A New Campaign

Admittedly, it's hardly groundbreaking news, and not terribly befitting a blog site that aspires to product reviews. I mean, here I am on this fancy-shmancy blog talking about creating my own campaign, and for a bunch of new players at that. It's so personal it's almost irrelevant to anyone else, right?

But then again, I have to buy the products I review, so there's a personal element right there. Then there's also the readership issue: I have one subscriber, and even she's only posted one comment so far. Start sending me review copies and get me up to 100 subscribers, and then we'll talk about this "journalistic integrity" think, okay? Until then, kthxbai.

A small correction... a VERY small correction

In my original Gamma World review, while I was complaining about the booster pack system, I had said there was a better than 50-50 chance of getting a dupe in your third booster pack, and one came with the game.

I have a correction to make ...kind of.

This afternoon, on a whim and to prove myself right about something, I bought two booster packs. The expectation based on my math was that I would have no repeats in the first purchased (the second) booster, and had about a 31% chance of getting a dupe in the second purchased (the third) booster.

As I was inspecting the boosters I had from the first pack, though, I realized that the numbers on the Alpha and Omega cards were all over the place. In the gratis booster, I had Alphas 3, 11, 19, 60, and 99, and Omegas 27, 35, and 72. There was no way to split the deck of 120 cards that those made sense.

So I realized that this had to be a universe of 240 cards, 120 Alphas and 120 Omegas, not just 120 cards split between Alphas and Omegas.

Different numbers? Of course the math is different!

If the universe held 120 cards, and the first booster didn't have a dupe, that would mean I held 16 unique cards, and according to my original calculations would only have a 31.8% chance of getting another dupe-free booster, and the odds would go down on subsequent boosters.

With a universe of 240 cards, you still have a 57.58% chance, better than 50-50, of being dupe-free after your second purchased (third) booster.

But...

Then I opened my boosters.

I got a dupe anyway.

What a shock, right? I mean, there was only a 42.42% chance of that happening!

Your odds of remaining dupe-free per booster:

0	100.00%
1	76.25%
2	57.58%
3	43.05%
4	31.83%
5	23.26%
6	16.78%
7	11.94%
8	8.36%
9	5.76%
10	3.90%
11	2.59%
12	1.68%
13	1.06%
14	0.65%
15	0.39%
16	0.22%
17	0.12%
18	0.07%
19	0.03%
20	0.02%
21	0.01%
22	2.56E-05
23	8.79E-06
24	2.56E-06
25	5.95E-07
26	9.99E-08
27	1.00E-08
28	3.90E-10
29	1.52E-12

So, yeah, uh, if anyone wants to trade for a Force Axe (Omega 35)...

Review: GUMSHOE

Rather than one game, the GUMSHOE system is represented across three different games, two in the contemporary horror genre and one in the superhero genre, which has horror potential, but I digress. All three are joined by a quirk of execution: each is primarily geared to handle investigative scenarios.

They take a bit of getting used to, because all three are partially diceless systems. Yes, I said partially diceless. It's possible to play a game of this without ever rolling a single die. But there are mechanics which use dice, and depending on the scenario, you may be using them a lot.

The horror games are The Esoterrorists and Fear Itself. The superhero game is Mutant City Blues. Keep reading to review the evidence.

The Road Less Traveled

If I picked up anything from Adventure Burner, it's that setting can have a profound influence on the game. A lot of games, though, have settings so traditional they're almost trite. You have your basic proto-medieval fantasy, your basic proto-futuristic space opera (though fewer of those), your basic proto-four-color superhero world, etc.

But then there are the alternatives.

High Score!

@zarawesome: is there any way to make a mmo system that doesn't make every player into a number crunching maniac

Territan: @zarawesome Yes: Don't let the players see the numbers. Hide the stats and let 'em guess. They're adiegetic anyway.

@zarawesome: @territan thing is, in MMOs, roleplaying is less diegetic than number crunching

@Territan: @zarawesome No, the RP is diegetic, and the numbers are adiegetic. But the players prefer the numbers, so the MMO panders.

@Territan: @zarawesome Just to confirm, we're NOT talking about a Math Blaster MMO, are we? If we are, then please parson my confusion.

@Territan: On the bright side, I just got a boffo lead into an IPTD post.

Settling, and yet unsettled

I wondered if I could generate enough content to fill a blog. Given that this is my 15th post in the month since I first started this thing, I no longer wonder. I've tweaked the stylesheets to improve the readability, and sooner or later I'll find someone to draw the kickass silhouette logo that this site (and its T-shirts) needs. And yet, there is a void. If you're here reading this, then you're helping to fill it, but I need more.

Review: Adventure Burner

It's possible you've never heard of Burning Wheel before. That would be sad, because there is quite a bit to like about it, both in the rules of play and the somewhat formalized manner in which play should be conducted.

So far, Luke Crane has released the two-volumed set of Burning Wheel, Revised Edition, Monster Burner, Magic Burner, and just recently the promisingly named Adventure Burner. Interestingly, the name is a bit of a misnomer—the book really covers more than the title suggests.