Thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda

   I haven't really felt like writing out any formal reviews of the games I've been playing, and this is going to continue the trend.  So all this will be stream-of consciousness ranting.
    Amazingly, I have been playing a game that came out this year. Shock and awe!  Actually, thank you Redbox for letting me try out a game that I didn't know if I'd actually want to play.  I played all three of the original Mass Effect games, and liked them overall (of course, the original ending to 3 sucked, which no doubt any computer gamer has heard of).  I've played all the Dragon Age games, including Inquisition (sadly), also by Bioware (which I mention because I'll reference it later), and mostly liked those as well (first was the best IMO).  So I was kind of looking forward to Andromeda, but not exactly jumping for joy to see it.  Let me run through a few things from the (admittedly limited) time I've played.  I have only made it about half-way through the game, so there won't be any spoilers.

    The biggest complaint I heard about before playing Andromeda was the animation.  You can find tons of YouTube videos on the bad facial animations and general animation bugs.  I first played after a patch, which helped fix those, but being partially deaf I always play with the subtitles on - so I could easily ignore the faces, which are mediocre for the most part.
    Okay, so that out of the way, overall I'd say it was an okay game, but not amazing.  It felt like a Mass Effect game overall, not as big as 1 but broader than 2, not as scripted as 3.  It was alright in terms of being ME.  You start the game as one of the Ryder twins, who are low-level explorers under their dad, just arriving in the Andromeda galaxy on a one-way trip.  It's different from ME 1 where Shepard was already known, you choosing what he was known for.  So it feels a little different, but I found that a good thing as it helped subtly detach me from missing Shepard so much.
    Classes are gone, you can choose between Tech, Biotic or Combat as you will.  That is cool in a gameplay sense - you have freedom to try different playstyles and tactics.  It makes the story weird though.  One of your first companions, Cora, is a Biotic, and will talk about how she was basically ostracized for her powers - and never mention that you too could be a Biotic, thus sympathizing.  Also, at a later point she uses her powers in a pretty dramatic way - and again you get ignored even if you fully spent that way.  It's a small thing, but it really stood out to me the few times it popped up.
    The trees seem pretty well-rounded.  Most of the Combat skills didn't appeal to me, and it felt like a lot of the Biotic skills were meant for melee - so I went mostly Tech.  I did try them all, Tech just fit better for me (as it did in ME 3, prior to that one I had always been a soldier).  The abilities are okay, but introduced a new combo system - some skills primed a combo, and some detonated a combo, and combos do a pretty significant amount of damage and so are quite useful.  But, there are a lot more primers than detonators, which made it feel like you had to stick to a few skills, and it was impossible to co-ordinate with your companions to have one of you prime and the other detonate, which would have been awesome (yes, companions can prime, but you have to notice what they're doing to whom, which can be quite difficult in the chaos of combat).
    Also, you could only keep 3 skills (no more power wheel) active, on the Xbox they were left/right bumper and both together.  That really feels limiting after opening the game up so you can choose from so many powers.  I hated that part of the game, the old power wheel would have been much better.
    Your one wheel is now your guns and consumables - maybe it's just me, but I always forgot I had consumables.  They can recharge your shields, launch a rocket, or give you disrupter or incendiary ammo - so they are useful; I just forgot about them.  I don't remember that system ever being in the previous games, and I did play on the easy difficulty (I was paying by the day to rent it, so I wanted to get as far as possible - though it could still be nicely difficult at some spots) so I didn't need them as much as someone or Hardcore (or the equivalent).  You also start with only 2 gun slots, have to buy in the combat tree to unlock 3 and 4, and gun weight can slow your power recharge speed.  All of that was fine, I would recommend getting the 3rd slot so you can keep a short, medium and long ranged weapon, which you can get fairly light versions of or abilities to increase your carry weight (assault rifle, shotgun and sniper rifle left me at -3% with my tech heavy build).
    Weapons are okay, there are a lot of different types, but you have to craft them. You almost never see a weapon drop from an enemy unless you researched it (more on that in a sec), or even for sale.  That totally sucked.  The weapons do shoot fairly differently, so it would be great to be able to try them out on a gun range type setting (like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided).  I really like assault rifles (can passably snipe distance, short bursts work at medium, and if someone gets close you can hold down the trigger - so they're jack-of-all-trade weapons) and just kept the one I started with for the game, mostly (crafted one upgraded and modded version).  The Reegar Shotgun (not sure of spelling, too lazy to look it up) is Totally Awesome - it Shoots Lighting!!! I loved it, it's wicked at close range against just about anything.  One of the Kett (your enemy race) sniper rifles has explosive shots, which was also fun.  I'd recommend watching some YouTube videos on the different gun types before playing, to save yourself some grief.
    You can also mod weapons and armor - which sucks overall.  Fallout 4 did a much better system, Andromeda is a mostly useless sub-system.  You have to scan objects in the world to earn research points, and there are 3 different types of research points which making different weapons, armors and mods.  Research is kind of hard to come by in the early game, so it really hurts to waste points on a weapon you don't like the feel of (hence my suggestion to look them up before playing). Later in the game you get a good pool of points, but it uses the stupid treadmill system every damn stupid game has to use - so you pay to research Avenger 1, then pay more for Avenger 2 and so on and so on until Avenger 10 (or whatever).  Each level is only a little better than the one before though, so it doesn't feel like you got much for your investment.  From 1 to 2 is a step, since at 2 you can add mods to a gun and enhance it, but even from 1 to 10 is only like a 10-20% increase (or so, I don't have the game in front of me to verify the numbers) - so it doesn't feel like an accomplishment.  I kept my first crafted and modified assault rifle thorough the half-way point of the game I ended at.  Again, being on Easy might have made it less noticeable, Hardcore people might need to stay upgrading, but I just thought is was crap, and it's crap in all the other games that do it.  Far better was the mod system, where you could make a weapon not use ammo but overheat (like ME 1, which is still my favorite system and totally fit the lore), or shoot lightning (though you have a cool shotgun noted above for that) or plasma balls - you can really see and feel the difference with mods.  Those mods, and turning the different weapon types into mods, I would have loved (so, there are like 4 types of assault rifles, one that is a general full auto, another is higher damage but single shot, another shoots bursts only, and another full auto but has a spin-up time like a minigun - all of those would have been better as mods to the base "assault rifle" template in my opinion).
    You can also craft and upgrade armor - but again crafting sucks.  You have to harvest a stupid number of different materials (making it really hard to remember which one you need for your current project, or figure out where to find that stuff), and your options are really crappy for some items.  I really wanted to make the N7 armor my dad designed - but it only buffed Biotic powers, kind of stupid given dad could do all abilities like you.  Useful armor mods were hard to find for me (like +health or +shields), I only saw them in a few stores, and the ones you can craft are very limited in scope.  In order to craft you also have to mine, which you do by driving around in circles (literally) on a planet when the computer tells you you're near some materials.  I Totally Hated That Time-Wasting Crap.  Buying them is kind of expensive, and you can't really find them from orbit like ME2 (though ME 2 had a similar system, which also sucked).  In all, look online for the guns you think you'll like, research them a level or two, craft them - and then forget about the whole system.  It's honestly more of a waste of time than it is helpful.
    Combat is good though, it's more fast-paced, your jetpack and dodge let you zip around the battlefield (and a Biotic ability creates a shield that reflects bullets, which is fun for when you want to walk right up to somebody's face).  The enemy AI seemed decent, and there are different enemy types.  Overall I thought the combat was the best part of the game (and you do plenty of it).
    Dialogue, however, sucks.  Forgetting any animation glitches, you almost never know what exactly you're going to say, and it really felt like it didn't matter what you said (something Fallout 4 did as well, though I don't know if I remembered to mention it in my post).  I really hated talking to people, which I was hoping would be a great part of the system - and I liked lots more in ME 1-3.
    Companions are okay, most all of them are interesting characters in a variety of personalities.  Their random banter can be really cool, which I remember loving in Dragon Age: Origins and am happy to see in Andromeda.  There are romance options like always, actual nudity in the obligatory sex scene (why? though it is better than the underwear scene from DA:O), but nothing really different from the previous games.  Which is good, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
    The story, however, blows chunks.  It is not really that engaging, has several easy to see plot points, and just didn't seem like it was that much fun to do the main quests.  It is full of side quests, most of which felt like a waste of time, which reminded of the worst of Dragon Age: Inquisition (though not as horrific as DA:I).  I was really hoping for multiple alien races, I only saw one, which felt odd given all the many different races, with different personalities, in the previous games.  I got about half-way through the main storyline (according to internet research) and honestly I don't care if I ever finish it.  Doesn't seem like you make many meaningful decisions, and the lack of Paragon/Renegade didn't help (even though those were mediocre morality systems, they did have some great interrupt moments)(loved pushing the guy out the window in ME2).
    Also, being strangers in a strange galaxy, there is a kind of base-building system.  You can earn points by terraforming planets to wake up more colonists and gain different abilities from the ones you thaw.  Except, the bonuses you get are really forgettable and don't contribute much.  Your first base you can choose weather to be scientific or military - and you never get that choice for subsequent bases, and it doesn't matter except for one or two lines of dialogue.  This is where it painfully reminded me of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and I'm sad that after making such a suck-all base system in that game they did the same thing in Andromeda.  There's also a multiplayer thing I didn't use because I don't like multiplayer, and some rewards in real-time that were also so small as to be inconsequential.

    Overall, I'd say if you liked the Mass Effect games wait to get this one cheap at GameStop.  If you didn't care for ME, then skip this one, I doubt it will sell you on the franchise.  Or just rent it a time or two from Redbox like I did.

Thoughts on Fallout 4

    As usual for me, I'm behind several years on the games I play.  So I've just finished playing Fallout 4.  Well, "finished" in the sense that I've hit the limit of what I can stand doing, not that I've run out of things/quests to do.  I did finish the main quest though.  So here are a few thoughts about it.
    I loved the crafting system for weapons.  It was a nice touch, making all that junk that's lying around in every Fallout game (at least 3 & NV that I've played) actually useful, and scrounging has the post-apocalyptic feel.  It also was useful, letting you make much better weapons out of the ones you find.  I love crafting too, which helped :)  Some of the options were really good too, changing how the guns felt shooting or letting you tailor your weapons to your playstyle, like close and automatic or long-ranged sniping.  The plasma option to turn your gun into a mini-flamethrower was a totally great addition (so much fun).  On the downside, you do have the omnipresent level grind where you go from 'standard receiver' to 'advanced receiver' to 'amazingly godlike receiver' for your base damage upgrading.  I've never been fond of that style of mechanic, though I guess it is unavoidable with a level-based game.
    Likewise I loved the settlement building.  Had that perfect feel for trying to create a new, better future.  Again, loving crafting helped.  It was awesome to build my own mansion, using large glass windows to look out on the ruined city (from my island, after ridding it of Milelurks).  But that charm really wore off when I realized there was no good reason at all to actually build a settlement.  All it gave you was some crafting stations, which are everywhere, a place to store your junk (that is you didn't like crafting wasn't an issue), and a few useful crops (glue is used in everything, literally, so being able to grow your own was a huge plus).  Overall though, they can get attacked, side-tracking you from you were doing to help.  Settlers do not level up, and have no gear really, so equipping them to survive the higher level enemies was a micromanaging pain the behind.  They take a lot of resources to build, and just again, you get little from the sense of accomplishment from them - which isn't something to scoff at, but wears out fairly quickly.
    Like the last 2 Fallout games, the main quest is something you can really ignore.  I didn't care at all about finding my son, and waited several days of playing before working on it.  The faction quests were okay, though I mostly focused on The Brotherhood of Steel myself.  The ending was not really very satisfying - but that's been true of the last 2 Fallout games in spades; I HATED New Vegas for making me walk off into the sunset when I'd worked so hard to make my own robot army to take over the place.
    Otherwise there's plenty to do, and some fun quests (the robots on the ship was awesome, the witchcraft museum was great - even knowing the plot really, and the haunted mine was totally cool).  I did not like any of the companions, until I got the Automatron DLC and loved Ada your robot friend.  The difficulty was good for me, not too hard, though near the end it did start to get pretty easy.  Getting your first suit of power armor early on was fantastic, though the fight for it was pretty intense.
    I liked the game.  For the discounted price I got it from GameStop it was well worth it, and I thought the DLC was decently priced for what you got.

First Impressions - Gwent: The Witcher Card Game

    Found a preview build of this on a friend's Xbox One. I've heard of The Witcher (mostly good things) but never played any of the games.  I was hitting the end of my Fallout 4 kick (which I'll talk about soon) and figured I'd try something new.  I've played a fair number of card games in the past, my brother got me hooked on Magic when it first came out.  The Battletech CCG was cool, and a tabletop game I liked, Mythos, the Call of Cuthulu CCG was innovative of the times, and the Aliens CCG looked neat but I never got to play it.  So I've seen a few in my day, though granted that was many years ago.
    Gwent struck me as a really cool game, and an interesting twist on some of the common mechanics.  Briefly, you construct for one of 5 or 6 factions each with their own strategies.  You draw a good sized hand, but the game is played in 3 rounds and on round 2 you draw 2 more cards and round 3 only 1 card.  So it makes a nice tension for how many cards do you want to burn though now or save for later.  It also makes for circumstances when choosing to lose a round is a good tactical option.  That's a nice complexity.  The winner of each round is determined but a simple total of power, highest wins.  Each character card has a power number, "spells" and such do not.  So your cards do not directly fight like in Magic, though they do have abilities that can target each other.  You also have a leader card with a powerful special ability, but they can only be played once in the entire match.  Cards are placed on one of 3 rows: melee, ranged and siege; and some effects target a whole row or adjacent units.  It has a nice tactical depth without being too hard to learn and track (in my so far limited experience).
    If you like card games or board games I'd give it a try.
    There are a few things I am not too fond of.  The tutorial didn't quite explain that when you pass, you stop acting/playing cards for the round.  I thought like most CCG's you only sat out one round.  This does make some of the "damage over time"-type effects a little less useful, since you have to keep playing cards to sustain the effect and you may need to stop to avoid burning yourself out for later.  The card effects are not always explained well, though in play you start to get a feel for the quirks, but since it's basically a beta game I'm sure the tooltips and such will get clearer soon enough.  Also, the number one problem with any CCG is explaining the fundamental tactics that each faction uses.  It can be a little hard to suss out by reading the cards, I'd imagine moreso if you are new to card games in general.  This can be kind of simple, like the monster deck that summons and sacrifices cards, or a little trickier - the leader in the deck I've mostly used has an ability I did not catch at first.  Normally you hold your leader, since it can only be played once in the whole match; but this leader added 1 power to every character in my hand and deck - so it was best to play him as the first card of the match.  Not a big deal, but I wish more games would give some hints or a walk-through of strategies in general, just to soften the learning curve.
    I'm sure I'll play it some more, but just against the computer opponents.  I don't really like playing adversarial games in general, and I don't really care for playing games with or against random people across the world.  Still, I thought it was a pretty good game, it's free, and worth taking a look at.

First Play- Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition

    Yes, I know I'm about a year late to the party :)
    Yesterday I ran my first game of D&D 5th, with 2 players who had played it a few times, and 4 players who had never played it.  So, here are some off-the-cuff impressions.

Simple But Flexible
    This is a turn away from the rules-heavy 3rd/4th editions to the mechanically lighter original D&D.  Which is good.  Every action is basically 4 things: attribute + proficiency + d20 roll (normal, advantage or disadvantage) + class/item/spell modifier (if any).  That's a pretty easy formula to get used to, and a lot of it is binary.  Either you have proficiency or you don't.  Either you have advantage or you don't.  Things don't stack, so if you have 2 things giving advantage and 1 giving disadvantage then you roll normally.  I'm not as sure about that, I kind of think it would be fun to pile up modifiers Fate Aspect styled, but it's fine in play.  Lots is also fixed, the proficiency bonus is the same for all characters of the same level, and attributes don't change very often.  Really easy to adjudicate on the fly.  The tight mechanics means even being bad at something still gives you a chance to succeed or contribute.

Not A Lot Of Class Abilities, But Usually Enough
    At first level most characters had 4-5 skills they were good at, and one or two decent abilities.  It was not as much as in Pathfinder, or even 13th Age in some ways, but it seemed to be enough.  I am a believer that the fewer abilities you have the more flexible they need to be.  Having Advantage on tracking Goblins is pretty specific, but having Advantage when Tracking is a bit more flexible.  5th falls just a little on the "too narrow" side to me, but is still playable enough.  Really, that's up to the players and while one did comment that he felt short on options everybody seemed to roll with it okay.

Decent Starter Adventure - The Lost Mine Of Phandelver
    I did pick up the Starter Set box a while back, so I ran the adventure straight out of the box (just adding a few monsters here and there since I had 6 players to start with).  It is not high fiction, but it is a pretty solid adventure/ mini-campaign.  We only got about halfway through it, but each the locations and encounters had enough interesting bits to keep everyone engaged.  It also goes from clearing a cave to talking to NPCs, and while the traditional goblin fight leads things off, there are a varity of opponents after that.  Overall I was satisfied with it, and it has enough dangling plot bits that I already know how I can continue it if the players want to keep playing.

Worst DMG Ever
    Wow, I cannot say enough about just how godawful that stupid DMG is- it's like it was written by children instead of experienced game designers.  A million random-roll tables to build everything from worlds to plots to plot twists to NPCs !?!?!?!  Really?  Have you never heard of the Internet?  A Google search will give you literally thousands of random generators for anything you want.  But even more importantly, have you never heard about creativity?  About building a world and NPCs and scene for a reason, to illustrate a point or convey an emotional beat?  For a purpose, not "because the dice said so"?  Really?  I would have expected a book like this back in the early 80s when the industry was new, not now.  And the stuff you really need, the peek inside the designers' minds to help you understand the fundamentals of the game?  Barely there at all.  No table for "expected wealth by level" to know how much loot and magic the monsters are scaled to be challenging against.  The section on making your races, classes, backgrounds, spells and magic items - the foundations of understanding the game's power and options - that's a whopping 7 pages.  And most of it boils down to "look at the existing and make up your own stuff" which is, well, pathetic.  You really never made a chart of abilities you think work for each level when you designed the classes yourselves?  You just threw darts at the board and hoped you'd get lucky?  Like I said, not very professional.
    There are at least about 10 pages of how to build a monster, so some solid advice, though I highly recommend you go to The Angry GM and check out his articles on building a monster in 5th.  And the obligatory list of magic items.  Not much else of use if you've ever GMed any RPG before.  I literally would not buy this book if I could find the magic items somewhere else.

Rangers Suck
    My players were a group with a Cleric, Barbarian, Fighter, Bard, Sorcerer and Ranger.  All were okay except for the Ranger.  What the hell happened to the Favored Enemy?  Talk about weak-sauce.  You learn their language, when the game already gives you more languages than anybody in even modern times learns.  You have Advantage to track and recall information about them. And THAT IS FRIGGING IT ?!?!?!?  W with a T and a giant all-caps in bold and italics F.  That's not a favored enemy, that's a favored friend.  A casual acquaintance.  No combat bonuses at all?  I remember back in D&D Next them talking about adding abilities to the favored enemy that would be targeted at that race's abilities.  So, a favored enemy of dragons would mean you were immune to fear, since all dragons had a fear aura.  That would not only be good against that favored enemy but also all other monsters with the same ability.  So, flexible.  Instead we went from that, I have to say brilliant, idea to this weak snot?  Somebody dropped the ball.
    Otherwise, the Bard's inspiration only applying to one character also kind of sucks.  If they can do it so infrequently then it should at least effect the whole party.  The rest of their abilities are useful enough though.  The Barbarian's Rage is crazy strong, he soaked damage like a sponge.  Everybody else seemed okay.

    I've got some more ideas, and a more detailed write up on some elements of 5th that I'm working on.  So I'll try to publish a more detailed review, or at least look at certain aspects of the game, soon.  Again, I'm pretty late to 5th so odds are you can find lots of people talking about everything I've noticed already - but since it's new to me I'm gonna blab about it anyways ;)

First Play- Death Angel: the Space Hulk card game

    My friend Aaron got the Space Hulk board game back in High School, and we also got into the Warhammer 40,000 wargame too.  So I kind of fondly remember the WH40K universe, and when we saw the Death Angel card game I talked him into getting it (which just involved putting it in his hands).  That was a few years ago, and just now I finally played it solo (apparently he forgot about it).
    I was not a big fan of the Space Hulk board game, while a hard game makes winning feel even better, I don't like games so hard that you should expect to lose far more often than you win.  I'm kind of a wimp gamer that way.  And Space Hulk was hard.  You played a group of Space Marines, basically super-soldiers in high-tech armor, exploring a "space hulk" - a ruined starship - infested with Genestealers, basically the aliens from Alien.  There were only about 6 marines, and a whole bunch more of the aliens.  Like Descent you had terrain tiles that made up the rooms of the ship, and you had a "quest" to get to a certain room or do something.  It was a tactical wargame, and the Space Marine player needed a lot of luck and smarts, and the Genestealer player got to enjoy being evil.
    While I was not a huge fan of the board game, I had some sort of fond memories playing it - so I was more than willing to give the card game a try.  Essentially the two are the same, in the card game up to 4 players control the Space Marines, and cards set up the rooms and control the Genestealers.  Which was one of the things that intrigued me about the game, you can play it solo.  At the end of each turn there is an event card that creates new Genestealers, moves a random number of them to random places, and basically controls everything else.  I played solo, everybody else was at work.  The Space Marines form a line, and each row is like one space or hex.  The Marines also have facing, and can only use some abilities against Genestealers in the same facing, so there is a real boardgame feel of space and positioning.  Most Marines can shoot 1 or more rows, so they can help defend other Marines, but a few are melee only and restricted to their own row.  Each room has terrain, like a corridor or door or grate, and each piece of terrain is in a different row, and the Genestealers spawn from those rows at random.  There can only be one Marine in a row, but the Genestealers can form groups.  To attack, the Marine rolls a custom D6 and has a 50% chance to hit, killing 1 Genestealer.  The Marines also roll to defend, and the die has numbers from 0 to 5.  If the Marine rolls a number greater than the Genestealers in the group attacking he survives, roll equal or less and he dies.  Thus, a group of 5 Genestealers is a automatic death sentence, which has that feel of dread and pack tactics that the board game also had.

    The game is hard, but the funny thing is that it feels artificially hard.  Like it was deliberately stacked against you, not that the circumstances themselves were difficult.  Each pair of Marines chooses one action to perform each round - from Support (help another Marine), Move + Activate (switch places or change facing and use a door or terminal if it is on the same row) or Attack (try to kill Genestealers).  In the board game each Marine could move and attack using Command points, and basically vary exactly what and how much they did from turn to turn.  In the card game, you cannot perform the same action twice in a row.  So if you attack this turn, you have to Move or Support next turn.  Why?  This feels like a totally artificial problem, it does not make any sense on its own.  Also, in the board game the Genestealers were represented by "blips,"  face-down markers that could be anywhere from 0 to 3 (I think, maybe even 5, not sure) individual Genestealers.  Basically, it was like the Aliens motion tracker, you were pretty sure something was over there, but not exactly how many.  This lack of knowledge was a big part of the suspense and downright fear of the game.  In the card game however, every blip card is exactly 1 Genestealer.  So there is no guessing, no fear involved.  To move on to the next room you have to clear one of two blip piles, and to win the game you have to clear the final room.  I lost 2 Marines in the first room, and then 2 more in the second room, and survived a turn or two in the third room - the fourth was the last.  So it was hard, like I remember the board game being, but it didn't really feel fair.  I felt like I was supposed to lose, like the rules wanted me to lose, not like they wanted to challenge me.

What I liked...

• Has The WH40K Trappings - you have the Space Marines, one that carries a Heavy Flamer, another has the Autocannon, going room by room trying to survive the wave of Genestealers; so it has that Warhammer feel that is pretty cool.
• Tactical Positioning From Simple Rules - getting that "board game grid" feel from having rows and facing is actually a pretty neat trick for just some simple rules, I would love to see that layout used in other card games to give them some depth.
• Solo Play - it is neat to have a game that you can play without an adversary, or even without any other players.  I do like that sort of thing.

What I didn't like...

• Doesn't Feel Hard, Feels Mean - hard is okay, when there is a good reason for why things are hard; this just felt mean.
• No Good Example Of Play - the rulebook is not that long, and really the game is pretty simple, but there is not a great example of play to make the game and its steps clear and easy to understand.  Still, you get the hang of it pretty quick.
• Not Sure What Good Having Friends Is - I played the game solo, and honestly I don't know what benefit it would have been to have friends with me.  So much of the game is random, and so hard to plan ahead, I would think adding more people would actually make it harder, not easier.  Still, I never did try it with multiple players, this is just an impression.

My recommendation - skip this one, or borrow a friend's deck to try it first.  May not be everyone's cup of tea.

First Play - Descent: Forgotten Souls Expansion

    My friend Aaron got me playing the first Descent, and then he ended up getting the Second Edition a few years ago.  Neither of us really likes the second edition as much, the mini-sized cards I find terribly annoying, and the defense dice instead of a fixed number makes things feel even more swing-y/less predictable.  But overall it's not a bad game, and we play from time to time.
    A while ago we got the Forgotten Souls expansion, which claims that you can play Descent (2nd) without an Overlord.  I like this idea, I don't really like adversarial games, and while a GM in an RPG does have to play the "bad guys" the goal is to provide something for the players to work to overcome and unexpected twists and a logical sequence of events (that on a good day even resembles a plot).  So I've never felt an RPG was adversarial, but the Overlord in Descent always seemed that way.  After all, the Overlord doesn't set the board that the players have to run, placing traps at predefined points like in an RPG, instead the Overlord dynamically spends points to create traps and monsters and such out of thin air in the most effective/dastardly way possible.  So, as I said, the idea of a non-Overlord game sounded nice, in theory.  And a few weeks ago we actually played it for the first time.
    Forgotten Souls is basically a set of cards that describe each room of the dungeon and what happens.  There is one opening encounter, represented by a card that has any special rules (in the first room I believe one was that the heroes could not heal) for the room.  There are 3 more encounters that are a part of the story, which get shuffled into a set of 8 other rooms that act as filler.  I actually like this idea, I think it's kind of cool to build the dungeon one room at a time, with each having its own gimmick or purpose.  I don't think it would be bad if you just decided on how many encounters you wanted, like 2 random in-between every story encounter, so that you could shrink or grow the dungeon for the time you had available.
    Once you draw the room you set the tiles up according to the rulebook - which I would prefer if the map was on another card or a poster.  You drop more monsters based on the number of players, so it scales well from 2 to 4 people.  And then you draw a card that tells you how the monsters are going to act.  Players go first, until they meet the victory condition for the encounter card.  But, if any figures are still on the board, random "peril" events trigger to encourage the players to keep moving.  That was a kind of odd system, and I'm not sure I even played it right.  Then you move on to the next encounter until you reach the end.
    Overall it did what it said on the box, it was a way to run a dungeon without an Overlord - but it was also fairly limited enough that you couldn't use it in general - you had to be playing the particular dungeon it came with.  Not a bad thing, but also with lots of room for improvement and expansion.

What I liked...

• No Overlord - makes the game feel a little more co-operative (to bad the rules don't always support that).
• Room By Room Design - it was actually really nice to look at the dungeon as a series of little rooms each with a purpose instead of the one giant floor of regular Descent.  I liked the pacing and flow a lot better, not as many random hallways and stuff.

What I didn't like...

• Random Monster Goals - each encounter you draw an Activation Card that says what the monsters are going to do in that room.  Which is kind of weird.  In one room the monsters targeted the character with a ranged weapon, which only one player had - so the other player was pretty much free to act.  Or another room they targeted the farthest away character, running past the closer one.  Really, this over-complicates things.  Unless a set of different monsters were specifically chosen to do something (tanks in front, archers in back) then really they always move and attack the closest character - if they want to be effective.  There is not that much tactical depth, at least in the limited playing I've done, to justify having lots of different targeting/action conditions.  And really, the monster tactics should be specific to a room - if the room has something to be guarded, then some number of monsters should be guarding it, regardless of what the players do.
• The Peril System - when you complete the goal of the encounter, but have not cleared the map, it seems to switch into some sort of countdown timer with random "peril" events triggering at the end of each round.  This felt really arbitrary and artificial.
• No Example Of Play - this is a very different way of playing Descent, it really should have had at least one room written out in some detail with an example of play to help you understand what you were supposed to be doing.

What I wish I knew before I started playing...

• The Rulebook Is A Fancy PDF - along with the new sets of cards you need the rules for how to run the expansion, which is not included in the physical package.  Instead you have to go online and download the PDF of the rules, and said PDF is full-color with lots of background graphics and gradients on each page.  So, printing it in color is going to use a lot of ink, and printing it in black and white is going to have a lot of grey - not ideal either way.  When we played I ended up running between the game board and my laptop (didn't think my phone was big enough to read it) to figure out what to do next.  This isn't too bad, if you play it enough times I'm sure it'll become second nature, but at first it is annoying.  Don't know why they couldn't have printed at least the room layouts in a folded poster format.

Recommendation- If you like the idea of Overlord-less Descent give it a try, or at least go to the company's website and read the rulebook and see what you think.

The Homeless Nerd Reviews - Fallout Shelter

    The Fallout series are a post-apocalyptic tactical or role-playing games, and before the release of Fallout 4 in November we have Fallout Shelter, and iOS or Android mobile game.  I've only played the last two Fallout games, but I liked them a lot, so when I recently upgraded my phone to one that could play Fallout Shelter I decided to give it a try.
    In Fallout Shelter you play the role of Overseer, in charge of your own Vault and the Dwellers who live there.  You have to build rooms in the vault, assign dweller to jobs and even name all the children.  It's kind of like The Sims, on a broader scale.  The beginning rooms produce resources, like power or food or water, and you need enough to power the base and feed the dwellers.  You can also send dwellers outside to explore the wilderness, where they will bring back outfits and weapons - or die horribly.  It's a bit of a gamble.  In fact, each room that produces resources can be "rushed" to make them faster, but with a percentage chance to fail and cause a disaster instead.  So there is a fair amount of risk to things, though once you get a good balance of resources and dwellers you don't really need to rush anymore.
    It's a very casual game, not incredibly deep, and there is no storyline or plot.  You just manage your vault and try to keep everybody alive and happy for as long as you want.
    Here's a picture of my vault, at the moment-

What I liked...

• Fallout Nostalgia - I've only played Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but I really liked both games a lot, so it is fun to be in the Fallout universe, even in a completely different way from the games.
• Casual - once your vault hits a certain point it really runs itself, so you can log in two or three times a day to check on things but you don't have to obsess over the game.
• Not What I Usually Play - I'm not really a base-building kind of gamer, I really like role-playing games, so this is a fun diversion from what I'd usually play (though I'll admit I did go through a Sims 2 phase).
• Free, Though A Few Bucks Helps - the game is free, and you can play it fine without spending any money.  There are lunchboxes that give random special loot, and you can get them by doing in-game achievements.  Still, if you're willing to shell out about $10 you can get some Mister Handys that automatically collect resources and about 5 lunchboxes (at the time of writing this, prices and availability may change on that) which will give you a big boost for not a lot of money.  And it is good to support free games by spending something.

What I didn't like...

• Kind Of Pointless - there is really no end-game, no over-arching goal, you just keep building rooms and making people until you feel like stopping.  I'm not a big fan of that, I like to feel that I've accomplished something in my games and the achievements are just not significant enough to give that feeling.
• Micromanaging - likewise I don't really like to have to micromanage everything; in Fallout Shelter disasters can strike, like a fire or radroach infestation, and only the people in the room will do anything about it.  If you want someone from another room to help you have to press and drag them to the trouble spot.  That's kind of annoying.  Also, if you want any new baby vault dwellers you have to press and drag two parents into the living quarters yourself.
• The Touch Screen Interface - this can be a real headache at times when you are trying to select someone and just get the room instead, or your press and drag isn't being recognized, and the pinch to zoom can be frustrating.  Sadly though, these are inherent limits of playing a game on a phone.

What I wish I knew before I started playing...

• Go Slow - my first vault I tried to rush every room and build my population as fast as possible, and it ended in a disaster.  Actually, take your time.  Only have one or two women pregnant at a time, so your population doesn't out-pace your resources.  Let rooms make their resources, only rush when you've got a 30% or less chance of disaster.  Don't obsess over getting a dweller into the wilderness as soon as possible, make sure your vault is stable first.  Plus, getting a few lunchboxes (by achievements or cash) should net you a really good weapon or special dweller who will help a lot (I got the 16 damage Gauss Rifle in my first lunchbox, and it has helped immensely).
• Leave Room To Grow - you can chain rooms, up to three in one unit, and it seems to be a lot better to build them in groups instead of singles.

Recommendation- if you liked the Fallout games, or The Sims, give it a shot; otherwise, there's not really a lot here (most of my phone games are for playing while I wait at the mechanic or doctor's office, but this game is not very good for that, you have to log in each day to maintain things).

First Play- Star Wars: Imperial Assault

    A friend of mine bought this game, and the guy at the game store told him, "It's basically Star Wars Descent."  That was the best way to describe this.
    Well, that's not a big surprise since it is by the same guys who made Descent, Fantasy Flight Games.  Like Descent, you click together puzzle-like map tiles, get 1 - 4 players (though optimized for 4) who are the Rebels, while one player is the Empire (and sort of GM).  Each rebel has a hero card, and a small hero deck of skills to buy with xp during the campaign (which it is also optimized for).
    There are a whole lot of cards and counters and dice and terrain tiles and dice in the box - have lots of plastic bags to sort stuff in after you break it all apart.

What I liked about this...

• I liked Descent, so I liked the structure of the game.  The unique rebel heroes and generic imperial bad guys felt right with the setting
• The missions are cooler than Descent, usually there will be some starting forces but then as the rebels do stuff events will trigger to complicate things, which keeps everybody on their toes
• The campaign setting is cool, with its branching paths depending on if the heroes win or lose a mission, and the increasing rewards and threat all seem pretty cool - we only had time to play the starter encounter and 2 missions though
• Each side has a pretty distinct feel, the rebels are powerful heroes while the imperial forces are weaker individually and need to rely on good tactics and teamwork

What I didn't like...

• The rulebooks are not always that clear, and could really use some better examples of play - it can be hard to make sense of all the steps and they are not intuitive
• The terrain: while the terrain puzzle is cool, it is also a lot of bits to keep track of and takes a good while to assemble the map, something I also didn't like so much about Descent
• Mini-cards, these also appeared in the 2nd edition of Descent, and the super-small cards for abilities are a pain to read when you're my age, and a pain to move around the table at times;  one-half of a normal playing card size would be nicer than one-quarter
• Square tiles mean a lot of annoying mapping to tell if you have line of sight to shoot at someone - which is a given pain with the grid layout

    Overall I liked it a lot.  It is a nice board game with some role-playing seasoning, and while the setup time and campaign structure means you really need to invest some time to play, still it is fun.  I look forward to trying another game.

Evil (in my opinion) Game Design

    After having posted the great Extra Credits episode on Humane Game Design, I had to post a link to this.  I like to read Cracked.com, they have a great mix of different articles and write about even serious subjects in a funny manner.  But when I came across this article on 5 Reasons I Lost $9,000 On An iPhone Game, I had to post something about it here.
    I have never been a casual game fan, I like to accomplish something in my games.  I'm currently playing Skyrim (yeah, I'm well behind the curve) and I like it (despite some flaws).  I like having quests and completing quests and building my own house (I had to get the game of the year edition for Hearthfire).  I like getting stuff done.  Which has been a problem with me and MMOs, the repetitive nature of their content feels like I haven't gotten anywhere.  But while I may not like that kind of design, the game described in the cracked article sounds downright evil.  Like it was meant to use social pressure to force people to spend money on what is marked as a free-to-play game.  That's a whole 'nother level of horrible game design.  I cannot fathom why people would play this sort of game at all, but I do feel sorry for them being manipulated (weather deliberately or not) into spending way too much time and especially money on a game.
    No deep thoughts, not right now at least, just something so amazing I wanted to post a link to it.

Things I Love About 13th Age

    So recently I've been posting and working on a lot of house rules to 13th Age, and taking a look at some of the game's structure (which I'll post soon).  This might lead my gentle reader into thinking that I don't like the game.  Which is partially correct, there are most definitely things that I don't like about the game.  However, there are some things that I absolutely love about the game - which I want to touch on here real quick.
    The impetus for this post came from another blogger that I follow, 1d30 had a post on "The Yin and Yang of Treasure Division."  This post, for those who you who choose not to follow the link, talks about many different ways to handle dividing up the party's loot at the end of the adventure.  Which is a part of gaming that can cause great contention.  And reading this article I said to myself, thank God I don't have to deal with that.  See, in 13th Age magic items cannot be bought, that's in the rulebook - so I decided to run with that concept and ignore the gear the monsters are using completely, instead I give all my players one magic item of their choice every level (and yes, that means they started with one at first level).  So there is no selling loot, no arguing over who gets what, everybody gets something and since they can choose hopefully they are all getting something useful (well, the magic item rules (or lack thereof) are a bit wonky, but still).  I still remember playing the whole Rise of the Runelords campaign and having to write down every item, ask who wanted what, total the costs and then the selling prices, and divide that evenly amongst everybody.  It was a colossal pain in the posterior that I had to go through at the end of every gaming session (calculating the value of spellbooks was a particular torture).  Not having to do it has been a wonderful boon for both myself and my players.
    You know another thing I'm glad I'm not calculating?  Experience.  At the end of every adventure all the players go up a level.  Period.  We don't meet very often, so a nice fast progression lets everybody develop more and more of their character's powers and awesomeness.  How much XP is the level 0 peasant worth?  None.  No XP.  Ha ha, ding dong the witch is dead.  It was another huge waste of time to track that stuff and I'm glad to be rid of it.
    Massive list of skills, class skills and skill points per level?  Gone, and good riddance.  Everybody started with the same number of points and I've been giving them an extra one every level (since we use the Expertise and Approach system, which is a little more complicated than the vanilla book's Backgrounds).  <pushes the Staples "easy button">
    While there are things that bother me a lot, and baggage that has haunted 13th Age from other D&D versions, I do have to admit that they did a nice job of simplifying things and dropping some really annoying mechanics that did not add anything meaningful to the game.  Some people may love crunching the numbers and fighting over the spoils - I sure don't, and I want my players to focus on their characters' development and the storyline, not the logistics of maintaining a "murder hobo."

Marvel Heroes Reminds Me Why I Hate Randomness

    My friend Aaron got me playing the Marvel Heroes MMO.  My last blog post was about it, and I wanted to write something about the game in general.  If you haven't played Marvel let me sum it up in one sentence: it's Diablo 3 with superheroes.  If you haven't played Diablo 3 (or any of the series really), let me sum that up: loot, and randomness.
   Let's digress and talk about Diablo 3 for a moment.  Diablo 3, and 2 (I never played the first) are all about the loot.  While they have some trappings of an RPG - there is experience and leveling and choosing to put points in abilities - all of that is secondary.  It's really about the loot.  Your abilities can give you a lot of power, but in order to survive in the game you have to get the right equipment.  Each piece of armor and every weapon gives bonuses to your base stats and your powers.  And all items are not created equal.  The most basic ones give a tiny bonus, while the best legendary items give tons of bonuses or even brand new abilities.  Without the greatest items, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to defeat the toughest bosses.  Your abilities are nice, but if you're standing naked in a field of demons you're dead.  You need loot.
    Along with the need for loot comes randomness.  Each monster drops a random item, each map is randomized in its layout every time you visit, each boss spawns with random abilities.  You have control over which abilities you put points into when you level up - and absolutely everything after that is subject to the whims of the random number generator (or RNG).  Everything.
    Now, I've got a whole 'nother rant about loot stats vs player skill, based on my playing The Lord of the Rings Online actually.  But for right now I want to look at randomness.  I hate randomness, and I hate it for a variety of reasons...

Randomness is a psychological trick
    A system that gives random rewards (in size/composition) at random intervals is commonly called a Skinner Box, after the psychologist who discovered that it was one of the most addictive forms of reward.  You never know how many monsters you'll have to kill to get a legendary item, and you never know if the great RNG god will drop a useful legendary item when it does, but there is always the chance that it is that next monster that will have the item you've been looking for/dreaming of.  It's a dirty, underhanded way to try to get someone to keep playing.  Personally, I have an addictive personality, the kind of brain that falls for this sort of thing really easily.  I played an ungodly number of hours of Diablo 2 back in the day, and it could be hard to put down Diablo 3 at times.  Of course, almost every MMO is a Skinner Box to some degree, and a good number of other games are too.  Still doesn't mean I like or agree with it.  You kill x number of monsters and you level up to by y number of skills/abilities from z number of choices.  That's the leveling system in a nutshell and it is very fixed, with little randomness, and if it works for a character's powers/abilities I don't know why it couldn't work for equipment as well.

Randomness creates waste
    Now, with different quality of loot and multiple attempts needed to find the item you want (the more attempts needed the better the item), the system inherently is wasteful.  You will always accumulate "vendor trash" - stuff that you will not use because it is beneath you, and just sell off to an NPC for some equally useless cash, typically.  Well, it's not just the item that was wasted - you also wasted your time killing all those monsters and juggling your inventory to sell all that vendor trash.  And, frequently, you wasted a lot of time reloading the map to try to find the one randomly spawning monster who might randomly drop the item you wanted in the first place.  Waste, waste, waste.  God knows I have wasted plenty of my life on my own, I don't need my games helping me.

Randomness creates frustration
    Along with all this repetitive waste comes an emotion, frustration.  Every gamer has known the pain of grinding through a level or area in search of a widget and not finding it.  To have all that time flushed down the toilet is annoying, and when the great RNG god decides to hate you, and you spend hours after hours chasing something and not finding it, it totally sucks.  Like smash the keyboard or throw the controller sucks.  Spending time is okay, investing time (by doing something that gives a reward or benefit) is good, but wasting time feels terrible.
    And then, of course, after spending 10 hours fruitlessly searching for the ultimate widget, you'll see in the chat channel where someone found it in 2 minutes.  That always gives you a nice warm glow of thermonuclear rage.

Randomness destroys meaning
    Randomness always requires repetition.  If there is a 1-in-a-thousand chance of getting something, and you only ever get one chance at it, you'll either not play or immediately be out of chances.  To keep this randomness going you have to keep repeating the steps, keep killing just one more monster, one more boss.  And, invariably, it will be the same monster and the same bosses.  Took down the Kingpen's criminal empire by killing all his thugs and then dealing with him as well as Elektra and Bullseye, good job!  But he didn't drop the widget, so wait a second for him to respawn and go do it again.  And again.  And again.
    By having bosses and monsters respawn it destroys all meaning.  So what if you killed him, he'll be back.  Nothing you do makes any kind of lasting impact on the world.  Nothing you do matters - except to you.  You finally killed him enough times to get the widget, so things are better in your own little universe.  But does the self-centered pursuit of stuff really mean anything?  It's not like you can use that new widget to make any changes.  Sure, you can finally up the difficulty level, kill a bigger monster; who will then respawn just like the rest.  It's one of the funny things about The Lord of the Rings Online, the fellowship's quest will never end, The One Ring will just respawn and somebody else will have to throw it in Mount Doom.  Comics are often derided for making death cheap.  When a hero, or even villain, dies it is just a matter of time before they come back in one form or another.  Death does not matter, nothing matters really.  Sad that one of the worst things about a genera can become enshrined in its digital form.

    Having just gone over all the things I don't like about randomness, I'll admit that there is something I do like about it...

Randomness creates uncertainty
    As soul-crushingly horrible as randomness is, there is one thing it does right - it creates uncertainty.  Will this work, or won't it?  There's the old saying about the "best laid plans..." and randomness provides that.  You have a great plan, kill the monster and take the treasure, but sorry Mario, your princess is in another castle.  Uncertainty is good.  If you know you're going to win (or even lose) then there is less reason to play.  Victory without challenge is hollow, unearned, and failure despite your efforts is beyond frustration.
    Uncertainty is what makes the journey work taking.  Not knowing means you have to try in order to find out.  It gives an impulse, a shot in the arm to take the plunge and go for it.  It also keeps you on your toes.  Not knowing what is behind the door, around the next corner, if Plan A will work or if you should start warming up Plan E - all of that keeps you thinking, keeps you engaged.  And randomness does help create that uncertainty, which is admittedly vital to any enjoyable game.

    Now, with the little good for all the bad we get from randomness, the question is how can we create a system that gives us more good than bad?  That's an excellent question and one that I do not have a ready answer for.  I never tried any of the few "diceless" role-playing games, though the idea does appeal to me.  Even in a pen and paper RPG there can be a little too much randomness, though nowhere as bad as in computer games; and why I prefer to play tabletop instead.  Single-player computer games tend to have less randomness, the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes game is nothing at all like the Marvel MMO.  And honestly with so many people in the same world, I'm not sure how much randomness you can cut out of an MMO.  It may just be the nature of the beast.  Still, I'd love to see somebody try.

    Okay, well, to wrap things up a few more thoughts on the Marvel MMO that I started talking about.
    I don't know why they went with a Diablo-clone as a model with the superhero genera except for marketing reasons.  While some heroes are all about the gear, like Iron Man, others have very little care about their clothing or stuff, like Cyclops.  So the Diablo-loot-centric design feels very off for some of the characters.  It's plain ridiculous for others - Captain America has a "shield" slot that lets you equip different shields with different abilities; and this is a character defined by his one-of-a-kind, cannot-be-duplicated piece of equipment !  Likewise Wolverine can equip different claws as if it was that easy to just pop out the old set and switch them for a new model.  It is just so stupid if you actually think about it. (I know, I know, thinking bad)
    They have over 40 characters, but a fixed pool that you can test run.  This sucks because the character you want to play may not be in the list of starting characters to choose from.  You can play each starting character to level 10, and can only choose one to reach the level cap (currently 60).  So you might really want to play Rogue, but she isn't starting so you either have to shell out real money or play another character and collect the in-game "eternity splinters" that can be used to unlock things for free (well, for time spent playing, really).  That kind of sucks.  It would be very cool of them to give you x number of trial slots to level 10 and one (or even 2 to be really nice) full slots.  As they keep adding more and more characters it's more of an annoyance.
    The control scheme also sucks.  You have left- and right-mouse-button powers, and then 6 other powers (defaulting to 'A' through 'H' I believe, I changed the scheme myself).  All your moving is done by clicking the left mouse button, so there is a key to hold yourself in place since that's also an action/attack button (and so much fun when you kill a bad guy and then casually walk into the middle of the group of other bad guys he was a part of).  All your targeting is done by where the mouse is on the screen.  It reminds me so much of Guild Wars 2 - both of these games have a limited enough set of abilities that they would be great to use with a controller, and neither has support for a controller.  I am a mouse guy.  In a typical MMO I use my left hand for the 4 arrow keys to move, and maybe a hotkey to target the nearest enemy.  My right hand on the mouse does all the work, it selects and activates abilities.  For some reason I have the worst time getting my fingers to hit multiple keys without tripping over themselves.  I changed the Marvel scheme to A, S, D for half the abilities and Q, W, E the other half.  This lets me put a different finger on each ability, minimizing the screw-ups, and I can move my whole hand to a new row.  That helps, but is still nowhere as good as having a controller with 16+ keys available, and each hand able to do different things.  I have only played Diablo 3 on the Xbox 360 with a controller, so I know it can be done, and work really well.  And getting a controller for a PC is dirt cheap, the one I have is $20 and works great when a game actually supports it.

    So, as you can see there is a lot about the game that I am not fond of.  However, it can be very fun to play.  Cyclops is my main character, and I do love melting everything with red eye-beams.  The characters feel different, so you can play more than one and have them all be interesting.  It looks pretty, I couldn't play the game on my old laptop.  And of course, the biggest reason for playing any game is the people.  My friend really likes Iceman, and this is the only game out there with him (in fact, cold-themed characters of any kind are sort of scarce).  So he gets to play his favorite X-Man and I get to play mine, and we can play together.  We just got Sara into the game too, so we also have an angry little raccoon with a tactical nuke helping us out.  People always make the difference, in games and in life.  And having my good friends to play with mitigates a lot of what I don't like about the game.  Plus, honestly, I don't think there is a good MMO at all - they all rely so much on randomness, repetition and concepts that I am not fond of; so this games isn't really any worse than any other.
    Anyways, thanks for sticking it out through my rant/review.  If you have any thoughts on Marvel, or MMOs in general feel free to leave a comment below.

Unboxing the "Robotech RPG Tactics" minatures game

    Christmas was very good to me in several ways, one of which is geeky enough to be worth mentioning here.  My friends got me the Robotech RPG Tactics game this year.  Now, Robotech is going a ways back, to the 80s in fact, so some of you whipper-snappers out there might not recognize it.  Robotech was an American cartoon created by splicing together 3 different Japanese anime and dubbing new dialogue.  It was the first anime I ever saw as a kid, and I loved it.  Even though it was animated, it was not a "kiddy" cartoon.  One of the main characters dies, on-screen, in the first season (ah Roy, we'll miss you).  It had some pretty mature writing for its time.  Over the years I have gotten the RPG books published by Palladium Books (though I'm the only one who knows the series, so I've never really played it - but we have played Rifts which is mechanically the same) and the DVDs of the show.  When I saw the Tactics game, and realized I had a chance to get some miniatures of the mecha, I was ecstatic.
    So here is a look at it, I haven't set it up or played it yet (for reasons that will become obvious soon).

    First, the box itself, front and back-

    Now, I took these pictures with my cell phone, and cropped them down a bit, so they are not fantastic.  They should be good enough to give you an idea of the game though.
    Upon opening the box something jumps out at you - all the tiny little plastic figures you get to assemble-

    This is old school miniatures.  None of that easy, one-piece stuff - these bad boys come in lots and lots of tiny, even teeny-tiny, pieces you get to painstakingly paint and glue by hand.  Here's the directions for some of the RDF mecha-

     And here are the pieces for the Veritech in Jet Mode-

    And the Zentradi Officer's Battle Pod-

    In all there are a lot of little plastic pieces, in fact a terrifying number of little plastic pieces.  This is the one thing that I am not so happy about thus far - I shudder thinking about just how many hours it's going to take me to assemble all this stuff.  Why, oh why, couldn't they have made the models either one piece or body and limbs?-

    And while the models are bad enough, the stickers to put on the RDF logos and such are incredibly tiny-

    You do get more than just the models of course, there are cards, dice and counters to go along with the rulebook-

    The extras are divided into the RDF and Zentradi stuff, here's a bit closer look at the RDF cards and such-

    Now, this game (from the little I've read so far) is a table-top miniatures battle game like Warhammer 40k or Battletech.  So there is something rather lacking in the box - a map or any kind of terrain.  I was wondering if I could perhaps use some old Battletech hex maps, but the bases for the Tactics miniatures is huge - here's shot of the round Tactics base with a Pathfinder lizard man on top of it-

    It looks way bigger then the Battletech hexes, so I guess if I want some terrain to play on I'll have to make it myself (which is going to add even more hours to the assembly process).

    In all I'm delighted to have the game, but it is not for the faint of heart.  "Some assembly required" is an understatement.  Now, all the work you put into it makes having it that much sweeter, but it's going to take a lot of weekends to get these guys together.  Another problem is that you have to make your own terrain, if you want any, and you also have to make your own padding.  The box looks big enough to hold the completed figures, but it has no foam padding of any kind - so you'll need to cut your own padding to protect your time investment, or put the competed figures in something else.
    This is really a game for the Robotech nut/fanatic.  I have a hard time seeing someone casually picking up this game.  Even a Warhammer or Battletech player might have a hard time getting used to it (though there are some very detailed and intricate Warhammer 40k models I've seen, so they might take to it easiest).  The time investment even before you play will be a turn-off to a lot of people.  I haven't yet read all of the rules, well enough to comment on them at least, since you can't really play until you finish assembling the pieces.  When (or if) I play I'll write a review of it.

    Really though, playing is somewhat secondary.  The joy of owning the models, of being able to (someday) display them on a shelf, is the biggest attraction.  According to an insert, they are going to come out with more figures, some of which have never been available as models or toys before - like the Zentradi Female Power Armor.  That's the coolest thing about this game, having them actually make the figures, new toys for a series that has been "out of print" for decades now.
    It is an expensive trip down memory lane though - the box cost $100 (I have really good friends) and the few expansion boxes, each containing only 4-6 models, cost around $40.  that's quite the price tag when added to all the work you have put into assembling the darn thing.

    Still, to revisit the childhood love of Robotech, I'll no doubt be buying more as they come out.

Thoughts on Pathfinder's Rise of the Runelords - Part 2

    So, in my last post I described my experiences with the Rise of the Runelords campaign for Pathfinder.  Seeings how it is 6 chapters long, I made it through the first 3 before my post seemed to be getting a little long as well.  So here is my breakdown of the final half of the campaign.

    I will try not to reveal anything too important (let me rephrase that, the meta-story really is not very important and the encounters are not that difficult), but spoilers ahead.


    Chapter 4, Fortress of the Stone Giants.
    After hearing that the town of Sandpoint, our sort of base of operations, is in danger of giant attack we rush back there.  At this point we are around 10th or 11th level, I don't remember exactly which.  The giant attack on Sandpoint is a very long choreographed affair.  There is a list in the book of who does what on what rounds of combat, including an appearance by a young red dragon.  Now, one spot of trouble here is scale.  There is a map of Sanpoint in the book and it has boxes for where giants/the dragon attack on what turns.  It does not have a grid.  There is a scale, 1 inch is something like 50-100' but that is a little hard to measure on the twisty city streets unless you want to take a piece of string and more time then we cared to devote.  So Aaron as GM had to make a lot of judgment calls on how long it took for us to get from one encounter to the next.  In-between the giants the dragon is supposed to attack.  He did, twice, then Sara and her Astral Construct (or summoned creature) "Mr. Punchy" killed it.  Me and Aaron killed the giants with little trouble.  In all, it was pretty easy.
    So, the book says you can capture a giant alive and has a whole page on all this stuff one of them could tell you.  We, being us, left a pile of giant corpses in our wake.  There is no convenient book pointing to the next boss, but the giant warband's footprints were easy enough for me to backtrack.  We skipped the random encounters along the way, at this point we all knew that an encounter of 6 CR 7 Hill Giants were no match at all for us 3 level 11 characters (plus Sara's summoned Mr. Punchy if needed, who was a brute).  In the interest of keeping things short we just said we killed them all and got to where we needed.
    Our destination is Jorgenfist Fortress.  Now, this was meant to be a very impressive scene.  A giant tower surrounded by giant walls and thousands of giant clans itching for a fight camped around it.  How could we possibly take on that many giants, or even sneak pass them, oh noes!!!  Except, this is one of those points where you need to calibrate your expectations for D&D (as The Alexandrian had a great post about).  Now at 11/12th Level we had a lot of power at our disposal.  I could alter my Astral Suit to give myself Climb, Flight or Burrow, and I didn't need to breathe.  Sara's Mr. Punchy could also be summoned with Flight.  Me and Aaron both had really good stealth skills, with bonuses in the 20s to 30s.  Heck, if we could bottle-neck the giants into attacking only about 6 at a time we likely could have killed all however-many-thousands of them in an incredibly long melee (300-style, <grin>).  I seriously considered trying to find a place we could fight them at and just start killing for the fun of it, to see if we could, but there is no detailed map so Aaron would have had to make a lot of judgment calls about just how many giants we'd need to fight at a time (and that would take many thousands of rolls to resolve).  In the end we just decided to fly around the area and scout, and discovered some convenient caves.  We found the dragon's old lair and plundered it (we had like 3 bags of holding and 3 handy haversacks between us at this point, so we could carry a lot of loot), there were 3 CR 7 wyverns (yawn), and another cave with 3 CR 6 Deathweb spiders (double yawn).  I can't remember if we found the door to the tunnels from the spider cave to the fortress (after all, every fortress has a secret tunnel into it) or we might have just flown over the wall and started killing our way into the tower, it's been a while now.
    Either way, once inside (there was no possible way we weren't getting inside) we start fighting our way through the tower.  The thing is though, the tower is a red herring.  While there is a fairly tough Mummy, who has some super-powerful scrolls for loot, there isn't anything important in the tower.  The action is actually in the hole next to the tower.
    So into the hole in the ground.  We go down and find a friendly giant and her ghostly husband.  She asks us to try not to kill any Stone Giants (all other types are fair game) since they have been under the influence of the evil boss.  Okay, at this point I had put merciful on my soulblade so I could do non-lethal damage if needed (as well as ghost touch, pesky incorporeal things).  There's not a whole lot of Stone Giants in the caves though; Hill Giant, Troll, Lamia, Oger Zombie, yes, Stone Giants not so much.  Would have been a good design decision to put a few Stone Giants in key locations that the PCs have to get through but instead it was something that we mostly didn't have to worry about (we might have rescued a giant or two, that's it).
    Finally we fight down another level into the ancient library that the boss has taken over.  Some more random encounters that aren't too hard and finally we fight the boss.  And, well, we kill the boss, duh.  We find a convenient map pointing us to the next chapter and now we have a whole library of stuff to learn and even a cool clockwork librarian to help us research.  So finally, for the first time and after half the campaign is over, we really start getting some good background information on what the hell is going on with the story.
    After the boss' defeat, the evil super-boss Karzug mentioned that all of his servents were marked with a rune so that when they died he gained power to go free, and that was also mentioned in the last town as well.  By this point we have killed a lot of Karzug's minions, but there is nothing anywhere about that actually meaning anything at all.  While the threat sounds nice, there is no mechanical effect, no change in any of the encounters, no matter how many things you slaughter your way through.  A very cool potential twist that was wasted.  I honestly forgot about the marking thing until I read it in the book while refreshing my memory to write this post.

    Chapter 5, Sins of the Saviors.
    Only 2 more chapters to go.  We've hit level 13, and are all feeling pretty good.  We've got tons and tons of loot and plenty of powers. We're ready to take on the big bad super-boss and turn him into red paste.  But first, back to Sandpoint.  Apparently a sinkhole has taken out part of the town, and as its only capable defenders we get called in to check it out.  Detour!
    The sinkhole leads into the Catacombs of Wrath which we had cleared in the first chapter, but now new sections have opened up.  Our boss here is The Scribbler, a resurrected priest who relies on mobility and stealth.  He's got Dimension Door and Invisibility, Nondetection and Obscuring Mist.  He also has a few CR 6 puppies.  But again, we're level 13 now.  Aaron has True Seeing (well, the psychic equivalent, Pierce The Veils) which sees through all that stuff, and I have Blindsight to 30', so I can pinpoint anything corporeal within that range (we've played Pathfinder before and lots of previous mages have cast illusions).  It is mildly annoying but we kill him.  Then we read his crazy scribblings and find out about The Runeforge, our next destination.
    We head out to find the Runeforge, first we have to bypass 7 statues that hold the keys we need to enter.  It is a DC 40 Disable Device to unlock the statue, which Aaron can do in his sleep at this point.  We wake up a White Dragon, who actually does some damage to Sara - she didn't have any cold resistance (Aaron dodged it and I had resist 30 to any element, which I set to cold).  Still, it is not too bad and we take the dragon out.  Then we loot his treasure, 'cause dragons have great treasure.
    Now into the Runeforge we go, in its own little pocket dimension.  First, a few notes about the upcoming section:

    The campaign has this alternate rule about "sin points" that the GM is supposed to give out based on each player's behavior.  What sin each player is prone to is supposed to have some few not terribly important effects here in the Runeforge (like a +/- 2, woot)  We ignored it.  For one simple and good reson, it is stupid and useless.  How and what sins a player is supposed to get is this vague, "do what you think feels right" thing that is useless for a reliable and intelligent measure of a character's nature.  The book says:

    You should give marks ["sin points" -me] for significant events in your game - don't bother marking minor events.  If a PC loots a dead goblin, she shouldn't gain a point of Greed - such spoils of war are considered a normal part of the game.  If, on the other hand, she gleefully steals the life savings of an NPC and spends all the money on herself, that should certainly earn her a point of Greed.

    Wow, talk about stupid.  Let me tackle the idiocy of that paragraph in a few bullet points:
⦁    If some activities are considered "accepted" then what are they?  List them.  The "looting a dead Goblin" is acceptable Greed, so what is acceptable Wrath or Lust or Glutany?  Also, please include more than one, one is not much to go off of (takes 2 points to make a line).
⦁    There is an important and overlooked part in that example, "gleefully."  Why someone does something, whether willingly or because they feel they have too, could be argued as a mitigating factor in whether or not to award sin points.  That is not discussed anywhere in this section.
⦁    When the hell, exactly, built into the campaign, is a player supposed to be able to find an NPC, to rob and gleefully sell said NPCs life savings?  If you are going to tie this into the behavior of the characters during the adventure then why didn't each major encounter/side quest have notes about how the players might gain sin points during that encounter?
⦁    Even better yet, why the hell, if this is supposed to be an important part of the game, didn't you write in some moral choices and spots to tempt players with?  Why is this a tacked-on afterthought and not built into and throughout the campaign?  Why does it now matter during the second-to-last chapter of the whole campaign?  Little late now guys.

    The book does helpfully list some sample sins, a whole 1 for each sin:

ENVY: Complaining loudly or frequently about another party member's good fortune, skill, or luck
GLUTTONY: Getting drunk multiple times during the game session
GREED: Robbing another PC or hiding a signficant amount of treasure for yourself
LUST: Eagerly acepting Shayless' solicitations under the pretense of hunting rats in her father's shop basement  [the only damn event that is actually a part of the campaign, why aren't there more like this? -me]
PRIDE: Bragging about how nothing in the Foxglove Manor was scary [okay, well, if you made your saves then nothing in the Foxglove Manor was scary, it didn't effect you -me]
SLOTH: Encouraging the party to stop and rest for a day after only having one or two signficant encounters in that day [hell, that isn't sloth, that's being a Wizard -me]
WRATH: Eagerly torturing a prisoner [when would you have to do this, they all wrote everything down -me]

    There's also a list of Virtues that can balance your Sins, which I will ignore since it is just as stupid to track this in the other direction.
    The biggest problem with this is how subjective it is.  My character killed a lot of monsters, not because I was Wrathful - I was a soldier, it was my job to keep my party alive.  If a monster didn't attack me, I didn't attack it.  If anybody had surrendered, I would have let them (but the book had most of them surrender with only a few HP left, and we tended to do more damage than that and kill them outright).  I used non-lethal damage if someone told me to, otherwise I killed everything because they were monsters - not misguded civilized folk.  You can't assign sin to a character without understanding how the player created that character and the circmstances of each encounter.
    Second problem is one of scale.  If "minor" sins are okay and "major" sins are bad then you really need a good dividing line between the two.  Most of the examples given above are so over-the-top they sound like a Jim Carry routine.  Maybe I've just been lucky since I play with characters like I associate with people in real life - stay away from the bad ones.
    Third problem is how divorced from the campaign this is.  If you want this to be important to the game, you need to build it into the encounters.  Have a treasure that a player can get without the others knowing, force a choice between who to save and who to sacrifice, something, anything, that actually creates moments to bring this into the forefront.  The way the section is written it sounds like the GM should quietly be racking up a tally of everything a player does wrong to punish them - and I don't want to play with an asshat GM like that.  At least make it open, explain it is a part of the game and go over with each player what sins their character might be susceptable to, point out during an encounter if sin or virtue is involved, tell a player when they earn either kind of points.
    Oh yeah, having a character creation system that actually said something about a character's psychological makeup might help too.
    Anyways, we totally skipped this crap and didn't lose anything for it.

    Another point is about loot, specifically spellbooks.  There are a lot of Wizards and Sorcerers to loot in the Runeforge.  They have spellbooks.  The campaign book does not give any GP value for those books, and it says to assume that each Wiz/Sorc has the spells known and whatever number of other spells you want them to have.  Only a few characters have actual concrete guidelines for what spells are in their books, and they tend to be "all spells of levels x to y in the Core Rulebook except for opposition schools."  That's a lot of spells, hundreds, literally.  At the end of this chapter I actually sat down and took the table of how much a spell cost to write into a spellbook for each level and used that to calculate the worth of each spellbook (I could have made a case for adding the cost to cast the spell in the first place, plus the cost to write it, but we made a ton of money as it was).  Now, this may be nit-picking, but we didn't have a Wizard or Sorcerer in our group.  We were all Psionic characters - so these spellbooks had no use to us except to sell them.  Since the campaign book didn't give any idea for how much they were worth, I had to do it myself or have the GM handwave some value.  Really annoying.  Couldn't anyone at Paizo have sat down with the books like I did and come up with some general values/ value ranges for all those damn books?  Really guys?

    One last comment and I'll get back to the adventure.  Again, we fought a lot of spallcasters in this section.  We have also fought a fair number leading up to this, but this felt like the right place to comment on something.  Spellcasters in Pathfinder are very, very strange.  A high-level caster can wield godlike destructive powers, as long as they don't require a save DC.  Most of the spell saves were pathetic, we would on average need a 6-10 or higher on the d20 to resist whatever someone cast at us.  Now, again, we've all played Pathfinder and D&D for a while, so we know that getting our saves up was a priority, the moreso the higher level we got.  But casters have very, pathetically few, ways to increase their DCs to compansate - so it is actually pretty easy for the defender to resist than it is for the caster to make it harder.  It takes two prescious, expensive feats to get a +2 to your DCs for 1 school out of 8 in magic.  It takes 4,000 GP for a cloak of resistance +2 that boosts every save at the same time.  It's hard to be a magic-user.
    Secondly, magic-users are actually not very threatening.  Most mages have okay Initiative, but my character took the Improved Initiative feat and got a few more points from somewhere.  So on average I managed to go first, and if not me then there was Aaron and Sara, who both had ranged at-will attacks.  So it was not hard to hit a spellcaster on the first turn for some damage before they started casting.  Once hit, it is a concentration check to cast a spell when injured: DC is 10 + spell level + damage dealt.  Okay, so a concentration check is a d20 + caster level + main stat bonus (and maybe a few points from a feat or ability).  That doesn't sound bad, until we start getting to the higher levels.  When Aaron can hit a caster for 9d6 + 18 damage, that makes casting a level 0 spell impossible (we called him Gazer Beam, loved The Incredibles).   Most casters buffed themselves, per their stat block, and maybe got off a spell that was resisted for half or ignored or worked around, and then we beat them to death.  They actually tended to be the easiest to defeat, and showed how strangely balanced magic is in Pathfinder in general.

    Alright, so enough side comments - back to the story (I'm sure you've been breathlessly waiting ;)
    The Runeforge is broken into 7 parts, one for each sin.  We have been using a very simple method for exploring everything so far - we go left.  We keep going left until we can't, then we go back to the last right, and rinse-wash-repeat until we've explored everything on that level - then we go up, do it again to the top, then we go down to the bottom the same way.
    First up was the section for Pride.  This got kind of hard for a minute.  In the entryway is a mirror of opposition, it makes an evil double of whoever looks at it, and since I was in the front (as the tank), it made a double of me.  I'm kind of tough, as the tank, so this was a fairly good fight (but while I can soak up damage, it was Aaron and Sara who could dish out large servings of it).  It was a cake-walk after that.
    Second was the section of Wrath.  It had an Iron Golem archer who was actually quite mean.  The rest wasn't too bad though.
    Third was Gluttony.  More dead bad guys.
    Fourth was Greed.  The walls were covered in gems and gold, which we debated trying to pry off a few meters of - hey, magic items don't buy themselves - but we just killed monsters.  There was a cool pool that recharged magic items, we charged up all the wands we had been carrying around and never used (okay, I think Sara banged me on the head with a healing wand a few times).
    Fifth was Sloth, which apparently means dirty and icky.  We turned loose the 'evil' water elemental to clean the place.  The bad guy was off the ground in a throne supported by immovable rods - me and Mr. Punchy flew up to him while Aaron and Sara hit him with death-rays.
    Sixth was Envy, most of which had been prevously destroyed.
    Last, thank god, was Lust.  Lots of saves against Charm, a poor guy who had been the succubi's plaything, and more dead monsters in our wake.
    Finally, each sin area has had components for making a Runeforged Weapon.  After defeating the animated statue we all took an item for a dip in the pool.  This caused a moment's confusion.  Our ultimate enemy is Karzug, and we "saw" him when he took over the corpse of the stone giant who had rallied all the giants to attack Sandpoint and stuff.  We've also seen agents of Greed and Wrath previously.  We actually got confused for a moment over which of the two he was.  His actions seem more wrathful, but in fact he's greed.  In part the confusion came from us playing spread out over months, in part it was a telling mark of how badly the campaign had mentioned its main villain throughout (well, and what a weaksauce villain he is too).

    Chapter 6, Spires of Xin-Shalast.
    This is it, the final chapter, the last conflict - 'once more into the breech' and all that.  Thank god.  The campaign was starting to feel long at this point.
    Off to the partially-time/space-warped ancient city of evil in the mountains.  But one does not simply walk to Xin-Shalast, there are the obligatory random encounters first (and here i don't use random in the sense of rolling them, but rather that they do not really mean anything to the meta-story).  We found an old building that some dwarves went crazy cannibal in, fought a wendigo, and a tree.  It was high in the mountains and very cold - I was glad to have always-on cold resist and not need to breath.  Aaron and Sara both had items or abilities that let them adapt to any climate/environment - like I've said, we've played this game before.  There are just some things that are essential for a high-level character, and we were level 15 at this point.
    Xin-Shalast itself is a strange place.  There are a few scripted encounters, and there are huge sections that the campaign book literally says to 'make up yourself' for some extra adventuring either before or after fighting Karzug.  We really didn't want to wait, and didn't feel a burning desire to continue, so we skipped those parts.  One encounter included some Leng Spiders.  They did not immenietly attack, so Sara our grifter/talker rolls a natural 20 on her Diplomacy and the spiders seem quite friendly.  Then she rolls about as good on a Sense Motive and relaized that they are lying and will never keep their word and intend to attack us later.  So we killed them.  So nice of the book to put in the only not immedietly dangerous group of monsters that are really just a fight after all.  Like we hadn't wasted enough time.
    Finally we entered the dreaded Pinnacle of Avarice, dum dum dum, and had to fight through the mini-bosses to Karzug.  Said mini-bosses were pretty easy for the most part, like the majority of the campaign we never got below half health more than a handful of times.  Which led us to the final battle, the culmination of about 40-50 hours of playing, the near-max level 18 players against the evil master of Greed, Karzug.

    "We" killed him in 6 rounds.

    It's kind of a funny story actually.

    So the final room has Karzug, a CR 21 super-boss, and a CR 13 adult Blue Dragon, and a CR 17 Rune Giant, and two CR 14 Advanced Storm Giants.  Lava flows around the room, making it a long run or flying to get to melee range - or even close range, it's a good-sized room.  The range gives Karzug a chance to cast some spells.
    It also gives Aaron a chance to manifest some psionic abilities.
    Aaron has been a very strange character.  Since he has been player and GM he's been in a hard place.  He didn't want to have to put a lot of thought into his character, he's got his hands full running the monsters.  He likes playing thieves, he's a sneaky-bastard like that.  Since we were making an all-psionics group, he took the psionic rogue, the Cryptic.  In a strange twist though, the crypic has the most damaging at-will ranged touch attack of any character I've ever seen in Pathfinder.  From the beginning he played more like a mage, throwing the high damage around and having to stay at a distance since he was kind of squishy.  Cryptics also learn a few psionic abilities.  Most of those he took to buff the party or use in emergencies.  He had a hard time finding abilities he liked though, so by the end he started getting a fairly diverse group of powers.
    So combat begins.  I'm thinking about how I'm going to fly over to the bad guy, Sara's warming up another Mr. Punchy.  Karzug acts.  He attacks us with a Meteor Swarm, not for that much damage.  He stops time and buffs himself.
    Then Aaron stops time.  He teleports over to Karzug and thinks to himself, I've got this ability that controls people's minds.  If I cast it at maximum power it can effect people and monsters, and hit all of the bad guy's minions.  I'm sure they'll make their saves, save DCs are pretty easy, but if it takes out even just one or two guys that will make the fight easier - and make less for me to juggle.  Why not try it?  Since he's playing, he has us roll the saves for everybody.
    I roll a 4.  I show him the die, I'm so stunned by it.  Sara rolls a 1.  And I roll another 4.  Sara rolls a 3.
    All of the minions fail their saves.
    Aaron tells them, "Sit! Stay!"
    Now it's just Karzug and us.

    There is a script for what Karzug and his allies are supposed to do.  It has now been thrown out the window since he no longer has the support of his minions.  Aaron is in about melee range and the three of us are coming.  Aaron-the-GM decides Karzug will try to slow us down.  He stopsw time (the last that he can) and casts a Wall Of Force and a Prismatic Wall to block me and Sara and Mr. Punchy (big room, needs 2 walls to block his side off).  A logical move (we made his Meteor's 30-ish save DCs easily, anything else offensive we probably would have laughed at, I think my lowest save at that point was a 26).  I'm getting ready to fly and carry Sara.  Aaron fires off his Gazer Beam and hits Karzug for something like 11d6 + 38 damage - he's not casting any spells next round.  We get to the wall, Karzug attacks Aaron in melee and does some pretty good damage.  Aaron Gazer Beams him for, like, 10 times more damage - still no spells for mister greedy-pants.  Then Aaron figures he can use a move action to command his mind-controlled dragon to just pick us up and fly us over the wall of force.  More melee (poor Aaron is getting pretty beat up), another gazer beam.  I manage to hit Karzug once (I think, I'm not sure if I did manage to hit him at all - Sara didn't) and Aaron finishes him off with a final blast of ridiculous damage.

    Super-boss wizard dead, he cast like 4 spells.
    Minions never attacked.
    Me and Sara and Mr. Punchy pretty much could have eaten popcorn the whole time.
    And the thief took him out.

    After getting over the shock of it, we laughed our asses off.



Final Thoughts
    Again, while the book had some ideas for follow-up adventures, we were all tired of Pathfinder by that point.  It was time to stop and try a new system, which led to our current 13th Age campaign.  Pathfinder in general has just been getting so big, so full of tracking GP and XP and stacking magic item bonuses that it's really become a headache.  As Aaron once said, as we were shooting the breeze a while ago, "it's more fun to make characters than to play them."  Which is too true.  So much of building a character needs to be planned out, feat chains of prequisites and trying to synergize different bonuses into a cool gimmick - you pre-plan so much of your character that it takes away from actually playing it.  I'm not saying that Pathfinder is a bad game by any means, but it does get a little tiring to work so hard at juggling numbers and progression when you're trying to fit it into having a life and doing other stuff.  Again, not that planning any campaing is easy.
    As for Rise of the Runelords, I would say that overall it was an "okay" campaign, in our experience.  It takes way to long to get up to speed, and the over-arching meta-story gets lost in the weeds a lot, but it is not bad.  Again, if you have plenty of time to tweak sections to your own player's tastes and needs, it would be a lot better then running it straight out of the book like we did - it's pretty basic.  Likewise, role-playing relationships with people in Sandpoint, some stirring descriptions of the other cities and backstory would help; we didn't have a lot of time or desire to explore the cities or do a lot of the stuff that didn't directly move the adventure along.  That is a part of why I rate the experience as just "okay," we could have been a little more involved ourselves.  But also, if there were some side quests or NPC interactions that gave bonuses from learning the backstory or to accumulate sin/virtue points, it would have provided some more incentive to care.  The murder-mystery was passable, but the haunts sucked big time; the haunt system in general is just worthless.  If you have some skilled players who can optimize their characters, add a monster or two to every encounter.
    Overall, I like making adventures - as much as a pain as it can be.  We had a campaign going with rotating GMs and each new GM built on what the last did in a really fun, organic fashion.  And we weren't afraid to play with the rules.  We did a split adventure with our fighting characters in a gladiator ring and our talking characters in the stands (we all have several characters).  We used the Ultimate Combat system for performance combat and said that each point we earned on the field distracted the people we were talking to in the stands, giving the talking characters bonuses on their social checks to gather information and influence the NPCs.  It's one of my favorite adventures.  We've also created plot twists based on things that have happened in each game.  The original adventure featured a city that Aaron didn't like - so he destroyed it in the next adventure.  I filled it with a Drow army.  When our friend Matt mis-read a spell description (don't just read the blurb, always read the whole description) and drank some demon's blood I ended up giving him an evil twin recurring villain/comic relief.  While that campaign took a lot of work to prep and run, it gave us a lot more fun since it grew with us.  That's something that is hard if not impossible to replicate in a canned/pre-written campaign.  In fact, that's why I generally don't run modules or pre-packaged campaigns.  I like it when my players give me their character ideas and I can build a world and story around them.  So that also factors into my less than enthusiastic reaction, my normal way of playing is much more engaged (with, of course, some exceptions - we've had plenty of quick and dirty adventures that were not high art).
    Still, I don't regret the time we spent.  It was fun to play with my friends.  We did it, and just finishing it has its own satisfaction.  If you've got 50 or so hours to kill and some good friends, you should try it too.