What is game modding? It’s when you make a change to the physical components of a game you own, and that becomes the way you play the game from that point on. It’s something many gamers do for their games and it can add a lot more fun, or make a problematic game work a little better. We talk about the practice of game modding and also discuss some of our favorite mods.
Games we discuss:
Give Me The Brain
Duel of Ages
Strange Synergy
Babylon 5 Wars
Battlestations
Chess with human pieces
What are your favorite game mods? Let’s hear about it in the comments!
My current favorite game mod is wood “scrabble-style” tiles from Michael’s craft store. A bag of 60 tiles costs about $4. Graphics can be printed out on Avery full-page labels, cut out and stuck to each tile, or cheap cardstock counters can be glued to them. Either way, you get a nice looking wood tile which is easier to pick up from a board, a bag or a cup.
I have no game modding tips!!! I’m about as handy as a piece of starw.
But i still liked the show. More often please.
PS: Duel of ages show would be sweet, I’m curious about that game and would like to know your opinions.
You already mentioned this mod in your podcast, replacing the counters with 3d figures, but I did the same with the cardboard counters of my favorite board game (Ben Hurt by Cheap-Ass Games) with miniature chariots. Makes a great game even greater.
Love the show, keep up the good work.
Good show guys. I agree, more often please.
My best game mod was using my ASL counters for modern merc type of roleplaying games. Modern combat can mean large distances, so the scale of 40 meters per hex is just right.
Thanks for the ideas. You have inspired me to think of even more mods for some other games.
I would have to say ‘paint’ was a fovoured game mod, if you can call it that. I much prefer 3D figures to cardboard cutouts for character components on the board and a number of companies are now adding them in but they really need to be properly painted. It makes a real difference in games like ‘Doom, the board game’. You go from having the large blue creature attacking red marine to having the hulking cyber deamon chrage down the coridor unleashing rocket propelled death into the chest of sarget Anderson. Same situation just the paint job makes the experince diferent.
I think one of my favorite game mods is a “talking timer”. There are a lot of games for which this works great. I’ve got an old Radio Shack one that I don’t think is still available, but others are available on-line. Mine will verbalize the minutes remaining, which is great for a heads up during your Facts in Five game. The best part of my timer is the final second-by-second countdown it does for the last ten seconds. In a game like Space Hulk where you have a scant two minutes to move your units, you might imagine the tension that countdown can add while you hurry to do one last action! Another good reason for a talking timer is that nobody needs to hover over a sand timer; everyone can stay involved in the action of a game.
Thanks for another great show!
Enjoyed this show quite a bit; We’re playing a lot of Battlestations lately and I like the idea of luck counters – saves a lot of erasing on the character sheets — plus the other reasons given
I just ran out to Pat Catans and got 120 star shaped wooden pieces i’m going to use for this – my plan is to paint several of them in the four profession colors for re-roll pools with limits such as Tricky or Nimble. And I guess I’ll have to make up a color for Athletics. The bulk of them for generic luck I’ll leave natural colored.
Also from Pat Catan’s I got some wooden spheres in a couple different diameters – coupled with plastic flying bases and a decent paint job I have a few nice planets. I’ll probably put some pictures up on my site once I have the spiffy felt gaming mat I ordered for the game and a few more minis painted up.
Hey Guys, good cast.
Can you provide links to pictures of your mods to games. In particular Strange Synergy.
(I’ve also expanded this game, but with actual new cards see BBG if interested)
Re: Links to pictures of the Strange Synergy board.
Will do. Actually I just ordered a few more HeroClix and HorrorClix singles to make my figures match Phil Foglio’s art better. I’ll probably take some this weekend and post them, even if I don’t have the chance to repaint the Clix.
Thanks for all the great mod feedback, I’m excited to try and to see some of these in action!
As you were,
Nate
Hi,
recently found your site while searching for chez geek reviews.
I found your review very helpful and very entertaining and will definitely be buying chez geek.
Your podcasts are excellent and very funny and you are both very easy to listen to.
Keep up the good work,
Regards,
Lee Staines,
Leeds, England.
One of my favorite combat games is Sky Galleons of Mars, and although the publisher, GDW, did have some plastic piece expansions you could by, they were poor on color and weak on detail. Earth men (red devil) ships were gray and Martian ships were brown. Another problem is GDW is no more, and this was all about 15+years ago. Recently, a fellow with some talent and other resources I’m not privy to worked out some paper minatures of the ships for the game, and they turn out great! also, he says they should print out fine at 1/300 scale (original game scale is 1/600) but I have not tried this yet. If some time in the future some friends were to drop by I guess I’d have a reason to up the scale and make bigger ships for a game (textbook Con procedure- make everything BIGGER!!). But the 1/600 pieces are really nice.
I guess this is the part where I’d say Cheers, but I’m not British.
http://www.mayheminpaper.papermakeit.com/Squirmydad%27s_Madness/Welcome.html
Dude, are you guys still there?
Mork calling Orson…come in Orson.
We miss you guys. More podcasts, please?
Shazzbat.
Y’know, the current episode to be edited is several *months* old? Really. Man, I wish we had some script writers, a producer, editing team, and a webmaster. That way, I could just be on-air “talent” and demand no brown M&Ms in my dressing room.
Have no fear, we’re around and this particular ball we’re juggling will be coming around Real Soon Now.
Sky Galleons of Mars is a most excellent game and those papercraft models are awesome. Thanks for the link,man.
One last thing, there’s a picture of my simple Strange Synergy board (“holodeck with force field pillars,” I call it) and HeroClix-mods on the Roll2d6 Flickr stream.
It’s not close up beauty shots, but you can get the idea.
oh bahhh the heck with editing
release it raw
When I play Battlemist, by Fantasy Flight, I like to use army figures from Risk because they match very well (infantry, cavalry and archers). They’re way better looking than the cardboard counters the game comes with.
I’m sure you guys know about using Legos as minifigs for RPGs, right? Legos are great for lots of games. I know some people use them to make better boats for the great game Serenissima, for example.
Great show, guys. Keep ‘em coming!
I am rerunning through the Roll2d6 shows, and just got to this one again. Actually, I was tossed up on whether to make this posting here, or on the comments to show 20.
This is related to A&N’s comments about using little tiny dice to represent defensive EW in Bab5 Wars. In show 20 they mention using little tiny dice to indicate number of hexes moved in Battletech. My comment is closer to the second, since it deals with movement dice in Battletech.
In Battletech (for those of you not familiar), movement hase two different effects: First, when you are shooting at a target, the number of hexes your TARGET moved gives you a targetting penalty:
0-2 hexes +0
3-4 hexes +1
5-6 hexes +2
7-9 hexes +3
10+ hexes +4
…plus, if your target jumped, an extra +1
The Second effect of movement comes from the movement MODE that the FIRING unit used that turn:
Stood still +0
Walked +1
Ran +2
Jumped +3
The group I play BT with have come up with a way to represent BOTH of these things with one movement die. What you need is three bunched of small d6s in three colors: White, Red, and Green. Whenever a unit moves, place a dice next to it: the COLOR of the die is determined by that unit’s movement mode:
white=walk
red=run
jade (green)=jump
and the value showing on the die is the moving unit’s targeting modifer (NOTE, this is NOT the number of hexes it moved, but the resulting modifier). So, for example, if my unit jumped 4 hexes, I would put a green die with a “2″ next to it.
Any unit that gets no movement modifier (for example, if you walked 1 hex) gets a die with a “6″ (since it is impossible to get a modifier of 6 using the standard tournament-level rules).
Added to my favourites list and added to my blogroll.
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