Archive for June, 2009

Game Night: The Classic Dungeon

Friday, June 26th, 2009

thedungeon1The rules of Geek Game Night decree that the loser shall decide upon our next game.  Having lost, Dan suggested that we pull “The Classic Dungeon” out of Matt’s closet.  Apparently, the game is some sort of weird spin-off from Dungeons and Dragons.  Gary Gygax and David R. Megarry were involved in the game design.  It sounded good to us, so we gave it a go!

Session Report: The Classic Dungeon

The Classic Dungeon is D&D’s diet coke.  Well…  I guess it’s more like diet caffeine free coke.  The premise is simple.  Select a hero, scour a dungeon, gather enough gold to win, and make it back out the way you came in.  Combat is based on a roll of a six sided dice.  Beat the number on the monster card, and you win.  Of course, certain classes get modifiers, but you get the idea.

The board itself is a total cluster-frack. It’s a giant maze of tiny halls and rooms.  The hardest part about the game isn’t fighting monsters, it’s selecting the most productive path through the labyrinth (which I guess isn’t all that bad really).  Setup involves taking all the monster and treasure cards, which are very tiny, and placing them in their respective positions on the board.  Once that’s all said and done, you just have to pray no one sneezes.  The board is literally covered with these cards.

thedungeon2I selected to play as Rast the Wizard.  Wizards seemed to stand out from the other classes.  As a wizard, I got to select 6 spells.  Once a wizard runs out of spells, he must return to the entrance of the dungeon to get more.  Now, the spells are pretty powerful, but going back to the entrance is quite a pain.  Wizards require 30,000 gold in order to win the game.  Dwarves and elves, on the other hand, being the brainless and scrawny losers that they are, only require 10,000 gold to win.  Warriors and thieves require 20,000 while paladins also require 30,000.  Matt selected Madelyne the Paladin, Dan selected a thief, and Kevin went with an elf.

When the game started, I descended down to the 4th level of the dungeon to begin my adventure.  Matt(paladin) hung around on level 3 for a while, and Dan(thief) and Kevin(elf) explored the first couple of levels.  Kevin had some truly horrendous rolls and had trouble defeating even the simplest of monsters.

thedungeon3Dan(thief) was doing a fair job, but it wasn’t enough to keep up.  He decided that in order to have a chance at winning, he would need to start ambushing me to steal my treasure.  As a wizard, I was a slippery target.  I was able to teleport away when he began closing in on me.  He did manage to catch up to me at one point, but he didn’t roll high enough on his ambush which allowed me to steal a treasure from him.

At this point, the game began to feel a little tedious.  I mean, lets take a step back and just look at the overall game for a moment.  Each turn we either A.) Move to the next room or B.) Roll a six sided dice to see if we beat a monster.  There weren’t really that many decisions to be made.  Strategy took a major backseat to the six sided die.

Towards the end of the game, Matt and I only lacked about 1,000 gold to win.  I failed several times to kill a monster with lightning bolts which forced me to return to the main entrance to replenish my spells.  Meanwhile, Matt managed to get his final pieces of loot and began making his way for the exit.  I was too slow, and he beat me before I managed to secure my final treasures.

All in all, I’m glad we played.  It was a fun experience.  Though, I can safely say that I don’t think we will be playing The Classic Dungeon anymore.

Session Report: Munchkin

As the game only took about 2 hours, we had some extra time left over.  We moved on to another go of Munchkin.  As you recall, we had an amazing time playing this game at our previous Geek Game Night.  Again, it lived up to it’s expectations.  We had some truly epic moments and surprises.

Matt got Kevin killed early on with a card that boosted a monster up to a lethal killing machine.  As the game went on, they made peace with each other and turned their focus elsewhere.

Matt was having a hard time drawing monster cards, so he stayed at or below level 3 for nearly the entire game.  Dan, Kevin, and myself were engaging in incredible struggles, and meanwhile, Matt was killing low level critters.

Before anyone knew it, Matt was right there with us.  Fate was at play, as Matt ended up winning (almost accidentally) on a technicality regarding one of his cards causing him to gain 2 levels instead of 1. Two wins in one night.  Damn you, Matt!  Damn you!

1st (250 points): Matt
2nd (100 points): Dan
3rd (25 points): Kevin
3rd (25 points): Hunter

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Geek Game Night #2: Munchkin

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

I’ve been hanging out at a local game store here in Austin lately.  Wonkos. Often, I’d hear people talking about a card game called Munchkin. From what I gathered, the game was very funny and expandable through multiple expansions. Apparently, Munchkin is a gaming term. It refers to a player who is competitive in a cooperative game. You know those kind of players; the players who “roll-play” instead of roleplay when they play D&D.

However, the thought of playing a card game for Geek Game Night kind of put me off, so I suggested that we try out Munchkin Quest which is the board game spin-off from Munchkin. Everyone accepted the idea, and that was the plan.

A few days prior to Geek Game Night, I stopped in to get Munchkin Quest, but it was sold out. Defeated, I left empty-handed and just assumed we would probably be playing Risk again. The next day, I did some research into the Munchkin card game, and it didn’t look so bad after all. In fact, it looked incredibly fun and far less tedious than Munchkin Quest. So… the day before Geek Game Night, I picked up Munchkin along with a couple of the expansions. We were set.

munchkin1

Session Report: Munchkin

Munchkin is a cooperative/competitive dungeon crawl involving helping each other out (for personal gains of course), backstabbing your friends, and killing monsters for phat lewtz. The goal is to get your character to level 10 before anyone else. The game moves at a nice pace, is incredibly funny, and manages to keep everyone entertained at all times. Each game seem to last somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour and a half. The final stretch can turn into a brutal showdown.munchkin2

The cards themselves are incredibly funny. One example, the Duck of Doom, reads as this: “You should know better than to pick up a duck in a dungeon. Lose 2 levels.” Since humor plays such a big part in the game, it’s not uncommon for the table to burst out laughing upon discovering a new card.

As far as a session report goes, this one is going to be a little thin. This post was written a couple weeks after our Munchkin game night, so my memory here is a little crappy.

Lets see… Uhmmm.. We uh.. played two games. I did fairly well.. I think. Dan was quite unlucky on both games and didn’t do so well. Kevin and Matt formed a shaky alliance which was beneficial up until the point where they were both about to win the game. There were several epic battles fought, but the best one was when Kevin attempted to kill Matt by playing the “Wandering Monster” card and adding another tough monster to Matt’s combat. Matt played a few cards to boost his power and ended up killing that monster. He gained a few bonus levels because of it, thus winning the game. I think Kevin won a game as well, but again, it’s hard for me to recall exactly what happened.

Here are the final results. I wrote them down after the game, so these are much more accurate than my memory.

1st (175 points): Kevin
1st (175 points): Matt
3rd (50 points): Hunter
4th (0 points): Dan

I can’t say enough good things about Munchkin. It really is a ton of fun and I highly recommend it. I’m sure of it; we will be playing this some more.

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