I don't care too much about the rules, it's all about the setting for me.

In EverQuest, the world was pretty huge and included a vast amount of races, spread across five continents and a moon. Let's look at each one:

Odus:

The home of the Erudites and former home of the Vah Shir. A small continent, really just a large island. The Erudites are divided by the 'good' ones that practice normal magic, and the 'bad' ones that practice necromancy.

Antonica:

By far the most populous place, with the largest city in the world, Freeport. Antonica is home to humans, Dark Elves, Trolls, Orges, Barbarians, and Halflings. Most adventures take place in the wilds and cities of Antonica.

Faydwer:

Home to the Dwarves, Gnomes, High elves and Wood elves, Faydwer is also home to some of the biggest and nastiest villains in the world. Notably Maysong Mistmoore, who creates vampires, not-driders, and other dark creatures.

Kunark:

The only playable race from this place is the Iskar. The land of Kurank is full or ruins and reptiles. A dry desert that's dangerous to even seasoned adventurers.

Velious:

There's not playable races from here, as it was an expansion in the game that was created to provide a new place for high level adventures. Giants, dragons, and other things inhabit the frozen wastes of Velious, the land itself marked by the Queen of Dragons.

Luclin:

To the moon! In addition to the Vah Shir, there's two groups from ages past that ended up here on the moon. The Shisshar, a snake-man race that challenged the gods (and were wiped out on Norrath), and the remains of the Combine Empire, who are pretty much not-Romans that tried to form a multi-racial empire that was destroyed by the jealousy of one man. Luclin also has an axial tilt of 90 degrees, meaning one side is always day and the other is always night. Now, we all know that would most likely render both of those sides uninhabitable, but, magic, I ain't gotta explain shit.

You'd think, it being that cold and all, she would cover up a bit more. Just a bit.

Now, since the books were written when the game was hugely popular (2002 or so, before the release of World of Warcraft), the core books don't provide a huge amount of detail on the setting. Partly, this was because they assumed that you knew about the world from the game, and also because they created several other books that provided information on the major locations in the game. Places like Freeport, Luclin, Faydwer, and a few others got their own books. Luclin actually got two: setting book and it's own Monster Manual. In addition to these source books, they also released a few adventures. The problem with these adventures is that they're, again, a direct port of the video game. Different sections of the adventure are at different CR and seem to exist in a vacuum. While you could raid the various Planes in the game (Hate, Fear, Air, Underfoot, etc), those were never translated to the RPG. I'm sure they planned on it, but there was the release of WoW as well as EverQuest II. Strangely enough, the original EverQuest is still around and even releasing expansions, but I don't think people are playing in numbers anywhere near they use to be.

I told you! Cat people from the moon! And more Fironia...

So, if you're reading this and you want to maybe pick up hard copies of these books, it's not expensive at all. The Player's Handbook can be found on eBay for as low as $7. There's a seller that puts out all the core books (Player's Handbook, Game Master's Guide, and Monsters of Norrath) for $40. The various source books cost $10, on average, but aren't easy to find. In case you're wondering, I picked up the core books, then bought Freeport, in case I ever ran a game. I recently found a cheap copy of Luclin, because I was always fascinated by that place, and the Faydwer book, so I can run stuff with Castle Mistmoore. If you can't remember the details of the places that aren't covered, you're going to be out of luck trying to find it online. I've been searching around and even the EQ Wiki is seriously lacking in anything beyond the most basic information. 

"Shit! Let's get out of here before it wakes up!"

 

Let's Review: Road Kill

Welcome to (yet another random) series here on Bearers of The Word. In this series, I'll be covering more recent things that are still supported (to a degree) and easy to find.

What it is:

A 28mm scale post-apocalyptic supernatural horror skirmish minis game. With motorcycles. And Zombies.

Alright, what did you guys do?

The setting:

Set in the far-off year of 2015, the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. In 2010, a group of anarchists set off a device known as the 'Shadow Bomb' in Jerusalem, unleashing the destructive power of a parallel shadow dimension. The fallout from this bomb killed half of the world's population, changed a quarter in to vampires, werewolves, and zombies, and left the remaining quarter strangely untouched.

In the bombed-out and depopulated wasteland of North America, the various survivor groups, monsters, and zombies fight to survive another day. The Survivalists, who had been preparing for this day in their bunkers, and the 'Man,' or the remnants of the government (including cops, soldiers, and highway patrol officers), are the only 'true' human Factions in the game. The Brotherhood and the Sisterhood are the bio-engineered monks and bio-enhanced nuns who fight the monsters on their own terms. The Sons of Night are the vampires that control LA and the surrounding area. Wolf's Angels are werewolf bikers. The only zombies in the game are 'Rage Zombies' very much like the ones in 28 Days Later. Many of these Factions can work together, so you don't have to buy just one Faction's models.

It takes all kinds to survive...

The system:

The game uses the '4 Goal' system created by West Wind Productions to handle combat and etc. The system uses d6s. Lots of them. The game includes rules for the various factions, and their alliances, as well as rules for motorcycles, larger vehicles, and most weapons you could think of. Initiative is done with a deck of playing cards, which is cool. Especially since I picked up Deadlands years ago, I have a ton of decks laying around...

One of the cooler things about the game is they allow you to create your own characters and vehicles, so you can use minis and terrain you have laying around to play. I also imagine gamers (especially 40k players) have one, if not several, piles of dice laying around and a deck of cards are easy to find. That cuts down your buy-in cost by a bit.

Nuns with chainsaws. Who would have thought?

Is it worth it?:

I picked up the rulebook for this game for $12, and I'll be honest, I think I might have overpaid by a bit. The rulebook is poorly edited and is just plain missing parts. Nothing critical, but enough so you'll have to make some stuff up (what does Unwieldy do? I have no clue). The book is also black and white and is clearly made from high quality 8 ½ X 11 sheets of paper folded and stapled. Professionally done, but, still... If feels like it was suppose to be included in a starter set that never got made (or is no longer made, the game is 10 years old at this point). There's only two Scenarios in the book, both of which involve specialized buildings. While there's a lot of story elements in the game, I think a once-over on the rulebook during the final edit would have made this game much more worth the price. I haven't bought any minis, as I almost always buy the rulebook first then minis, but from what I've seen of them, they look cool and aren't terribly expensive.

I picked this up because I thought the setting and minis looked cool. Once I read the rules, I figured I use it for some minis I picked up just to paint (like the Hasslefree stuff). The cool thing about being about to make your own characters is that you can buy something like the Wargames Factory Survivors, Zombies, and Greatcoat Shock Troopers and make yourself a force. Or three forces. If you're in to converting and modding things, picking up some cheap 1:24 or 1:35 models and some plastruct sounds like a worthy project.

So, if you've got some 28mm scale guys laying around that you're not sure what to do with, this might be worth the $12 to have something new to play with. The basic system is solid, but the poor editing will require you to work with it a bit before you'll really be able to play. Which may or may not be a selling point for some people. If you're interested in vampires and werewolves on motorcycles minis, they've got you covered.

Some time soon, I'll be sitting down and trying to not only fix this game but expand it as well. Stay tuned for that. 

Yeah, that's creepy