GenCon 2015: Undercity Demo

Well, this past weekend, or rather two weekends ago because I contracted the GenCon cold and cannot relate what my life was like last week (or if I was even alive to live it) I went to fucking GenCon, for the first, and definitely not the last time. I played some games, one of which I'll blog about and pimp outrageously because the makers are super cool dudes who didn't make me hate a d20 system for once, but today's highlight (if you can't see pictures for some reason) is all about Privateer Press' The Undercity, a dungeon-crawly board game with watered-dow- you know what, I don't like calling Undercity's mechanics watered-down. Distilled. Undercity is a dungeon-crawl board game that's like a hybrid between the original HeroQuest (or any of it's spiritual-successor bastard spawn) and a finely distilled version of the core IKRPG ruleset.

I had the opportunity to play one 'mission' on the boardgame, and below are my thoughts, carefully separated into three categories to increase reading comprehension in this internet age.

What I Liked:

It's a HeroQuest-inspired IKRPG-lite board game that features a leveling system and persistent characters over a campaign that is touted to last (overall) for 14 hours (Thanks to TechRaptor for the paraphrase, and inspiration to write this blog post). Miniatures of a quality akin to the Iron Kingdoms Unleashed Starter Set are included, and to a greater amount than that box, so that's again, something to love. Some of the minis are either reposes or mods of existing WarmaHordes miniatures, and I don't see any reason why they can't be included as proxies for existing characters (Milo Boggs for Gorman Di Wulfe, Random...ogrun...for Ogrun Bokur, Croe's Cutthroats for....Croe's Cutthroats, Cephalyx for Cephalx. You Get what I'm saying here.)

On one hand when I first saw these all I could think of is that PP was being exceptionally lazy in designing original models, now I see how I can be cheap right back and include said models in my Warmahordes games. So there's that bit of silver lining.

Delving a bit deeper into the actual mechanics of the game, I enjoyed the round-table aspect of play, with enemy AI-esque things happening during and after each player's turn, in the sort of constant 'menace' that creates a decent enough facsimile of a GM. Essentially, each enemy is gambitized (think FFXII) into performing various actions on a player's turn, priority is given to either green or red foes, various foe 'action' cards dictate which enemies activate when, etc, etc. Like I said, it's a decent enough stand-in as an expy-GM, and it's refreshing to have a dungeon-crawl boardgame that eschews that usually-necessary antagonist-player in favor of full-on table cooperation (a la recent D&D boardgames - Drizzt, Ashardalon, Ravenloft).

The distillation of the standard IKRPG mechanics is also handled elegantly (rather than clunkily), and Privateer Press has indeed trimmed some of the fat that threatens to bloat standard IKRPG sessions, in a series of new definitions for existing terminology that is somewhat confusing for the first five minutes, but is easily incorporated afterwards. Statistics are boiled down from 13 main and derived values to 6, and the revamped Feat system is a fantastic hybrid between the original feat mechanic and character abilities from the RPG.

I didn't get a chance to experience the level system or the side-quest options in the demo, but I'm hoping those add depth in terms of loot and XP, and perhaps offer some kind of replayability to the boardgame.

What I Disliked:

That said, the changes made to the mechanical system are still jarring, even for a short time, and players more immersed in the RPG system might have a harder time adapting, specifically the 'always-right' rules lawyers who seem to enjoy bickering rules for the sake of bickering. I can see some stalling at the table when revised rules are rolled out and play grinds to a halt while someone reaches for a core book while the GM flips frantically to the index of the boardgame rules.

Another sticking point for me is the overall drabness of the finished product. The miniatures I already expected to be flat colors, and it's interesting to me to see that PP actually incorporated the base colors of miniatures into gameplay mechanics (and I cannot wait to see some of the finished painted models some PP-forumites are probably already mocking up), but after being blessed with the Unleashed starter box's absolute wealth of play tiles, I was hoping for something more expansive than just 36 tiles of grey, tan, and white cobblestone. Supposedly this monotony is broken up somewhat by modular individual tiles, but nothing in the online rules looks as visually engaging as WotC's efforts in their randomly-generated dungeon tiles. For a brief game, I can see this being all right, but seeing the same tiles repeated endlessly over the course of a 14 hour campaign...things might get tedious.

Lastly, and this is more of a minor issue, when I joined in the Demo I'm pretty sure I was joined by absolute novices to the IKRPG rules, and the only character left to play was the tank. This may have been an intentional choice by the guy running the demo, to leave the tank open for himself to potentially take over or for a drop-in to be able to easily pick up the mechanics after everyone had already gotten the basic gameplay spiel, but it seems like the more 'interesting' characters have highly-involved and specialized rules that might serve as a minor barrier to new players. The goblin comes with a steamjack, the alchemist has a limited number of bombs, and the gunmage player must adapt to the rune-shot mechanics. The troll fighter, though? Hit all the stuff. The disparity in important rules means there are a few places where a 'veteran' player of the game can help out a newbie who chooses a more difficult character to pick up.

What Concerns Me:

Grind concerns me. That may not make much sense at the outset, but just realize, Privateer Press attempted to create a boardgame from the IK franchise already, and it was called Grind, and it was a 2-player football/soccer-esque warjack game and...kind of tanked. Now, I love the concept of Grind. If it was approved as official lore of the IKRPG, I'd support that in an instant, because underground robot full-contact sporting leagues are basically the definition of awesome. However, it was a slog of a system, only 2 player, and just kind of meh. The main selling point of it nowadays is that you basically get free warjacks with the purchase.

This concerns me because I believe Undercity is a good product that has the capability of being fantastic...if Privateer Press supports it after release with further adventures/villains/tiles/PCs. As it stands, it seems very bare-bones for the advertised play time, and I think that the folks at boardgamegeek are going to have a hell of a fun time coming up with homebrew scenarios to keep things interesting.

The modularity, but not random tile placement means that every mission replay, at least aesthetically, is going to be identical. Sure, you might get a random different enemy on one particular draw, but overall most mission replays are going to feel similar. This means that, potentially, this is a fire-and-forget campaign, similar to Privateer's published scenarios, which are really one-time use for any game group (with the exception of the Noble's Tourney, which my friend Susan has utilized...three times? Is it three times now, Susan?).

All this really boils down to is my concern that Undercity will undersell, and Privateer won't want to drop any more money developing it further, leaving it to stagnate.

Undercity is a really promising product, and if it were published by Fantasy Flight games I'd say it would be destined for utter success and lots of cool expansions. My experience with Privateer Press boardgames (not RPGs or Wargames, just boardgames) means my usual IKRPG fervor is tempered by my buyer's remorse regarding Grind.

None of that is really important, though. What's really important is the question of 'hey Dave, are you actually going to throw money down on this?'

The answer to that is yes, and I would have probably even bought it at GenCon, had I ample space in my return luggage. Hashtag sadface.

Actual Play: IKRPG Session 13

Well here it is, finally. The end of an era, or at least a campaign arc of thirteen (really 14) episodes that managed to last for what, like 20+ weeks?

I entered into these finale sessions, completely abandoning a final twist that would have probably broken what was left of my players' spirits, instead deciding that after beating them down so continuously for session after session, it was time to give them something badass to do. It was time to roll out an iconic set-piece, and it was past time for the players to take a little vengeance on everyone who thought they were better than the Immoren Liberation Front.

I will say that I definitely enjoyed these last two sessions, enough that I am super pumped to get back into the setting (after finally reading through Unleashed, of course) and coming up with plot lines related to things that each of the players revealed to me throughout our story arc. I will say that I am exceptionally pleased that Privateer Press is about to release a bunch of new minis, as a fair few of them are Hordes specific, even Minions specific (so Gobbers and such. Sweet.)

I think, in terms of plotting out what will be happening in what I've been secretly dubbing Season 3 of IKRPG (Yeah, I know, this was Season 2 because Season 1 was the one that Susan was running. And now I need to look for that.) Anyway. Words. Plotting. I'm thinking of making season 3 a super open-world aspect for my players. They've set up these great relationships and conflicts, so I'm going to give them a state of the world every few sessions, but basically just let them run buck-wild through everything they want. There will obviously be places they just plain don't want to go, and that's fine, but meh, I suppose that's life. There's plenty more trouble for them to get into.

Final thoughts before I consider recording a GM aftermath for Unabashed Gaming...I think four players is pretty ideal. Though I kind of wish I could bring someone new into the game every arc. That would be cool.

Eh, whatev's.

Session 13: The Siege of Fellig

Actual Play: IKRPG Session 12

The penultimate episode of Season 1, and the players are in for a rollercoaster ride of red hot chile proportions....or something.


Session 12: The 180 Turnabout

Savage Worlds: SAO Session 1 (After-Action Reflection)

Well, so much for hypothetical New Year's resolutions, it's been basically ages since I've last updated this blog. Yeesh. In any case, at least I haven't completely dropped off the planet in terms of gaming, despite my IKRPG campaign having wrapped up a few weeks back (I know, I know, I'm late getting the episodes up.)

Well, in the meantime, as for the next round of Crit This! my buddy Scott will be running a Call of Catthulhu game, I've started running a duet game with my girlfriend, using the Savage Worlds ruleset, per her request, and running a story set in Alfheim Online, rather than Sword Art Online, as we didn't want the stakes to be life and death in this first foray into 1 GM/1 Player gaming.

In either case enough preface, onto the actual reflection.

Knowing at least a few things about my girlfriend's tastes, I was able to predict a few of the starting parameters, specifically her starting race and the type of game she'd want to be playing. However, whenever running a duet it is specifically suggested that you have an introductory talk regarding the minutia of your campaign, detailing length, adversity, levity, combat, social aspects, exploration, etc.

We decided on a short-run for the initial setting, nothing long or arduous, but with the potential to extend if the desire is there to do so. Combat was set for one every three or so sessions, so as to not get caught up in the grind of mechanics (something I'll touch on in a little bit.) At the same time, we agreed that there was the possibility for some out-of-ALO roleplaying, so there was established some 'real world' lore, so I could potentially make something from them.

To begin, I've never really run anything like this type of game, mechanics have definitely taken a backseat to player choice and verbal interaction, and I've taken the suggestion of an RPGnet blogger, essentially focusing on moral choices rather than mortal choices (paraphrasing mine). At the same time, this isn't really a standard RPG setting or game, in that there's no great evil to wrong, it's really just a way for my player (and her character) to unwind at the end of the day. Therefore, I've taken an offhand comment of hers and started to run with it fully.

Basically, I'm planning to run this game like a serialized anime. Drama and interpersonal relations are higher on the priority list than death duels, and instead of high-octane action set pieces, I'm instead constantly thinking about how to fit various anime tropes into the mix. As an anime enthusiast, there's a lot of ingrained knowledge that I've assimilated already that's absolutely ripe for use, but I still get the sense that I'm going to need to prep just as much (if not more) for these games than many of my others, which I've basically jumped into on a wing and a prayer.

The first session had the PC, Mueda, full-dive into the world of ALO where she met with the classmate who first invited her into the virtual MMO. During a quick tutorial of the flight system (and to get my player re-accustomed to the mechanics of Savage Worlds, specifically Wild Dice and Bennies), I threw in an ad-hoc midair collision with a spur-of-the-moment character, my first reactionary trope of the game, the stereotypical otouto (younger brother character), who almost immediately began looking at Mueda as his onee-sama. This was reinforced by a few fantastic Fly rolls, further solidifying the balance between the two characters.

As noted in the introduction, I'd pretty much guessed that Cecilia would choose to play as a Cait-Sith, the anthropomorphic feline race in ALO who basically auto-acquire animal companions, so I'd set up her first mission as a simple foray into a nearby forest to find her new furry buddy. The cool/terrifying aspect of a setting like ALO, which has a lore wiki that can be described as barebones at best, is that there's a lot of room to simply make shit up. So, a few probing questions into the forest and Mueda had found her animal friend, a cat/owl hybrid she promptly fed a live squirrel to and named 'Hedwig.'

Hey, Harry Potter's pretty popular, you know? The only problem is I now have to draw a cat/owl hybrid, and it's been ages since I last sketched anything seriously.

In any case, along with Mueda's search for her Hedwig, she had also been offered a side-quest by a friendly PC blacksmith to acquire some calyculcum, a crafting material collected from the UV-calcified remains of Cockatrice eggs. There was a little bit of hilarious pseudo-danger as Mueda's young friend stumbled upon the Cockatrice nest accidentally while chasing after his own soon-to-be animal companion, a snake/lizard hybrid he (I) still has yet to name, which culminated in sort of roundabout merry-go-round chase between Cockatrice, snake/lizard, and the younger brother character, Raimura.

Everything worked out well in the end for everyone, of course. Mueda got her Hedwig, Raimura got his snake-lizard, and the PC Blacksmith got her calyculcum.

And a date with Mueda. Yeah, in exchange for the rare-ish material, the smith, Michida, who is a lady, offered my player anything she'd like (within reason of course), and Mueda asked to apprentice with her, and to go on a date.

Which we'll talk about in the next reflection.

Actual Play: IKRPG Session 11

Well, here we are a few weeks later. I suppose it's only to be expected, these two sessions are kind of examples of a GM taking an idea too far and running with it. In two weeks we've basically passed two days of sessions, because I was too focused on creating consequences for characters instead of moving plot. This could partially be because we haven't been at a full table for more than a month now, but one should place the blame where it belongs, on the vengeful GM.

It's not a bad stance to take, really, but in these two games I violated my stance of 'moderation in everything.'

Hopefully they're still interesting to listen to.

Episode 11: More and More Trouble

Actual Play: IKRPG Session 10

Originally posted as a two-parter, episode 10 is the beginning of where I really let myself fall into the trap of just creating consequences for characters, instead of introducing consequences during the normal phase of just going through the plot.

But I suppose that's a pitfall of off-the-cuff GMing, stuff tends to be a bit slipshod.

Episode 10: Trouble

Actual Play: Scrolls and Swords II

Well, we certainly had a fantastic time this week with our Scrolls and Swords game. Luckily my dice rolls ended up generating a pretty solid follow-up story to the cliffhanger we found ourselves on at the end of Session One, and everyone at the table seemed to really enjoy the openness of the system, with the ability to do anything with justification and proper dice rolls.

I'm really looking forward to whenever we can run the next session, as I've got some pretty badass character sheets mocked up for the system, which I'd actually like to tweak some using hand-drawing rather than quick and cheap photoshops.

There are still a few random tables I think I'll create as well; it seems that the openness of character creation is a bit intimidating to players who just want to random-roll their character generation.

While considering that, I was also pondering about character improvement through sessions, and realized that I don't really like the idea of 'experience points' for Scrolls and Swords, partly because it's so basic a system that I can't really fathom the process of making it more complicated with leveling mechanics, partially because I'm somewhat intrigued by "experience" actually meaning that; players find themselves with more familiarity with the setting and characters of the world.

Speaking of the world...Updated Map!

There's also the thematic purpose of not really having character advancement; in most Saturday Morning-esque cartoon series, characters don't undergo dramatic increases of power between episodes, they always seem to have what they need to overcome the adversity in each plot.

If anything, I'll simply allow players to change their number between sessions, and possibly give them another 'item from their adventures' if they happen to pick up something interesting in any particular game.


Scrolls and Swords II: Eclectic Boogaloo


You can download the episode here (right click, Save As).