Let's Review: Dracula's America

What is it?:

Dracula's America is a Gothic horror meets old west 25/28mm scale miniatures game for two or more players published by Osprey Games.

 

 

The setting:

It's 1875 and North America is much different place than the one in our history. President Abraham Lincoln was advised by a mysterious European noble who makes the US Civil War much, much worse. The war grinds to a halt and a group of freedmen fight behind the lines inside the South. After a long and bloody war, the CSA is defeated and starts a guerrilla war against the Union.

Not that things are going well for the Union. In one night, President Lincoln and his cabinet are killed and the mysterious noble takes control and becomes “President For Life” after declaring martial law.

Of course, this nobleman is in fact Count Dracula and is doing all of this to gain and keep control. Now, there's all sorts for terrible and horrible things going on, with magic and nasty creatures bumping around.

Note: there's actually a lot of background covered in a short amount of pages.

 

 

The system:

The game uses several different dice (d6s, d8s, d10s) for actions and decks of playing cards for initiative. And if you roll the top number on one die, you can re-roll another. Honestly, I'm getting some really strong Deadlands vibes. And they only increase as I read.

In a turn, you draw a number of cards equal to half your current posse, plus one if the Boss is still around. Then, when one of your cards comes up (going in descending order from Aces), you can choose to give one model two actions or two models one action each. The actions are about what you would expect; moving, shooting, fighting, as well as an overwatch type action that's becoming common in a lot of skirmish games these days. Once you're out of cards, or everyone standing has gone, it starts all over again.

Combat seems to be pretty straight forward and models can be unaffected by an attack or taken out in one hit. That's right, hits, not damage. There's two states a model can be, before being removed as a casualty, but it's going to come down to making saves when you've lost the original roll.

As much as I can see the Deadlands influence in the game, I'm starting to see some 40k cropping up here. I don't think I've seen too many games with saves besides that one lately...

Models have three ranks: Hero, Veteran, and Novice. If you're familiar with Zona Alfa (which I'll get to, eventually), this might have seen something like this before. Depending on the rank of the model, you roll X amount of the dice you need. Every 5+ is a success and the model with the most successes wins usually. What that boils down to is that the higher the rank, the better the chance of success.

When it comes to building your forces, you have several different ways to do it, and I have to say, I kind of like it. The first way, and probably the way you should start, is you pick a maximum number of models, equipment them with what you can see, and play the game. This is clearly for pick-up games and learning how to play. And I think that's a good thing. Next, you can build a force with a $100 limit, including their equipment. You pay more per model depending on their rank (or Grit as the game calls it), so you can go for the minimum of four if you want an elite force and a maximum of ten if you want to have a bunch of less reliable dudes.

I'll discuss the third way of making a posse in a little bit.

When it comes to equipment, there's a healthy list of guns and a few other things but no melee or hand to hand weapons. I was a little surprised by that however I do understand why they might want to just be like “naw, you all fightin' with shootin' irons.” I'm kind of disappointed by this, as many of the models I'd like to use are carrying swords, axes, or aren't carrying any visible weapons at all.

Now, about that setting... With the stuff above, you can just use this game for some shootouts without magic and monsters, just have a bit of fun. However, if you really want to play the game they've sold you, you'll be sucked into the setting.

There's six main groups in the core book (and it looks like there's more in the expansions) with each representing a different side of the conflict going on. You've got your “good guys” in the Twilight Order, who are monster hunters that can summon a lady gunfighter angel. Opposite them, you have the Red Hand Coven of vampires that appear to associated with President Dracula. When it comes to the South, you've got the Congregation, made up of freedmen, Abolitionists, and Voodoo priests. And opposite them you the Dark Confederacy, who summon their own war dead to keep fighting for the Southern Cause. Finally, you've got the Skinwalker Tribes, who are Native Americans that use lycanthropes to fight against the Palefaces. And on the other side of them, you have a demon summoning railroad baron's group of the Crossroads Cult. Not that you have to play one side or the other in these conflicts, as it looks like none of them get along very well.

When you create a posse for a campaign in the setting, you get a total of six dudes (including a Veteran Boss), two of which get to change depending on the faction you're choosing. The Red Hand Coven, for example, gets some vampires to play with. This is also where you're going to start dealing with the magic and monsters in the game. Of course, even if you're not playing with the Factions and all this, they can pop up, but a lot of the groups have access to something like werewolves, demons, zombies, and the like.

So, there's some “yikes” stuff in this book that makes me a tad uncomfortable. The first one is the Native Americans. Skinwalkers are part of Navajo tradition (if I'm remembering correctly and Wikipedia proves me right) and they ARE NOT GOOD PEOPLE! In addition, the Wendigo is from Canada and kind of... Odd, in terms of history. Throwing these in here feels disrespectful. No one is perfect, and games involving alternative history don't have to be historically accurate, but... Come on, man! Also, the whole Native American thing feels a bit last minute, as they only get bows for weapons. Nevermind the plethora of ranged weapons that the Native Peoples used all over North and South America... I just... It doesn't feel researched at all, you know?

The next “yikes” in the Confederacy. I get that this was released in 2017, but, still... I will grant them that they are clearly suppose to be Black Hats, I'm just not sure if it was a good idea to include them, given the amount of racist pricks involved in gaming. If you've been to a game store, you know what I'm talking about. When you add in the Voodoo of the Congregation, it just gets worse. I think all of this is because the author is from the UK, which might give a different perspective on the whole thing. (Nevermind the fact that the UK was an a kinda, sorta ally of the Confederacy, in case you didn't know.)

I'm not trying to harp on this too much, just think of this as a warning if you've got issues with any of this, okay?

Is it worth it?:

This is a really tough call. On the one hand, it's a fun little game that lets you choose if you want to play with or without horror elements. However, on the other hand, it's not quite filled out as much as I would like because you can turn the horror “on and off.” If it was just a $20 Osprey book, without the horror, I would recommend it right off the bat, as it is, I'm going to give this a real “maybe.”

If the setting sounds interesting to you, I would say go for it. If you want a pure western minis game, you'll have to find something else, unless you can find a copy for cheap.

Having looked through the book several times, I still do don't know how I feel about it. I think the system is interesting, but feels incomplete. I like the idea of the setting (the monsters and stuff) but it also includes some stuff that gives me pause. I'm also not sure how much I like the “bring the miniatures you want BUT there's a ton you're going to want to buy from my friend...” thing that's going on here. I know you can play without them, or use proxies, it's just that I don't feel like the get the whole experience without them, I guess.

Getting Started With: Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse

Hello and welcome to Getting Started With...

In this series, I talk about getting started with games of various kinds that you can find. And today we're going to talk about Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse!

Step One: Buy the books!

I say “buy” because people will just try to find PDFs without paying for them. While I understand that (I really do), you have to pay for things if you want people to keep making them. As such, I say buy the books.

Which books? Well, there's the core book, the Seasons expansion, and the first issue of Blaster. I say you'll want the core book and Seasons, but let me explain. You need the core book because, well, you can't really play without it. Now, since its a two player game, you could split the cost between yourself and friend. I'd suggest one of you buys the core book and the other buys Seasons. I suggest you pick up Seasons because the main game is going to get boring fast, especially if you're going to be playing it a lot. The Seasons book also gives you rules for solo play, so if you don't have someone to play with, you'll need it.

When it comes to Blaster, that's a tougher thing. The first issue (and only at the time of this writing) gives you rules for the Old West and it's obvious that the next Timeline that's coming (Age of Steel) will be using some of the same rules. I'm sure someone will argue that it's to get people to keep buying the magazines but I do think that there's another reason. It's to save space. Only so many pages, you know? Now, the other problem is that Blaster has stuff for four more games, which might be useless to you if you don't play any of them. I just play one other one, so the cost was easier to swallow, but it's up to you. Of course, I suspect that there's going to be a collection of the Timelines that have been hinted at so far (old west, medieval Europe, sci-fi, and the European conflicts of the early and mid 20^th century). Because since not everyone is willing to buy the magazine, it makes sense to sell it in one big book. Hopefully with some corrected errors.

 

Step Two: Pick Timeline

As I just mentioned, there's now modern times and the old west. However, I think you could play the game in any era already with some hand waving. No reason why you can't have a bunch of barbarians and stuff with melee weapons and maybe a bow or two. So, settle on when you want to have the game take place. Which will bring us to...

Step Three: Build your force

Once you're picked when your games are going to take place, you'll probably want to figure out the kind of team you want to play. There's only three different Leaders and each one plays differently. While you don't have to be WYSIWYG, you can think about what you'll want for the next step. If you're thinking about running a biker gang, you'll want to look for those kinds of minis. If you want to play Scout's Guide To The Apocalypse, you'll want to look for those. And if you're wanting to play the remnants of the military or police forces, you'll need minis that look like that. While I am a big fan of WYSIWYG, you don't have to be. And don't be afraid to play test with some proxies before you spend any more money.

You also have to figure out what line will carry the unusual things like bicycles, motorcycles, and horses if you're planning on using any of those. I have found horses and motorcycles (both with and without riders), I'm yet to find any of bicycles. Not that I've looked too hard, but still.

Step Four: Buy your minis (if you haven't already)

Some of you, like myself, probably have almost everything you'll need to play this game, or almost everything. I have a ton of minis I picked up because they looked cool but didn't know when or if I would ever be able to use them. Of course, I didn't have everything I needed, as I didn't have 20 zombies in the right scale. They were on my list but I never got around to them.

If you're going to be buying minis, you'll have to keep track of scale. For those of you who know about this, or already have everything you need already, feel free to move on.

When it comes to scale, there's two major ones that work for Last Days: 25mm base/28mm scale and 30mm base and scale. I use these based on the size of the bases the minis go on, as there's much more to it. In short, you've got 25/28mm standard (or “non-heroic”, 25/28mm heroic, 30mm standard, and 30mm heroic. The main difference between standard and heroic is the size of the heads, hands, and etc. Really, heroic is slightly larger than standard. For example, the standard 28mm stuff I have looks shrimpy next to my Warhammer 40k, which is 28mm heroic (mostly). I also have trouble with SpineSpur when I was getting into it because it described itself as a “32mm scale” game. I have no idea why. To add even more complexity, there's also differences between manufacturers and even models in the same line.

To summarize: pick your base size (25mm or 30mm) and keep an eye out for things labeled “heroic” and “standard/non-heroic” or not labeled at all. Once you pick that, you've got it made.

I only bring this up because I had some trouble with my Hasslefree heroes and some Reaper zombies. The zombies were comically huge compared to the heroes and it made them way easier to hit. If you don't care, that's fine. I do and I thought I would share.

For the next part of this, let's talk about where to get minis. There's a bunch of different companies and games. I'm going to skip Games Workshop, as you'll either have these models already, and if you don't, they're about the worst option financially.

Reaper Miniatures:

I've been buying Reaper minis for years and have a ton of them thanks to their Bones Kickstarters. Now, if you want a super cheap option for a crew, you can probably just order a bunch of Bones and have at. While I do like Bones, I don't use them for minis games, simply because they're a little wonky and don't always have bases. That said, they're great for D&D and the like, when you have a grid mat.

If you're wanting to play a sci-fi or modern (or even old west) game of Last Days, you want to look up the Chronoscope line, which is roughly 30mm heroic scale. I suggest searching for the following keywords: Hero, Heroine, Zombie, Zombies, Survivor, and Biker. These are where I've found the best minis for this game. They have a “survivor” series inspired by the first Zombieland film, a collection of minis inspired by SuckerPunch, a super hero series, and so on. If you're wanting old west minis, they have the license for Savage Worlds, which includes the classic Deadlands setting. There's also a “Gunslingers and Cowboys” boxed set of ten minis which should be more than enough for one player, maybe even two.

When it comes to zombies, there's only three sets of three minis each that really work for modern: Zombie Strippers, Zombies: Doctor, Nurse, and Patient, and Urban Zombies. Watch out for that last one, as they're over sized for 30mm. There's also five or size single zombies, so you can have some variety as you get to the 20 you need. Just make sure they aren't armed.

West Wind Productions:

While I do like the ideas these guys put out, I've only bought one set of minis from them and found them lacking. However, if you want to make a biker gang, and have people on motorcycles, the stuff from Road Kill has that. It also has nuns with chainsaws. If you can find them. The ones I have are a little bit bigger than my Reaper stuff, so the mins are roughly on that scale, no matter what the packaging says.

Hasslefree:

I only have eight of these minis, but they are good quality. All of their minis are 25mm non-heroic. They have a huge line of “closely resemble but are legally distinct” things from all sorts of media. They also have a huge line of zombies. However, they have a serious supply problem. And if you order something from them, you could be waiting for months for your product. If you find a third party that's still carrying them, I would suggest picking them up if they have what you want. However, as a lot of third parties started dropping them, it might be hard to get what you want.

Zombiecide:

I remember seeing this when it was a Kickstarter and thought about getting into it. I didn't have the funds and I don't know if I really need another game that I'll play once a year. I'm pleasantly surprised to see it's still going and has a ton of stuff for it. If you're looking to get into both Last Days and Zombiecide, this isn't a bad idea. You can find stuff for this game easily online, including stuff for cheap if you don't mind used. As the minis are 25/28mm scale, you'll be able to use them with just about everything else on this list. I bought Walk Of The Dead number one and was pleased with the quality and price of the minis. While there's not a lot of variety (you get three of each mini), it doesn't really matter when they're zombies.

The Walking Dead:

I remember getting into the Walking Dead comics right before the Governor was introduced and gave up on it just before Neegan. By then, TWD had taken over everything, including gaming. While I don't have any of these minis, I have heard they're okay. Plus, they have units on horseback. 

Step Five: Play some simple games

Trust me when I say that I know the temptation to just start going with all the toys you've got in the books. And I know how easy it is to make mistakes and fall into bad habits because of it. I strongly believe in play testing before you sit down to play a full game, especially with someone else. You can test out the models you want to use, how the equipment and weapons will work, and how often you're going to be able to kill those zombies. Break all the rules and test each character that remotely appeals to you, so you can work out the list you want to play. Do some random rolls on tables, see what pops up. Since Seasons adds in solo games, you can go through a whole campaign by yourself and have some fun with it. Just take the time to learn the rules.

Step Six: Buy the terrain

If you've read the books, or my reviews, you've seen that there's a bunch of different refuges and that there's a mission that requires you to have them. So, you need to track down some buildings to use for that. You might have some already but you'll need several more. There's several companies that make some you can use, but you need to make sure that you can put stuff inside of them, as required. If you're coming to this game from fantasy gaming or even sci-fi gaming, you'll need some other terrain. Dumpsters, trash cans, barrels, rubble, barricades, fences, and all that stuff. You'll also want a lot of this stuff, so guns aren't overpowered.

And there you go. Those are all the steps I think you should take to get started with Last Days. What do you think?

Mastering The Game: Are Your Players Mushrooms?

Welcome to Mastering The Game, where I try to shed some light on issues related to running RPGs.

Today, I want to ask you: Are your players mushrooms? As in, do you keep them in the dark and feed them shit? Because you might be doing it.

To put it another way, how much do your players know about the world in which their characters live in?

I was thinking about my old Deadlands posse, the Ferner Five, and then started watching something about metagaming. I'll talk more about metagaming in another post, but there's one part about it I got to thinking about.

You see, when I was running it, only one player was really into the lore. I did give everyone an overview of the setting and then let them make their characters. While we were making their characters, we would talk more about the lore and how they fit into it. For example, while we were making Deiter, he ended up with Ugly As Sin from his Veteran O' The Weird West card draw. So, we talked about it. I gave him some ideas, a few monsters, and we worked out that the reason why he was so ugly was because he pulled a Prairie Tick out of his throat. That gave us some history to the character (having him in Kansas), showed just how much of a tough hombre he was (technically, he shouldn't have been able to do this), and helped both of us know more about the character. I did this with every character and each got at least one moment like this in their backstory.

However, as the game progressed, I found that I had to fill the players in more and more about the background of the game. What the City O' Gloom was like. How the Maze worked. I also made sure to have any maps laid out for all to see. And so on. I'd always brought the main information book for people to read, as well as loaning out the setting books for the locations they were traveling to or from. But, people never really read them. And, I have to be honest, it was a little disappointing. That said, even though I had to stop and explain things, they were still very much in character and wouldn't need me to tell them background twice.

 

But, there's another side to this. Back in the day, I tried to play Paranoia. And had a clone die after asking a rules question. Which is why I never played that version again and didn't even try for many, many years. I get that was part of the “fun” of the game, but that's not my kind of fun.

However, there seems to be that sort of thinking running around out there. That players shouldn't need to know basic information about the setting. I remember listening to an RPG horror story about these weird infectious goblins that weren't really goblins, but the characters didn't know they were infectious, and... Well, let's just say it was messy. The point was, if I'm from this world, shouldn't I know the basics about it? Why should players and/or characters be kept in the dark?

I don't understand this way of thinking. That said, I do understand that DMs and GMs might want to keep some things secret. Not only did I keep a lot of critters and monsters under my hat in my Deadlands game, I also kept some very important secrets about the major players in the setting. And I feel that's fair. It was a great reveal (for the one player that way paying attention) when I dropped Reverend Grimme's “Dark Secret.”

But, I never tried to hide basic information about the world. I actively encouraged it and do in every game. Sadly, most people who play games with me don't seem to care as much I do about “fluff” or setting information. Which I feel is a shame and, to be blunt, I will punish players for not knowing it. I spent a lot of time to come up with it and then had to print it out. If you don't care about the time I spent, I'm not going to be happy. I do try to cut them as much slack as I can, give them plenty of time to read everything and I'm always available to answer questions or provide summaries of stuff. I just get ticked off when people don't even try.

But, one thing I don't do is intentionally keep the characters ignorant. If a characters should know something, I tell them. If they might know something, I let them roll. For example, if a character in D&D is level 10, they've probably fought a lot of different monsters, so I'll tell the players what it is. Now, if it's something unique, I'm going to let them roll for it. And to keep them guessing, I'll describe the creature rather than telling them what it is. I find this is much more fun for everyone involved. You get the fun of listening to them make guesses and they get the enjoyment of coming across something they've never seen before.

What I don't do is keep them in the dark or lie to them about things. Let's say you're doing a game of D&D that involves a lot of undead. A foul necromancer has been attacking the kingdom for months and unleashed all kinds of undead against the area. While characters might not have encountered every monster out there, they would be familiar with the lower level ones. Zombies, skeletons, and the like they're going to be able to recognize right off the bat. Something much more threatening and still not unheard of, they're going to get a description and a chance to roll. Something like a Devourer. It's possible that someone fought one and told tales of it in a tavern or something. Okay, I'll allow it. But, let's say something is so new, mean, and nasty, that it's been able to kill everyone that's ever faced it. It's reasonable that the characters are going to have no idea what this thing is. So, just a description, and a very hard roll. I think that's fair. Some people might argue that it's not fair, but my game, my rules.

 

What I don't think is fair is when you keep something hidden from the players that their characters would know. Let's take our undead example. The characters have been fighting these things for months. Suddenly, their in a fight and the zombie bites someone. In this world, the bite is infectious, like in our zombie films. But, since the players weren't told, they're probably not going to be worried about the bite. Until they have to make rolls or their friend turns. If the DM says something like “Well, I thought your characters wouldn't know because these are different zombies.” Unless this is the very first encounter with them, they would know. Don't do this. Seriously. This is bullshit. It's been months. They know.

This sort of thing is bad. Why? Because it breaks the trust between the GM and the players. And that trust is important. Mistakes happen and there's an easy way to deal with it: Apologize and make sure that if you make a mistake again, they can call you on it. We're only human and we'll never improve as people, much less GMs, without some help.

You don't want to punish players or make the game much harder than it should be just to get your rocks off. No one else is going to find that fun. If you're a player and you run across a GM like this, walk away. No D&D is better than bad D&D (or World of Darkness, FATE, or whatever you kids play these days). The game should be enjoyable for everyone at the table, GMs included. If this is your style of fun, it sounds like you might have some problems. If you want to run a game like this, be up front and don't piss and moan when no one wants to play with you.

Let's talk about what information you NEED to give out. You might be thinking “well, what do I do when a character fails a roll when they're looking for information?” That's a tough one. I usually try to make the roll for the character behind the screen, that way they don't know if they failed or not. And I don't lie about it. One thing I do for rolling for things like checking for traps is to have them make a series of rolls for each section of the corridor they're checking. That way they don't know if the area they're checking has a trap or not and they won't know until they hit that area. It can create a bit of tension as they're not sure what is going to happen. Maybe they got lucky and the natural 1 they rolled was for an area that has no traps. Or it might be a TPK trap that they just triggered. You roll the dice and take your chances...

But, what about information rolls? This is where you want to roll behind a screen, as that limits the chance for metagaming. They only know what the character knows, right or wrong. And this is where you need to make sure that you have a good poker face and can provide good descriptions. They need to believe what you're saying. You're not lying, you're telling them what their characters know. And that's not being unfair or deceitful. There's always a difference between character knowledge and player knowledge. Make sure the players remember that. Because, I don't know about you, but I'm not an expert martial artist. Doesn't mean I can't play one in a game.

That said, there's some other stuff you can tell players freely. I generally assume that if it's in the player's part of a book, or otherwise common knowledge for your setting, they don't have to roll for it. It's like things are today. You might not know a whole lot about the Electoral College in the USA but you know it exists and that it's part of our elections. If you want to know more, you can look it up. And so can characters. You should reserve rolls for things like detailed knowledge that they have to remember on the fly. Think about being on a trivia show and having to remember how many votes in the Electoral College are need to win the White House. I challenge you to do that right now without looking it up. That's what you save rolls for. Either trying to remember or looking it up or asking around for information. It's not for basic information that anyone would know, information that's old or lost or hidden. If there's any sort of disagreement about it, roll off.

As I mentioned above, I'm willing to answer questions about the world freely and I try to make sure my players know that. If it's going to slow down game play, I try to have everyone take a break (unless it's something everyone else needs to know RIGHT NOW) and I'll fill the player in.

(Note: As I was editing this, I watched a video from the DM of the Oxventurers Guild, Johnny, and he said something very important “If you don't want them to fail, don't make them roll for it.” And I think that's a very important thing to think about.)

 

At the end of the day, it's about making sure everyone is having fun. Most players I know don't like being kept in the dark and being fed shit. I don't you do, either. So, don't do it. D&D and other RPGs are cooperative. They're about having fun. It is not a “you against them” type game, usually. Don't be an asshole. You don't have to give away the deep, dark secrets of your settings and games because of lucky rolls and you don't have to make everything a challenge. If you honestly don't know what you need to tell your players, get opinions. Notice the “S” there. I will say that I have the opposite problem of what I've been talking about today, I give away too much information sometimes. I can also accidentally forget to mention critical information. Mistakes happen.

Well, this has gone on long enough. If you want me to explore more about making your own game worlds, let me know.

Until next time!