Since Everyone's Talkin'

Primus: I want to play 4e nom nom nom.

Secundus: First time I'm playing 4e, I want to be playing on a minimap with people who like pushing figures around a minimap. I want a mixture of roleplay and tactical pleasure. I will minimax a bit. I want approximately one combat per session; possibly more if combat is quick. I want dungeons, even if they look like, I don't know, towers or something.

Tertius: Low level for starters, as head58 reminds me. Must walk before I fly.

Quartus: A cool site with flashcards for 4e powers.

On Gumshoe

I owe Simon Rogers some conversation about Mutant City Blues, but I haven’t had time to play it yet. On a readthrough, however, I’m quite impressed — all the usual Gumshoe goodness, plus a creative implementation of superpowers, plus excellent material on running a police-oriented investigative game. The section on roleplaying police interrogations ought to be stapled in front of any police procedural game ever. Which, come to think of it, includes Dark Heresy.

Maybe next weekend I can ad hoc something with the back of the book adventure. Anyhow.

I’ve also been playing the Penny Arcade game. (Fine. On the Rain-Slicked Precipice of Darkness.) For the record, point and click adventure games are remarkably suitable for the Gumshoe engine. It’s the same investigative model — clues are there when you look for them. Less room for improv and branches, of course, but that’s why I love tabletop.

(Knowledge: Mimes.)

The fights in OtRSPoD are pretty pre-ordained as well. You need a bit of reflexes, but you can always run and start over, and death is no big deal, and the combat system is not hard. In fact, the fights are almost just a mechanic to time-delay the delivery of the story. Hm.

Originally published at Imaginary Vestibule.