Games that were run include:

• Lady Blackbird sort of a steampunk Firefly adventure
• Dark Heresy a Warhammer 40,000 RPG
• Primetime Adventures an RPG where you create TV shows and act them out.  This one is very popular with our group.  I’ll have to try it sometime.
• D&D 4th Edition Dragonlance game
• D&D 4th Edition conversion of Tomb of Horrors, which is what I played.

Tomb of Horrors is a classic and infamous dungeon module written in the late 70′s by Gary Gygax.  It’s notorious for being an extremely difficult and very deadly dungeon.  This was an update of the Tomb of Horrors for 4th edition.  I was curious about the dungeon, because I’ve heard about it and wanted to experience this classic.

The DM had 11th level pregens created for the adventure.  This was my first taste of the paragon tier.  I’m sure it easier to handle all the options when you’ve slowly built up the character over time, but there is a lot going on.  While some of the options are cool, others seemed a fiddly.  I played a human fighter, so he wasn’t too complicated.  I can definitely understand the complaints about the slow combat in the paragon tier when you have so much to consider.

As for the adventure itself, for most part it was pretty fun.  I liked the puzzle nature of the dungeon.  How each room was an obstacle to overcome and there were traps at almost ever step.  It certainly had an old school feel.  Yet, I think it loses a little in translation.  I never felt in grave danger.  Maybe due to the sturdiness of 4th ed characters.  Single monster fights don’t play well to the strengths of 4th ed either.

It’s great to get out to the guild gathering.  The tough part is choosing which game to play.  I want start running 4th edition games as a DM, so I want to play it as much as possible to become comfortable with the rules.  But, I’d also like to try out as many other game systems as possible. So many games, so little time.

Car Wars is a game of vehicular combat.  Each player drives a car loaded out with armor and various weapons and equipment  in a no holds barred grudge match to the death.  It was originally published in 1980 by Steve Jackson Games.  Since then there have been a total of five editions.  Apparently, the game grew in complexity over the first four editions.  The fifth edition, the edition I played, reduced a lot of that complexity.  Which was probably for the best, because the edition I played seemed like just the right level of complexity to me.  The 5th edition is still in print and available here.  PDFs of various editions are available here.  There hasn’t been any new material published since late 2002.

You start out by choosing a car.  All the cars come pre-made (prior versions had vehicle creation rules, but the fifth edition never did).  Each car has various strengths and weaknesses.  Some had more armor, but fewer weapons.  Others had better weapons and better handling, but lightly armored. I ended up choosing a car with a few heavy rockets, decent armor, a ram plate, and some smoke screens.

Armor is divided among front, back, sides, top, and bottom.  Each car has a Handling Class (HC) which determines how often and how easily you can make difficult maneuvers.  There is a wide variety of weapons: rockets, machine guns, ram plates, flamethrowers, laser beams.  There is also fun equipment like smoke screens, oil slicks, and paint sprayers.

Each car was represented by a little card stock car.  But, you could use matchbox cars or micro-machines.  Movement is determined by your current speed and measured in inches.  There is a turning key that you use to measure your movement.  It also determines the cost to your HC for making manuevers.  A 30 degree turn costs you 1 HC whereas a 90 degree will cost you 5 HC.  Go below a certain threshold on your HC and you could lose control of your car where you could fish tail or roll it.

The rules are pretty straight forward and pretty easy to learn.  So, it is pretty friendly to new gamers, but you really need some well versed in the rules to teach it.  We actually had someone running the game for us as a sort of GM.  This isn’t really necessary, but it does help to have someone familiar with the rules and who can act as a referee.

I had a great time playing the game.  There are lots of fun little touches in the rules that lead to great moments in the game.  Like the random events that can happen when a daring maneuver goes bad.  Or how you determine the position of the cars after a collision (you pick the cars up and drop them).  You can blow off tires which cripples you HC.  You can roll down your window and shoot at the driver with your machine game.  (My driver met a gruesome death after rolling down the window, catching an incendiary bullet in the face, then catching fire.) The cars felt well balanced as no one seemed to have a clear advantage.

Car Wars also brought back warm memories of good car combat video games of yore.  Spy Hunter, Twisted Metal 2, and the old arcade game Demolition Derby come to mind.  I wonder if these games were influenced by Car Wars.

The game time is supposed to last around 45 minutes to an hour.  Our game clocked in at well over 3 hours.  I don’t think that is typical though.  We were all learning the rules.  And a couple of nasty hits early on knocked out a couple weapons on two of the cars, so there was a lot of cat and mouse. So, it did get a little tedious towards the end, but I think it was due to circumstances in the game that weren’t typical.

I recommend checking this game out if you can.  It’s too bad that it is not widely available and no new material is coming out for it.  Steve Jackson Games would do well to reissue all the 5th edition stuff in one streamlined package.  It may regain some popularity.   It is a well balanced game that runs smoothly.

There are rockets, flying shrapnel, frickin’ laser beams, and cars smashing into each other.  What else do you want from a game?

Photo from the game on Saturday

I’d been interested in RPG’s for a long time, specifically D&D, since it was the only one I was really aware of .  I’ve been a computer gamer since I was a wee lad and I’m into many other geeky things.  Also, my mom and dad played D&D for a while before I was born.  I even have my mom’s dice and set of minis that she painted.  So, D&D was in my blood and it seemed like it would be right up my alley.  I just never had the opportunity to play.

It is actually pretty difficult to get into the hobby if you are completely new to it and know no one who plays.  I’ve walked into game stores out of curiosity, but I barely knew what I was looking at let alone knew how to get into a game and actually play.  Thankfully, here in Tucson, we have a very active Meetup group called Tucson RPG Guild sponsored by SAGA, the Southern Arizona Gamers Association. I’m going to go off a little bit of a tangent here, but this is important to the story.  If not for the existence of the Tucson RPG Guild and SAGA, I wouldn’t be a gamer right now.  It brought me into the hobby.  From what I’ve read, tabletop RPGs are waning as a hobby.  The peak of the hobby was two decades ago.  Sales are down, etc.   With that in mind, I believe organizations like SAGA and meetup groups like Tucson RPG are vital to the future of the hobby.  I have more to say on this subject, but I’ll leave that for another post.

On to the story: Finally, in June, I had a free Saturday that happened to fall on one of the monthly Tucson RPG meetups.  My wife and daughter were out of town, and I had no other commitments.  I’d done a little research before hand.  I knew there was a new version of D&D called 4th edition and that the last edition was 3.5.  I came in wanting to play 4th edition because it was the shiny new thing.  Alas, when I arrived at the meetup, the 4th edition table was full.  Luckily, that week, there was someone running a 3.5 game and there was room at the table.  A young woman named Erin and her boyfriend, Nick were at the table.  Erin was the DM.  They had pregenerated 10th level characters.  With Nick’s advice, I chose the human rogue, because he was the least complicated mechanically.  A third player, Paul, joined us and chose a cleric. Nick played human ranger and also played a warrior to round out the party.

Once acquainted, we started to play.  I was bewildered at first.  The character sheet was a mystery to me.  I didn’t know what a D20 was.  The first call to roll initiative was met with a blank stare from me. Everyone was helpful and I picked up things pretty quickly.  The session started with all the PCs magically transported to a clearing after being bitten by a magical golden snake.  We introduced ourselves and set out to try to discover where we were and why we were there.  After finding various strange clues (dead bodies with plants growing out of them, giant glowing foot prints) and overcoming a few obstacles, we made it to another clearing.  The DM got out a battle mat.   A fairly long, but fun combat ensued between us and several magical wild animals.  We used quarters for our PCs and little pipe cleaner figures for the monsters. Despite my confusion and flailing about, I had a great time and managed to be fairly effective in combat.  At the end of the session, we all exchanged information and agreed to continue on the game as a home game.

Several things about this first session really clicked with me and drew me into the hobby.  First, I really liked combat.  I’ve always been a avid computer gamer.  In fact, my favorite computer of all time is X-COM, a tactical, turn-based game that features combat quite similar to D&D 3.5 combat.  So, combat really scratched that gaming itch for me.  Second, it’s a social hobby.  Most of my hobbies are solitary and it’s not always easy for me to make new friends.  So, it’s a great way to be more social and meet new people.  Third, I immediately recognized the creative outlet that D&D can provide.  I have an active imagination and like to plot out stories in my head.  I just don’t have the ability and/or the discipline to write them out.  The framework of D&D (and RPGs in general) for creating and telling stories really seems like it can be a creative outlet for me.

We continued to meet throughout the summer to continue the campaign.  Somewhere along the way, role playing really started to click for me.  My character started to crystallize in mind and I began to make decisions based on what the character would do instead of what makes the most sense from a meta-gaming standpoint.   Meanwhile, I ravenously browsed the internet to learn more about D&D and RPGs in general.   I attended another meetup and got to play 4th edition finally.  While I really enjoyed the 3.5 campaign I was in, I found I preferred 4th edition as a system.

After quite a few scheduling conflicts, the campaign ended with a satisfying conclusion in August.  Nick and Erin moved to Chicago.  I’m now playing Paul’s home brew campaign using the Swords and Wizardy system. He is chronicling it on his blog, The Warlock’s Home Brew and I’ll be writing about that soon.

This campaign was a great introduction to the hobby for me.  I’m actually glad I ended up at that table during that meetup.  I got play in and finish a D&D campaign.  I got to play 3.5 which, while it’s not my preferred system, I’m glad to now have experience with the system so I have the frame of reference.  And, of course, I was introduced to a great hobby which I hope to enjoy for many years to come.