Gamma World, 7 Wonders, Mass Effect 2
Roleplaying Club today, which always requires me to get up earlier than I want, but it went alright. The group had decided that it was a-ok to just skip our campaigns while the holidays wrecked havoc on our social lives, and I brought my as-yet unopened Gamma World box. So, we cracked that I started taking a look through it, slowly plodding through the book to make everyone a character. The zaniness of this game leads to some interesting characters, such as a giant doppelganger, which the player retrofitted into a huge mobile mirror, a pack of mind-controlling rats, the Shockroach (electric cockroach), and the only human character who spent the majority of his time using psychic attack.
The game went fine, as I just plodded through the adventure provided (since I didn’t have any time to prepare), and it’s definitely 4th edition D&D. There are a lot of encounters provided, but it’s okay because they move fast, mainly because the alpha cards provide huge encounter-crashing abilities, and you don’t ever have to worry about healing because nobody has any healing abilities and you get all your hit points back after a short rest. You’re also not attached to your character, so if, for example, a player uses an alpha ability that backfires and kills his entire pack of rats, he takes five minutes to roll up an identical pack of kittens…which ends up dying while it attempts to use a different alpha power within five minutes of appearing. That was a bit hilarious, but after that it was just encounter upon encounter, and one of the players fell asleep because he keeps forgetting to do that at night, so we eventually gave in.
Once two people left, we played a bit of 7 Wonders, which went well. I can’t really articulate why, but I really like this game. It’s something about the scoring, about the limited decision points, about the speed of the game that just makes it very attractive. And there’s still a lot of variety that I haven’t tried yet, like the B side boards, and I kinda want more cards…anyway, very nice game, fun to play, although there was not nearly enough table space where we played.
Also played some more Mass Effect 2, got through the mission that was kicking my butt, I died maybe an extra five times before I finally got the hang of it, then it was easy pants. I started screwing around, talking to people, doing some side missions. I’m still bothered by how often and frequently Shepard is expected to say “MAN, it sucks that I owe my life to Cerberus” to get paragon points. I’m roleplaying that he isn’t happy to be working for “the right side” but isn’t a complete dick about it either. I mean, it gets to the level that Shepard doth protest too much while happily using trillions of credits and opportunities provided by this “evil” corporation. They gave you life after death, a completely awesome ship, and free reign of the galaxy, Shepard! Stop whining!
I also received e-mails from a lot of people from the first game, which was neat, until I realized that I couldn’t respond or visit these people. It’s cool storywise, but when you see someone’s name there, you know for a fact that you won’t be seeing that character in the actual game. It’s a bit lame, but I guess it’s not that big of deal. Also more flirting with the secretary, which is just odd. I can’t get over the fact that they put the “let’s keep this professional” response in the renegade spot on the radial, because if it’s one thing I imagine a renegade doing, it’s shamelessly sleeping his way through his crew.
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