Tyranny Cereal

 Welcome back, dear reader. I'm still not sure how you found this, I'm fairly confident I'm the only one who knows about it. Today I want to discuss an oft discussed, and more often argued concept in gaming - Balance. There have been a few very recent turds in the punchbowl of balance as of the time of this writing, particularly with Games Workshop, but they won't be the only thing I talk about. I also hope to touch on some examples outside of miniatures, and look at some positive examples. Join me, won't you? Codex Creep This is a favorite topic among Warhammer players. Every month or two a new codex (book of rules) comes out for a different army in Warhammer 40k, and inevitably each codex is a little bit stronger. Or, rather, they're meant to be a little bit stronger. Some end up being a flop, and sometimes an army will spend multiple editions with mediocre rules. Currently, Chaos Space Marines are in this latter category. They weren't great in their last ...

Hello again, dear reader.  This post is taking me a lot longer than I anticipated to write. Despite having a lot of feelings on this topic, it turns out I needed to do a lot of research into it to actually feel comfortable expressing them.  Common Mechanics My first "minis" game was Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, which uses a d20 system. A task has a target number - armor class or skill check, a character has bonuses, roll a d20 and compare, trying to beat the target number. This is a pretty simplistic look into this mechanic, but at lower levels it's a fairly simple system. Most characters will make one attack a turn, hit or miss, and move on. The odds of any one number is the same as every other number - 5%. A +1 bonus increases your odds of success by 5%. It's a straight forward linear relationship between target number and probability of a success. 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons added in the advantage/disadvantage mechanic, which changed things up a little bit. He...

Hello, dear reader! Can I call you dear? Is that too formal? Too intimate? In any case, you don't actually exist yet, so I'll call you what I want. Welcome to my Blog, where I'll be talking to you (an immaterial narrative construct) about my hobbies, thoughts, and whatever tangential flight of fancy I end up falling into. There is a point, though: I've been thinking about different facets of miniature gaming, a genre that I've been involved with as a consumer for at least a decade, from business models used to resolution mechanics, play styles - competitive, narrative, casual, and arts. While I can't claim to be more than an armchair dev, I do hope that by keeping this blog I'll be able to explore these aspects more deeply and at the very least gain a stronger appreciation for the work that goes into these designs. Who are you? Hi! I'm Jacob! I'd probably describe myself first as a scientist - as of the time of this writing I've just spent three ...