Mysterium

Mysterium is one of the new games we picked up after Magfest. I think it might be my husband's new favorite game.

For those who don't know what Mysterium is, it is a tabletop game that plays a bit like a mix between Clue and Dixit.

There is one player who plays the ghost of a murdered person. Everyone else is playing psychics who are trying to figure out who killed the person, with what, and where. The ghost knows, but can't talk. What the ghost can do is share cards with clues on them to help the psychic players figure out what happened. The cards have strange pictures on them, so it's not usually obvious what the ghost is trying to communicate. You have a certain number of rounds to figure everything out. It's cooperative, so everyone wins or everyone loses.

I hate hate hate hate playing the ghost. I did it once, and no one, not one, ever figured out what I was trying to communicate. I might have given myself a concussion from hitting my own head on the table in frustration. My husband, on the other hand, loves being the ghost. I guess this works though, because I'm 100% content to let him have that role. Overall, it's not my favorite, but it's still a fun game.

Legendary Play Mats

Recently my husband and his old college roommate, who share a birthday, turned ... I won't say, but it was one of the fun ones that end in "0" or "5" and deserved something more fun than usual.

We got his roommate, who prefers to go by Theorne, a Last Unicorn print from Animazement, a couple of fun things off Etsy (which shall remain nameless, since we haven't given those yet, on the odd chance he finds his way to my blog--not likely, but would rather not chance it), and 2 custom-printed play mats for his Legendary game. 

Theorne is an huge Legendary fan, and that's putting it mildly. He has pretty much every card ever made for the game, minus two that I believe were promotional cards released by Upper Deck on some occasion or another (he told me probably more than once, but I can't remember). He has them sleeved in high quality sleeves and stored in two wooden cases.

We found a game store not too far from where we live that will print play mats, so we decided to try to put together a mat based off the Legendary board since Theorne had mentioned (several times) how much he loved the mat we had with our Legendary Encounters Firefly game. He conveniently forgot his game cases at our house after one of our game nights, and we took the opportunity to scan the board. The dimensions we needed for the mats did not match the original board, but we were able to pull a lot of the images and core elements from the board and arrange them so that they fit the mat dimensions while still maintaining the original sizing for the card spaces. That was a challenge, but my husband succeeded in putting that together.

Since we'd gone to the trouble to make the one mat, we decided to make a fan-based mat using images from things that Theorne liked. It was mostly a just-for-fun kind of thing. 

I believe he was well pleased with them. We broke them in at the start of their birthday game day by playing an epic game of Legendary featuring the Fantastic Four expansion. By epic I mean we won, but only had 3 turns left before losing.

This has been a fun project, and it has gotten my creative gears going. What kind of fun things could I do with this.

Kingdom Building

This past Monday was our 13th anniversary--it honestly feels like much longer than that. Anyways, for our anniversary, my mom got us two new boardgames, and I will be spending this post talking about one of them: Dominion. When I was at Magfest I saw dozens of boxes of this game hanging around the tabletop gaming area. The only game close to rivaling the number of Dominion games was Settlers of Catan. Magfest ran tournaments with both of these games. Intrigued, my husband and I snagged a copy on Sunday morning to give it a try. Sadly, we only got the game roughly set up and got to play through maybe two rounds before we had to pack up because of a panel I wanted to attend. I had hoped we could sneak back down to tabletop and play through it after the panel, but that didn't end up happening.

Victory Cards

What little we got to sample of Dominion of Magfest was enough to sell us on the game. My mom likes tabletop games so I shared info on the game with her, and that's how we ended up with it for our anniversary. Dominion is a deck building card game, and it has nothing to do with armies and destroying the other players. Looking at the box, I'd honestly expected a card game variation of Risk or something like that. Rather than build armies, your goal is to build a kingdom made out of Estates, Duchies, and Provinces. You use money in the form of Copper, Silver, and Gold Treasure Cards to purchase the kingdom building cards (called Victory Cards in the game), more Treasure Cards, and Kingdom Cards. Buying the Victory Cards and Treasure Cards have obvious value--you need one to win the game and the other increases your purchasing power.

Treasure Cards

The Kingdom Cards are where the game gets really interesting in my opinion. There are 25 different Kingdom Cards that come with Dominion. For each game, you get to pick 10 Kingdom Cards to play with. Most of the Kingdom Cards allow you to perform actions on your turn--I think the Gardens are the only exception to this (Gardens add to your Victory Point pool). Some cards allow you to "attack" other players, and there is one card that functions as a defensive reaction and will protect you from "attacks" (the Moat card). I put attack in quotes because you don't attack other players in Dominion directly. Most attack cards give you a bonus of some kind and then have a side effect that adversely affects the other players. For instance, the Bureaucrat is an attack action card. If you play this card on your turn, you get to place an extra silver card on top of your deck. For the attack part of the card, other players have to take a Victory card (an Estate, Duchy, or Province card) and put it on top of their deck if they have one in their hand. In this case, you're just guaranteeing at least one card in your next draw will be a Silver and other players' next draw a Victory card in their next draw--Victory cards are pretty useless during actual game play.

25 Kingdom Cards--Pick 10 to play with

Another thing I found interesting about Dominion is the game mechanics. I've played other deck building games before, but this was the first where you build your deck as you play. Each player starts the game with a deck of 10 cards: 3 Estates and 7 Copper. On their turn, each player then plays actions to theoretically gain some advantage in the game and purchases cards (their choice of Victory cards, Treasure cards, or any one of the 10 Kingdom Cards selected for that game) to add to their deck. All players gain cards from a shared pool which include all the Victory cards, Treasure cards, and Kingdom cards used in that game. The game ends when all Province cards are purchased or when any three Kingdom cards are bought out. Once the game ends, all players pull the Victory cards out of their deck and count up the points. The one with the most points wins.

I absolutely love this game. With all the different Kingdom cards to choose from there are tons of different game combinations you can put together to play with. I really like games that have high replayability like that. It's worth noting that I usually lose this game; out of the nearly 20 times I've played it in the last week, I've only won once. My kids kick the snot out of me at this game most of the time. I still love it. =P

Second Best Way to Spend the Weekend

Clearly, as far as my opinion goes, the best way to spend a weekend would be at an anime convention hanging out with friends, cosplay, and play geeky games. Since that wasn't an option for this past weekend, I did the next best thing, hung out with friends and played geeky games all weekend. This past weekend was supposed to be our last (probably) D&D game at this house, except almost everyone was sick; we'd already downgraded the D&D game to hang out and play cards or board games since my husband was recovering from a plague-like cold and didn't have the voice to run the D&D game. It turns out 80% of our group had the same plague-like cold, and so the turnout for this weekend's fun was small, but we made the most of it. =)

We played a scenario for both the Ravenloft board game and Wrath of Ashardalon, the more standard D&D board game. It was amazingly epic. For the first (and probably last) time ever we managed to go through both games without anyone dying. I was especially shocked with the Ravenloft scenario; you think Ravenloft and the first thing that comes to mind is player death. The board game does a great job of capturing that feeling from the table-top game setting. It wasn't like we were necessarily going after one of the easier scenarios either. My husband picked out the biggest monster mini in the box, and said "Hey, let's go after this thing." If anything though, those two games back-to-back made the last (probably) game get-together here memorable.

After playing the D&D board games, we moved onto Munchkin. We played Zombie Cthulu Munchkin and Super Munchkin Bites. I especially liked the Zombie Munchkin and Munchkin Cthulu combination. It seemed an oddly appropriate set to mix, and the sets played well together. Super Munchkin is, I think, by far the most over-powered over the Munchkin games. We joked that by pairing it with the vampire Munchkin game, we were creating Vampire Mary-Sue characters... *cough*Twilight*cough*

We topped the evening off with pizza. It's not what we'd planned on preparing for dinner. However since we had such a small turnout, and it was such a relaxing evening of playing, it just felt like a pizza night. We finished the evening off with pizza eating, chatting, and watching an episode and a half of Tiger and Bunny on Anime Season--my computer decided it wasn't interested in cooperating after the half way point on the 2nd episode. All things considered, it was a fun weekend. I did get a little bit of drawing done, although it wasn't nearly as much as I should have. On the other hand, it was nice to get a break from working on things for Anime USA and just relax for a bit.

Munchkin: Board Game Style

Munchkin Quest is Steve Jackson Game's board game version of their awesome Munchkin card game series. We picked this up a while ago for my husband. However, right after purchasing the game, we moved, and did not find the box we packed it in until our move the end of last month. I'm glad we found it; I'd honestly thought we'd lost it permanently.

On that note, I thought it'd be worth posting a review of some kind on the game. The game features a lot of the same kind of humor and play style that you can find in the card games. Beyond the basic concepts behind Munchkin, art design, and some of the classic items and monsters, not much remains from the original card game.

The first thing you'll notice upon opening this box is that this game has *a lot* of pieces. This is also the first significant deviation from the card game which contained two decks of cards and a dice. This game has dungeon tiles, door tiles, monster tiles, level counters, 10 dice, colored stands, monster tiles, and three decks of cards--I might be missing something there, but you get the idea.

Of course, with all these new pieces, the game got more complicated. The basic goal of the game is very similar to the original card game. Be the first to get to level 10. This version adds the additional condition of "escaping" the dungeon--this involves getting back to the entrance and fighting a boss monster. Not too bad so far, but once you get into the actual game play, you'll see where things can get a little more convoluted. First each player has movement tiles--you start with three. With those movements you can explore a new room, search the room you are in, or activate the special "deal" associated with the room you are in. Also, you have to keep in mind that there are door tiles for each side of the room which can include open hallways, regular doors, locked doors, and hidden doors, and to move through the latter two, you have to spend three movement. Ok, still not that bad. Let's keep going.

Let's go into a little more detail. When you explore, you open up a new dungeon tile. Each tile has something special about it. Some allow for "deals" where you can trade items, money, or cards in your hand for various things. Many rooms also have symbols on them that correspond with the races and classes of the game--we'll get back to this point later. So, you place the new dungeon tile on the board. What's next? First, you draw a card from the Deus ex Machina deck--this deck contains a mix of old treasure cards and door cards from the old deck. Basically it's any card that doesn't count as an item or a monster, so this would include "Go Up a Level" cards and cards that enhance monsters. Next you draw a monster card from the Monster Deck; yes, in this game, monsters get their own deck and you will never have monsters in your hand--another big deviation from the card game. (They still have wandering monster cards and other such cards, but those involve moving monsters on the board or simply drawing a new monster instead of playing monsters from your hand.)

Here's where things get a little crazy: you've got your monster for your room. Now you find the monster tile, and then you role a 6-sided dice with colors on each side: purple, orange, red, green, blue and yellow. If the color matches a player color, that player draws a Deus ex Machina card. If it doesn't, you get to pick the color, but you can't draw a card if you choose your own color. Get a stand of the appropriate color and stick the monster tile on it. Next you compare levels and play any items or effects you or other players want. Now in the card game, that was the end of combat. Not so here. Next you and whatever player "owns" (matches the color for) the monster role one d6 (or more in some cases). Add the role to your level and the monster's level respectively. Resolve combat. If you win, yah; draw treasure, gain a level, and if the monster had the same color stand as your player color, you draw a Deus ex Machina card. If you lose, take a hit and then try and run away; failing to run away still results in bad stuff. The "take a hit" part is another new addition to the board game. All players start with three health tiles. When you "take a hit" you flip a health tile from red to black. When all your health tiles are black, you die. There are slight differences with death that I won't go in to here. I did learn this evening that you can commit suicide if it is to your benefit to do so. XD

So that should give you a brief idea of how much more complicated the board game is than the card game. That was just a basic combat. I haven't gone into searching, which can lead to more combat, the drawing of treasure cards, or gold tiles (yes, the board game gives you money). So, each player can explore, search, move, or deal on their turn until they run out of movement tiles. After that, the colored d6 is rolled again, and the monsters move based on the color rolled and colored arrows on the dungeon tiles (and don't forget that monster movement can be influenced by symbols that appear on certain monsters). 

When all is said and done, the game is still fairly fun. It has a really high learning curve, but if you can get a good group together that has a handle on the game play, it's really not too bad. Learning to play, or playing with people unfamiliar with all the rules and nuances of the game, is tedious at best. Turns can take up to 30 minutes, and that's for just one player. There are enough new rules and new mechanics to the game that even with a seasoned group, it's easy to get bogged down. My opinion on the game: I won't say it's spectacular, but it's still a pretty good game; just make sure you have a lot of time if you sit down to play this one.

Reflections on Ravenloft

Saturday I got together with my cosplay group, which happens to be a smaller subgroup of my D&D group. In theory, the plan had been to record the audio for our skit and work on costumes for Animazement (May 27-29 in Raleigh, NC). What really happened: I did some costume work, we played with the kittens, I did a little more costume work while watching Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog with one of my friends who hadn't seen it before, while the rest of the group watched my husband sand Zuko's swords outside. During that time, season 3 of Avatar: the Last Airbender had been playing on the TV; the kids were watching that, but around this time, the rest of us got sucked in. One guy did get up and get fabric for part of his costume cut out.... but then we were back in front of the TV.

When Disc 4 went in, we decided to start up a game of Ravenloft (the board game version). The game took most of an entire episode to set up; in it's defense, I should mention we were going to take on one of the more complicated difficult missions. We took a break (yes, a break from playing a board game) to watch "The Ember Island Players" episode on Avatar. The game itself only took 1.5-2 episodes to play, so we got to watch the conclusion of the confrontation between Aang and Ozai and the wrap-up to the anime.

The Ravenloft board game is nothing short of awesome--at least in my opinion. If you like board games and table-top roleplaying, then chances are you'll enjoy it too. This game is what I call a tile game--the Munchkin board game plays like this as well. Based on the scenario, we have an objective of defeating a certain monster (or monsters), escape from the dungeon, or simply survive for a given number of rounds, to give a few examples. We were going after Strahd (part 1) where we had to defeat his body guard--a random drawing from one of the mid-level boss monsters--and then confront Strahd; in the end of that battle, Strahd would go into mist form and retreat deeper into the dungeon, and thus would begin part 2 of that mission. We only played through Part 1 this time.

Although fun, it is worth mentioning that this game is incredibly tough--in traditional Ravenloft style. Even on the easier missions, the heroes are set against encounters that range from equivalent in power to significantly stronger than them, and these encounters are coming constantly--each player wants to explore on their turn which opens a new dungeon tile and brings a new monster into play; some tiles force the player to draw an encounter card as well (usually nastier than the monster), and if the player does not explore they have to draw an encounter card. You can imagine how overwhelming this could get just from the sheer amount of stuff that ends up on the board. I think we've only managed to beat a mission once on hard mode (i.e., use no healing surges meaning no player reached 0 hp). Typically we win on normal or easy mode (2-3 healing surges), or we party wipe (3 healing surges used and a player at 0 hp), or we cheat (use 4+ healing surges). I think this game is a lot of fun; of course, keep in mind that I'm coming from a strong D&D background, and Ravenloft was one of my favorite settings. Still, it's a game I'd recommend. =)