Belfort: The Expansion Expansion

As you may already know, TMG is finally coming out with the first full expansion to Belfort. The expansion features Assistants and Expansions, and is called Belfort: The Expansion Expansion.

The Expansion Expansion is on Kickstarter right now, and in the first 2 days it has garnered the support of 600 backers, to the tune of $18,570! I never cease to be amazed by the support of the TMG fan base. The minimum funding goal is set at $20,000 but to include all the realistic stretch goals will take $50,000 or $70,000. I am not sure if we'll make that or not, but if the project goes crazy and reaches $100,000, then there will be some surprise "bling" added for everybody! It hasn't been announced what this "bling" might be, and I'm not sure it will be even if we make that goal... but rest assured it'll be something cool. I'll be surprised if we reach $100,000 with this project anyway.

One nice thing about running a Kickstarter project for an expansion, as Michael points out in this blog post on BGG, is that it renews interest in the base game. I've seen more traffic on the Belfort forums in the last couple of days, and over 100 copies of the base game have been ordered through the expansion kickstarter (via "combo packs" - both the base game and the expansion for $65 - a decent discount!).

In the spirit of revisiting the base game, I dug up this old Under the Hood blog post about Belfort. I wrote this about a year ago, but now that people are revisiting the game, or discovering it for the first time, it seems prudent to revisit that post as well.

Belfort is a strong title, which has proven to be popular amongst the TMG fan base. It's a eurogame of the type I enjoy, and I put a lot of work into it along with designers Jay and Sen. I think it's safe to say we're all very proud of the final version of the game, and we all had a great time putting together an expansion for such a great game as well.

For those interested, Jay and Sen wrote up a designer diary for the expansion on their blog. Check it out, and if it sounds interesting to you, then visit the Kickstarter page and see if Belfort: The Expansion Expansion is something you'd like to support.

Expand Belfort!

P.S. Some notable features about this kickstarter project:

* 17 day duration: Another "quickstarter" - we won't be begging for your spare change for 6 weeks!
* No gameplay-related stretch goals - we designed a full expansion, and that's what you'll get, no matter the funding level.
* Belfort Comic!?! - there exists an online comic by artist Rob Lundy about Belfort. If we reach $35,000 in funding, each copy of the expansion will come with a physical copy of that comic!

Great Escalation overview on BGG

A fan of Eminent Domain, Kenneth VenOsdel, has posted a fabulous overview of the Escalation expansion over on BGG.

Thanks for posting that, Kenny!

Anyone on the fence or wondering about what to expect in Escalation, take a minute to read that and then I'll see you in the Kickstarter comments :)

Eminent Domain: Escalation Kickstarter going great!

I just wanted to mention how well the Kickstarter project for Eminent Domain: Escalation is going, and how excited that makes me.

Some people have wondered why the project is only up for 12 days - why such a short time? Why not extend it so more money can be made? Michael has started a podcast about his experience with publishing called Business of Play, and in today's episode he gives some of his reasoning. This is the 5th episode in his 20 episode trial run, check out all 5 episodes if you haven't already and give him some feedback. So far its been really good.

I've been pushing for shorter Kickstarter projects ever since day 1. Well, day 2 - after experiencing the project for Eminent Domain, and especially when many more game projects hit the scene. Slogging through week after week of the same project for months in a row is really not good for anybody. Kickstarter projects take a lot of energy and effort to run, you have to stay on op of it all day, every day. For the consumers it can be annoying to see the same tweets or updates about the same project, two or three times a day for what seems like an eternity. And if you look at the stats, most projects have a high traffic spike in the first couple of days, a high traffic spike in the last couple of days, and a giant lull in the middle. From the beginning I thought "wouldn't it be nice if we could just cut out the lull, and just use the beginning and end?" My theory is that while some of the backers from that middle lull would be lost, most of them would just get shoved to the late project spike, so the funding of the project probably wouldn't even be affected very much.

Well, the nature of crowdfunding being what it is, that strategy won't work for everyone. You might NEED that middle lull to make your funding goal. Depending on the project, if the majority of your day-to-day funding is coming from people browsing Kickstarter rather than from people you directed to your project via your own marketing efforts, then cutting out the lull could indeed reduce a lot of funding. But I believe for most projects (board game projects, the type I'm interested in), that category isn't going to be dominant. As all the experts say, you cannot count on Kickstarter.com to fund your project for you!

All that said, I think TMG is well poised for a short run Kickstarter (Quickstarter!) project. TMG has a sizable audience, and a large mailing list of people interested in Tasty News from TMG. The last TMG Kickstarter project (Dungeon Roll) funded with in the first day, and went on to garner $250,000 in funds before the time was up. Sure, shortening the duration of that project might have meant lower funding numbers, but as long as certain funding goals are reached, then it doesn't really matter. The game will be sold at retail anyway. Any TMG Kickstarter project will probably fund in the first couple of days, because of this audience, and because of TMG's diligence in choosing games that this audience will enjoy. This is especially true of an expansion to a game such as Eminent Domain, which has a fan base already. But it's probably true of a new, unknown title as well. This is the strength of a good brand.

So if the game will surely fund in the first couple of days, why bother stringing it out for a long period of time? There are many other benefits of a short run project. In addition to the time and effort it takes to maintain a project, a shorter project means you can move on to the next one much more quickly. Also, for day 1 backers, that's 6 weeks less they have to wait for the game to arrive!

In my opinion, if a short run Kickstarter project can be successful, it's a win-win for everyone involved. We've already seen projects in the board game space come down from 60 days to 30, and now TMG is taking the next logical step and reducing it further. I feel like this is the direction that many Kickstarter project may go, at least the ones who can support it (project owners with a decent sized audience). I don't know if we'll ever get down to the 5-day project that I see in my mind, just due to how people use the internet - but I'm excited to see that the 12 day project appears to be working well so far!

For those of you who are already in for a copy of Escalation - thanks! And thanks as well for helping to spread the word. I'd really like to hit all of our stretch goals and provide everything we can for you.

Rincon Fundraiser a big success!

Last Saturday we hosted a fundraising game day for Rincon. I was a little worried that not many people would show up, and that we wouldn't end up making much (if any) money... but I guess that's just typical me - I'm kind of a pessimist. I'm happy to report that in fact, 70 people came to our event, some from Tucson, some from Phoenix, and some from Sierra Vista. And from what I could tell, everyone had a really good time!

18 of those people played in the poker tournament, expertly run by Jeff Becker. Karl Davis came out on top after a hard fought, back and forth heads up battle with Russel Knox. Karl won a hotel room for the weekend of Rincon, while 2nd and 3rd place (Russel and Brenda Lundt) walked away with free passes to the convention.

We also had several prize drawings, sponsored by games donated by myself, Brian Poe, and Patrick Nickell of crash Games.

That day happened to be National Tabletop Day, and at least a couple of people found out about our event through the Geek and Sundry TabletopDay website. The event was bustling from 10am to 10pm, and everyone seemed to have a great time! We managed to raise significant funds for Rincon, and by any account I think it's fair to say the Game Day was a resounding success! It was so great, we're planning another similar event for June!

Thanks to everyone who came by and supported Rincon and SAGA!

EmDice: Playtester prototype pics, and an update

One of you awesome people who has printed a copy of EmDice sent me some pics...

Thanks for sending those! They included the file they used for the Fighter/Resource/VP tokens as well.

I realized that there was an error in my original prototype files - I had used the Fertile Planet icon in a few places where I should have used the colonize icon (oops!) - I have replaced the EmDice Proto file with the correct icons.

In addition I created player boards with areas for Fighters, Influence, Planets, Active dice, and Used dice. There's a turn order reminder on it as well.

And I made a clarification to the rule about "Re-roll +1 Die" - I would like to try allowing that extra die to come from the Used pile if you like. In other words, if you have dice in the used pile when you Dissent, you get 1 back in addition to re-rolling any dice of 1 chosen type. If you don't have dice in the used pile, then you're allowed to re-roll 1 extra Active die in addition to any dice of 1 type.

Eminent Domain: Escalation LIVE on Kickstarter!

Escalation, the expansion to my deck building card game Eminent Domain just went live on Kickstarter.
(Edit: now with more pictures!)

We're trying something a little bit new this time - a short (12 day) project! We hope that this "Quickstarter" format will do the necessary portion of what we need Kickstarter to do, without forcing everyone to slog through a month or two of tweets, FB statuses, updates, and all the other sorts of marketing that can accompany this type of fundraising endeavor.

Eminent Domain has an audience, and my theory is that the majority of the funding we gain will occur in the first couple of days, and at the last minute. Some projects do benefit from a longer format, especially if they're receiving backers each day from people just surfing Kicstarter.com... but we've got more projects to do, so we're trying this Quickstarter format to see if we can make the entire experience better for the backers, as well as reduce the total time spent pre-production (which means you'll get the games that much sooner!)

If you like Eminent Domain, then I'm sure you'll love Escalation. For those that haven't been following my blog, the expansion adds a bunch of new content including:

* 5 player support
* New tech
* New planets
* Scenarios
* Fleet (rules for the different ship models)

If you've never played EmDo, or if you've played and enjoyed it but don't own a copy, then you should also check out the Kickstarter project - there are reward levels which include the base game and the expansion at a hefty discount!

You can also help by spreading the word... use Twitter, FaceBook, Google+, or any other social media you are into and let people know about the project! If you'd like, here's an avatar image you can use...

If you hate EmDo, then by all means you should skip the Kickstarter project this time... but if that's the case I think it's unlikely you're reading this ;)

I'm excited this expansion is finally coming to light. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Enjoy!

Continued EmDice Thoughts

It occurred to me today that perhaps I've overlooked something for EmDice.

I had noticed that whenever possible, you want to Follow a role, get a little something, and re-roll the dice - but occasionally you might have only 1 Warfare symbol, but 3 Trade symbols, and you might opt to Dissent Warfare in order to re-roll the Trade symbols.

In the card game, you either get to Follow or Dissent. In the dice game you (currently) sort of get to do both. That's kinda lame. So my next game I think I'll try this...

* Whenever you use a die, you set it aside in a "used" pile, where it is out of play until further notice.
* Dissenting rules do not change, you may re-roll active dice of 1 type (+1 die for each "re-roll +1" power).
* During your Cleanup phase (at the end of your own turn), you may set aside as many of your remaining dice as you want, then re-roll all 'used' dice back into your Empire.

This might work a little better, and at the same time it might clean up the confusion that some players have had about which dice you need to re-roll and when.

Edit:
I did try this last night, and... well, the Jury's still out. In some ways it was better, but in some ways I'm not sure I liked it as much.

For those printing and playing EmDice, I would be very interested in your opinions after playing each of those ways. Which do you prefer (as a player), and why?

Thanks!

EmDice Print and Play! and a PSA to Designers, Prototyper, and PnP'ers

For those interested in printing and playing dice games, I am happy to present the prototype files for

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game (EmDice)

Since the tiles and tech board used my old prototype art and not art from the published game, I have also provided sticker files for making dice using consistent icons. Please excuse the difference between the prototype art and the published game art!

Also, please excuse the fact that the Produce role used to be called Harvest.

I'm VERY interested to hear if anybody tries this out and if so, what you think of it in the comments below! In case of emergency you can contact me directly with questions, but you'll have to be resourceful enough to figure out how (it should be very easy).

Public Service Announcement to all Game Designers, Prototypers, and PnP'ers

The entire prototype fits nicely into a small size USPS Flat Rate Box, which you can pick up for free at your local US Post Office. Heck, they'll even deliver packs of 10 or 25 to your home for free. I have found that many prototypes can be made to fit into this size box, which is very handy for transporting them, not to mention shipping them to potential playtesters or publishers.

Obviously games with large boards or many bits may not fit into such a small box, but when possible - do yourself (and others) a favor - size your prototype boards and bits to fit this box!

Thanks!

Gamesmiths - most productive session in ages!

To tell you the truth, I'd been losing faith in our local little game design meetup: Gamesmiths. The last time I went I ended up sitting alone for 1.5 hours. Today however was a much different story!

Bomb Squad Robot by David Short and Dan Keltner
 I am a big fan of Antoine Bauza's Hanabi. At Gen Con last year I played that game for 12 hours straight! I've had a few ideas about using the mechanism of Hanabi to power a bigger game, but I've not really put that much thought into exactly how that would work. Well, David and Dan have come up with a game about programming a bomb squad robot to navigate a building, rescue hostages, and diffuse bombs.

We played a 6 player game of BSR, discussed some possible changes, then tried another game (5p this time) with some of those. The first game was a little shakey, with lots of great comments left and right from the outset. The second game however was really fun!

The basic idea is that you have cards which program the robot to move, open a door, rescue a hostage, or diffuse a bomb. Each of those categories has 3 levels (1/2/3) - so effectively you have 1-3 of 4 different suits. Like Hanabi, you don't get to see your hand. Your turn consists of playing a card, discarding a card, activating the robot, or giving someone a clue. But in this game, discarding doesn't give you a clue token (clues are not limited by tokens) - instead it regenerates the robot's batteries - which you'll need to do in order to succeed. Playing a card is less intense than Hanabi - when you play a card, you put it into one of the 'register slots' on the board, face down (you don't even get to look at it). When you fill the last register slot, the robot automatically activates - you pick up all the face down cards and arrange them in any order you like, then the robot carries out those instructions. The trick is that the robot must completely carry out each card, and if there's a mistake (like trying to open a door when there's no door to open), it uses up extra battery power. Activating the robot costs 2 battery power + 1 more per card, so to be efficient you want as many cards as possible per activation... but it's not trivial to remember all of the cards that have been played.

If you choose to activate the robot before all of the registers are full then it will cost you your turn, but you get an added benefit - the option to discard one of the cards. This will save you from accidental mistakes or changes in planning which would otherwise cost battery power. If you run out of battery power, then you lose the game!

That description includes some of the comments that came up after the first game. The biggest change between game 1 and game 2 though was the game clock. instead of clicking down a track every single player turn (which was tedious), Dan just started a timer on his phone. Every 10 minutes, the next bomb would explode (if we didn't disarm it first). This worked marvelously, and in production one would assume there would be a soundtrack like the one in Escape.

We discussed the scoring in the game, and I think in the end we found a score system that made sense - 1 point for each hostage still alive on the board, and face value (+1) for each hostage rescued and each bomb diffused. The face values are 1/2/3, and the higher the value, the harder it is to rescue/diffuse.

All in all, it was a fun game, and I would be happy to play it again.

Skyline: Landmarks by David Short
David also had with him an expansion to his dice game Skyline, which TMG published (as a stretch reward for Ground Floor). The expansion adds event cards, another type of die to help build buildings, and special building tiles (Landmarks) which you get by cashing in specific combinations of buildings.

We played a 3 player game of that, and I think the expansion does improve the game.

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game by Seth Jaffee
Finally, I got a chance to play a 3 player game of EmDice. Overall I'm very happy with that playtest. It flowed really well. David asked right away why a player can't re-roll any/all of their dice during cleanup, like in the card game where you can discard anything. I realized that I had no answer, so I decided to play that way this time and see how it went. I wasn't unhappy with the way it was working in the last few playtests, but I think it's safe to say I like this better. Seems like an obvious thing - not sure why that wasn't my first choice for the rule. I think maybe I was trying to make die manpulation powers more valuable.

David and Dan were not thrilled with the relative lack of control over what you roll, but I'm not sure that's really a problem in a dice game. David did make an interesting comment - that a fundamental dynamic of the card game (the deck learning) is completely missing. He would like to see a track for each role, where you'd advance your marker when taking the role, and every few advances on each track would give you an additional symbol for that role. It's not a bad idea at all, but I don't know if I like adding that to to the game. It's extra components and fiddliness, and I'm not sure it's really necessary.

Another suggestion, one I will implement for the next playtest, is to combine the first tech in each track. So the first time you research, you have to have any 1 planet, and pay 3 Research icons of course. From there you can move up any track, so long as you have the appropriate planet in play. The only real difference here is that this way you can only get the Re-roll: +1 die once.

The game length seemed OK. I'm still using 30 tokens in the supply (that's how many blank tiles I happened to have with the planet tiles), and by the time the game end triggered we each had about 4 planets face up, about 2 traded resources, and a few tech upgrades. I'm not sure how many tokens I should have in the supply, but I'm more and more convinced that the mechanism will be fine.

All in all a great night of playtesting!

EmDice: Zeroing in...

I played another game of EmDice last night. Still just 2 player, this time with Mike (not John), and this time with a strict game end timer: When the supply of Resource/Fighter/VP chits runs out, game over.

Game End Timer

I'll clarify, this is the initial end trigger I had expected to use, but I was very hesitant (and still am) to have the game timer affected by both produce and Warfare roles, and with Fighters coming out of the supply and then going back in as well, I thought that might be weird. I am a little worried that Fighter hoarding will cause some kind of problem, and mostly I'm worried about the wildly variable game length that I expect from this trigger...

However, it's very possible that I've gotten all worked up about nothing. The timer seemed to work well enough last night - very well in fact. In the 2p games with John, neither of us were ever able to get to the top of any of the tech tracks, but we finished with 12+ planets in play (too many, I think). In last night's game (2p with Mike), Mike got to the top of a tech track (concerted effort - he specifically took 2 planets with Research symbols on them, and got a 3rd on his way up the Advanced track). We ended the game with about 6 planets each - a much better number I think.

Now, there were some differences in the game setups that could account for some of this... John and I never really used a game end trigger, we just played for a while and then stopped. We went on much longer than we would have if the token supply trigger existed. So we had lots of planets and lots of trading points, but oddly still didn't manage to top out a Research track. Also, in the game vs. Mike I had added some Dice Manipulation to the 1st level of each track, and Mike got that right away. I used too powerful an effect as well - so he was dissenting at the end of his turn each turn (choosing a set of dice to re-roll, AFTER rolling the dice he'd used).

So I think I've decided to embrace that game end trigger that I've been fearing, and see if it proves to be a problem or not. I'll just add enough tokens to the supply to make sure the game lasts long enough. Who knows, maybe it's perfect.

On the down side, there's no guarantee the game will ever end that way. I think it's unlikely to go on forever, because producing and trading is quite lucrative, but if you don't do it, then the trigger could theoretically never happen. I could try adding backup/fail-safe game end triggers, such as "Top of each Tech track is reached" or "Planet supply is exhausted," but there's no real guarantee that either of those things will happen. One nice thing about the card game was that the stacks were the game end trigger, and each player takes a card from the stacks each turn no matter what.

Tech updates:

We tried allowing multiple tech buys if you could afford it, but I don't think I liked that too much. I'll probably go back down to 1 tech buy per turn.

After the last game I have made the following updates to the tech board...

1. Specialization/Genetic Engineering give you +1vp each time you LEAD Trade/Produce roles, not just participate in them. Just seems more correct.
2. Clarification: Adaptability ("Research icons are wild") refers to icons on DICE, not on planets or from Data Network.
3. "At the end of your turn: Dissent" was too strong, and I didn't like how you had to roll your dice first, then think about what to re-roll. Instead I want to use "Re-roll: +1 die" - meaning "When you are re-rolling dice (from using them or dissenting), you may pick up 1 additional die and re-roll it as well." That will also be the effect of the planets with the "+1 Hand Size" icons.

I think that last one will give a fair amount of dice manipulation, and won't be too good if you manage to get it 2 or 3 times. I thought about "Set 1 die to any face" but I don't like the sound of that, especially when you can get it 3 times. Setting 1/2 your dice makes it no longer much of a dice game!

I'll re-post the current rules below:

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game
V1.3

Components
28 Role Symbol Dice (6/player + 1/player for Oversight Committee)
36 Planet tiles (12 of each Advanced, Fertile, Metallic)
+/- 36 Fighter / Resource / VPs tokens
Draw bag
Tech board
16 Tech markers (4 in each player color)

Setup
* Set the tech board in the center of the table and put all the Tech markers on or near it.
* Place 1 die per player on or near the Oversight Committee tech space.
* Shuffle all planet tiles in the draw bag. Draw 5 planet tiles and place them FACE UP above the Survey slots on the Tech board.
* Each player takes 6 dice and rolls them into their Empire.
* Each player takes 1 Start planet at random and places it FACE DOWN in their Empire. Return unused Start planets to the box.
* Determine a Start player via any method you choose.
Game Turn
Players take turns choosing roles in order to Survey new planets, Settle or Attack them, Produce and Trade resources, and do Research. On a player's turn, that player does the following:

1. Choose a Role. 
There are 6 roles to choose from (Survey, Warfare, Colonize, Produce, Trade, Research). The player can freely choose any role.

2. Boost the Role.
The player may use any number of dice in their Empire with symbols matching the role symbol to Boost the chosen role. Roles may also be boosted with role icons on planets or techs controlled by the player. The player also gets a Leader Bonus of +1 Role Symbol (+2 Role Symbols for Survey).

3. Resolve the Role.
The effect of the role is carried out. See below for the effects of each role. Each opponent in turn order may choose to Follow or Dissent. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Follow: An opponent choosing to Follow a role may use any number of dice in their own Empire with icons matching the chosen role (as well as icons on planets or techs controlled by that player), to carry out the effect of the role for themselves. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Dissent: An opponent choosing to Dissent a role may re-roll any number of dice in their Empire that all share the same symbol. This need not be the symbol of the chosen role!

Remember, whenever a die is used, it is then re-rolled!

Game End
Play continues until the supply of Fighter/Resource/VP tokens is exhausted. When the game is over, Influence is counted and a winner is determined. Count 1 Influence for each face up planet (+1 Influence bonus as indicated on some planets), 1 Influence for each resource traded during the game, 2 Influence for each Level 2 Technology, and 5vp for each Level 3 Technology (the tech board currently reads the total influence you get, so you don't add the levels below your marker). The player with the most Influence is the winner!

Roles
Remember, when resolving the chosen role, the active player may count 1 additional role symbol (2 for Survey) as a Leader bonus.
Survey  
Above the Tech board there is a display of face up planet tiles that cost 2/3/4/5/6 Survey symbols to take, with the rest of the planet tiles in a draw bag (or a face down draw stack). Choose any of those planets you can afford, then slide the rest of the planets down and draw a planet from the bag (or stack) to fill the missing slot. The planets are refreshed after each planet is taken.

Warfare
Collect 1 Fighter for each Warfare icon OR Attack a planet instead.
When you Attack a planet, discard a number of Fighters equal to the Warfare cost and Flip the planet.
NOTE: Unlike the card game, in this game, you CAN Attack a planet when following!

Colonize
Settle 1 planet. You must spend as many Colonize icons as the Colonize cost of the planet.
NOTE: Unlike the card game, in this game, you CAN Settle a planet when following!

Produce
Produce 1 resource for each Produce icon. When producing a resource, place a Resource token on a planet in your Empire. Each planet can hold 1 resource token. Produced resource tokens with no planet to place them on are returned to the supply. (Actually, they're never taken FROM the supply, so no sneaky triggering the game end when you cannot hold the resource!)

Trade
Trade 1 resource for each Trade icon. When trading a resource, take a Resource token from a planet in your Empire and place it into a Score Pile. Each of these tokens will be worth 1 Influence at the end of the game.

Research
Pay the appropriate cost and satisfy the planet prerequisite to advance your Technology marker on one of the Technology tracks on the Tech Reference Board. There are 4 tracks on the Tech board: Advanced, Fertile, Metallic, and Diverse. The first 2 spaces in each track cost 3 Research icons, and require 1 planet of the appropriate type. The 3rd and 4th spaces cost 5 Research icons, require 2 planets of the appropriate type, and are worth 2 Influence. The 5th space costs 7 Research icons, requires 3 planets of the appropriate type, and is worth 5 Influence. The Diverse stack is a little bit different, it requires 1 planet of each type.

Each Technology confers a bonus of some kind. Potential bonuses can be:
* Re-roll: +1 Die (When you're about to re-roll dice, you may pick up 1 additional die and reroll it as well).
* +1 Die (Take a 7th die from the Oversight Committee tech space).
* +1 Role Symbol.
* Colonize die faces = Produce die faces.
* +1 Influence when you lead Trade.
* +1 Influence when you lead Produce.
* -1 to all Warfare costs.
* Research icons on dice can be used to Boost or Follow any role.
* When dissenting, dissent again.
* After your role, attack a planet.
* Trade Fighters like resources.
* You may choose a 2nd Role each turn.

EmDice Prototype Progress

One of my faithful readers was nice enough to create and send me a jpg that could be printed out on full sheet labels to create stickers to make EmDo dice. Thanks for that! Pretty soon I'll be creating a print and play package for EmDice which includes that sheet as well as my tech board and planet tiles.

In the meantime, I stickered up 2 players worth of dice last night. It was a little more work than it should have been, because - well - nothing ever works like it's supposed to, and I always seem to have to do things the hard way :/ But anyway, I now have pretty dice - which are strictly speaking not necessary - I could have continued to use numbers - but eventually I'll want this to help get people to play with me.

I also updated my Tech board. Turns out I was wrong in my last post about some of the techs - I had already did things like replace Dissension with "Colonize die faces = Produce die faces" (a much stronger ability, befitting level 3) for example. At any rate, I made some of the modifications I had talked about, and of course was unable to make a PDF out of it. Apparently I do not have a PDF printer thingy, I'll have to go online and download one, if my old-ass computer can handle that :/

Sorry to rant. The point of this post is that I have updated some stuff, and if it tests well (and I can figure out how), I'll provide print and play files for people to try the game out!

... I still need a game end trigger though. I will probably start with some Resource limit (though higher than the 24 in the card game, as it's easier to produce and trade in this version). Too bad, because I was looking forward to using th same tokens for both Fighters and resources.

EmDice - the adventure continues...

The other day, after posting about Eminent Domain: the Dice Game, I put together a draft of the tech board, added costs to the planet tiles*, and gave the game another spin with my roommate. Of course, there's still no end game trigger, but I got to see how well the tech board idea (and the new Survey system) would work. And frankly, they worked pretty well.

* A loooong time ago I had considered making Eminent Domain more of a board game, where you would have an array of face down tiles with the planets on the fronts. You would move your ship among them and use Survey roles to see what's underneath. Or something. Of course, that's not the way I decided to go with EmDo (thank goodness), but the up-side is that I had made tiles with planets on them. They have the prototype planet image as well as an icon for a role symbol (or a +1 vp or +1 hand size). Since i started thinking of a dice game version of EmDo, I felt like tiles might be more appropriate than cards for the planets, and when I went to make a prototype of EmDice to try, I was happy to still have these tiles lying around. Serendipitous!

Planet Tiles

As I just mentioned, there are Planet tiles with planet type (Advanced, Fertile, Metallic) and Cost on the back and type, ability (and a small indicator of the cost) on the front. The costs for these tiles range from 4 to 6, and unlike the card game, most planets specifically cost Warfare or Colonize. The breakdown is something like this:

Adv - T: 3C
Adv - T: 3W
Adv - T: 4C/W
Adv - R: 4C
Adv - R: 4W
Adv - R: 5C/W
Adv - VP: 5C
Adv - VP: 5W
Adv - VP: 6C/W

Fert - P: 3C
Fert - P: 3W
Fert - P: 4C/W
Fert - C: 4C
Fert - C: 4W
Fert - C: 5C/W
Fert - VP: 5C
Fert - VP: 5W
Fert - VP: 6C/W

Met - S: 3C
Met - S: 3W
Met - S: 4C/W
Met - W: 4C
Met - W: 4W
Met - W: 5C/W
Met - VP: 5C
Met - VP: 5W
Met - VP: 6C/W

The idea being that the better effects cost more, and you either must Settle or Attack a planet, or if you get to choose, it costs a little more. I believe each planet will be worth either 1vp or 2vp, with the "VP" planets being worth 1 additional VP.

Tech Board

Across the top of the tech board I put 5 slots with Survey costs (2/3/4/5/6). Above these will be a row of planet tiles - FACE UP so you can see exactly what you'll get (and you can see the cost as well). When taking a Survey role, you can choose the planet in the slot corresponding to the number of Survey symbols you have, or anything cheaper than that. The chosen planet goes FACE DOWN in your Empire, and the planet display is replenished Stone Age style (slide everything to the left and add a new tile from the draw bag to the most expensive slot). Each player of course may Follow and take a planet of their choice that they can afford.

Unlike other roles, I believe I want the Leader to get +2 symbols when choosing Survey instead of the normal +1. This is so that the minimum cost can remain 2 (opponents need to have 2 Survey symbols to Follow and take a planet), while still allowing a player with 0 Survey symbols to call the role and take the 1st planet. I think this maintains the dynamic where the leader basically has a +2 bonus over opponents from the card game. I've always liked that dynamic.

The rest of the tech board contains 4 columns of tech advances - one for each planet type (Advanced, Fertile, Metallic), and one for Diverse (requiring 1 of each planet type). There will be Diverse tech in Escalation and Exotica, by the way. The way this tech board works is that you advance up each track, buying the techs in order. You can have a marker on each track if you like, but you cannot jump straight to a 5-cost Level 2 tech.

My first draft was OK, but needed improvement. It looked like this:
Advanced:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): [blank]
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Improved Trade: +Trade symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Data Network: +Research symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Specialization: +1vp per Trade role
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Adaptability: Research symbols are wild.

Fertile:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): [blank]
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Improved Production: +Produce symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Fertile Ground: +Colonize symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Genetic Engineering: +1vp per Produce role
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Dissension: When Dissenting, Dissent twice

Metallic:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Improved Survey: +Survey Symbol
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Imperialism: +Warfare symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Survey Team: When leading Survey, draw a planet out of the bag as well.
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Scorched Earth Policy: -1 to your Warfare costs
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Mobilization: After your Role, Attack 1 planet

Diverse:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Streamlining: At the end of your turn, you may Dissent
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): I don't remember offhand!
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Oversight Committee: +1 Die
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Well Oiled Machine: You may choose a 2nd Role each turn.

I tried to model the techs after those in the card game, and I tried to sort them properly by what part of the game they'd be useful in. It turns out that Researcha nd Colonize are the best symbols, so I made them more expensive, later game techs. By comparison, Survey and Warfare are generally weaker, so I made those both L1 techs. After playing though, it appears that in this version Survey symbols are a bit stronger than in the card game!

I have blank tech spaces on some of the tracks, like the first space on that bottom Favor track in Caylus - it's sort of an investment. You have to research twice before getting to use some cool ability. However, I don't care for that. I would prefer to have the first upgrade in each track be some sort of dice manipulation (I felt that was lacking). So I'll probably get rid of "Survey Team" altogether, pus the Survey and Warfare symbols back a level (maybe even swap them), and repeat that Streamlining one in the first space of each track.

I also realized that things like Dissension are not very strong, so I'll be re-organizing the chart a bit. Currently I'm not sure it's really even possible to get to the high end of the Research tracks before the game ought to be over anyway, so I might have to do something about that.

So I'll be updating that tech board, and I'll need a game end trigger. Those seem to be my bane in every game!

Call for Help

If anybody out there with a little photoshop chops would like to help me out by creating some files for me, then I should be able to get a print and play version of this for people interested in testing it out. It should be pretty easy. For starters I'd like some files people can use as stickers to make dice. It'd just be the role icons in squares of various sizes:
10mm (to fit on a 12mm die)
12mm (to fit on a 14mm die)
14mm (to fit on a 16mm die)

If I can get my old Pagemaker program to make PDFs again, then I could post the tech board once I've updated it. I'm not sure how to do that though - for a while now it's simply refused to export to PDF!

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game?

A little while ago I had a thought about how Eminent Domain might be ported into a dice game (EmDice?) - and tonight John and I gave it a sort of test run. After a few minor revisions, here's the current status of the rules-in-progress for that game.

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game

Components
24 (30?) Role Symbol Dice (6 per player) (perhaps more for "+1 Die" effects)
27 Planet tiles (9 of each Advanced, Fertile, Metallic)
XX Fighter tokens
XX Resource tokens / VPs (these could be the same thing)
Draw bag

Setup
* Each player takes 6 dice and rolls them into their Empire.
* Each player takes 1 Start planet at random. Return unused Start planets to the box.
* Shuffle all planet tiles in the draw bag
* Determine a Start player via any method you choose.

Game Turn
Players take turns choosing roles in order to Survey new planets, Flip them, Produce and Trade resource, and do Research. On a player's turn, that player does the following:

1. Choose a Role. 
There are 6 roles to choose from (Survey, Warfare, Colonize, Produce, Trade, Research). The player can freely choose any role.

2. Boost the Role.
The player may use any number of dice in their Empire to Boost the chosen role. Roles may also be boosted with role icons on planets or techs controlled by the player. The active player

3. Resolve the Role.
The effect of the role is carried out. See below for the effects of each role. Each opponent in turn order may choose to Follow or Dissent. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Follow: An opponent choosing to Follow a role may use any number of dice in their own Empire with icons matching the chosen role (as well as icons on planets or techs controlled by that player), to carry out the effect of the role for themselves. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Dissent: An opponent choosing to Dissent a role may re-roll any number of dice in their Empire that all share the same symbol. This need not be the symbol of the chosen role!

Remember, whenever a die is used, it is then re-rolled!

Game End
Play continues until... [I'm not sure yet!].  When the game is over, Influence is counted 2 Influence for each face up planet (+1 Influence bonus as indicated on some planets), 1 Influence for each resource traded during the game, 2 Influence for each Level 2 Technology, and 5vp for each Level 3 Technology. The player with the most Influence is the winner!

Roles
Remember, when resolving the chosen role, the active player may count 1 additional role symbol.
Survey (I have 2 thoughts on this, not sure which is better)
Option 1: Draw 1 Planet tile from the draw bag for each Survey icon. Keep one of them face down in your Empire, an return the rest to the draw bag.
Option 2: There could be a display of face down planet tiles that cost 2/3/4/5/6 Survey symbols to take, with the rest of the planet tiles in a face down draw stack. Maybe you can even look freely at the planets in the display. Choose any of those planets you can afford, then slide the rest of the planets down and draw a planet from the stack to fill the missing slot. This is more fiddly, but there are some things I like about it - including the minimum cost of 2 Survey, and the incentive to aim for a specific planet rather than just take "whatever's on top of the deck" so to speak. Option 1 also removes that option, as in this version you cannot see the back of the top Planet card.

Warfare
Collect 1 Fighter for each Warfare icon. Leader: Attack a planet instead.
When you Attack a planet, discard a number of Fighters equal to the Warfare cost and Flip the planet.

Colonize
Settle 1 planet. You must have as many Colonize icons as the Colonize cost of the planet.

Produce
Produce 1 resource for each Produce icon. When producing a resource, place a Resource token on a planet in your Empire. Each planet can hold 1 resource token. Produced resource tokens with no planet to place them on are returned to the supply.

Trade
Trade 1 resource for each Trade icon for 1 point each. When trading a resource, take a Resource token from a planet in your Empire and place it into a Score Pile.

Research
Pay the appropriate cost and satisfy the platen prerequisite to advance your Technology marker on one of the Technology tracks on the Tech Reference Board. There are 4 tracks on the Tech board: Advanced, Fertile, metallic, and Diverse. The first 2 spaces in each track cost 3 Research icons, and require 1 planet of the appropriate type. The 3rd (and maybe 4th?) spaces cost 5 Research icons, require 2 planets of the appropriate type, and are worth 2 Influence. The 4th (or 5th?) space costs 7 Research icons, requires 3 planets of the appropriate type, and is worth 5 Influence. The Diverse stack is a little bit different, it requires 1 planet of each type.

Each Technology confers a bonus of some kind. Potential bonuses can be:
* +1 Die
* +1 Role Symbol
* Survey die faces = Warfare die faces (and Research = Trade, and Colonize = Produce)
* +1 Influence per Trade Role
* +1 Influence per Produce Role
* -1 to all Warfare costs
* Research icons can be used to Boost or Follow any role.
* When dissenting, re-roll 2 different role symbols
* When Surveying, keep 1 additional planet

EmDo Expansion progress

I exchanged some internal TMG emails today about box size and components for Escalation... a nice reminder that things are happening with that. Watch your TMG newsletter for info about an upcoming Kickstarter project later this year.

I took a look at the components for Exotica, and it turns out that even though Escalation adds a 5th player (requiring 28 additional Role cards), and 18 Scenarios, Exotica has almost the same number of cards (!)

In related news, I had an idea the other day for a dice game version of Eminent Domain. I supposed it could be re-themed, but for the time being I thought I'd explore EmDo dynamics with a simple dice mechanism. I actually have 2 versions of this idea. Originally it was to remain a "deck building" mechanism, but instead of a deck of cards you would have a supply of dice. Sort of like Quarriors for example. Then I thought it might work just as well and save a lot of components if it weren't so much a deck builder. Here are both ideas in brief:

1. Eminent Domain: the Dice Building Game

For this idea there would have to be a supply of custom dice of several types, each with a different distribution of Role icons:
Early Game Die (Green): Survey/Survey/Survey/Colonize/Warfare//Politics
Mid Game Die (Yellow): Produce/Trade/Research/Research/Colonize+Warfare/Colonize+Warfare
Late Game Die (Red): Produce/Trade/Research/Research/Colonize+Warfare/Colonize+Warfare

Maybe the green dice are your starting deck, and the supply are just the other dice. I'm not really sure.

In any case, players would roll their starting dice and leave them in their play area (Empire). Some dice from the supply would be rolled into the middle of the table as the draft pool.

On your turn you would choose one of the dice in the draft pool, and execute the role on that die. You would boost that role with any matching symbols on your dice. After resolving the role, you would re-roll all of the dice used that turn (as well as any dice showing a Politics icon).

When a player chooses a Role, each opponent has the opportunity to Follow that role using dice in their Empire, and then re-rolling the dice used. Or they can Dissent, and re-roll any 1 die in their Empire.

Over time your dice pool would expand. It might be necessary to draw a hand of dice out of a bag, roll them, and discard the dice used. I'm not sure how well this would work - but it would take a lot of custom dice anyway, so I stopped thinking about it and moved on to the next idea.

2. Eminent Domain: the Dice Game

Possibly a better approach is this. All of the dice in the game simply have 1 Role symbol on each side. Each player has 6 of these dice, and rolls them into their Empire.

Rather than drafting a die to choose a role, on your turn you simply choose any role you like. Boost it with dice from your Empire, as usual. Opponents get a chance to Follow with dice from their Empire, or Dissent and re-roll 1 die. Re-roll all dice used after resolving the role.

That second idea sounds a lot more viable to me. I like the way that dice you don't use stick around, so if you don't Survey for a while, eventually your hand will be full of Survey icons and it'll be worth choosing that roll - maybe just to refresh those dice!

Resolving the roles would work largely the same way as the card game...

Survey: There could be a supply of Planet tiles, with type and Colonize/Warfare costs on the back, VP and benefits on the front. Benefits would be the same types of things as on EmDo planets - Role Icons, +1 Die (hand size), etc. The survey role would allow you to draw a certain number of them from bag and keep 1. OR - each planet could have a Survey cost, there could be several of them face up, and in order to take 1 you have to spend a number of Survey symbols equal to the Survey cost.

Warfare: There could be a supply of Fighters, like in EmDo. The Warfare role could collect Fighters, or Attack a planet, just like EmDo.

Colonize: The Colonize role would have to work a little bit differently. In this case it would probably simply be "Settle 1 Planet" - and in order to do so you would have to have enough Colonize symbols on hand at the time.

Produce/Trade: Perhaps for simplicity each planet should simply produce 1 (generic) resource. Either that, or the planet could indicate how many (0/1/2) resources it can hold. The roles would work much like they do in EmDo.

Research: Rather than a supply of Research cards, there could be a small board with technologies listed. Much like EmDo, the Level 1 techs would cost 3 Research symbols and require 1 planet of the appropriate type. Level 2 techs would cost 5 and require 2 planets. Level 3 techs would require 7 and require 3 planets. Note that 7 Research symbols on 6 dice will require a hand size bonus or Research icons on planets. I suppose players should get +1 icon when they choose the role, so a full hand of 6 Research could be enough for a Level 3 tech.

Game End:
I'm not really sure when the game should end, maybe when the supply of planets is out, or a supply of vps like in EmDo. Or when a player has a certain number of planets in his Empire. Game End triggers have always been a problem for me.

For reference, I'll just make a quick component list here:
24 (30?) Role Symbol Dice (6 per player)
XX Planet tiles
XX Fighter tokens
XX Resource tokens / VPs (these could be the same thing)

EmDo: Exotica - latest updates

Today and tonight I played Exotica a couple of times with John. I'm still very happy with the structure of the expansion, but I'm not happy with all of the tech cards. I made another pass and have a list of updates to make:

Astroidal X cards

I'm happy with most of the Astroidal cards since the last update, which added an effect even if you don't have any Asteroids. Basically, with 0 Asteroids in play the card does something, but it's weaker than a regular level 1 tech card. With 1 Asteroid in play they are on par with an L1 tech, and with 2+ Asteroids in play they are stronger. I've got updates for two of them though:

Astroidal Research:
Action: Draw 1 card, then RFG up to 1 card in hand from the game.
Asteroid: Draw 1 card, then RFG up to 1 card in hand from the game.

I had it as "or" instead of "and" in the second half, and that did not seem attractive to me. I'll try this upgraded version and see if it causes problems, but relative to Improved Research I think it's about right. A little awkward though, I think you'd have to do the effects one by one - so with 2 Asteroids in play it would be draw, discard, draw, discard, draw, discard rather than draw 3, discard 3.

Astroidal Survey:
Action: Draw 2 cards.
Asteroid: Draw 1 card.
+1 Action

I had the same but without the +1 action. Drawing lots of cards is not very good unless you can play another one, so I thought I'd try this upgrade.

Alien X cards

I have yet to be happy with these cards. I like the idea of them, but so far I haven't gotten them right. I had decided a while ago to do what I did with the Astroidal cards, make them usable with no Exo icons in play, but better with each one - and now I've finally gotten around to updating them.

Alien Understanding:
Action: Trade 1 Resource and RFG up to 1 card in hand.
Exotic:  Trade 1 Resource and RFG up to 1 card in hand.

Alien Inhabitation:
Action: Settle 1 Planet and produce 1 Resource.
Exotic: Settle 1 Planet and produce 1 Resource.

Alien Recruits:
Action: Draw 1 card and collect 1 Fighter.
Exotic: Draw 1 card and collect 1 Fighter. 

Alien Translators and Mining X cards

I am happy with the Alien Translators, though they may be a little too strong. I'm keeping them as they are for now.

I also like the structure of the Mining X cards, but I fear they are too strong, so I'm reducing their effect a little bit.

Mining Base (Permanent L1):
When you flip an Asteroid...
Draw 1 card and collect 1 Fighter.

Mining Laboratory (Permanent L1):
When you flip an Asteroid...
Trade 1 Resource and RFG up to 1 card in hand.

Mining Colony (Permanent L1):
When you flip an Asteroid...
Settle 1 Planet and produce 1 Resource.

Exotic Tech

I'm happy with most of the Exotic tech, but I have edits on a couple of them. I'm not super happy with a few others, but I'm going to keep trying them as they are for now.

Astroidal Library:
Action: Reveal the top 2 cards of your deck.
Asteroid: Reveal the top card of your deck.
Put 1 revealed card into your hand and discard the rest. Until end of turn, treat Exo symbols in your Empire as any Role symbol on the kept card.

It was just 1 card in the first line, I think this will be more attractive. I might try 3, but I think I'll keep only 1 per Asteroid.

Babel Fish (Permanent L1):
Tuck a Standard role card from the Stacks under Babel Fish. You may treat Exo symbols in your Empire as if they were that role's symbol.

I wanted a sort of variable or generic Translator, and originally I had it as "Tuck a card from your hand..." - but that seemed unattractive, so I thought I'd try this version.

Alien Advisory (Permanent L3):
[Exotic symbol]
[Exotic]  = Hand Size +1

I had it without the Exo symbol before, and it was terrible, especially in comparison to Exotic Efficiency, which is a Level 2 card I'm pretty happy with. Now maybe it'll be worth getting, not sure yet.

Diverse Tech

I've been pretty happy with the Diverse tech so far, except for the Space Station. I like the idea of a permanent tech that counts as an Asteroid, but that alone doesn't seem attractive enough to purchase. Today I tried making it count as *2* Asteroids, but that seemed like it might be too good. It IS a Diverse tech, requiring 3 different planet types to purchase, so maybe that's not too strong after all. However I think I have a better idea now...

Space Station (Permanent L1):
Copy any 1 Asteroid in play.

Then it'll only be 1 Asteroid, but it'll have an effect as well, and you may even get a little choice in the matter. if someone else gets the Asteroid with the symbol you want, you can build a copy of it :)

The rest of the Diverse tech seems OK:
Alien Artifact (Permanent L1):
[Exotic Icon]

Tractor Beam:
Action: Recon the Planet deck for 1 Asteroid. Put that card into your Empire face down.

Double Back:
Action: Take 1 Planet card from the Planet discard pile and put it into your Empire face down.

Coalition (Permanent, L2):
Exotic planets count as any planet type for Research.

Organized Labor (Permanent L2):
At the beginning of your turn, fill all resource slots on Asteroids in your Empire.

With the exception of the L2, each of these cards only costs 3 Research. I have been trying to keep the Tech cards in the expansions such that players can get them without concentrating on Research. In Escalation the new tech cards can be purchased with Fighters. In Exotica most of the new techs only cost 3, so they can be bought without a deck full of Research.

Now to update my card files and print out new cards! Unfortunately, my 10 year old Pagemaker 7.0 program has stopped exporting to PDF, so sharing prototype files has become difficult. I will attempt to rectify this, but in the meantime I won't be able to share prototype files :(

Exhibit update

I don't know if I mentioned, I may have found a publisher for Exhibit! It's not really a TMG style game, and Michael said he didn't mind my shopping it around, so I scheduled meetings at Essen with some publishers and the very first one I talked to said they were interested. There's no contract yet, so nothing's set in stone, but it's exciting to have non-TMG interest in my work :)

The potential publisher for Exhibit said they'd like the game to be shorter, and that's something I'd been thinking myself as well. The obvious first fix for that is to simply reduce the number of Artifacts in each stack, making the game last fewer rounds. So that's what I tried. At first I simply removed one of the Eras altogether, and it worked pretty well. However it was too easy to make sets based on Era when there were only 2, so I went back and made a distribution such that there are 2 Early, 2 Mid, and 2 Late tiles in each Artifact stack.

So now there are 6 tiles per stack, and I'm still starting with 2 tiles in each Auction the first round. That makes for a 5 round game, and in the games I played at Strategicon last weekend that translated into a 45-60 minute play time, which is just fine!

Brian pointed out that now there's less time to make use of the Weapons and Tools, so Art should be worth 1 point instead of 2. I agree with that, so I'll adopt that change. I probably ought to reduce the VP value of the Holy Grail as well - instead of 4 additional points (5 total), it should probably be worth 3 additional (4 total) - or maybe just 3 total.

2 last minor changes (for those who have been following along)...
1. I am still using the Grant tile - a 1-time use tile for each player. It had always been used only for an Artifact auction, i.e. not on the Purple (Special) auction. However, to make the rule simpler, I have been thinking it should simply be a "1-shot purple weapon" - meaning it could be used on the Purple auction as well. I don't see a huge down side, and it'll be simpler.

2. I've always thought the set scoring ramped up too quickly. I was using 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8. So I finally decided to adjust that down a bit. I'm now trying 1+2+2+3+3+4+4+5. I'm hoping this will make large sets less dominant, but still an attractive option and a tough decision vs making multiple smaller sets.

That's about it for now!

Orccon bound!

By this time tomorrow afternoon I'll be in (hopefully) sunny California. Well, at the very least I'll be at a hotel next to LAX, settling in for a weekend of gaming at Strategicon's annual Orccon event.

I'm looking forward to a great weekend. Here's what I'm bringing with me:

GAME PROTOTYPES - Find me to play!
* Eminent Domain: Escalation
* Eminent Domain: Exotica
* Captains of Industry
* Exhibit: Artifacts of the Ages

 ACCESSORIES
* Eminent Domain Playmats - I would love to sell a couple of these, or potentially trade for a game or two.

PROMOTIONAL STUFF
* Ground Floor Short Guides - I'll have a handful of these to hand out. Find me if you'd like one.
* Rincon 2013 Flyers and Business Cards
* Rincon 2013 Exhibitor Packets - to hand out in the Vendor room.

It has been a while since I've really participated in any tournaments at the Strategicon events, and that's one of their stronger features. So maybe this time I'll try to get into more of the tournaments, see if I can't earn some Dealer Dollars and go home with a free or discounted game.

Are you going to Orccon this weekend? Leave a comment below and let's get together for some gaming, or a trip to lunch or dinner!

Rincon 2013 - planning and a Fundraiser

Last year I hosted a game convention here in Tucson, and it was a resounding success!

This year we have a much better idea what to expect, and have started planning much earlier. We hope to make Rincon13 bigger and better than last year. We've got the same venue booked, the event will occur Friday through Sunday, October 4-6, 2013 at Holiday Inn and Suites Tucson Airport. Watch Rincongames.com for details!

In an effort to make Rincon bigger and better, we're going to hold a couple of Fundraising events, the first of which is coming up Saturday, March 30th. It's a Game Day and Poker Tournament, and I think it'll be a lot of fun. Here are the details:

Rincon Fundraising Game Day and Poker Tournament

Saturday, March 30, 2013
Barcelona Room, Holiday Inn and Suites Tucson Airport.

Game Day - 10am - 5pm

Come and enjoy 7 hours of gaming. Borrow a game from our library or bring your own. Learn a new game, or play an old favorite that's hard to get to the table. Participants also receive a Rincoin, which will be good for prize drawings at Rincon. All this for a mere $5 donation to Rincon.

Poker Tournament - 6pm - 10pm

Try your luck at No Limit Texas Hold'Em in this tournament run by Jeff Becker. A $25 donation to Rincon will buy you in with 3000 chips (donations from the game day count toward this, and an optional $10 add-on gets you 2000 more chips). Will you survive to final table to vie for the Grand Prize: 2 passes to Rincon and a hotel room for the weekend? There will be additional prizes (passes to Rincon) based on attendance, and all participants will receive Rincoins as they survive in the tournament.

So save the date - I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

EmDo: ESC + EXO

I have been playing a lot of Eminent Domain: Exotica lately (I believe I've mentioned this). Before I started on Exotica, I had been playing a lot of Escalation - but I haven't even touched that since November. The other night my roommate and I decided to combine the two expansions, and include the Exotica card subset that's for use with Escalation...

Ho-ly crap... that was some deep waters! So much different tech! Exotica is a much smaller expansion than Escalation was, and I recall the first couple of times I played Escalation - despite having played over 100 games of EmDo, I really felt like I was exploring strategies and figuring stuff out again. Exotica is much more focused on the Exotic planets/symbols and on the Asteroids, where Escalation adds a ton of new tech cards and dynamics. Adding the two together once again gave me that feeling of wonder and exploration. So many options!

At first John and I postulated that maybe we should have added the 4 cards from each stack back into the game (remember, with the expansions, you remove 4 cards from each stack in a 2 player game). But it turned out that we managed to get a good amount of stuff done. We played 2 games, and neither one felt turn-short to me, so I'm happy with the number of cards in each stack.

John hit me twice with a new card called Create Chaos - which made me discard my hand, and then draw 2 cards as reparations. When he bought the card I gambled a little and decided not to discard any cards from my bad hand. I had just reshuffled, and didn't want to draw my tech cards only to lose them to John's Chaos. He, suspecting that, opted not to play it the following turn, which meant I had a sub-par turn. Rather than repeat that, I went ahead and discarded some useless cards the next turn, drew my good tech, and then lost it to the Chaos. A pretty neat exchange really, and with the 2 card Reparations (and the card from dissenting John's role), I was still able to do something useful on my turn. I like this card, though I could see potentially increasing the Reparations to 3 cards.

That might have been the only Exo-Esc card that really saw any play. I'm pretty sure we'll have to play a lot of games before everything makes an appearance. Oh, I did buy a card called Mimic, which copied John's level 3 Adaptability... though I didn't actually use that effect at all. I have 2 versions of that card, a L2 and a L3 version. Not sure which one I want to go with. L2 seems neat, since it gives you access to a L3 ability, but only if an opponent buys one.

The Exotic stack Peace Treaty may have come into play, but that's not really "new" - I'm familiar with how Peace treaty works ;) Similarly, the Exotic stack Double Times came into play, as expected.

In largely unrelated news, I had created a card for the diverse stack in the EXO set - a permanent called Space Station which counts as an asteroid. It has not seen any play yet, and I suspect that's because 1 Asteroid isn't super exciting. I might try upping that to "counts as 2 asteroids" - that way it'll combo with all the Asteroidal tech.

Anyway, it was an interesting night, and I look forward to playing more of the combined EXO-ESC expansion sets :)

The Woes of Game 'Splainin'

Oh Lucy... You got some 'splanin' to do!

Obligatory nostalgic TV reference out of the way, I'll get on to the meat of this blog post. It's about teaching games.

In the past I have been referred to as "good" at explaining games. I used to take a lot of pride in that, and I actually put some thought into the process of teaching a game - there are definitely good and bad ways to go about it. If you explain things in the right order, and if you give the right amount of information each step of the way, then you can get through the explanation of even relatively complex games fairly quickly and get to the point where players get to actually play the game (which, incidentally, is where they really learn how to play anyway).

More recently I haven't taken as much care in my game teaching. Perhaps due to fatigue (I teach a lot of games nowadays, and often times it's the same one over and over, and in the noisy, distracting environment of a convention at that), or perhaps for another reason (which I'll get into shortly), sometimes I feel like I just don't have it in me to carefully peal away the layers of a game, revealing the magical and interesting inner workings that the players are about to explore.

One thing I've noticed more and more over the last few years is that the job of teaching a game feels a lot more like a chore. Rather than fun and exciting, teaching games has become laborious and tedious - and it's not just me who thinks so. By way of example, today on BoardGameGeek I read a post about Noblemen which mentioned an hour long rules explanation. In the comment thread, the OP said (in re: the length of the explanation):

Much of the hour was taken up by questions - how many points usually win in a five player game? Do the Follys have to be surrounded to score? Are there different ways to acquire men at arms? Are there advantages to placing men at arms on one type of land structure rather than another? Explanation of the cards took a while, as each new player wanted to see the cards. During the game I did not completely understand the point system, i.e. how points are scored using chapels, castles, and palaces, how influence is calculated, etc., but the rules do give examples. Everyone was seeking to understand the basics of how the game was played, as well as what it took to win, how you could foil your opponents, and beneficial moves or courses of action. With the many variants, an hour was not overly excessive.

I replied (as you'll see if you read the thread) that this does an extreme disservice to the other players trying to learn as well as the game itself as players may have a bad experience due to jumbled or lengthy rules explanation.

I've seen this type of thing more and more in recent years, perhaps it was always the case and I was simply more tolerant of it before, or perhaps people have literally become more difficult to teach a game to. I don't really know why that would be, but it's certainly something that's come up. I was discussing this exact phenomenon with a friend after last week's game night, and how it applies to certain people locally.

The BGG user who commented after my post in that thread said it well: "When I'm explaining rules, what part of "shut up and listen" is so hard to understand?" Maybe that's not polite, but frankly when 1 gamer is constantly burdened with the onus of reading, digesting, and then explaining the rules to a game, maybe I should worry less about being polite and consider who is doing who the favor. Hint: the people being spoon fed a summary of what is often a poorly written or translated rulebook are NOT the ones doing anybody a favor.

I don't know who reads this blog, and whether those people are the ones who have to learn all the new games the hard way and then teach their friends or not. But as a public service announcement - when someone is trying to teach a game, let them teach it. Do not interrupt with questions - if they're a good teacher they'll either answer your question by the end, or give you a chance to ask it later. Pay attention - do not space out or have a side conversation, and then complain later that you didn't hear some critical rule. In fact, for the benefit of everyone else at the table, maybe don't have a side conversation even if you aren't going to complain later!

The less people distract and interrupt the game explainer, the quicker you'll be able to start playing the game, and the better than rules explanation will be!

Luckily, this phenomenon is not universally true. I had the pleasure of explaining some games over the holiday season to various friends who are literally a joy to teach, because they're genuinely interested in learning the game, and they don't end up presenting road blocks to the teacher. If it weren't for people like them,I'm not sure what'd stop me from throwing in the towel and letting someone else be the game explainer.