Things Get Played and Read: Turtles, Demons, and Wizards

I've managed to play a few games over the past few weeks (or at least attempt to play them). I thought I'd do a quick run through of what I played.


I played TMNT Shadows From The Past by IDW with some family over the long weekend. There may have been alcohol involved for a few members of the table, it may have been late, so it may have been a bit hard to understand, especially when 3/4 of the table aren't gamers...

It was still a good chance for me to learn the rules live. I like the mission system and the way it evolves as you go, and think fans of the game could get a lot of replay out of it. I also really like the dice co-op mechanic, and that the Turtles all behave differently, so you quickly get situations where Mikey hands out movement, and Donatello hands out defence. I'm keen to play it again with a few of my regulars.


The Others by CMON got played on Tuesday. Again, this is one I hadn't played live, so I stumbled over the rules a bit as well. I'm pretty sure on a second play through it would go smoother. For instance, as the Sins player, I forgot Pride's special rule for lone heroes, and forgot to place markers. The FAITH players had a few issues in terms of "can I make ranged attacks without a gun when I'm a shooter", and a few confusing elements with wounds. There also seemed to be a lack of motivation as to "why are we in this fight", until I found the briefing at the start of the book. Having said that, the city action mechanic seemed to interest people during the game, and often provided a lot of emphasis on which tactics would be used by the team.

Overall, I think people would be interested to play again, and I'm confident I could run this smoothly on the next play.


Finally, Dresden Files was played. I'd learned the game solo already, so I was able to teach the rules a bit better this time. We played through Storm Front, and it seemed to me to be a hit. There was a lot of table talk as we went figuring out how we would handle the mission, and even though we seemed to lack attacks when needed, we managed to beat the game!

The group was keen to replay this one, and if we had more time would have played Fool Moon, but we had some time restraints and couldn't play another. Having said that, the way the game runs is similar to the Fate system Evil Hat (the publisher) uses for its RPG system, including the Dresden Files RPG. Because of this, I'm going to feel a lot more familiar learning the RPG rules (which I still have to get to after all these years...)

Anyway, those are the games I've been playing lately!


In other updates, I've been reading the Designers and Dragons series, also by Evil Hat. I've just finished the first volume about companies from the 70s, including TSR, Chaosium, GW, and others. If you're interested in the history of the companies associated with the hobby, I'd definitely recommend it.


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