Hi readers, I have had the good fortune to be part of an ongoing Call of Cthulhu game. I realized that I needed to stack the odds in my investigator’s favor and started doing research on 1920’s small arms. By the late 1890s people were already experimenting with hollow points in rifles as a means of reducing bullet weight and increasing velocity. The also had the side effect of causing greater wounds.

By the 1920s it was not uncommon for hand loaders to create ammo that was faster and higher pressure than factory ammo for use in stronger, new production revolvers. These faster velocities combined with a hollow point bullet can increase the power level of the handgun with acceptable drawbacks. If your GM allows it, try adding this to your game.

Hollow point ammo: +2 to damage at close and point blank range, +1 to medium range. Increase the armor of your target by 50%. Revolvers only

Over pressure or +P ammo: +1 to damage, lower reliability rating by 5%

I’ve been gaming pretty much as far back as I can remember. My parents were big fans of board games and pretty much as soon as I could distinguish colors from each other my mom was playing Candy Land with me. Not the most noble of beginnings, but we all have to start somewhere, right? From there it escalated quickly through word expanding games like Boggle (not that great a game when you’re young and your vocab consists of words you’ve read in a Richard Scarry book) to Yatzee, Life, stuff like that. The pinnacle of my first phase of gaming culminated with Monopoly and Risk, both of which helped shape how I view games through today. Monopoly really helped sink in the social aspect of gaming, and the give and take nature of negotiating to score that last coveted orange; Risk instilled a love of war games and helped me look at the meta-game between the games (If you habitually backstab an ally in a game, people remember it and won’t trust you in future games.)

Games really kicked into high gear for me in middle school (phase 2), when I was leap frogged up into the big leagues. Different groups of friends introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons (2nd edition, the horror!) Magic: The Gathering (so addicting!) Battle Tech (zomg giant robots!) and Warhammer 40k (I sometimes wonder if I’m the only person out there who didn’t start with Space Marines.) This quad-force of gaming sucked me in, many of my nights where spend hammering through my homework as quickly as possible so I could make a new deck to try out that weekend or speccing out a new 100 ton mech to see how it’d match up. While I was developing a deeper appreciation for gaming as a whole, it still wouldn’t compare to the third phase of my gaming life.

Everquest. Love it or hate it, it changed people’s lives and how games were viewed. I really feel that this game helped kick start gaming becoming a phenomena. Everquest led straight to World of Warcraft, and between WoW and frat boy’s insatiable love of Madden 20XX and Halo X, gaming has become, dare I say it, mainstream. Getting back on topic, I started Everquest in high school, went from that into my swank druid in Wow. Post high school I found myself with a bit more free time on average, and I started getting heavier into raiding in Wow, and very consistent D&D (3.0, 3.5, then 4.0.) I even started painting my Warhammer figures, which was a huge step as they’d played years worth of games in their sexy pewter silver coloring.

That takes us to now. I’ve recently restarted Magic, I’m casually playing Wow, the new Skaven book looks like I’ll be dragged kicking and screaming back into Warhammer Fantasy and the new Guard Codex has kicked my interest in 40k back into high gear. My friends and I are trying out a bunch of new board games, and League of Legends + Halo ODST are getting some good multiplayer play time. In short, I have way too many interests and not nearly enough time to spread between them and I’m loving it!

Look for the red haired guy next time you head into Game Kastle, that’d be me, Kenneth the new guy.

I came into work and complained to everyone about how hard it was, and how much I sucked.

Monday Night Painters to the rescue!

“What kind of paint did you use?”
“Uh…I dunno? It came in bottles? My friend loaned it to me.”
“Ah.”

The next Monday::
“The paint I used? It’s [very very very off brand]”
“That might be part of why it was so hard. You said a friend loaned it to you?”
“Yeah, it’d been sitting around in his garage for something like three years…”
“Ah.”

Apparently, this was my problem. Old paint, as it turns out, doesn’t work very well. Especially old paint, stored in the heat, that was an off brand to begin with. You can’t mix it, and it goes on all lump. With decent paint? I’m actually half decent at this model thing.

My color schemes are non-traditional. I’d rather paint my models bright green with orange highlights, or shades of turquoise, or Avril Lavigne pink and black with glitter. Sue me. I’d rather have something pretty to look at on the table. And pretty, in my book, means color.

My personal preference is the P3 paints from Privateer Press. They’ve got incredibly intense, bright color, which I adore. I like that they have wide mouthed pots as opposed to droppers. They dry out faster, but given that I like to paint straight from the bottle, it’s a lot easier to use.

Anyway. I don’t suck at painting, and thanks to the Monday Night Painters, I’m actually getting pretty decent at it.

Consider this a generic and long winded plug for beginning painters to come down on Mondays and get ideas!

Here’s how a typical episode happens: We play a new game a couple of times. We form opinions, shoot the breeze, chew the fat and insult each others’ moms while we play the game. Then we turn the microphone on and start to record the flapping of our jaws while we discuss the game we just played. Please note that these discussions are not safe for work, children, or the faint of heart. In one of our most recent episodes, we spent a good ten minutes mocking Andrew’s love of unicorns. (note: I’m not sure if Andrew loves unicorns…or if he really loves unicorns. His love of unicorns, however, is beyond dispute)

Then Andrew (note: this is not Andrew from Game Kastle), after conducting this good willed argument/review/insult-storm, edits the resultant stream of consciousness into a palatable episode. It gets posted up to the Tabletop Quality website (which, by the way, is here: www.tabletopquality.com) and our adoring fans (all 6 of them) immediately send us hate mail.

Of course, I wouldn’t be telling you guys all of this unless I wanted to share it. I have a lot of fun making these episodes. I think they are entertaining and educational. And I am proud to be a member of the Tabletop Quality Roundtable.

So try out a couple episodes. I’m particularly proud of my “2 minute rant” about Monopoly in episode 13. If you like it, that’s great! Subscribe on itunes. If you don’t like it, that’s great! Send an angry e-mail to us about what horrible people we are. We might even read your e-mail on the podcast!

Have Fun!
Jeff

Most of my friends have these stories about how they were made fun of for being geeks. About how they were teased for bringing out their magic decks, or abused for carrying around their D&D books. About being outcasts for taking GATE or AP or IB classes, getting straight A’s and having a personal relationship with their favorite teachers.

Well, that never really happened to me. The kids I grew up with? We wore our geekdom like a medal. We ate lunch in the Biology room, even when they were dissecting fetal pigs and everything smelled like formaldehyde and intestines. We discussed the relative merits of an artifact-based deck versus a control deck (way back in ’99, before all these newfangled rules.) I drew a Toreador rose and a Malchavian mirror on my backpack (Masquerade, please. Not that Johnny-Come-Lately Requiem nonsense). And no one cared.

Maybe it’s that at my school, the theater dorks ruled. Very few people could tell you our football teams win/loss record, but I guarantee they’ll remember the Spring Musical. The class presidents and student government was made up of all honors students. So us nerds, dorks, and freaks had the deck stacked for us to begin with.

I think that’s part of what I like so much about my job. I spend all day working with people who not only won’t laugh at me for my obsessions, they might actually know what I mean when I talk about the Camarilla, or my love for Hypnotic Specters. This store attracts the people who aren’t afraid of their own geekyness, the people who realize that painting and playing with little men doesn’t make you less grown up, less smart, or less interesting. It’s like the best parts of high school, with better hair, fewer personal problems, and a salary!

Most of the time, my job is a job. It’s work like anything else. There’s lots of hard bits, lots of annoying bits, and, just like any job, lots of bits I don’t particularly enjoy. But every so often, I am simply amazed they pay me to do this. When I get into a long discussion about Planeswalkers, or when I get to look at pictures of someone’s steampunk costume, or when I wax poetic about the merits of Don’t Rest Your Head I have to stop for a second out of sheer wonder.

I admire geeks who aren’t afraid of being geeks. I respect and enjoy the company of people who not only embrace, but celebrate their dorkyness. So keep it up! You are, collectively and individually, pretty much awesome, and you make my job less job-like. And I promise, I won’t laugh at you if you quote Star Trek. I may even quote it right back.

~samantha

Let us start with Warcaster Dawnlord Vyros
Parts: 3 stars. This model, for a single infantry sized model, is a whopping six pieces: Body, head, sword arm, eagle arm, and couple sprues of shoulder exhaust vents.

Assembly: 4 stars. As with most of Privateer’s models, this guy is a lot of pieces, and all those pieces need to be pinned. Break out the pin vise! Mould lines are relatively minimal. The worst you will encounter is on the sword handle, though some quick filing should get rid of most of them

Appearance: 5 stars. This model oozes badass, and is quite contrary to traditional elfin aesthetics. Having seen pictures of all the Retribution casters, Vyros is easily my favorite. Prepare your opponents for the emotional trauma of seeing this model sitting across the table from them!

Quality: 5 stars. The sculpt quality is tip top. All the detail is sharply defined, and there are no visible blemishes.

Overall Rating: 4 stars. This model looks cool, and is a great sculpt. It is still quite a few pieces, and will take some time to put together.

Now onto the Myrmidon, specifically the Chimera
Parts: 2 stars. If you were worried about the piece count on Vyros, prepare to worry some more! The Chimera (a light myrmidon) is a massive 12 pieces: 2 legs, a pelvis piece, torso, 2 upper arms, 2 lower arms, 2 shoulder pads, a head, and a sprue of exhaust vents. The flip side to this is that this model is highly customizable but still an insane amount of pieces!

Assembly: 2 stars. Now that you know this model is indeed a dozen pieces, you should also know that most of these need to be pinned. I’m sure any veteran Warmachine player welcomes the pinning challenge, but be weary, this will be a mighty feat! Mould lines are virtually nonexistent.

Appearance: 4 stars. I like the Myrmidon’s sleek look. The whole jack is smooth, and has a very appealing mecha look. My only pet peeve with this model, and all of their myrmidons, is the dainty little hands! The magic-powered engines of war have….teeny, itty-bitty, little hands!

Quality: 5 stars. As with Vyros, the detail is very sharp. Even the little runes carved on the myrmidon’s armor are perfectly cast. No noticeable blemishes either.

Overall rating: 3 stars. This is a cool model, no doubt, but it is still a twelve piece metal model that will need extensive pinning. If you’re up to the challenge…your reward shall be great!

Happy Gaming,
Shane

You can have written the rules yourself. You can have engaging, fascinating locales and NPCs. But if there is no interesting reason for the PCs to interact with the set pieces in your game, then your game will be boring. The Story is what draws players into the game; what they talk about in excited tones years down the line; the common thread that ties them together and binds them into a team. A good Story can overcome sub-par rules and slipshod setting. If everyone is engaged by infiltrating the enemy castle under the cover of darkness to assassinate the grand vizier, they won’t notice that the guards have the same stats as the orcs they slaughtered on the field of battle 3 sessions back.

All that said, I find story creation difficult. It’s hard! Players tend to have read the same books, played the same video games, and watched the same movies and TV shows. And why shouldn’t they? They’re my friends. They have similar interests. So I can’t steal anything from these concepts in our common experience, right? They’ll expect it and it will be boring, won’t it? Surprisingly, no; it’s some of the most fun I’ve had.

The reason it’s still fun to play through a scenario that everyone is familiar with is primarily because everyone is familiar with it. In a Role Playing Game, the Players are not only the primary protagonists, but they are typically the only audience. When the players understand the situation their characters are in, then they can either follow the precedent they’ve seen before, or turn the entire situation on its head and see what happens. The easier it is for the players to understand what’s going on, the faster they make the decisions that make the game fun!

For example, I’ll outline a rip off in the classic tradition. Party meets in a tavern and is going to meet up with a princess in a fairytale kingdom. They reach the fairytale kingdom to find that the kingdom has been magically destroyed right before they are captured by the dark knight of the evil hegemony. They escape and take the princess with them. She has learned of the weakness in the hegemony’s pet dragon, and they launch an assault against it to rid the world of the dragon’s evil forever. This is, of course, a Star Wars rip off.

With this general outline of the plot, it becomes very easy to foreshadow, develop NPCs, and have combats at dramatically appropriate times. This simplifies the difficulties of running a game, somewhat, and gives you more time to focus on involving the PCs in the game.

Of course, if you just rip something off directly and the party figures it out, then they know what’s coming next and will jump ahead or change things up. The young fighter-mage with a destiny may decide that he wants to join the black knight of the hegemony and attempt to rule the lands as father and son. If this happens, the first thing to do is let it happen. This is the part of role playing that is fun! Making decisions and having them impact the game world. The second thing to do is: beat them to it. Make the princess evil, and secretly in league with the hegemony. Have her betray the heroes and laugh at the dashing rogue who she pretended to have feelings for. Suddenly, when you turn the players’ expectations on their heads, you make the story your own. Players begin to wonder what will be different, whether everything was as simple as it seemed. They will create conspiracy theories about what you’re actually playing at. They will become even more involved.

And with more involved players, your story will be even better. Role playing is about mutual story telling. The more interested that everyone is, the better your game will be.

So steal what you want from your favorite stories, apply it to your game, and then turn everything on its head. It will ease your load as a GM; lessen the amount of data your players must absorb; and set them up for you to haul the rug out from under them.

Have Fun!