Come with me, if you want to live!

Our Thursday Night Group at the Game Parlor in Chantilly VA has a Halloween tradition of playing a somewhat fantastic, usually humorously themed game run by one of our compadres, Nick. Nick was busy this year so Steve stepped in to create a zombie horde game. Steve (Gibson) might be recognizable as the guy who runs Circus Magicus, one of my favorite racing games. Steve created a scenario with multiple goals and multiple factions (always a crowd favorite). The basic rules system was ARES, with some modifications for zombies that mostly came out of ALL THINGS ZOMBIE.



You chose your goal by selecting a card from the "objectives" pile. Like many Steve games, this had a HUGE pile of dirty trick cards.



For every two zombies you killed, you got a dirty trick card back. Nice innovation there.

The basic layout of the town looked like this:



Big Brown Monstery looking things (run by Drew) were invading the town from point A. I never figured out what they were supposed to be or what his objective was.

URUKs were invading from point B. Their objective was to lead the zombie of their dead captain offboard to capture them. Not sure who ran these.

Harry ran the woodland elvish guys, which is typical for him. I forget what his ojective was, but he didn't come close, I know that much. He was roughly between point B and C.



Nick started the monks that came in around point C. Their job was to climb the steeple of the church and ring the alarm bell.

Nigel just helped referee and mother-hen the game.

Jack ran the Blue knight guys who came in on my right rougly around midway between G & E.



There was also a force of Goblins that started at point E. Their goal was something to do with getting to the Winchester (the Inn).



Coming in late, my choices were limited to a group of knights.







I came in roughly around point H. Steve handed me a pile of purple objective cards most of which read something like "Save umpty fratz villagers" or "Kill this many zombies". However, one card read "Go into the graveyard and raise the Dark Lord from his ageless slumber"

That's the ticket for me, I think. I didn't say they were nice knights.



Oh, the last two fellers were Art running the steam Golems (roughly, point H) and some other guy running the Mercenaries at Point I. I can't remember Art's goals but the mercenary player was trying to kill zombies.

Let the Craziness Begin

Art's steam golems march out on the left, on some objective to take them close into the city. They had firepower, but they made a lot of noise. Any +1 sized creature generated two zombie spawning point (a penny) and regular foot troops only generated one. You did this whenever you committed to any action, so you had to be rolling for zombie spawn constatntly.





Zombies are easy to kill, so they rotate in an out like Zulus in Roarkes Drift games.
Here's a zombie staging area, along with the other kinds of troops you can summon during the game, the Town Gaurd and Villagers. The Town Guards realy suck.



Anyhow Art marches north, and, noticing that I started the game VERY CLOSE TO MY OBJECTIVE (did you notice that one?), he flung a "zombies fill up the graveyard" nasty trick on me. Gee, thanks Art. Well, we wouldn't want it to be too easy.

Jack's blue knights (I think... they were some clickie figure) move out with their bowmen behind. The howmen are not long for this world. Nonchalantly, Jack wings another "dead shall walk" cards at me. I'll remember that.



Zombies start activating everywhere, cutting down the slower moving and poorer armored archers.



Meanwhile, I get to the edge of the graveyard, easily enough-- but am met by a large hoarde of undead zummoned by Jack and Art. Fiends!!!



Zombie activation works like this: every time you do something noisy, like attacking or moving, a penny is placed down on the table, or two if you are cav or really big. For each penny roll a 1D6, 6 generating a new zombie. This is lifted from ALL THINGS ZOMBIE, I think.

Zombies come in on a direction die roll with a distance dice (like grenade throws) so they usually don't start close to you. If I get into the graveyard, I'll actually be pretty safe for a while, even if I'm generating zombies right and left.

Can't hold too much of a grudge against Jack right now; his rear guard just got turned into canapes for the undeead.

And the zombies say:

NummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummy

Being kind of short and organic, the Goblins are not having that hard a time of it. For once, they are actually kind of quiet.



At the other end of the table, the Uruks seem to be having success. Here they are luring the heck out of all the zombies at their end.



I think at this point somebody was generating Villagers as a victory condition, and they showed up right in the middle of a zombie pack. Bad luck for you!

And the zombies say:

NummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummyNummy

Here, Nick's monks are very close to the church (he has some thugs along). I'm dropping dirty tricks in HIS direction, so he can't achieve his victory before I achive mine.

Like those zombies, Nick?




Oh, dear. Here come more of them. Run, Nick, Run!




Heh heh heh heh

At this end, Drew was running his "big brown things". Don't ask me what they were or what they were doing, but man, could they kill zombies. It was the brown things saying "nummie nummie" this time.



Here's the center of town, with various groups converging. I believe Art just figured out how many zombies get summoned when you fire off a steam cannon.



Actually, the mercenaries took the brunt of that one since they all generated next to them. However, since they were SUPPOSED to be killing zombies, they were loving life.



Another view of mercenaries and steam golems colliding.. Man can they generate a zombie summoning racket.



Of course, it may be too much of a good thing!



The goblins continue to be no muss, no fuss.. here they are close to their objective and they've hardly summoned any zombies at all.



Of course, with the streets packed tight with all these factions fighting to pass through, the zombies don't care if YOU summoned them or not, you're here, and you're LUNCH!!!



Hey, I bet these villagers will be happy for all these factions to leave town, eh? Oh, that's right, they're toast, they don't really have an opinion at the moment.



Close to end game... the streets are swirling with frightened groups, dead villagers and zombies. Bad luck for those cows back there. I wonder if THEY come back from the dead?



Unseen by many, my evil knights triumph!!!! Even Steve thought I was the winner of this one.



Ta Da!

A great Halloween game, lots of fun and interaction and dirty tricks. I loved it!

Sunday was All-Saints Day, a holy day of obligation in my faith and also Gar and Annie's CCD. About thirty minutes before we had to leave, I found a little flyer that stated "Please try to dress your child up like a saint for All-Saint's Day".

Yikes!!!

Fortunately, Anne was a dab hand with the scissors and made Gar a bishop's hat, with the addition of a green bathrobe and a beanie baby snake, voila, we have Saint Patrick:

One of our players has pressing family matters and the game is now pretty much stuck unless we restart it. Here's the current situation.

1. We did have seven players, and will start shortly
2. Here is a stated preferences table. Except for two players, everyone seems to want random assignment.

DIPLO SELECTION GRID SO FAR
Preference List	Comment	Player
"an empty list"	No preferences listed	Mike Reed
"an empty list"	Randomly assign them	Rob Winslow
anyone but A	You pick for me	Joe Steadman
RTF	Randomly assign them, like Russia	Chris Wimbrow
ERG	only one power listed	Mark Weston
"an empty list"	No preferences listed	Jim Adams
"an empty list"	No preferences listed	Ron Wuerth

3) The rules and FAQ to Diplomacy are online, free.

4) I will use a localized adjudicator, just to help me make the graphical map and to make sure I remain objective. I've downloaded JDip and Realpolitik. I'm leaning toward the later for the simple reason that I can look at the turn on my palm pilot on the way in to work every day.

More on this later!

Here's the latest!



Apparently the French are "groking" linear tactics slightly better than the British at the moment.

Announcing

I haven't played DIPLOMACY in a dog's age. I used to play this game to death in college, back when I had no life and lots of spare time. I also played it at conventions back in the 80s but discovered that because it took so long to play I was missing out on a lot of other stuff, so got out of the habit. I played some via email in the 90s when I was working at Booz, Allen, and that was a blast. For some reason (maybe it was a recent post on Steadman's blog) I'm interested in running another game of Diplomacy on this blog. Nothing too strenuous, we'll work up to a regular pace.



I will be using the REALPOLITIK adjudicator (Windows) as a turn adjudicator and map generator and the PalmPolitik map viewer (Palm OS) to keep up with the game offline.

Game News will be posted on Another Point of Singularity, in my own inimitable style. PUBLIC announcements for all the rest of the players to read will be posted in the news.

Interplayer Diplomacy will be conducted offline, via email, and the GM must be CC'd on all communications.

If you are interested in playing a nice easygoing game of Diplomacy, leave a way to contact you here (in the comments), or get in touch with me on CONSIMWORLD.

Diplomacy is a trademark of the Avalon Hill/Hasbro Gaming company.

Our first turn is not so impressive.

Perhaps our ship handling skills will make the French captains laugh so hard they'll fall off the wind and go into stays.

This blog and popular Asian cult item HELLO KITTY have one thing in common:



We're both big in Japan.

Lately, I've been working out my insecurities by looking at login statistics. I'm amazed at what a world-wide audience blogging has. Heck, Another Point of Singularity's post comparing CONSIMWORLD TO A CERTAIN POPULAR COLLECTIBLE CARD GAME is even being viewed in Japan, China and Africa, if the login stas are to be believed.

Here's the proof!



Of course, loosely translated, this means:

By the way tracing from Comsimworld, the news item which you find. If ウォーゲーマー + MtG ゲーマー whether you can laugh. Immediately the "ASL young priest" and "ATS young priest" kana.

, so I wonder if the Japanese viewers are baffled.

We found our last player for the youplay.it game. I took the Formidable, which seems to have size and sail points going for it. If you want to kibbitz, details to view the game are in the PREVIOUS BLOGPOST. This is our starting position

ONE MORE MEASLY PLAYER NEEDED!!!!

What: Online CONSIMWORLD GRUDGE MATCH

Game: WOODEN SHIPS AND IRON MEN

Where: http://www.youplay.it (look for Wooden Ships and Iron Men test site)

Specifics: game 6117: hotspur, Codeine, MarkWeston, bltzlfsk, Steadman, PeterCard, heneagedundas. (8 Players: 1 more needed). Simplified. CONSIMWORLD GRUDGE MATCH 2, dropping back to 8 players. Password IS THE SAME AS. England versus France - Up Wind. Created: 19h 27' 31" ago.

Password: pustule (lowercase)

If we don't get another player within a few hours, the game will delete itself!!

Should have brought a can of RAID on this trip

We have already moved up to the room.

«--------------------»

More exploring.

«--------------------»

This room has an unusual feature: a trap door, per rule 6.0

*** Some Rooms contain unusual features, either
fountains, statues, or trap doors. A Room chit on
which the symbol for a fountain, statue, or trap
door is found contains that unusual feature.
After a party has dealt with any monsters that may
be in a Room, the Player may have the party investigate
any unusual feature there. The Player must
delegate one adventurer, preferably a Thief, to investigate
the feature. If they choose to ignore the
unusual feature, it has no effect. ***

And more detail is given for TRAPDOORS (specifically) in 6.3:

*** [6.3] TRAPDOORS
[6.31] If a Player investigates a trap door, refer to
the Trap Door Table (see 6.35) to determine what
the trap door hides.

[6.32] If the result on the table is Room, the trap
door leads to another Room immediately below
the Room in which the door is situated. This Room
automatically has no doors or unusual features,
and no chit is drawn; roll normally to determine
whether it contains monsters, (if it does, the monsters
may have treasure).

[6.33] If the result on the table is Type J Treasure,
the trap door hides a Type J Treasure. See the
Treasure rules (see 9.0).

[6.34] If the result is Trap, the door hides a trap.
Refer to the trap rules, (see 10.0).

[6.35] Trap Door Table
(see charts and tables) ***

But first, we check to see if the room is itself, trapped. We're still knocking on the door, as it were. We don't even know if a monster is in here.

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 3
No traps! Reference: *** 5.26: "If the party moved
through a door, roll 1D6. If a 1 is rolled, the door
was Trapped; see the Trap rules, 10.0." ****

Now for MONSTER CHECK

A new room, and according 5.27: *** "If the
segment is a Room that has not been visited previously,
roll 1D6. On a roll of 1, 2, or 3, there is a
Room monster. See 7.0." ***

Rolling:
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
Well, we lucked out there.

So we enter the room!

«--------------------»

NOW we check on the TRAP DOOR TABLE 6.35 to see what the trap door in the room is hiding.

[6.35] TRAP DOOR TABLE
DIE RESULT
1-2 Room
3 Type J Treasure
4-5 Trap
6 No Effect

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
A trap! Our lucky day.

Frankie tries to de-trap it with a skill of 2.

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 3
Awww. SO close.

Referencing the appropriate rule:

*** [10.12] If a trap is encountered, one Thief in the
party may be delegated to remove it. Roll 1D6; if
the number rolled is less than or equal to the
Thief's Detrapping Skill as shown on his Character
Record, the Thief has successfully removed the
trap. The Thief immediately receives 10 Experience
Points for doing so. ***

But he flubbed it, tch tch tch.

What's next?

*** [10.21] If a trap has effect, roll 1D6 and refer to
the Trap Table (see 10.3). ***

*** [10.3] TRAP TABLE
Die Type
1 Arrow
2 Poison Arrow
3 Poison Gas ***

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 6
Oh, great, ROLL TWICE.

Roll 1
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
Explosion!

and Roll 2:

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 3
Poison Gas

Okay, let's do the explosion first:

*** [10.25] If the result is Explosion, all adventurers
(and charmed monsters) in the party immediately
suffer one Wound. ***

Easy enough.

«--------------------»

Now the poison gas:

**** [10.24] If the result is Poison Gas, the affected
adventurer immediately suffers 1D3 Wounds from
poison. ***

I'm assuming this is Frankie, since he was detrapping it at the time.

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D3
Result = 3
OUCH!! Frankie, dam.. that looks like it hurt.

«--------------------»

So now everybody is down one, except for Frankie Fingers, who is down FOUR!!!

We may have to rest up again. Two points isn't a lot to go adventuring with.

«--------------------»

Wait. Seems to me someobody's carrying Mustard Spice with them from the last room (probably Fizban but I don't see it on anybody's sheet).

According to 9.51, Mustard works like a healing potion (9.42). Essentially, roll 1D6 and add that to your HP total, not to exceed your highest score.

I'll do it!

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
Frankie's in top shape now. I'd delete the spice from Fizban's inventory but it doesn't look as if it showed up.

«--------------------»

Apparently you don't get treasure just by searching a new room. You HAVE to kill something in these rules. Tch tch tch.

so we adventure onward.


You can see the room with a trap, and the room to the right has the giant Ants. This shows the map at the end of the game session

«--------------------»
Anything in this room that wandered in?
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 3
Nope. Right or left. 1-3 left, 4-6 right.
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 5
Right it is. I felt capricious enough to let the dice gods figure it out.
«--------------------»
Traps?

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 6
Definitely not.

Monsters?

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 6
None of those either!
«--------------------»
Continuing onward...

Traps?

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
No.

Monsters?

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 3
Yes!

Okay, what kind?

Room monster table:
Rolling across:

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
Rolling down:

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 6
4,6: 2 Giant Ants.

Get the raid!

«--------------------»
Hmmm. Only one giant ant counter. Oh, well, I'll flip over an OGRE counter, and say it uses the same stats.

Where to place Ant 1
1-2. 3-4. 5-6

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 3
3-4

Same deal for Ant 2

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
How about 1-3 left, 4-6 right?

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 1
Left then
«--------------------»
Combat rounds!

Party first

Left to right: Bardolf against Ant 2, Fred and Frankie against Ant 1, Fizban standing by

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 3
Bardolf, nothing hit.

Frankie on Ant 1

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 2
miss

Fred: he has a plus one (so does Bardolf, which means he hit after all!)

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6 + 1
Result = 1 [+ 1] = 2
Nothing!!!!!

Well at least Bardolf (amended) did it.

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6 + 1
Result = 2 [+ 1] = 3
At least we all missed.

MONSTERS TURN
Ant 2 versus Bardolf.


DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 3
NOpe

Ant2 vers. Fred



DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
NO!

«--------------------»
NEXT ROUND

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6 + 1
Result = 1 [+ 1] = 2
nOpe, Bardolf you suck

Frankie:


DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
no

«--------------------»
Since we'll have to rest up anyway, Fizban weighs in with a BLAST spell

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 5
That beats their magic resistance, so it nails...
L 1-3, R 4-6
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 1
The LEFT ant for two points.

«--------------------»
The ants are fighting mad though.

MONSTER ROUND!

Left ant bites at BARDOLF

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 3
Nope.

Right Ant bites at:
1-3 Frankie 4-6 Fred
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 5
FRED.

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
Still nope... man, that's a wimpy combat table for monsters.

PARTY COMBAT ROUND

Bardolf sword to Ant 1
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 6
Attaboy.

1 more hit point, and it's just like the old Pink Panther theme:
"Dead-ant, dead-ant, dead-antdeat-antdead-aaaaaaaaaant..."
«--------------------»
No Frankie against Ant 2 (unharmed)
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 5
1 HP.. way to go thief dude.

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6 + 1
Result = 4 [+ 1] = 5
1 more, way to go Fred!


I have a no-pest strip, would that help?

Now the MONSTER ROUND

1-2 Bardolf, 3-4 Frankie 5-6 Fred

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6 + 1
Result = 5 [+ 1] = 6
reroll, without the plus one.
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 1
Bardolf.

Attacking BARDOLF
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 6
Ouch! 1HP
«--------------------»
I just tidied up the notes that had HPs in them (click on characters to see)

Bardolf- down to 6
Frankie- 6 HPs (full)
Fred- down to 7
Fizban - down to 1

It's clobbering time.

PLAYER ROUND

Bardolf, then Frankie, then Fred

SET 1, DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 2
SET 2, DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 2
SET 3, DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D6
Result = 4
1 hit, for 1 HP, by Fred.

The Ants are both dead.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

«--------------------»
TREASURE!

Type D:

TABLE 9.81: D 1:3D6 1:1D3 0:0

That's Bez (gold), Jewels, Magic Itesm

Bez:
DICE ROLL:
Specification = 3D6
Result = 4 + 5 + 3 = 12
12 divided by 4 is 3 each.

GEMS:

DICE ROLL:
Specification = 1D3
Result = 2
Nope.
«--------------------»
EXPERIENCE:

6 HPs divide by 4 is one each, and I'll give the extra to fred and Bardolf (kill bonus)


Player Sheets, end of turn