The Painted Thumb

This was my first year at GuadaComaCon and I found it an enjoyable little convention. My GURPS: Prime Directive game was scheduled first thing in the morning. A single, willing victim showed up to play the adventure. When it was clear there would not be any more players, the Tekumel group invited us to join in that game hosted by Jeff Dee.  We proceeded to play what I would call "the weirdest dungeon crawl ever!", but Tekumel is a strange world setting.  I played a warrior-priest and was the point man as explored a dungeon through various rooms.  One filled with blinding light, another with thick smoke, another with sweaty mist, another room with stinky six-eyed lizards and finally a room filled with magically animated torture devices! The party survived all this and we stopped play for a lunch break. Later, I jumped into the Star Navy: 5150 game.  This was only the second time I played the game. It took some time to recall the rules and the abstract nature of th...

GuadaComaCon 2013 will be held on August 17 th and I’m looking forward to it! This will be the first year I’ve attended this convention and I’ve signed up to run a couple of games. First up will be a multiplayer Song of Blades and Heroes scenario where five objectives will be placed on a large map.   Four of the objectives are hidden inside four ruined buildings.   The fifth objective will be out in the center of the map and in plain sight.   Each ruin has a different terrain challenge inside for the players to overcome such as a bog, blade grass or a rope bridge.   Objectives will each have a random value in victory points.  The objectives take 2 actions to pickup and the team with the most victory point at the end of the game wins.  Game play continues until one team remains on the board. In this game, the ruins will be large structures, dimensions 12”x 8”,  and I needed to find some simple walls with doors or openings.   There i...

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…  There was a game called Star Fleet Battles.  It was a rules bloated, counter and hex, mess of a spaceship combat game. And… I loved it! Yes, it’s true. This statement alone could give my readers reason to suspect my mental stability. The game was loathed by some players, revered by some players and possibly both loathed and revered by many others. So, what was it that drew me to this game? I am a self-described Trekker and this game IMHO was the best simulation of ‘Star Trek’-style starship combat ever made. The game was so detailed that it really gave players a sense that the simulation could be based on actual starships.  For the analytical players , the tactics were rich and engaging with new strategies to consider with every new ship design. Games like this often come with a rulebook so large that you might be killed if you were to fall asleep while reading it. SFB is no exception. The original game included ships from o...