I’m back at my desk after attending my very first Gen Con. It was a real whirlwind, and not just because there was a literal tornado. 74,000 people got to see some of the most exciting new releases early.
It was tough to cover anything, but I got more than a few board game, card game, and RPG demos in – and there’s lots to be excited about. Here are my top picks of the show:
Annulets
Annulet, the next board game from The Old King’s Crown designer Pablo Clark, has been pluralized. What was one ancient, tavern-esque card game set in the world of Clark’s debut has seen its ambitions grow, and Annulets has become several card games stuffed in one immersive, artifact-like box.
I tested just one of these games at Gen Con, but it left a lasting impression. Chalice is a fast but thoughtful game of drafting and set building. Using knowledge of the present and future (two rows of draftable cards), you’ll collect the most powerful allies for your Medieval court.
Use their suits and numbers to create common Poker hands, and you can go searching for lost relics, placing a token on its card. Have the most tokens on a relic, and you earn its points.
Along with cards, Chalice has another precious resource: stones. These glittering tokens can be spent to play extra cards into your court on your turn (one is the usual maximum). They also determine who has the initiative from round to round, as the player with the fewest decides what order every player gets to draft in. It’s a dynamic, rather unique approach to turn-taking that adds tension and strategy.
Chalice is simple to pick up, but its depth rivals the widest rivers. Clark manages to be both minimalist and maximalist, allowing his gorgeous artwork and deliberate mechanics to speak for themselves without too much explaining.
Annulets is still in prototype form, but it leaves a fantastic first impression. If you loved The Old King’s Crown, this is going to be an unmissable experience. Expect a more complete preview from me soon.
Vampire: The Masquerade 6e
V6 is officially on the horizon! Editor Alex and I took part in one of the first-ever playtest games, and we found ourselves enthralled by the Masquerade. Alex is a first-timer to the system, but that left him no less excited than the table’s vampire veterans. As for me, I found the system familiar but satisfyingly streamlined, with plenty of thoughtful changes.
V6 does clever things with meta-currencies. Vitae and Willpower reflect your wellbeing, but they can also be spent to supercharge your skills or activate unique powers. Extra successes on checks net you Quickening, which you can spend (and should, because hoarding has painful consequences) to improve your chances of success on future rolls.
All of this puts power (and its consequences) in the hands of players. Similarly, new narrative mechanics add agency – even in moments of failure and monstrosity. Choose Your Pain lets you decide the terrible outcome of a painful failure. Perhaps you’ll lose vitae or quickening, or you’ll mark another space on your Beast track. Plus, there’s Devil’s Bargain, a mechanic that gives you a basic success in exchange for granting the Storyteller one Drama. There’s those tasty metacurrencies again.
One of the most interesting features is how V6 approaches technology. The Camarilla has given their blessing for Kindred to have an internet presence, meaning my Ventrue could safely dominate some morals over Facetime. It created some fun problem-solving moments, and White Wolf lead Jess Lanzillo says it’s a crucial bit of subtext hidden in the system – more on that in my upcoming preview article.
The Lord of the Rings: Circle of Conflict
Office Dog built a solid reputation for strong Lord of the Rings board games with its trick-taking trilogy. Circle of Conflict, a heavy roll-and-write by Stephen Buonocore and Geoff Engelstein, seems to continue this trend. My Gen Con demo was short, but it left me itching to play again.
You’ll play as both the Free Peoples of Middle-earth and the Shadow. Each round, two dice are rolled, and you must assign one to each side of the conflict. The symbols on these dice determine what area of your hidden board you mark. Time or Movement, for example, can help move the Fellowship along its path to Mount Doom, or they can mobilize the Shadow to hunt its quarry.
Catching the Fellowship or evading the Shadow is one path to victory. The other is to best your fated opponent in battle. A unique method of targeting decides whose Free Peoples goes up against whose Shadow, and vice versa (spoilers: there’s a reason it’s called a Circle of Conflict). Muster enough forces, gain the support of Middle-earth’s nations, and fill the battle track, and you’ve got a grand battle on your hands. Win more than one, and you lead your side to victory.
That’s the general gist of play. Dice are rolled each round, and a mix of hidden and public actions are taken by each player. There’s also a Gollum token moving around the track that throws occasional gameplay effects in the mix. Combine this with unique powers you can unlock by marking allies, plus distinct ways different marked squares on your board resolve, and you’ve got a meaty roll-and-write to mull over. It’s a thematic brain-teaser that I’m keen to return to.
13 Omens
I’m a sucker for rules-light horror games that use physical components to create tension. Paizo’s 13 Omens continues a tradition led by icons like Dread and 10 Candles. The perfectly paced one-shot system uses a bag of D6s to decide whether your hapless horror movie heroes live or die. As you push through the game’s three acts, the deadliness of the dice increases. Simple, yet spine-tingling.
Whether you want to escape from ghouls or pick a lock, you’ll begin by pulling two dice from the bag. Your proficiency in the relevant skill (from ‘Great’ to ‘Terrible’) sets the target roll, which is modified by how fair the GM thinks your chances are. Beat the target, and you succeed unscathed. Fail, and you might find yourself losing a bit of gear or straining a Skill, making future successes tougher and riskier.
That’s if you don’t pull an Omen dice, that is. These 13 cubes of evil get added to the bag gradually throughout play when you take a risky move or interact with the monster that threatens you. If you roll one and get a number equal to or lower than the current act (one, two, or three), you take a wound. Take too many, and you’re a goner.
I’ve watched more horror movies than I’ve had hot dinners, and 13 Omens nails the authentic feel. Whether you’re stuck in a corny schlockfest or the most terrifying flick of the decade may depend on your group, but either way, the system is immensely entertaining. Keep an eye out for my upcoming full preview to learn more.
Viking Route
Ares Games brought this Nordic family game to the US for the first time at Gen Con, but the publisher also kindly provided a review copy in advance of the show. That means I’ve spent more time with this title than most on the list. It also means I’m more confident in saying ‘I really like this one’.
Viking Route is a co-op adventure campaign with one special gimmick: magnets. Your team must sail a longboat across the sea to gather runes and battle monsters, but the direction you move in is decided by the Wind – plus some helpful interference by Odin’s Ravens. These four miniatures each have a magnet inside, which you can manipulate to help guide your vessel to the right place.
Magnets aren’t the most precise tool to work with, so Viking Route can be surprisingly challenging, even at lower difficulty levels. The swingy nature of play can leave you feeling frustrated at times, but for the most part, the challenge feels less like a chore and more like a puzzle. It helps that each of the campaign’s levels feels unique and engaging, with a real rollercoaster of a finale. You can expect to see a full review from me soon, if you want to learn more.
Hellbreak
I’m going through a rough patch with Magic: The Gathering right now, and it’s almost certainly Universes Beyond fatigue. As I play less of my usual go-to TCG, I’m open to experimenting with one of the many, many new options dropping this year. And, because I’m a horror nerd, Hellbreak is a serious contender.
The starter decks editor Alex and I tested – Dracula and Jaws – show off a game that feels familiar but manages to stake its claim in a crowded market. There’s elements of Flesh and Blood, Lorcana, Magic, and Pokémon to be found here, but Hellbreak manages to feel distinct from each of them.
You begin with your lead monster in play, plus control of an associated location card. Each round, you’ll play a bid card that determines your place in the initiative – and then gets added to your vault as a source of resources on future rounds. The vault decides how many cards, blood, and menace you have to work with, plus the loyalty symbols needed to play more imposing allies.
With cards drawn and blood pooled, you then take one action at a time, passing from player to player until both have passed for the round. You might spend blood to bring more cards to the field, or you could use menace to take control of a location from your opponent. You might even transform your main monster into something even more horrific.
To me, TCGs are an ongoing cost, a tremendous investment. It takes a lot for me to put cash into keeping up with the meta, so one game isn’t enough to convince me I should go all-in on Hellbreak. I’ll definitely be testing it out more, though – all that blood smells like potential.
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Source: Wargamer
