Made It to Willamette Valley!

For the first time ever, we've won a game of Oregon Trail. A measles-ridden Amy was our only survivor, but she made it all the way to Willamette Valley, Oregon. Once again, I died from dysentery -- which has been my fate in every single game we've played!

D&D Is a Hall-of-Famer!

Dungeons & Dragons has been inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in my beloved second home of Rochester, New York. Click here to read all about it!

Revenge!

The boys and I have spent most of this dreary, rainy Sunday building models and playing Tanks battles. The U.S. Sherman tanks (Nathaniel and myself) have largely had the upper hand over their German Panther or Jagdpanther (Matthew) foe. Below is a photo of the final turn of our most recent battle. One of our Shermans was temporarily disabled -- although completely undamaged -- so Matthew drove his Jagdpanther right up and destroyed it at point-blank range with a single shot. Our other Sherman, hiding in the forest, then immediately blew up the German tank with a well-placed side shot. It's been a lot of fun, but we definitely need more tanks!

Tanks

Tanks is a hot new World War II miniatures skirmish game from Gale Force Nine. People usually describe it as Star Wars: X-Wing but with tanks instead of spaceships. Indeed, the mechanics are similar enough that if you know how to play X-Wing, you basically know how to play Tanks.

Here's a look at all the goodies that come in the box...

As you can see, the models come unpainted and unassembled, which is great for artistically-inclined Warhammer 40k fans, but not so great for folks (like yours truly) who prefer their games to be playable right out of the box. In any case, a core set gives you enough bits to build two American tanks (Shermans) and one German tank (Panther). Other tanks (including those from the UK and the USSR) are available in reasonably-priced expansion sets.

And now a closer look at one of the two identical sprues containing the Sherman pieces...

Finally, here's an image of one of the sprues that contains the pieces you can use to build either a standard Panther or a Jagdpanther...

Amy and the boys come back tomorrow after a week-long trip to Los Angeles, and I can't wait to introduce them to Tanks...as well as Oregon Trail! How about that? Two games to help teach the boys about history!

Oregon Trail!

As a Gen-X kinda guy, I have fond memories of playing Oregon Trail on Apple II computers in elementary school. Now, as if in answer to a prayer I didn't know I'd made, there's an Oregon Trail card game!

As you can see, the design adheres to the old-timey graphics of the '80s computer game. I picked up a copy (it's a Target exclusive) on my lunch hour today, and I can't wait to play it with Amy and the boys. Amy, sadly, does not share my enthusiasm. She had never heard of this game. What the hell were they teaching in those snooty California private schools, anyway? Where else were kids going to learn about dying of dysentery?

Basket of Deplorables

Okay, I just had to come out of hibernation today to comment on the latest presidential election meme: basket of deplorables. Sorry, Hillary, but I'm totally going to use the Basket of Deplorables as a magic item in my D&D campaigns -- it will be the cursed version of a Bag of Holding. On a related note, Basket of Deplorables is also the name of my Cradle of Filth tribute band.

Hibernation

According to the almighty Blogger, we have over 870 published posts (hat tip to Chris B. and Tim W. for their contributions). I guess I don't have any point of reference for comparison, but it feels like that's a lot of posts. It's probably enough for now.

This blog has been a great forum for writing about various topics that have come up over the last couple of years -- the Fifth Edition D&D playtest, creating a campaign-spanning Front Porch multiverse, and my family's burgeoning interest in board games, to name a few. However, I think the time has come to put the ol' game blog into hibernation for a while. Perhaps I'll resurrect it again when there's a lot of cool gaming-related news to discuss (like the upcoming D&D feature film).

Thanks for reading, and keep those dice rolling!

Git Yer Game!

Head over to your local game story today for Free RPG Day. I think the event has kind of gone downhill in recent years, but I'll never pass up free RPG stuff!

Free RPG Day!

This year's Free RPG Day is this Saturday, June 18. Look, here comes yet another goblin-centric Pathfinder adventure...

Local History

Our Druid Cycle storylines these days tend to have a strong historical component -- connections to the actual adventures played out over the 23 years that this game world has existed, as well as connections to the world's fictional history that stretches back for centuries more. In fact, when I design new D&D adventures, I'm always looking for ways to tie them into both "real" and "fictional" campaign history. (The same goes for other Front Porch multiverse campaign settings, such as Torchlight and Shattered Realm.)

There's already a lot of material from which to draw, but that hasn't stopped me from trying to generate even more. My new policy for world-building is that each community on the map needs to have at least one historical figure (in the form of a named NPC) associated with it -- the founder of the town, a legendary hero or villain from the past, or whatever. I'm not quite there yet with a historical connection for every community in every campaign setting, but I'm well on my way, and I'm seeing a lot of cool opportunities for future adventures. So the next time your characters are passing through Such-and-Such town, be sure to stop and study that crumbling old statue of Sir So-and-So!

Slippery Victory

Zombicide ended with a rather anticlimactic victory last night. Matthew's characters were up first, and he has one hero (Josh, the young street punk -- see the bright orange miniature in the photo from my last post) who has an ability called Slippery. This ability allows the character to move out of spaces that contain zombies (normally, it's very difficult for a hero to leave a zombie's space on the game board). So, Josh simply waltzed into the building and picked up the final objective token. Game over!

Undead Showdown

Every night this week, the boys and I have been plugging away on our big Zombicide scenario. Miraculously (or perhaps due to the ridiculous amount of firepower that we're toting), all six characters are still alive. Tonight we recovered the fourth supply depot and then hustled up the main north-south street toward the building that contains our fifth and final objective. Unfortunately, there's a horde massing around us...

Three characters are in the thick of it, with another (Wanda, who has found a chainsaw to go along with her submachine gun!) right behind them. Not pictured are two other heroes who are guarding the rear and picking off zombies that are coming up behind us. If we can carve our way through this group during our next turn, we stand a pretty good chance of getting that last objective token and winning the scenario.

Zombie Stomp

Well, I've come to the end of a long vacation, and tomorrow I'll be heading back to work to face whatever horrors have been festering in my absence. What better way to prepare for my return to the office than to jump into a massive Zombicide scenario?

The boys and I have chosen an adventure in which the survivors need to recover supplies from various buildings across the city. The supplies are represented on the map by red "X" tokens. We've claimed two of them thus far, and, as you can see from the map below, we have three more to go.

Thanks to some lucky draws on equipment cards, we're armed to the teeth. Wanda the waitress (Nathaniel) is packing a submachine gun, survivalist Ned (Matthew) has assembled a sniper rifle to go along with his katana, and high-strung desk jockey Doug (yours truly...and does that character choice say anything about me?) is wielding a pair of machetes and a pair of sawed-off shotguns. The other three characters have pretty solid gear as well. The gang is currently holed up in an abandoned diner, as you can see below.

Our biggest challenge is that the three remaining objectives are spread out all over the map, and there is a large horde of zombies -- including the nigh-unkillable Abomination -- milling around an intersection between us and the furthest of the objectives.

The horde will move as we start to make noise, but we're going to be in big trouble if these guys corner us somewhere. In any case, it's shaping up to be a really fun adventure!

Princesses for the Emperor

Totally awesome. But no Elsa?!

X's and O's

After finishing up our hockey action on Monday, we've spent the rest of the week with my in-laws in the Los Angeles area. My nephew Daniel is also here with us, so that makes four guys -- just enough for some two-hand-touch football! Each night after dinner we've tossed the ball around, with Matthew and Daniel taking on Nathaniel and myself. And, because my boys are gamers, they also spend a lot of time coming up with exotic new plays to run in the next game. Check out Nathaniel's latest effort below.

I'm not really sure what's going on here, but I suspect the taller guy is me and the shorter guy is Nathaniel. Aside from that...well...I guess we'll have to wait for tomorrow night's game!

Storm King's Thunder

Breaking news! The next Fifth Edition campaign is Storm King's Thunder. I'll post again when I see more details.

Poll Closed!

The Druid Cycle poll has closed...and look who emerged victorious! It's Team Iskander by a landslide!

It Might Be Giants

The next Fifth Edition campaign is going to be announced in a couple of days, and it sounds like the theme might be giants. I'd love to see Against the Giants revamped for the current rules, but whatever they do, they'll have a hard time topping Curse of Strahd, the new incarnation of Ravenloft.

Behold...the Inland Empire!

To this native New Yorker, the term "Inland Empire" conjures up images of a distant, fabled land -- like something out of the Forgotten Realms or another D&D campaign setting. As it turns out, the real-life Inland Empire is a smog-choked urban sprawl to the east of Lost Angeles. We've come down for Matthew's ice hockey tournament -- let's go, Grizzlies! -- but the prospect of spending four days here got me thinking about writing a new D&D adventure: Escape from the Inland Empire.

Rebirth

Today, DC comics reboots its line with an event called Rebirth. Here's hoping that this latest continuity revamp fixes all (heck, I'd settle for some) of the problems introduced in the "New 52" reboot that debuted in 2011. Kind of like how Fifth Edition D&D has restored our faith in the brand after the brief but troublesome Fourth Edition era.

I can dream, right?