2/3 of the way to my Onyx Sojourner Badge.
Category: Games
-
I was fortunate enough playtest and to be Dungeon Master for a group playing “The Stonecutter Samurai.” Payton did a great job writing the story and it was exciting to play. I recommend you check it out for your gaming group!
Once a year Automattic gathers all its employees together for a week of projects, learning, and adventure at an event called the Grand Meetup. This year I wrote a D&D adventure to share with my friends and co-workers, most of whom had never played a tabletop RPG before. It’s now been run seven times (four by me) for a total of 26 players (two even played the game twice!).
Here’s the teaser text:
In the country of O’Taki, there exists a feudal hierarchy of Dwarf lords in the style of old Japan.
As the Emperor’s Prime Minister Okanama ages, a rivalry has arisen over who will take his place. Several factions vie for control. The leader of the most influential faction, the retired General Buren Tomogawa (also known as the Stonecutter Samurai), has fought to keep power away from his strongest rival, Yomo Ishin, a powerful noble whose detractors claim deals…
View original post 62 more words
—
-
Pretty awesome little web game.
Malcolm In The Middle Official Licensed Computer Simulator
Yes / No. Maybe. I don’t know. Can you repeat the question? —
-
Playing Magic: The Gathering over the course of the Grand Meetup was a lot of fun. While I had a losing record (5-8,) I was second in number-of-games-played, which was my true objective. We had 31 players with a round robin setup: everyone was to try and play everyone else once, but we all knew we wouldn’t get all the games in. Each match was ‘best of two out of three games.’ We were playing sealed decks with booster packs from Magic Origins, Dragons of Tarkir, Khans of Tarkir, and Fate Reforged.
I did some research on how to build a deck in a tournament like this, and I ended up only adjusting my initial build once, to add one counter spell which I never got a chance to cast. Apparently in most tournaments you have to mantain the same build for all matches, but we allowed players to change decks completely between matches since it spanned the course of a week and was only for fun anyway.
My best cards were a pair of dragons that both required blue and black mana. I also felt okay on my blue/black cards to provide a solid opening, but I worried about how well they’d hold up in the middle. Since no other color seemed to scream a plan at me I decided to go forward with blue/black and find ways to win late with my dragons and a couple other big creatures.
These bad boys were the pillars for the rest of my deck. You can skip to the deck list by clicking this link.
Having low-cost, deathtouch creatures helped my early drops, but I relied heavily on creature removal to make it through the middle game. When I was lucky enough to get the Blood Chinned Rager along with multiple other warrior creatures (i.e., Unyielding Krumar, Hand of Silumgar, Alesha’s Vanguard) the requirement of two creatures to block made for a strong attack that almost always secured a win later on. But in sealed deck, one really shouldn’t rely on combos. So I added that splash of white to bring back some life. I considered removing the War Behomoth because I almost always used the 2/2 token (without morphing) as a blocker instead of using it for the big creature it can be. The Skaab Goliath and my two dragons were way better at that.
The Necromaster Dragon ended up being my best win condition. Creating 2/2 tokens turn after turn adds salt to the wound of a tough flyer and it was usually enough to turn an equal position into a winning position. Problems with this plan were against opponents playing with aggressive speed. If I was already being attacked by five or six creatures, one 4/4 flyer isn’t enough to turn the game around to my favor. But if I could steadily build as I liked, this creature became the cornerstone of my turn. Silumgar, the Drifting Death can fill the same role because he’s so tough to kill, but I just didn’t draw him as often.
If I wanted to use this deck as the basis of construction play, I wouldn’t need to adjust it much. I’d just add land appropriate to a 60-card deck and beef up the amount of black 3-drop and 4-drop creatures. The result would still be a deck that either annoys for several turns and wins late, or loses quickly due to slower draw against aggro.
Deck List with Links
- Silumgar, the Drifting Death
- Necromaster Dragon
- Skaab Goliath
- Treasure Cruise
- Aven Surveyor
- Bone to Ash
- Claustrophobia
- Crippling Chill
- Glint
- Frost Walker
- Unholy Hunger
- Alesha’s Vanguard
- Unyielding Krumar
- Flatten
- Kheru Bloodsucker
- Debilitating Injury
- Hand of Silumgar
- Blood-Chin Rager
- Typhoid Rats
- Touch of Moonglove
- War Behemoth
- Healing Hands
- Arashin Cleric
- 2x Tranquil Cove
- 7x Island
- 9x Swamp
—
-
With a walkthrough from scruffian, today I got to deploy code to WordPress.com for the first time. That’s a cool/terrifying/exhilirating experience!
I also got this bonus good-feels around breakfast:
-
Seeing as this is the first time I’ve ever built a MTG deck (instead of letting a computer do it for me) I found this guide super helpful:
“Your First Sealed Deck” by Jeff Cunningham
I didn’t stick to those steps strictly, but it was a good guide to begin with and I’m happy with the choices I’ve made.
Hat tip to Matty Cohen for the article
—
-
Apparently these are the board games I feel comfortable taking to the Grand Meetup. They’re all fairly small (good for travel) and easy-to-not-lose components (good for sharing with groups.)
-
He didn’t teach you how to win, he taught you how not to lose. That’s nothing to be proud of. You’re playing not to lose, Josh. You’ve got to risk losing. You’ve got to risk everything. You’ve got to go to the edge of defeat. That’s where you want to be, boy – on the edge of defeat. Vinnie in Searching for Bobby Fischer
This whole week I’ve had the soundtrack to Searching For Bobby Fischer playing on my spotify. It’s been on my mind enough that I needed to watch it tonight. This scene, when Josh starts having fun playing chess again, always tears me up. Half the movie tears me up – but that moment is just great.
-
This is the fifth and final post in a series called “To Switch or Not To Switch” about whether or not my gaming group should switch to Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition, or stay with Pathfinder.
Our gaming group discussed the switch a couple weeks ago. It didn’t take long to realize that some folks were excited about one option, and everyone else was happy regardless of the system we used. We all agreed the most important thing is that we like playing together.
Once our current storyline is complete, we will be switching to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, for our system.
There will be some details to iron out. Some folks would like to keep their characters and others are thinking they’ll roll up new ones. Some folks like the prospect of the long adventure path, some prefer we keep making our own stories. We’ll face those as they come. It’s likely we’ll need the rest of the year or more to finish out our current campaign anyway. Since we only meet every 2 weeks, we likely will only have 4 or 5 more sessions before Amber and I are in newborn-baby-mode.
Since the switch has been decided on, some cool stuff has happened.
The 5e Dungeon Master Screen, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and my new set of dice were all birthday presents. We’ll need to start investing in rulebooks, so Amber got me the Dungeon Master’s guide for my birthday. Her mom asked her what she should get me and Amber suggested the Dungeon Master screen.
Also, Amber got me a set of matching dice. I find this incredibly touching. When our group first got together we bought a pound-o-dice and split it up evenly. But Ber was DMing and she had her own set of matching dice that no one else was allowed to use. We lovingly called them “the DM dice.” I’ve DM’d enough that I was due my own set of “DM dice.” No one else is allowed to use these. It might mess up the mojo.
Thanks for reading my series on my gaming group’s decision between Pathfinder and D&D 5e. I’m sure I’ll write more on 5e as we learn the system and play in it. If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them in the comments.
—
-
For my birthday, my sister gave me Timeline: Americana. The games in the Timeline family are all trivia games where you need to know (or estimate) the year in which significant events took place. You can learn the game in less than a minute, play it in less than 15, and smack yourself in the head several times for not remembering that Marty Mcfly invented the skateboard in 1955 so of course the first one sold was in 1956 get it together, Alex.
Don’t let the picture of me fool you – my mom beat me. The components are well-done for this little game. The box and insert protect the deck well and the cards are of good quality. It should stand up to the rigors of many plays, even with kids – unless they don’t yet realize that bent cards are less fun than straight cards.
Though it only has one game mechanic, it is a solid one for the trivia genre. When I was still hosting Gus Bus Trivia my final round questions were usually a “put these four things in order” and this game feels like an extended version of that.
Overall it’s fun and quick. Even when your mom beats you.
—
Alex "Gus" Gustafson 