![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Gamus Interruptus
May. 7th, 2005 11:43 pmWent to gaming today for session #1 of Dave P's pirate campaign, after spending an entire game session about a month ago making characters.
There was an hour spent printing out the characters today, then some more time trying to figure out what had been left off the spreadsheet, then we were finally thrown into jail for the start of the campaign. Within a minute or two Eric F. was lumbering off to punch out the alpha male of the jail, at my suggestion, but without my further advice.
And, alas, that's when the campaign came to a screeching halt.
The Rolemaster pirate book I leant Dave is third edition, while the rule books we had scattered around the room were all second or third edition. Meanwhile the character creation spreadsheet we were using was fifth edition, and it turns out there have been some notable changes to the system, probably from third to fourth edition, and Dave wasn't familiar enough with the system to have actually realized that. So, all of our numbers were dramatically out of whack because our characters had been made out of a hodgepodge of mostly second and fifth edition, and they didn't match up with the NPC stats that Dave had because those were third.
So we called it quits, and Dave is going to go home with a complete set of third edition rulebooks to get a better grip on the game system, and we'll probably recreate our characters in two weeks time, and then maybe get to run session #1.
(And I need to search through my boxed RPGs to see if I can turn up any third edition rulebooks for rolemaster, but I think my collection of the main rules may actually skip from first to fourth.)
So Dave said we were going to play board games, and we did.
First up was Puerto Rico, which Donald thankfully bought awhile ago, and thus it's always sitting around his apartment as a possibility. I remembered that last time I'd played a very uneven strategy where I picked up a cash crop (tobacco or coffee), then kept spending all of my money so that I couldn't buy the plant for the cash crop, and thus I ended up without useful production for a long time.
This time I ended up with tobacco again, but correctly saved my money, while watching Eric F., to my right, make my exact mistake from last time by spending his money whenever someone grabbed the builder. After I got the tobacco going I then decided to crank my money making potential with a small market, then later a large market, then later an office. By the end I could make 6 or 7 doubloons off my tobacco or alternatively 3 or 4 off my corn(!). (It might have been overkill.)
Unfortunately I lost the game midgame when a bad series of production, shipment, and trader rounds kept me from profitting off of my sales possibilities. Dave P., to my left, meanwhile managed to get in some doubloons in that period with the same set of buildings and was able to turn that around into a wharf which ultimately gave him at least 10 VP in extra shipments.
By the end of the game I was rolling in money and managed to purchase two of the 10-point buildings, which together gave me 10 VP, but that couldn't overcome Dave P's advantage in shipping plus his one 10-point building. Final score was Dave P. with 51, me with 46 and the tiebreaker, Donald also with 46, and Dave W. and Eric F. pulling up the rear.
Afterward we played a game of China, which I'd brought (and had been very pleased to discover that it fit in my backpack).
Not much to say here, as China is almost entirely tactical, with your trying to optimize victory points while managing danger each and every turn. I went for a heavy embassary strategy as I usually do, and got all 8 of my embassaries out, with a total of 4 alliances generated by them (and it would have been 6 if Dave W. hadn't spoiled two on the last play of the game). I won with 42 points, with Donald trailing a couple of points behind and Dave W. and Eric F. much further back.
China is clearly my type of game, with a great balance of ease of play and serious tactical thoughts.
Got home and found that Kimberly was still feeling sick due to drug side effects. I gave her a foot rub to try and cheer her up. Hopefully she'll be feeling better in the next couple of days.
The natives are very restless tonight. It must be getting toward finals time.
There was an hour spent printing out the characters today, then some more time trying to figure out what had been left off the spreadsheet, then we were finally thrown into jail for the start of the campaign. Within a minute or two Eric F. was lumbering off to punch out the alpha male of the jail, at my suggestion, but without my further advice.
And, alas, that's when the campaign came to a screeching halt.
The Rolemaster pirate book I leant Dave is third edition, while the rule books we had scattered around the room were all second or third edition. Meanwhile the character creation spreadsheet we were using was fifth edition, and it turns out there have been some notable changes to the system, probably from third to fourth edition, and Dave wasn't familiar enough with the system to have actually realized that. So, all of our numbers were dramatically out of whack because our characters had been made out of a hodgepodge of mostly second and fifth edition, and they didn't match up with the NPC stats that Dave had because those were third.
So we called it quits, and Dave is going to go home with a complete set of third edition rulebooks to get a better grip on the game system, and we'll probably recreate our characters in two weeks time, and then maybe get to run session #1.
(And I need to search through my boxed RPGs to see if I can turn up any third edition rulebooks for rolemaster, but I think my collection of the main rules may actually skip from first to fourth.)
So Dave said we were going to play board games, and we did.
First up was Puerto Rico, which Donald thankfully bought awhile ago, and thus it's always sitting around his apartment as a possibility. I remembered that last time I'd played a very uneven strategy where I picked up a cash crop (tobacco or coffee), then kept spending all of my money so that I couldn't buy the plant for the cash crop, and thus I ended up without useful production for a long time.
This time I ended up with tobacco again, but correctly saved my money, while watching Eric F., to my right, make my exact mistake from last time by spending his money whenever someone grabbed the builder. After I got the tobacco going I then decided to crank my money making potential with a small market, then later a large market, then later an office. By the end I could make 6 or 7 doubloons off my tobacco or alternatively 3 or 4 off my corn(!). (It might have been overkill.)
Unfortunately I lost the game midgame when a bad series of production, shipment, and trader rounds kept me from profitting off of my sales possibilities. Dave P., to my left, meanwhile managed to get in some doubloons in that period with the same set of buildings and was able to turn that around into a wharf which ultimately gave him at least 10 VP in extra shipments.
By the end of the game I was rolling in money and managed to purchase two of the 10-point buildings, which together gave me 10 VP, but that couldn't overcome Dave P's advantage in shipping plus his one 10-point building. Final score was Dave P. with 51, me with 46 and the tiebreaker, Donald also with 46, and Dave W. and Eric F. pulling up the rear.
Afterward we played a game of China, which I'd brought (and had been very pleased to discover that it fit in my backpack).
Not much to say here, as China is almost entirely tactical, with your trying to optimize victory points while managing danger each and every turn. I went for a heavy embassary strategy as I usually do, and got all 8 of my embassaries out, with a total of 4 alliances generated by them (and it would have been 6 if Dave W. hadn't spoiled two on the last play of the game). I won with 42 points, with Donald trailing a couple of points behind and Dave W. and Eric F. much further back.
China is clearly my type of game, with a great balance of ease of play and serious tactical thoughts.
Got home and found that Kimberly was still feeling sick due to drug side effects. I gave her a foot rub to try and cheer her up. Hopefully she'll be feeling better in the next couple of days.
The natives are very restless tonight. It must be getting toward finals time.