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RPG a Day 2019: First

August 1, 2019 by Paco G. Jaen

The RPG a Day 2019 initiative starts like every August and this year comes with some differences. Like this year is just a word as a prompt, and the first one is… well… First.

This year, the RPG a Day 2019 initiative has changed and instead of asking a bunch of questions, it is just giving a word for inspiration. The first word is First and I thought it would be a good time to talk about my first experiences with RPGs and how they weren’t all that good.

Below is a transcript of the video (with some creative transcripting thanks go Google!).

hello everybody and welcome to the RPG at a 2019 all rise for mister autocratic himself now this year instead of having a question it’s going to have just a prompt so every day hopefully every day.

I’m going to try to give you a single dropped so first prompt first don’t know to talk about first time indeed. To be honest I’m going to make a disclaimer now okay: these videos I am NOT going to think about them very, very much okay. I’m just going to go with it so first okay let’s go first let’s go to first what do they play first the first things I played we’re a D&D and Lord of the Rings, the boxed set, and you know they were terrible games oh my god at first I’m not joking they were terrible regardless of whether they games themselves you know that the rule says everything we’re good or not um that was more so subjective things but I tell you, the first few games I play were absolutely appalling. So much so that if I think about them now I don’t know how I got into role-playing games in the first place because at the time you know we’re talking 30 years ago pretty much and I had no idea what we were doing I started as a player and there was very much a won against everybody sort of idea on gameplay I really didn’t like it I just put up with it I guess because whilst we were playing it was fun at the time being a lot younger I didn’t think about character progression creation or anything at all like that so I didn’t matter if characters just died okay though I did make another Wang and that’s it now there are nowadays I am a little more invested in my character and make it last and grow and explore that character but with Lord of the Rings specifically with the MERP game I remember in the first game I was killed by a couple of large lizards who beat us to death and it was incredibly frustrating so frustrating to overcome that but we persevered we try the gang we made new characters we started once more and so later on I was I was running my first campaign my first campaign that I run with a bit more seriousness it was darts um I’ve been playing for a while after before that for the first few games I’m not kidding looking back they were absolutely appalling me and my friends had no idea what we were doing no clue how to use the rules and you know what I’m really grateful that I’ve managed to learn how to control that now and I’ve learned enough theory to keep a balance between the rules and how to create my characters and my adventures on my campaigns and how to use the rules for what I like and my friends enjoy but the first few games yeah I really wouldn’t want anybody to have that experience not joking they were absolutely terrible anyway first what about you look forward to seeing your videos in this RPG are they 2019 remember to subscribe to the channel so you get notifications when we upload the following videos give me a thumbs up or thumbs down if you have enjoyed this video or not leave me your comments I look forward to hearing from you and I will talk to you very very soon.

The #RpgaDay2019 initiative has been created by https://autocratik.blogspot.com/2019/07/launching-rpgaday-2019.html

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Cave Evil – First play review

May 17, 2012 by Paco G. Jaen

By Paco Garcia Jaen

You can do two things in Essen. Well, you can do a lot more than two, but these two are pretty huge. You can either look at the shiny things that the bigger companies come out with, or you can look in the little corners and crevasses to find different, new and difficult to obtain games that you never heard of.

Partly thanks to my friend Michael Fox, that is what I did last year and that’s where I met Nate, one of the designers of Cave Evil.

Various things caught our eye. First of all was the amount of black in he game. The whole thing is black and white, with a few shades of grey thrown here and there to add some colour to the game. If you don’t know what I mean, please watch the unboxing video. It will make things perfectly clear.

We had a round of the game there and then. It was fun. A ton of fun! When I went back the following day to interview Nate for the podcast, he was kind enough to give me a review copy of the game. You could say this review is months overdue. You’re right, but considering that the game has been unavailable for a while and the reprint will probably happen in 2013, I am hoping that’ll give this review plenty of time to be read by everyone.

This review is not an in-depth one, though. I won’t be talking much about the rules or about the strategies that one can develop when playing this game. I will talk about the fun it is to play it for the first time with people I barely know.

So what is it all about?

You play as one of up to four evil necromancers who want to develop their cave of evilness and find their way to the throne hall before an even greater evil awakens who could wipe everything and everyone off with the subtlety of an A-bomb. It’s the type of thing you really hope will never happen. Except that, in this game, it probably will. And it is actually good fun!

By using your minions to excavate tunnels and pillage from the other players, you need to accumulate enough resources and power to stop the greater evil fro awakening and mercilessly destroying you.

The components

For a game that’s been produced without the help of a big company or a Kickstarter project, this game is very, very impressive. Although the copy I have suffered from a printing mistake and the matt is too slippery for the cardboard pieces, there is so much in that box that a dodgy matt is not enough to spoil it.

The card that makes the hexagons that will form your cave is thick enough. Again, not something that will resist the ministrations of a young player for long, but then, this is not a game for young players, so that’s fine.

The components are good enough quality. They are not the greatest, but they do what they are supposed to and they have been well designed so there is little chance to mistake their meaning or misplace them. The cards are thick enough and, although they are not laminated, they remained clean after our first game.

The illustrations are just amazing. For starters there are tons and tons of very intricate and full of detail black and white illustrations with some of the weirdest and most hideous creatures you’re likely to find in any game. And they are just evil, both in their descriptions and in what they do. This are not orcs that will hurt you. These are swarms of maggots that will eat you alive, or astral bombs that will destroy everything around them. And I mean everything (including most of the possessions from one of my friend. Enough possessions to almost make him win the game until that moment. It was amazing!).

Now let me take a look at something about the cards that is truly fantastic. The way the graphic design and layout fits with the rules. In this game you fight. A lot. To fight, you have to choose what main ability you use. Those abilities are arranged around an hexagon that contains the creature. Combats happen in three rounds, so you have to use three abilities. So you choose one, as I mentioned earlier, and then, for the following rounds, you have to use the two abilities to the side of the main one.

I have no idea how they managed that in the more than 100 creatures the game comes with, but they all balance out very nicely. Not two abilities are the same. They are all weaker than the other and all creatures have a chance to kick another creatures’ ass. At least creatures of the same power level. Some of them are just scary in their power!

If you reach a certain point in the game, the big baddy awakens and, all of a sudden, you feel this urge to help each other to fight this thing, turning this game into a semi-cooperative experience. But it is a weird cooperative experience. It’s like joining forces with the person you hate in the company you work at, just to get rid of the rival who wants the promotion you’ve applied for. You know you are still enemies, but you can benefit from helping each other. A strange experience.

Conclusion

This game is excellent. It’s not perfect and some things do need reworking, but the game is solid as anything.

It has to be said that it needs a proper board. I can understand that the costs of producing a board for this game would have made it impossible to produce, or too expensive to make it enticing for anyone to buy. However, with a solid game and plenty of interest, I can imagine a Kickstarter campaign coming along in the not to distant future to re-release the game again and, this time, produce a truly lovely box.

The rules manual will probably drive you crazy. It certainly drove my friends (and me!) crazy trying to figure out everything. They could be reduced to half the number of pages and arranged in a way that will make everything a lot quicker. The quick-start rules are a great help, but they are not enough to get you started properly, and since they don’t really refer well to the main rules manual, there is no way to jump to the right page to get the information you need.

This also translates into a longer first game. We started play around 8pm and didn’t finish until past midnight. Having said that, the last few rounds were a lot quicker than the first ones, and set up the game took us a while. And also took us a lot of space. You’ll need a big table to play this game properly!

The length of the first play didn’t bother me at all, though. Mainly because I was having such a great time that a long game was more than welcome. Going to work with sleepy eyes and still grumbling about that Astral Bomb detonation was nicely matched with the smiles from all the back-stabetty action at the table. Not to mention that I got emails from my friends asking me when we’re playing next.

Apparently they want a rematch… it seems that being beaten mercilessly is good fun after all!

I like this game. A lot. Although it’s not a light game or one to play in a rush, it will grace y table often. If it had come out from a established company, because of the lack of proper board, average components and rules manual in need of re-jigging, I would give it 3 stars. However, the designers and publishers have done a pretty amazing job with the resources they have and without much external help, so their efforts should be taken into account. 4 stars for Cave Evil and may Astral Bombs fall upon you if you disagree!

You can find out more about Cave Evil and, if you are very, very, very lucky get a copy sometime in: http://www.cave-evil.com/

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Creature Codex Volume 4: First Level Foes

April 3, 2012 by Paco G. Jaen

By Thilo Graf

This pdf from Demiurge Press is 11 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving 8 pages of content, so let’s check this out!

The latest in Nick Herold’s series of excellent monster books is focused on providing threats for first level parties and I personally think that we need more of them. Having recently ranted on the clichés of first level foes, I expect these critters to bring some fresh wind to the first steps, but what are the critters?

The Aquib (CR 1/2) are spiderlike, genderless creatures who sap magic from their foes in order to nourish their many-eyed, almost mineral-like bodies. Coming with an appropriately-creepy artwork, the creatures make for a rather weak combatant who might prove to be a bane of casters and a monster that can easily be defeated once the PCs figure out to deal with them. For maximum effect, start with one and then throw a swarm of them at your players.

The CR 1/2 Psittacosaurus comes with full information on how to use it as an animal companion and uses its quill-studded tail to combat foes. An ok low-level threat of the animal category, I guess, but none I’m too excited about.

At CR 1 we the issue’s first undead, the Nuppeppo. While the name sounds like some weird kind of breath-mints or a strange clown, the creature is anything but a laughing stock and actually my favorite in the pdf: A walking blob of flesh whose fat-slaps form a kind of face on the torso on whose head has fouled off, these undead are not only disgusting, they are also lazy and incapable of properly communicating their desires. Nevertheless, smart PCs make actually outwit the disgusting beings.

The next creature, the CR 1 Puuk unfortunately hits a pet-peeve of mine. It’s a dragon. At CR 1. Ok, it’s a tiny, shapechanging dragon. Nevertheless. Do we really need these? All right, the ability to turn into a ball of ember and smell treasure is great, but nevertheless – I can’t bring myself to liking the critter. The entry also comes with a short write-up of the advanced version of the Puuk, but sans stats, which is a missed opportunity.

The second undead, the CR 3 Rawhead, is a skeletal undead generated from the remains of an animal companion or awakened animal. The basic concept is brilliant – the skeletal being kills animals and absorbs the bones into its form, becoming stranger and stranger with each being slain. However, the absorption does not provide additional attacks or benefits. A table on additional attacks/customization options for rawheads could have easily made this critter stellar, providing e.g. spider-climb, faster speed etc. but as written, it just remains a good idea.

The final critter herein are the tundra-inhabiting nomadic Veytha-giants (CR 1) which also come with information on how to use them as characters, as they do have a slow metabolism and could be used as a PC-race. I’m not sure whether I like them, at this point. Mostly, because I would have loved more information on their distinct culture and habits. Perhaps I’m spoiled. Perhaps I’m thinking Tiste’Edur. I don’t know. I do know that they would have deserved a full ecology.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to a full-color 2-column standard. The artworks are ok, though I preferred those from the other installments of the series. Somehow none of the pieces apart from the Aqib truly gripped me. The pdf comes fully bookmarked and with a printer-friendly version. First level critters are not that easy to design and the ones herein provide a nice respite from the ogre/shadow/goblinoids/bandits-routine and all of them come with some kind of signature ability that makes them distinct from other beings. That being said, the other installments of the Creature-Codex-line have really spoiled me with stellar creatures and this installment somewhat felt less gripping. While still being a mechanically sound and actually well-written and presented monster-book, I cannot help but feel that with slightly more space or even customization options for the new monsters, this pdf could have been truly stellar. As written, it still is a great pdf for the low asking-price and thus my final verdict will be a good 4 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

You can buy Creature Codex Volume 4: First Level Foes at:

Yomi Unboxing video

February 1, 2012 by Paco G. Jaen

By Paco Garcia Jaen

Sirlin Games has come out with some truly excellent games, and Yomi has received praise almost unanimously since it came out.

With its simple mechanics, small size, massive re-playability and very fast play, it is one of those perfect games you can take in your pocket.

You can either buy individual decks of cards, and there are 20 of them, or buy the Complete First Edition box. But do you get value for money? Watch the video and find out!

Paco Garcia Jaen unboxes Yomi’s Complete First Edition

Dungeons & Dragons First Encounters – Vol. 2

January 24, 2012 by Paco G. Jaen

By Paco Garcia Jaen

Not long ago I had the pleasure to get my hands on the first volume of the D&D First Encounters saga, the Shadowplague volume. It was a treat!

Just in case you haven’t seen that review (you should) or have the book (you should too), this is a graphic novel published by IDW and featuring a D&D adventure. Or part of one at least.

IDW is well known. They have done TONS of stuff for various franchises, including also Dragon Age, and is a well seasoned publishing company capable of producing truly stunning work.

This is indeed one very good example.

The plot is simple. Our group of adventurers, after various happenings and mishaps in the first volume, end up in the Feywild. Since that is far a safe place to live in, they start to look to find a way back home. Hopefully in time too, we all know how dodgy time is in the Feywild.

The artwork is GORGEOUS. Not just nice, or lovely, or even great. No. It us truly stunning. Absolutely lovely illustration throughout, the inking is great, the colours vivid with terrific lighting and detail, the attention to detail just fine… this book oozes professionalism from cover to cover.

To make matters even better, the illustrations used to mark the chapters, mainly from Tyler Walpole are just fantastic. Also the ones by Jorge Lucas, very much in the style of early Jack Kirby and Stan Lee comics, are extremely well crafted. Although they are not my cup of tea, I cant deny the quality of those illustrations.

The script is terrific. The characters come alive easily. The personalities and idiosyncrasies making up for the obvious clichéd used when creating the gang of adventurers. One Human (Fighter), One halfling (Rogue, of course) , one Dwarf (Cleric. Of Morodin, no less!), one Elf (have a guess…. yep!.. a ranger!), one Tiefling (no… this is the Warlock). I told you it was clichéd!

Still, the characters genuinely feel real and have tremendous dynamics around them. The typical cheekiness and recklessness of the Halfling contrasts with the more uptight and sombre mood of the Tiefling; while the fighter and the ranger have more of a “been there, done that, and got the chainmail” attitude. And they are funny. Some of the lines in that book are just absolutely incredible and had me laughing in the bus on my way to work, much to the annoyance of the half awaken people around me.

At the end of the book there is the “adventure”. This is a somewhat short collection of some of the encounters in the graphic novel. It is not a step-by-step, or encounter-by-encounter recollection of the whole comic book, though, which is a shame because if that were the case, you’d have the best presented and quickest to prepare adventure ever. And I mean EVER!

Regardless, the encounters are very well planned, the cartography by Jonathan Roberts (Fantastic Maps) and the layout make this an absolutely perfect starting point for a set of adventurers. If you are a newcomer to being a GM, you want to buy this book and start here. It truly is perfect for that.

Conclusion

To say that I liked this product is an understatement. I genuinely love it. But not just because it looks lovely and all the other virtues I have mentioned at in my review.

The main reason I like this product is because it is quintessentially Dungeons & Dragons with all the good bits. There are lot of encounters in here, with the right amount of storytelling between them to provide continuity. Add to it a good dose of characterisation, and you have the perfect gaming session translated to paper in the shape of a comic book.

The way it manages to actually “feel” D&D is very exciting indeed, and, unless I am the only one feeling that way, it comes to show that the old game still has a lot to offer to the old gamers. And to the new ones too!

5 stars for this excellent book!

You can buy Dungeons & Dragons First Encounters – Vol. 2 in: