Back in Blighty

I'm back from my holidays, and boy did I have a good time. Spent most of my time either in Sweden, though I did have a quick trip to Bristol where I picked up some more games.

Bad bits of Bristol: Oh no! Travelling Man has gone! It was lovely shop that encouraged me to walk up and down Park Street, but it is no more.

Good bits of Bristol: Bought a whole stack of games at Area 51 including second hand copies of the original Games Workshop Dungeonquest (plus Catacombs) ad GW Blood Royale. I love Dungeon Quest and already had a copy, but my rules got heavily damaged plus the box got totalled, so I shall combined the two sets to form an uberset!

A typical Dungeonquest game goes like this: Run into dungeon to get ot the Dragon's chamber to steal lots of gold. Die. Horribly. Second attempt: Run into the dungeon, then run around in a small area searching for a trinket worth 10gp. Find one. Escape. Win. It is not quite as simple as that, but you get the drift.

Blood Royale is a great game. It might have been better entitled "Nob Breeding" as the essential core of the game is breeding up nobility like cattle and trading them for power. Fantastic.

I also picked up Last Night on Earth boardgame (not tried it yet), the two expansions for Arkham Horror I didn't already have (Kingsport and Dark Pharoah) and more roleplaying games including the lovely Sundered Skies.

As you might have ascertained, I am a big boardgame and RPG collector. I have I think, over 2,000 RPG books. They are what drives my love for gaming, and the essential fun of a roleplaying game experience shared with friends is something I am hoping to one day see in a computer game. Many computer games capture the mechanistic part of roleplaying, but nothing has quite capture the part that makes roleplaying a fun experience for me. Neverwinter nights in multiplayer seems to come close.

Anyone got any other games they would recommend I try out? No MMOGs please - been there, done that, not been convinced. Which reminds me that I must post my essay on why MMOGs so far haven't worked. It is something I wrote before embarking on Steel Law Online, and somethings are out of date, but there are many points which I am surprised to say still have relevance.

One of my life's tasks is to catalogue and create a full roleplaying library and then when it is complete, to probably donate it in its entirety to the Bodlean Library here in Oxford as a whole collection. Which means that sooner or later I will have to start collecting D&D, something I've thus far avoided as it isn't my thing.

As for Sweden it was fab, went back to my Viking roots... more on that another time when I cover Games and Religion.

Next post: Agile March 1