Strange Aeons demo game AAR

[Anatoli]

Anders at our club asked me to demo the game since he was thinking about making a companion thing out of it for his Trail of Cthulhu RPG games - or something like that. So I dusted off some of my old demo game notes and profiles from a few years back at a convention here in Sweden.

It's a custom scenario with two objectives. The main objectives is for the Threshold agents to destroy a weird cult stirring up some problems in the outback. The secondary objective was for the character of professor Armitage to enter the nearby crypt and dungeon crawl through it to find the Necronomicon - a book that only he can recognize. It was played on the usual 2x3' area that is standard for Strange Aeons.

http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.se/2013/06/strange-aeons-demo-game-aar.html

[superflytnt]

Castle Ravenloft tiles! Well done, Anatoli. I've never even considered using them!

[obsidian3d]

Your points about Strange Aeons are certainly valid. In my opinion it is very much a gentleman's game. If you want to min/max you certainly can, but I think by doing so you really miss out on where the game excels.

Lovely board and photos as always!

[Mason]

Great eye-candy as usual, Anatoli.
 

I can see the point of 'weak' Lurker lists, and I find, in general, they are weaker.
The inclusion of a Maniac always gives the opposition pause, though.
 

As our campaign has been played with GM-controlled Lurkers this problem has never really come into discussion, as the other players are having a good time twatting bad guys at their leisure.
Some games are damn close, as it only takes one bad set of dice rolls and the tables can quickly turn.

Yeah, it has its flaws, but just play the game the 'right way', for fun. and you should not have this problem.
 

[Anatoli]

Thanks guys 

Yes the tiles from Ravenloft/Ashardalon or even Legends of Drizzt should be perfect for creating custom dungeons quickly and without a hassle if you can settle for a 2D layout with 3D objects (I think it works).

The maniac is indeed a force to be reckoned with! I think SA can work really well if you play it outside of the point restrictions and add some extra events or layers to make the scenarios play a bit longer and almost like a miniature wargame/rpg hybrid played out on the table.

Many of the already released scenarios offer wonderful possibilities for this type of thing. And it can be fun to add some mystery/investigation to the adventures. I also toy with the idea of adding "Sanity" as part of Threshold agent profiles, to make them take sanity loss which can lead to death just as easily as physical damage can cause it. This could make some horror and terror inducing creatures become a lot more dangerous in the long run, and you could do something out of having a fixed amount of sanity throughout a campaign - and have it slowly drain as the investigators battle through scenarios, taking tests as they uncover som horrific objects or accidently read something they shouldn't have 

[superflytnt]

I really love your blog, for what it's worth. Your terrain and boards are very nearly unsurpassed and I love your imagination!

As to Min/Max, this is a game about storytelling, not about "Call of Duty" style body counts. You'd think people would immediately understand that it's about the narrative and not about simply "winning"...but there's a lot of ultracompetitive people out there (thanks for that, GW) that aren't about playing out a story, but more about just winning. Those people are missing out; the kind that don't stop to smell the roses.

I've been doing SO MUCH PAINTING (50 miniatures left of 110) and terrain building that I haven't played SA (or anything else) for a month. I've really got to get another game in. All these AARs are really making me jealous!

[Anatoli]

@superflytnt
I’m not out after min/maxing and that is not the source of my critique. What I meant on my blog is that game balance, even in a non competitive "gentlemen's game", can get too skewed a bit too easily and unintentionally.  In past campaigns that I have played the Threshold team got so strong that they blasted the Lurkers in almost every scenario within minutes of starting the game which just ended abruptly. Overall we have probably had more games end within minutes than games lasting 20-30 minutes before the Lurkers or the Threshold team had been defeater/objectives accomplished.

Evidence of the Threshold being a lot stronger than the Lurkers was a campaign game that I had with my buddy Thomas a while back- we played a "finale" scenario inside a large cavern complex, the heroes had won every fight with ease so I figured stacking the odds against them would do the trick. I packed the cavern with monsters (probably 50 points if not more), and the heroes still went through it like a warm knife through butter.

I've had many way too short games simply due to the Lurkers inability to match the Threshold team's activation phase, which took away much of the tension and many times the bad guys were killed long before anything related to the scenario occurred/was played. Also buying “expensive” upgrades for the Lurkers that can cast spells also proved to a bit too random and had little payoff on the table. Going by the rules and rolling random spells, which can only be attempted to be cast once was just way too much of a penalty for the Lurkers in particular. It would instead be better to be able to pick the spells you want for the points you pay, and not make them “spent” after a failed casting but allow to cast them at least once.

I'm trying to be constructive with my critique and explain what I perceive as specific flaws, since there is a lot of very good stuff in SA and because I have invested heavily into the game with a large collection of miniatures bought and painted specifically for this game. I want it to be awesome. I suppose SA is designed the way it is for a reason, perhaps I want more out of it than it can provide...

At the moment I think it's a great game to run at conventions, easy to teach and get into, plays very fast (perfect for convention games), but me and Thomas unfortunately found it to be a bit too much beer & pretzels for a serious long haul gaming weekend. It is also worth mentioning that other alternatives lack the wonderfull array of unit profiles, scenarios, skills etc found in Strange Aeons.

I had not played Strange Aeons for a good while until I ran this demo last weekend, I instantly remembered why I liked it and why I had bought into it. But I want a bit more to chew on.

[superflytnt]

I fully understand what you mean - my wife has a habit of going with .30 Lewis guns, using +1 Dex Agents and a civilian as a loader, plus her character who commands them all. She sets up in choke points and cuts my Lurkers down pretty much every time. After 3 games of that, her guys are pretty much invincible once they all have an additional skill.

I almost immediately got rid of the "spent spell" rule as I found that "spending" spells bollocks the game to the point that spells are useless. We allow magic users to cast as many spells as they're able, but failures on a spell costs a damage point to the caster, so it can be dangerous and risky to dabble in the black arts.

I also allow Lurkers 1 "free" BP point per character or agent "level" (using how many skills have been acquired) which makes the games more competitve.

There's a lot of balance issues with SA, no doubt, but these simple tweaks have really gone a long way in making it a little more even. Part of me thinks the best solution would be to acquire skills based on a die roll or table of some sort, allowing characters/agents to gain skills on a rolled "category"; ie. each skill would be in a "category" (Magic/Combat/Logistics) and on a D6 roll, the character can only choose a skill on the rolled category, to make characters more varied and interesting. I also considered a little bit of an RPG flair, where each character or agent chooses a "profession" when created, and can only choose skills within that profession, again categorizing the skills.

Love the game, but yes, it's not perfect. It's made doubly problematic if people choose to make game-breaking characters.

[Anatoli]

superflytnt

Excellent ideas, all of them really! Will use them next time I play this game. Your idea of rolling character upgrades on a divided chart is very similar to how Empire of the Dead handles their upgrades, basically they divide things into "Stat upgrades" and "Skills" and you must choose which you pick each time you upgrade a character. It makes it a bit more unpredictable, but it does omit the power builds :-)

Adding extra BP for characters and agents is also a good idea.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Gibby]

I quite like your Fishman. Which manufacturer is he?