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Scott has been playing a lot of board games online. He's also playing a Sentinels of the Multiverse rpg online with a group that, apart from him, is all somewhere in Canada. He's very happy about that.
He and I have been playing Suzerain (solo, text game) together. The idea is that the player(s) make decisions for the head of state of a small and not very stable nation. The options are limited, and we've discovered that the game doesn't give any chances for partial compliance with things we've agreed to. That is, agreeing to turn back 'armed insurgents' fleeing another country becomes 'nobody whatsoever crosses the border because that country considers them all armed insurgents.' Scott and I had assumed we'd be able to give orders to our troops to let refugees cross in anyway, but the game didn't offer that option.
The game is also pretty clearly drawing on real world history but blending multiple eras and conflicts. There's a cold war with a not-the-USSR and a not-the-US option, but a lot of the internal economic/social issues are Europe between WWI and WWII. There are groups that are oppressed minorities in territory that crosses national borders (not-Kurds?) and arguments about national language (both for education and for religious services). There are young fascists and young not-Communists. 1930s levels of unemployment and of men with military training and access to old weapons. We're trying to get a new constitution through and to update education and medical care and transportation infrastructure. We're also facing a very real threat of invasion that will steamroll our existing military. We've chosen not to put money into the military yet as a gamble that our economic plans will give us more options soon enough.
Our character has split his political party in pursuing constitutional reforms and alienated a lot of very wealthy people who're used to having politicians in their pockets. Our VP (long time best friend, per the game) is very clearly on the take and also prone to showing up to things either drunk or hungover. The game offers no options for replacing him, and he keeps trying to pull us into parties with imported booze, imported food, and vast numbers of prostitutes.
I quite expect that one faction or another, foreign or domestic, will end up murdering our character. We might muddle through, but history shows that most countries going through this sort of thing end up with the attempted-to-do-the-right-thing governments failing repeatedly. Possibly the game is more optimistic about such things than I am?
We've been nice enough to the people around us and good enough at trying to take care of our family that we'll be remembered as tragically incompetent or as having tried very hard to do the right thing but having had it spoiled by Evil People.
I keep wanting this to be a tabletop game where we can actually change course and/or lie instead of having a script that limits our choices so much.
Our Firefly tabletop game continued meeting online during the last year and a half, using Bluejeans and then Vorpal Board. We're hoping to have a face to face session soon.
I'm not happy with Vorpal Board because the interface is not tremor friendly, generally, and not even the slightest bit intuitive. Also, three of us have connection issues where we'll suddenly no longer be able to hear one of the other players while also having no way to know it happened unless we notice weird gaps in the conversation. There are six of us, so sometimes any given person just doesn't talk for a while. Also, the other three players don't lose sound from anyone unless everyone does.
The very puzzling thing is that Scott has zero problems in that direction. He's in the same building I am, and we have a signal relay thingy in the room where I am. We can't be on the same screen because he's the GM and has information I can't see.
At any rate, I'm looking forward to having an in person session again. We're all vaccinated, and all of our family members are vaccinated, so the general consensus is to try it two weeks from now (two of the players are currently visiting family and weren't local last week). The four of us who will be in Ann Arbor got together to play Betrayal Legacy. I had to have the other players do all of the hand related stuff for me, moving my game piece, writing required things, picking up cards, rolling dice.
I probably could have done some of it, but the amount of pain involved would have taken away any pleasure in the game or in the social time. There really isn't a bearable number of times to smash one's hand with a hammer, not if there's no reason to do it but pride.
He and I have been playing Suzerain (solo, text game) together. The idea is that the player(s) make decisions for the head of state of a small and not very stable nation. The options are limited, and we've discovered that the game doesn't give any chances for partial compliance with things we've agreed to. That is, agreeing to turn back 'armed insurgents' fleeing another country becomes 'nobody whatsoever crosses the border because that country considers them all armed insurgents.' Scott and I had assumed we'd be able to give orders to our troops to let refugees cross in anyway, but the game didn't offer that option.
The game is also pretty clearly drawing on real world history but blending multiple eras and conflicts. There's a cold war with a not-the-USSR and a not-the-US option, but a lot of the internal economic/social issues are Europe between WWI and WWII. There are groups that are oppressed minorities in territory that crosses national borders (not-Kurds?) and arguments about national language (both for education and for religious services). There are young fascists and young not-Communists. 1930s levels of unemployment and of men with military training and access to old weapons. We're trying to get a new constitution through and to update education and medical care and transportation infrastructure. We're also facing a very real threat of invasion that will steamroll our existing military. We've chosen not to put money into the military yet as a gamble that our economic plans will give us more options soon enough.
Our character has split his political party in pursuing constitutional reforms and alienated a lot of very wealthy people who're used to having politicians in their pockets. Our VP (long time best friend, per the game) is very clearly on the take and also prone to showing up to things either drunk or hungover. The game offers no options for replacing him, and he keeps trying to pull us into parties with imported booze, imported food, and vast numbers of prostitutes.
I quite expect that one faction or another, foreign or domestic, will end up murdering our character. We might muddle through, but history shows that most countries going through this sort of thing end up with the attempted-to-do-the-right-thing governments failing repeatedly. Possibly the game is more optimistic about such things than I am?
We've been nice enough to the people around us and good enough at trying to take care of our family that we'll be remembered as tragically incompetent or as having tried very hard to do the right thing but having had it spoiled by Evil People.
I keep wanting this to be a tabletop game where we can actually change course and/or lie instead of having a script that limits our choices so much.
Our Firefly tabletop game continued meeting online during the last year and a half, using Bluejeans and then Vorpal Board. We're hoping to have a face to face session soon.
I'm not happy with Vorpal Board because the interface is not tremor friendly, generally, and not even the slightest bit intuitive. Also, three of us have connection issues where we'll suddenly no longer be able to hear one of the other players while also having no way to know it happened unless we notice weird gaps in the conversation. There are six of us, so sometimes any given person just doesn't talk for a while. Also, the other three players don't lose sound from anyone unless everyone does.
The very puzzling thing is that Scott has zero problems in that direction. He's in the same building I am, and we have a signal relay thingy in the room where I am. We can't be on the same screen because he's the GM and has information I can't see.
At any rate, I'm looking forward to having an in person session again. We're all vaccinated, and all of our family members are vaccinated, so the general consensus is to try it two weeks from now (two of the players are currently visiting family and weren't local last week). The four of us who will be in Ann Arbor got together to play Betrayal Legacy. I had to have the other players do all of the hand related stuff for me, moving my game piece, writing required things, picking up cards, rolling dice.
I probably could have done some of it, but the amount of pain involved would have taken away any pleasure in the game or in the social time. There really isn't a bearable number of times to smash one's hand with a hammer, not if there's no reason to do it but pride.
