onfocus

After taking the summer off, my D&D group is gearing up to play again so I've been gathering links. Here are some that I've found useful recently:

• dwgill: Rollout - New character stat generator. Click the Presets for some good alternate rules you could try. Here's a longer description: A(nother) Dungeons & Dragons Attribute Generator.
• Github: Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator - whoa.
• RPG Stack: How can I describe hit point damage without talking about wounds? - Great ideas for narrating combat in the comments here.
• Dungeon Dudes (YouTube): Five Simple House Rules for Better Combat - I like all of these alternate rules adapted from 4th edition.
• Mega-Tutorial: Fantasy Worldbuilding - A good summary of real-world medieval history through the lens of building RPG settings.

This is my completely arbitrary take on my favorite games from this year.

The top honor goes to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.



Specifically, Curse of Strahd which my game group has been playing for all of 2018 and probably most of 2017. It has a good balance of role-playing, puzzles, and fighting and the atmosphere is just different enough from the default D&D world to keep you guessing without feeling completely foreign.

Best Board Games

I've had a lot of fun playing Blood Rage lately. It's set in the land of Norse myth and at first glance it looks and sounds like a classic player vs. player fighting for area control game—and it is that! But there's a surprising amount of strategy involved. There are some great mechanics around losing area control which makes it tough to know how to block other players. It's a great combination of analysis and action.



Root is another very different kind of area control game. It has asymmetrical play which means each player is using different mechanics to get victory points. It takes some getting used to and I had to play through a game before I even started thinking about how to optimize my turn. Having an experienced Root player on hand to answer questions is also a plus. Once you make it though those barriers, the game has a lot of turns and surprises and gives you a lot to think about. I found myself going over potential Root strategies days after playing.



The classics are classics for a reason. I played a lot of Settlers of Catan this year because it's my family's favorite game. Even kids who can't read can get the hang of Catan pretty quickly. It's also a great way to introduce someone to Eurogames if their only experience with board games is Monopoly and Scrabble. (Which are fun too but not the full spectrum of what's possible!)

Best Card Games

A friend brought a self-printed DIY version of The Mind to a game night because he'd heard it was popular in Germany and there wasn't a way to get a copy in the US. We played this weird game where you put cards in numeric order with sly communication and luck and we were genuinely cheering our successes. I'm not sure it counts as a game, but whatever it is it's dramatic and everyone has fun.



I've been having fun playing KeyForge with my son as a nice change of pace (for me) from Magic. KeyForge has a clever design where every deck has a unique set of cards and is evenly matched against other decks. The deck names are algorithmically generated, sometimes with humorous results. It is a nicely designed resource-gathering game where you can use cards without an energy-style mechanic. It feels a lot lighter than Magic but it has some complexity with different styles of play (fighting vs. stealing vs. spells) possible through the different factions. If you think you'd enjoy Magic without the deck building/collecting aspects you'll probably enjoy KeyForge.

That's it—happy gaming!

I'm in Portland for XOXO 2018—a fun conference that pulls together indie artists to show their work and talk about their process. It's also a way for a bunch of people (like me!) who appreciate the weird web to get together and be socially awkward together.

This year XOXO got together with Chicago's LevelEater D&D events to ask this confluence of nerds to raise money for charity by playing Dungeons & Dragons. How do you raise money by playing D&D? It's a simple process: 1.) You get a space to play. 2.) You get some celebrity DMs. 3.) You get maybe a dozen volunteer DMs. 4.) You get someone to write a custom adventure for the event, along with fabricated props. 5.) You get people pay to play at tables of six and buy imaginary magic items to use in the adventure. 6.) And then everyone rolls some dice and goofs around for a few hours.

That's not easy to pull off if you didn't catch the sarcasm. I did this yesterday and it was a great time! I got to play with a personal hero of mine Patrick Rothfuss (site still rockin' ASP!) and give money to MyMusicRx in the process. The venue was an amazing music studio in Portland run by Decemberists guitarist Chris Funk who was there manning the front door, grabbing drinks for folks, and showing people around. The place was decked out in full fantasy regalia—here are a few pics.



I'm really happy XOXO collaborated on this. It was epic fun!

The conference continued that night and I saw some fantastic film & animation projects I hadn't seen before. Graham Annable's Grickle is dark and hilarious if you're a pessimist like me. Do not miss Principal Skeleton. By the way, the venue is HUGE this year:



I also saw some fun card games, video games, and heard an inspiring talk from CSS artist Diana Smith. Her purecss-francine is a herculean effort.

It's a lot to take in! I'm glad XOXO is back advocating for indie work, creating amazing personal experiences, and being a good ambassador for Portland. Thanks Andys!