Game Review – The Resistance: Avalon (Tabletop)

When it was released, The Resistance became a pretty big deal. It improved on and solidified the social-deduction genre into something that gamers really enjoyed. The game is super simple, uses minimal components, and keeps every player involved in the game until the end (no “game master” needed). Several expansions were released containing all sorts of variations on the original gameplay, and some of these were put together in an upgraded but still quite simple package in the form of The Resistance: Avalon, with the theme of the game changed from Sci-Fi to Arthurian Fantasy. This is the version that I own and have played so many times; let’s take a look at what’s good and bad about it.

As far as theme goes, I don’t care that much, especially since it doesn’t really affect the game (as evidenced by the fact that they changed it so drastically), but I do like the knights/fantasy theme slightly better if only for the artwork. I don’t rely on the theme too heavily when teaching the game (the fact that the “king” changes every round is a bit strange), but it can help draw people in who otherwise might not consider playing.

Actually playing the game is fairly simple. Most of the players are “good-guys” (knights of the round table) who don’t know who anyone else is, and a minority are “bad-guys” (minions of the evil Mordrid) who know the identity of the other bad guys. There are five “missions” in every game; if 3 succeed the good-guys win, if three fail the bad-guys win. A designated player will select a group of players to go on a mission and everyone will vote on them. If the vote fails enough times the mission will fail, but if the vote passes everyone will get two cards that say either “success” or “fail.” Good-guys must put in “success” cards while bad-guys can put in either. It only takes one “fail” card for the mission to be considered a failure (most of the time). Players move from round to round trying to identify who the bad-guys are and exclude them from the later missions.

Even on its own this is actually a pretty fun game (and it’s basically all the standard Resistance game is), but things get much more interesting when some special roles get added in. The most basic and playable is Merlin, who knows who the bad-guys are. But if you play with him, the Assassin player is also added to the game, and if the good-guys win, the Assassin gets one shot to reveal Merlin and turn the tide. Additionally for good there is Percival, who knows the identity of Merlin, and for evil there is: Mordrid, who is unknown to Merlin; Morgana, who appears to be Merlin to Percival (thus he sees two Merlins); and Oberon, who does not appear to the other evil players (and is thus a detriment to them, not an asset). There’s even a few more variations such as the Lady of the Lake, which lets you see other players’ loyalty (and only really works in larger groups).

Together (Merlin is technically in the basic game, but I like to first have a “teaching” round without him for new players) these make an excellent package with all kinds of variations for all different player counts (5-10), and I have yet to play a game that did not go over well (except with me, which I’ll get to). The mechanisms are simple, but clever enough that players always have an exciting (and sometimes stressful) time puzzling out who’s who in time for that final, critical mission. There’s a lot of different things you can read into, from how they voted, to who they chose for a mission and whether a mission they went on passed or failed, and of course, if they’re your friends, you know how they play other games and what ticks they might have. Adding in the variations just spices things up that much more.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve played this game and had a blast; it’s tense and involving without being overly complicated. But I’ve started to get a little bit sick of it. It’s been a go-to game for when we have “new” players (or players who aren’t that into the “board” part of board games), when there isn’t much time, or with large groups of people (though this happens less often), and I have played it so many times, with so many variations. Things have just gotten repetitive, and the fact that most of my games have been played with 5 or 6 players doesn’t help that fact (I have a small game group). There is a distinct pattern: first round success, second round toss-up, followed by two (or one) successes and the assassin correctly fingering Merlin. Occasionally there is an upset and we go into five rounds, or the assassin is particularly bad, but still the pattern of the bad-guys winning “cheaply” remains. Attempting to change things up just gets me “Oberon isn’t fun” or a game that doesn’t quite work properly (in small games the Lady of the Lake is too powerful, the other bad-guys make it easier for evil, and even Percival doesn’t even things out). But that’s just me personally being burned out (I am the “game guy” and I’m the one with the copy we play every time), everyone else I play with has a blast.

If you are interested in the idea of social deduction games, if you like Werewolf and the like, or if you are just looking for a small, simple, and inexpensive game for a group of friends I would recommend this game. I have gotten way more than what I paid for in enjoyment out of it over the years, and the base The Resistance game is even cheaper. If you think you’re going to play it a lot and might get burned out like me I’d recommend getting that non-Avalon version and picking up some of the expansions along the way, there are options in those to make the game identical to Avalon gameplay-wise and a whole lot more (as of right now there are no expansions for the Avalon version). I would also recommend looking into card-sleeves. The game has bridge-sized cards, which are harder to find sleeves for, but you shuffle them A LOT, and Indie Boards & Cards has a habit of printing games where you shuffle a lot on relatively poor cardstock, this being no exception. The other components are all fine (the boards are basically card stock, but you don’t interact with them much and they don’t get damaged. And the tokens are all really nicely made), but be prepared for the game as a whole to get scuffed up from round after round of play.

Russian “Space Battle” Battleship in Space Board Game – In the Collection (космический бой)

I’ve got about as many board games as I would ever need (let’s see that stop me) including most of the classic ones that immediately come to mind when “board games” are mentioned, like: Life, Monopoly, Uno, Scrabble, and Battleship. Most of those are pretty common; though, even in the middle of southwest Texas you can find those and some “designer” board games like Catan and 7 Wonders, but one of the strangest things I’ve ever found out there in the middle of nowhere is a Russian re-implementation of Battleship called космический бой.

Typing that into Google Translate will get you “Space Battle” or “Space Combat”, which is pretty accurate as the game is Battleship with the titular water-based vessels replaced with spaceships. There are a few variations: the largest ship is only 4 spaces, and there are a few 1-space “fighters”. I don’t have instructions (I say squinting at the back of the box) and can’t read Russian anyway, so I don’t know if there are any rule changes to compensate for what seem to be some annoying additions. There are some rule changes/additions in other countries and regions (Russia included) that make the game in general more playable (less boring than totally random guessing), and hopefully they had the sense to implement them here.

But other than it being obviously Battleship with everything changed slightly (the case, the ships, the pegs) I can’t give you much information about it since I can’t read Russian (or any Cyrillic language). I did find a shop listing for the game after a little internet searching, and running it through the translator doesn’t produce much clarification, though it does acknowledge that the game is a variation on Battleship, making me wonder how the copyright for the game works there (or even here, I don’t really know much about its history), and it offers a vague “Ships on the need to touch each other, the minimum distance – a single cell” that could be an answer to my rules question above. But in any case, we know from the side of the box that anyone can enjoy the game… as long as they are less than 100 years old.

Board Game Creation Blogging Part 5 – Rethinking and Downsizing (w/ Making an RPG)

Where I last left off this series I was failing at Kickstarter, which was actually quite some time ago now. I’ve made two household moves and published a dozen books (of my comics) since then, among other things, so it’s kind of crazy coming back now. I definitely re-evaluated my position and have been looking into why I was unable get my game off the ground. I have made several games (and game-related items) since then, but they need some more polish before I blog about them.

I had mentioned at the end of my last post that I would be working on a smaller game; one that could more easily be kick-started for next time. And I have been (I’ve got a couple of good ones), but I thought as I was working on them, “why not go smaller? Or with less cost?” It was a hard thing to think about, especially since I’m a bit of a stickler for components (I want them to last a long time). I didn’t want to create a game that used a PoD service like the Game Crafter or one that was print-it-yourself as both of those would be “less than perfect” (don’t get me wrong, GC is a great product. I use them, and what they’re doing is really cool, but it’s a bit more expensive than I would like for the quality). It then occurred to me at some point (I will have a separate post about it) that a type of game that I would be interesting in making and that could be downloaded and printed by people easily was a role-playing game.

I had recently started trying to get more into role-playing, and since most of the major books are huge, intimidating messes (and I mean that in the best possible way, they are endearing messes) I went looking for short, simple RPGs online. And I found quite a few (22 is the number I currently have printed off in my binder, and that’s not counting all of the ones I found online). Most of them ranged from 1-10 pages, but one seems the most common length. There is a certain sense of satisfaction that I can understand would come from both writing and playing a “single-page” RPG. But none of these were exactly what I wanted. I wanted mechanics that were slightly more “intuitive” but still something you could “sink your teeth into”. I believed there was and is some room for something closer to my “perfect” version of a role-playing game, so I set about writing it.

bookcoverimage-rpglte

It took me far longer to do that than I had anticipated, but that was because it ended up much longer than I had thought. Not the rules, necessarily: they’re only 5 pages (though a bit cramped at around 7,000 words), but the “everything else” that comes with making an RPG. I’ve ended up writing 27 pages full of stuff for it, and in my excitement to get my ideas down I was writing some of the later pages before finishing the “necessary” pages, which would be: rules for playing the game, rules for running the game, and some pre-built enemies to go in the game (a “3-book” structure if you will, a-la D&D but with only 5 pages for each section). My plan was to put these “core rulebooks” up online and maybe a few “supplements” (1-page extras) after that, then combine them all into a book that would be the “beta” for the game. Hopefully. people would then play it and I would be able to gather feedback and write some extra stuff for the “first edition”. I still hope to do that, but I did it a bit backwards and finished the book first (it took me far too long to write this post), so now that it’s already out in the wild (though at the moment only purchase-able through me personally) I will be putting the PDFs up for download on the dragoncompany.org site.

Core Rules Beta (PDF)

Game Master Guide Beta (PDF)

Monsters/Bestiary Beta (PDF)

Beta Character Sheet (PDF)

I’ve been using a print-on-demand service to print my comic books for a few years now; so going with them for the beta version was a simple choice. Even with them being PoD I don’t anticipate the print version of the beta getting a wide release. I think it is good and playable, but I’d like to add a little more polish before putting it up on Amazon like my comic books. Also the PoD service only does paperback books, and I do hope that after I’ve put the contents up online and gathered some feedback and done some more playtesting to get everything collected for the first edition in a hardback (or likely both formats, as I want the game to be as accessible {inexpensive} as possible), not just to look like other RPGs but because I like the feel and longevity of a good hardback. In any case I’ve put the beta files up, and I hope you use them, play the game and let me know what you think.

Lessons From Board Games – Love Letter and Letting Go

Love Letter is a giant of a game, quite disproportionately to its components. I carry a copy around in my backpack every day with a deck of cards. It is that universally appealing and easy to teach. Its popularity is a testament to how many other people feel the same. The game has reached such a wide audience and is such a runaway hit that I’d be surprised if we didn’t have it in print for years to come.

pic1401448_md

But still, the game is pretty luck based, even though it might seem like it’s not, with its layer of theme and modern game design. But that can really be attributed to the fact that it’s a modern game. It’s designed in such a way that it makes you feel like you’re much more in control than you are. In the end you’re just at the whim of the deck and it’s quite possible to draw a hand with which it is impossible to win.

But that doesn’t make the game not fun, just light. People have enjoyed games in which there is only luck and no strategy for centuries, and this game does have elements of strategy and theme, which make it more fun to play. But neither of these are at their most prevalent. With Love Letter one just has to let go of the idea that they can control the outcome of the game by having the absolute best strategy and outplaying the other players (which still isn’t possible in most games) and also the idea of having a theme that is so immersive that one can’t separate it from the mechanics (A Princess and Batman being the themes of versions of Love Letter make that point).

It’s a great game, and a lot (a Lot) of people really enjoy it. It has a balance of theme, strategy and luck that draws a lot of people to it and keep them coming back for games (and its length helps with that). But one does have to let go of some strategic and thematic preferences to embrace the luck and enjoy it at times.