Thunderstone, 23/2/2012

Our most recent foray into the dungeons of Grimhold was a little one sided on my part but it's worth mentioning how it all went down. Udead - Doom, Enchanted and Doomnights were our enemies for this game, and the heroes were Lorigg Thieves, Redblades, Clerics and Amazons. This was an interesting set of heroes actually because they're all relatively low power, and with almost no magic power going around for the first few rounds, we were going to have to rely on wit, guile and cunning in order to secure victory in the dungeon.

We had quite a lucky draw of monsters as well in a sense, because our first few opponents were relatively low-powered. This gave me the opportunity to get into the dungeon early and rack up some kills, even though in some cases I hadn't even got a hero. (I'd got militia, but you know what I mean.) It did also mean I got some disease cards; you can't avoid it with Undead - Doom, but in the Thunderstone game you can at least get rid of that card in a round so it didn't bother me too much.
Dave hadn't cottoned on to this and spent the first few turns trying to build up some forces, so when he did eventually decide to venture into the dungeon, most of the easy monsters had gone...

We found our way blocked by a couple of high-powered monsters that needed a very strong attack before they would go down. A couple of them also had the added effect of killing one of the fighters. The obvious tactic at this point was to go into battle without a fighter - after all, it was only the Redblades that counted as fighters. However, it became apparent to me that there was no way we were going to manage this, as the thieves, clerics and archers we had left couldn't come up with a powerful enough attack. I was well ahead of Dave by then and I knew it, so I had to make an uncomfortable decision that I could afford to lose a Redblade Assassin (as good as it gets, and the top level heroes also grant victory points) to take out some of those high-powered monsters.

We also came up against a monster that could only be hurt by magic; I got around this by drawing a top level Cleric who is strong enough to use a polearm, which brings their attack power up to 6, then drawing the arcane energies card that converted all attacks with weapons into magical attacks. It was  a tricky manouvre but I'm quite pleased that I pulled it off!

Nasty little beast, this...

The other monster that gave us some grief was Blink Dog, part of the Enchanted set, that can't be attacked if any light penalty applies. I'd stocked up on torches and lanterns but this is really where the Thieves became useful, as the higher level cards come with light bonuses. That way, I managed to use a combination of Thieves and Amazons to take out the Blink Dogs. The Amazon's thing is their attacks become more powerful in the second level of the Dungeons. It doesn't really work if you don't have any light because the penalites would negate this anyway but all of the hero cards in Thunderstone are best used in combinations, and Amazons are no exception.

By the time we found the Thunderstone, it was a bit late in the day for Dave to pull it back, but fair play to him for making a fight out of it. By then, I had so many monsters that I was drawing one in almost every hand, and very few of them worked to my advantage so I found myself having to deal with this. This might have given Dave some room to rack up some points, but it was too little too late for him, as I found the Thunderstone. The final score was 54-15, so quite an easy victory for me.

That's twice I've won it now so I'm at level pegging with Dave. I think for this game, you really need to be aware of what everything does together so that you can use it to its best effectiveness. That's not easy, since it changes each time, but it's working a damn sight better than picking a strategy for the game and sticking to it (a popular wargaming effort, but it's not a wargame!) Also, it's a good idea to remember that if you can go in for an attack, it's a good idea to do it, otherwise you leave the other players open to take their own spoils!

Then again, Dave also plays Resident Evil, which works in a similar way but rewards caution to a certain extent because you don't know what you're going to be attacking from one round to the next...

31/1/2012: Aye, Dark Overlord

Hi,

So this is part of a project I'm involved with for work. This one is actually going up around one or two other blog sites that Coady Consultants use, but I thought I'd put it here anyway because it's actually quite good to see how I'm turning a very entertaining hobby in to something I can use in a professional environment. So, what we have is an introduction from John, the Head Consultant, Company Director and also my Dad, and then I'll make a few comments about what I've seen while playing the game:

John:

Our work is all about relationships, productive ones between us and our customers that often present us with an opportunity to try something that is hopefully different and memorable: we hope!

The Director of an innovatory and outward facing team from one of our major clients-a local university-was involved in a feedback exercise related to Conflict Styles. The activity was originally used with the University’s mediators and Dignity at Work Advisers. As our conversation developed the possibility of an extended Team Development Day was discussed and we are due to deliver towards the end of February 2012.

We tend to work along the (to me at any rate) pretty obvious lines that we learn better when we’re having some fun and even though it’s taken some knocks of late, the application of multiple intelligences still holds up for me. There’s a superb piece on TED and YouTube by Sir Kenneth Robinson called “Shifting the Paradigm” in which he present a cogent and enjoyable argument that we’ve tested the joy out of learning: it reminds me that there’s a range of approaches that are valid, have value beyond the event and help us to understand a little more about each other and ourselves.

So, at our next Team development Day, we are going to use a fantasy role play game that requires participants to think on their feet and shift blame: some might argue that this is and has been the primary survival tool for a successful career! Machiavelli would have “got it” straight away.
 

We’ve employed an enthusiastic game player/developer with a view to expanding the approaches we use to Team Days and other areas of our work: watch this space! So it’s now over to my elder son, Matt to talk about the specifics.

Matt: 31/1/2012: Aye, Dark Overlord at the University

This came about as an introductory session to a portion of a development day that Coady Consultants are organising at the University. My part of the day involves running this activity for the team after the lunch break, and we are having four ‘observers’ to comment on the behaviour of their colleagues during the game and to what extent they show the various skills and attitudes that would be conducive to having a good game, and also for getting on effectively in the workplace.

I’ve covered how the game works before in my gaming blog; this and the whole story for how this came about will be in a future blog about the event itself. However, for the purposes of this piece, I would like to discuss a couple of things I’ve observed as I’ve played the game.

The game works incredibly differently between different demographics. The players still have to do the same things to win (or at least, to avoid losing,) but the style of play varies hugely. I’ve noticed the following things about the people I’ve played it with:

The Family

Playing Aye, Dark Overlord! with my family was absolutely hysterical. We played it on Christmas Day in the evening and it was great fun watching everyone being the Dark Overlord; we were really playing up to the role and it was great to see how differently we all did it. Seeing my brother lost for words is a very rare occurrence and I will savour the moment for many years to come. And given the fact that there is generally – across a great many people – a certain prejudice towards the themed games I tend to play, it was great to see one that the family could pick up reasonably quickly and have a play. Great stuff.

The Club

I took it down to the Black Country Roleplaying Society where I go every Thursday, to see how the game played in its own demographic. The guys with whom I played it were all what we might consider seasoned gamers; they know how card games work and they play to win. They had the right idea, but it seemed to be less about having a laugh with it and more about making sure that they didn’t lose. It was still fun, though.

The Professionals

I won’t pretend that I didn’t approach the idea of playing a game like this with academic professionals in the middle of a working day with some trepidation. But at the University, the game actually went as well as I think anybody could have expected. We had already covered the behaviours and skills we were looking for on the day and the team were making sure of the things that were important – speaking clearly, making sure everybody got a turn and at the same time having a bit of fun with what for many of them was an unfamiliar activity! I also saw the team turn the game right around on its head, and all start working together as a team to overthrow the Dark Overlord by coming up with an explanation he had no choice but to be satisfied with. I don’t know what the team do on a day-to-day basis, but if the accommodating and collaborative style they showed here isn’t conducive to a great working environment, I don’t know what is.

So, three different groups, and almost literally three different games! One thing that didn’t change, though, was the fun. We always enjoyed it. And I’m looking forward to running the activity at the Univeristy in a few weeks’ time, to give some light relief in to what is promising to be an enlightening and very productive day for the team – and, it seems, for Coady Consultants.