Bring Back The Spice

Randomness and Unpredictability in RPG Characters

Role-Playing Games have greatly refined their mechanics over the years. There has been a noticeable trend towards increasingly well-balanced rules that give the players complete control over what type of characters they make and how those characters end up. This trend, taken to its furthest extent, might help ensure that no player gets an unfairly powerful character, but it also ensures that no character will really have anything all that unique.

Big Daddy
Nowhere has this trend been stronger than in the most popular RPG of all, Dungeons and Dragons. In 2nd edition, there were many campaign worlds that included random tables in character creation. Darksun gave everyone random psionic powers. Birthright did something similar with blood powers. 3rd edition whittled most of these types of thing out. 4th edition put the nail in the coffin by taking away random die rolls for ability scores. 4th edition ensures that everything will be fair by ensuring that everything will be nearly the same.

Gamma World’s Getting There

The recently released Gamma World set does bring back some of chaos. It has a lot of randomness in its character creation and its gameplay. Randomly generated backgrounds, starting equipment, treasure, and mutant powers work together to make a game that is truly bizarre and unpredictable. Unfortunately, Gamma World is intended to be a completely absurd setting. You might be a half-cockroach, half-bird who suddenly grows 2 extra arms while fighting pig men only to have those arms fall off a few seconds later and have a horn grow out of your head. Gamma World is fun and I love it’s absurdity, but I don’t always want to play an absurd game.

Take a Chance
Characters with random stats, random powers, or other random aspects can provide so much more than mere absurdity. These tools can provide characters that have truly special qualities about them. Whether underpowered or overpowered, when you have to roll to see how a character will turn out, what you end up with is something more unique than is ever possible with the perfectly engineered hero. The pendulum has swung too far towards a very bland brand of balance. I would love to see more games bring back a little chaos and lack of control. When you take a chance and roll the dice you don’t always make something perfect, but you do make something memorable.

Miner Dig Deep: The Best Dollar In Gaming

Last week, as I was rummaging through the heap of XboxLive Indi-Games, I stumbled across a true gem. Miner Dig Deep serves an important reminder that at the end of the day fun does not take fancy tricks or impressive polygons. A simple idea, well designed shines through.



Simply Wonderful
Miner Dig Deep's simple idea is all in the name. You are a miner and your goal is to dig as deep as you can. The game sports pleasant, if simple, 2D graphics and pleasant background music that helps set a relaxing tone. The game presents the player with a single shop and save point at ground level, and then meter after meter of dirt to be dug.



The player makes all his or her own paths and, digging ever deeper, finds new ores and minerals to haul back and sell. Lamp fuel and bag space serve to limit each run into the mine. While you can always see the pathways you've dug, lamp light reveals the location of precious ore and hazardous, unbreakable rocks that you have not yet discovered. As lamp fuel is used, the aura of illumination shrinks, revealing less and less. Eventually, you find yourself digging blindly, unsure of where the next hazard awaits you. When this happens, or when your bag is so full of treasure you can hold no more, it's time to ascend to the surface, sell all your loot and buy new equipment and upgrades.

Perfect Rhythm
Miner Dig Deep hits all the right beats. Every time the game encourages you to come up for air, you will undoubtedly have enough money to buy or upgrade your tools in some useful way. Almost every time you head back into the mine it is with a new toy to try out. The penalty for getting stuck or killed in the mine is simply being warped back to the top without any of the ore gained on your recent trip.

The only part that some players might find tedious is the trip back to the bottom of the mine to continue digging. As the mine gets hundred of meters deep, this can start to feel a little tedious. There are teleporters placed at various levels to warp you safely back to the surface, but you cannot warp back down. At first, I found this a bit frustrating. However, I realized that if the player could just warp back to the lowest point it would make the entire mine above irrelevant. Put in this perspective, the trip down became just another part of the game, and I found enjoyment in digging new paths to help make the descent faster. Additionally, you descend past previous mined areas with more lamp fuel at your disposal and often see ore that you missed before.

Bang For A Buck
Miner Dig Deep has an ending, but only after you've dug well past 1000 meters deep. My first play through took me almost 6 hours after which the game let me start a new mine will all my advanced tools. I had a blast as I dug all the way to the bottom again in 15 minutes. The mine is randomly generated each time, so I find myself tempted to start a proper new game and build a new mine from scratch all over again.

All this fun can be had for only 80 Microsoft Points ($1.00). I'm sure many people have at least that many points laying around as left over from prior purchases. I cannot remember the last time I was this entertained for so little money. Buy this game. You won't regret it.


If you do buy it, leave a comment and let me know how you liked it. Also, for a review of another game that presents simple fun, check out my friends at Growing Up Gamers as their 5 year old daughter reviews Sonic Colors for the Wii.

Gaming Disappointments: Final Fantasy Series

But First, A Quick Note About 4th Edition D&D…

Originally, for my greatest disappointments in gaming I was going to tackle D&D 4th Edition. However, my good friend Randy at Growing Up Gamers beat me to the punch. So, I will say just these few words on it.

4th edition D&D strips away just about everything that encourages role-playing and storytelling. It reverts years of D&D evolution back to something much closer to its roots as a miniatures battle game with the thin veneer of story. If all you want from D&D is a vehicle for playing classic fantasy archetypes who dungeon delve and hack up monsters, then I think 4th edition will serve you just fine. However, if you’re love of D&D stems from the love of experiencing heroic stories with unique characters where battles occur (but are not the entire point) then the 4th edition rules will lend you no assistance. True, intriguing stories and wonderful characters can be invented with no rules help at all. That doesn’t give Wizard of the Coast (makers of D&D 4th edition) a pass for removing all the customizable flourishes and non-combat abilities of class and character that helped D&D stories come vibrantly to life.

And Now…Final Fantasy

The original Final Fantasy was actually little more than a D&D adventure. The classes, the monsters, the spells and even some of the items were ripped straight from the pages of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. In the years that followed, Final Fantasy grew past its D&D roots to find its own voice and its own wonderful style. It then went on to lose its damn mind and exchanged its soul (and its gameplay) all in the name of pretty graphics.

It’s Hallowed Roots

As the Final Fantasy games continued, the series became known for its wonderful characters, interesting stories, and vibrant worlds. The actual gameplay was beloved by many for its sense of exploration, enjoyable character advancement, and epic scale. The story path was amazing, but off the story path you could find hidden spells, new creatures to summon, powerful weapons and helpful accessories. The only real complaint most fans of the series would volley is that at some point the combat in Final Fantasy became repetitive and was reduced to little more than mashing a single button to make everyone attack, win, and grind up a few more levels before a big boss fight.

The Beginning of the End

The hints of Final Fantasy’s doom came even during its peak days on the Playstation. Final Fantasy 7 had long, unskippable summon spells that were incredible to watch the first time and tedious to endure the 20th time you wanted to cast you powerful spell. With the move to Playstation 2, Square released Final Fantasy X…that last good Final Fantasy ever made. With X, there was a big sign that the series was going off the rails. It was the first time where you had no overworld map to explore and when you finally got your own airship, it was nothing more than a map where you could pick points to warp to and check out.

Check Points On The Way To Fail

From Final Fantasy X you’ve got a series of terrible mistakes.

Final Fantasy the Spirits Within: Cutscene hubris leads the company to release a theatrical length cutscene that is devoid of anything resembling Final Fantasy, but sure does look pretty.

Final Fantasy X -2: Harping their first ever direct sequel, Square releases a game that has nothing to do with its beloved predecessor. It has a nearly linear, mission based structure with dress-up Barbie outfits as the main form of customization.

Final Fantasy XII: Square decides to solve the tedious, button mashing combat by letting the player do tedious combat that requires no thinking or button pressing at all. The game still has some sense of exploration, but once again the overworld is absent and there is no real airship.

Final Fantasy XIII – The Big Fail

All of Final Fantasy’s blundering attempts to find a way to update its style and stay cool, culminated in an epic fail called Final Fantasy XIII. Final Fantasy XIII does accomplish one amazing feat. It makes the combat fun again. Which is good, because combat is all you will be doing. Gone is the exploration. Gone is any semblance of interesting treasure or locales. Instead, the game consists of running down a narrow corridor with no real twists or turns and fighting monsters. Then you fight a boss and watch a cutscene or two. Rinse and repeat for 30 hours of game. I hear it opens up eventually, but that's about 30 hours too late for me.

Final Fantasy has fallen from one of my favorite RPG series, to one of my least favorite RPG's of all time. Sadly, I can only hope that Square Enix can find a way to get Final Fantasy back on track...or at least give it a proper burial.

Attack or Defend

Please leave a comment with your own complaints or defense of Final Fantasy or 4th ed D&D. Or feel free to share some of you own great disappointments in gaming. Maybe a good cry will help us all feel better.

Wiz War: A Great Game You've Probably Never Played

Likely, many gamers have never played Wiz War before. It's been out of print for some time now. Well...I own it and love it. So, if you know me, you probably have played it a time or two. However, as there are rumors of a possible reprint this year, it seemed timely to extol the virtues of this happy little box of madness.

The Basics
In Wiz War, each player is a wizard trying to steal the other wizards treasure chests. Get two back to your base and you win. On your turn, you navigate maze-like tiles, attack other players, and cast crazy spells that create all manner of unpredictable effects. You can lose by having your hit points reduced to zero or having both of your treasures stolen and dropped on someone else’s base.

A Brilliantly Unbalanced Game
Most games try to achieve a well calculated balance. Players are given similar resources and powers. Die rolls and card draws have predictable probabilities. Balanced games help ensure a level quality of play from game to game and encourage strategic play. However, every so often it’s fun to play a game that throws balance out the window and invites you to go crazy.

Wiz War’s approach to balance goes something like this. Sometimes you will be capable of a few useful things. Sometimes you will rearrange the entire game board, trap players into inescapable prisons, and then teleport across the world. Unfair? Yeah, but it’s what makes the game brilliant. It’s the joy of the unpredictable and the truly mad. One powerful turn is balanced by motivating other players to aim all their nonsense at the new leader of the game. Wiz War rewards a sense of humor and creativity…not really skill or deep strategy.

Fun, Perhaps Not For Everyone
If you can’t stand the random, if you don’t laugh at absurd occurrence and if you need some sense of strategy…Wiz War is not for you. However, if you like creatively combining powers, if you enjoy the truly awesome and ridiculous even if it doesn’t go your way, and if you believe that revenge is a dish best served absurd, then there’s a lot to love about Wiz War. If the rumors of reprint prove true, I recommend you check it out.

Share You Treasures
Write in and let Cool Factor 5 know about lesser known or out of print games that you love. Also, check out my friends at Growing Up Gamers as they dive into a fantastic twist on a classic game: Stratego Legends.

Interview With Chrissy the Casual Gamer

My wife, Chrissy, is the author of the Muse of the Morning blog. She likes crafts, cooking, sewing, and sells her own patterns. She allowed me to interview her on her feelings about games and what it's like to be married to a gamer geek. The interview went long so look for part II on a later date.





ME: Do you consider yourself a casual gamer?
Chrissy: No not really.

ME: Do you consider yourself a non-gamer?
Chrissy: Yeah...most of the time.

How do you feel about your husband's (my) gaming habit?
I think that's its kind of an interesting pastime. Its different than what a lot of other guys do where there out building cars or whatever. So I think its interesting. It only bothers me when you want to go hang out with your guy friends, but I think that's pretty typical of all guys.

What's interesting about it?
Its just different and games are fun. You do bring home interesting games and things to try out.

What games do you like to play?
I like games in general that have a lot of strategy with just a little bit of randomness to them. In particular I love Settlers [of Catan]. Well I like the Cities and Knights expansion to Settlers.

Don't like the regular Settlers so much?
No so much because it can get kind of mean and if you don't earn it kind of just sucks. So I really like Cities and Knights and then there's Knights of the Rainbow which I'm not sure fits that whole strategy with a little bit of randomness thing. Its a lot of randomness. And it can get really mean but its kinda fun if you can take it all in jest.

My favorite game to play with you I think is Dvonn. Pure strategy, but its a lot fun. You know it's a two player game so it's a lot fun to just really beat the crap out of you. That's what I like about games.

Beating the crap out of me?
Mmmhmm, yeah. (Smiling)

Now I'm surprise you just named off a bunch of strategic games. What about games like Taboo or Scattergories or those casual games?
Oh, Taboo and Scattergories are good games for playing with bigger groups of people. I actually love, love, love Taboo or similar games like Catch Phrase. Scattergories I don't like as much.

Would you prefer playing a strategy game like Cities and Knights or large casual game like Taboo? Or is it equal just depending on your mood?
Yeah it just really depends on the mood, honestly. Especially those two games. Those are probably two of my favorite games really. Its just who do we have with us and what's a good game to play with the company that you're in.

What do you think about role-playing games?
Role-playing games seem to take a lot of time which is probably the reason that I'm not interested in playing them. There's a lot of sitting.

Well it's basically like playing pretend and pretending you're on an adventure. Does that even appeal to you?
No, not really. Not a type of game that I'm all that interested in. I don't mind reading about it [in a book] but I guess I don't want to make it up myself.

What do you think about video games?
Video games, with very few exceptions, kind of seem like a waste of time to me. Again it's that sitting and it seems very passive to me.

What about the video games you do like. You like playing Puzzloop and Zuma, right?
I do like Puzzloop a lot. And Zuma which is very similar to Puzzloop.

Do you feel like you're being passive when you play those games?
In the way that I mean passive, yes. I just mean not being productive. I like to have something to show for my day.

So what feels different about going out to a movie and just staring at the screen vs playing Puzzloop?
Well, going out to a movie usually has the benefit of also being a date. So I also get to spend time with you. So that would be kind of a different situation in my mind.

Do did you enjoy it more when when we played New Super Mario Bros Wii as a family?
Yes I did like Mario quite a bit. I could see myself playing it more but I'd have to be in the mood for it. I'm kind of a finicky person.

Do you get a different feeling from when we play New Super Mario Bros Wii as a family versus playing a board game as a family?
Well yeah in a way. If we're sitting around a board game table we're all looking at each other and interacting with each other in that way. Whereas when you're playing a video game you're just staring straight ahead. And even though you can talk to the person next to you, it's not the same as sitting face to face with somebody and being able to have a conversation even though the conversation is still about the game.

So you feel less connected to people looking at a screen than if you're looking across the table at them?
Yes, absolutely.

Do you think you are resistant to trying new games?
If I'm in the mood to play a game then, no, I'm not resistant to learning new games.

You've been uninterested in games, but recently you have played cards.
Cards I will almost always play.

That's interesting. Why are you more willing to play cards than jump into a board game?
Well because the games we play in cards, Hearts and Oh Hell, I know so well that I can just do it. And then its just completely a social thing. I just know it so well we don't even have to talk about the game. We're talking to each other and playing the game.

Is there anything about my gaming habit you'd wish I'd change or do different?
I guess not really. I mean, I wish you'd just always have your friends to our house because that's more convenient for me, but I understand that that's not really possible. I like it that you play games and I like it when you have friends over and there's a house full of people playing games or even role-playing, though you say it's going to be 6 hours and really its 12. I kind of like that and I like having people over. So no, I don't really think there's much I would change.

With your side of the family, what game is the most fun to play?
With my side of the family, Taboo, hands down. All the time. Love it.

What games do you prefer to play with my side of the family?
Your family is all about the cards. Love the card games. They know them really well and that makes it nice for playing. No one's asking about the rules, except your nephew who cheats and doesn't know how to play in suit. That's kind of fun to yell at him too.

Cool. Is there anything else you'd like to do to fill out the 13 minutes before the film runs out?
Um, I'm pregnant and I have to pee so I'm going to go do that.


I'm very thankful to my wife for putting up with my antics and giving the interview. Check back next week to hear her perspectives on games and video games in regards to our daughter. Also, please check out the latest post from our friends at Growing Up Gamers.

Bonus: House Rule For Cities and Knights

As a Cities and Knights bonus post, here is a house rule that my friends and I enjoy for Cities and Knights. It actually came from a misread of the rules. Once we learned the actual rules, we decided we still liked our version better.

Cities Walls Protect You From the Robber
City walls are supposed to “protect you from the robber” just by increasing your hand limit by 2. When a 7 is rolled you can have more cards in hand without having to discard.

We like to play that they also prevent the robber from stealing from the city that has the wall. The robber can still land on the hex and shut down that resource. The player that moved him can still steal a card from any player with an unprotected city or settlement next to that hex. However, if a player’s only settlement on that hex has a city wall, that player cannot have a card stolen. It makes the city walls a bit more fun and also gives you a way to discourage people from shutting down your most important resources.

Expansion Required: Cities and Knights of Catan

Settlers of Catan is a fantastic game. It has the distinguished honor of being the first “gamer game” that I was able to enjoy with my extended family and casual gaming friends. If you’ve never played or even heard of Settlers of Catan…first of all, where have you been? That game is practically on its way to joining the ranks of Monopoly, Clue and other classic family board games. In Settlers, essentially, players roll the dice each turn to see what resources are produced. You gain resources depending on where you’ve built settlements and cities. On your turn, you trade and spend resources to try and build more settlements, roads and cities to try and get to 10 points worth of structures first. It’s a lot of fun.

Cities and Knights
Settlers has, I believe, 1 ½ billion expansions, variations, and alternate versions of itself. Seafarers, Spaceship Catan, Settlers of the Stone Age, Traders and Barbarians, blah blah blah the list goes on. Ignore all that noise and get yourself Cities and Knights.

Cities and Knights adds some much needed extras into the world of Catan. By itself, the original can get a bit dull after a few players. It’s particularly dull when your game isn’t going so well and there’s not much you can do about it. Cities and Knights helps this out by giving you more to do with fewer resources. Here are the highlights.

The Jump Start
Instead of starting with two settlements, you start with a settlement and a city! With cities giving commodities for buying various improvements, it makes for more options at the start of the game and a greater variety of strategies to pursue.

City Expansions and Special Powers
Cities now earn you commodities and commodities are used to build city improvements. This isn’t terribly detailed or complex. When you can, you spend commodities to flip pages in this little flip book to represent general improvements you’ve to the trade, politics or science of your cities. These improvements can earn points, give chances at earning special cards, and gain you access to up to 3 special powers. Trade gives you a 2:1 port for any type of commodity, Politics lets you make level 3 knights, and Science, my personal favorite, lets you take a resource of your choice on any turn where you didn’t earn anything.

The Barbarian Hoard Vs. The Knights
This expansion also adds a third die which is rolled each turn. The die either lands on a color to indicate a type of special card that might be earned or indicates that the barbarians have moved closer to Catan. The barbarians have a strength equal to the number of cities in Catan and when they arrive, you'd better be ready. Each player can build knights to defend Catan. When the barbarians raid, Catan is either defended (earning some players points or cards) or it is not (costing some players to change a city back to a settlement). Then the countdown to the next raid begins again. The barbarians provide a fun alternate way to earn points and an important consideration beyond “build what you can, when you can.”

Progress Cards
Cities and Knights removes the Development Deck and the Largest Army reward right along with it. Instead, developing different areas of your city (Trade, Politics and Science) gives you a chance every single turn to earn Progress Cards in the areas you've developed. Trade helps you gain resources, Politics lets you mess with other players and Science helps you build. The Development Deck of the standard game often gives you the same card (knights) over and overt and that card is mostly used to be a jerk and steal from people. Progress Cards provide many interesting and useful abilities that often help you without having to screw over other players. More importantly, by choosing how you develop your city you also choose which types of cards you want to play.

The Best Way To Play
Cities and Knights does add some complexity into the game, but this complexity is worth the pay off in fun. I haven’t played all of the expansions to Settlers and I haven’t played all of its variations. However, I’ve played many of them. Most of them rank as fun, but not that great. Cities and Knights injects just the right amount of extra consideration and alternate strategy. I’ll play the base game with new players for a bit, but I don’t truly enjoy Catan if it’s not played with Cities and Knights.

If you’ve never played Settlers, buy the base game and give a try. If you’ve played Settlers and it’s beginning to get a bit dull, buy Cities and Knights. It’s the best way to play.


Please leave a comment about your Settlers experience or expansion to other games you wouldn’t want to play without. Also, check out my friends at Growing Up Gamers for their take an important expansion to another game I love: Race for the Galaxy.