Hola all. Massawyrm here.
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE BOARD GAME
I don’t have cable. Seriously. The last time I had cable I remember thinking “Hey, I wonder if that new Ari$$ show is any good?” So, no. I have never watched the new Battlestar Galactica. And yes, my friends have all told me how awesome it is. But if I can’t get it with rabbit ears it isn’t something I’m apt to see. Which is kind of where I find the time to write 2000 word columns on tabletop wargaming, not to mention the time to play them. So when I sat down to play Fantasy Flight Games newBattlestar Galactica The Board Game for the first time, I had very little knowledge of the show – which is very much a part of the game (but fortunately not one required to enjoy it.)
The game was pretty highly anticipated in fan circles. When FFG dropped a number of these at Gencon earlier this year, they sold out immediately and their price (of the few people were willing to let go of) in online auctions shot upwards of $200 a piece. The game streets for $50. Well, this week it is finally out and it is pretty much a MUST for boardgame fans.
BSG is a cooperative social strategy game. The premise of it is simple. You play a member of the crew of the Galactica as do all of your counterparts, and you must work together to solve crisis after crisis that befalls the ill fated ship. Your objective is to complete a number of jumps and reach your final destination before you run out of resources. Trouble is, at least one of the players is secretly a cylon interloper who is secretly sabotaging skill checks and making decisions that could directly result in the loss of fuel, population food and water. But who’s the cylon? Who keeps blowing skill rolls? And did Harry just decide to avoid the skill check because he’s an idiot, or because he’s working for them? If the Galactica makes its final jump, the humans win. If they run out of resources beforehand – the Cylons do.
The result is a paranoid “He’s a cylon! No SHE is!” that feels like a cross between NUCLEAR WAR and, well, PARANOIA. Deals are made, kibitzing occurs and no one knows who to trust. And it’s a pretty damned good time. >You can check out a basic video explaining the concepts and showcasing the game here. If you’re a tabletop boardgame player and BSG fan, this should be pretty high on your list of things to get. This is also great for fans of cooperative play who delight in social manipulation and treacherous play. This one’s gonna get a lot of play here at the casa.
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS CHARACTER BUILDER
This is the one the naysayers and the haters aren’t going to believe. It is counter to their entire argument; a product so cool, so consumer friendly and so all encompassing that it makes it very difficult to argue that it is the product of a money grubbing, corporate entity interested only in your pocketbook. How could a simple character builder be that kind of product? Let me lay it out for you. I’ve played with it, I love it. And I CANNOT WAIT for the full beta to be ready and available. And just this past week I got to sit down for half an hour with one of the developers and pick his brain about what is to come.
Eight years ago, when you bought your copy of the Players Handbook (PHB), it came with a Demo CD of the Character Generator – a neat program that allowed you to quickly and easily build characters using the rules available in the PHB. It was part of a proposed series of programs called MASTER TOOLS. And it is one of the most infamous boondoggles in gaming history. Master Tools was ultimately never released, replaced with the all too quickly slapped together E-TOOLS that was never half as good as its free, online, open source predecessor PC-GEN. Having learned from their mistakes on the last outing, special care has been taken this time around, and a very tech savvy group of gamers have come up with a way to make it.
The Character Builder is the very first application in the promised Digital Initiative (or DI) – a series of computer based tools to expand the gaming experience. As of right now there are three major proposed tools. The Character Builder, the Character Modeler and the Virtual Tabletop. Once completed these applications will be the trifecta of your D&D experience. Kicking it off, the Character Builder is exactly what it sounds like. It is a program that lets you make a character very quickly, very easily, and get this…without the need of a book. Thus begins what makes the CB so damned cool. As you click through making your selections, beginning with race then moving to class – each and every choice is offered with full detail.
You click on dragonborn and on the side of the screen is the stat block taken right out of the book. The entire entry including artwork of the race all the way down to suggested racial names are offered for your perusal. Don’t know which race to play yet? Just toggle through and compare. Now do the same with classes. Every last scrap of info is there. But wait. What is that? Genasi? Warforged? Swordmage? Those aren’t in the PHB.
And that’s where this goes from being a handy tool to one of the single most inventive, brilliant, borderline batshit crazy ideas I’ve ever seen a major gaming company do. Once this thing is fully operational, the character builder will be updated monthly to include EVERY SINGLE WOTC BOOK. Forgotten realms, Eberron, every last issue of Dragon and Dungeon magazine. Everything. The books come out on the third Tuesday of the month, and their hope is to have the CB updated the very next Tuesday. Every available book will be at your disposal as a player. Remember that stupid idea they floated about needing product numbers from the back of the book? They’ve scrapped that. If you’re paying for the DI, you have access to it all. Hold on. I know what you’re thinking. Sure, Wyrm, it’s available during character creation. But you’re still going to need the books to play with those abilities, unless you copy it all down by hand.
Nope.
You know how the last page of the current character sheets contain power cards for you to write down all the numbers and wording? Well how cool would it be if when you printed out your CB character sheet, it also printed those cards for you, complete with all the math filled in and the word for word description from the book? Yeah. It does that. You choose your race, your class, set up your stats and go through the normal process of character creation. But CB fills in all the blanks. You choose which at will powers you have and CB has filled in the math, as well as shown all its work (in case there are in-game questions), and it explains everything and anything that needs explaining. If you choose a feat that adds +1 to all of your electricity attacks, CB is going to add that in for you.
Making the process even smoother is that CB removes any and all irrelevant choices. When you go to select feats, only those feats which you qualify for will be available. Thinking of multi-classing? Only the multiclass feats that your stats allow will show up. And the format is indicative of having been crafted by players. Feats are presented in toggle switch categories like class feats, racial feats, weapon proficiencies, etc. It even offers suggestions based upon your race and class to help beginners notice some optimized feats. The speed at which you can generate a new character is incredible. This weekend I had WotC freelancer (and my current DM) Ari Marmell over for our weekly game and we went from concept to printout in under five minutes – creating a Gnoll Paladin of an evil god complete with equipment.
Leveling up has never been easier. Click the level up button, choose the level you’re up to and it will tell you what is available to you at this level. Not to mention once again plugging in all the appropriate numbers from hit points to all of your new skill modifiers. It also affords the ability to create house rules for your own campaign and stipulates on the sheet whether the sheet is PHB legal or houseruled (for use in pickup games and RPGA events.) So if your group has a modified rule set or been involved in so sort of reward that has given you a free feat or a stat bump, the creator can compensate.
Everything is here. Equipment, magic items, rituals. If it exists for a character in a book, it’s ready for you to put it on your character.
There are even a number of tools that allow you complete control over how your character sheet prints out, including a space saving horizontal format for players with limited table edge space. You can even go in and unlock all of the stat blocks and move them around to order them to your taste. If you’re like me and don’t like the Attack or Damage workspace on the front of the sheet, movie it. Or hell, delete it entirely. CB will let you. This is especially perfect for the DM that wants to keep track of certain stats and defenses of yours, without needing an entire character sheet. Just print him up one with everything he wants.
All three of the applications from the DI are designed to work together – at least to a certain degree. The Character Modeler, for example, is designed to plug right into the CB. Make your characters appearance with the modeler and the image can port right onto your character sheet. And the character and model plugs right into the Virtual Tabletop. Each application will be housed and run on your own system rather than being web based applications, so you can use them without always needing internet access. You’ll still need internet access to update the builder, but running off of a laptop at your lame, wifi-lacking buddies place won’t prevent you from making a new character. It also affords a real time character sheet that you can type in and modify if you’re a laptop loving player. Keep track of hit points, healing surges and power use without harming a single tree.
The CB is currently in a limited beta and will soon be opened up to a full closed beta. Following that will be an open beta and the plan is to be fully up and running at its full operational capacity by the release of PHB 2 (which is currently slated for March.) Once it is it will be available as part of the D&D Insider subscription – which is digital Dragon and Dungeon magazine articles (bundled together as a PDF at the end of the month) and access to all of the DI tools.
This marks the beginning of a great trend. This thing is exceptionally player friendly, loaded with so many bells and whistles that few will end up using them all. But most importantly, it is moving towards offering a digital bookshelf to players, offering something to them and further expanding the way WotC can deliver new content. The character creation and leveling up experience just got quicker, easier and more enjoyable. This app changes everything. It delivers on an eight year old promise in every way we had hoped for. I CANNOT wait for the full beta. Dear god, I cannot wait.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS CHARACTER BUILDER
This is the one the naysayers and the haters aren’t going to believe. It is counter to their entire argument; a product so cool, so consumer friendly and so all encompassing that it makes it very difficult to argue that it is the product of a money grubbing, corporate entity interested only in your pocketbook. How could a simple character builder be that kind of product? Let me lay it out for you. I’ve played with it, I love it. And I CANNOT WAIT for the full beta to be ready and available. And just this past week I got to sit down for half an hour with one of the developers and pick his brain about what is to come.
Eight years ago, when you bought your copy of the Players Handbook (PHB), it came with a Demo CD of the Character Generator – a neat program that allowed you to quickly and easily build characters using the rules available in the PHB. It was part of a proposed series of programs called MASTER TOOLS. And it is one of the most infamous boondoggles in gaming history. Master Tools was ultimately never released, replaced with the all too quickly slapped together E-TOOLS that was never half as good as its free, online, open source predecessor PC-GEN. Having learned from their mistakes on the last outing, special care has been taken this time around, and a very tech savvy group of gamers have come up with a way to make it.
The Character Builder is the very first application in the promised Digital Initiative (or DI) – a series of computer based tools to expand the gaming experience. As of right now there are three major proposed tools. The Character Builder, the Character Modeler and the Virtual Tabletop. Once completed these applications will be the trifecta of your D&D experience. Kicking it off, the Character Builder is exactly what it sounds like. It is a program that lets you make a character very quickly, very easily, and get this…without the need of a book. Thus begins what makes the CB so damned cool. As you click through making your selections, beginning with race then moving to class – each and every choice is offered with full detail.
You click on dragonborn and on the side of the screen is the stat block taken right out of the book. The entire entry including artwork of the race all the way down to suggested racial names are offered for your perusal. Don’t know which race to play yet? Just toggle through and compare. Now do the same with classes. Every last scrap of info is there. But wait. What is that? Genasi? Warforged? Swordmage? Those aren’t in the PHB.
And that’s where this goes from being a handy tool to one of the single most inventive, brilliant, borderline batshit crazy ideas I’ve ever seen a major gaming company do. Once this thing is fully operational, the character builder will be updated monthly to include EVERY SINGLE WOTC BOOK. Forgotten realms, Eberron, every last issue of Dragon and Dungeon magazine. Everything. The books come out on the third Tuesday of the month, and their hope is to have the CB updated the very next Tuesday. Every available book will be at your disposal as a player. Remember that stupid idea they floated about needing product numbers from the back of the book? They’ve scrapped that. If you’re paying for the DI, you have access to it all. Hold on. I know what you’re thinking. Sure, Wyrm, it’s available during character creation. But you’re still going to need the books to play with those abilities, unless you copy it all down by hand.
Nope.
You know how the last page of the current character sheets contain power cards for you to write down all the numbers and wording? Well how cool would it be if when you printed out your CB character sheet, it also printed those cards for you, complete with all the math filled in and the word for word description from the book? Yeah. It does that. You choose your race, your class, set up your stats and go through the normal process of character creation. But CB fills in all the blanks. You choose which at will powers you have and CB has filled in the math, as well as shown all its work (in case there are in-game questions), and it explains everything and anything that needs explaining. If you choose a feat that adds +1 to all of your electricity attacks, CB is going to add that in for you.
Making the process even smoother is that CB removes any and all irrelevant choices. When you go to select feats, only those feats which you qualify for will be available. Thinking of multi-classing? Only the multiclass feats that your stats allow will show up. And the format is indicative of having been crafted by players. Feats are presented in toggle switch categories like class feats, racial feats, weapon proficiencies, etc. It even offers suggestions based upon your race and class to help beginners notice some optimized feats. The speed at which you can generate a new character is incredible. This weekend I had WotC freelancer (and my current DM) Ari Marmell over for our weekly game and we went from concept to printout in under five minutes – creating a Gnoll Paladin of an evil god complete with equipment.
Leveling up has never been easier. Click the level up button, choose the level you’re up to and it will tell you what is available to you at this level. Not to mention once again plugging in all the appropriate numbers from hit points to all of your new skill modifiers. It also affords the ability to create house rules for your own campaign and stipulates on the sheet whether the sheet is PHB legal or houseruled (for use in pickup games and RPGA events.) So if your group has a modified rule set or been involved in so sort of reward that has given you a free feat or a stat bump, the creator can compensate.
Everything is here. Equipment, magic items, rituals. If it exists for a character in a book, it’s ready for you to put it on your character.
There are even a number of tools that allow you complete control over how your character sheet prints out, including a space saving horizontal format for players with limited table edge space. You can even go in and unlock all of the stat blocks and move them around to order them to your taste. If you’re like me and don’t like the Attack or Damage workspace on the front of the sheet, movie it. Or hell, delete it entirely. CB will let you. This is especially perfect for the DM that wants to keep track of certain stats and defenses of yours, without needing an entire character sheet. Just print him up one with everything he wants.
All three of the applications from the DI are designed to work together – at least to a certain degree. The Character Modeler, for example, is designed to plug right into the CB. Make your characters appearance with the modeler and the image can port right onto your character sheet. And the character and model plugs right into the Virtual Tabletop. Each application will be housed and run on your own system rather than being web based applications, so you can use them without always needing internet access. You’ll still need internet access to update the builder, but running off of a laptop at your lame, wifi-lacking buddies place won’t prevent you from making a new character. It also affords a real time character sheet that you can type in and modify if you’re a laptop loving player. Keep track of hit points, healing surges and power use without harming a single tree.
The CB is currently in a limited beta and will soon be opened up to a full closed beta. Following that will be an open beta and the plan is to be fully up and running at its full operational capacity by the release of PHB 2 (which is currently slated for March.) Once it is it will be available as part of the D&D Insider subscription – which is digital Dragon and Dungeon magazine articles (bundled together as a PDF at the end of the month) and access to all of the DI tools.
This marks the beginning of a great trend. This thing is exceptionally player friendly, loaded with so many bells and whistles that few will end up using them all. But most importantly, it is moving towards offering a digital bookshelf to players, offering something to them and further expanding the way WotC can deliver new content. The character creation and leveling up experience just got quicker, easier and more enjoyable. This app changes everything. It delivers on an eight year old promise in every way we had hoped for. I CANNOT wait for the full beta. Dear god, I cannot wait.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
