Legendary Game - BLOCK MANIA

Guess what's going to go down next weekend at Whoyercon?

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MEGA-MEGA-MEGA-MEGAMANIA!!!

Is this going to be one block war with all 16 boards or smaller games?

I had considered doing a MEGA-MEGAMANIA (8 boards) with two players taking their turns at all times to keep the game flowing.

What are your plans?

Also, I've considered making some custom dice with to roll for collapse, fire spread, etc instead of the charts.

16 at one time baby!

I'm not sure yet if I'm simplifying the rules or not since the chrome is one of its charms. I have a cheat sheet/summary ready with the full rules already. I will be strictly enforcing a 5 minute turn limit and having simultaneous turns of "every other" or "every third" board. When buildings collapse I'll "collapse" the board and do a "scoot down shuffle" for all the boards.

Gonna be EPIC!

bryce0lynch wrote: 16 at one time baby!

I'm not sure yet if I'm simplifying the rules or not since the chrome is one of its charms. I have a cheat sheet/summary ready with the full rules already. I will be strictly enforcing a 5 minute turn limit and having simultaneous turns of "every other" or "every third" board. When buildings collapse I'll "collapse" the board and do a "scoot down shuffle" for all the boards.

Gonna be EPIC!

Looks more like PAINFUL than EPIC. Grud Be With You! =o)

WhosyerCon 2013 is over. This is a free con in Indianapolis and had about 1000 attendees last year. They were expecting about 1500 this year. I played no games this year, instead running two sessions of BASIC D&D. the Worlds largest Block Mania game and two boardgames/wargames: Viktory II and Source of the Nile.

There were about 650 seats for Pathfinder at the con. There were about 18 seats for Castles & Crusades and 12 seats for D&D at the con. Pathfinder seems to have sold out. C&C seems to have sold out. I had to beg people to play D&D. That's what D&D seems to have come to: you have to beg people to play. This is the second year in the row I've been in this position. I'm not going to fault Pathfinder or C&C for their success, but man, it is sure as fuck demoralizing running D&D. No 4e/5e at all during the con. The vendor hall was chock full of Pathfinder product and no D&D at all that I could see. I'm not sure what's going on; I wonder if it's the Organized Play programs? Pathfinder has a strong Indy presence, it would seem, so they have a strong con presence. D&D runs their OP through game stores who have no interest in doing con games and thus without a Feudal system in place they have no con presence. It may also be a combination of a poor event description on my part and a stigma now associated with the name D&D? I mean ... that's WHY a lot of people play Pathfinder, right ... they were turned off of D&D? Next time I may explicitly ask the Pathfinder people to send me their overflow.

The 18 Pathfinder tables were right behind me and I got the full on 'Hero' and 'real-aloud' eavesdropping from them. I think there's a bit of that in the game system, the hero part at least, but I'm pretty sure the read-aloud is a symptom of the OP/Con event structure. The games HAVE to all be run the same no evil party members, etc. This was in pretty stark contrast to my game. One group soaked a kid in oil, lit him, and made him run a room with some "Cousin It's" in it. This was after they bashed one kids head in with a stool and enslaved the third to carry their ale with them. They also wedged one kid under a portcullis so they scamper under it. After they had beaten the dungeon location out of a rutabaga farmer farmer, of course.

I ran the same adventure twice: once Friday night and once Saturday night. The hook was that they heard about a missing gold bullion shipment from a listening to a armer in a tavern. A farmer who won't talk to them. This does a good job of setting the tone of the game from the start. Nobody is going to give them or assign them a quest. The motivation is pretty clear: gold. And the farmer is not talking so some creative play (torture, force, intimation, bribery) is needed to get going. I usually don't like to make a group work for the hook but the whole 'Murder Hobo' introduction I give them in the start bonds them together instantly and they seem to 'gel' much better as a group immediately. And I mean IMMEDIATELY. A little humor, a little ultra-violence ... the tone of the game is set.

I had three type of players: modern players, brand new people, and people who INSTANTLY got the game. The new players are people who have never played D&D before or had a bad first experience in their past. They seemed to have a great time. A couple sought me out at a party later that night and were gushing in their good comments. I'm generally suspect of positive comments; I always think people are just being polite. Anyway; the n00bs did a great job picking up the game and going with the tone. They showed some of the best creative play. In both sessions there were a couple of people who 'got' the game almost immediately. These were some people in their early 40's who I _think_ (am projecting?) had similar gaming backgrounds to me. They were the ones who pretty much went full on 'Murder' and gonzo crazy in the game. The flaming kids, etc, were a result of them. The modern gamers seemed to take the longest to get in to the vibe. They were looking a quest. They wanted to 'investigate' for clues and 'rescue' the gold shipment for someone. They spent a decent amount of time trying to figure out what they were playing, it looked like to me, and eventually, after 60 minutes or so, started to spread their wings again. One of them enslaved a kid to haul around a beer keg they found in the dungeon. While the n00bs sought me out later to tell me what a good time they had, and the experiences people were clearly reveling gleefully in their characters, the modern gamers eventually were saying "this is SO much fun" and laughing a lot during the game. I'd say those are three different compliments in three different ways. EVERYONE had a lot of fun, including me. I like to shout and be bombastic and over the top in con games. So much so in these games that I was pretty hoarse the next days. The three times I've run it have done pretty similarly. Everyone goes left upon entering, for some reason. They all fail to notice the path north. They all freak the fuck out when the encounter the emerald 'androgynous' nude man with piercing blue eyes, flames in his hands and a room full of treasure. Every time the group freaks and seems to loose it. I have NO idea why. One group bribed Gulag the Ogre with Crabman body parts. The other group use fire A LOT and set the kids on fire/etc. Good times, good times as Pokeboy would say.

Block Mania is a 2-player wargame from the 80's. They released a +2p expansion for it called Mega-Mania. I duped those four boards four times and ran a 16p game. It may have been the largest ever. I'm gonna keep telling myself that until proven otherwise. It's a light wargame set in the Judge Dredd universe with A LOT of chrome in it. I simplified the rules a bit. It went over REALLY well on Sunday morning. I didn't have 16 but I think I had 10. It ran about 2h30m, and 30m of that was an overview/explanation of the game. It runs a little slow at first but then people get the system down well and the megablocks come tumbling down! The game ended with the last three blocks crashing down at the same time: Pat Morita block, Rowdy Yates block (run by a MAJOR JD fan) and Beatrice White block. Peachtrees went out first, followed by Davey Bohr. The middle is a blur.

Viktory II is a light and fast wargame. I'll call it similar to Risk, except it's not. It's short, rewards aggression, and has more tactical depth. I ran a 6p version and it went over GREAT. It, and Block Mania, are pretty much the perfect wargames. Exciting, fast, and very very fun. I suspect a couple of the guys who played are going to buy it. The winner was a 11YO girl who totally wiped the floor with us. I have very well-behaved kids but she picked things up FAST and CRUSHED.

Source of the Nile is an ancient mid-70's game. A simulation of African exploration in the 18th century. These days it would end up as solo computer game, I suspect, since it's almost a multi-player solitaire game. It got that THICK old 70's AH rules that are actually quite simple once you get in to the groove. Set activity level. Draw for Disaster, Roll for Lost. Draw for terrain. Draw for natives. Hunt. Bookkeeping. I had some pre-pilled out Mounted and Foot expedition sheets and we ignored the Canoes and river rules, since that's where a lot of the difficulty is. One guy got stampeded by a heard of elephants on the second turn. Two people had a hard time getting out of the known lands near the cape. The Pretty Girl found the Lost CIty ... and was then bitten by a black mamba and attacked by natives. I got stuck in the upper areas, making it from the western edge to ALMOST the source of the nile. Cute game as a relic of an earlier era, but lame-o now. It's going in to the trade/sell pile now that I've run it at a con.

Hotel was noisy. The bed still had the plastic wrapping on the mattress, I think, and was broken down. MISERABLE nights. The hotel food sucked also and you had to drive to get anything other than a crappy cheeseburger/hot dog. And there was NOTHING nearby. On the plus side the rooms are $75/night and so it's easy to sell out the hotel and get the space for free ... which is why the con is able to be a free con. I'm a big proponent of the hotel for that reason but man, I hate the rooms and food. I've been the longest serving Cadet in Barfleet; four years now and I've avoided every promotion while pretty much attending most local parties. The Captain, XO, and CMO hunted me down and promoted me on Saturday night. There goes my record ... I'm now an ensign. They hauled me down and made a special announcement right before I bought the 'front of the drink line' chalice. I've pledged to only use it in the no-line public/free-pour bar.

Gotta prep for the D&D game tomorrow; l8ers!

Block Mania: The Players, Peachtrees right before it fell, and the last three blocks that fell at the same time. Totally running this at GenCon.
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Damn, dude, Basic D&D, Source of the Nile, Mega(x4)Mania...that's a fantastic line-up!

You've _got_ to lay out all the modifications you made for that MegaMania. My 4-player games tend to go over 2.5 hours. I've been thinking about doing an 8player game and if your tips fly, I might do it at the ABGB.

Boards:
I scanned in the four boards, made 16 files, and GIMP'd in the new block names and colors. This is an OCD-daner zone since you can spend A LOT of time making the names look cool. I avoided that though. Picking block names is fun.

Counters:
I scanned in the counter sheets, made 16 files (8 front and 8 back), and GIMP'd the new colors in. The backs are pretty easy but the fronts are hard to 'fill' because of all of the nooks and Scanner Sparkle. I tried to get rid of the sparkle on one test sheet but then just gave up and decided it was god enough. And it was. It was MORE than good enough. In retrospect, some of the darker colors don't go well with the black numbers on the counters and I should have used lighter/brighter colors on a few of the sets ANyway, spray adhesive them to chipboard and chop them out with an arm choppery thing. The backs TOTALLY did not line up, but again, you could tell what color they were, obviously, so it was good enough.

Fire, SD, Collapse:
These all came from the hated, but fine selection, of Hobby Lobby. The fire were red glass tiles. Look cool but don't stack past 3 very well. I might be looking for a replacement. Mini Mosic stone represented Structural Damage. These were small, so they fit well, but easy to pick up and count. Very happy with these. A lager version was used for Collapse markers and for CP markers. I cant find the link to those, but they fit pretty much perfectly. Hobby Lobby sometimes has free shipping, so I got most of my red tiles that way after buying some sample packs and the bigger rock sets in the store.
shop.hobbylobby.com/products/mini-mosaic-stones-750521/
shop.hobbylobby.com/products/1/2-red-glass-mirror-tiles-481937/

Rules:
I had a 2-sided handout and spent about 30 minutes going over the rules, which was mostly Chrome explanations. Major Changes: You could only attack the blocks directly next to you. No Mania/Judge cards. No defensive fire. All block squares had a strength of 6. I removed all MP costs except for moving and Looting. Spray cans now gave a +2 to starting fires and we played until total block collapses/Last Block Standing. The two VERY ends of the board did not wrap. The right side of the board went, we did end phase/fires gets fire/get for collapse, etc, and then the left side had their turn and we checked again after their turn. When a block collapsed we shoved the boards together and someone switched from right/left.

Things were a bit slow at first but went faster as people got in to the groove, after about 30 minutes. I need to add back rules for only activation/round per unit and 1 weapon fire per round per unit. CitDef with a Missile Launcher/Flamer was TOO effective. I also had people bitching that they got skipped after the 'boards get shoved together' phase when a block collapses. They are right, they DID get skipped. idk what to do about this; I can't have 2 evens going on the same turn. That is probably my biggest problem right now. Otherwise the game went GREAT! Everyone had a blast and the game went fast.

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Hmmm ... any questions?

DAN TANNA!
DAN TANNA!
DAN TANNA!

Never played blockmania, but did read the arc in Dredd. That mega game looks awesome. My main gaming group is my Uni Sci Fi society. I tend to find if its not 3.5 or 4th ed, a Games Workshop product, an FFG product, a major license, World of Warcraft or DOTA they are not interested.

I can drag out my copy of both for Trashival, although I have added the WD expansion for my sins... The enthusiasm of youth.

Sam

Do it, trashival needs trash!

Rise! Rise, I command thee!

I'm moving & downsizing, and this has to go. It's packed in a brown suitcase and WAY too heavy to ship, so Indianapolis pickup. Free.

It's not Block Mania or the Mega Mania expansion, but the bastardized homemade expansions I did.

PM BrewMiester (note the i and e are backwards from what you'd expect). He's close and he would LOVE this.