Well another fun weekend at Diecon has come and gone for me. As part of a little group I call the 'Three Amigos' we rode up together, had a lot of fun, and then rode back home together. Here's my report on some of the games I played and folks I talked to.
I haven't played Battletech since the 90's. It's always been one of those games that I wanted to get back into but never seemed to have the time, and when I did have the time I didn't have the money. Well one of my friends now runs it at the local shop I work at (Aesops Treasury) and is an official agent for Catalyst Game Labs. He was at the con so I jumped into one of his sessions.
Overall it was pretty much like I remembered. Bit stompy robots beating the hell out of each other with a very detailed damage system in a battle that usually takes a couple hours at least. While I had a lot of fun it's not a game I'll be diving into again. If I'm free and he needs a guy to help pilot some mechs for a game I'll do it. But as for investing my time and money again, I've moved past that level of obsession.
The newest edition of this really cool scifi game from Free League Publishing. This game is set in the same setting as the original just over a vastly different corner of space. A good breath of fresh air for that world with some neat 'delving' mechanics and some rather interesting setting elements. I had a good time but I don't see myself running this game. I would absolutely jump into it as a player though.
One of the older games from Free League Publishing that I've seen and heard a lot about, but never played. I really liked the flavor of fantasy 'grimdark' this one has. It's has some good lore about why everything is so messed up. The modifications to the Year Zero Engine are nice. Especially with the different colored D6's meaning something in a roll. Like the black dice representing bonuses from gear that can determine if your gear breaks if a roll is bad enough. It's really slick.
I'm a proven terrible fantasy gamemaster. It's not my wheelhouse of what I'm good at doing. But there is enough horror elements that I could possibly make it work. It's on my 'maybe' list when it comes to buying in. I would love to play in a game though.
Once there was a game called Broken Compass that came out a few years ago from Two Little Mice this has now grown into the game called Outgunned. Outgunned Adventure is the version more set up for Indiana Jones style adventure games. Before playing I was very hesitant about the dice mechanics. It's all built around matching numbers on the dice you rolled. Two of a kind, three of a kind, etc.
After playing all of my hesitation is completely gone. I really enjoyed the way the mechanics flowed. How failure leads to you building up points in other areas to pull of stuff even better. The whole cinematic feel is actually there with adrenaline points, grit and other sorts of things. I'll be picking this book up at some point in the near future with the hope of running it at least for a little bit. Two thumbs up for that.
Dealers Area
Now there aren't as many dealers there as other cons but the ones they have are really great and friendly. The Dicegeeks guy was really cool as were the folks from Twilight Creations. Troll Lord Games really had a Castles and Crusades presence with a table full of product and guy who very friendly talking up the product. Artist Brent Chumley was, as usual, absolutely great to talk with and he got a few of my dollars as he does every year.
In other stuff there were a few things I didn't like but I'm keeping with the positive side of things. So I won't go into what they were. My opinions were given to the staff via their messenger account. What they do with constructive criticism is up to them.
I'm already preregistered for next year to do it all over again.
