Hello, and welcome back to the Dark Ages!
Just a quick update today - I've been doing some gaming, but took no pictures :(
So I'll just briefly discuss what I did, and hopefully get pics next time I get around to playing some tabletop games.
First off, I tested my edits to the Dark Souls : The Board Game rules with two other players. Given that we were three, the game was fairly easy - not to mention that we forgot one element of difficulty. That said, they still need work. The iteration as we played it removed every single die roll from the game. This made for a fairly enjoyable and faster playing version of the Board Game, and one that your friends probably wouldn't hate you for making them play - after all, we won, and quite soundly.
The issue here is I have only tested it with three players so far. If it is more difficult but still playable with one player, I may have found my desired solution, making it somewhat of a party game with groups and more of a strategy and logic game with a deal of challenge when solo. Unfortunately, I think it may be too difficult solo, even impossible, with deterministic damage values. Part of this is just the toolbox I'm using - the way encounters are determined and how they work inherently guarantees single players get ganked, and multiple players get to spread the damage. There is no sneaking by, only drawing the aggro of single opponents, or speccing and kitting to go fast enough to attack multiple times against slower opponents.
Some of this I may still be able to solve, we'll see - so in summary, DS:BG project still ongoing.
The other thing I did was a game of Form Line of Battle, a 16th-19th c. naval wargame, with my wife. We played out the Chase of the Droits de l'Homme (https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_battle&id=684) pitting the French 3rd rate ship of the line Droits de l'Homme against the dynamic duo of British ships, the 5th rate Frigate Amazon and the famous 3rd rate ship of the line Indefatigable, commanded by Sir Edward Pellew himself. (that may only make sense if you have read/watched any of the Horatio Hornblower related media available out there - highly recommended to those with even a mild interest in the age of sail)
The action was fairly brutal, with a poor crew on the Droits de l'Homme restricting her maneuvering, but even though she was battered to within an inch of being mission-killed, she succeeded in passing by her pursuers (we played by setting up on opposite edges of a 3x2 ft board, with the short span between us, and halving all distances provided by the Form Line of Battle rules), faking out the Indefatigable and making her way to the edge of the board, winning what was surely a Pyrrhic victory. Just as in real life, the Droits de l'Homme had been splintered and her crew decimated. It's not hard to imagine her running aground shortly thereafter as occurred historically as well.
It's worth noting that even though we determined the ship's crew and command skills randomly, the way they came out seemed quite appropriate. The poor crew and average command of the French ship more than made up for her superior firepower against the excellently crewed and led British ships, meaning that if I had not been able to maneuver myself away thanks to a few lucky rolls, I would have been so many splinters in the ocean. Historically, the French ship had been crippled in a squall shortly before the action, so instead of tacking it on my sailors I could say that the damage to our rigging was what impeded our turning and tacking.
All in all both games were enjoyable, and I hope the next time I break one or both out I remember to record it better for posterity.
As a last postscript, I am about to enter a new phase in my career that may take up still more of my time. While long absences from the blog are no new thing, I will console myself by saying that at least I warned you this time.
Thanks again for your time, and I hope to see you in the comments below here and reading my future posts.
