Playing Settlers Of Catan

We made a day of it: first to see the new Toy Story 3 movie with some friends and their son, then back home for a bite of supper and a game of Settlers of Catan.

Once again, our luck failed us and we were beaten by Pamela (who was playing the pink pieces) but, as usual, only a few points separated us from the winner.

I enjoy our games of Settlers of Catan. It has a little D&D endgame vibe to it, as each of the participants play a Prince (or Princess) of Catan, competing with each other to grow the largest and most successful principality. If only it had some army-to-army combat rules, it might be a fast-playing empire-building system for D&D. The economics are admittedly oversimplified, but that's what makes it such a quick game to play.

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What To Do While Visiting The Magic Realm

Magic Realm is a boardgame / roleplaying game hybrid. It uses a set of hexagonal tiles to create a random world map, within which you spend your time adventuring. Since the map is put together by the players prior to play, each time you play, the map will be different, as will the location of the monsters, treasures, and inhabitants.

So what can you do, while visiting the Magic Realm? One of the interesting things about this game is that all of the players can win. That is because, at the beginning of the game, you secretly determine what your objectives are. If, at the end of the game, you meet your objectives, you win.

The objectives are broken down into five categories.

(1) Find ancient Treasure. There are many treasure troves hidden throughout the mountains, forests and caves of the Realm. You can choose the discovering and looting of those treasure troves as your objective. The Dwarf might choose this objective.

(2) Discover new spells. This objective is often taken by the more powerful magic users. There are spell books and other items that supply spells scattered throughout the land. You can spend your time in the Realm trying to locate and learn new spells. The Magician, Sorcerer or Wizard might pursue this option.

(3) Become famous. Killing monsters and undertaking quests can score you fame points. Some players will go monster hunting. or assist the inhabitants of the Realm, to establish their characters' reputations. The White Knight, Pilgrim or Captain might choose this route.

(4) Become notorious. A player can, alternatively, have their character roam the land, wantonly killing monsters, inhabitants AND OTHER CHARACTERS alike, in which case, they would score notoriety points. Characters like the Black Knight, the Witch or the Witch King (Warlock) might choose this objective.

(5) Become rich. There are lots of lost treasures in the Realm. Players can locate those treasures, sell them to the inhabitants, and retire in style. This is an option for any of the characters.

Magic Realm is a game where cooperation and competition are both viable strategies. There are certain characters, such as the Black Knight, Swordsman or the Elf, who cannot be trusted to cooperate (their game-designed "personalities" make it disadvantageous for them to form any long-term alliances, it is easier for them to win by competing). On the other hand, there are certain characters who, when working in concert, can achieve far more than they could individually (for example, the Amazon and the Dwarf).

With so many characters, board combinations, and game objectives, it would take a long time to exhaust all of the possibilities of this role-playing adventure game.Source URL: http://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/end-game
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Settlers of Catan

Honestly, I resisted playing this game as long as I could.

I have a large extended family. I'm talking large here. I have seven siblings, roughly 50 cousins, and probably just as many second cousins, not to mention 9 nieces and nephews. Easily half of my siblings, and a third of my cousins, play Settlers of Catan. They started playing roughly five years ago, and they often invited us to come and learn to play, but we usually begged off. I'm sure part of it was because they all seemed so well versed in the game, and we were afraid of being badly outmatched. But we also heard the post-mortems, with one person being mad at another for being cut-off, or for playing a particularly nasty card against them.

We were finally roped into a game, a couple of years ago, under false pretenses (we were invited over for dinner, and afterwards, the Settlers boardgame appeared on the table) but have enjoyed the game ever since.

I mention this game, not to review it (there are lots of good Settlers sites on the web) but to discuss the applicability of its rules and mechanics to the OD&D endgame.

I mentioned levels of abstraction earlier. One of my frustrations with the D&D endgame is the lack of structure around stronghold and empire-building. Once you have "plunked" down your stronghold, it is assumed that you will derive a certain amount of resources from the hexes you control, regardless of the productivity, resources available, or populace. There is also little in the way of rules to govern upkeep of your empire, from building and maintaining roads, providing improvements and benefits to your subjects, maintaining your army, interacting with other empires, and so on. Some of these can happen at the micro level, I suppose. But part of the attraction of the endgame was to control kingdoms, direct armies, and oversee the macro operations.

One of the interesting things about Settlers of Catan is that it both recognizes that different kinds of resources come from different kinds of terrain, but also recognizes that some areas are more productive than others. It would be interesting to add those sorts of considerations to the OD&D endgame.Source URL: http://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/end-game
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Mighty Empires Tiles

I'm not familiar with the original Mighty Empires game. However, in the last six months, a friend purchased the "new" Warhammer: Mighty Empires tiles, thinking that they might be fun to use in relation to a campaign for Lord Of The Rings: Strategy Battle Game. I think they would be fun for that purpose as well. But what might also be fun is to use them in relation to a traditional "sandbox" OD&D campaign.

My thinking is this. The DM places the first tile, likely with the town or dungeon that the characters are starting on. Then, as the characters explore outward, you add more tiles to the original starting tile, "revealing" the map as you go. This might be particularly enjoyable if doing so eventually leads to the D&D endgame: one of the characters selects a tile on which to establish their own stronghold, and continues to expand outwards from that tile, taking control of more land, populations, and resources as she does so.Source URL: http://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/end-game
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Levels of Abstraction: The OD&D Endgame

The OD&D endgame has always been somewhat mystifying to me.



While other war, and boardgames, dealing with empire-building, had clear mechanics on how to establish and develop your territory, the OD&D guidelines are far murkier. This is complicated by the fact that various levels of abstraction coexist at this level of the game.


For example, when building your stronghold using the OD&D rules, there are certain configurations and related prices for each of the different components of your stronghold. The towers are a certain price, the gates are another, as are the sections of walls, different-sized buildings, and so on. I consider these OD&D stronghold construction guidelines to be at a intermediate level of abstraction: at a lower level of abstraction, you might define your building method, or the materials you used for the walls, from what quarry you obtained your stone, the way you laid the foundation, who you hired to oversee the construction, how many labourers worked (and were killed) during the construction, and so on.


And once you have constructed your castle, you apply an even higher level of abstraction to the operation of your territory. Now you include the area around your stronghold, using the Outdoor Survival maps, and each hex that you control provides you with a certain number of gold pieces, representing the taxes you collect from the towns and villages that surround your castle. Forget that the towns and villages may already have a ruler, or that the area you have built your stronghold in may be composed entirely of wilderness. Also, you don't track the activities of the tax collectors, or what products or activities your towns are engaged in producing.


All of this coexists with the lowest level of abstraction: your character, her equipment, personality, and the minutia of interactions between the characters themselves, not to mention any further adventuring or dungeon-delving.


Thus, at least three levels of abstraction co-exist in the OD&D endgame. Then we add a further consideration: the amount of space allocated to providing guidelines to the players and DMs on establishing and operating your stronghold may only amount to two or three pages between the three "little brown books" and the supplements.


While this allows a great deal of room for DM and player interplay and negotiation, it would have been nice to have had some economic, political and military guidelines as a basic underpinning.
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