Since I've already fallen off the wagon as far as impulse buys go, and I felt the need to cheer myself up, I went for some retail therapy and treated myself to Humble Bundle's Roll Big or Go Home bundle - 57 gaming products for about £30. I figured if only 2-3 of them were interesting I'd be ahead on points. (Note that sometimes these are not complete games, just the players' guides. Although I can see the value of a DRM-free players' guide, and an experienced GM can usually run a game without anything else.)
This is boosting the signal as much as anything; the link is good for another couple of weeks at time of writing.
Looking at the bundle's contents, I see:
- Two things I already have, the SWADE core rules and Night's Black Agents. That's not much overlap for a bundle like this.
- One thing I'll definitely use, the SWADE version of Deadlands; I'm already playing in a Deadlands campaign. That will get reviewed.
- Eight things I would have bought eventually anyway, and might use later. Those will get reviewed.
- 19 things that interest me enough to read. These might get capsule reviews in due course.
- 27 things I'm not at all interested in. Those won't even get read.
Red Flags
I select games mostly on a whim, but there are certain filters I apply... there's a specific kind of game I enjoy, and there are some early indications that a game is not going to fall in that group.
- Fiction first. I learned to play by rolling the dice first, then fitting the fiction to it afterwards; dice first, I suppose you could call it. Fiction first is counter-intuitive for me, and it also suggests the game was written for theatre kids rather than grognards such as myself. I've nothing against theatre kids, but that's not how I roll.
- Safety tools; that's correlation, not causation. Yes, players should feel respected and safe, but experience teaches me that a game with a significant focus on safety tools and sensitivity is a game I won't enjoy playing.
- Statements involving the word "over". Over 30 new races, over 50 new spells, that kind of thing. That suggests the game's focus is not what I'm looking for. I don't need more PC options.
- Some games just aren't my cup of tea. Gumshoe, for example; some of the settings and adventures are really good, but you'd have to pay me to play Gumshoe. Pretty much any game that proclaims it is a "storytelling" or "narrative" game falls into this category for me.
Coming Soon to a Screen Near You...
As usual my initial reviews will be based on reading through the products; think of it as a first date. I won't slavishly review everything in the bundle, that's too much like hard work; but there are enough I'm interested in to keep the blog in reviews for some months.
I've fully embraced "Fortune in the Middle" style play as described in Zozer's SOLO for my solitaire gaming. I find it fits naturally with how you interpret the effect of a roll with systems like Traveller (even before Mongoose added an official effect mechanic I always treated every result in Traveller similar to the original Reaction Roll system.)
ReplyDeleteIt required just a bit of rewiring my brain to make sure that I state the intent of my player's action and what the risks are upfront "I'm trying to pilot close to and around the asteroid in an attempt to use it as cover." so that it is pretty speedy to apply the dice roll's effect on the action. (Outright critical failures might prevent the action from happening at all but competently skilled characters generally do things they set out to do but error and outside factors are the things that complicate the outcomes.)