Hello, my name is Bo, and...

I am a kickstarter addict. While I've had an account for about a year, I really got pulled in when webcomic artist Rich Burlew did his famous drive to reprint War and XPs. I was one of the lucky ones, gaining a severely reduced crayon drawing on top of a lot of other boons. To do this, I had to stay up all most of the night and snipe one of the pledge amounts refered to as "Broke Ass Student Special." While I'm waiting on deliverly for all the material items, I've gotten the first of the pdf rewards and I couldn't be happier.

From there, I've successfully pledged for a card game where one battles other gm's over geeks and a book inspired by the Spirit of the Century line. I've also had some failures with a gaming cafe out in Washington and a card game inspired by one of my guilty pleasures, tentacles and schoolgirls. Don't judge. Right now I've got two running: The Horror in Clay cthulhi tiki mug and the one that I think proves I am an addict, Deadlands Noir.

Assuming things go according to plan, my $300 toward Deadlands Noir will fulfill a secret wish I've always had, to be an NPC in a published book. Now, it will just be my likeness, so it won't be me as a character but someone who looks strikingly like me, but that's not the point, since the first thing I do in any system anyway is try and build myself. The point is I will be in a book. Role-playing games are one of the few things I can call an actual hobby, and I will be a permanent part of it. Now, go pledge. Now!

As for me, I must prepare myself to eat only easy mac and rice for two weeks, since that $300 is entirely too much for me to spend on a non-essential. -_-

Ours is the Fury! is not always appropriate

Tuesday is my group's gaming night, and since it's a game everyone in the core enjoys, it was decided we should have a constructed melee using our respective decks. I was playing my untested defensive Baratheon deck versus two Lannister decks, one being a clansmen deck and I was unable to determine the playstyle of the other. Although the results were less than satisfactory due to poor production by my deck, I noted an issue that inhibited my enjoyment of the game regardless of the outcome.

I am reluctant to use names here, as we all know names are unimportant, but someone who had several bad draws and was unduly influenced by myself and the third player had something of an outburst and temporarily ruined the atmosphere of the game. He felt like he was getting fucked over by the cards, so he expressed some anger over this. Now, I'm all for emoting over gaming, especially if it's a role-playing game, but there is something to be said for outbursts of anger during a casual game. They ruin the mood of a game. Even if I have a miserable time playing a game, there is something that can be said for the act of playing a game. It's one of a few limited things you can do that doesn't matter, and you can just relax with that.

One of the reason I have a distaste for Monopoly and Risk is because the mechanics of the game extend them unnaturally. Monopoly awards free money when the object of the game is to remove player's money. Risk awards troops when the objective is to remove troops. Given that these are games of both chance and dominance, this prolongly experience increases the chance of outbursts. It takes a mature gamer to handle it all in stride.

The funny thing is the guy who got upset early in the game ended up winning.

Welcome to the Experiment

Yay blog! What I intend to do with this site is explore current gaming trends on both the national level and within my group and community, based around my FLGS Four Horsemen Comics and Gaming in Morgantown, WV. My perspective is that of a six year role-player with an avid love on the non-standard board game. I don't use Euro game there because it is really beyond that kind of play. I have a love-hate relationship with TCG's, but I might have found my calling in the Game of Thrones LCG. I do some LARP'ing, but not much, and fuck any game with minis that I have to paint and/or assemble.