Gaming at a Beer Festival

So I'm going to a craft beer festival - Cambolicious - on Saturday 8th November and I'm taking games with me to play with people I know and hopefully introduce some games to complete strangers.

Given it's a beer festival and the focus is on the beer I'm not looking for any in depth gaming experience but I do want to take some "pocket sized" and easy to learn games that we can just break out if we feel the urge.

So which games fit that requirement?

Dragon Slayers from Indie Boards & Cards - It's quick and fun and very very portable.

Other dice games would also work and I'll likely take Zombie Dice with me too.

Jungle Speed from Asmodee - A really fun dexterity game that always seems to be better with alcohol....

Coup from erm Indie Boards & Cards! - Very very portable and quick to play bluffing game.

Magic: The Gathering from Wizards Of The Coast - Well ok so this is a 2 player game and I don't have any functioning decks other than old demo decks but I might take them anyway...  It's a fun game and absolutely can be played casually.

Get Bit from Mayday Games - Afterall, what's more fun than trying to swim faster than your friends to ensure you don't get eaten by a shark?

Get Lucky from Cheapass Games - I've not played it yet but it's quick and looks like a lot of fun.  Essentially Cluedo in reverse (i.e. you're each trying to commit murder).  Plus who doesn't want to play as Fauntleroy Shabozz???

Love Letter from AEG (Alderac Entertainment Group) - Whilst I'm still not 100% sure about this game I do like it's simplicity and speed so definitely a candidate to take.

Poo The Card Game from Wildfire LCC / Catalyst Game Labs - After all who doesn't want to pretend to be a monkey throwing poo at each other?

Any suggestions of other "pocket sized" games suitable for a beer festival?

DMing Lost Mine of Phandelver

So I've finally got round to running a game of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.  Specifically I've started running Lost Mine of Phandelver.

This is the scenario that comes with the Starter Set and I've chosen it for a number of reasons.

• None of the players have played it.
• It's an introductory scenario and 4 of the players either hadn't played D&D ever or for a very long time.
• One player is currently playing in the Hoard Of The Dragon Queen season of Encounters so had to be something very different from that.

So what did we have?  Well I used the pregens from the Starter Set and I also managed to find some D&D Adventurers League compatible 1st level pregens online.

The players opted for -

• Dwarf Cleric - Played by Richard
• Halfling Rogue - Played by Steven
• Human Fighter - Played by Alan
• Human Paladin - Played by Theresa
• Tiefling Warlock - Played by Oliver

They managed to rescue Sildar and take down Klarg the bugbear, the wolves and a number of the goblins.  Ok so they had lady luck to thank for some of that after some tributes were made to Tyche in Phandalin as at times the dice were being particularly cruel!

Overall it was a really good session and felt good to be running D&D again, especially for a group of people that I've never roleplayed with before as most of them I've met through East Neuk Tabletop.

Hoping to get at least 2 or 3 more sessions in before Christmas but need to think carefully about the scheduling of that and of course a location to hold it. For this 1st session we used my wife's wool shop on a weeknight, with weeknights largely being problematic for me I think it might need to move to a Sunday post-ENT slot (whether that's coinciding with ENT or not). Something to ponder and chat with them about before organising the next slot.

Dry Wipe Notebook

So there were a few things I was looking for when at Gen Con that I didn't buy largely because I actually didn't find precisely what I wanted.

Amongst that list was something I only realised I wanted after playing in the Atomic Robo.  Mike was using what is called a WipeBook - essentially it's a dry-erasable pad.

So after asking Mike where he got it from I looked for it at Gen Con but it wasn't available at any of the booths.  When looking into getting one for myself I came across the usual challenge of buying something overseas - shipping...

So at first I decided "Oh well." and forgot all about it but since then I got to thinking - "Surely I could make one myself?"

So I have.

• 1 pack of A4 160gsm card.
• 1 set of Staedtler whiteboard dry wipe pens.
• 1 pack of laminating pouches (well I already had this and the laminator).
• 1 binder to put them in.

To mix it up a bit I used some of the PDF templates from Incompetech to create Hex, Square and Lined sheets and went about printing and laminating the card.

Final result -

I've still to use it properly but I can see me using it instead of squared paper and blank paper to draw maps (not to scale!) and other short term items in games.

I also hope to use it for brain dump stuff that can be wiped in future once they've been blogged or otherwise.