#87: The Ancient World, Euphoria, Board Game Hooks and Making The First RPG Session Great
In episode 87 the gang gets down and dirty with a great worker placement game called The Ancient World! Then they take a look back at Euphoria one year later. Tony I gives his gaming news roundup while the rabble gives their two cents. We talk about board game hooks, innovation and gimmicks. The show ends off with a discussion about an age old problem that always plagues RPGers, how to make your first session great for the players.
Games Played
Pictomania
Bottle Imp
Scoundrels
The Great Fire of London 1666
Alchemists
Colt Express
Sheriff of Nottingham
Sons of Anarchy
Bocce
Super Motherload
Spector Ops
D&D dice masters
Support our 2015 Fundraiser!
After 83+ episodes, we have decided it's time to look to the future and take the Secret Cabal to the next level. As we talked about on the show, to move forward we need some funds to get thing done and get them done to the quality level that you've come to expect from our productions. We've decided to roll out a fundraiser initiative on Patreon.com. We love doing the show, it's so much fun for us and we're so happy about the outpouring of support you all have given us in the past. But we want to do more. MORE I SAY!
We're very excited about this becasue it means we're going to be doing more content for you guys to consume. Our first phase of the project will be doing a Fifth Wednesdays show! So when we have that week off when there's a fifth Wednesday, we'd plan to start releasing a new show thats a little different. We havent worked out the details of what it'll be yet, but it'll be founders talking about games And hopefully if everything goes as planned, we'll do it more often. This isnt the only thing we'd like to do, there are lots of things we have swimming around in our brains for 2015. We'll keep you guys updated as to what we're planning as things move forward!
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The Ancient World
In an ancient world forgotten by time, enormous titans terrorize the land. Five tribes have been fleeing from the titans for centuries, but things are about to change. Growing city-states pledge to end the reign of terror, determined to take on the titans and make the world a safer place for all. Each city-state competes to attract the tribes, eager for the strength of the combined peoples, who are now leaving behind old traditions with the hope that the titans can be defeated once and for all. In The Ancient World, players compete to grow the largest and most influential city-state by managing citizens, treasury, and military and by defeating titans. Players take turns sending citizens to take special actions or using military cards to attack titans. One of the actions a citizen can perform is to build Empire cards, which give more citizens, money, and abilities. A city-state's influence in the world is measured by sets of tribe banners that it owns. Each Empire card has one or more tribe banners, and tribe banners can also be gained by defeating titans. Players gain victory points (VPs) for sets of tribe banners. After six rounds, the player with the most VPs from sets of tribe banners wins.
Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia
n Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia, you lead a team of workers (dice) and recruits (cards) to claim ownership of the dystopian world. You will generate commodities, dig tunnels to infiltrate opposing areas, construct markets, collect artifacts, strengthen allegiances, and fulfill secret agendas. Euphoria is a worker-placement game in which dice are your workers. The number on each die represents a worker's knowledge—that is, his level of awareness that he's in a dystopia. Worker knowledge enables various bonuses and impacts player interaction. If the collective knowledge of all of your available workers gets too high, one of them might desert you. You also have two elite recruit cards at your disposal; one has pledged allegiance to you, but the other needs some convincing. You can reveal and use the reticent recruit by reaching certain milestones in the game... or by letting other players unwittingly reach those milestones for you.