Better late than never!
RPG
This Week in Eclectic Gaming: 4/22/14
This week saw a lot more board gaming, which I consider to be a win. So let’s break it down.
Board Games
We got to play a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill. It’s always cool, and we continue to not have gotten a duplicate mission. This one involved a Rat King. Kinda creepy.
Then we got in a 3 player game of Smash Up. Stephanie and I had tried 2 player and the 3 player game dragged out a little bit but that may have been because we weren’t familiar with the cards. I played Zombie Wizards, which had way too much card manipulation. It’s a fun game with nice simple rules.
Then on Saturday we got more games in.
We played a game of Space Cadets: Dice Duel. It’s quick but the speed of it can be daunting to some people. Be careful about the stress, but if you like craziness then it is for you. Not everyone we played with liked it.
Since we had 6 people, we played another Zombicide mission. There a ton of things I love about Zombicide. Probably the biggest being how climactic it is. As your characters get more powerful, the number of zombies both increases and gets more dangerous. Super cool.
Finally we played Hex Hex with all new people. Some rules got mixed up and people didn’t like it but it’s a great filler game.
Video Games
With the long weekend we got in 2 big sessions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which you can check out on Twitch. We hit a patch with a ton of combat and not a lot of plot. I’m starting to enjoy the combat a little more when you start to see the sneaking like a puzzle to be solved, but it is time consuming and stressful. That being said, the plot is getting interesting.
I spent some time getting back to playing a little League of Legends. I didn’t want to go back to ranked right away so I used the team builder for the first time to get some practice in a new role. I queued up as Jax in the top lane. I rarely play top and never Jax in a PvP game. It was fun, the team builder took away all of the stress of champion selection. I still don’t think it will work for ranked, but it’s great if you want to practice something specific. No toxicity at all. You can see one of the games over on the Youtube channel.
Role Playing Games
We continue to play Deadlands Classic on Mondays, which you can also watch on the Twitch channel. We’re still learning the system and we got into one of our first major combats this week. We learned one eccentricity of the system as well. There is a rule that if you roll 1s on the majority of the dice, then you “go bust” and it’s super bad, even if you also succeeded, but that means that rolling 2 dice can actually be worse than rolling 1 in some instances. So what we discovered is 2 dice bad, 3 dice good.
We continue to love the setting. I’m sure that is improved by the way the system is so thematic, but it’s awesome all around.
Is there anything here you have questions about? Anything you think needs to be added to the Eclectic Schedule? Let us know in the comments!
This Week in Eclectic Gaming 4/14/14
We’re finally getting back to some miniature gaming this week, well at least the modeling part.
Tabletop RPGs
As with most Mondays, it was RPG time with The Gnome Game. There’s aren’t anymore gnomes since we’re playing Deadlands Classic, but The Gnome Game it shall be called none the less.
We’re shaking off the rust with Deadlands, as it’s been a long time since we played it. We just realized how untrained skills work(very poorly), which affected how we all wanted to buy abilities going forward, but it’s still a blast.
You can check out replays on demand or watch us live on Monday nights on the Twitch stream.
Board Games
Not as many board games this week, but we got some in. Tried out 2 new games.
Stephanie and I played Smash Up. It’s a super simple card game where you take 2 decks and mix them together and get things like Alien-Dinosaurs or Wizard-Pirates. It’s silly, fun and short. Not bad.
We also got to play Bang: The Dice Game before Deadlands. As far as I’m concerned, it’s Bang but better. Faster, less hemming and hawing and somehow having less decision making makes it better.
Miniature Games
No gaming, but I’m getting back into the modeling.
I started building my Guild models for Malixaux, the Death Marshals in particular. These plastics are crazy detailed and crazy thin. I’m so terrified of breaking them but they are cool.
I also started on my Wild West Exodus models after I got the base inserts delivered. The base inserts are super cool. They’re actually plastic. I thought they would be resin, so I was pleasantly surprised.
The WWX models themselves are pretty cool. The way the plastics are chopped up are occasionally weird, but they look nice. The Resin models are great. I’ll hopefully get to paint some of them soon.
Video Games
More video games of course.
Star Wars: The Old Republic on Tuesdays. The Jedi Consular story is getting pretty interesting. Again, we play those characters Tuesdays on Twitch.
We’re also really getting into Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The combat isn’t my favorite, but I’m getting better at it and starting to see it as more of a puzzle, than stressful combat. Kind of cool.
In terms of games I’m not playing, the League of Legends playoffs are going down. The challenger series have completed in both EU and NA, EU LCS playoffs are currently underway and NA starts soon. I really love the way relegation works, as it keeps the league fresh, even at the bottom of the league. This split does seem sort of pointless though, since it doesn’t really impact worlds and most teams have outright said they don’t care about this split, but it’s still fun.
Well that’s it for this week. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions, and make sure to watch us on Twitch!
Eclectic Gamer Streaming Schedule
I started recording my ranked League of Legends placement matches a few months ago so that people could see what the process was like. I ended up using Open Broadcasting Software(OBS) to do it including a webcam toward the end. I got some requests for more videos so I did a handful more as well. Since OBS is a streaming software, it got me interested in the process of game streaming on twitch.tv.
It started off as a joke but we started using Twitch to live stream our weekly Pathfinder RPG sessions, which has turned out to be a lot of fun.
In an effort to learn by doing, I’ve started to stream more things, just to see what it’s like.
So here’s my current streaming schedule. We’ll see how it goes. You can check out the channel on twitch here. All times are US Central.
- Mondays starting at 7-8PM: Gnome Game Live. Playing Pathfinder “pencil and paper” RPG, the Rise of the Runelords campaign
- Fridays @7PM: Mass Effect. My wife and I are playing through the Mass Effect games again as a renegade character. We might switch it up. The Walking Dead Season 2 did just come out.
- Saturday and/or Sunday @9AM: League of Legends ranked games. I’m trying to get back into ranked and weekend mornings are the best time for me.
Come check one or more of them out!
Webcam Pathfinder
Whereas many people stay close with their college friends, I’ve stayed close with my high school friends. This may be due to the fact that many of us didn’t go the traditional 4 year college route, but the people I played D&D with in high school and I still talk today, even if I’m on the other side of the country from them.
A couple of years ago, we decided to try to use all of the fancy technology we have access to now to try me remoting in for role playing again. It failed miserably, but not because of the setup. Recently, a smaller group of friends and I have started a Pathfinder game with me joining via webcam. Are we doomed to the same fate?