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Post by dragnoz on Dec 22, 2011 5:29:36 GMT -9
Has anyone played any of the Lego RPG's? I bought my son the Lego Ninjago and he LOVED it... Tonight I'm going to try to introduce him to something a bit more complicated heroica.lego.com/en-us/Products/Default.aspx#3859have a look at the rules, pretty simple yet perfect quick game and introduction to RPG... Very good "gateway drug" to paper RPG's me think... BTW he is 4 1/5
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Post by Parduz on Dec 22, 2011 6:46:08 GMT -9
This!
Ok, is not a Rpg, but to me it is the best Lego game (and one of the 20 best "boardgame" i play).
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Post by dcbradshaw on Dec 22, 2011 15:25:50 GMT -9
I just recently bought the Heroica Castle Fortaan set. Haven't opened it, but thought I might break it out this evening at game night. I'll let everyone know how it goes.
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Post by dcbradshaw on Dec 22, 2011 20:31:23 GMT -9
Ok, so, first impressions of Heroica-
The pieces themselves, well, they're LEGO, and thus pretty slick. It's a small representation (the figures are a single peg square), so things are a little abstract, but you can still get the idea. In this castle set, there's a kitchen (fireplace and a little table with a turkey leg); a pair of "offices" or quarters (with chairs and desks, complete with a book or piece of paper on the desk); a little courtyard with what I believe is supposed to be a fountain (it's got a stone frog on top of it); a cell or vault, with a portcullis; a couple of catwalk pieces, and plenty of hallway stretches with locked doors; all culminating in the throne room where the Orc King is waiting for the party. It's pretty evocative without much description, and will definitely be recognizable to anyone with even a little gaming experience.
So I think what's happened here, is maybe the people at LEGO that had the original idea for these Heroica sets were ardent gamers (the characters are pretty good representations of D&D classes: this set has Druid, Knight, Wizard, and Barbarian, and I know there's a Ranger and a Thief in the other sets). But the execution is just a little bit lacking--it's almost like they had some big plans to make this very much D&Desque, but someone at LEGO said, "Hold on there, we need to scale down the target age on this," and started simplifying the rules, which is a little disappointing and stole away some depth. We immediately began adding house rules, on treasure hunting, doublecrossing, room effects, etc.
It's a little bit like maybe they expect people to do that anyway, and the rules they provide are so bare bones that they come off as a little haphazard.
The first time we played through, I managed to "win" by killing the Orc King with a lucky roll, with all the other players crowding into the throne room waiting for their turn to attack. We played it by the rules, and nobody really did anything interesting.
The second time, we implemented some ad hoc house rules and it became much, much more engrossing. The second time through, the Knight barged right in, managed to snag a couple of good weapons right off the bat (the longsword and the bow) and picked off the Orc King at range using the bow while the rest of us were floundering with locked doors and the goblin troops at the front of the board.
All in all, it has potential. It certainly looks cool, and definitely has a little bit of Old School Renaissance cred due to the class breakups, plus the novelty of it being RPG style LEGO. But the rules implementation is just so simple that it kind of gets in the way of itself. That's not necessarily a deal breaker--with a little bit of adventure/campaign creativity, some balanced house ruling, and a lighthearted attitude, it can make for a fun experience.
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Post by dragnoz on Dec 22, 2011 23:41:23 GMT -9
thanks DC... we played the Caverns of Nathuz last night, now bear in mind I was playing with my 4 and a half year old.
You right, the rules are a lot dumbed down but if you read the rules it does state that you should create your own when you are ready for it.
For a four year old the rules were prefect, it just about maxed out the level of his understanding. We had a thief, barbarian and mage.
The wife and I were trying to play a more tactical game while the kid just went for the potions and gold, at one stage we had to stop because he swallowed the "cap" of the speed potion bottle, we replaced it with a piece from his other lego's as we not going to wait for it to come out.
Anyway, we played the suggested rules and the little tyke won without loosing any health he ended up with 9 gold and myself and the wife with 6 each.
He was a bit bored with the game as there was no sense of real danger / urgency. With the ninjago one, the general moves down the stairs each time you loose a fight or the dice falls on the general. So it creates more tention.
So in the second game, I changed the rules and actually took on the role of the Golem Lord. I rolled the dice twice with each round, once to determine how many of my minions I can move and then again for how many moves.
Each time they killed a minion, I was able to bring it back to life with the Scepter of summoning, if the dice landed on the shield (perform a special action or move 4).
I chased them around the Caverns and we ended up facing off on the "bridge" the kid finally nailed me with a fireball.
The same rules in regards to potions and health applied to me but not my minions.
I think if you expand it yourself, add some cards, add more combat rules and the like, it can actually be a pretty decent "pick up and go" game.
At the moment its perfect for kids.
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Post by kiladecus on Dec 23, 2011 3:47:50 GMT -9
Sounds great! I think I know what I want for Christmas... to buy for my son, I mean! I think it is great that LEGO is doing this. I have used LEGO models in my gaming for years. BTW, "lego" is Greek for "fittly joined," just in case you didn't know or cared. (I am NOT fun to play Trivial Pursuit with, so I am told).
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Post by Parduz on Dec 23, 2011 4:04:19 GMT -9
So, it seems that that Lego games can be houseruled to become a sort of Heroquest... i think i'd go for other games then. I mean: the amount of pieces in that box is not too much, and the game seems lame for any player over 6-7 years (my son played Space Hulk at that age). BTW, "lego" is Greek for "fittly joined," just in case you didn't know or cared. (I am NOT fun to play Trivial Pursuit with, so I am told). Interesting.... being "Lego" an italian word ( = (i) tie ) i never thought to check what it was really. Thanks.
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Post by dragnoz on Dec 23, 2011 4:26:54 GMT -9
hehe indeed kil... I bought it especially for "him" and "he" is getting a few more for christmas
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Post by Sirrob01 on Dec 31, 2011 18:08:19 GMT -9
I use my lego primarily for wargamming. Here's an old picture of my Clone army getting ready for combat: I have tried minotarus, creationary and pharohs something...they seemed to play okay but I'd agree definitly aimed at the younger audience.
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Post by josedominguez on Dec 31, 2011 18:32:57 GMT -9
Sounds great! I think I know what I want for Christmas... to buy for my son, I mean! I think it is great that LEGO is doing this. I have used LEGO models in my gaming for years. BTW, "lego" is Greek for "fittly joined," just in case you didn't know or cared. (I am NOT fun to play Trivial Pursuit with, so I am told). Pure coincidence apparantly, Lego is from Leg godt, Danish for 'play well' when they came up with the name they didn't even know about the greek
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Post by Sirrob01 on Jan 1, 2012 13:51:17 GMT -9
Parduz how long does a game of Mechtron take to play out?
Looks like an interesting game but hard to tell how long an avg game would go for.
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Post by Parduz on Jan 2, 2012 0:33:39 GMT -9
Parduz how long does a game of Mechtron take to play out? Looks like an interesting game but hard to tell how long an avg game would go for. It is a pretty variable lenght game. The first factor is the number of Mechs on the field, then the "range type" of them. I've played a couple of 3-players games with 3-4 mechs each, with just one "howitzer-type" per player (this kind of mech make the game more stationary and you running for cover) and they lasted for about 90 minutes. Being 12 mechs running all around (the inintiative phase is "long" and a bit boring, imho the only glitch of the game), it qualifies Mechaton to a fast game, to my eyes. Battlefield size and cover "density" are other factors, but with a minor impact to game lenght.
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