Game Review: Iron Dragon

I'm aware most of you have played this game. But I was just reflecting upon the intricacies of the game when suddenly I realized excitedly that I have to give it a review plus I am incredibly bored at work. You've read the recent game synopsis that Aaron wrote about "games day" with us playing agaist the Wily old veteran who tried to help us master the game within 2 hours.

Despite that ordeal... I really had fun with the game. I think even though the wily veteran was annoying, he provided the insight that I needed to have fun with the game. And seriously not knowing these simple tips really turned me off to the game when I first played it years ago at the Wyndham. It was not a hard game to learn but it was a hard game to play. I was notorious for running out of money and was incredibly inefficient. Having said that, I know now, that it was less my fault, but rather the lack of someone explaining the simple "unwritten rules" that makes the game go. I think when the rules are explained these tips should be given (and a few examples)
1) you can't be afraid to change the buildmaster. Do the math. I think I saved 10 gold on one build turn.
2) some tips on choosing runs: First, look for same cities, then look for cities near each other. Theres always optimal runs. The trick is to find them without being a Paul barr.
3) Look for optimal builds and routes.

That's it.
Iron Dragon: B
Played in 2 hours if possible: A

Jael

Movies about RPGs:

Sorry if you've already seen these, I don't frequent SA that often, but I ran into these movie reviews for 2 different movies about people playing RPGs, Knight Chills and another one called Skullduggery. Funny stuff! Er...

Sign Me UP!!!

Um, no. BUT, dude- next week, lets say like monday or tuesday, lets meet online for a Blood Bowl game. I had that stupid BBjava thing on my machine from when you mentioned it a few months ago, and i recently deleted it. I'll put it back on if theres someone to play. Is there gonna be k00-t00-l00 this sunday?

Review: Princess Monononononononononononoke. *Spoilers* I really didnt get it. The lady who ran Iron-Town was totally bad in my eyes (she was nice to her workers- big fuckin deal.) Why did the main dude give a fuck about her (I'll help them rebuild Iron-Town! YAY! THEN THEY CAN MAKE MORE GUNS AND DESTROY MORE FORAST! AWERSOME!") I dunno. Maybe it was all about "we gotta be super-compassionate to everyone" but main-dude was fuckin knockin' samurai heads off pretty nonchalently earlier in the flick. Whatever. I guess it was good- it was really beautiful visually- the tree spirits- those things ruled. But fuck, I felt ZERO sympathy for any of the humans, including Clare Danes and her grating voice: "I.Do.Not.Want.To.Become.A.Demon.Pass.The.Salt.Mmk.Thanks." I'd rewatch it with the subtitles, but I didn't like it enough, plus I also checked out THE OMEN and JAWS from the Library, and would rather watch one of those. Still wanna see Spirited Away. Anyone see Metropolis? I liked that one way better than this.
Final Grade: B -

PS: I made a new visor.

I also ordered the baseball jersey shirt I made so I should be gettin that this week- i'll show u guys next time we hang out.
-Eddie Dean

I Would Love to Kick Your Sorry BARNmaster Ass!

- What a burn! I called your game BARNmaster! You're so worked! Face! But "seriously", that would be a fun idea to do the scenario based RPG combats, I'm in.

- FUMBBL: This is an online league for the Javabowl game. I have joined. I will join you if you wish. We can play each other, or we can play other people. The Javabowl game is terrific and it would give me a chance to play with yooz guys without my miniatures! I'm assuming (somwhat) interested parties would be Jael, Enron, and Motorbykal. I'm getting Denis in on it as well. Any takers?

- Congrats on being immortalized on an oar hanging from a pub wall! That's pretty cool. The only person who has done anything close to that is Bryce Halford. He did some crazy beer drinking endurance thing in SLO and got his name on a mug and placard on the wall of this bar for finishing this feat. Terrific.

You guys should have a MATH-OFF!

RAAR! MY MATHS SKILLS IS UNSTOPABLE!

There's a Planescape joke on Something Awful - HERE. Not so funny, but its neat to hear of someone besides Jon talking about it!

Congrats on the BLADES dude! You gotta fill us in again on what its all about.

-Stephen King when the rents due

I'm callin both of you out, harnmaster or no!

If it's a basketball game of piss, I'll surely win as my water cannon outweighs both of your puny water pistols by approximately 20 grams.

Mykal, it's awesome that you keep accomplishing stuff. I can't remember the last accomplishment that I've done. What a great way to make a friend feel inept. Keep it up!! hazaar! Congratulations on winning the blades! I was actually thinking about that, because you didn't blog yesterday. I just didn't want to say anything!

A-Bone, i'm trying to round up some of me friends to go cherry picking next weekend, (the ripe kinda of cherries) at brentwood. I don't know if it'll happen, but let me know if you'd and amy be interested.

A-lick - Excitement awaits this thursday for sure. I got my SUPAR UBAR OGRE BLOCKER in the mail last thursday and ended up not going to the game through the excitement. It's going to be great as usual.

Rupars- haven't heard from you on IM lately... whassssup?

I think I addressed everyone, exept Jon, but he's a harnmaster playing, blood shitting dane. So what does that mean? absolutely nothing fuckars! Jon, give me a ring sometimes man... long distance is 5cents a minute now... cheep.

Jael

BLADES BLADES BLADES!

We DID it!!! Blades for the Corpus First VIII -- hasn't happened in 10 years! I'm almost over my hangover now! Just wrote this large message and blogger ate it -- blegh. I'll write it again later.

Mykal

P.S. Thanks for the Anal SARS tip... you're probably right, and I've removed it now (hope you all got my address in time.) Couldn't think of another way, since I didn't have your emails, addresses or anything else... hope the distribution list agony isn't too bad...

Elric, throw down the proverbial gloves and stick

I propose that insted (Bonds of Friendship) you both go down to a local basketball court, whip it out and see who can throw a stream the furthest. Perhaps even a cursive writing contest. Seriously that sounds like that could be a lot of pointless fun. SOmething I would sit around and do when I didnt have anything to do. Eric what in the hell compelled you to buy buffy, 1st season?

Jon, I want to believe you about trying to get Elric to run WFRP, but some how I think that it is just another ruse to clown the system. Kinda like me and Gurrrrrrrrrrrps. Maybe Eric should adapt hackmaster crits to WFRP. Sidetrack alert! Hey guys what is going on with D&D v3.5? Are they going to kill 3.0? Are they going to stop pressing the old manuals? I heard rumors that Lizards of the toast are buying back modules from stores... Looks like Hasbro is set to gut D&D for profit. D'oh!

Enronious Butterflyingtonavich III

I repent!

I've totally told Eerik that I'll play Warhammer! In fact, he was saying that he'd run it a couple weeks ago, then he totally wussed out. ¡Wuss! In fact I promised I wouldn't be a ratcatcher/gravedigger, and he still wouldn't bite! Unlike Blood Bowl, which I occasionally feel like I should play with Eerik out of pity, but when it comes down to it I don't really feel like playing, I would totally give WFRP a shot!

Anyway, HârnMaster gives rules for playing a Ratter, so now I think that's a pretty cool thing to be. A gravedigger, though? ¡Ridiculous!

I propose the following event:

Minor-league, niche RPG combat day

Each participant chooses a game of their choice. Each participant creates one character for each system. We then run each set of characters/systems through a series of combat tests created to determine which system is the most brutal. I propose the following tests:

1. Gladiatorial Challenge--man-jo-man combat to the death between the two characters involving any weapons selected by the participant. The characters are moderately-armored.
2. Fool's Rush--one character has a bow, no armor, and a light melêe weapon. The other character has a sword, light armor, and starts two or more range increments away from the first character.
3. Insane Terrain--combat occurs in a large room with dangerous terrain effects (such as collapsing bridges over lava, spiked pits, etc.).
4. ¡Enemies No More!--In a surprise twist straight from today's headlines, the two combatants must team up, Enemy Mine style, to fight a band of five of "iconic" enemies for the system's setting--Gargun (Orcs) for HM, possibly Skaven for WHFRPG, etc..

I throw down this gauntlet! Will you accept????

Also, some other stuff

- Johnny, what happened at your BB league this past Thursday? Did you go, or did you let my vicarious life down by going to another interview?

- I purchased the first season of Buffy on DVD and both Parenthood and Memento. 1rst 4 espisodes of Buffy are D-: Sux0rz. Parenthood is a huge A+, and Memento got a strong B+, a very interesting movie that had some fun turns and twists in it. Interesting premise and execution.

- Enron: Jon can easily shoot down your claim to a detailed critical hit system being a strength of WFRP to a weakness because it is infact not as expansive as Rolemaster. Or MERP for that matter (a "simplified" version of Rolemaster). Though recently Jon has been encouraging me to run my pet system (WFRP), which is a bit refreshing, he also has made it clear I should not run said game until he "moves" to Boston or someothersuch town....

Ahh yes, the often deadly Warhamster...

Yeah most players were not long for life in Warhammer. Plus, the Crit' tables were the shit. As far as I know they were the only system out there at the time with extensive critical hits tables. It is sad to say it Eric, but you will never convince anyone other than me the merits of the Warhammer system. I love that game. Too bad Jon will never get over the "Ratcatcher" and the "Gravedigger". (Go ahead Jon, I can see you know reenacting what it would be like to be a ratcatcher). Eric if you were smart you would tell Jon they came out with a new edition and edit your book and remove all references of those two from it. Just change the character class names.

Whatever

HârnMaster more deadly than say....

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay?!?!? I think not, sir!

Precious HârnMaster!

Well, Aaron, HârnMaster is a fantasy RPG system which has an emphasis, according to the back cover, on "ease of use and fun." I like fun! It's the one that comes on the cardstock pages which you keep in a three-ring binder. It's a skill-based system which tries to be more realistic than other systems. You buy the system separately from the world information, but the world info is more closely-based on real medieval conditions than most other games. So there is extensive information on feudal economics, law, etc.. I guess the gist of it is that it starts from a more realistic place than other games. Yeah there are no million-person cities, but I think the reality in the system would make for an interesting campaign. There are arcane and divine magic systems, so you can build on that base and develop it to wherever you want.

I think the combat system looks like a lot of fun. It's definitely more deadly than other systems. It seems to strike a pretty good balance between D&D generic combat and extreme Rolemaster chart-checking. You can survive and recover from wounds, but every fight does at least have the potential to cause bloodloss, shock, infection, etc..

The only problem with it is that since it's a niche product, Columbia Games is small and puts out lots of other stuff (they put out Wizard Kings, for example), and so while there's lots of stuff out for it by now, they don't pump out the material as fast as most other companies. The other part of that is that it's a pretty expensive game. The production values are really nice (cardstock full-color manuals), but it cost me like $30 for the basic rules and another $30 for the magic system. I guess that price range is becoming less unusual, but it's still pricey.

Crack Lanes: Revolution

Was a friends birthday last night, so another friend of ours treated us to some Beni-Hanas - I've never been there. It was pretty sweet. WAY TOO EXPENSIVE, but since our dude was picking up the tab, juuuust right. Did a few Sake-Bombs (never had done those either) - those were pretty damn cool. I've seen people do them the irish-car-bomb way (where u just drop the shot in your glass and chug) but we did them the way where u balance the sake on your chopsticks above the beer, then everyone slams the table and the shots fall in by themselves- ok, so we broke a few glasses that way, but it mostly worked. Then we went to a bar for a few hours, and then bowling. The bowling alley from Big Lebowski (Star Lanes, BKA Crack Lanes) was closed down about a year ago, but we went to this swanky new bowling alley in Hollywood where the bar was contructed from one of the old lanes from crack lanes - and they also had the cool neon Stars and sign from it inside the place. The winner bowled something like 75 - was just a little bit sloppy.

-Neo Metro

Cowboy Bebop... Eh...

I tried watching that show a couple time when I lived in El Segundo. Both times: "hey this is a cool intro". Then, BAM! The sad reality of the show appears. What a waste of a good intro. Ah yes, Jon and the bizarre RPGs. Where do you dig up some of those systems? Steampunk: my favorite bathroom activity. GURPS: my favorite David simulation system. HârnMaster? What in the world is that? And do I want to know?

So far, the last two weeks of work has ruled so much that I have generated 8 D&D characters, played Avalon Hill trivial persuit, taught everyone how to play button men, and well... slept at work. Go go gadget job! Sucks about yours Elrick. Nothing worse than when your job sucks balls with no relief in sight for the weekend. The weekend is all you have to look forward to sometimes.

Johnny, ride that bike in those hills near fremont. There has got to be some good trails there.

Jo Job is what?