Europe Remains Un-Nuked

Last night the boardgame group played El Grande, but without the expansions. Maybe next week we can try one of the two expansions. Or maybe we'll play something else. I dunno. Jim has certainly been campaigning for playing the expanded game and I'd love to try it. We probably could have played a quick round of Nuke the Crap Out of Europe or at least the Bean Game, but Carl and Bruce seemed hellbent on spending a bunch of time looking up rules and arguing over the interpretation of them. That's not how this bunch usually plays, but as far as I can tell no game group is immune to these sorts of shenanigans. Still, I had a good time. Totally came in lastest place, but I had a good time getting there.

So now I have to get my act together for tomorrow night's Mob War game. I'm going to try a different structural approach this week and I hope the players will go along with it. My plan is to force the group to break up into smaller components by playing out three little vignettes as short of a cinematic montage. This could be a big trust issue for some of the players, but hopefully they'll play ball. The fact that these guys are playing a historical game at all tells me that they are open to some new stuff. In my experience Joe Average Gamer doesn't have much interest in historical gaming. Pseudo-historical stuff with kewl powerz is A-OK, but straight-on historical doesn't zing. And it's an attitude I share somewhat. I like kung-fu and robots as much as the next guy.

My eBay-purchased issue of Vortext magazine has made its way from Canadia to my desk. I bought this rag specifically for "Biostarr 1", which to my knowledge is the only World of Synnibarr adventure to have seen print. I haven't had a chance to give it a proper read-through, but it looks like a mini-dungeon set on an asteroid. I had been hoping to run this adventure at Winter War, but it doesn't look like a good match to my needs. It's designed for seven total levels in the PC party, which means if I want to keep the PCs at first level I would need seven players. I don't necessarily want that many players and I certainly can't guarantee that many will sign up. (And remember, as per the WoS rulebook, I am obligated to run the adventure exactly as written!) Furthermore, I don't see any of the good stuff that I want in my WoS experience: no laser grizzlies, no mutant fire clams, no cyberninjas, etc. On the surface at least, "Biostarr 1" looks straightforward enough that you could adapt it to Star Frontiers or Traveller.