The Dark Souls RPG from Steamforged Games, released in 2022. It’s based on the 5e SRD, but it has several unique mechanisms that separate it from vanilla 5e. The mechanism I’m particularly enamored with is called “Position”.

Position replaces hit points in the Dark Souls system. You get position points (PP) equal to (CON modifier + max position die + your current level). This base PP value is the damage you can take *outside initiative*. Traps, falling damage, etc. would all come off your base PP. If base PP reaches 0, you’re dead.

PP gets a little more interesting once we learn that that it temporarily increases every time initiative is rolled. (PP die x level) Now you have a large pool of temporary PP that you lose before you lose base PP. You only have temp PP once you act in initiative; in a situation where surprise is involved that surprise round of attack damage goes straight against your base position, making constant awareness of your enviroment important. Also, when you gain a level, you don’t roll any dice for additional PP, you simply get whatever your CON modifier is. Base position points rise very slowly (if at all).

But here’s why I really like position: You can spend it as a resource to do stuff! The basic examples from the rulebook:

• Increase the result of your die roll on a 1-to-1 basis. Need a 14 to hit but only rolled a 12? Spend 2 PP and now you’ve hit!
• Spend a minimum of 5 PP to increase your damage by the same amount. There’s no limit on how much above 5 you can spend.
• Gain +5 feet of movement per PP spent. Just out of attack range? Not anymore!
• Players can propose other uses with DM approval.

Many spells and special abilities allow you spend PP to augment them as well.

Now the player gets to do a strategic risk/reward calculation on every turn, going as far as to sacrifice themselves to do an epic move to save the rest of the party. I really want to try this in a session to see what my players do with it!

The recently released Dragonbane RPG from Free League Publishing has a wonderful method for character progression. There are no character levels, instead you level-up your various skills. So everytime you attack with a dagger you’re using your “Knives” skill, your “Bartering” skill at the market, etc.

The mechanism I love is that whenever you roll against a skill, if you get a critical success (a dragon) or a critical failure (a demon) you check a box next to that skill. When the session ends, you roll a d20 for each skill with a checkbox. If the d20 roll is higher that your current skill level you get to raise the skill by one! The system is rewarding you for using different skills and thematically it's you succeeded or failed so spectacularly that you learned something significant. But as you get increasingly better at the skill, it becomes harder to learn new things.

In addition, you get a pool of checks to use on any skills you like according to what you did during the game, including one just for showing-up!

The fact that you can potentially increase your skills after every session is just fun. And the fact that it’s more difficult to raise higher level skills reduces the one-trick-pony issue characters sometimes get when they specialise too much.

The Kickstarter for the first Everdell expansion, Pearlbrook, arrived Saturday and we managed to get it to the table the next day!

It had been nearly a year since we last played Everdell, and I had forgotten what a nice game it is. The tableau building mechanics would put in on the same shelf as Terraforming Mars, but it also adds a pleasant amount of worker placement.

On your turn you can do one of three things: place a worker to get resources and/or cards, spend resources to play cards, or retrieve all your workers and move to the next round. There are four rounds (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall) and each one gets you an additional worker, with two new workers in the last round. The first two rounds are pretty quick, but then the game slows down as your tableau grows and you have more workers to place.

The Pearlbrook expansion adds a “frog ambassador” worker, who's restricted to the five spaces on the expansion board, but will only be placed 4 times over the course of the game. Four of the five locations are hidden until a player reveals them, with a bonus resource for being first. It also adds a bunch of new cards to the main deck, and some additional forest and event cards. Pearlbook replaces the basic event tiles with new 3-D cardboard wonders, which are significantly harder to achieve, but give a large point bonus. Basically if someone gets one of the wonders, you have to get one or more too or it’s going to be hard to win.

Our game lasted about 2.5 hours, including the teach and getting up between turns to make some food. I want to get this to the table again, hopefully well before another year goes by.

The heatwave sapped our energy for anything too taxing tonight, so we brought out Istanbul, one of our favorite lighter games. But to add a little spice we added our un-played Mocha & Baksheesh expansion. It adds a new resource (coffee), four new locations, and event cards you can use instead of moving your piece. The extra locations makes the play area feel much larger, making efficient movement significantly harder, at least until you’re able to get some of the new expansion powers, especially the one that allows you to move unlimited spaces in one direction.

We enjoyed the expansion enough that we’ll probably always use it in the future, unless we're teaching new players.

Finally got London (2nd Edition) off the shelf last night. Two-player game with Amy. It was pretty brutal, and by the end of the 2+ hour game (much like our last visit to the actual London) neither one of us were sure we liked it.

It felt more like work than play and the stack of cards took too long to get through. We're not fast players, but going more than twice the recommended time seemed a bit much to us. I totally appreciate what the poverty mechanic is trying to model, but it wasn't much fun concentrating on managing poverty instead of scoring points. We also agreed to ignore the take-that cards, since we were already having a hard enough time fighting the game itself.

Bottom line: I admire what the game is trying to do, and can understand why some folks like it, but I don't think it's for us. Anyone want to buy our copy?

Played Underwater Cities for the first time yesterday with Amy. We both liked it and will play again. I had heard reports that it was an overly-long game, but it wasn’t for the two of us. Turns go quickly, and the gameplay is easy to learn. Amy trounced me on the first play (as usual) since she is much better with strategy-planning than I am. Now that I better know how the game plays, I should be able to make it a closer game next time, though she’ll probably still win. But it’ll be a respectable loss rather the 30-point deficit of the first game.