On my way to the agreed upon meeting place, I was scooped up by a couple of friends and we drove over to the restaurant. Food was had... jokes made... laughs shared. We settled up and made our way back to the car with a couple other people leaving us. We focused on getting to our next destination, our local game store, where we booked a gaming room for the afternoon. We get to the car, and found the passenger window was smashed and belongings were grabbed. More on that later...
After cleaning up the broken glass, we make our way to the store but, as one would imagine, no one was exactly in the mood to play our regular game. The person running the game was one of the people who had their stuff stolen from the car so you can probably imagine how angry the person was.
Thankfully, as we get our bearings, we notice the Dungeon board game. I didn't pay much attention about it at first since I already knew that WOTC has re-released it. I had good things about the remake as well as the original which I never had an opportunity to play before. What did get my attention was the price though. At $20, it was an easy decision to make and proved to be an excellent game to try out and take our minds of of things.
We played three games of it, taking a break for supper between the second and third game. We had a lot of fun and, while there isn't anything much to it, it's something to pull out if a player is late and we have to wait on them before we start our regular game. It's simple enough that children can play (the box says 8+) which makes the game a possible 'gateway drug' into the hobby! Much like those Fighting Fantasy books were my own introduction to the hobby. Oh... and can play up to 8 players which is always a nice plus.
Production values is simple enough with a WHOLE WHACK LOAD of chits ... the tomb markers are the most numerous but need to be since you drop those on the board for the places you clear in-game. Suffice to say that a few small snack baggies to keep the box in order will be handy. Everything needed for the game is pretty much pouch out -- including the character figurines. On top of that, you have cards for treasures and monsters for levels 1 through 6.
Being the group that we were, cracking jokes though out the game, we started houseruling after the second game when we say the game was going to end with certainty because the Thief got all the treasure he needed and started heading back to the Great Hall to take the game. Not that there is any problem with that but, given that there were no obstacles to stop him or slow him down with no one in a similar position, we introduced a simple house rule for the third and final game:
Wandering Encounters.
In short, when the possibility of endgame is triggered and a character reaches the needed amount to win the game, the Dungeon is on alert! From this point on till the end of the game, anytime a character ends their move in a corridor, a 1d6 is rolled. On a roll of a '1', the character encounters a random monster of the adjacent level / zone. No treasure is gained by defeating a wandering encounter but, depending on how fickle the dice are being, it could mean the character will lose treasure, a turn, or even their lives opening the possibility of a different winner. In play, we found the rule worked very well.
Well, with three games done, we called it an evening slightly earlier than usual but we already began talking about other possible house rules. I'm sure there was something in older Dragon magazines about some options as well which may be worth looking into.
The game is well worth it at $20 and probably cheaper online.
Back to the smash n' grab.
Three passengers with stuff left behind in the vehicle. Among what was lost was a bunch of electronics -- an ipad, an asus tablet, a netbook. Beyond the tech, there were a few irreplaceable things of sentimental value that happened to be in those bags. The losses also included dice. Now... dice might be a weird thing to lament about but consider that one of the bag of dice (the GM's dicebag) had well over 100 and much dated back three decades.
As gamers, there is a lot of sentimentality with some of the books we have, the miniatures we use, and the dice we roll game after game. At the gaming table as we were discussing the loss of the dice and other things, one of the gamers pulls out 4d10 (inked gamescience dice) which he had received a few weeks earlier. Though also impacted by this, I didn't lose my entire dice collection so I decide buy him a set. A couple of his friends through facebook read what happened and are in the process of sending him some dice.
Somewhere along the line, he gets an idea for what he calls a social experiment: The Good Gamer Karma Project. He's basically accepting dice from whomever and whatever single die anyone may want to send him. He writes about it all HERE but you get the idea. If it reaches 100, he pledges to do something to 'pay it forward' though he's still unsure what. It will likely be something gaming related though.
M
That was a shitty and strangely fun Sunday.
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