Somehow time passes very fast.. I thought it was only several months when I played Wasteland 2: Director's cut but when I checked my saves.. I realised it was about a year when I played it last time. Still I remembered pretty much from the game and wanted to continue the story. Playing Wasteland 2 helps me to orientate to be a dungeonmaster in the pen and paper role-playing game, Era Survival. Known world has fallen and only the strongest survives.. That combines both of these games even reasons for the collapsing are different ones.
Stats for my main character.
Everyone has their quirks.
My team.
When I returned to play Wasteland 2 I didn't want to make new characters, I rather used my premade group so that I could continue adventuring instead of making new characters. I still had pictures about creating characters and you can see them above. I tried to make a team where one can heal, one is good to speak and has some intelligence, one is strong and one can use snipers and also knows how to improve weapons. Usefull skills and it is necessary to have several skills in your group if you do not want to have troubles to go forward all the time. Lockpicking, safecracking, alarm disarming are rather handy when you wish to find a good loot.
Conversations gives useful information.
Travelling is dangerous, remember to have water and check radiation.
When I started to play game again I remembered fast why I liked this. The game gives impression that we aren't the only team who is working in the world. There are others and we can hear the reports as well. That gives small hints about new places but also creates story that we are part of something bigger. I like that idea and also it feels nicer to travel as a group than travel alone in the dangerous world. So everytime I go adventuring I always have whole group with me. That simply helps to survive.
Team moves as a group.
Giant rabbits don't eat carrots. They love meat.
Decisions! Awful decisions. I am gamer who would like to help always almost everyone.. but now you simply can't. You have to do decision what to do and you will know that if you help some, someone else might suffer. It feels horrible but it also gives impression about harsh world. Life sucks when even water and bullets are valuable. Wasteland 2: Director's cut is still a good game and it seems there is plenty to play.. My goal is to finnish game before they release the third part in 2019. Here is short trailer about Wasteland 3.
Dragonmeet is tabletop convention and one of largest its kind in London. I have taken part to it once before, maybe the year was 2013 and now I got a chance to go there again. And definetely it was thrilling to be there once again. So I booked flights and bought a ticket and went for a visit.
There were a lot of exhibitors in the huge room what was so noisy so that it took a lot of efford to hear what others were saying. At first I simply walked around and looked what the convention was to offer for a random visitor. During the convention I was able to test out a couple of board and card games + I took part into short role-playing game introduction.
First game I tried was made by Cubiko Games. The game itself was called Jamsumo and it was played with 6 sided dies. The idea of the game was simple so even the kids could play it. But still game challenges you since it isn't basing on luck. I also liked the game board very much. It was very well made. I didn't buy it just yet but been thinking if could be a nice game to buy anyways.
The other game I tried was Beastly Bust Up. The game isn't released just yet but we had a possibility to try the game. The idea of teh game was simple. You have several areas and animal fighters fought over them. Rules were simple and game was played through in 15-20 minutes. So perfect game when you need something fast to play through. The game was made by Fat Matador games and I hope they will have it as a kickstarter.
But how about rpg's? Yes... I wasn't able to resist temptation.. and bought some new games to fill my shelves. And of course some new dices! I haven't played these games before but I will tell about them a lot more when I have hosted games to my friends. But here is the short list what I found from Dragonmeet:
Into the Odd: Steampunk dungeon crawling with magic. Game where you better avoid bad fights and use your brains to gain glory without any harms.
Cthulhu Drak 0: The horror game where you're playing the poor people from the cities. You have no money nor chances to avoid the striking horrors so survive or face your darker destiny.
Era Survival: The world has turned into wasteland in 100 years. No one knows where the destroying virus arrived but last survivors tries to make their living somehow. And keep up hope for better future. This game I also teste in Dragonmeet already and found it interesting. It was the main reason why I end up to buy it.
Adventures in Middle-Earth: Middle-Earth using D&D 5th edition rules! Awesome! I have plenty of adventures to play in Middle-Earth but now system is far more playable than those old ones. I am just waiting to have a Dungeonmaster guide as well.
I have usually only followed kickstarter projects but havent supported them. This autumn I made my first decision to support a cool project. I bought Trudvang chronicles. Swedish game publisher Riotmind is about to publish their pen-and-paper rpg in English. How great is that?
I have always loved Finnish and Nordic mythology what is full of giants, spirits, elves, gnomes only to name few of them. And it is said that game should be more saga than pure hack-and-slash and wandering in the deep forests rather than crawling in dungeons. That sounds so... familiar! Don't take me wrong.. I am big fan of D&D but somehow for being to able to play role.playing game what is near our own mythology.. That sounds thrilling.
As a supporter I took adventurer level. It means I will recieve boks in May 2017 when they are done. Somehow I have always approved more real books than reading PDF-files especially when it comes to games. So this decision wasn't difficult to make. But watch the trailer and enjoy the first view about the game itself. I can't wait to have the books and read them through. When I recieve them I will post more about the game itself.. but for now their description is enough. You can read it from Kickstarter web page by clicking here. And as you can see the game was a huge success.
Ropecon is the largest non-commercial role-playing convention in Europe and it was held this weekend in Messukeskus, Helsinki. I took part to Ropecon once again and weekend was full of fun. There were several possibilities to play role-playing games and try various systems. This year participating to pen and paper role-playing games was way more uncertain since you were not able to sign up beforehand. Still I got lucky and was able to take part into four different games during weekend. Some of the systems were so interesting that I will tell a little about them and maybe write even more after I have tried my own role-playing games using those systems.
When one game usually lasts 3-4 hours in Ropecon, it is wise usually use some simple system. I tried game which used rules from Cyberpunk and at times it felt a bit heavy. There are so many lists and rolls than often it was only rollen all the time for being able to do something. And when the playing groupd was big (seven players + GM) you can imagine how long rolling took time. So from experience I always give a big hand simpler systems without endless rolling and giving room for storytelling.
But one of the best systems I tried this weekend was definetely Dread. It is simple role-playing system where players plays Jenga instead of rolling dices. If the tower falls, tha player will be deleted from a game. So it is a perfect way to bring some excitments to one-shots. Or you can deny to play Jenga when GM demands that and only accept that you will fail on that what you were trying to do. Sounds simple it worked well. And there wasn't either any character sheets with huge amount of numbers. There were questions what we answered from our characters and made the roles that way. Once again it sounded simple, but worked perfectly. I am so fascinated about this Dread that I will study more about it and keep at least one game using it. My plan is to write more how it worked then as a GM.
But Ropecon was totally worth of visiting and planning to go there next year again. If you want to read more about it, here is direct link what will tell more in English: https://2016.ropecon.fi/en/frontpage-ropecon-2016/. If you're any kind of gamer, this is a good convention to visit then!
