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Kevin Clark of The Warstore joins the D6G crew for Rapid Fire, then we talk about how challenging it was to set up a new convention from scratch. Kevin fills us in on all the details of The Warstore Weekend.

Later the D6G crew grabs the hot new game from Wizards of the Coast: Castle Ravenloft. Is it Dungeons and Dragons 4e light? Or is it a board game gateway to the RPG? Or something else? Listen to the rules in detail and decide for yourself.
All that and our other not-too-horrible segments including:

- The Hollywood Minute
- Total Fan Girl
- The News
- Do You Ever Notice
- & More

Link to Episode: http://www.thed6generation.com/d6g-ep-64-the-warstore-weekend-interview-castle-ravenloft-detailed-review

Please let us know what you think!!

great show !! cant wait for the warstore weekend!

Another great show, especially the review of Ravenloft.

@Craig for Didja' Ever Notice; never before has 5K sounded so epic. Was there fallout from the fellowship being broken and are you going to do the run again next year?

Thanks, Spooky. It felt epic as it was happening, that's for sure. And I wanted to have something that would remind me of the . . . epicness . . . of it.

The breaking of the fellowship was only annoying because John and I had trained with each other most of the summer, and I was just a sliver faster than him all summer long, and we're otherwise pretty evenly-matched. Over the race he, too, couldn't climb the 8 foot wall, or the horizontal climbing wall, but in addition his javelin throw went wide . . . so if he HAD stayed with us . . . bastard . . .

No, not only are we all planning on racing, but Pete, the fourth member of our LOJOG old boys network gaming group is already working out and dieting and planning on joining us, and at least one team from our Myriad Games group is planning on running as well.

I have secret ambitions to make it sort of a big deal next summer, and bringing the D6 Generation along with me . . .

The trick to walls is not necessarily to pull yourself up and over, but pull yourself up far enough to fling your legs up (by swinging them sideways and running them up if need be). Once they are at the top, hook them (or just one if that's all you can manage) over and pull yourself up with that. Practice this carefully I might add.
This wall is shorter so these guys have an eaiser time of it but you get the basic idea of the technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGfRDeqLCu8&p=598C76408D483303&playnext=1&index=6

Assuming you just happen to hve an 8-ft wall you can do this sort of thing on, start practicing it at the beginning of your workout, but move it to the middle or end to prepare your body for doing it while exhausted so it becomes more muscle movement than brute strength. Run trails if you can and consider doing Fartlek drills during the run to help build endurance.

Would love to join you guys out there but it depends on my next duty station.

Great episode, I really liked the Ravenloft review. But poor Raef at 1:32:32. I think you guys handled it well. Keep up the good work - Mez

Hey guys! Way to keep up the quality. Sometimes I can't believe you're still going so strong after so long. I still remember your first show with Geekly and the excellent 40k vs Warmachine topic. I really wanted to voicemail because frankly I'm a communication luddite - I reluctantly own a cell phone, but just talk on it. My preference is See your face > talk on phone > message board > email - but I had too much. I decided to just go on the board since there is more interaction with other fans.

Nice use of archive audio on the news segment. I was SOOO worried that Russ wasn't going to use "Where There's A Whip, There's A Way", clearly the BEST of the Rankin Bass songs on the old LOTR films because it wasn't in The Hobbit, but he didn't let me down. You podcasters always make me feel old ("I'm only 45. I'm not old." because you remember what I remember but from junior high instead of high school. You're the same age as my tichy brother. Of course, the down side is that now I'm walking around humming the song all week.

I loved the way Raef stuffily announced that "we" always start a 4E fight with the at-wills and then move up to encounter powers as if that's the best way. I only played 4E for about a year and a bit before we went back to mostly boardgames/wargames, but I do know this. Raef! You're playing the twin strike guy! OF COURSE you start with your overpowered AT WILL! Others on the team may find that encounter powers are a better start. I played a controller (Invoker of Avandra) for the entire campaign, and it was best for my team (barring weird encounters like ones where some enemies are hiding until halfway through) if I opened with an encounter power because a disorganized/slowed/ineffective/vulnerable enemy right off the bat let the defender and strikers set up their kill zones. For instance, my guy's classic opening was an extemporaneous plea to Avandra to help those who help themselves, resulting in Avandra's Tears (just a rethemed Rain of Blood). A light rain would mist down, even in a dungeon. Avandra's power would let it instantly soak in, refreshing my allies and giving them a slight glow (mechanically giving them pluses to hit), but when it hit the enemy, it turned soaked in and turned blood red (making them vulnerable to being hurt). If I did that AFTER the first few rounds, the beatdown guys would have been wasting energy doing less damage. Best to do it when the baddies are fresh and it gives maximum value.

Nicole, I am reasonably sure that the strong reaction against the "too attractive" geek girls stems from obnoxious gamer selection. There are gamers with real lives - Russ engineers and has real family time, Craig does drama as well as teaching and leading trips, Raef....works for the government - and there are those marginally-employed gamers with no social skills. To those gamers, gamer girls are a rare thing and they wish that they could grab even a marginally attractive gamer girl from the limited choice. They don't do what most of us gamers do: create a gaming spouse of your own. When you find your significant other, you find someone open to new things who will share what you already have in common and try new things too. Almost (and I DID qualify this) all gamer girls I hear from have a boyfriend/significant other in their past who introduced them into the hobby and some part of it caught. So the internet jerks are complaining about a perceived problem that results from their own lack of ability.

I have been very lucky in that I have fared as well or almost as well as Russ, better than Craig, and from what I hear quite a bit better than Raef. My wife loves to play certain games and is the painter of the family. I'm that "get it on the model, clean, shade, highlight, DONE! Let's play." guy with sloppy but marginally table-ready results. She's the COUGHcraiglikeCOUGH picky detail person who carefully puts together a tiny piece of art. She willingly plays some games and is nice enough to humor me on occasion. I had a huge success recently with Thunderstone. It was similar enough to Dominion to be a planning game for her, but the times when the player doesn't have enough resources makes a better story. It's kind of like Craig's complaint about balancing checkbooks. When you're hosed in Dominion, you look at your cards and fold them in, buying some lame card you didn't want. When you're similarly hosed in Thunderstone, you say, "Wulf the militiaman packed up the lantern, plenty of food, the dagger and a sword. He eyed the cave mouth nervously. 'Fellows?' he called. 'Where is everyone?' The noise of crickets ensued. 'Forget this; I'm going to town!' And he stomped into the spell emporium to look at fireball components." When we stopped at the game store yesterday to pick up our budgeted pre-orders (Space Hulk Blood Angels and HexHex - Damn you guys! :: shakes fist at d6g team :: ), she picked up the Thunderstone expansion in her hand and John the clerk shot me the knowing look. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE the box control in the Thunderstone expansion? Now that we have one at home (heh heh heh), I found that it contains dividers almost IDENTICAL to the ones I had made with color-coded 3x5 cards only with pretty art.

Keep up the great podcast.

*This message contains loving Raef ribbing, but don't take it too seriously...

Hey Juan, I do agree that a lot of the folks complaining were upset at the impossibility of these women existing simply because they haven't found any themselves. But some just insisited, even in the face of being told these women are really exactly what you see, that it couldn't possibly be true and it was all just a marketing ploy to tease the poor guy gamer. Truly, to the women in the video, it was just a celebration of their own Geekiness and a chance to have fun, show off their cool stuff, and act like totally Geeks. One thing that made me really happy was that I had a chance to speak with them and they pretty much just said, people will believe what they want, and to them it doesn't matter. They had fun and know they're genuine, and so do most people who watched the video and "got" the all in fun tone.

Wow!
You guys are just killing it right now. Unbelievable. Great Job!

3 quick things:
1- Your Castle Ravenloft review was excellent. I really enjoyed the review- it hit my favorite parts of the game. a)Its simplicity, and b)its ability to capture the D&D theme & experience in a 1-2 hr game.
I find myself saying something you said about another game last spring. "This game is more fun than it has any business being..."
If you read me the mechanics of "Lay a tile, play a monster, play an encouter" I would say "yech".
But once you see on the theme (Yes I played Ravenloft in the old 1980's AD&D), and you play one round, it has you. Its innovative in the sense it takes only the critical parts of D&D and doesnt try to do too much. I see myself playing this and Descent:RTL alomost exclusively this fall. Funny that you can have room for both in a game colllection, but they really scratch different itches.

2- Dominion is a gateway game. My wife is not a gamer. My wife and I are playing almost nightly, and we're loving it. I'm getting "Race for the Galaxy" & "Thunderstone" ready since she seems to like the card games (familiarity vs board with minis?) Any other ideas for great gateway games? (I tried Smallworld, but she didnt like it)

3- Idea for a new segment: I'd love to hear short strategy discussions for games you are playing. For example, I was listening to an episode from way back when you reviewed Race for the Galaxy, and there was a discussion about the deep strategies people use, how they are always changing and that adds to the replayability of the game. There was discussion of the "Wakelin Engine" and "(someone's) Fishing technique". I would love to know what these are! I know one reason not to do these is to avoid boring someone who doesnt play the game or to whom the game doesnt appeal, but you could keep them to 10 min, and i think people would really like it. Whats Craig's new strategy for Epic Armageddon? Whats Raef's pie-making strategy? What is Russ doing to kill players in Descent? It doesn't have to be the final word for uber gamers or anything, just strategies you're enjoying playing and excited about. I think this would kickoff some great conversations. I know I would be intrigued!

Oh- also I'll be at Warstore weekend if anyone wants to get a game of Descent, Ravenloft or Combat Commander- I'll have a slot open 12-4 on Saturday...
Cheers,

Sawtooth (Joe W)

Another excellent episode, which I am just working my way through. I did have to stop at the TFG segment though. Anyone who doesnt think that these girls are 'real gamers' should really do more homework. Michele plays Zaboos 'other girl' in The Guild and Clare is Seth Greens wife (although that doesnt make her a geek... it must get her some serious geek credits), while Milynn has her own YouTube channel for gaming (TheGamerChick).

They may not be representative of gamer girls exactly, but Anna Kourtnikova isnt exactly representative of female tennis players either.

Great episode as always and the Castle Ravenloft review was quite fair from all three of you. I am of the camp that believes it is over-hyped while still being a great game and I am happy that I own it. Lots of room for improvement but a great IPO for boardgames from WotC. They have a long way to go before they can beat companies such as FFG, but they have a great running start and in some ways have beaten FFG already *coughboardgameboxinsertscough*.

Mansions of Madness however....watch out Ravenloft, a new king is approaching town....

Speaking of Lovecraft, I am saddened to hear that Craig's foray back into Lovecraft's literature was less than he had hoped for. As a big Lovecraft nut myself, I do completely understand how he is not everyday reading and his style is quite dry. It takes a particular mood and a certain amount of patience for me to sit and read him. Don't come to him, he will come to you.

Thanks for the effort you guys put into entertaining and informing the gaming community.

Curse you, D6G! Now I have to get Castle Ravenloft!!

I may wait for a Mansions of Madness review, or the Ravenloft expansion, before I succumb to the new game lure.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I like the idea of a strategy segment, maybe that will makemit in.

If there is any doubt about the geek girl cred of the girls in the aforementioned video this interview that Nicole an the Geek Girls Network did with them: http://geekgirlsnetwork.com/blog/2010/09/live-interview-ladies-of-g33k-g4m3r-girls-video/

Just finished the episode last night (I've been a little behind lately)! I had to pause the show after the Achievements in Gaming intro becuase I was laughing too hard . The War Store Weekend sounds like it will be a great time, I wish I could be there.

Oh, and I didn't realize that Doghouse Systems wasn't advertising on the show anymore until you guys mentioned them during the show and I realized I hadn't heard one of their ads in a while!