Gloomhaven

This year we started Gloomhaven, a massive campaign dungeon crawl game that has been and is currently ranked #1 on Boardgame Geek!

I have to say, it entirely deserves its title. Isaac Childres has completely outdone himself in a magnificent way, and the community has also pitched in with wonderfully made companion apps. We tried out a few and prefer Gloomhaven Helper app for managing the nitty gritty of our games.

For those not in the know, Gloomhaven is the name of the city of mainly mercenaries and we are not heroes! We are swords-for-hire in a fantastical medieval and magical world created in this game. The actual game runs like a dungeon crawler with lots of story and fluff thrown in.

As a party of up to 4 (and you can even play solo, with some caveats), you head out to deck out the world of Gloomhaven with your adventures and choices. Random City cards and Road events are picked up before every mission, for which objectives vary from killing all enemies, looting particular treasure coins, or even standing on particular objects, etc.

It hasn’t gotten old even after more than 30 plays, and I foresee much more game time coming in.

Our characters are driven by their own personal goals, and this is where it gets interesting. As a character achieves its goal, it reaches retirement age. It gets put back into the box, and the player receives another character dictated by the previous personal goal.

The story continues from there, and Gloomhaven as a city grows and gets populated. Gloomhaven has races that are not known anywhere else (other than for humans), and even though characters can be viewed to tend towards the typical classes such as Paladin/Warrior, Rouge/Scoundrel, Wizard/Mage classes, there is no designated healer class and every character comes with its own deck of action cards.

Isaac Childres has taken many elements from popular games (Descent, Pathfinder, RPG adventure choice game books, etc) and woven them in a masterful fashion to produce Gloomhaven. However, the way the action cards run is entirely introduced to me from Childres’ Gloomhaven.

Each card has a top and a bottom action that can be performed, but you can only choose one each time you use the card. When it is your turn, you will pick two cards you want to use, and of these four available actions, you can only pick one TOP and one BOTTOM action, one from each card. Combined with the fact that each card has its own initiative number which affects the turn order in that specific round for a tactical game, there is already plenty to think about for those euro gamers to scratch their itch.

The miniatures are beautiful and top quality, and the entire box weighs about 10kg. So, ameritrash or euro preferences aside, there is enough for everyone to find something to occupy their thoughts.

I say, enough talking, more playing.

Another year has passed

Wow. A year flew by, I submitted my thesis, graduated, went into an all new industry and am in a super awesome place of growth and excitement now.

What about games?

I’ve slowed down my kickstarter purchases, but remain ever involved in using games as platform for experiential learning, playing games (yes, we also got into the Legend of the 5 Rings LCG) and looking for new experiences with games.

It’s been a pretty fruitful year for game playing. Got to play and receive some of the Kickstarters coming in this year:

Anachrony: HUGE game (components, complexity and time taken to play), enjoyable, complex, well themed and I would totally play it again. TL owns this!

Godforsaken Scavengers: Difficult push your luck dunegon survival team game (other variants include solo play, competitve play, neutral play) that had us hooked on I’M SURE WE CAN MAKE IT LETS TRY AGAIN

Rum and Bones: Second Tide: Easy to pick up and play, with tonnes of variants making replayability exciting as to whether one can effectively string their characters together well. LC has the Kickstarter tonne of goodies that were exciting to discover. Plus. Miniatures!

As well as other games:

Cry Havoc: Played this at a meet up. I really liked the attack mechanic, not so sure I liked the natives (1 clan) versus everybody else (3 clans) mechanic. But otherwise it was pretty original in the attack mechanic and definitely got a lot of air time at meetup.

Stockpile: Interesting and fun mechanics, it was early in the year so I can’t tell you much about how to play but I remember liking it quite a bit. Economic game with fun ‘bidding’ elements. Played it at Battlebunker’s meetup.

Legend of the 5 Rings LCG: Well this is one exciting, intense (long time since I got so mad at players for playing well) and varied (7 clans!?) styles of play with beautiful art and theme. It is also surprisingly long (well, I was surprised).

Acquire 2016 edition: A new edition with plastic components was released last year! The moment I found out I called my FLGS and purchased a copy. I AM SO PLEASED. I was so torn for so long yearning for the grandiose Avalon Hill 1999 edition. The 2008 edition is complete cardboard crap.

Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition: This is a brilliant revision, with the app companion it plays similar to Descent 2nd Ed with the app companion as well. Fog of war is maintained using the app, and all players can be on the same side. “Missions” can be purchased to add replayability. Played it through meetup.

Arkham Horror LCG: This was difficult! But very fun! LC helped us get a set too and so far we only managed to play together once? twice? but it was very good. I look forward to playing with the other expansions and trying again.

What I’m looking forward to:

Photosynthesis: I’m really curious how this plays. Simple enough to grasp yet the playthrough must be quite interesting. It’s definitely beautiful and it caught many eyes at Gen Con this year.

Wasteland Express Delivery Service: The art! Omg! It looks amazing and sounds amazing. The artwork caught my eye when some players at the store were playing it, and I googled some words I saw on the box (that’s how brief my glance was, yet here I am wanting to play it…). Some sellers are putting it up for $120-135. Don’t have the budget for this. Maybe try and play it at a meet up.

Gloomhaven: SO EXCITED to try this game out. Both TL and LC bought a copy. It looks huge, sounds amazing (campaign play!?) as a mash of roleplay and boardgame and analysis paralysis and thematic FUN.

Scythe: It was in 2016 but I still haven’t played it. It’s huge, expensive but beautiful and well made and designed. Enough said right? Explains why I want to play it but don’t own it yet.

The 7th Continent: I didn’t back this Kickstarter.. I was quite afraid of the shipping costs. But lots of good words about it. Aesthetically, not sure it catches my eye so much, but I’m excited to try it nontheless.

This year was a bit of a dry spell for roleplaying. Spent most of my time levelling up in the physical world, so the imaginative world of roleplaying suffered a bit. I received Paranoia RPG, printed a few, and looking foward to running a few games next year.

As did my painting miniatures. No new painting this year, can you believe it? Zero. Or I can’t remember anything I painted this year. Oh how sad.

So how did I do for my 2017 “resolutions”? Not so good. Let’s see what 2018 holds.

Gaming stamina

The recently passed 19 Nov was International Games Day at Libraries (I love that this event title is so specific). AC, KT and I went to a local library (Toa Payoh) that was hosting it. I was pleasantly surprised at how vibrant the scene was, and also very pleased that there was 1 empty table. We promptly occupied it with a Quadropolis box, and Jerome (who organized Pasir Ris boardgame meetups) swooped in with a 4rh player and offered to teach us the game. 

I have to say I had seen the game around but never bothered with it because of the kiddish cover – and my oh my it was quite a bit of fun! Spatial procurement and scoring of buildings, it was an efficient and elegant game. 

By then, we had gotten comfortable and started chatting, and SC (the 4th player we just met) heard us talking about how we liked Brass. It was as if his ears perked up. He looked at us with anticipation, and asked if we would like to try Trajan, in his words, a heavier and intense game. 

The 3 of us said yes. 

It was clear that SC had no expectation of having Trajan tabled at a public meetup because he had to leave to get it from his car. AC, KT and I twitteredin excitement. 

When he came back and opened up the board, I was ecstatic. How long it has been since we tried something like this! A complex euro with many layers and multiple paths to victory. The teaching took a bit of time and AC started fidgeting. KT got a bit sleepy but I was raring to go! 

We started playing and AC got hands on to figure out how the game works in his head. At 5pm, we were 1 year into Trajan (the game is 4 years long) and Jerome came to remind us the place closes at 6pm. Oh damn. 

We finished early, laughed at all the trash talking by KT and AC and reminisced at previous similar games we played. 

It was as if a switch had been turned on. 

The next day, I set out to finally learn Vinhos. It had been on our shelf for a few years now. 

Of course, the cat came to vie for attention at several points. But I learnt the game in a fair bit of time, and asked if AC would play it with me. 

His “gaming stamina”, in his words, has dropped significantly. He has little interest in learning a game by himself (he would rather be taught), but I think Trajan had ignited something in him as well. He agreed. 

I taught him Vinhos and we started to play. It’s a good game of growing and selling wine! A few parts require a pipeline to be built by players and that was the most complicated part to learn: when certain actions could be done or when they could not be done. And it was 1am when we finished the game but I was not sleepy (which is a big thing because usually I get sleepy around 11pm). 

In all, it appears our decreasing “gaming stamina” may have just been a self-imposed limit accentuated by irregular boardgaming sessions. I am so ready for more. 

Downfall RPG

Downfall RPG is a game by Caroline Hobbs where 3 players collaborate to build a world and then role-play characters in the game that experience (fighting against, supporting or just standing by) its collapse, thereby giving some meaning to its destruction.

These days, the term Social Fiction has been used to categorise such games that rely on the collaboration of all players at a table, or authors on the internet, to create a piece of work together, often a piece of written or narrative work. Fiasco RPG and Microscope RPG would fall under this. I like this term.

The book itself is fairly short, written concisely and clearly, and even without a printed copy, once I had gone through the rules once myself, I had no problems running a session. I’m going to give you a recollection of what we did so you get an idea of how the game would go in a session.

I gave a short introduction to the objective in Downfall RPG to GR and AC, and we began to discuss and flesh out the details of the following: 

The Haven: a flourishing society/world in which our characters will be living in, and that will inevitably collapse at the end of the game.

The Flaw: a human trait expressed in our culture that ultimately causes the destruction of the Haven.

The Elements: 3 elements are picked here that help us get our creative juices flowing to build the physical description of the place.

The Traditions: 6 traditions that our society holds that embody the Flaw, as well as their symbols/emblems/practices.

So we first began with choosing MATERIALISM as the Flaw. We clarified its meaning: the tangible was more important than the intangible. People only cared about what they could purchase, hold, carry, and not about the values, relationships or morals.

Then, 3 elements – silence, rain, and sand. We had each picked on and began to brainstorm how they came together. From our discussion a picture of an underground city holding the last stand of humanity began to emerge. The surroundings above ground were polluted beyond measure, and humans moved underground to escape the toxic waste. There was never a day (or night) that sand wasn’t raining from the top; the underground city had the earth around it as its buffer, and so had been sitting in its silence for a hundred years. This world was all our characters knew.

Next, 6 categories forming 6 traditions with 6 symbols.

1. Family: You are as valuable to your family as the items you hold/carry, i.e. Blood is not thicker than water.
   • The statues around the city with men and money standing on the 1st spot and two men standing on 2nd spot on a podium signified that.
2. Death: The dead are buried based on the value of the property they have on them (literally) at the time of death, i.e. they could be carrying their title deeds on their body, and their value was only scored at their time of death.
   • The locations that were tied to this tradition were where people were buried: The Pits, a high up underground hill nearest to the exits of the city that were exposed to pollution were where the poor were tossed (not even buried); and The Sanctum, a deep down and protected underground burial plot for the rich. 
3. Religion: The worshipping of a person’s ‘Wants’ (desires) is the foremost tenant. They perform this act by spending all their money on physical items.  
   • The symbol was the Scroll of Desire, an unending list of Wants, held around the city and in the temple. 
4.  Justice: There is no fairness and objectivity, no morals from previous civilisations; justice is only about who can hire and who can pay. 
   • A scoreboard in the city of the top 20 people/families who can afford to pay. This changes daily based on the score, and these people were called the Untouchables. 
5. Education: You are defined as a better student in school based on the amount of worthy things you can carry – stealing, robbing, cheating to get items are part of the education. 
   • Students are ranked in public on a board outside the school called “The Value Rank”. 
6. Communication: People only communicate with non-family members when they are initiating a trade or chasing a desire or wanting a tangible object. 
   • To indicate this, you would hold out your left hand palm facing up to show that you ‘want’, and your right hand with an item facing down to show you have ‘value’. 

We named the Haven Score City.

Finally, we formed the 3 characters.

1. The Hero: ‘Bronzer’ Bungalow
   • He works as a Deathscorer – he is called to the scene to appropriate the value/score of the dead bodies.
   • He opposes the Family tradition, because his once rich brother ‘Platinum’ Bungalow was robbed one day and was disowned by his father Manny the Mansion due to his lack of worth. Platinum could not recover and committed suicide – Bronzer was called in to score him and had to send his brother to The Pits.
   • 23 years old who wears an armour as long as a trenchcoat due to his need to protect himself from getting robbed when visiting scenes of death. He is muscular and wears a frown most of the time.
   • Bronzer is the protagonist struggling against Materialism. He recognises the problems in Score City and tries to fix them. 
2. The Fallen: Priest Nugget
   • Teacher to the Hero.
   • The only Priest in the temple and teaches in the school. He preaches about the word of Want to all.
   • 45 years old, he has turned all his teeth into golden teeth (hence the name, Nugget) and has a large pot-belly.
   • Priest Nugget is one of many who promote Materialism. He will challenge the Hero and make their struggle difficult. 
3. The Pillar: Manny the Mansion
   • Father to the Hero.
   • Deals with real estate and development in Score City, he is one of the rich men who can pay and hire.
   • 50 years old, strong and hunched (from carrying all his Wants).
   • Manny is one of many ordinary people in Score City, who apologises for and ignores the harm caused by Materialism, reflecting the average citizen. 

What follows after this is the actual roleplaying, which takes place in rounds. In each round, there are several steps:

1. The Corruption: The Pillar chooses a Tradition to corrupt.
2. The Hero frames a scene.
3. The Fallen frames a scene.
4. The Hero reflects upon the current state of the Haven.
5. Based on the reflection, there are two possible outcomes: either the Haven collapses, or the game continues another round.

The fleshed out details above were written early this year, and I didn’t finish writing out the scenes we played. I have forgotten the details but remember vividly the pictures painted in my head of that game. It was so good that I had been looking forward to playing Downfall again. And a few days ago, I finally got my chance.

This time though, it had been many months since I had read the book, and I overlooked the prep needed to facilitate the game for two newcomers (and one new to roleplaying). I only briefly glanced through the book, and forgot to reference the concise reference page at the back. This resulted in us feeling slightly lost in our first round of play. This made me realise that the key component of roleplaying in this game is driven by the Corruption chosen at the beginning of the round.

Once we had quickly stepped back to make the Corruption, things started to fall into place. The Haven in this game very quickly escalated into a religious power play and the society collapsed in a tumultuous turn of events.

The Flaw: Hope – in the unending struggle for survival, this society’s inhabitants have turned to a higher form of Hope in the Almighty to grant them the ideals that they want. 

The Elements: silence, dust, steel. The steel junk spreads itself far and wide across a desert-like area; all manner of material familiar and foreign presents itself in the sand. Dust storms are common as the wind picks up its eerie howl, the loudest sound there since the inhabitants of The Yard do not speak or make noise – such reverberations are picked up by the Robots outside this area, who will not hesitate to search and destroy all life forms discovered via sound. 

The Traditions: 

1. Communication: To communicate hope towards the ideal that the Almighty can see, the people use hand signals instead of words to allow for greater possibility in thinking and interpretation (purposefully ambiguous).
   • Cupped hands are raised first towards the sky to praise the Almighty, then the person we are interacting with, then our own chest, before we begin to communicate. 
2. Naming: Everyone is named after numbers, and only very special, respectable people get a special hand sign before their names. 
   • To be named, the person must be presented to The Numero Elder. Only he has the power to give and change names. 
3. Religion: The people believe that their joyless existence is only temporary, and they do their best that they can to find joy in and after death. They believe that the soul transcends to a great ball, where the individual dances, forever in a silent dance, with his/her ancestors and friends. 
   • People cry in joy at the thought of their loved ones dying and being in a better place, and this has become the only reason to be happy nowadays. 
4. Military: Without age restriction, all persons who are able to run are enlisted, in order to secure society a better, hopeful future. Bullets and weapons are re-used / repaired to maximise gains. 
   • A tattoo is inked on the part of the body of the person who cannot contribute, e.g. the legs of a lame person. The tattoo takes the form of a pair of cupped hands, a prayer to the Almighty to let him/her contribute in other ways to society. 
5. Hospitality: All guests are welcome and no doors are locked. The way out of this blasted reality is strength in numbers. 
   • Every person must wear a necklace with a hollow frame that symbolises an open door. Without this necklace, they are not part of this society. 
6. Birth: To prevent any sound from attracting the Robots, babies wear a steel, round helmet fashioned from bomb scrap material.
   • 21 steel helmets meant for 21 babies at any one time. These helmets are never discarded nor replaced unless they are somehow damaged beyond repair. The parents of one child chooses who they want to pass their helmets to after their child has no longer any need for helmets. 

We named the Haven: The Yard.

The Hero: 77

Tall, clean-shaven and wispy looking, the brown-haired and brown eyed 77 works in the military as the Decider. He is sought after by patients to determine if they can no longer contribute, and he tattooes them if so. He opposes Religion vehemently, because he believes Hope should be gained through human endeavour and not through blind and action-less belief in the Almighty.

The Fallen: 8

The wife to 77, 8 is short and stout in stature, chubby looking with curly hair, the very definition of a human hamster. She is a priestess in this society and preaches faith and contribution to the Almighty.

The Pillar: 33

A guardian to the Hero, 33 is a nurse in the military and ensures that babies are correctly chosen to be kept alive. Her salt-and-pepper long hair befits her age, and she is proud of the tattoos that spiral along her forearm as a reminder of the babies she has chosen to keep out in order to keep the society going.

That’s us reenacting the silent praising of the Almighty by the Pillars and Fallen walking in the streets. 

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In both games described above, the story was pretty amazing and the way the society collapsed was epic. I love the structure given and the collaborative nature of the rules lends so much creative energy to generating the society/world. Generally in each game we had to get used to the flow but all the players easily picked up after that and the scenes followed well.

Definitely a game I will keep playing.

Note: It only takes 3 players, so every time I get 3 I am gonna suggest this. (:

 

Poly

Going back to the era of the polymath. The Renaissance (Wo)Man.

We’ve grown up in the current raging era of the specialist, having moved on from the industrious era of the polymaths – people who excelled in multiple disciplines (not Jack of All Trades, but really, Masters of some). I am now meeting many of these specialists, and many of them have closed their mind to other realms outside of their chosen field.

Those doing art, often say that science or math perplexes them, is beyond them. Those doing science, say the subjectivity of art confuses them. Those doing precise work, proclaim their floundering at the “softer” arts, and dismiss their ability to sing, draw or dance. Those in the abstract realms say their mind is not on the technical. This is the impression I get from the people around me. It’s a limiting belief – why not have an empowering one govern our mind?

Although we have grown up in the age of specialists, we are also living in the age now where people are going to easily take on a number of careers in their lifetime. A range of skills are necessary if that is going to be one’s choice.

Are we ready now to move on and do what is necessary for ourselves to grow in an age that demands more than a specialist?

The look I get from some people I met recently when I told them about all the things I do, is confusion. Who is this? What box do I pigeonhole her in? So what can I look to her for? I fear I will not be remembered for something good, as if having multiple abilities is a sign of the unfocused, a zombie walking among choices unchosen.

I always identified with doing many things, and my skillsets now are partially a result of going down those paths. I am very happy I made those choices then. I had some doubt yesterday about my future continuing to make those choices now, ignited by a conversation and some other encounters I had with people who I had never met before. It hit me yesterday that I may be dismissed easily and forgotten as the one who never chose.

But then I recall other people who admire the range of skillsets and areas I am in. Perhaps I just need to meet more people, to meet the right community. And I thought about it hard. I am making choices. The choice to develop certain skills, and knowledge, and use them in certain practices.

This is my choice, and I’m going down this road of multi-dimensions.

 

 

Revolutions, trends, thoughts

Our digital age has enabled the consumer, the individual, the every day man.

We increasingly see the power of connecting individuals together by raising their awareness using the digital platform. It is not uncommon now to regularly visit crowdfunders (e.g. Kickstarter, Experiment), crowd-power for social change (e.g. change.org), crowd-writing (e.g. Buzzfeed, Thought-Catalog), crowd-sourcing/sharing sites (e.g. Wikipedia, Slideshare, YouTube), crowd-learning (Coursera, Edx, Quora)… the list goes on.

It’s exciting to me as a consumer. It’s also simultaneously terrifying to me as a creator. And while it’s a marvel to enjoy the champions of marketing that are soaring above, I get tired of all the viral and attention seeking headlines, and I do wonder about the smaller companies that struggle to stand out amongst the information overload.

What’s the next big thing coming? We’re living the age of disruption. How can we get better at disrupting and adapting?

I also wonder about our social norms and etiquette. With social media, people could easily air their views, and sometimes anonymously, but increasingly with our real names. I believe a large percentage of people are still the silent majority, but we also see people policing each other.

• Comments that are general and sweeping get slapped
• Comments that are advocating only one side of the coin get put up to a straw man argument
• Comments that mention both are called out for sitting on the fence

People are afraid and at the same time unafraid of being politically incorrect.

Our eyes lean towards the next big headline, anything that drifts from the common formula (number, tips/tricks/hacks/ways, to-do-something) is thought to be boring. That’s the only explanation I can think of that addresses why most headlines are like that.

There also seems to be a push towards the ‘correct’, ‘smart’, ‘efficient’ way of living – lifehacking, savvy ways to do things, 10 ways to increase your productivity, 1 book read in a blink of an eye a day, podcasts, videos summing up Plato’s philosophy in 1 minute.

Anyone can learn anything nowadays. People proclaim themselves experts. In conversations with young ones, it seems like they make statements with such certainty there can be no other plausible argument or ‘truth’.

And as usual, there is so much misinformation out there. Our greatest ability in the digital age is to discern intelligently, to critically assess research and statistics, and do away with educated guesses.

What do we make of all this? Where are we going, as a people?  

There is also the data. All the big data that is floating around. The number of words typed, what are people searching for by state or country, how do people feel when a particular post is displayed, number of clicks and shares, etc.

Throughout our insular lives facing the monitor of a mobile or computer, how can we make a difference to our own lives and the lives of others if we so wish in our capacity as humans and not through mouseclicks and pixels on a screen? 

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In my short 10 years of tabletop gaming and observing the growth of the industry and local community, I have to say:

• it’s quite astonishing to see the relatively high cash flexibility of young people to spend
• people are ready to give newer games a shot but also ready to unabashedly scream at games/companies that mess up
• communities of gamers are opening up and socially people are getting better (I’d like to think)
• it’s really exciting to see revolutions in gaming:
  • competitive vs cooperative vs traitor-turned
  • fully finished designed product vs co-created designer-consumer game
    • usual games as product vs games as process (Legacy games)
  • storytelling boardgaming hybrids
    • Tales of Arabian Nights
    • Betrayal at House on the Hill
    • 14 Days
  • merging digital and non-digital elements in games
    • Space Alert; XCOM boardgame app, One Night Ultimate Werewolf
    • Golem Arcana
  • use of technology to connect people / games e.g. platforms for gamemasters and players to meet, play, make games together
    • playsets
    • play by post forums
  • non politically-correct games
    • Cards Against Humanity
    • Moral Dilemma
  • legacy player makes permanent changes to games
    • Risk Legacy, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
  • one time play-though puzzle based games
    • Time stories
    • Escape Room in a Box

I call these revolutions because they test a concept we were not exposed to before. I am truly excited for what the next revolution is.

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Okay, ramble out.

The Plant. A solitaire roleplaying game by Jason Morningstar.

My daughter was gone and I had to look for her. All I knew was that she was not where she said she’d be, and her dull friends had no other idea. I finally found some evidence from her room and diary that she’d be there. Why in God’s name would she go there?

I pulled my car over and ran past the abandoned, rusty gates. The Plant. A million thoughts run through my head. I can’t explain, but she has to be here. I pushed past the first door, into the Coil Room. A bank of cylindrical extrusion presses stand like sentinels in the dust. The equipment was broken, run down, like it had never been run in years. The ceiling had holes in it. There was no sign of life in this room, not now, not for the past five years or so. I moved to the door on the right.

I used to spend a lot of time here. I used to eat lunch here every day. I had forgotten how soothing this courtyard was to me, when I was trying to get away from the drudgery of working in The Plant. There used to be a tree here, and people would gather there to smoke, and I’d people-watch. I ate alone after people found out I’d been to jail before for bashing the factory manager. I suppose I understand why they’d be fearful, but did they understand what happened to me? I was always watching the yellow, exhausted faces huddled around that miserable tree. Every day I’d look out for the person I trusted the most, who betrayed me by calling me out. Celeste, I was always still looking for you. The anger of past memories grew in me, and then I grew fearful. I never really recovered, did I? I’m better now, I swear I’m better. I must get going.

I continued past the courtyard into the scrap room. Ah, I remember this. It was where cars got turned into nothing more than a chunk of useless metal so it could become useful again – where only equipment hummed day after day, loud enough to cover the sounds of all the illicit activity going on. Shattered beer bottles and ancient condoms litter the floor. Those disgusting pricks.

A saltiness entered my mouth. I hadn’t realised how much I was sweating here. Adrenaline? Wait, how much time had passed since I entered? The saltiness brought back unwanted traumatic memories of the factory manager – heavy – trying to get me – ugh, stop, I’m choking – into the scrap room – pain, at the tugging of my hair – when he thought nobody was looking. I hunched down unknowingly, the terrifying memories returning and my vision blurred a little.

I ran to the side and crawled into a claustrophobic access corridor that once was my hiding spot from him. Now, it was filled with animal droppings and asbestos. The fans were no longer working, a thick layer of dust sat undisturbed, and the ductwork was tired, leaving old, gaping holes.

It is the past. I used to spend a good amount of time above the factory floor, in cramped crawlspaces filled with metallic dust. Here, the roar of the plant floor was muffled, and it was almost peaceful. I look down and see my partner, the love of my life – she is talking to the manager, about keeping her job. Is the manager threatening her? How much longer can I keep up with this – but if I don’t then Hilary will lose her job. I blink, and the scene dissolves. Right. I need to find my daughter.

I get up and enter the furnace room. A shopping cart and rotten canvas tarp was set up in a corner. The Plant had been empty for some time now, so I’m not surprised that someone has set up a temporary home in here. A sudden memory flashes into my head. It’s a few years ago. The furnace room is hot, the hydraulic lifts poised like fat legs on either side. There is a taste of metal in the air, and the foreman comes in. He tells me I’m going to be a father. I drop to my knees in joy. Finally! Wait, my daughter. That’s right. Where is she!

The next room is larger than all the others. The work line room, once dominated by four immense machines churning, constantly churning and spitting metal out, was empty save for some refuse and a desiccated, stained mattress in the middle.

I lean against the door. I’m exhausted. There is an itch in my throat. I swallow dryly. I wonder where she could have gone. The feel of metal on my skin jolts me back into the past. It’s the manager, telling me one last time. He’s pushed me against a table. The metal, on my face. Coldness, on my stomach. Oh, God, make it stop. He’ll never stop! Beasts never turn. My rage starts to build. My stomach hurts. I feel like I’m going to hurl. My legs find themselves and I run…

into the control room. The equipment here, once expensive and state of the art, had been forced open and gutted for every piece that held value on the market. The rain had entered and turned the contents of an overturned desk into a mouldy paper pulp. A mummified rat peeks out of a waxed red paper cup.

She’s been here. The paper cups were arranged around the mummified rat like a tomb. We did that the last time for our cat Charlie. I feel a wave of relief wash over me. I must have imagined that nonsense in the last room of the plant. It couldn’t have happened, right? A sigh escapes my lips.

I look in the dust for some prints and find it. I follow them into the trunk room. Gas and water pipes start their journey from here, but none of them are working now.

A memory comes again. Her baby shower. My baby daughter. MY baby daughter. People came to see her, what a miracle! That’s right, she’s a miracle. I’ll definitely find her. A father’s nose, that’s what it is.

I descend for the third time down a ladder and enter the break room. Faded health and safety posters – what a joke – vie for space with creeping mould and crudely scrawled graffiti. This place had been turned into a shooting gallery – all manner of needles and syringes form a toxic constellation across the cracked linoleum floor. And there she was. In the middle of it all.

In the end, she wasn’t even hiding. She appears before me, a few metres away. A different turn, a more sensible choice, and I would have walked right to her. She smiles when our eyes meet, but it is a terrible smile. Somehow vacant, as though picked up through magazine photos rather than ever being happy. She’s changed. What happened to her? My stomach churns again. And again. Make it stop.

==========

The Plant is a solitaire roleplaying game, much like the adventure game books we are so used to, but with a rpg element. Cards with randomised numbers and letters, and details produced by the player help bring certain scenes to life – and the important part of this game, to make it immersive, is to genuinely put effort into answering the questions.

You’ve drawn a detail – the feel of metal on your skin – why is this terrifying to you?

Each paragraph above was written with some of the text and sometimes none of the text from Jason Morningstar’s words, and represents a room and a memory/detail used to bring the character, history and The Plant to life.

The result from this simple mechanic? A stellar experience created. I highly recommend going into this with 100% and your story will be unique and deeply emotional. You can find the pdf of The Plant here.

 

Tavern Keeper: Play by Post

While I love to play games, the really important component to me is the social engagement.

And sometimes its difficult to play because people can’t always make it at the same time, to see each other face to face and enjoy a good game session.

So Playing By Post (PBP) is intriguing to me – I realise we attempted a simple version of this one or two years back on google+, but it didn’t quite work out (yet). We might return to it someday.

Some tweet on my feed mentioned PBP, and my curiosity got the better of me as I dug into what PBP was. I found several, looked through them, and signed up with Tavern Keeper* (it looked the most user friendly and interesting to my eyes). I hadn’t done anything except create an account and browse simply through some campaigns, when I got a notification on my google+ community on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay that someone was launching a WFRP campaign!

Now this was really serendipity at its finest. WFRP is really dear to me as a system – it was the first system I really dove into, began as a GM from, and as a universe I really enjoy the fluff. So I jumped at the opportunity and invited my regular rp friends. This was our chance to get back into WFRP while fulfilling our wishes to try different RP systems this year!

The 3 of us signed up, and we’ll see how it goes from there! I am still learning about what PBP entails, and I think it should be a lot of fun. (: I’ll post a bit about it as and when!

*Tavern Keeper is just one of the PBP sites online that is a hosting platform for GMs to run campaigns, players to create characters and everyone to find each other, form groups and play by post. There are many others, and even some that focus on specific RP systems.

And so a new year begins…

It’s 2016!

This year will be exciting. I’ll finish my graduate studies this year, and have some ideas of what I might spend my time doing after that.

I want to develop the Singapore gaming community into a welcoming group of gamers that explore games that make our lives and relationships around us better.

To me, games have provided a platform to broaden my horizons, stretch my imagination, and given me an outlet for creative expression. I want to provide more people with the chance to experience that.

I am also thinking how I might want to do all this and make a living so I can continue doing all this without being torn. There’s patreon that I might end up using, and I will explore a little mid-2016 what I might provide for others on patreon. I am open to ideas!

At this point, I am leaning towards providing RPG campaigns, props and tools for GMs; possibly a newsletter with tips and tricks for the Singapore GM (complete with interviews of existing GMs); and doing Play by Post (PBP) RPG for people who sign up (into new worlds/RPGs that are less well known). If you have any ideas that you want me to explore, just comment or tweet me @gamermins.

Do I wanna do any resolutions this year? Hmm. Let’s turn the vagueness into some kind of specific form (this sounds ironic).

On the gaming related side…

• I want to paint and complete 50 models this year.
• I want to build at least ONE diorama that fits our shelving and explore terrain building.
• I want to GM The Warren, Downfall, Microscope, TimeWatch and Paranoia RPG (at least once each). If possible, I also want to go back to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Ed. 
• I want to play in Fiasco, and whatever my friends have in mind.
• I want to set up my Patreon account and make a living on it. That will be one of my revenue streams.  
• I want to blog game reviews at least twice a month after July 2016. 

What about you? What are some of the things you will explore this year?

MMORPGs

I was born in the late 80’s, and I had a home PC from when I was 14 years old. At that time, video games were relatively expensive and most of my friends didn’t play. Instead, we spent our time hanging out at malls and libraries (yes, the library – it had free air-conditioning and nobody to bother us).

A decade later, I was even more removed from videogames and I had chanced upon my first boardgame cafe. After my first boardgames session, I applied for a part-time job there and ended up working as a staff and later supervisor and manager for 2 years. It was amazing to get paid to enable people to have fun via boardgames!

While I was there, I met my now-husband. He came in to work for a month, we became great friends, and the rest is history (we’re into our 5th year of marriage!).

He is the one who opened the world of videogames to me, made the words AOE, DPS, tank, etc understandable, and showed me that there was more than just FPS or RPG to games on the screen#.

He also opened up the world of tabletop roleplaying to me, but that is a story for another time.

The first MMORPG I got interested in was Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). He persuaded me to try it out, and I distinctly remember being frustrated not being able to find him, my virtual friend, on my map – where in my user interface??? We were playing in the same living room, the same space in reality, but couldn’t find each other in virtual space – I had found it distastefully ironic. Despite my initial frustration, I kept trying, and after getting used to it, I had so much fun! I chose to be a healer, and had the satisfaction of being able to keep a party alive and contribute in that way. The world was immense, the missions were challenging, and the class stories were pretty cool.

We continued to play slowly for a long time (2 years or so?) and watched in quiet dismay as SWTOR turned from purchase to play, to subscribe to play, to free to play. The community changed, the world became unstable, spam started to come into the game, and we left. But we didn’t uninstall it.

Years later, we are now back in SWTOR, and having a lot of fun! They have changed many things since we last remembered, and for the better. The game became even more story focused, streamlining lots of mechanics so we could just concentrate on our story if we wanted to. I suppose that is the BioWare specialty.

Since SWTOR I had tried two other MMORPGs: The Secret World and Guild Wars 2. Both are fun in their own way (though Secret World is more dark than fun per se), but something didn’t feel right. Somehow, my ability to affect the story with my choices in SWTOR was the biggest thing I liked. And it was missing in those two.

If you are a newbie to MMORPGs, and want to try something less intimidating, more story focused, and friendly, I would encourage you to try SWTOR out! You can choose the dark or the light side, and from 4 classes each side.

 

#: AOE: Area of Effect; DPS: Damage per second; tank: a character in charge of aggravating monsters to allow his group/party to survive; FPS: First Person Shooter; RPG: Role Playing Game.