RPG-a-Day 2023 - Week One

 It's that time of year again... and I forgot about it until a friend posted it on the second. I won't be doing daily updates on the blog... maybe weekly...? We shall see...

1) FIRST RPG played (this year) 

That would be the Back of Beyond Campaign I ran earlier this year. I wasn't using any system in particular... I guess it was similar to Diplomacy, in a way. I had six players, each representing a warlord in control of a faction in the Far East starting in 1919. There were Tsarists and Bolsheviks and Warlord Chinese and Western Interventionists. They sent messages to the other warlords to negotiate or threaten or bully each other, as they saw fit, and at the end of the week, submitted a movement order for their army in the field. I played out any battles using One-Hour Wargames and reported the results on this very blog... and the negotiating began again. Some REALLY GOT INTO THEIR ROLES - writing verbose communiques and proclamations in the "voice" of their "character". 

2) First RPG GAMEMASTER 

Like, ever...? That would be my dad, I think. I somehow convinced him to buy the red box Dungeons & Dragons around 1982 or 1983 and he tried to run it for me... but very quickly I took over and ran it for him for a time, until I found other kids my age to play with.

3) First RPG BOUGHT (This Year)

I can't remember if I bought the Hellboy RPG at the beginning of this year or the end of last year...? 

If the latter, then it would be the Blade Runner RPG I bought last week.

4) Most RECENT Game Bought

That would be either the Blade Runner RPG or Tiny Epic Galaxies...? 

If we're talking RPGs... Blade Runner. 

Speaking of recent purchases, though, Finnegan bought the My Little Pony RPG and a game called Thirsty Sword Lesbians the other day! They sound fun and I hope I'll be able to convince him to run a game or two for me and some friends. 

5) OLDEST Game You've Played

The oldest Role-Playing Game I've played would be D&D... though it was relatively NEW at the time!

If we were talking about a game that was OLD when I played it - like the game that had the largest amount of time between when the edition I played was published and when I played it... That would probably be quite a bit different! 

Oldest GAME... like the physical copy I played...? Or the old game invented...? Probably Monopoly or Crokinole or Snakes and Ladders...? 

6) Favourite Game You NEVER Get To Play

Honestly, when I've been playing as little as I have the last little bit, EVERY game seems like a game I never get to play and wish I could play more.

Also, I don't think I lament not being able to play any particular game as much as I miss getting to play with certain PEOPLE...

I guess Wrath & Glory is the one I've thought about most over the last year and just never seem to get a game going...

Or FATE...

7) SMARTEST RPG You've Played. 

I don't know... There have been some with new things, clever mechanics and such... 

I really like the simplicity of FATE. It seems very elegant. I'd like to try it more. (though I just went out and bought Blade Runner...!?) 

How about the rest of you? 

Terrain Bitz

 I've had a handful of wee terrain bits on my workbench for a few weeks. Thought they'd be fun and easy to knock off... But there were also an HUNGREG OTHER THINGS that I ALSO thought would be fun and easy to knock off. I started working a bit quicker when the prospect of playing Hellboy: the Boardgame popped up... but I didn't quite get these done in time... 

I'm pretty sure the furniture bits came with the Hellboy game (I went ALL IN and there was an option to get furniture upgrades from Mantic Games- to use instead of counters) and the stump was from the last Reaper Bones we kickstarted. 

Hopefully we'll be playing Hellboy again before another two years pass! 

Candlesticks and Iron Maiden

 

(image pinched from Pintrest)

Every time I hear "Iron Maiden" I think of this scene from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and laugh.

And now I have a miniature Iron Maiden that, if I ever had Bill and Ted miniatures, I could threaten to put them in it! (And then they would say - in the game - "IRON MAIDEN!? EXCELLENT!" and do a little air guitar riff!) 

Iron Maiden from Raper Minaitues (I think...? Probably came with one of the Bones Kickstarters?). 

I figured it would make and interesting Clue Marker or just weird scatter terrain in either The Silver Bayonet or Hellboy: The Board Game!

Candelabra - also from Reaper Minitures - one of the Bones Kickstarters. I have two, but I couldn't locate one of them when I was basing and prepping and priming and painting... Of course, once it was DONE, I immediately found the other... Here is one. I have no idea when I'll get to the other.. Again, I was thinking Clue Token for The Silver Bayonet (or Hellboy). One of the things you can find in the second scenario (which... we've already played) is an ornate candelabra!? I'd hoped to get this or the ones below done before we'd played it... but didn't quite get to it! 

MORE Candle sticks! These are metal and came with the Lead Adventure Miniatures Dwarf Gold Fever Kickstarter. Trying to go with a wrought iron look with these....

Trying something new with these pics.... 

I got a phone this week. 

Well... Amanda bought a phone FOR me. 

Seriously, I almost made it to 50 without one of these. 

Finnegan also got one. They were sort of an early birthday presents for both of us. He turns 18 in two weeks. 

Phones have cameras these days. 

I was experimenting with using the phone to take pictures and fiddling around with how to get it from the phone to the blog. 

The pics aren't too bad. 

ToonCon 2020 - Part 2 - Saturday

Originally I planned to do FOUR posts for ToonCon - one for each of the games I ran, and then another for ALL THE OTHER STUFF. But, as I mentioned in Part 1, I skipped out on the first two games I signed up for on Saturday - needing time to rest and recover and do a bit more prep for the other two games I was running... which didn't leave much else to report on, so... Saturday.

I had signed up for Wingspan Saturday morning. I've never played and thought it might be interesting to try... but then didn't.  I'd also singed up for Stone Age at noon, which I have played and it is fun and we don't own a copy, so I only ever play it at ToonCon, but skipped out on that as well. Amanda didn't sign up for anything in the morning as she was taking Keira to two dance classes and teaches a couple of yoga classes concurrently. When she got back, I figured we would both head back to the Convention for the second afternoon game: Architects of the West Kingdom.

I'd never even heard of Architects of the West Kingdom before seeing it in the schedule. Amanda and I both signed up for it. Three of the games going on in this time slot were actually longer games that had started earlier (at noon) and the other two were Puerto Rico, which we own, and Orleans, which Other Tim owns and was suggesting we get together and play with him and his new lady-friend... so... Architects of the West Kingdom...

That didn't happen.

I'm not sure how we ended up so late... but we didn't get there in time




So Amanda and I sat down and did a quick run through of the first introductory scenario for Hellboy!

After that was the ToonCon Game Auction.




The ToonCon Auction is always a good time. They go through a few hundred games in two hours. Unlike a regular auction, they simply give a brief description of the game and call out the starting bid and anyone interested in paying that much holds up their bidding stick. Then they start calling out higher amounts. Depending on how many hands go up they might start with different increments - one or two dollars if there are only a few, five if there are more, ten if there are a lot. If the amount called out is more than you're willing to pay, you take your hand down. As the number of bidder decrease, the increments decrease. When only one bidder is left, they pay the last amount called. It is a fast-paced, exciting affair - and it's easy to get a little carried away!

Because it is easy to get carried away, I always spend some time looking over the games before hand (on the Friday evening) - and do some checking of prices (to see how much they sell for new and used) and make a list of what I'm going to bid on and the absolute MAXIMUM I'm willing to bid and I stick to that! There wasn't a LOT that I was interested in this year - as I said I'm mostly interested in divesting myself of games, rather than acquiring any more! Still... There were a few (ten, actually, out of over 250 games in the auction) that looked interesting enough that, if I could pick them up cheap...



I stuck to my max bids (with one exception) and picked up five on my list... and then there were three that Amanda said "ooh, that sounds fun - BID ON IT!" and we ended up with three more, that NO ONE else bid on - and one had a larger starting bid that almost all of my max bids fir all the other items on my list! (It was Fauna - they described it as 'By Friedemann Friese, the guy who did Power Grid" and Amanda was like, "Oooh! I like Power Grid, BID ON THAT!" and as I raised by bidding stick I said, "yeah, but he's also they guy that did Fearsome Floors" and Amanda said "Oh, never mind then..." but by that time we'd won the auction... because no one else bid on it... yeah...

On the plus side, even with Amanda's three impulse buys, we still came home with fewer games than we sold in the Auction. On the downside, we spent way more than we got for the ones that I sold... Ah, well...



After the Auction I ran Hellboy: the Board Game for four fun players. From left to right, there was Nicole, and Jon (who played in my Blackstone Fortress game, the previous evening), Larissa and Dana.



I ran them through the basic starter scenario. Larissa played Abe Sapien, Jon played Rodger, Nicole played Johan Kraus and Dana played Hellboy!



It's a pretty easy game and they seemed super into it and picked it up really quickly. The Giant Frog Monster was swiftly defeated!



After that we tried out on of the other scenarios - looking for another BPRD agent that's gone missing. Nicole decided to switch things up and try out Liz Sherman.



Frogs got beat down, clues were inspected, they even dealt with a poltergeist.



Liz got to set things on fire...



Rodger's base matched the flooring.



In this one they faced Rasputin's GHOST - which is a bit trickier to deal with! Liz kind of kept him busy while Rodger punched out frogs and Abe and Hellboy got the Agent they were sent to rescue out of there. Huzzah! Everyone seemed to have a pretty good time and I had a lot of fun playing with them.



While I was running the Hellboy game, Amanda was playing Terraforming Mars.

I looked in between our first and second game and she'd actually put some greenery on the planet surface - so unlike Amanda! She usually just puts a PILE of green and blue cards into play and largely ignores the planet surface. Apparently she had 11 green tiles out by the end of the game... but no cities... and came in dead last. Apparently she had fun, though, so...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

ToonCon Part 3 - Sunday

February Games

Saturday, 1 February 2020



In the afternoon, Finnegan ran his D&D5E game - everyone showed up this week! The players seem very committed this campaign - there have been more days that EVERYONE's been there than not - so far - which was not the case for the previous campaign.



In the evening we started our third session (not counting the one where we finished off character creation and went over how the system works and introduced some of the campaign frame work - I'm talking third session of actual ROLE-PLAYING). This was starting on a new adventure: The Edge of Darkness - this is another old introductory Dark Heresy Adventure - but it's a lot tighter and makes way more sense than the previous one. We started a little late so we really only got through the mission briefing - which was pretty extensive and the characters had a lot of good questions for the Inquisitorial Interrogator that was doing the briefing.


Friday, 7 February 2020



Amanda, Keira and I played Power Grid Deluxe - on the European side of the board. Good Fun - and super close! Amanda won, by a few "Electros". She and I both powered 16 cities in the end, but she had more money left over. I had planned to play this every Friday this month - as I'm sort of helping out with it at ToonCon. Not the guy running it, but playing in it and helping out...


Saturday, 8 February

Only two of the players for Finnegan's D&D game showed up in the afternoon... so they made characters for 1st edition (something they do for time to time, for "laughs")

In the evening...



Continued on with our Wrath &Glory campaign. This got into the investigation proper. The trio were ambushed by Scavvies while staying in a hostel! The Scavvies were quickly dealt with. They did some poking around and picked up a few clues...

Saturday, 15 February 2020

Friday evening we didn't play Power Grid because Amanda and I went out on a date for Valentines Day. Well... sort of... We were in the same building together where she was volunteering for a function and I mostly sat on my own...

Saturday afternoon... well... kids these days. Every week Finnegan sends out emails to confirm whether anyone is going to make it to his game. Not everyone can make it all the time and it helps him plan the adventure. This week one of the girls had told him at the game last Saturday that she wouldn't be able to make it - it's a long weekend and her family was going to be out of province. When he did send out the email, one of the dudes who almost ALWAYS shows up, but almost NEVER replies to the emails, actually replied to the email and said he was coming... then one of the other dudes said he was coming. Now Dude #2 is NOTORIOUS for saying he'll be there without actually checking with his parents to see if he can - he's pretty busy guy with competitive swimming, but has none of that schedule in his head he relies entirely on his parents to get him to the places he needs to be at the time he needs to be there. I joked that Finnegan the he should double check with his parents to confirm. Finnegan replied as asked if his brother would be able to make it... and Dude #2 replied and said it turned out that neither of them would actually be able to make it?! The other girl finally replied to the email on FRIDAY and said she wouldn't be able to make it...

So, the one guy who always shows up was the only one that confirmed he would make it... Saturday morning he send a second reply stating he was at a friends for the weekend and wouldn't be able to make it...

Finnegan was a bit bummed by all this, but understood (it's the FAMILY DAY long weekend... some people actually DO do stuff with their families... I mean, WE tried...). But he is always frustrated with peoples inability to reply to emails punctually and accurately.

Saturday at noon... The girl who was supposed to be in Alberta and the swimmer Dude #2 (but not his brother) just showed up and expected to play... after both had told him they WEREN'T coming. No phone call or email checking that there still was a game going on, just showed up. Luckily, Finnegan HAS most of the campaign mapped out and has a pretty good idea what's going on in his world and is pretty good at just making shit up as he goes, so the three of them forged ahead with the campaign and it sounded like they had a RIOT!



In the evening we sat down to play Wrath & Glory again. Keira was in a bit of a sulk and we had to HOUND her to figure out what was going on and it turned out she had no interest in playing Wrath & Glory... but felt she HAD to...!? I was a little shocked by this as SHE had been the one that seemed most keen on the idea of the campaign and most excited about her character! So she's dropped out of the game - I'll have NO ONE playing that is only there because they feel they NEED to...

Despite the picture (which was taken later in the evening when they were tired) Amanda and Finnegan had a pretty good time and they did a bunch of investigating and picking up of more clues. Amanda was feeling like they were getting nowhere, but Finnegan pointed out all the clues they'd picked up and leads they had to follow up on... I think she's watched too many half hour cop shows and expected an investigation to be wrapped up in a single episode, and it's been three, 3-4 hour episodes so far and they're still not 100% sure who is behind what's going on...

They were a little bummed out at Kiera dropping out of the game and REALLY missed having the Psyker along!!


Sunday, 16 February 2020



Sunday we sat down to finally try out Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress. It took a LOT longer than I expected. I thought we'd get through a few expeditions in the afternoon... we got through ONE. and it took us nearly SIX HOURS!? Mind you, we stopped for lunch at one point and for the first few rounds there was a lot of looking up of rules and trying to suss things out and two points we really got stuck on trying to figure out what the rule meant (both could go one way or the other and would significantly change the whole play of the game - we chose to do it them one way, but in both cases, when I later looked up how others are interpreting it, I found the consensus seems to be the opposite!?) Despite that, it was good fun and I think we were all looking forward to trying it again! There is a full report of the ensuing shenanigans here:

Enter the Blackstone Fortress

Monday, 17 February 2020

We had all kind of planned to play games all weekend for the "Family Day" long weekend... Ideally, I'd hoped we'd get through games of all three of the games I am running at ToonCon, just three weeks from this weekend... Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress, Necromuda , and Hellboy: The Boardgame. As we got to the weekend it became clear that we weren't going to get through all three. I still hoped that we'd get to try out Blackstone Fortress (which we did, on Sunday) and that we'd get a chance to play necromunda - as it has been MONTHS since I last played - Hellboy we'd played more recently (although that was almost two months ago now, as well) so I figured we could forgo that one for this weekend.

I spent all of Monday morning and most of the afternoon getting stuff ready for Necromunda - filling out cards and typing up bits of scenario details and rules and a quick reference sheet I could read, and spend what remained of the afternoon setting it up... After supper we were to get playing!



But then, after supper, the kids were very slow at dragging their ass to the table. Keira showed up first, but just sat there sulking... AGAIN!? In the end I just told her to go away. I like playing games with them, but only if they're actually interested. If they're only there because they feel the HAVE TO, NO ONE is going to have fun. Finnegan's response was pretty much the same, so I told him to get lost as well...

Teenagers, hey...?



Amanda WAS willing to play, but I knew she had other things she'd rather do, so I suggested maybe she go do that and I'd just solo a few rounds on my own....

I did get gangs all set up and figured out what they were all going to try and do and played through about one turn... but then other family crises ensued and the game was put on hold...


Tuesday, 18 February 2020

I did leave it all out on the table, and on Tuesday played through a second turn, again, solo..



Soloing both Monday and Tuesday proved to be very valuable - I got to remind myself of how the game played on my own time, without worrying about player(s) sitting there being bored while I looked stuff up.



Tuesday I really only got through a second turn and that was enough...

I did do a game report of the action with a bunch more pictures:

Necromunda Scenario Play-Test for ToonCon


Wednesday, 19 February 2020 

I was determined to actually play test this with scenario with real humans, however. So Monday evening and Tuesday I started HOUNDING everyone I could think of to try and get them over here either Wednesday or the following Tuesday to play.



On Wednesday, ONE person, Rick, showed up to play with me...

A couple others had expressed interest, but then all bailed...



Despite only having one player, it was still a valuable play test - and a lot of FUN! I was feeling at this point I was ready to run it for more people - and more people WERE planning to come on Tuesday!

Again, there is a full report of this action elsewhere on the blog:

Necromunda ToonCon Scenario Play-Test #2



Friday, 21 February 2020

Two Weeks to ToonCon! The original plan was to play Power Grid... but then both people I'd arranged to come and play bailed...



So, I talked the family into doing a quick run-through of the basic starter scenario for Hellboy: The Board Game

More Pics:

More Hellboy


Saturday, 22 February 2020



Finnegan's Saturday D&D game...

In the evening we were supposed to finish off The Edge of Darkness.... but that somehow didn't happen. I think Keira picked up another season of Supernatural from the library and we were busy binge-watching that with her... I decided to sit with them and do some painting...

Originally on Sunday we were supposed to play Hellboy again... but I ended up being CrAzY sick - like in bed all day, except for a few visits to the toilet... I was terribly worried it might be the flu and I might have to cancel the Wargaming Birthday Bash on Tuesday. I was still feeling pretty awful on Monday, but somewhat better.


Tuesday 25 February 2020

By Tuesday morning I was feeling a little more Human, so forged ahead with the Birthday Bash!



Starting the day off right - with a donut from Darkside Donuts!



I spent the afternoon setting things up so everything was ready to go when players showed up.



Other Tim played Enforcers, Aaron played The Escher Gang, Kurtis played Cawdor.



Rick played my Delaque Gang and Jacob played a Crusade of Redemptionists!

More pictures and a complete report of the ensuing shenanigans can be found elsewhere on this blog:

The Return of Karloth Valois - Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash


Thursday, 27 February 2020



Thursday evening Darrin and John stopped by to try out Hellboy - giving me another chance to practice teaching it to people who had not played...

More Pics:

More Hellboy

Once again, on Friday, people that had planned to show up bailed and kids were unwilling to play and Amanda was tired... so we watched Jo Jo Rabbit, which I'd picked up from the library earlier in the day. Ah well... hopefully I'll remember how to play Power Grid when I play it next weekend at ToonCon.

Saturday, 29 February 2020 (Leap Year!)



Finnegan's Saturday D&D game...

In the evening we'd planned on playing Blackstone Fortress, instead of carrying on with the Wrath & Glory campaign... but then... that didn't happen either...

Maybe in March...



So far games played this year...

Wrath & Glory x6
Necromunda x3/4
(It was three, but one was a solo game spread over two games and logged as two games on BGG)
Betrayal at Baldur's Gate x2
Hellboy: The Board Game x2
7 Wonders Duel (with Pantheon) x1
Patchwork x1
Power Grid Deluxe: Europe/North America x1
Railways of North America x1
Terraforming Mars x1
Viticulture Essential Edition x1
Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress x1

Not really hitting those Q1 Plan objectives... but... whatevs... Games getting played.

Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:


In just over a week - the ToonCon 2020 Game Report(s) - there will probably be three or four of them - one each for each of the games I'm running, and another for the rest of the weekend...

Before that, though, I will probably be posting a few pics of minis trickling off the workbench this week... some Necromuda stuff... a Noise Marine (or two!?)... maybe some other stuff!?

More Hellboy

I am running a Hellboy Learn-to-Play game at ToonCon next weekend and despite posting a (long overdue) game report a couple days ago, it'd been almost two months since I last played and have had my head filled with other rules - as I've been reading and re-reading Blackstone Fortress and Necromunda rules... So I was feeling like I DESPREATLEY needed to play a few games to refresh my knowledge of there rules. I played two games this past week, and it was a good thing I did! The first game, last on Friday, felt more like Finnegan was running ME through a game than me running the family through a game - HE remembered EVERYTHING and I felt like I remembered NOTHING!



We just did a quick play-through of the basic, introductory scenario (Eviction Notice) which we'd all played before back in December.



This time I was theoretically "running" the game and so didn't take a character. Partly I wanted to see how differently it played with three agents (You get a bit more buying power for extra gear at the beginning and an extra turn on the doom track before things go sideways)

(The Encounter card put two infernos in each space - but I seemed to recall only one could be in each space, so I checked and then removed one from each space before we got going).

Keira was playing Liz Sherman, Finnegan tried out Abe Sapien, and Amanda played Hellboy - The classic team from the comics. They missed having Johann -as he's really good and picking up the clues!



They had little trouble dealing with the Frog Monsters, and "took time" to investigate the clues after clearing each room - and still had time to get to the last room before the Boss showed up...



Ready for that last room.



GIANT FROG MONSTER!

Actually, taking him down was super easy, barely an inconvenience... Liz basically one-shotted him with super flame power and then they spent two more turns mopping up the rest of the minion frog Monsters...



And there was much rejoicing...

(Okay, maybe this last picture was staged a bit...)


We'd planned to play again on Sunday... but I was super sick and could barely get out of bed - luckily that only lasted a day or so!



Thursday Darrin and John stopped by to try out the game, and I ran them through the same scenario.



John played Abe sapient and Darrin played Liz. It was interesting to see a game played WITHOUT Hellboy!



Then first scenario is a bit of a cakewalk...



I TOTALLY forgot about the upgrades they get fighting the boss in this scenario for each of the clues they've picked up (they had all three, so SHOULD have been upgrading all three dice any time they did an attack against the boss!)



This is probably why I saw, not only the first instance of a character taking enough damage that it actually affected their stats, but also the first character KO in all the games we played (the action cube marks where they fell - just in case they regain consciousness!)

They STILL won though... like I said, cake walk...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

A Game Report for the Annual(-ish) Wargaming Birthday Bash and an overview of games played throughout February.

Also there have been a few figures trickling off the workbench I could probably post pictures of at some point....