One-shot, Short Term, Long Term: Campaign Length

I find myself rereading some of my Order of the Stick books again. Because, well, it's such a great story. There are five volumes of printed comics, plus two prequel books and a bonus book of strips that ran in the ill-fated Dragon Magazine and other assorted sundries. In addition, there are (at the time of this writing) 147 online strips that haven't yet been collected into printed volumes. Once it gets to the end of the current story arc, that will be volume 6. I predict there will likely by 7 total volumes, with a small chance that the total may end up at 8.

In Volume 3 of the printed books (War and XPs), author Rich Burlew wrote in his prologue that he used Babylon 5 as a model for how to write an epic-length story. He mentions the way that little bits of at-the-time seemingly irrelevant details that turned out to be super important bits of foreshadowing in the series' final episode. He refers to that show extensively as a guide for how to map out a long-term story.

On the other end of the spectrum, I will be running a one-shot tabletop RPG tomorrow. I expect it to last a few hours. In those handfuls of hourglass sand, there will be a complete story, with all the necessary elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.

Board Game Review: Kingdom Builder

I've been able to play this game a few times now, and though at first I didn't think much of it, my second play through caused me to realise that it's actually a really good game. It has all of the best elements of a good game that I described in my article on good games. There's no player elimination, it has a lot of player agency, it's relatively simple, it ends decisively, it allows for upsets, and best of all, it's fun to lose. So let's take a look at it.

We start with the numbers, just like always.

Expanding my Corner

I have decided that it's time to start trying to grow my little media empire (ha!). This decision was motivated by several factors. One of these factors is the fact that PinkFae appears to be defunct. This makes me sad, but such is life. More importantly, there is the fact that only the first two to four paragraphs of the six most recent articles are accessible at all. I don't want all that writing to be lost, so I'm seriously considering reposting those articles here.

Furthermore, I had an idea some years back. I've been active in my local chapter of PFLAG for some time, and one day, I was wearing a PFLAG shirt which featured some rainbow-coloured stick figures. A friend saw that and told me, 'For a second, I thought those were meeples, and I was about to ask where I could get a shirt like that.' Well, such an idea can't go unexplored! So I threw together a design and tried to get some organisations to use the idea.

Well, nobody would. So I decided, 'screw it, I'm going to do it myself.' So I've created a more advanced Game Dork brand, and have created a store on cafepress where I am selling shirts with these designs.

What makes a game good?

I found myself sitting around with a few friends last night talking about games. This is not surprising, as we had gotten together for the specific purpose of playing some games. In between games, we talked about gaming, gamers, conventions, and some specific games.

There's a sentiment that I hear often when talking about games. I heard it last night, and I've heard it many times before. We'll be discussing a particular game, and someone will say some variation on:

• I have a great time playing that game even when I lose.
• That's a game I love to lose.
• I don't care if I lose this game, because it's so much fun to play.

I've found it to be true for me in many cases: The Red Dragon Inn, Dominant Species, and The Resistance: Avalon to name just a few. 

Now, I will readily admit that these games are not perfect. The Red Dragon Inn, for example, features player elimination. Dominant Species can be pretty intense, complicated, and lengthy. The Resistance: Avalon is difficult for people who are not good liars.

Board Game Review: The Goonies Adventure Card Game

Recently, the Dork Spouse and I found ourselves at our local board game cafe with time to kill. We looked around at their library to decide what we wanted to play, and eventually decided to try out the Goonies: Adventure Card Game that was funded via Kickstarter last year. So now I will share my thoughts on that game with you. Starting of course with the numbers:

Strategy: 3
Randomness: 4
Complexity: 2
Humour: Derivative
Attractiveness: Pretty
Average Length of Game Play: 45 minutes
Gamer Profile Ratings:
  Strategy: Low
  Conflict: Low
  Social Manipulation: Low
  Fantasy: High

Accomplishing Big Things

I'm going to post something a bit meta today. I'm not going to talk so much about games, but a little bit more about the games industry. In fact, I'm even pulling back my perspective to talk a little bit about creativity in general.

Let me set the scene. I currently live in central Oklahoma. There's not a lot in Oklahoma. There are farms, there is oil and natural gas, and there is a smattering of a few other things. If you live in one of the two major urban areas (the Oklahoma City metro area, and Tulsa), there's a slightly broader array of things to do and see. A small handful of companies have their headquarters here (most notably, the drive-in fast food chain Sonic), and downtown OKC and Tulsa have some offices for various corporations.

But otherwise, there's not a lot to Oklahoma. The state tries to rely on its Native American heritage (all of which was basically imported from other parts of the country anyway) to promote tourism, but not many people think of Oklahoma as a vacation destination.

Giving It a Try

Before we get started, please allow me to remind you that I have set up a Facebook page for this blog. If you like reading the stuff I write here, head on over to follow me, so that you can keep up to date, and see interesting new stuff that I might post there!

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A friend recently drew my attention to an interesting post on Facebook. The short version is this:

An employee from Portal Publishing was irritated to see people claiming that a game is unbalanced and worthless after only playing through once or twice. Instead of learning the ins an outs of the game and getting good at playing that game, they give it a cursory single play-through and then give up on it entirely.

Really, the entry is quite interesting. It's a little emotional, as the author is clearly upset. But I highly recommend reading the whole thing.