Room Tiles, WEGS, and some random musings...

So, WittCon V brought about the second draft of Dungeon Slam!...sort of.

I say 'sort of', because so far, I reformatted the encounters, the loot, the character cards and the board....but not the room tiles. That's been my project over the last few days.

If it's one major failing that I messed up with, which I absolutely did not want to do, was to fall into the room syndrome that Order of the Stick falls into. In OotS, rooms have almost no bearing on the game. Nearly every room you encounter is "Just Another Dungeon Corridor"...which bores me to tears.

Just like in a D&D dungeon, rooms are supposed to be exciting and challenging--they add to an encounter just as much as the enemies you're fighting. What's more exciting to you--a fight with orcs in a 40'x40' stone room, or the same fight over a lava waterfall? Obviously, the lava.

In OotS, there's no lava. Ever. It's boring. It's one of the reasons that we haven't played this game in nearly a year.
In Dungeon Slam!--draft 1, that is--waterfalls were incredibly rare. Some rooms were cool, but most were either boring or predictable.

However, in draft 2? HA! The problem has been addressed. Every room has at least something going on with it--either there's added loot, a more difficult or different challenge, or the possibility of some real weirdness.
While I think this tends to make the game slightly more difficult--you've got to plan which Blue tile you want, not just that you want a Blue tile--it simultaneously makes the game more speedy. Loot is given out much more freely, which allows for faster advancement. This, in turn, lets people take on tougher encounters more quickly.

So, hopefully this weekend, I'll be demoing the new room tiles at Witt's Game Day, and life will be good. On top of this, Ebbs and I are prepping a WEGS scenario for Wright State's GloryCon. I'd give you more details, but...well, then I'd have to send you Off to the Spheres! Well, I can't say that...there is one thing:

I'm itching to use the Astral Spider minis I picked up at Bell, Book and Comic. :D

And now, some more WittCon V pictures!

Here's Karl, in front of the ad I hung for Dungeon Slam!



Here's Willy the 2 (Wt2) and Josh, hanging out in the midst of some PvP mayhem:



After no one showed for the beginning role-play session, Lionel and Co. kicked back with a friendly game of "Venus Needs Men!"



And, finally, some WEGS--Emily, Ebbs, and Rachel try to keep the 88s at bay in "Dungeons OR Dragons"