Public Says

The ball is back in Michael's proverbial court for the game I've been testing lately (Sails & Sorcery), so Saturday I brought two games I've had on the back burner for a while: Automatown and Riders of the Pony Express.

Automatown

It's been 2 years since I initially prototyped this worker placement game where you use your workers to build more workers, and it's been almost as long since I got it to the table. The basic premise is that you're building robots out of head, arm, torso, and leg pieces of high, medium, and low quality (as well as scrap). You can make a generic robot with anything, which gives you another works, and adds 1 strength to your army of robots, but if you get the correct combination of head, arms, torso, and legs, then you can complete a blueprint and make a better robot -- stronger, or with a cool ability you can use each time you send it out.

Challenges with this one include things like (a) the scary look of 13 different resources (even if there are really only 4, each with 3 levels of quality -- but since the blueprints require specific levels of quality, it kinda IS like there are 13 different resources), and more importantly (b) the "combo-y" nature of the abilities does not seem to be coming through, so there isn't a strong feeling of engine building to be had.

I got some good notes, some of which had come up in previous tests, but it's been so long I'd forgotten about them, and I hadn't updated my prototype (friendly reminder: keep our prototypes up to date!). Things like making a specific set of starting worker placement cards, to ensure the first round has useful actions for example. Also, reducing the game end trigger for 4 players, so that the game ends before players have 10+ workers each and the blueprint deck runs out (also, I could make more blueprints). Also, I think I need to improve the engine building aspect / combo-y nature of the robot abilities (again), because it seems like players weren't feeling like they were able to build combos.

Some good ideas that came up this time include:
* Rather than taking any card from the 3 available blueprint cards, take the 1st (if you placed 1 worker), 1st-2nd (if you placed 2), or 1st-3rd (if you placed 3 workers). Ether that, or take any one you want, but to access the cards deeper in the row, pay resource cubes onto the ones before it (as is common in games with a card row). I like both of those ideas, and I'm not sure which I like better.
* Possibly making the higher level resources cost more to get, since currently it felt easy to get what you needed. Currently things are designed and balanced such that the high quality resources are worth more than the low quality ones -- a low quality torso is worth 2 (scrap + upgrade), and a high quality torso is worth 4 (scrap + 3 upgrades), which IS more, but with so many workers, and so many ways to get, upgrade, and swap resources around, it didn't feel hard for players to get what they needed (though by definition, they were paying more for it). I think overall the system might just be too flexible. If I re-balance things so that going up a level requires not just an upgrade action, but also a scrap (+2 units), then that might make the higher level resources somewhat harder to get, and it might also simplify the worker spaces, some of which are oddly designed in order to get the values right.
* Maybe cut a whole resource type, and just have head/torso/legs, reducing the resource variety by 3, and the cost complexity by 25%

Some ideas that I'm less sure about, but which certainly bear considering or trying include:
* Separating scoring from building robots. Make it so you build robots for workers and abilities, but then do scoring some other way.
* Making a sort of Master Blueprint that you could improve/update, to give a better sense of "that player wants that type of resource," so that you can plan and block better.
* Maybe don't require 1 of each type per robot -- instead maybe have a robot that requires multiple heads and only 1 torso, for example. Or change the resources to be things like actuators and power cores instead of heads and torsos. With good iconography, the costs would be clear enough, it's not necessary to make sure each robot has each of the 4 types of resources. This may also help the engine building aspect, since you won't need to always get all 4 resource types (something the swap ability was supposed to help with)

I definitely got a lot to think about for this one, and I'll be revisiting my prototype soon to try another version.

Riders of the Pony Express

This is another "oldie-but-a-goodie" from the back catalog. My last blog post about playtesting this one was 4 years ago (whew!), but I might have played it since and not posted about it. The premise of this one is that you're a rider for the Pony Express, tasked with delivering parcels to various towns on our way from Missouri to California and back. You haggle with your fellow riders, trying to get people to take your parcels for you, and offering to take parcels that are on your way, before riding from town to town to make deliveries. This was my attempt at a low-bid auction, initially a "count-up" auction, where the auctioneer would count up from 1 to 10 or until another player jumped in to claim it, I think it works better as a blind bid (even though generally speaking I hate blind bids). However, it's possible that the "count up" auction could be a variant rule, because non-designer/social gamer types seemed to like it.

This game went over pretty well with my playtesters, and a new rule I found hand written on the rules page was a great change that I don't think I'd tried before. In the past I'd had some trouble with the 5 player game, and decided maybe it should just be a 4p max game, but this new rule might actually make 5p work just fine after all. The rule is that you leave your bid card out, so you can't bid the minimum ($3) over and over again. We clarified that to be that the bid winner leaves their card out, which must be what I had meant in the first place :)

I was hard pressed to find anything I really wanted to change for the next test of this. I think I'll boost the Bear hazard up by 1, to make them more different than the Bandits, and to make the Shotgun item more attractive. I also might try a tweak to the delivery phase based on some comments that one of my testers felt strongly about.

All in all, a good playtest day. We even played Dave's video game prototype, which is a pretty fun spaceship building/dogfight/king-of-the-hill ting based largely on one of my favorite old arcade classics, Rampart.

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Link to episode: https://anchor.fm/the-dungeon-masters-handbook/episodes/Episode-23---Attracting-Old-School-Game-Players--Keeping-Old-School-Elders-e9ogku

Taking a cue from how Tim Shorts of Gothridge Manor Podcast makes episodes in his car, I do some philosophizing about attracting players to old school games. I also talk about the difficulties of some of the elders of the RPG community have with the changing world.

On behalf of the Shorten family, we want to wish each and everyone of you a very Happy Holiday! Merry Christmas, if you celebrate. May your season be joyful and full of fellowship and games!

I'll have a "end of year wrapup" next week and then we'll get back to AD&D crunchy topics in January!

Leave me a voice message and let me know what you think! (312) 625-8281‬ (US/Canada) OR on Anchor: anchor.fm/the-dungeon-masters-handbook/message

Intro music: Dragonaut by Bradley The Buyer (bit.ly/2ASpAlF)
Outro music: Dream by Wild Shores (bit.ly/2jbJehK)

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Once our local Scrum (month long Steamroller) has finished, I kind of got sucked into Guild Ball again.  This is a fairly odd development, partially because I haven't played the game in roughly 7 months.  Back in July of last year I had to stop all miniature gaming to help my wife through the end of the pregnancy and then birth of my youngest daughter, but before that happened I was a bit upset at the way Guild Ball was played because of how imbalanced things were.

Of course when I stopped gaming, Steamforged released an Errata in July that largely fixed a lot of the problems, and while I was raring to get back into Trolls as soon as I could start gaming again, a few things pulled me into playing Guild Ball and I've really been loving the game all over again.  I figure I'll go through what that was, as well as some of the things I really like about the game in general.

Pulling Me Back In

During the same month of our Warmachine Scrum, a Guild Ball Scrum was also being run, with some playing in both games.  This was handled as promotional event that would allow players who played to get a Lucky model. Since my first team was Brewers and my friend Brian has no intention of playing Masons or Brewers, he was kind enough to give me the model.

Lucky is my first PVC model and Steamforged is making all new teams come in very cheap $50 boxes with 6 PVC models that require no assembly, plus some extra terrain.  They also recently changed the Official Play Document to say that you can now use unpainted PVC models in their tournaments. While I'm pretty good at modeling, it's not really my favorite thing to do, so this kind of setup seems great to me, it's also a great value for starting a new guild.

Another old friend of mine, Kevin plays mini games off and on, but he's not a modeler or painter, so this PVC setup is perfect for him.  After talking about it and him watching us play at the local shop  Kevin ended up buying the Kick Off set which has to be one of the best values in miniature gaming at the moment.

Since he was free to come over on Friday's when my wife would get a girls night out, I could strap my youngest to my chest, have my oldest help roll dice, and get some extra games in each week!  I effectively became Kevin's unofficial Pundit, teaching him the game.

Please note, I'm extremely rusty here - many mistakes were made.

Since then, I've been playing some Brewers, Engineers, and I've purchased the last few models to flesh out my Union - getting something akin to Guild A.D.D.

Hobby

One of the nicest thing about Guild Ball is the fact that it's a small model count game that has as much intensity as larger miniature games.  Small model counts plus the fact that you're really only ever painting a model once (ie. no units with duplicate models), it's so easy to get a fully painted force.  This has triggered a kind of OCD for me to immediately paint my Guild Ball models within a few days of purchase.

I'm not a good painter by a long shot, but I truly enjoy playing with fully painted forces, and that's hardly ever the case when I play Warmachine (or when I played 40k or Fantasy).  As such, I really like how achievable it is to play fully painted in Guild Ball.

The game is also nice that you are encouraged to build an optional goal post for your teams that can let you flex your hobby muscles if you wanted. I was excited to finally use my old Bugman's model from Warhammer Fantasy, mostly because it enabled me to put a beautiful Dwarf model I love on the table and actually have it be fun (Dwarfs were miserable to play with and against back in Fantasy). He makes a great Brewers goal post.



My Guilds

The game is also sort of dangerous since it's really not expensive to get into a guild at all, and that was back when everything was metal and starters only came with 3 models.  I started with Brewers with a few Union models added slowly over time, then got a very different team in Engineers to play a more goal scoring game, and then it was "only two more models" (Captain and Mascot) to make a fledgling Union team.

Coming back into the game in the last month, I elected to buy the last few models I wanted to flesh out my Union with Grace and Benediction and getting a captain I'm very excited to play in Blackheart.  Since Brewers are more of a Take-Out team, and Engineers a more Goal-Scoring Football team, the prospect of playing an all 2" Melee team lead by Blackheart that can adapt to whichever game plan I want, but easily do 2 Goals - 2 Take Outs to win is very appealing to me.

Brewers

Engineers

Union

As it is, every model I own besides Lucky is metal, and after assembling the new Grace and Benediction models, I really am looking forward to when I can just buy PVC models from here on out.

Gaming Nirvana

Out of all the options I have to play with in Guild Ball at the moment, I'm spoiled for choice and I'm liking the way things are going. Apparently the game still has some balance issues with Thresher and Farmers, and Corsair Fishermen are still a bugbear in the meta - but supposedly an errata is coming soon.  I've not played against either of those things yet though, and I'm not good enough to expect to win against competitive players so I just look forward to playing and learning in the near term.

Plus with my Hooch Hauler finally arriving, and with two local players getting the new God Tear early access/beta set, I've got a LOT of really interesting gaming time coming up in the weeks and months ahead.

I hope to put up some more content for each of the games I'm playing shortly.

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Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.

An extremely productive year for Brave

Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.

Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.

The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.

Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:

"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"

Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.

Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now

If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.

The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.

AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.

For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.

Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.