Anyone who uses the phrase 'easy as taking candy from a baby' has never tried taking candy from a baby.
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Kickstarter of the Gamer type.
If you know of others, please leave a comment.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
My time at the Seattle Geekly Game Day

The next game we played was Who Would Win? A game a new game I picked up a few months back. The game played great and I think 5 player is the right number of the game. The box says 3 min for the number of players, that could work with one vote to win. 4 players could work, but there could be ties. 5 is the magic number for the min number of players. It was a fun game with some great match ups, here are some of the match up we came across:
- Wayne Gretzky vs Stephen Speilberg in a cooking contest.
- Darth Vader vs Stephen Hawking in dogsledding.
- Helen Keller vs Blackbeard in juggling.

We next played Back to the Future: The Card Game. Its is Chrononauts with a Back to the Future fell to it. It was fun once I got the feel of the game.

The next game that got played was Rorschach, a game with inkblots. What you see is not always what others see.

The last game of the night was Zombie Dice, with one of the players rolling and keeping 10 Brians.

Game day was fun and I even got a shirt as a give away.
. . . and here all the good pictures I took.
Friday, September 03, 2010
My Friday at PAX.
PaulandStorm Want to take part in a cool video project that
will take ~60 minutes of your time? Meet us at #PAX Bandland at 6 pm.
I got to the Bandland area before the time and ran across Storm (of Paul and Storm) and asked him what the video project was. I got a basic run down of what they whated to do. I said that sounded good and I will be there. He said that he would make me leader of some sort (with me be in the know of the project). We gathered at the place and others showed up.
Paul gave a speach (see the YouTube video for the speach):
At the count, there were over 60 people showed up to help.
I ended up being singled out to start the project. People were set up along the 2 and a half blocks from Paul and Storm's hotel. Me and two others were taken to the hotel. One was left just outside the hotel, one was left just outside the elevators on the first floor and there was me. I got to go to the hotel room and hang out for a little while it was worked out how this was start. It ended up starting with Storm handing the water bottle outside the room door, where I took it to the elevator where I rode it down to the lobby and handed it off to the person waiting down there. I was a little nervous, but I think it turn out fine.
Greg Benson from Mediocre Films shot the video on his Flip Video Camcorders in mostly on shot with a few pick up shots. From what I heard the video come out to be about 9 to 10 min long. After editing it my end up being shorter.
After my shot was over, I followed the action snapping some picture along the way, missing out on the final shots due to having to wait for the next elevator. I saw a little of what was filmed and it looked great. I can not wait to see it, for the the full final video and to see how my part came out.









This was one of the things that made the day great. I ended up meeting a friend from con past. We walked around for awhile and had some lunch. And after video project was over, I got to hang with a w00tstock friend I ran into along with Molly Lewis for a while along.
It was a great day with some great item purchased and great swag.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Boardgame Night with Arkham Horror
Not a short game. The box says 2 to 4 hours and it was more for a first game.
With this being the first time I have played it, I would give it a 7 out of 10. It had a feel of a RPG, like we normaly play.


Sunday, January 24, 2010
Links and Info found.
http://www.hotflashgames.com/darktower.htm
A classic board game found online.
Star Frontiers
http://www.starfrontiers.com/rules/
PDFs of the classic game from TSR.
Perfect Fit Buttons as seen on TV
https://www.buyperfectfitbutton.com/
Looks like a good idea.
The Unwritten (Comic)
http://www.dccomics.com/vertigo/comics/?cm=13677
Looks like a good story with some of the review I have heard.
Water Joe (caffeinated water)
http://www.waterjoe.com/main.html
I have heard of this product some time ago and just came up in a search. Water with caffeine.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Pen and Paper Games Get-Together
There was pizza & cake provided and a meeting of other gamers.
Some spots opened on another D&D 4th Ed game for the 2nd part of the game. This time 4th Level characters were provided. It was another fun game. My character was only knocked out 3 to 4 time and once rolled a 20 vs Death, which allowed me to use a healing serge. For the big bad guy, I was able to land the final blow to end the game. Yea!
It was a fun day. I look foward to next year's get together.
Check out the pictures from the even I took.
www.flickr.com
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Sunday, June 07, 2009
Creation of a character

I have also fooled with the design of the blog. The bloging software has been updated and I find I like the changes. I have tweaked the theme, added a picture and arranged the side bar as it looks good to me. For now I will let it sit and see how I feel about it later.
See the game blog here.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
The End is here.
This story has ended.
Our old Hero System has ended (on 10-10-08) and will not be continued. My blog for the game/character will not be updated and I have added my last post on it with most of what I have posted here.
We next played the Keep on the Shadowfell, a 4th Ed Dungeons & Dragons adventure. The game was well played and our character lived to fight other battles.
We have gained a total of 5 player now and we have begun a new Hero System game. We are at the character building time and the plot will begin to twist soon.
As with any ending, there are beginning.
A new blog for the game has been started. There is very little in it at this time.
I will list below my blog and any others that are started by the other player.
Kross the ????? of the Pakasa/Dumawe
http://gamesandgadgets.org/theblogs/kross/
Perrol the Bard Half-Elf
http://gamesandgadgets.org/theblogs/perrol/
Thursday, May 07, 2009
To play games in New York.
Here are the games I have that fit the bill:
- The Great Dalmuti (4-8 players)
- James Ernest's Totally Renamed Spy Game (3-6 players)
- Monty Python Fluxx (2-6 players)
- Inn-Fighting, D&D Dice Game (3-6 players)
- Citadels (2-7 players)
- Castle (2-5 players)
- Super Munchkin (3-6 players)
- Wing of War (2-6 players) [ Update: Played the game the other night. A good game, but looks like this I will not bring it. ]
- Give Me The Brain (3-8 players)
- Rorschach: The Inkblot Party Game (3-8 players) [ New Game: Looked like a good and fast playing party game to bring on the trip. ]
Any suggestions?
Sunday, March 22, 2009
My day at Worldwide D&D Game Day
I got to the game store about 11am and waited around for a bit for a second GM to appear. The game started about 11:30am with a full table. The first encounter started with the players getting use to the new character classes. Hit were traded and the enemy took most of the damage. We won. Someone from Wizards (that works on D&D Insider) showed up to talk, ask questions and watch our game for a while. He even spotted my dice shirt I had on for the game day done by Wil Wheaton and he asked if I have heard about the current D&D podcast with the D&D game with Wil.
With the second encounter it started out normally till someone started to play with fire in the mill and the grain dust exploded. There was fire everywhere. We finished the encounter off the map.
The third encounter was not as tougth as I thought it would be. The monster was defeated in no time. Speaking of time, it took somewhere around 4 to 5 hours to finish the 2 to 3 hour game that it said it would take.
The game was fun and enjoyable, we even got to keep our minis and some of the others that used in the game.
Chech out some pictures I snaped with my cell phone of our game.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Me and ConQuest
I had a chance to look around and found a miniatures game called Golden Age of Hydroplane Racing. Fun game, played a game, came in second in the race and went around again to see what others were playing. One of the players of Hydroplane Racing game was someone I played a game with last year and after some time talking, some others showed up. It was a lunch time and we ended up at Denny's for some food.
We decided to try our hand out at the next game that I had planed to try which was called Savage Traveller and was hosted by Steve Schonberger using the Savage Worlds system. For the game all I can say was, good try. Steve did not know Savage Worlds too well, he used money as a prop when he did not have to, items need for the game was not provided and mapping when need, did not work. We each ended up playing a few characters each and with the plot, there were these robots that could only be killed by one of our many players. The game ended when it was decided that we could not continue, we packed up and left. It was a little fun with the other players, but not too enjoyable.
The next game I planed on was a Call of Cthulhu game. I was the only played to signed up for it. We gave it some time, but no one else showed. The game was reschedule for 9am Sunday. There was another Call of Cthulhu game going on next door. We moved on over and played the game. For a first time game master, Adam knew his stuff and hosted a great game. It was not till the end game that I recalled I had played this long ago, but this came out with a different out come. The night ended with me heading home to get some sleep.
Sunday started out cold with me deicing the car. The drive was not uneventfully. The entry ramp was icy and had already had one car slide into the side bumpers. Take the ramp slow, my car did skid a little and was able to get around the accident and not add to it. On the freeway there were some slow downs also. Some how a car had ended up on its side, bring the road down to one lane. I got the con at a little after 9am to make the Call of Cthulhu game that was original schedule last night, called Mystic Alliances by Kamal Lombardi. Counting me, there were a total of two players. The game was enjoyable. Could have been planed out a little better. The characters sheet were put together on a copy machine, info was spread out and some times missing. Handout were good, but they had game master info on them. Nowadays computers are widely available, he could have done some typesetting and greatly improved the game feel. This was a home brew game and even had a magic components to it, which I did not even use. Basically a good game.
The last game of the day called The League of Extraordinary Cats by Sophie Lagace using a system called Cat, which we play . . . cats. A great game and enjoyable story. I had held onto my character from last year and was able to play him with a few minor adjustment. A nice item that she continued with was little cat miniatures to get a feel for our characters (and we were able to keep them.)
Overall a good convention. There were not a lot of role playing games (excluding D&D) to chose from, but fun was had.
(Picture will be added soon. Just need to upload them to Flickr.)
Friday, November 28, 2008
From the blog of Emerald Gamefest.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
My Review: Inn-Fighting
For the game, the box says for ages 12+ and is good for 3 to 6 players. My nephew is 11 and he had no problems with the game (he is close to the age range on the box). There were 3 of us playing and it worked great. I was balanced, so that there was no ganging up on one player and there is no cooperation going on. Like in a bar fight, you are in it for yourself.
One thing the box does not say is how long the game would take. For the games we played, for 3 players, I would say it would take from 1 to 2 hours for a normal game and a little more for a first game. For more players, I could guess it would take longer for each added player.
For a Dungeons & Dragon feel and a good 3 player game. I would give this 4 stars out of 5.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Some found review info on D&D 4th Ed.
Part 1: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35776
Part 2: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35799
Part 3: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35811
4E and New Players
http://freeport-pirate.livejournal.com/101102.html
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Its here.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Summary of Game Day
From a email that was sent to me:
Well, half the folks here were at Game Day, so this may seem
redundant to them, but after playing the system through three or four
encounters today with a couple of different characters, here's my take
on some things.
The short summary is that I am very happy with the way characters
worked. Having seen things work together (or not work), I have some
thoughts on how people should try to coordinate and I have seen some
things that I need to be aware of as a GM. I saw every character
fulfill the role I envisioned for them and change the shape of the
battles they were in. And I saw that whether you used your powers or
your just a basic attack, the important thing that characters do is
*not* roll damage. It is the effects of all their other tricks that
matters, from the ability to move around or control other people's
movement to the ability to get or give bonuses or do huge amounts of
extra damage.
Garry, Eric C, Tim and I got there around 9:15-9:30 am and they
were packed. They clearly had more people than they expected in the
early morning. We signed up and wound up waiting for a GM to finish
up and open a new table for us. While we were waiting, we walked
around, saw a lot of things and met some folks. Along the way I
managed to get some questions about things that I was curious about
answered. Norm got there about 15 minutes after we did and we
managed to get him put at our table in a group of 5.
They had some games out to play with while you were not playing
D&D so four of us went to a table and played a little Inn Fighting.
This is a simple, little beer-and-pretzels game based on the generic
"you are all sitting in a tavern" scene where a bar brawl erupts.
We'd spent enough time wandering around and looking at things that we
really only got through about three rounds of the table before we were
called for our D&D game. Tim was rolling 1s so I am not sure if he
was having fun, but I thought that Inn Fighting was at least a run for
Munchkin in the beer-and-pretzels genre.
Around 11:30 we went down and met our GM, Chris Tulach, Head
Content Manager for RPGA. We got to ask some fundamental questions
about things including whether or not RPGA would be at Dragonflight
this year (sounds unlikely, but he said to keep an eye out for Penny
Arcade eXpo three weeks later where they would be in full force!). We
got started on the first scenario which was a 5-man adventure to
rescue some children who had been abducted. We were promptly
interrupted (and Chris offered us a break) by a call that all the main
developers were upstairs signing books. Tim and I went up to get
signatures and they were kind enough to sign everything that we had so
my entire gift set and Tim's StarWars Saga Edition all got love.
We got back to the table and got down to gaming for most of the
rest of the afternoon. The first adventure was a 5-man party with a
human cleric (Eric C), a dwarf warrior (Tim), a human warrior (Garry),
an eladarin wizard (Norm) and a half-elf rogue (me). As mentioned in
the car on the way up there, the rogue had taken Eyebite as his
half-elven special and although there were a few times I thought about
it (and it would have been useful) I wound up not using it. Our first
adventure was two or three or four encounters long (depending on how
you counted). The "first" encounter was a puzzle and while I would
have given experience I would not have counted it as an encounter
(this matters for the distribution of Action Points).
The second encounter was a combination of two kobolds and some
traps. Tim did exactly what he was supposed to do as a dwarven
fighter and jumped up on the crypt being used as cover where he
promptly discovered the first trap and got a lucky save to avoid
problems. The next action he had, the Kobold Tim was attacking tried
to knock him into the trap and Tim got lucky again and the trap was
"destroyed" by failed use. Seeing this, Norm promptly used his
(normally unused) minor action and a telekinesis power to disarm the
other likely trap. Important note: Minor action which could be
mistaken for flavor text on the wizard sheet is wisely used to
eliminate a trap that caused 20+ damage to a fighter at another table.
Tim's Kobold runs away around the back of a pillar and moves to
join the other behind the other barricade that Garry and I are
assaulting. I try to show off and burn some of my larger powers as
the rogue. First, I run past the two Kobolds to get a flanking bonus
with Garry (making use of Artful Dodger to avoid some of the
Opportunity damage). Then I try one Encounter attack intending to
push a Kobold into Garry's Cleave (this fails), then I spend my Action
Point to get a second attack and cripple the other Kobold so that
Garry is in a position to smash things.
Every time Garry gets a chance, he dives onto the blade of any
Kobold attacking him and as Tim comes running up behind the second
Kobold to get flanking Garry hits zero hit points and we get to see
the death and dying rules. It's pretty simple and, like everything
else in the system, favors the heroes. Eric C tosses Garry a heal
before he's even been down for a full turn and Garry is conscious if
not back on his feet while the rest of us finish the encounter.
The next encounter is probably supposed to be a single encounter
but we kinda diffused it. There's a locked door with the abducted
boys behind it and a second chamber further along the "hall". Tim and
Garry take point and examine the door and then I draw lock-pick duty.
While I am baffled repeatedly by the lock Garry moves on to see what
he can see. All hell breaks loose at the same time... Garry see's
the evil necromancer who grabbed the boys who activates some statues
in the room with the boys (stone golems?) and then sends his skeletal
minions to make trouble from the next room. Seeing the trouble
showing up all the way around, I finally figure out how to roll and
unlock the room and the boys (who are close on my heals in initiative)
come running out and away from the combat. Garry charges the
skeletons and Eric and Norm move to back him up while Tim and I look
at each other and the golems in confusion.
The combat shows a couple more nice tricks about the system...
The golems move but don't reach us (I think that Chris took pity on
Tim and I to be honest) so I slam the door in their faces and lock it
back. Then I run off toward the other fight and holler at Tim to
spike the door. The golems bang on the door and fail to break it
down. Now we're down to a one-front fight. On that front, Norm says
he was a bit frustrated because he never had a clear line of fire to
use his controller powers. (Fighters and leaders take note...
Getting surrounded causes issues because the controller cannot handle
the group of targets to provide you advantages.) Norm finally took
his encounter teleport to a far corner of the room and unleashed his
Thunderwave power (another we have talked about) and turned the fight
completely. He knocked the unreachable necromancer into the middle of
the party where Tim, Eric C and I were able to make short work of him
while Garry threw himself onto the skeletons' swords some more. This
was the end of the scenario save wrap-up and teaser for the other con
scenario.
In later conversation with Norm, I saw another thing that has not
been mentioned... Some stuff that is hidden in the DMG which most of
you probably don't know about... The system has very clear
instructions for GMs. LET THE PLAYERS DO WHAT THEY WANT! There is a
table which shows for every level what the DC and damage equivalents
are for easy, normal and hard combat actions. Their example is "if a
player decides to grab the chandelier and swing across the room into
the troll to knock it into the brazier then LET THEM!" The difficulty
should probably be medium since this is a typical cinematic stunt.
The damage should also be low or moderate for the level since it will
burn the troll but he can get out of it. The player has not asked to
knock the Troll prone so probably make it medium." Then you look in
the table, get the DC, call for it and allow the player to do damage.
Alternatively, if the player had wanted to knock the Troll prone, you
could instead make it a DEX vs. Reflex challenge and provide low
damage but also knock the Troll prone. The ideal behind the table is
to give a GM a clear idea what the character should be capable of with
his normal powers and make this an equivalent alternative... Not more
or less attractive, but a viable story-telling alternative...
Norm left after our first adventure and the rest of us signed up
for the other campaign with one open slot. We got assigned pretty
quickly (they had more GMs show up around noon so things got lots
busier). The second adventure was a single encounter with a solo
monster. The same characters... This time, I am the human warrior,
Garry is the half-elf rogue, Tim and Eric C stay with their characters
and we had a kid named Liam and his father playing the wizard. I
dunno what the others took away from this, but I learned a lot.
First, I had high initiative so I ran into the lead and Liam followed
right behind me. Then the dragon moves and charges me. That was the
only damage the dragon did to me the whole fight. Eric C followed up
right after and healed me and then Tim and Garry stepped up to short
or medium range and unloaded.
Because we knew this was a single fight encounter with a single
monster, I approached it in a way that I would not normally approach a
fight. I opened by burning my daily and my action point. My daily
missed but provided me bonuses for the duration of the encounter
anyway and my action point allowed me to hit and do damage (and mark
the dragon) before it could go after anyone else. I kept the dragon
marked the whole fight and while it never seemed to help Tim, it made
the difference between being hit and not for Eric at least twice.
Other folks followed suit and the Action Points and Daily Powers
rained down on the dragon quickly. Lesson to GM reinforces something
I read before... Try not to open a day of adventuring with a solo
monster encounter, especially not a hard one, because as cool as it
sounds, your solo will be crippled, slowed, stunned and giving combat
advantage before the end of the first full round of combat. Lesson to
players... If the fight is dire enough to need your daily powers,
spend it early since it will save you other resources over the course
of the fight. You'll have bonuses for more rolls or have less
opposition for the remainder of the fight. You may not always see it
early, but when you do, don't hesitate.
A solo encounter is a single beast designed to be equivalent to 5
normal monsters. Since they took the lid off and showed us how to
make anything into an elite or solo in the monster manual, I can give
a brief summary about how the monsters work... Normal monsters are
what you are used to from 3.0 or 3.5... They also introduced minions,
which are equivalent to a normal monster in most ways but they have 1
hit-point, never take damage unless they are hit, but never survive
being hit. Four minions equals a single normal monster for exchanges.
Elites are the next addition and they have twice the hit points of a
normal monster plus a "package" which gives them some special
abilities (usually related to a class or theme). For example, one
package is the Lich package. A gnome illusionist can become an elite
gnome illusionist lich with some necromantic bonuses, a susceptibility
to radiant damage and twice as many hit points and one new recharging
power. A single elite exchanges for two normal monsters. Finally, if
you take an elite, add another package and double its hit points again
you are close to a solo monster. You also add some Action Points and
there you are... A single monster which swaps for 5 normals and is
intended to be a complete encounter for a first level party all by
itself.
More than anything else, the thing today brought home to me is
that position is mucho important in this system. The ability to move
people and know when and how to move is a huge advantage. The first
scenario was most changed by my rogue moving and avoiding attacks of
opportunity, Norm moving and then pushing the necromancer into a bad
spot and then my rogue moving the necromancer into a worse spot...
Would we have won without out that? Yes, but not as fast or as
handily. On the flip side, the dragon tried to run away from us a
couple of times and both times the warriors had abilities to punish or
prevent the move. As a rogue, never try to move away from a
warrior... You'll pay. Dearly...
In addition to the fun day, there was also loads of schwag. I
have a dice bag for Eric A. There were dice and miniatures and RPGA
tokens and all sorts of things to be seen and had. This has just
served to whet my appetite for more in-depth play and I hope others
had as much fun as I did.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Some things I picked up.
Picked up about $120.00 worth of food and stuff.
Headed over to Half Price Books. Found and picked up the follow game books.
- 7th Sea: Nations of Theah, Ussura
- 7th Sea: Secret Societies of Theah, The Invisible College
- 7th Sea: Secret Societies of Theah, Los Vagos
Next, headed over to Fred Meyer. Found the following TV DVD series on sale.
- Stargate SG-1 Season 8
- Stargate SG-1 Season 10
- Oath of Swords by David Weber
- The War God's Own by David Weber
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Some things I saw and picked up.
Looks at a few item to look up online.
- AMF Bowling Pinbuster! for the Wii (Got some bad, bad reviews, not a game I will be picking up.)
- Wii Zapper with Link's Crossbow Training (There were some good review of the game with the zapper, I almost picked it up myself.)
Friday, January 11, 2008
Our HERO game tangents.
TV (Series) - Big Bang Theory
TV (Series) - Buffy and The 8th Season in comics
TV (Cartoon) - Kim Possible
TV (Series) - Final season of Veronica Mars
Food - Rikki Rikki
Podcast - Dragons Landing
TV (Series) - How I Met Your Mother
Movie (DVD) - Shrek the Third
My game blog.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Some things I saw and picked up.
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, The Laughing Man DVD
(Put together from the Laughing Man plot from first season. Most of, if not all, the voices of the main characters voices have been redone. From what I recall, some of the scrip was rewritten to fit all the bits and parts into a 160 min DVD.) - Ragnarok: The Animationm, First Quest
- Super Swing Golf Season 2 for the Wii
- Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure for the Wii
Attachments for your Wii remote from NERF. Looks to include a club attachment for golf game use, a bat attachment for baseball game use and racket attachment for tennis game use.

