I've never liked Collectable Card Games, the whole idea of linking financial outlay to competition and collecting was just a synergy that was just too fiendish to even contemplate. It's a work of marketing genius, of course, selling a game to a core market that has addictive personalities and then making sure you have to commit to blind purchases for rare cards to stand a chance of playing the game competitively. Hell, I remember the Star Trek: The Next Generation CCG, everyone I knew who purchased the game never actually played it but they still got involved in spending ridiculous sums for Captain Picard cards.

The collectable element wasn't the only reason, I'm also not a big fan of the nature of the competitive game. It's a form of strategic thinking that doesn't work for my brain. It's a form of problem-solving that doesn't interest me either. I've also realised something else, relatively recently, I'm not a big fan of games that involve a lot of 'off table' elements that are critical to the game. As an example, a core part of the CCG experience isn't just the playing of the game, but the building of decks. Indeed, it's quite easy to spend more time on that than actually playing the game and designing a great deck is a process to be mastered just as much as playing at the table. I even suspect some people enjoy that element more.

This has meant I've avoided card games for the most part (discreet games like Munchkin aside). Now, along come the Living Card Games and they are starting to slowly generate interest and in turn get me looking at card games generally.

The concept behind the Living Card Game is quite simple: keep the vibrant, ever changing and dynamic nature of new cards adding to the game, but remove the collectable element of blind purchases. What this essentially creates is a card game MMO model, you effectively pay so much per expansion, which come out regularly, and everyone gets the same cards. It's true, there is still an incentive to keep pace, but it's probably easier to limit games to certain expansions and you're certainly not chasing rares to even sit at the table. In fact, the expansion cards come from should be easily identifiable so expansion limits can be set? Not sure if you can do that, may check that out.

The LCG that has caught the attention of the gaming group is Warhammer: Invasion, which basically provides all the competitive, build-science addictiveness of their CCG days but with the fairer MMO model. Tried it, still not a big fan. It's still not a game I can enjoy. I can see the appeal for those of the right mind set, but I'd constantly just lose because I'm not interested in thinking in the way the game requires in order to win. Still no incentive for me to get involved.

Then The Lord of the Rings LCG comes along and it gets me pondering. You see, The Lord of the Rings LCG is a cooperative game. It's not competitive. It allows 1-2 players per core set to control a group of heroes, allies and magic items and face dangerous fiends to complete epic quests and claim victory. This moves the play away from the sort of competition I dislike, to the idea of creating an adventuring party that faces obstacles and challenges in order to achieve something. I tend to be fine with team-based competition towards an objective, and very good at it, just not individual competition purely for the sake of winning.

You see, in a way, this all comes back to the MMO model again. As not only does the LCG adopt a MMO model in terms of financial outlay and patch upgrades, they've also now found way to deliver a PvE experience rather than just a PvP one. Now, that may well be the final element of the puzzle that gets me interested. It all depends on the actual game, of course, but I do like the idea. Even the continually changing nature of it through the LCG element is appealing as there is zero external pressure to keep pace with the expansions. After all, your set of cards is designed for a 2-player experience, so your collection is its only island in terms of the play experience.

Last weekend was a Gaming Weekend in celebration of the current gaming group having formed nine years ago, and partly because GenCon was on. I was only involved for one day, due to assignment issues and a few other things. So, yesterday I got to play Labyrinth Lord and Descent, which provide interesting comparisons to the 4E experience.

I was interested in playing Labyrinth Lord just from the point of view of experiencing how those old school games play now. Labyrinth Lord is essentially a duplicate of a very early edition of Dungeons and Dragons, back when non-human races were essentially a class, the wizard only got one spell at first level and the Thief was crap at all his skills for some considerable times. They key thing I was interested in is how the game would play when there is literally nothing for the player to interact with in terms of system? No skills, powers, aspects, nothing. I really enjoyed it, though I wouldn't do it again. This is because the enjoyment came out of it being an experiment. It's okay, but the lack of basically any system to interact with beyond the most basic of stat checks or attack roles meant it felt a bit like a gaming vacuum. We did do quite well though, visiting most of the dungeon and only dying at the final encounter, with two out of three of the player characters being taken out instantly with 6 damage from an opening AOE. Despite always being surprised by monsters, our lucky rolls, particularly damage rolls, served us well. I also suspect one player buying three henchmen helped a bit. It was humorous, and fighting rats in a load of sewer sludge did make it feel like the early levels in Bioware's Baldur's Gate. If you're going to do that dungeon delving experience you're better off playing first level 4E? I just expect the system to add more to the experience these days, what it adds I'm flexible on, but it should add something.

I've been interested in Descent for a while, as it promised to distil the dungeoneering experience into an interesting board game. Descent is essentially the natural evolution of games like Heroquest, Space Crusade, Space Hulk and Dungeonquest. The game is huge, offering a load of components that have a lot of repeat use value if you are playing something like 4E. As a game, it's great. It provides a focused, dungeon delving experience, the aim being to complete the objective (kill a giant in our case) before running out of Conquest Points. It's refreshing that the total point of the Overlord is to win by killing the heroes, often repeatedly. I found the experience fascinating, the way the currency generates for the Overlord, the fact players can re-spawn after death at secured save points but lose Conquest Points (the goal of the Overlord being to reduce Conquest Points to zero) was funky. The rush to get treasure to gear up as the dungeon goes through copper, silver and gold sections also works well. The dice in the game are also great, especially the way the dice decide the range of an attack. The number of different character types is also huge. The only slight complaint I would have is, based on our first play, which I admit is a small sample and I assume it's an easier starter dungeon, the heroes seem to have a distinct advantage over the Overlord. This is especially the case if they don't do something stupid like open doors when it's the Overlord's turn next. That nearly resulted in a zero Conquest Point situation for us.

As for 4E? Well, other than noticing some vague similarities with Descent in terms of the combat encounter experience (largely status effects, on-going damage, burst damage, etc), I also got sucked into ideas for another 4E campaign. It's the fault of the Eberron Player's Guide. I was all for being done with 4E after the current campaign is finished, as we will have been playing 4E for about two years at that point, but now my head is full of character imagery for another campaign! It's the Warforged in Eberron, a variation on magical technology inspired Battle Golems. While some of the artwork surrounding them is pretty lame, a selection of the artwork is just gorgeous and inspiring. It doesn't help that one other player wants to play an Artificer in the future, queue potentially interesting dynamics between the Artificer and his Warforeged companion. I'm thinking Ancient Battle Golem General, who waged a war in another epoch against his creator before being awakened a millennia later. Fighter class, lots of invigorating and rattling powers. Any magical items he gets being represented by new systems coming on-line. It'd be a cool idea for an outrageous, Battlechasers-style mini-series, eight episodes covering levels 16-20 (to get the Paragon Tier awesome in). I'd play that.

I did think I was done with 4E. The current campaign still has nearly half the Paragon Tier and all the Epic to go, so ages of time before it could conceivably happen, so time will erode the spark.

Gaming group four had it's monthly get together yesterday and...what, gaming group four? A bit of explanation first, I guess?. There is the gaming group, which has the designation group one, it got together in 2000 to form a group that would actually play role-playing games rather than talk about how they wanted to. I'm involved in gaming group one. Then there is gaming group two, which has three members from gaming group one and Ben. Then there is gaming group three which is primarily used to test Duty and Honour, and which features four members of the gaming group one, plus Ben. I'm not directly involved in gaming group two or three. Then we have the open house gaming group four, which tends to play board games and just socialise, and this is open to all across all the groups and various other people that have many and varied historical connections to the various members of groups 1-3.

I think that's it, another explanation from a slightly different perspective can be found here.

Now that's over we can concentrated on the fact that the six people who did turn up undertook the epic task of stopping Ithaqua, the Great Old One, from destroying the town of Arkham and from there the world. This was done by playing the board game Arkham Horror. The basic premise of the game is that 1-8 players take up the roles of adventurers (a total of 16 are in the game) to stop a random Great Old One (there is a fiendish choice of 8) from descending on Arkham and taking over the world. At the most basic level, this is done by closing the gates that are opening in the town. The various events and actions of the Great Old One are controlled by independent rules, hence it being possible to play the game solo.

In practice, the game is quite complex, but not complex in a mind-bending way that makes you want to pack all the very high quality, and I mean high quality, components back into the box, but in a way that provides depth. Each adventurer is quite unique, you can get equipment, money and spells. You can do various things in various locations in the town. You have to travel through the gates and traverse other worlds to close them. Creatures come through the gates and roam the town, and unique events happen like a serial killer slowly killing all the adventurers' potential helpers! You can even get lost in time and space and, in true Call of Cthulhu fashion, go bat-shit insane. On playing the game I think it was decided by all it was great, and deserved to played again and again, as it has quite a lot of replay value (different adventurers being used, and a different Great Old One to stop) and it was going to be great fun rising to the challenge of defeating the game. A lot of work has gone into it, balancing the various currencies, and ensuring the count downs work well (both a terror track and the countdown to the Great Old Ones arrival). It's a very slick product.

It also models the typical Call of Cthulhu role-playing game scenario very well. What you usually get is an introduction to the problem, a build up of resources and knowledge through investigation (which will erode one's sanity) and then the final encounter with the evil (or ideally the minions of the evil, as the guy himself will probably turn you raving mad on sight). The Call of Cuthulhu game was very much ahead of its time when it was released, but that was the problem, as many of the players didn't realise the 'game experience' was to slow go insane but hopefully save the world from the greater evils in some way. In truth, the rules for losing insanity were also a bit rough, due to being the first attempt, and these things combined to ensure the game was often never played in the way it was probably intended. In many ways, the Arkham Horror game is a great, distilled Call of Cthulhu experience, and for many people is probably a better experience than some of their experiences with the actual role-playing game.

It has got me interested in board games again, as the production quality on these things has certainly gone up a notch (along with the price), but Arkham Horror seems to show that the good ones are very good. Looking at the Fantasy Flight Games product list, there seems to be a few potential good ones, such as the expensive Descent: Journeys Into Darkness, a dungeon delving experience.

I've mentioned how the Prophetess seemed to have an odds on chance of victory in the Talisman boardgame before. Well, the picture above suggests she is alive and present in the new Xbox Live version of the game. You can see a movie on here, it looks pretty good. What puzzles me, is I seem to remember the game going on a very long time. So unless something has changed it could be the longest game on Xbox Live!

One of the interesting elements of Xbox Live Arcade, is you sometimes get some interesting games that wouldn't maybe survive as full price releases. One of the examples is the release of Settlers of Catan on Xbox Live Marketplace today. It certainly looks the business, and I'd be a big fan of seeing other classic boardgames released under the model. I can't help but drool over the idea of someone releasing a Blood Bowl game on Xbox Live Arcade, complete with characters performing the moves with full animations!

This did get me thinking of boardgames I've played in the past, and when my thoughts turn to that, you can't avoid thinking about one game in particular: Talisman. It is the board game I've played the must by a very large margin.

Talisman involved each player picking a character, who was a sort of adventurer looking for the Talisman, and to do that you had to travel around the game board, which had three parts to it: an outer 'ring', a middle 'ring' and the inner 'ring'. You travelled around the board, landing on particular locations and picking up adventure cards on each location, which usually resulted in you finding equipment and beating up creatures. You essentially improved your character through this process until they were strong enough to face the challenges of the next 'ring'. You did this until they could face the inner 'ring' and potentially lay claim to the Talisman. Obviously, there was 2-6 players trying to do this, and the characters meeting in the same location and choosing to duke it out was always an option. Each character had a number of lives and they could actually die.

It was a very simple game in the beginning but it got expansion after expansion until it sort of got burdened under its own weight. Over time you got The Talisman Expansion Set, Talisman Adventure, Talisman Dungeon, Talisman Timescape, Talisman City and Talisman Dragons. I'm not sure if all those options got published via Games Workshop in the UK, as I don't remember City and Dragons. Anyway, the expansions sets added more characters, new adventure cards, items and different processes at the end of the game, and more importantly additional boards. What this usually meant is the games got longer, and some of the additional characters seemed to just be way more powerful than the others. I remember Talisman Timescape was an opportunity to introduce non-fantasy characters like a Space Pirate, Cyborg and Space Marine, and others of that ilk. It was the usual problem when 'more stuff' is released for games, whether it be boardgames, role-playing games or MMO computer games, a sort of inflation occurs.

The two characters that I always remember being particularly bad were The Knight and the Prophetess. I think we eventually banned The Knight, due to his annoying ability to always be equal to any other character's player in combat. It made him the perfect character to use if you got taken out halfway through the game like. The one we never banned, but certainly bucked the statistics in terms of win percentages was The Prophetess, and ironically, I think she actually came with the original game? The Prophetess had one of those abilities that on the face of it, didn't actually seem that bad. I can't remember what it was exactly, but I believe she could pick up one extra adventure card and dump the one she didn't like. I personally think this ability was powerful enough to shift the odds of victory seriously in her favour.

Interestingly, it appears that Talisman is being developed for Xbox Live Arcade as well, so I may find myself playing it again in the future.

We have been having a 'big clean' in the house, routing through all the cupboards and designating things for being sold or moved on in other ways. The first thing I discovered is how relatively possession free we are, considering the modern mind. We got rid of most of the stuff we had when we moved about two years ago (this December). The second thing that hit me square in the jaw was memories.

Now, with other people, they'd be saying now they found a load of old photos or something, but with me it's different, as I found old games. I knew I had them, but seeing them and listing them sort of makes it different. The main culprits were the old Games Workshop games, the classic board games that I'd spent many a fun hour playing in my teens.

The major classic was Talisman, this was a game we played to death. Despite the fact that the player with the Prophetess invariably won the game, we banned her eventually, it was a great game. I believe it had about four expansion packs eventually, I think I have the first one, with the later ones actually expanding the playing area. To be honest, the game got a bit tiresome with all the expansion on, it was best with just the original box and arguably the first expansion (which just added more options within the main board).

I also found Space Crusade, which was actually my brothers game but he must have given it to me when he moved. This also had the two expansions with it; one giving extra options for the space marines, along with tougher Dreadnought robots (one of the enemies), and the other allowing you to play the Eldar. That was a good game, it basically involved the space marine teams having to complete a mission objective on the map, which was a set of customizable tiles, while the 'apposing player' was allowed to put enemies on the board and bring in reinforcement from certain entry areas. It was always tense and exciting.

Last, but by no means least, is Bloodbowl, the original edition, before they changed it into a way to sell miniatures. A game of fantasy American Football, played with teams of fantasy races, and the ability to literally cripple the opposition. You could organise leagues, and play out a whole season, complete with transfers and everything. I played in a couple of Bloodbowl leagues, always fun, even though I rarely came close to the top. The great thing about the league aspect is people really got into it, always wanting to know where their team was, how each game would effect their position, etc. I still believe that Bloodbowl is the computer game that needs to be made. Imagine a game based on a faster flowing American Football game, but more violent, and complete with the right commentary: "And the Troll, smacks the Elf running back, oh that's gotta hurt!". It would be great. I can see it on the XBox Live sports network at this very moment.

These games belonged to a time when my life was all about games, of various types, and Star Trek conventions. A better time? No, just a different one. It was still fun looking through the boxes though.