Dungeon Escape

Last night I had some free time so I went looking for some quick game I could play in my library of downloads. There I found "A Dungeon Escape Game" (DEG) by Fuller Flippers which, the authors explain, was the forefather of Quest Cards. Although I couldn't find about the current status of either game, it seems that Quest Cards can still be found in some online stores and this page at BoardGameGeek contains the rules for "A Dungeon Escape Game."

Anyway, DEG is playable by 1-8 people with a deck of playing cards, a couple of dice, and paper to take notes. You choose between four character classes (fighter, wizard, rogue and cleric) and start at the center of a 5x7 grid of cards. Your goal is to reach one of the corners to leave the dungeon, while battling monsters, avoiding traps and finding treasure. Picture, if you will, a rogue at the beginning of the game, deep in the dungeon. Each class has a special ability; rogues have a chance to automatically deactivate traps.

The game is played by turning cards to try and move your character to the corresponding position in the grid. Monster cards must be fought and traps must be disabled (both by rolling dice.) Treasure and healing potions are collected immediately. Here's my rogue facing his demise at the hands of a particularly nasty monster.

Every time your character fails at disarming a trap or in combat, he or she loses one hit point (they start with only six.) Reaching the dungeon exit is not easy, much less if you decide to explore a bit for treasure instead of running straight away. Here's my fighter, on another game, losing his last hit point on a trap, after defeating three tough monsters.

Played solo, I found "A Dungeon Escape Game" to be a nice option for a 10-minute break as it plays quickly and setup time isn't long either. It also got me thinking about other possibilities for dungeon-delving or strategy games (cards as units?) involving just a regular deck of cards and possibly some dice.

Strangers in the Night

So I've finished reading After the Horsemen (ATH), played a few test battles and finally went for the first real game with it. In my opinion the prologue perfectly sets the tone of the game: it's all about the humans who have survived the apocalypse and now rebuild -- or prey on others.

There are a lot of small modifications to the rules to fit this gritty setting. There's a new "recover from duck back" reaction that may send grunts running for their lives. With an optional rule, figures may become out of ammo for the rest of the battle. Items, which seemed plentiful to me in 5150 New Beginnings, become very precious in an ATH campaign as your group needs food, fuel and medical supplies to survive.

In this game I went with a one-shot Wandering encounter. I created a lone wolf star called Tom (rep 5, fitness 5, people 3, savvy 4.) I got a 6 when rolling for the first attribute so I got one extra: friendly and white knight. To those, I added steely eyes. Tom's attributes made me think that his companion should be of the sheep class, so I rolled Shelly (teen female, rep 2, fitness 1, people 2, savvy 0, sure handed.) Tom carries an SMG, knife and a pair of binoculars, while Shelly has a pistol and a knife. Each of them has two units of food and one unit of medical supplies. So here I was with the typical post-apocalyptic duo of tough guy and the young girl he rescued from raiders and is teaching how to survive.

I decided that the place they are passing through has an Encounter Rating of 1 (middle of nowhere,) rolled evening for the part of day (thus reducing visibility,) and rolled for lack of sleep getting no ill effects. For the board, instead of randomly rolling terrain I simply scattered some green patches marking areas of tall grass, bushes and trees that block line of sight and otherwise work like woods in the rules. 

After placing my characters on sector 8, I rolled for the PEFs getting a rep 4 PEF on sector 1, a rep 5 PEF on sector 3 and a rep 3 PEF on sector 5. Here's the setup at the beginning of the game (I'm using small bug miniatures as PEF markers.)

Here's the battle report, with some narrative interpretation (and game commentary in square brackets):

Tom couldn't stop thinking this was a mistake. Crossing the wasteland in the dark, with some farmer girl that had never left her settlement -- until she was taken by raiders, that is. Still, they had to keep moving because the surviving raiders would come hunting for them with the sunrise.

This part of the wasteland had several patches of vegetation. The plan was to move around them, close enough to use them as cover but never stepping inside, to avoid stirring whatever might be in there. As they approached the first patch of tall grass, Tom motioned Shelly to wait. Carefully, he stepped ahead with his submachine gun ready. A large rat scurried across the dry ground and disappeared in a bush. "It's nothing, let's keep moving," he whispered to the teenager.

[On the third turn, Tom moved to a position with sight to and within 12" of a PEF (remember it's evening) but it proved to be nothing but nerves, so the group simply completed their movement.]

They slowly moved between two patches of bushes and tall grass, always pausing to hear any noises and movement around. Evening was turning into night and all was terrifyingly quiet.


[On the next turn they moved towards the center of the map, getting in range of another PEF -- again, nothing but nerves.]

Minutes later, Tom caught a glimpse of metal straight ahead. Pulling the girl to his back, he leveled the SMG and kept walking. A seemingly young man, with a mess of hair and beard, emerged from the darkness, pointing a small gun (maybe a machine pistol?) at them. The three people kept walking until they were only a few yards apart. "We're just passing through," whispered Tom, noticing that the man was looking curiously at Shelly. Long minutes passed but eventually both men lowered their guns and the stranger walked away, into one of the patches of tall grass. Tom kept standing there for some time more, until there was no more noise coming from the grass.


[On the fifth turn Tom's group activated first and moved in range of the third PEF. This time the PEF resolved as a neutral lone wolf. Tom failed on his people challenge, so the NPC became unfriendly. On the next turn, he walked into the nearby woods.]

Tom pulled Shelly's arm, signaling that they should start moving again. As they were about to turn and move away, he heard the sound of the grass leaves giving way to someone passing through, and a metallic "click." The young man had returned and, wild-eyed, raised his weapon to aim at Tom's head.


[Now here's the amazing part: on the following turn the NPC activated first and rolled an action of "move towards nearest player." This would bring him back in sight of my characters -- and an unfriendly NPC becomes an enemy in future meetings... so the lone wolf walked back to the edge of the woods and triggered an In Sight test!]

Tom crouched and fired a burst from his SMG. The young man let out a short scream and fell to his side, while letting a wild burst of machine pistol fire. Nearly at the same time, two pistol shots sounded to his left: Shelly had pulled her gun and fired at the stranger.

[Tom got two successes, enabling him to act first. He fired his SMG getting two hits and taking the lone wolf NPC out of the fight. Shelly also got one hit but that didn't make much difference.]

Tom didn't bother to check if the stranger was alive. The world was a harsh place, and it was good enough that he didn't finish him off or rob his things. Besides, all the sound and flare from gun fire was bad enough, and he didn't know how Shelly would react when she started thinking about the firefight. So he just put an arm around her back and pulled her along, moving quickly into the night.

[After the battle, my group simply had to walk to the edge of the map to complete the encounter, since there were no more PEFs to be resolved.]

Conclusion

There's a lot to like in After the Horsemen. The game moves fast (I love the sector-based movement of PEFs, also featured in 5150 New Beginnings) and keeps you on your toes. A full survival campaign is now on my "game projects" list. For now, I might try a few more games with Tom and Shelly.

After the Horsemen!

After the Horsemen, the post-apocalytic survival game from Two Hour Wargames has just been released. I was really waiting for this since I love post-apoc games, mostly due to fond memories from Fallout.

While the printed book makes its long trip from the US down to here, I'm taking a look at the digital version. With 98 pages, it is not as hefty as 5150: New Beginnings (176 pages) but it's also an immersion game (a mix between RPG and strategy game.) The difference in page count seems to be in part due to the use of a font that takes up more space in 5150:NB and part due to that book's inclusion of alien races and background about New Hope. After the Horsemen, on the other hand, is all about the human survivors.

I'll be leaving on a trip for the next few days so I'll only be able to read the book when I get back. However, a quick glance at the survival-focused campaign system already got me thinking...

Paper Figures as Game Tokens

As I wrote recently, I have been toying with different types of paper figures for my solo gaming. I came back to this after reading Chris Hahn's text on wargaming and realizing that, if you want to "just play the game" as Ed from Two Hour Wargames puts it, the paper figures are just game tokens.

You might get away with just using flat counters in the case of stand-based units. However, consider what happens when using flat tokens for individual minis. Even in 28mm scale, this means 1" circles or squares where you should fit enough information to represent the unit. For games like Song of Blades and Heroes (SBH) or All Things Zombie, that might be feasible: a flat token with a unit portrait and the few relevant stats, possibly a letter or number to identify similar creatures. Now move down to 15mm gaming. 10-15mm squares with text in it will be hard to read, whereas even a simple paper figure might make it easier to identify.

Now, to be clear, the artistic pursuit of creating paper minis as close to their resin and metal counterparts is very interesting. However, when considering practical factors and the "figure as game token" approach, other alternatives should not be ignored. In the following picture I have placed a few different paper miniature building styles. From left to right we have: two minis cut close to the outlines, and glued to plastic bases; two more cut close to the outlines with octogonal paper bases; three figures in "inverted T" style with textured bases; three in "A-frame" style and two 28mm-scale "inverted T" figures.

There is no discussion that the figures cut close to the outlines look better but in my experience, the others can be built a lot faster, making them ideal, at the very least, for trying new games. Although in that picture all the minis have white backgrounds, light colors could have been used to color-code different armies or unit types, adding information to the game token. Likewise, although these figures have front and back images, one might have symbols or small amounts of text on the back of each figure. Note: I'm not including the "triagonal" format in this discussion because I find it awkward to use in miniature games that require that minis have a defined front facing.

There is another aspect that differentiates paper miniatures meant to be cut close to the outlines from the ones to be used as "inverted T", A-frame etc.: perspective. Normally, the front and back views of the same figure will have different outlines thanks to the effects of perspective (i.e. foreshortening.) A nice example can be seen in this barbarian figure from Arion Games -- just check the hammer he is wielding.

Now, if you want a mini that can be cut along the outlines, you need the front and back to match. The only ways this will happen are:
a) all elements are placed (approximately) at the plane of the image, i.e. nothing jutting out or extending towards the back;
b) your image uses parallel projection, i.e. no distortion due to the distance.

The effect of doing either is that you lose some depth and dynamics from the figure. Comic book authors tend to exaggerate perspective effects because it adds movement to the image. Now, if your paper figures don't have to have matching front and back outlines, there is no such limitation. As a bonus, you can have figures in poses that would be too complicated to cut out otherwise. This also means that publishers who use inverted T, A-frame or triagonal formats and don't exploit different poses and perspective are really missing out on the opportunity.

Although I find A-frames less attractive than inverted Ts, they also have two interesting qualities. First, because the images are placed at angled planes, they are readable even from a steeper angle. Second, they actually enclose a volume, so they don't feel as "flat" as other paper minis. Some people will value these features higher than others, certainly.

To finish this crazy rant, I have two images to illustrate the use of inverted T's and A-frames. First, here's a picture of some insurgents vs. soldiers.

Second, here's "Get to the flying thingy before the bugs overrun us!" -- soon to be actually played out using the old BUGS! rule set from Two Hour Wargames...

Each picture was taken at about 50cm away from the table. What I wanted to highlight with them was the readability of the different figures on the tabletop. While these aren't pretty dioramas, it is possible to distinguish the figures and what's going on.

Conclusion

I've spent a considerable amount of time making paper figures and terrain but recently I'm starting to think about them as game tokens, so their practical use takes precedence over visual impact. Some times you want a gorgeous table, other times you just want to play the game. This doesn't mean I'll stop making more elaborate paper figures; it's just a change in priorites.

Quick update

Well... this is a post just to say that this blog isn't dead. I've just haven't had much free time lately. On the past saturday I got to play a couple of hours on the Guild Wars 2 beta weekend event. The game is looking really good and I look forward to playing the final version.

Other than that, I've been reading 5150: New Beginnings again to resume my "stories of hope" games and toying with some simpler paper miniatures (in A-frame and inverted T formats) to use in large quantities. That includes some 3D rendered figures from Arion Games that I had overlooked in the past. Sure, paper figures cut close to the contours look nicer but it's hard to beat the ease of making these.

As I was writing, I noticed that this is post number 150 in this blog... I wish it had more content than this simple update but hopefully more and better posts will come :)