Also, Genghiscon is coming February 11-14.  Check out the Denver Gamers Association website for more details!

The Fate Points

I’ve had a couple of DMs use the Fate Points.  The incarnations I’ve played allowed players to re-roll their bad rolls, or re-roll the DM’s good roll.  Fate Points give you that extra safety net for the bad dice moments.  For DMs running casual sorts of games, this is a nice option to give players a little more control over the dice.

The Player-Requested Option

Dante, as our DM, is a pretty easy-going DM.  And he’s been a pretty good guy during those battles when we have bad dice nights.  Like all groups, we’ve had nights where players have had REALLY bad dice nights, and Dante has given in to our fate requests.  Here are a couple of examples:

Double Rolls. When Tali the Barbarian went almost any entire night without rolling a hit, she asked if she could roll two d20s and take the best roll.  Low and behold, when given this fateful option, she managed to roll a crit.  It was a one-time Fate roll, but it made the night a little more fun for Tali.

Self-Roll. Akta the Warlord was running out of hit points rapidly, and she was having a difficult time trying to kill her attacker.  She’d used her second wind, all other healing options were exhausted, and no one was close enough to help her.  She asked Dante if she could roll her attacker’s attack roll.  That way, she could control her fate a bit.  Fortuitously, she missed herself.  Again, this was a one-time Fate roll, but it gave her control of her fate.

It’s tough to be a player invested in your character and watch that character die.  While these may not be rules you find in any source book, Fate rules give a player control over their character’s fate.  And even that little bit of control can make everything a little easier to accept even bad dice nights.

And nobody will have to decide anything…

As some of you may remember, Efreak has an aversion to traditional D&D.  It happens to also be Vanir’s birthday this week, so we gifted him an acceptable alternative to this situation: Talisman, by Fantasy Flight Games.  So this weekend we will be giving this one a try.  The graphics and look of it reminds me of an old game I used to play as a kid named Hero Quest.  This one appears to be less dungeony and more card-based, but it still looks like it will be a good time.

This is a considerable departure from our usual gaming motives.  Previously, our group has proven to be very change-averse so trying out a new type of game is a pretty big deal for us.  Here’s to hoping it’s fun!

In Which Vanir Relays The Origin Story Of Stupid Ranger To Provide Backdrop For His Tale

Way back in late 2003, my bachelor days were coming to a close, and I’d been dating my now-wife about 8 months. My longtime karate buddy Dante was back from college and job hunting, and we invited him and his wife (Stupid Ranger, who I’d only met a couple times before), and we invited them over for New Years at Efreak’s apartment along with a couple of her college friends. After thoroughly disturbing the other guests (I believe the phrase Dante used during Charades was “the Right Testicle of Our Lord?”), we decided it was so much fun we wanted to get together more often. I forget whose idea it was to play D&D, but I was thoroughly excited about the idea. I approached my lady-friend with the idea, and she was apprehensive about it. Eventually, I successfully pestered her enough to try it.

It was rough for her at first, especially the roleplaying, but she got the hang of it eventually. And so the four of us, along with our friend John, embarked on a year-long adventure that would come to be known as the Evensbrook campaign. Efreak played a little rogue gnome named Goudy Sans Sarah (she’s a graphic designer – if you don’t laugh, she will negatively readjust your kerning). I loved that campaign. I thought Efreak did too. I was wrong.

In Which Vanir Completely Chubs His Perception Check

Things went really well for a couple months. But slowly, the frustration she was feeling started to get the best of her. She was too scared to tell me she wanted to quit, and I, of course, was too blinded by the fact that I had a wife who played D&D with me to notice. However, I did start to take notice when she started referring to game night as “F#$*ING D&D”. It was, at the time, like a bomb went off in my face. That sucked. A lot.

In retrospect, I can’t say I’m really surprised there was a breakdown of communication. It was during our first year of marriage, and wow did we need to spend some skill points on that. And we eventually got through that and a lot of other stuff in the years to come, but gaming was one thing we never really saw eye to eye on since. We’d play a little Rock Band every now and then or the occasional game of Scrabble, but by and large we’d just hang out and watch TV. And, as previously stated, my heart’s desire is to game with my wife. So, it never really sat very well with me.

Consequently, every couple of months, I decide to try another game and see if she’ll play it with me. Usually, it’s a videogame. And unfortunately, it usually results in her getting frustrated and not wanting to play anymore. Which sucks, and is not the outcome I wanted at all.

In Which Vanir Discovers That Level 5 Married People Have More Skill Points

This very cycle was perpetuating in my living room yesterday night, this time with Carcassonne on the Xbox 360. I’d recently played the tabletop version with friends and enjoyed it, and thought perhaps it might do the trick since the console version did all the math for you. Well, she got frustrated again, and I got frustrated again, but something a little different happened this time. I’m not quite exactly sure what, but I think our communications circuitry might have finally adapted.

We started having a very enlightening conversation as to what it was we both want out of games. I’m certain we’d tried to have this conversation before, but this time it worked a lot better. The things I enjoy in a game are somewhat typical of a lot of “gamer” types. I like twitch games and shooters, but I have a special weakness for turn-based strategy (disclaimer: I suck at it, but I love it) . I like a lot of interactivity in my games, and I like to feel like I’ve accomplished something when I finish one. And, as you may have guessed, I loves me some roleplaying.

Efreak, on the other hand, loves games of chance. She likes Rock Band. She absolutely hates strategy games. When I asked her why, she said she gets so stressed out that she feels like she’s going to have a heart attack. That’s when it started to make a little more sense to me. When she comes home from work, and she’s frazzled out of her mind, one of the things I’ll frequently hear her say is “I don’t care, I just don’t want to decide anything“. She’s been making decisions and stressing out at work all day. She doesn’t want to do it at home on top of all that. Decisions aren’t relaxing for her, ergo strategy games aren’t relaxing for her. And here I was picking a lot of turn based stuff because I thought it would be slower paced (and I like it). My dear wife informs me a lot of women feel like this.

How in the hell did I miss this? So what does she find relaxing? “Traditional” games like Life,  in which you don’t have to decide very much. The excitement of winning a race just from random chance appeals to her. Card games (sadly, the only one I really know is poker, and that’s only because… well…). Games that you can use your brain on (but not strategy) like Trivial Pursuit. I don’t understand why she likes Scrabble. I’m usually thinking two moves ahead when I play that game, but whatever she does it makes her more than a match for my limited intellect.

There is also a certain amount to which, for some reason, she gets intimidated because “you’re so much better at these games than I am”. I don’t generally pwn the crap out of my wife every time we play games, but it’s a factor nonetheless. Playing a game of chance, in this case, makes her feel like she’s on equal ground.

In any case, it’s plain to see we’re different kinds of gamers. Now, the trick is going to be finding where that Venn diagram intersects so we can have some fun together.

In Which Vanir Ponders The Road Ahead

Well, the road ahead for damn sure contains Boom Blox, as that’s one game Efreak specifically said she’d love to play with me. And she’s a huge Beatles fan, so this is a no-brainer. We’re also going to head out to our FLGS and try to find some stuff we’d both enjoy playing.

In the meantime, I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone with similar experiences as ours to either tell your tale, or (better!) to share what you’ve done that helped you. We surely cannot be the only couple who have gone through this!

Ultimately, it comes down to one of our old standbys here at Stupid Ranger – the only thing that matters is that everyone at the table is having fun. Finding out how to do that in one’s marriage might take some time and effort, but I can’t really think of a better reason to get back on the horse and keep trying.

Until next time!

Overcoming the Nerdgasm Effect

Now, whenever I have heard Settlers of Catan mentioned in nerdly circles, I was quickly met with the all-too-familiar “hurrrr” sound of nerd joy. This sound was usually followed with some fevered discussion of an expansion or version of the game that the person had heard of without a shred of explanation regarding what the game was actually about.

Going in, I had no expectations… for all I knew it was some sort of deep space RISK or involved trading cow udders for favor from Greek gods for some reason. I was happy to find out that it was a really fun strategy game containing none of those things that I mentioned.

Dynamics…

I like that Settlers is a game of both luck and strategy. The goal is to accumulate Victory Points by developing a settlement that consisted of roads, settlements, and cities. You buy upgrades to your settlement by spending resource cards, which you get relative to where your settlements are placed .

I have to admit that watching my friends set up the board was rather daunting, but the dynamics of the game are essentially dead simple but very fun. I really enjoyed the fact that both luck and strategy is involved, and that the game is structured such that there isn’t all that much direct conflict amongst the players.

Even though the game dynamics are simple, they produce a surprisingly complicated set of strategies for accumulating, controlling, and spending resources. Add in some friendly player interaction and you’ve got yourself a great gaming experience (even though Stupid Ranger won!)

Stupid Ranger and I are going to pick up a set for ourselves before long!