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Krisis's coverage Dungeons & Dragons and 5e-Compatible supplements, board games, and the occasional video game.

N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season Roleplaying Game campaign on Backerkit (TTRPG Tuesday)

February 14, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

While I remain committed to not making any resolutions in a new year, two of the things I’d like to try doing are having a neat bit of synchronicity at the moment with the current fan-funding campaign for The Fifth Season Roleplaying game, based on the novels by N.K. Jemisin.

One of those two things is reading more physical books. I know some people are into trying to read 52 books a year, or even 100. For me, reading in quantity is never a big challenge. I’ve read 80,000 pages of comic books in a single year!

What I’m not so great at doing is giving my eyes a rest from the screen and from digesting artwork to sit down with a book of prose. Plus, sometimes it can be hard to find a full range of diversity in American floppy comics comic authors and stories, but the work of literature is much, much larger.

At the #1 spot on my “books I’d read if I made time to read books” list is The Fifth Season from N.K. Jemisin, a book about a fractured family on a wounded planet. It has occupied that spot even since it won the Hugo Award for best novel back in 2016 – long before I read her absolutely brilliant DC Comics series The Far Sector, which debuted the new Green Lantern Sojourner “Jo” Mullein.

Not only that, but when I asked my beloved college D&D friends for sci-fi/fantasy novel recommendations that weren’t just straight white people writing about straight white worlds, The Fifth Season was their first recommendation!

As quick as I am to acquire a new comic I’m interested in reading, I’m snail-paced at snagging a book I might want to read. Even after having my interest confirmed in a recommendation from friends, it took me a full three months to remember to request the book from the Wellington library system – which had all of one copy – so then I had to wait another two months to receive it.

That weatherbeaten paperback novel has been sitting on my bedside table, waiting to be cracked open and read for all of my incredibly-busy past three weeks – including the day I received an ad for The Fifth Season’s table-top RPG rulebook.

(Somehow I have engineered it that Facebook will only serve me ads for nerdy Kickstarter campaigns. It’s the only website on the internet where I don’t have ads blocked, so it’s like I live in a world where the only things anyone ever advertises are RPGs and board games. It’s a paradise.)

As it happens, that advertisement piqued my interest not only because of the book on my bedside table recommended by D&D friends, but also another thing I’d love to do this year related to my gaming gang: I’d like to learn some RPG systems other than Dungeons and Dragons and 5th Edition! This goal was on my list even before the OGL drama of a few weeks ago, and even though that came to a happy resolution it doesn’t change the fact that I’d love to extend my game-running skills outside of D&D. [Read more…] about N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season Roleplaying Game campaign on Backerkit (TTRPG Tuesday)

Marvel United: Multiverse enters its final three hours on Kickstarter!

February 8, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

We’re down to the final countdown to the end of the Marvel United: Multiverse Kickstarter from CMON! The campaign ends in exactly three hours at 9pm US Eastern Time on February 9th.

If you haven’t pledged yet for this massive amount of Marvel board-gaming goodness, this is your final chance to purchase many of these expansions and characters forever – as a number of them will not be offered at retail and there is no guarantee of a reprint.

However, this campaign is reprinting the sets of exclusive promotional stretch goal figures from both of the prior campaigns. I have both of these boxes, and they are HUGE and packed with dozens of extra heroes and villains to expand your gameplay. They can be pricey to hunt down on the aftermarket (especially with their bonus “all-in” figures included), so now is the time to grab them.

Also, I thought it was fun to see that one of the final Marvel United: Multiverse stretch goals were none other than the star of my newly-released Guide to Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur!

I had no idea I’d be releasing the guide on the same day they would turn up in the campaign. Now that’s some terrific synergy!

The past few days have also brought us Lizard, Werewolf by Night, Mole Man, Agent Venom, Moonstone, White Widow, Stature, and KNULL!!! Right now we’re ticking toward unlocking Purple Man as a villain. Who will be next? It seems like the odds-on bet is Mephisto, but I am still pulling for Rictor, Magma, or Karma – our only missing mutants for a full set of 1980s X-book casts.

I’ll be back after the close of the campaign to recap all of the characters it contains, to make fantasy predictions for who should appear in a Season 4 campaign, and maybe even share some of my hundreds of homebrew heroes.

Marvel United: Multiverse wages World War Hulk as their final expansion! (Plus: a BIG all-in pledge reward)

February 6, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

CMON’s Marvel United: Multiverse Kickstarter campaign just announced final expansion box, and while the theme wasn’t a surprise some of the contents are: Marvel United Multiverse – World War Hulk!

My prediction for a Gamma-oriented box from World War Hulk or one of the subsequent 00s Hulk storylines has been rising in the odds in every update I’ve made on this campaign. However, the surprise is that this box actually covers two events in one in terms of characters, as it includes two of the predicted anchors of my #1 pick for a Siege expansion: anti-heroes Ares and Sentry/Void.

The total contents of World War Hulk are Gladiator Hulk, Hulkbuster Iron Man, Hercules, Ares, and Sentry/Void. This box will be available at retail, but it has a Kickstarter Exclusive figure of Doc Samson.

Clearly this departure from a pure Gamma-focused box that would include The Leader, Skaar, A-Bomb, Thundra, and Red She-Hulk. I ultimately think it was a good idea to get Hulkbuster into the action in lieu of some of those more-obscure Gamma characters, since a Gladiator Hulk vs. Hulkbuster set will have terrific character recognition at retail. Also, this is a perfect chance to introduce Hercules, since he took over Hulk’s title just after this period!

However, I’m slightly disappointed by this all-male group of characters when Thundra or Red She-Hulk could have easily been pulled in from a subsequent storyline to round out the box.

(Using Ares and Sentry here doesn’t erase the chances of a Thunderbolts box in a future campaign, so I’m happy we snuck them in! However, if we see Moonstone as a late stretch goal, the gig is up for the Thunderbolts.)

In my last set of Marvel United: Multiverse predictions, I had Siege ranked #1 with 60% odds and World War Hulk ranked #3 with 40% odds, so I’d say I did pretty well! I’m disappointed that we won’t see a proper Secret Wars expansion for a “Multiverse” campaign, but “Secret Wars” is a big enough deal that it could be the entire campaign theme for a fourth season.

(Want to play Marvel United right now? Grab either the Marvel United or Marvel United X-Men core boxes right now. They are fun cooperative games that are fun to play with adults and kids alike.)

With this box comes the announcement of the all-in “Omniverse” pledge that includes all of the new gameplay elements in this campaign – which means every new expansion, card deck, and stretch goal figure (but, not plastic tokens, cardboard locations, game mats, reprinted expansions, or past campaign stretch goal boxes).

The all-in offers a $50 discount over getting everything individually, which is more than one expansion free – a pretty good deal. If you had pledged for everything so far, this will be $15 cheaper and you won’t have to up your pledge for the new Marvel United Multiverse World War Hulks expansion box.

Not only is the all-in Omniverse pledge cheaper than buying everything separately, it comes with a HUGE bonus character: FIN FANG FOOM! [Read more…] about Marvel United: Multiverse wages World War Hulk as their final expansion! (Plus: a BIG all-in pledge reward)

Marvel United: Multiverse adds Maximum Carnage to the campaign! (Plus, the High Evolutionary!)

February 3, 2023 by krisis 1 Comment

CMON’s Marvel United: Multiverse Kickstarter campaign announced a sixth new expansion box today, and it was a major shocker to me (though it did not contain Shocker): Marvel United Multiverse – Maximum Carnage!

Why was this box such a surprise for me? I had it marked as “Not Likely” on my list of 20 possible predictions because we already have Carnage in the game. Plus, it felt like the cast didn’t contain enough possible symbiote villains or potential heroes compared to a later event like Absolute Carnage or King in Black.

It turns out, 90s nostalgia can always find a way! The Maximum Carnage box is anchored by an alternate “Dark Carnage,” who is explicitly from the much more recent recent Absolute Carnage event. (You can tell from the little swirl on his forehead.)

It also includes a “New Sinister Six” comprised of Scream, Shriek, Scorpion, Demogoblin, Doppelganger, and Morbius, which… I am fairly certain is not a thing.

(It may be a nod to a single issue reference to the “Sinister Sixty,” which included all of these characters – especially since it comes with a KS-Exclusive “Build your Own Sinister Six” play mode. Again, this concept is from the past few years – decades after Maximum Carnage.)

I have no objections to CMON being inventive in order to get an interesting group of characters together into an expansion. However, I find this particular selection puzzling considering they created a modern Carnage without Knull (one of the biggest villains of the past decade), skipped the chance for a re-do on Venom (or adding Agent Venom), and passed on several different “New Sinister Six” line-ups in the comics that include characters we’re lacking – like Lizard, Boomerang, Shocker, Beetle, and Tombstone.

If we’re being honest, I’m probably never going to touch Demogoblin or Doppelganger, but we got an Anti-Hero Morbius plus Scream, so I suppose all’s well that ends well.

I’m much more excited about one of today’s stretch goals, even if it means crossing off a possible expansion from my list: High Evolutionary!

High Evolutionary is a quintessential Marvel Villain with connections to many different characters and franchises. His sculpt looks perfect and he brings some interesting gameplay – including threat cards that double as master plan cards!

(Want to play Marvel United right now? Grab either the Marvel United or Marvel United X-Men core boxes right now. They are fun cooperative games that are fun to play with adults and kids alike.)

Suddenly, my predictive psychic powers aren’t looking so powerful. In my last post, I updated my list of 20 Marvel events and franchises that might merit an expansion box of their own. Now that we’re down to just 1-2 remaining expansion boxes in this Kickstarter campaign, will any of my 19 remaining guesses make the cut? Keep reading for the full list with tweaked odds on what we might see in the final days of the Marvel United: Multiverse Kickstarter campaign.

Marvel United: Multiverse adds Annihilation (plus, 20 potential Marvel Event expansions and their predicted contents)

February 1, 2023 by krisis 1 Comment

CMON’s Marvel United: Multiverse Kickstarter campaign announced a fifth new expansion box, which was not a big surprise: Marvel United Multiverse – Annihilation!

Why wasn’t it a surprise? I perfectly predicted this box and its characters in my last post of 20 Marvel events that might turn up as expansions. It was my #3 choice with 70% odds, and the only miss in my prediction is that I thought CMON might squeeze in the obscure Cammi in addition to Annihilus, Richard Rider, Quasar, and Phyla-Vell.

Score one for me! Score another one for everyone backing this campaign to get the Marvel United Multiverse – Annihilation box, because it sounds like serious fun!

Marvel United Multiverse – Annihilation introduces one new gameplay mode with “Complications,” a deck of extra cards to intersperse with your villain’s Master Plan deck to up the ante with new challenges and restrictions. This is a familiar cooperative game tool for escalating the difficulty of easy games – Spirit Island has a similar mechanic. We happen to enjoy the simplicity of Marvel United, but for anyone who wants a harder version of the game I think this mode will become essential across all expansions.

(Want to play Marvel United right now? Grab either the Marvel United or Marvel United X-Men core boxes right now. They are fun cooperative games that are fun to play with adults and kids alike.)

Annihilation also introduces some fun hero dynamics that show off exactly why I love Marvel United.

Quasar can bank his actions as Wild Tokens, but can’t unleash them until the end game – if you manage to live that long. Phyla-Vell can use Heroic Tokens to shield her from damage. Richard Rider has extra wilds and adjacent location opportunities, plus a triple-wild knockout blow (for the villain and for himself). Moondragon’s special abilities involve plenty of card manipulation for both heroes and villains. And, Annihilus depletes a special pool of Crisis Tokens and regenerates his health as the game progresses.

All of these play options take advantage of the simplicity and extensibility of the game system. It doesn’t need a fourth kind of action, like “Defend,” because the basic system of Move-Attack-Heroic-Wild allows for so many different hacks and customizations via special powers. That makes the game adaptable to any hero, even cosmic heroes whose powers are extremely different than Captain America or Wolverine.

With this box out relatively early in the week, it seems like we can expect two more expansions – one to kick of this weekend, and one late-campaign addition just before the campaign closes on 9th February. At this point, the “Expansion Boxes are Events” theme has been 100% consistent. Does that mean we’re getting two more Event boxes? Or, will the campaign pivot hard at the last possibly moment, as it did last time by adding a Fantastic Four expansion to an X-Men campaign!

This is the third time in this campaign I’ve accurately predicted an expansion (and, fourth if you count my pre-campaign guess of this exact “Coming of Galactus”) box. Will my psychic powers extend to the final two boxes? Let’s check in on my list of expansion box predictions, based on my Guide to Marvel Universe Events. [Read more…] about Marvel United: Multiverse adds Annihilation (plus, 20 potential Marvel Event expansions and their predicted contents)