In Hamlet players work competitively to add buildings (represented by tiles) to a growing village. The hamlet (which is apparently what a town is called before it has a church) is a shared puzzle on the table. All players work to contribute. The goal is to add structures to the hamlet to strengthen it's infrastructure. You need a woodcutter and a stone mason and stuff like that.
Building resources are limited. If I have built the only woodcutter's hut in the hamlet, then other players will have to come to me to get the wood they need to complete their buildings. This gives me points. But, while I might have the edge in wood production, I may have to go to my opponent to get stone or coal.
The shared resource economy is really interesting and the game play feels like many of those real time strategy city building video games that you might have played. I love that.
The buildings and other structures are all irregular shapes that fit together in different ways. So, our little hamlet is different every time we play. The end goal is to complete the construction of a church. Once this is done, the hamlet is now a town and the game ends.
Players get points for the buildings they completed and for how much they contributed toward the completion of the church, and the player with the most points is the winner.
So, it's kinda of a thing among board game hobbyists to list and rank their favorite board games. I've done it several times. A lot of these kinds of lists are posted around the end of the year so as to include all the best new games played that year. I had this great idea that doing a top 24 board game list Advent Calendar style could be a lot of fun, but I had this great idea 3 days late.
So ... I'm doing it anyway.
I'm going to post my games for December 1st - December 4th all today, and that will put me on track for tomorrow. These are my top 24 favorite board games, counting backwards from 24. I'm going to list each game as a separate post.
Hopefully, you'll discover your new favorite board game.
Julie and I are on the road to visit family. I was surprised when we made a stop at a Circle K in Delphos, Ohio to find a comic book display.
It was DC Comics exclusively.
I'm kind of overjoyed to see comics in the wild at someplace other than a comic book shop or book store for the first time in over 40 years.
I honestly didn't know that displays like this existed today. I went ahead and bought a few.
All of the comics are covered in protective wrap and priced at $3.29 which is discounted from the $4.99 cover price, and they are all first issues, #1's of different titles.
It's advertising, bait to get perspective comic readers to check out comic book shops. That's not as cool as I had initially thought, but it's still nice to see comic books out where kids can find them.
Kudos to Circle K and DC for creating this opportunity and for making me feel like a kid again, for at least a few minutes.
Now if you will excuse me, I have some comics to read.
These are some of the best comics that I have read in a long time. If you prefer character to combat and comics that just make you smile, read She-Hulk by Rainbow Rowell.
I've been thinking about the excellent BIFF! BAM! KAPOW! from Spectrum Games and how the game side steps mechanisms for hit points and injury altogether in a genre rife with combat. It measures success in momentum and simply ends each scene by measuring momentum gained and lost. It's a brilliant game that I highly recommend.
I'm thinking about scene counters that act to measure success and failure in a scene that eliminates the need for anything like hit-points and places focus on an overall result. I'm thinking two six-sided dice. One is black representing negative consequences and one is white representing positive consequences. A result is found when one of the two dice reaches a certain number.
In High Five, the six on a die equals zero. So we can start our counters there on zero [6] and then count up as positive or negative consequences are accrued. Each scene would have a "stakes" value that measured how high a die would need to rise to end the scene.
A stakes value of one would end a scene after a single action. Good for one off tasks but not really for scenes per se. A stakes value of 5 would represent a full combat encounter where one side or the other wins when their die reaches 5.
Place Initiative Dice resolution mechanics in the combat section
Include an option to use Initiative Dice outside of combat
Place optional rules for non-binary task resolution near the end of the document
Create a Hero Type power hierarchy
Use the Hero Type categories to create random hero creation tables
Hero Types:
The listings below will allow players to roll a Hero Type randomly. If using the optional Hero Type Hierarchy rules, the Hero Type shown in parenthesis is that Hero Type's weakness.
[1-2] Table A
[1-2] Armor (Stealth)
[3-4] Sensory (Magic)
[5-6] Machine (Heat)
[3-4] Table B
[1-2] Heat (Cold)
[3-4] Cold (Armor)
[5-6] Stealth (Sensory)
[5-6] Table C
[1-2] Mundane (Psychic)
[3-4] Magic (Mundane)
[5-6] Psychic (Machine)
Offense Maneuvers and Hero Types
When performing an Offense Maneuver against an Opponent that is weak vs your hero type, treat your level as one level higher.
Also, if your H5 roll for the Offense Maneuver is Doubles, the Maneuver results in an instant KO.
Defense Maneuvers and Hero Types
When performing a Defense Maneuver against an Opponent whose Hero Type you are weak against treat your level as one level lower.
Also, if your H5 roll for the Defense Maneuver is Doubles, the Maneuver fails.
Summary:
The first bullet-point changes are about making the initial task resolution mechanic more accessible. I received some feedback that the task resolution rules as written are cumbersome and a little hard to grok.
The Hero Types hierarchy idea is mostly because I have been playing a lot of Pokémon Pocket TCG on my phone. The whole idea just seems very "superhero" to me. Also, each type can imply a thematic superhero build that I can use to create random character creation tables.
The plan would be to include Hero Types right at the start to facilitate random Hero creation, but to save the Hierarchy/Weakness rules for later as an advanced option.
COUNTERPART is an old RPG that I created back in 1991. (Sorry for the lousy scan job. Pictures were taken by phone.) It uses the same dice mechanism as Freespace/Xerospace which shows that I stuck with that mechanic for over 8 years.
The titular thematic element, that of the "Counterpart" is seen again in Phantasy Star: Ragol's Curse in the form of the Mobile Android Guardian or MAG. That's straight out of Phantasy Star Online, but I had the idea first. (A quick search shows that PSO was first released for the Dreamcast in 2000, nine years after Counterpart.)
Of course, I probably based the idea on something I saw or read. If I had to guess, it's likely a mix of the Ioun Stone (a D&D magic item that floated around a person's head), that floating training droid that Luke practices with in Star Wars, and a Green Lantern's power Ring (which seeks out the person most worthy of wielding it.) But, I honestly can't remember. Still it's cool to find these connections in hindsight. (I can't believe I've been designing RPGs for nearly 35 years.)
A few months ago, I made a push to increase my visibility as an RPG designer. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I just wanted to think that someone out there may actually have noticed my efforts. I get that it’s an ego thing. I think all creative types may have a bit of an ego.
Anyway, I made a push to raise my visibility, to bring people here to my blog where I like to talk about my hobbies and interests and RPG design ideas. I did all of that, and then I went silent. I blew up my world, and I am not sure how to recover from it. Anyway, I haven't posted in about two months. I'm going to try to explain why.
(I also sometimes share personal things here in my blog. This is one of those kinds of posts.)
When I was young – I’m talking really young – barely a toddler, I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. This diagnosis can mean a lot of things. I was lucky. I had a few operations. I had physical therapy to diminish the effects of my disability. I spent some time wearing special shoes to help correct my gait. Eventually, I could walk and run and play just like any other child. I was very lucky. My upper body was apparently unimpaired, and my cognitive abilities don’t seem to have been affected.
But, I wasn’t like any other child. I could not run as fast or as well. My physical movement was notably different. I was the “crippled kid” among “normal kids” in the Midwestern United States in the 1970’s. I didn’t have the best home life, and I’ve written about that before, but my life growing up with other children – my social development, it was worse.
When I was young, I learned that people are cruel and judgmental.
As I got older and I matured, so did my peers. Things got better. Eventually, I became less of an outcast. I got friends. My view of the world changed. Maybe people are not as cruel and as judgmental as I had been taught as a child? The thing about children is that they are unfiltered. We learn to install filters as we grow and mature. But is it truth? Or is the unfiltered the real truth?
The above video shows Donald Trump mocking a man’s physical disability. It struck a particularly hurtful cord for me. Before you check out, I’m not going to debate politics here. I’m trying to explain the circumstances that brought me to where and what I am today, and that requires a bit of context. The thing is, in my mind, a vote for Donald Trump was a vote for the life that I thought I had outgrown.
But, maybe the filters that society teaches us to install just hide a truth that never goes away? The truth that I saw as a child, that people are predators who seek to destroy anything different from themselves. If that’s true than I survived my childhood for nothing.
People voted to accept Donald Trump. They liked the idea of a wall to keep those who are different out. Now, with the dismantling of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs, I feel like our government is telling everyone that those filters, the ones that society has taught us to install as we grow up, are not needed, are not wanted.
I am not wanted.
The message is clear. An American President was elected not once, but twice on the platform that if you are different, you are not wanted.
For much of my adult life, I lived in Tulsa, OK. I built friendships that lasted over 30 years, and I have recently destroyed them. I have become toxic. My friends voted Republican. When faced with how this affects me, they either challenged me to justify my own feelings, or simply turned a blind eye.
I find myself back in grade school, in the worst time of my life, and just as it was then, I can see no hope of escape. But, this time I can look at things with a far more critical eye, and that’s worse. I realize that there is no escape for me, because the world likes being the way that it is.
This makes me angry and unreasonable.
I’ve pushed away, friends and family, and what’s worse is that I don’t think that I’m wrong. I have my wife. She loves me. I have my daughter. She loves me.
The others, those that I’ve pushed away – they are the villains in my story and they can’t even see it. They believe that I am the one who has the problem – that I need help.
When I was being bullied in school, my mom (who voted for Trump) went to the principal of the school and pleaded for something to be done. She was told that it was impossible for the school administration to change the behavior of every child in the school, but that they could provide me with counseling to help me to cope with being bullied.
You can’t change the behavior of every person in the world. Maybe I should seek counseling. I am the one who has the problem – I need help.
Recently, the last and oldest of my friends chose to step away from me. I am toxic to his other friendships. I am different after all. It’s best to go with the majority, to support the greater good. I am a danger to that, because I have refused to accept the shape that the world is determined to take.
Back in 2016, I surrendered. I silenced my outrage and hid inside myself trembling and afraid that if I did not, that I would lose everything. Today I have refused to surrender and I have lost everything. I don’t know what’s next. I don’t see a way forward for me.
So, if I haven’t been writing here about RPG’s lately, that’s the reason. I haven’t surrendered to my enemies, but I have given up hope.
