Don't Rest Your Head

Well guys, it has been a bit since I have done a RPG so today I will do a quick run down of one I just finished reading. Now if you want a twenty page break down of every little detail, I'll save you the effort, I write these game blurbs so people can say 'huh I'll look into that' or 'no thanks' not to nit pick.

So Don't Rest Your Head is a RPG based around insomnia and the first thing they brought to my attention was d6 dice pools. Every PC has three dice pools labeled Discipline, Madness, and Exhaustion. You always roll your discipline, madness is optional, exhaustion is GM discretion. The GM rolls dice from a pool labeled Pain. Doesn't that sound promising? Now the reason for dice pools is because there is consequences depending on which catagory 'dominates' when you roll. So say you roll your discipline and choose to roll madness as well. Oh no! All your high dice was in Madness. Well that's not a bad thing per say. It just means that things will go your way, but now one of those madness dice is permanent.

I bet your asking why is that a bad thing. Well on your character you get x amount of exhaustion and x amount of reactions. Depending on the dominating pool, depends on what box you check off. If you collect to much madness, you go insane and become a nightmare. If you collect to  much exhaustion, well you collapse into a coma and are probably going to get eatin/left for dead, unless your party really loves you.

However that's not the only thing you have to worry about. The GM rolls dice too. If Pain dominates, first of all things don't go your way, your plan probably just got ruined, and the GM can force you to check off one of your boxes for either madness or exhaustion and if you haven't been careful this can destroy your character.

It's ok though. It's not all hopeless. There are also two bowls in the middle of the table. One labeled Despair, on labeled Hope. The characters can spend hope to reduce the amount of dice the GM roles and they can also spend Hope to unmark the boxes that will end up destroying the character. However the only way to really get Hope is by the GM doing aweful things to you. the players get Hope when the GM spends Despair to make your lives hell.

This game seems to be very much about consequence. Nothing happens without a consequence. Even winning a situation has effects on your character that may not necessarily be positive. If you want to sit down and read the rules, its less than  a hundred pages and about half way though it will just start talking about the world they have roughed out for you. So really, you are looking at 20 pages of rules. It is classified as being technically horror. Some call it adventure. I call it a game. The world is sketched out with some major players and enough fluff to hopefully spark some creativity or plot. The character sheet is half questionnaire so if that doesn't float your boat, I'd steer clear.

If you really really want to hear about some of the fluff, it gives me Neverwhere vibes mixed with the Sci Fi Alice Mini Series.

Beware the Wax King!!
Have I raised some questions? I hope so.
Corset signing off.

Let's talk about Quarriors.

As a lot of people in the table top gaming universe will have noticed recently, it's that deck building games are the hot thing. What started out as Dominion and Ascension ruling the deck building world, it has grown much like a viral video. We all have our favorites but you get really tired of seeing them. I had this problem at Gen Con 2011. Everywhere I turned I was looking down at another deck building game and that was really cool for the first day and about a month after the con.

Then it went the bread route. Its a bit crunchy but you'll eat it anyway. There's a bad piece but the loafs still good. Is that forming it's own lifeforms? I think I'll go for soup instead.

I was getting really burnt out on deck builders. Even Dominion wasn't holding onto its glamour amidst all the rest and then I went to game night and the owner was demoing a game. Being curious I stuck my head in to see what was going on. There were cards on the board with abilities and associated dice. People rolled dice from a dice bag and depending on what they rolled they got to buy more dice. I don't know about you but I really like to roll dice. It's fun. It's got an element of change. It's all around fairly nifty, plus I kick butt at chance games. So next round I said count me in.

You have a starting 'deck'. It consists of 8 quiddity dice (mana) and 4 little guys. The little guys are nice. They have a few options on them. Three sides give you a guy to fight with, one gives you a re roll on two dice, and the third is quiddity, there silly but nice starter dice. So you toss all 12 into a dice bag, four are included with the game, and you draw six and roll them. You get to power as many monsters as you have quiddity for or you can use the quiddity to buy more powerful monsters or spells. Discard it all when you are done and next round draw six more. When you can not draw dice, you draw what you can, put your discard pile into the bag give it a shake and keep going.

Now I bet your all wonder how do you score. Well scoring is simple. Remember how I said you could use the quiddity to power out monsters. Well each monster has a point value assigned to him. When you use your quiddity to put a monster into play, he stays there. By stays there I mean you get one round of attack against everyone, then it goes into defensive mode. If it stays alive until the start of your next turn, you get to score it. When you score a monster you put the monster into your discard pile, you also get to cull a dice to make your bag run more effectively.

Neat huh?

Now despite the fact it runs like a deck builders, it doesn't particularly feel like a deck builder game to me. I think that's mostly the lack of shuffling. It's easy set up and easy clean up. They are talking an expansion in November. The game was not that expensive either for all the dice you got, dice bags, and the tin it came in.

That's not to say the game is all perfect. I enjoy it but there are certain things that I think are off balance. Such as the dragon. When there is a dragon in game it comes down to who can get the most first. They score the most points. They have ridiculously high offense and defense and there are few ways to counteract them which is a pain if you want to decide what to play with by random draw.

I know  a lot of people out there own the game and are reading this going and you didn't talk about this or this or this.... I know.  I don't want to bore people to tears by giving a 100% thorough examination of the game and every card. Other people have been there done that. I just want to provide a quick over view so the people who haven't heard of it can say, yes maybe I'll look into it or no thanks.

Girl In A Corset Signing off.