Writing in Other Places: My Forbidden Island review and a twisted map for your RPGs

Sometimes I write reviews or little posts for my wife's blog, Baby Toolkit: parenting gone geek. I wanted to point out my full review the excellent cooperative board game, Forbidden Island, that just got posted today. If you have a moment, please check out All Together Now: Tangling with Gamewright's Forbidden Island. As I like to put a bit of a role playing twist on things on this site, I had an idea for using the basic structure of Forbidden Island to make up a devilish trap or dungeon in a fantasy or high adventure RPG game.

The basic components of Forbidden Island include twenty four double sided island tiles. A deck of Flood cards which illustrate one of the island tiles each. A deck of Treasure cards containing cards representing the four treasures on the island, a couple of useful item cards that might be useful to the adventurers, and a couple of Waters Rise! cards that make matters worse.

You see the Water's Rise! cards cause the marker on the Water Meter to go up one tick mark. The Water Meter is divided into a number of sections and each section denotes how many Flood cards are drawn after each player's turn. After a couple of ticks have been marked off due to the drawing of Water's Rise! cards, the players must draw, and flood or sink, more and more tiles at a time.

To apply this back to RPGs, a GM could design an entire dungeon, or a single room that works on a similar principle and the players would have to play against the game's mechanics in order to defeat the challenge. I like the room idea the best as it lends itself to being repeatable. Let's say the adventurers hit the room first and they start at the easiest water level. There's still some challenge in beating the room, but they are more likely than not to win. Now say that they have to hit the room again (or another random room like it), but this time the difficulty level is set much higher; the marker on the Water Meter is placed higher up. Just watch them sweat it before even starting, especially if they just barely bested the challenge on the easier setting.

And if you don't like the cross layout, you could place the tiles in any configuration that makes sense. See the link at the bottom of my review for some European edition and fan created alternate tile layouts for the Forbidden Island game. You could include any game rules in the RPG system of your choice to define moves, number of actions, special powers and so forth and how they will interact with the basic mechanics of this mini game within our RPG session. To make it more difficult, throw in monsters or other challenges that work with the mechanics and against the party.  For the most part, though, this is one of those game master puzzles that you could just surprise them with and see how they handle it.

Also, I should note that the Water hazard could be anything. It could be lava or a sucking void. It doesn't really matter as long as the game mechanics and the danger to the characters are spelled out for the players.

I think it would be fun? What do you guys think? Are you a GM or have you had a GM that has employed real puzzles as some form of simulation, challenge or distraction during your RPG sessions?

Let me know in the comments below.

** Storied Adventures likes to take inspiration from whichever sources it finds, be they board games, RPGs or books of all sorts. It is usually a board and table top gaming blog that is written by a guy who loves board games and is returning to RPGs after a 20 year absence. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Parent Con: After Hours Gaming for Gen Con Attendees with Kids

So. We're going to Gen Con again this year... and we're bringing kids.

To be fair, every year that we have attended Gen Con in the last three years, we've have kids in tow. First it was with our four year old son, Ranger, walking around and baby Scout in a backpack. The next year was with a five year old Ranger dressed as Mario and Scout dressed as a little Luigi (perhaps you saw us). And this year, we've got another baby along for the long strange trip.

The first year, we stayed at a friend's house and that worked pretty well. The next, we got a hotel on the Northwest side away from the louder and more expensive conference hotels in an effort to guaranty that our little adventurers had plenty of time to rest and restore hit points at night. Our hotel had lots of nice amenities including suites, a nice pool, a provided modest breakfast and dinner and a pretty big lobby with a couple of big tables.

We had a great time and were able to regroup at night. However, we did miss out on some of the after hours gaming that would have been available if we had stayed in one of the conference locations. Still, the sleep and rested kids was worth it. They ended up enjoying the convention and so did we.

This year we're staying in the same place, but are hoping to still get in some after hours fun. First, we're going to invite some friends to visit our hotel. If they're coming to Gen Con, we're encouraging them to stay at the same place (it's just a short drive back down town after all and their kids will get a good night sleep as well). Then we're hoping to encourage other attendees with kids to possibly stay out there as well.

We've jokingly dubbed it... Parent Con! It's the informal after con gathering for gamers with kids.

I'm reading up on Call of Cthulhu and Mouse Guard RPG and I'm planning on running a couple of sessions if we get any takers after our brood is put to bed at night. We'll also bring along a couple of board games and party games.

If you're attending the convention in August and are looking for a place to stay that will offer both rest for your kids, a chance to meet other gamers brave enough to bring kids to the con as well, and the potential to game after you pack it in from the con for the night, drop me a line at morlockhq at gmail dot com.

Are you attending Gen Con with kids? Do you think that's a totally insane idea in the first place? Let me know in the comments.



** Storied Adventures is a board and table top gaming blog is written by a guy who loves board games and is returning to RPGs after a 20 year absence. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Cubes for Cthulhu: Rory's Story Cubes in role playing games

 My wife received a review copy of Rory's Story Cubes a while back and, after playing with them for a couple of months with my son, I posted a review on her site. Baby Toolkit. Rory's Story Cubes are a set of nine white six sided dice with a unique pictogram imprinted on each face. The idea is to roll the dice and then construct a story incorporating all of the pictograms on the face up sides. Long review short, we really liked them and I have a lot of fun making up stories with my son using them.

But having used them all this time, the time that I am also reading up on role playing game rules as I prepare to start playing again, got me thinking. These cubes, or something like them, could be an interesting tool for a game master or Keeper to generate scenario ideas off the cuff.

Stumped as to what adventure to throw at you investigators? Roll the dice and piece something together.

The base set from Gamewright contains pictograms that have a few modern allusions such as cell phone, a jet liner, and credit card that might make it easier to "generate" a story in a modern setting. But a little creative leeway can interpret these in an era appropriate manner should you want to roll up a 1920s era Cthulhu scenario. Still other of the base game's pictograms are eerily suited for Cthulhu play including a boy who's shadow is a creepy monster, a scarab, a pyramid, a symbol of chaos, a falling star (they are right aren't they), a magic wand, a book (or is it a tome), a castle keep, and a fish (dagon?). I think the basic set would make a nice addition to a Keeper's tool chest.

What would be even cooler is if Paizo or Chaosium came out with their own themed story cubes with setting appropriate pictograms for the Pathfinder or Call of Cthulhu role playing games.

So, what scenarios could you come up with for the rolls depicted in the pictures above?

** Storied Adventures is a board and table top gaming blog. Others exits. We received a review copy of Rory's Story Cubes from Gamewright. Beyond the review copy of Rory's Story Cubes from Gamewright, I have no ongoing financial relationship with any of the publishers of the games listed. I am, however, attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Funny what you find when you look: RPGs at Wal-mart

This Christmas, I received a very generous Wal-mart gift card. I don't go to Wal-mart very often, but it is close to my house and, as a general purpose store, it carries a lot of things that I could probably use. Still, while I was hanging out at home, I couldn't really think of anything that I wanted or needed off the top of my head. So I decided to check out the Wal-mart.com website knowing that they have more stuff there than can be found at any one location.

I'd been hoping to pick up a few role playing game books and board games with any Christmas money I might receive. I wanted to buy the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Player's Guide, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: GameMastery Guide and the 6th edition of the Call of Cthulhu role playing game. On a whim, I typed a couple of titles into the Wal-mart website search and, lo and behold, I found some of them!

It took a while to search for everything. Wal-mart.com's search engine stinks if you are trying to find items in a general category (say RPGs), but searching for specific titles works and you can have some success looking for general role playing game and board game titles with a little probing and guess work.

I was able to find the following role playing books:

• Pathfinder: Core Rule Book: $42.49
• Pathfinder: Advanced Players Guide: $26.00
• Call of Cthulhu: $25.50
• Various Dungeons & Dragons manuals, including (among quite a few others):
• Dungeon Master's Guide: $22.15
• Player's Handbook: $22.15
• Monster Manual: $22.15
• and the D&D Essentials Rules Compendium: $13.00

I also found hobby board games like:

• Carcassonne: $29.97
• and a couple of expansions
• Ticket to Ride: $43.97
• Starcraft Board Game: $89.97
• Castle Ravenloft Boardgame: $64.99
• Puerto Rico: $39.97
• Betrayal at House on the Hill: $49.99
• Word on the Street: $24.97

And if you choose the Ship to Store option, you get free shipping with the minor hoop of having to pick it up from the store to jump through.

Generally, I'd like to support my friendly local gaming store, but unfortunately the closest game store to my house is over an hour away. We do buy games from this store when we get the chance to visit and we do buy games directly from creators and publishers while attending Gencon. If my new project/cause of playing games in public bears fruit, maybe someone will open a full featured gaming store in my town or the larger town that's close by. Until then, I like finding deals in interesting and unexpected places and I'd say that finding some of these core role playing game books and hobby board games on walmart.com certainly qualifies.

** Storied Adventures is a board and table top gaming blog. Others exits. This is mine. Only the text product links in the bulleted list point to Walmart.com. Buying from the image links or the links above actually point to my wife's Amazon affiliate account. Surely you'd figure this out, I'm just being up fron in this disclaimer. I have no ongoing financial relationship with any of the publishers of the games listed or Walmart. I am, however, attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Play Board Games in Public: The Wednesday Game Group at Work

My wife and I have accumulated a lot of board games over the years. After college, we stumbled across some hobby board games like Wise and Otherwise,  Carcassonne and the Cheap Ass Games version of Kill Doctor Lucky in a gaming store and became instant fans. We had always played games like Taboo and Uno together with friends and family, but the theme and play mechanics of hobby games struck a chord with us and became a regular fixture in our lives.

Fast forward over a decade and a half of marriage and we have a pretty big collection that is constantly growing and being pruned. The only problem is that we don't have as much time to play as often as we would like anymore. I was lamenting this fact to Adrienne, my wife, last year sometime and she told me to start gaming with colleagues at work over our lunch hour. I gave her every lame reason that I could think of why it wouldn't work and let it drop.

A month or so ago, my daughter arrived earlier than her planned delivery date and I ended up missing my office Christmas party. Everywhere I have worked, I have generally become one of the people that helps provide entertainment for these sorts of gatherings. When the planning group starts wondering what we should do at one of these get-togethers, I generally offer to provide some gaming entertainment. After the first event, I'm generally expected to help out from then on.

When I returned to work after taking some time off with the baby, my co-workers made a point of telling me that they missed playing my games at the party. When I relayed this to Adrienne, she brought up her old suggestion of starting up a lunch time gaming group again. Thanks to her gentle re-encouragement, I decided to give it a go.

I sent out a general email to my department (I work in IT at a small university), inviting them to join a Wednesday Game Group email list that I would maintain. I relayed that each week, I'd propose a game to the list members to be played that Wednesday and the first responders would be signed up to play.  In the email, I'd list the number of players that I would need, a blurb from the game box, estimated game times and other pertinent information that would hopefully entice people to sign up.

So far I have about 10 people on my list and others that say they'll stop by on the Wednesdays that they are free. At about the same time that I talked to Adrienne about all this, I found the suggestion from the Seize Your Turn blog that more hobby board gamers should play their games in public in order to keep the hobby alive and viable. The Play in Public Campaign encourages gamers to play their board games in cafes, bars, restaurants, and other public spaces in order to expose the general public to games that they may never hear of in any other venue.

Inspired by this idea, I decided that the Wednesday Game Group would play its games on the tables in the snack area for our building instead of an office or conference room. This way we'd have more of a chance of getting passers by (and as I work at a university, hopefully they will include students and faculty) to get interested in our activity. Hopefully we can turn that passing interest into engagement, perhaps gain more players, and (hopefully) introduce new fans to a hobby that I love very much. You can follow other people's play in public activity by joining the Play in Public Campaign's Facebook Fan page or by following the Twitter hashtag #PiPCampaign (you'll probably see some of my activity there).

Our first game two weeks ago was Forbidden Island and I had three players other than myself. The cooperative game offered an interesting conceptual challenge to the players. None of them had heard of a game where all the players won or lost together and where they worked together to beat the game board itself. Still, they caught on quickly and we just barely won on the Novice setting with some quick thinking and a little luck. It was a close enough ending (on essentially easy mode) that it definitely piqued the interest of at least two of the players.

We took a week off, so this week we got back into it with our second game, the 2010 Spiel des Jahres winner Dixit. This time, we only had three players so we played the modified rules for the smaller group. Despite the smaller size, it was still fun and we actually got some interest from a passing student whom we invited to play (she couldn't at the moment) and encouraged to sign up for the mailing list (she said she would). We'll see how that turns out, but I am definitely encouraged to keep this up. Besides, the group may be small now, but the players are having fun and so am I.

This post should be the first of many documenting my lunch time gaming (another fun twitter hash tag to follow is #lunchgames) with the Wednesday Game Group. I'll include links to the games that were played and general session impressions. Maybe I'll sprinkle in some reviews here and there. So, watch this space, or one suspiciously like it, for more.

** Storied Adventures is another attempt to document some guy's gaming habits. That guy just happens to be me. Though, your mileage may vary. I have no ongoing financial relationship with any of the games listed. I am, however, attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)