Author Archives: haralsam

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 10: Free Play Week 2

For this week in EDL 290T, our class had a free play week. I joined up with three others to play the game Honey Heist. Honey Heist is a short role-playing game where all the characters are bears going to the big honey convention trying to steal the motherlode. There’s two problems with this: there’s a complicated plan relying on precise timing, and you’re a bear. All players have two stats: Bear vs. Criminal, with points between the two shifting depending on player actions. Players that go full criminal or full bear lose the game, so players have to balance their stats while working to pull off the heist.

In this play session, we had a variety of roles: a polar bear, a grizzly bear, a panda, and a honey badger. Over the course of the play session, we broke into the manor for the convention, snuck into the ballroom, nearly got caught by security, did some dancing, committed identity fraud, played guitar, went full-on grand theft auto, distracted a rival bear gang, and ultimately yanked the honey fountain out of the manor with a chain. Though it was a roller coaster, it was ultimately a success with only one of the group getting caught. It was chaotic but a lot of fun and relied heavily on improvisation, which is an element of games I tend to enjoy. The most difficult part of the game was setting up which characters were doing what and tracking where everyone was after the group got split up. Overall, it was a really fun way to spend a class and I’d like to play it again.

The game ties in with leadership because leadership can have a lot of improvisation – even the best laid plans can fly out the window and descend into chaos, so knowing how to navigate chaos and keep a level head is important. I would like to get some of my friends who did improv with me in high school to try this, because I think this is exactly the sort of chaos they’d enjoy.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 9: Ladies and Gentlemen.

This week in EDL 290T, our class played the game Ladies & Gentlemen. Ladies & Gentlemen is a game that has players working both individually and as teams. The players that choose to play as ladies must go to the shops and purchase servants or outfits for an upcoming ball while making sure not to own pieces from more than two designers. The gentlemen work on the stock market and fulfill trade deals, then use the money they make to buy their ladies outfits. The team that manages to earn the most stars by completing the fanciest outfit, having the most servants, and completing the most trade deals wins the game.

In my group, I played as a gentleman. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to pick out the stocks that I needed to complete trade deals, since those were worth more cash than I could scrounge up on my own just by selling products individually. It took me and my partner a while to be able to put together the outfit and it was mildly frustrating at times to not be able to buy all the things we wanted, but in the end we did alright as new players of the game. The game was pretty straightforward and I liked how there was both an individualistic side and a team gameplay aspect. I would’ve liked one or two more rounds to play to get the hang of the game or the opportunity to play as a lady but it was still fun. The hardest part was planning the budget so I could get the best deals and still buy the best outfit for my partner, but after figuring out how the market worked it got a lot easier.

The game was important because it focused on stepping out of our typical more comfortable roles into ones we might not normally associate ourselves with – for example, I wouldn’t normally play a male character but I enjoyed trying that out this time. As leaders, we may need to step out of our comfort zones sometimes to be as effective as possible at our jobs so practicing this via tabletop game was a fun step towards doing that for me.

I would recommend this game to people like my mom, who enjoy historical time periods (since this is set sometime that’s either Victorian or Edwardian) and semi-cooperative gameplay. It was a fun game to try and I may eventually get it for myself once I have the chance to shop for things again.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 8: Dungeons and Dragons Week 3

This week in EDL 290T, our class started a three-part Dungeons & Dragons campaign. As discussed in my previous post, Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game that allows for players to create their own characters from a variety of classes, races, and backgrounds. A Dungeon Master, or DM, guides players through their journey as they work through the campaign with fighting, healing, and skill checks being parts of the gameplay. There’s room for improvisation, too, since players can talk among themselves and take a story totally off the rails if they want to.

In this week’s campaign, we started off with a fight with the goblin boss. After some trial and error, we managed to defeat him, but not without losing our goblin guide, Rushwater. After that, we raided the crates in the main room and took some of the provisions with us. We managed to rescue one of our bosses and resumed our journey onto the original destination. After reaching the destination, we received our pay and got to level up our characters.

This week’s campaign taught us about how working to overcome one big obstacle can be intimidating, but having your team’s back is important as a leader because being supportive can make the difference between succeeding and failing at a big goal. I’d recommend trying D&D to anyone who likes fantasy gaming and role-playing or interacting with people while playing to cooperatively reach a goal.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 7: Dungeons and Dragons Week 2

This week in EDL 290T, our class started a three-part Dungeons & Dragons campaign. As discussed in my previous post, Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game that allows for players to create their own characters from a variety of classes, races, and backgrounds. A Dungeon Master, or DM, guides players through their journey as they work through the campaign with fighting, healing, and skill checks being parts of the gameplay. There’s room for improvisation, too, since players can talk among themselves and take a story totally off the rails if they want to.

This week in the campaign, our group made it to the goblin cave and snuck across the river path. We then came across the wolf pit, where I had to bribe the wolves with meat since I was the group member with highest bonus in animal handling skills. Once we made it into the cave with the main bridge, our group tried to negotiate with the guard goblin, which didn’t go as well as we’d hoped, which resulted in us running back to the wolf pen; most of the group made it, but one other member and I got swept away in a tidal wave. After regrouping and making it back to the bridge, we fought the guard and won. We made it to the next part of the cave and had to fight off yet another group of goblins to advance to find the goblin boss. After that, we found one of the explorers we were following and talked through as a group what our next moves should be.

Some of the highlights of this week’s play session included interacting with wolves, fighting off goblins multiple times, and learning that goblins apparently have a scurvy problem. This was fun because some of it was part of the campaign script, while other aspects were off-script. The work we did in the campaign ties into leadership because having good teamwork skills can make people better leaders. I think my friend Alex might enjoy D&D because of the improv element mixed with fantasy.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 6: Dungeons and Dragons Week 1

This week in EDL 290T, our class started a three-part Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The assigned groups were stable throughout the campaign. Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game that allows for players to create their own characters from a variety of classes, races, and backgrounds. A Dungeon Master, or DM, guides players through their journey as they work through the campaign with fighting, healing, and skill checks being parts of the gameplay. There’s room for improvisation, too, since players can talk among themselves and take a story totally off the rails if they want to.

In the first play session for our D&D group, we introduced ourselves and our characters. I was a druid, but the group also had a barbarian, a sorcerer, a wizard, and a warlock. We encountered a group of goblins and rolled our d20s for initiative to see who would be first into combat; this time, it was me. After killing off most of the goblin gang, our group got the last goblin to surrender and cleared out the supplies. The goblin, Rushwater, helped by giving us information on the goblin cave where the explorers we were following were taken and worked out a plan to help us get back our leader and get Rushwater the freedom he desired.

I liked how interactive the game was and had fun getting into character by playing someone I normally wouldn’t play. I also liked that the DM for my group was good at explaining the different times for dice-rolling, since this was my first time playing D&D so I didn’t know what I was doing. The one thing I didn’t like was that I had some trouble tracking what was happening, but by the end of the play session I felt up to speed on what we were doing as a group. The D&D campaign we were partaking in ties into leadership because leadership means being hands-on and being able to adapt to a rapidly evolving situation, which were both things we had to do to play our characters effectively in the first part of the campaign.

I have several friends that are big into fantasy and creating characters, so I think setting up a shorter campaign with those friends would be fun as long as I wasn’t the DM; I don’t feel comfortable running a campaign on my own just yet.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 5: Free Play Week.

This week in EDL 290T, our class had a Free Play week. I joined a group that decided to play Incan Gold. Incan Gold is a card game where players dole out treasure gems as they explore an Incan Temple, with the option to leave the temple at any time. If multiple players leave the temple at the same time, they must split any treasure in the game. If the players draw two of the same type of Hazard Cards, the treasure of any players still in the round must return to the bank and the round ends. The player with the most treasure collected after five rounds wins.

Some of the enjoyment that I get from games based on risk-taking like Incan Gold is that I get to do “risky” things like gamble on treasure, but there’s not real life consequences from doing so. I’m also a fan of games where I can chat with the other players while playing, which I got to do with my breakout room group while we discussed if we’d move through the temple or back out. This was a nice break from normal gaming for me since I was familiar with the game and I got to have some time to be social as well.

I’d recommend the game to anyone who enjoys risk-taking but isn’t super-competitive; Incan Gold can be competitive with the right group but was pretty laid-back for the most part when I played it. The gameplay is straightforward, so it’s appropriate for a variety of comfort levels with tabletop gameplay. Lastly, Incan Gold is a great game for people who want to play a game but don’t have a long time to play; a full game with four people takes about half an hour.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 4: Incan Gold & Can’t Stop

This week in EDL 290T, our class played two risk-taking games: Incan Gold and Can’t Stop. Incan Gold is a card game where players dole out treasure as they explore an Incan Temple, with the option to bow out once they feel confident on their treasure intake. However, if the players encounter two of the same hazards, the treasure of any players still in the round must return to the bank and the round ends; the player with the most treasure collected after five rounds wins. Can’t Stop is a dice game where players move markers across the board to claim columns on the board with the ability to quit when they choose; the first player to claim three columns wins, but if a player cannot continue they lose all moves they have made during their turn.

In my breakout room, we played two games of Can’t Stop and one game of Incan Gold. For Can’t Stop, I liked how straightforward gameplay was, while for Incan Gold I liked the theme of the game. There wasn’t anything I disliked about either game. The hardest part of Can’t Stop was the temptation to keep on going and risking losing everything, which happened to me and the other players in my breakout room a few times. The hardest part of Incan Gold was getting the hang of the UI, but gameplay was straightforward after I got the hang of it. I didn’t win any of the rounds I participated in, but I had fun regardless; both of my partners won a round of Can’t Stop and one of them won the round of Incan Gold we finished.

Risk-taking played a role in the game because the longer we played during rounds or turns, the more treasure we could acquire or the more progress we could make on columns, but it also made it more likely that we would run out of moves or encounter a hazard card. This applies to leadership because risk taking can pay off with bigger rewards, but risk-taking isn’t always the smart strategy; a good leader knows when risk-taking is a good idea and when they should refrain from taking a risk. I was less risk-averse than I thought I’d be but I was still the most risk-averse of my group, which lines up with my leadership approach because I’m not super into risk-taking as a leader but I will take risks sometimes.

I could see my niece enjoying Can’t Stop because the rules are straightforward and it’s a good way to teach younger kids about risk vs. reward. Whether or not I could keep a seven-year-old still enough to play is another matter. With Incan Gold, I could see my brother enjoying this because it’s a straightforward game that feels almost Jumanji-ish or like it could be themed after an Indiana Jones movie, and he likes both of those movies.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 3: Fiasco, Part 2

This week in EDL 290T, our class continued playing Fiasco using the scenarios that we had set up the previous week. Fiasco is a dice-based game where players have to collaborate and create character backstories, then throw those characters into various scenes based on the rolls of their dice.

Our class continued with the same Zoom breakout rooms as the week before. Our team made it through the first half of Fiasco and was setting up the tilt, but we were the only group not to make it into the second half of gameplay. In Fiasco, the tilt is a central “plot twist” that makes for a challenge that has to be incorporated into the scenes in the second half of the game. The tilt is usually something that results in a catastrophe for at least a few of the players; the tilt, like all other elements of story setup in Fiasco, is dependent on the roll of the dice and is chosen by the players who have the highest roll totals for the “good ending” white dice and “bad ending” black dice.

The big challenge this week was communication; one member of the group had their wisdom teeth removed in between classes and other players had mic issues. We were able to use the chat within Zoom to coordinate some aspects of gameplay, but it did slow us down as a group. For me, the most fun part of the week was working out who got to do what to incorporate some of the elements we’d built into our storyline during the setup process, like the crashed helicopter and an Antarctic firetruck.

The gameplay within Fiasco ties into leadership because there are sometimes unexpected elements that come up seemingly out of nowhere to complicate situations. As leaders, having good communication and coordination within a team can make dealing with the unexpected easier. I could see my friend Will, who is big into disaster movies, enjoying this game because of the chaotic elements that have to be incorporated via the tilt.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 2: Fiasco, Part 1

For week two of gameplay in EDL 290T, our class played Fiasco. Fiasco is a game where players roll dice and work together to create backstories for characters and then throw those characters into improvised scenes based on the rolls of their dice.

In class, we broke out into Zoom groups of four and started playing. For the first week, we were told to get the storyline that we wanted to work with setup and to start the gameplay if there was time remaining. Since none of the group that I was in had played the game before, we ended up needing the full time for backstories.

The hardest part for this week was coordinating the game. The Tabletop Simulator UI was hard to use and of the four people in our group, none were familiar with the app. Because of this, the group had to coordinate what we could to set up our backstories, which we did by using Google to roll dice and then reading out the potential pieces of the plot line to make our story come together. The most fun part was coordinating within the group to create backstories for the characters based on dice rolls. For example, most of the relationships between players were drinking buddies, and the story that we create over the next two gameplay sessions will have to involve a firetruck in Antarctica and a crashed helicopter. I’m not sure how this will go, personally, but it should be interesting nonetheless.

The scenarios given within Fiasco tend to involve a lot of things that might bring up sensitive or uncomfortable topics for players, such as drugs, violence, and alcohol. Personal values that came into play for me were setting limits on what I was comfortable with my character doing in the backstory – for example, I would be fine with a character that drinks alcohol but I would be less comfortable with a character that does illegal drugs. Knowing this helped me be comfortable playing the game while stretching me out of my comfort zone because of the room for improvisation.

One of the ways this ties into leadership is that leaders sometimes have to make quick decisions on their feet and respond to the unexpected; when my group meets up again to start acting out the scenario we’ve created, we will have to respond quickly to what our scene partners do and say. Additionally, as we get further into gameplay, we will have to deal with unexpected elements, and a good leader is one that can remain level-headed in the face of the unexpected. Because of the amount of improvisation involved, I think that some of my high school friends that did improv comedy with me would enjoy playing this game.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 1: Roll Player

For the first gameplay session of EDL290T, our class played the game Roll Player. It is a character creation game where players design the characters via dice roll and aim to fulfill goals tied to the character’s class and backstory. The player who fulfills the largest number of these goals wins the game.

Within my group’s Zoom breakout room, there were four of us and none had played the game before. We worked together to coordinate the game on Tabletopia and had our Zoom call going in the background so that we could ask questions if we needed clarification. Because groups were randomly assigned, we didn’t know each other beforehand, and I enjoyed getting to talk with the others in my group since I didn’t know anyone else in the class. Since we were all unfamiliar with the game, it took us a while to get comfortable playing it and we only got through a couple of gameplay rounds in the time allocated for play. I ended up having the lowest score within my group, but I had fun even though I lost. 

One of the high points of the play session for me was seeing how different players came up with different strategies for their character creation process. One member of our group focused on weapons acquisition, one was focused on growing their gold pile, and I was focused on making my character all-around balanced. I am a psychology major, so getting that sort of insight into how different people strategize to try and win a game was something I hadn’t considered looking at before but was fun for me once I figured out that pattern.

The biggest frustration within the game was the Tabletopia UI. Though it was pretty user-friendly after I got the hang of it, trying to click around within the game with only a trackpad was frustrating and likely slowed down the gameplay more than was needed. Additionally, not being able to see the other players’ cards and character sheets as easily as I would’ve liked made it hard for me to come up with a strategy beyond just making my character all-around balanced. I am not an aggressively competitive person by any means, but having the easier visual cues may have impacted some of the choices I made as a player so I could have both worked to make my character better while also hindering other players’ character development.

A tieback that Roll Player has to leadership is that different classes of character have different areas that are considered their strengths (for example, a bard may be more charismatic while a barbarian may have more physical strength). In the real world, everyone has different strengths that may make them better at certain tasks. As leaders, our job is to understand the strengths of those around us and help them utilize their strengths to achieve the goals that they want to accomplish. We also have to understand that because everyone has different strengths, it is in our best interests to build a balanced team so that we can be strong in a variety of ways. I’d definitely like to play this game again on my own. Since I know my friend Katie likes strategy games, is big into Dungeons & Dragons, and would like the character-focused aspect of Roll Player, I think this is one she would enjoy playing with me.