And as the resurrection of the blog continues, we return to another Bottom of the Glass tradition - the gaming moments of the year. This year has been pretty much dominated by one game - D&D4e - but there have been other highspots as well.
Honourable Mention: 3:16
I'm tempted to say that it is a sign of the narrow range of my gaming this year, that this game makes an honourable mention because it wasn't exactly the greatest game in the world. I should really have said '3:16 ... the last hour' because it was at that point that I 'got' the game and it really kicked up a couple of gears and became a pleasure to play. Something as simple as adding media cameras to the troopers helmets was the trick. Its based on Starship Troopers right? Throw in the satire and it worked far better.
Honourable Mention: Rise of the Zulu
Again, not the most stellar game in the world but a real pleasure to run because it was an open playtest style game with a group of players who, in the most part, had played and really understood D&H perfectly. More than playing the game it was really cool just to be able to talk about the rules and the intent behind the rules and play around with some concepts with a really cool group of people. A great way to start Furnace this year.
Honourable Mention: Dead of Night
It had been a long time since I played DoN and I had never played the new second edition. Its good. Really good. The scenario was like mana from heaven to me. Sort of Cthulhu meets The Hunt for Red October. The players were all great - I got to bellow orders at Andrew, in character, which was both entertaining and cathartic! The game played out well although I winced sometimes with some of the rather entertaining physical feats that were manifested - like ejecting the reactor from a nuclear submarine ala Star Trek.
Number Three: Dresden Files
I think, to a degree, this game taught me a good few things. First - if you are going to pitch a game, deliver that game rather than defaulting to your usual high powered, high stakes adrenaline fest game. Two - I have a high powered, high stakes adrenaline fest default game and I'm quite good at it! Three - there is a level of systems mastery that comes with playing games and cannot be delivered by reading them (I only really got the game in the last couple of sessions) and Four - planning a good 'trad' delivery game requires time. Time which I may not have. It was great to be at the head of the table for my home gaming group again after such a long time but really it gets number three because of what it taught me rather than for the quality of the game.
Number Two: Lady Blackbird
Ah, now this? This was much better. The sort of seat-of-the-pants gaming experience that has become my bread and butter over the last couple of years. It was a different gaming group set up with Ben added as well. The system and the set-up really worked well for me, and the freeflowing nature of the narrative was excellent. I loved running this and I would love to return to some different iteration in the future. In fact....hmmm
Number One: D&D4e Epic Tier
Waaaaaaaaaaaay out in front, its not even funny, the final third of the City of Kings. I've written before about the quality of this game but I recently re-read the GM's blog about the game and it all came flooding back to me. It was sheer quality from start to finish and really capped off an excellent campaign. It will be exceptionally hard to top it. Ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment