Reconstructing My Faith: Flywheels, Smokescreens, and The Medicine

I spent my formative years growing up in Orange County, California... pre-"The O.C." TV show and before the area became as culturally & ethnically diverse as it is today. I went to a middle-class/upper-middle class public high school that was 70%+ white students, with Hispanic & Asian students forming the rest of the cohort. Race wasn't a forefront issue in my mind - I knew being racist was wrong, but I didn't have to deal with many situations in which it was an issue.

Michael Emerson cites research that shows “Whites tend to view racism as intended individual acts of overt prejudice and discrimination.” According to this individualist view, “Groups, nations, and organizations are not racist; people are. Second, to be considered racist, the person must classify a group of people as inferior to others, and then whatever they say or do must result directly from that view. That is, they must mean for their actions to be racist for them to actually be racist. Third, racism is equated with prejudice (wrong thinking and talking about others) and individual discrimination (wrong actions against others). Finally, because of the other components of racism’s definition, if a person is a racist it is a master status, a core identity of who the person is, not just some passing act. In short, it defines the person’s essence.” (Interestingly, this individualist definition of racism is even more strongly held by white evangelical Christians than by other whites.) from a discussion guide on racism published by Baylor University's Center for Christian Ethics

Grappling with systemic racism didn't happen for me until I was actually doing ministry. For all of my positive experiences in church, serving churches brought me into my first exposure to virulent racism: the godly Sunday School teacher who sat on her front porch and calmly explained the "curse of Ham" to me, surprised by my rejection of this horrible false doctrine; the church I served that had an "unwritten rule" that the Family Life Center would close if local African-American students came by to play basketball; the fellow youth minister whose incredibly successful 5th quarter events were shut down by the deacons because the wrong color of students were being saved and baptized.

Most people of color, on the other hand, give a structuralist definition. “Racism is, at a minimum, prejudice plus power, and that power comes not from being a prejudiced individual, but from being part of a group that controls the nation’s systems. So while anyone can be prejudiced, only whites can perpetrate racism in the United States, for they hold and have always held most of the power in American institutions.” from a discussion guide on racism published by Baylor University's Center for Christian Ethics

I've found the following quote from Skye Jethani to be really meaningful in my own struggles to explain and understand this difficult topic.

I find it helpful to think of institutions as flywheels. A flywheel is a device that stores and dispenses energy. Consider a potter’s wheel. A person puts energy into the wheel by pumping a peddle with her foot. This irregular energy input is then stored in the wheel which dispenses the energy evenly over time by spinning the clay even after the potter stops pumping the peddle. Likewise, when we build organizations, governments, or institutions, they store up our values and dispense them over time—sometimes even over generations.

Consider the U.S. government. The founding generation “pumped” their values into the Constitution and created a system of government that respected individual rights, freedom of speech, religious liberty, and limited government. Over 200 years later, the system they created is still “spinning” and shaping the lives of over 300 million people. Of course, a flywheel can also store and dispense evil values over time which is why the Constitution had to be amended to end slavery, recognize African-Americans as full citizens rather than 3/5ths of a person, and give women the right to vote.

Once we see human institutions as flywheels, we can see why the current debate between personal and systemic evil is misguided. It’s not a matter of either changing hearts or changing systems. It’s entirely possible to have individual hearts healed and transformed by the gospel, and yet still have centuries of evil energy stored up within the systems we’ve created. Left unchanged, these flywheels will continue to dispense evil far into the future and hurt many people. Likewise, only changing evil systems isn’t sufficient if the people overseeing those systems are still pumping the evil and injustice of their hearts into the flywheel. Rather than fighting about hearts or systems, Christians who care about injustice and loving their neighbors should desire to overcome evil with good no matter where it resides.

The problem for me personally hasn't been a temptation to racist behaviors... it's been a temptation to pretend that the hard work of healing was accomplished during the Montgomery Bus Boycott or on the Edmund Pettus Bridge or with the election of President Barack Obama. It's that same inclination that seems to drive some evangelicals to militantly oppose CRT (whether or not they can define it) and attempt to ban or censor teaching about racism in America. 

Look... opposition by followers of Christ to discussing CRT (critical race theory) is a smokescreen that winks at racism (and doesn’t actually deal with CRT in any meaningful way.) Our brothers and sisters of color deserve better than a half-baked statement cooked up by six white seminary presidents. And if someone needs recent evidence for systemic racism, just look at the NFL finally backing away from “race norming” in settling claims about concussions.

The denomination I grew up in (Southern Baptists) has repented via resolution after resolution of the pro-slavery roots of its founding. Now, regardless of our denominational commitment and/or our proud non-denominational stance, we who declare the love of Christ must stop taking steps backward in the name of false unity. We must stop pretending that the hard work of fighting for civil rights magically fixed the problem and we can simply rest on singing "Jesus Loves the Little Children" at VBS. The Gospel is for all nations (Matthew 28:19)... more specifically (though it's hard to be more specific than "all") "every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages" (Revelation 7:9-10)

And that includes me... speaking truth in love.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Extra credit reading from David French: Structural Racism Isn't Wokeness

Extra credit watching from Phil Vischer: Race in America & Race in America (part 2)

Extra credit watching from John Amaechi: What Is White Privilege?

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Common Hymnal:

The Medicine

There's a sickness here that threatens to divide us 

And we're all afraid to say its name out loud

But, Lord, I know that you can heal us of this virus

So, we need you, we need you right now

There's a darkness here that's dangerous and aggressive

It getting harder every day to shake its power

But, Lord, I know that you can free us from oppression

So, we need you, we need you right now

Cause we don't know what to do

So, we turn our eyes to you

We've run out of words to say

But if you come and have your way

You can save us from ourselves

Before our wounds hurt someone else

We need you now

What does it mean to have compassion for another?

How can I claim to love a God that I can't see?

If I can find the will to harm and kill my brother

Cause he neglected to look like me

I can speak the words of men and songs of angels

I can give all my possessions to the poor

But if your love can't move the mountain of my hatred

Somehow, I missed you, and I need you so much more

This is the fourth post in a series... if you'd like to read the first three, here they are:

• #1: Reconstructing My Faith: Rocks, Dross, and Almonds
• #2: Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word
• #3: Reconstructing My Faith: Cheaters, Ice, and Déjà vu

(The Grapes of) Wrath of the Lighthouse – A Solo Game Review

Once upon a time (well, in 2010), there was a post-apocalyptic tableau building game from Poland that garnered a good bit of attention. And some expansions.

This review is not about that game.

Over the years, the designer/publisher decided to take a fresh look at the design and reimagine it for a new generation of gamers. I own that version (and a number of the expansions).

This review is not about that game, either.

In the interregnum between the two post-apocalyptic games, the same Polish company released a fluffier-looking take on the original game that added individual player decks/civilizations and opened up the game space a good bit. And, no surprise, it had expansions.

This review is not about game #3… but we’re getting closer.

A couple of years after the release of the new & improved version of the “dark future” game, the civilization game spawned a new offspring… taking the civilizations north, reducing the destructive interactions, and actually increasing the strategic game space. Once again, I own that game (and pretty much all of the expansions.)

This review is not about that game… until it is – because Wrath of the Lighthouse (the subject of this game review) is a solo campaign for the Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North.

And I like it.

A lot.

Note: the original game was 51st State… later updated and improved by the 51st State Master Set. (Not mentioned: there’s a new big box version with more content about to deliver in the next few months.) The “fluffier-looking” game is Imperial Settlers… and the company that made all of this possible is Portal Games.

Take off… to the Great White North!

For those who haven’t played Empires of the North (or haven’t played it solo), let me give you a quick (and not entirely complete) outline of how the game works.

1. Choose your civilization… thanks to the expansion boxes, the original 6 civilization decks found in the base game have been joined by 8 other decks with a variety of new twists & turns.
2. Lay out your Basic Field cards (resources you produce) and draw five cards from your deck, keeping three to start the game.
3. Take 5 workers/citizens, 2 ships, and the resources from your Basic Fields.
4. Set up the “rondel” of actions randomly (it’s not really a rondel, but bear with me on this one) as well as the Island board (with two face-up islands of each type: Nearby & Distant).

With all of that in place, the (solo) game begins… and you have four game turns to hit the scoring objective of the scenario you’ve chosen. You spend resources to build cards from your hand into your tableau – many of which give you more action options; you use your two action markers on the “rondel” to trigger specific actions – which could assist you in building, recruit more workers, and even send one of your ships off to the Island board to pillage or conquer. In the process, you score victory points and (hopefully) build an engine that lets you keep rolling along to victory.

Your final score is determined by the victory points you’ve earned over the course of the game, plus one point for each card in your tableau, one point for each gold coin, and one point for every two resources remaining. There is likely to be other ways to score that are based on the solo scenario that you are playing.

The base game comes with a booklet of solo rules and scenarios (four of them!) and there are other official & unofficial scenarios available. There are a couple of simple twists to the solo game:

• Events: after drafting cards at the beginning of each turn, the player uses numbered chits to randomly select an event from the solo scenario.
• Action costs: at the end of each turn, flip the actions on the “rondel” with your action markers on them over to their solo side… which imposes an additional cost to take that action during the next turn.

Here’s what I wrote about playing Empires of the North solo for my last solo gaming update:

While I’m a big fan of 51st State: Master Set, the dark apocalyptic tone makes it a little tough to get to the table sometimes. Add that the solo module for it is not enjoyable and it hasn’t seen much play in the last couple of years.

This frustration led me to Empires of the North, the cleaner, friendlier, and more coherently put together cousin to 51st State and Imperial Settlers. The two player game is quite enjoyable… and so is the well-thought out solo mode. (And the plethora of expansions just means you have lots of options in how to try each solo scenario.)

I’ve been trying to go back and play some of the simpler solo scenarios with the more complicated decks, which has been a lot of fun.

Take off… it’s a beauty way to go…

With that spotty but helpful overview out of the way, let’s get to the real reason you’re reading this – the Wrath of the Lighthouse solo campaign.

The box includes 55 new campaign cards:

• Location and Follower cards
• a Crop Event deck
• a Naval Event deck
• a deck of Special Fields

There are a bunch of tokens and tiles to make play easier, along with some wooden special worker pieces. Also included are 2 double-sided progress sheets to keep track of your campaigns… and there’s a way to print more.

Finally, there is both a rulebook (which contains some “choose your own adventure”-like paragraph information for each scenario in addition to the rules for the campaign) and a scenario book with 15 different scenarios. According to the publisher (hello, Igancy & friends!), there are 50 different story branches available utilizing the components in the box.

Why is the number of lighthouses on the coast increasing? Why do the people so strongly oppose the cathedral being rebuilt? And those seas constantly assaulted by storms…

Game description from BGG entry

Coo, loo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo!

Because of the story-driven nature of the campaign, I’m hesitant to try & give a lot of details about the story and/or the scenarios. So, what follows is a broad brush picture of the campaign design.

Simply put, you are attempting to find the end of the story… but lose three scenarios and your adventure is over. (My personal campaign is five scenarios in… and after two rather bitter losses – one of them a real nail-biter, I’ve managed a solid win, a “hold on with my fingernails” win, and a crushing victory to keep the story going.)

The set-up and design of the scenarios I’ve played so far is a bit more complicated than the solo scenarios found in the base game… but I expected and welcomed that in order to tell a more interesting story. I’ve been impressed with how many of my rules questions have been answered in the rulebook – with so many scenarios and odd situations, it’s a sign of solid development work that the rules do such a good job of clarifying terms and application.

Most of the scenarios have additional special actions you can take, using action markers from non-player colors to mark using them. In some case, they can be used each turn… while others are once per scenario actions that are marked by putting the action marker with the “X” side up.

The progress log is used to track wins, game conditions (which affect how various “choose your own adventure” encounters and special actions are resolved, event deck composition, and set-up changes (due to your success and/or failure).

I’m a professional, eh?

As I said above, I’m five games into the campaign using the Ulaf (Viking) clan… and whatever happens from here, I’m going to be a substantially better Ulaf player going forward, as dealing with everything the campaign throws at you with the same deck is educating me on the combos, strengths, and weaknesses of my clan.

But the real question is – am I having fun? The answer is an unqualified YES – I’m really enjoying the blend of story and solo scenarios. The challenge level has varied (I’ve only felt ‘comfortable’ with one scenario, partially due to the set-up changes I’d “earned” due to my sub-standard play on the first couple of scenarios) and I can see hints of even loopier scenario designs coming.

If you are (a) a solo gamer, and/or (b) a fan of Empires of the North, I can heartily recommend the Wrath of the Lighthouse campaign. I’d encourage my solo gamer readers to give Empires of the North a try (again, I’m a fan of the solo system Portal designed)… and this would be a great way for non-solo gamers with a copy of Empires of the North on their shelf to try solo gaming.

Simply put – the Portal Games crew set out to build a (solo) board game campaign that tells a story… and stuck the landing. (They did not pay me to reference the books Ignacy wrote – I threw that in there for free.)

Note: the section headers are references to the classic Bob & Doug McKenzie skit done with the assistance of Rush’s Geddy Lee… and which I intended as a nod of the base game but mostly just to amuse myself. Want to know what the heck I’m yammering on about? Try this.

A review copy of Wrath of the Lighthouse was provided by Portal Games… but the Empires of the North base game box and all four expansion boxes and the extra solo scenarios and the Treasure Islands I bought with my own gaming budget, thank you very much.

This review originally appeared on the Opinionated Gamers website.

Resist!(ance) is Not Futile – A Solo Game Review

My introduction to hobby gaming back in the 1970s was wargaming – games like Wooden Ships & Iron Men and Squad Leader (Avalon Hill) as well as my long-time subscription to SPI’s Strategy & Tactics. I loved the gaming part of those games… but a big chunk of the fascination was the historical research/background that was inherent in those games.

Some 40+ years and a couple of thousand different games played later, I don’t really qualify as a wargamer any more. While I love Memoir ’44, my “war games” have a lot less small cardboard chits and a lot more plastic miniatures… and no CRTs. (That’s “Combat Resolution Table” to the those of you uninitiated in the world of war games.)

With that background, I was delighted to experience the new solo card game from the design team of Trevor Benjamin, Roger Tankersley, and David Thompson. (David & Trevor are the team behind War Chest and Undaunted: Normandy & North Africa.) Resist! is a brilliantly simple game design and, thanks to evocative artwork from Spanish comic artist Albert Monteys, brings the history of the Spanish Maquis ongoing guerilla battle against the Francoist regime to life.

A Quick History Lesson

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but the amount of time spent on 20th century Spanish history in my history classes throughout my educational career was, to be charitable, limited. I knew about the Spanish Civil War, the Nazi support for Franco, and the event that inspired Picasso’s Guernica… but that was pretty much it.

In short, the Maquis were loyalists to the Republic who continued a guerilla war against Franco from the late 1930s into the early 1960s. Experiences during World War II waging a guerilla war in southern France to thwart the Nazi occupation there helped to train and organize the Maquis, leading to the greatest amount of activity following the close of the war. Robberies, sabotage, assassinations… all were a part of the efforts devoted to undermine the regime.

More and more effort was made by Franco’s government to crush the Maquis that ultimately ended the resistance roughly 25 years after it began.

A Slightly Less Quick Explanation of How the Game Works

Playing Resist! puts you in the role of sending groups of Maquis to perform various missions – destroying outposts, freeing political prisoners, attacking government facilities, committing robbery in order to finance the resistance, etc.

The game begins with drafting your cell of Maquis from a deck of 24 cards. You draw two cards, choosing one to join your group while sending the other to the Reserve (from which you can possibly recruit them later in the game) to form a deck of 12 cards.

Then, because nothing is that simple, 3 spy cards are added to the Maqui deck to undercut your ability to complete your missions. Each mission has a value required to defeat it, a number of military card units attached to it, and a special effect that can apply during or after the resolution of the mission.

Four possible missions are active at one time, each with some number of military unit cards attached to defend the objective. The mission deck is built randomly prior to the game, with 4 missions from the first era of the resistance, followed by 3 missions each from the second and final eras.

On a turn, you flip over the top five cards of the Maqui deck and begin playing them in two phases: Planning and Attacking. You may play Maqui cards and execute Plan actions on their cards prior to choosing the mission you are about to attempt. All of the military unit cards at that location are turned face up.

Once you shift into the Attacking phase, any Defend effects on the chosen mission trigger… and then you can continue to play Maqui cards, activating any Attack actions on their cards.

Maqui cards have special powers which are activated if played in a particular phase, and some of those powers can be utilized in either phase.

Each over-sized Maqui card has 2 “sides” – a hidden side and a revealed side. Maquis played as hidden continue to support the guerillas without showing their allegiance to the cause, while Maquis played as revealed are front and center during the mission. Hidden Maqui cards are returned to the regular discard pile, which revealed Maquis are sent to the Reserve discard pile.

Once you have completed playing your Maquis and executing their powers, you total your attack power and use it to defeat military units and the mission itself. It can be very important to eliminate military units – or, at the very least, eliminate key units that can potentially cause you to lose not only the mission but the game.

A Quick List of Ways to Lose Resist!

Like any solo game, there are a number of game-ending/loss-creating triggers:

• If you fail two missions, you lose.
• If you draw a hand full of Spy cards, you lose.
• If you get 5 or more Civilians killed, you lose.

An Even Quicker List of Ways to Win Resist!

Basically, stop before something horrible happens… then figure out your score. Defeating all ten missions is an Epic Victory – I figure that is likely to happen just after Hell freezes over for me. Right now, I’m aiming for just a plain old “Victory”.

Some Quick Closing Thoughts

I’m 6 plays in – four using the basic game rules and two with scenario rules. So far, I’ve only managed to have a minor victory in a single game. (Let’s be clear – this is what happens when you put a risk-taking maniac in charge of the resistance who sends out his Maquis one time too many… or is successful at completing missions but manages to get a bunch of civilians killed.)

I’ve played it at home and on a hotel bed while traveling for work… and, as I predicted when writing the original version of the is review, even playing it on the kitchen table in our AirBnB on vacation. While the gameplay is simple to explain (particularly with the components in front of you), the decisions can be difficult and sometimes are excruciating – do I sacrifice this fighter’s cover for one glorious attack? will using a weak hidden card with the power to reveal military cards help me or just show me the form of my destructor (to paraphrase Ghostbusters)?

There is one misprinted card in the original version – Adolfo’s hidden side should be a zero value rather than 2. As is, Adolfo is being played by A. Schwarzenegger in “Commando”. (It’s a joke; you have permission to laugh.)

Games of Resist! clock in around 30 minutes (or less, if your luck goes dry). It’s easy to set up, easy to tear down and put in the box… what more can I ask from an extremely portable solo card game?

Finally, the scenario book does offer a way to link three era-specific scenarios together into a campaign… but I’m leaving that until I feel a little more competent at the basic game.

Resist! will be distributed in the U.S. starting in spring 2023 (thanks to 25th Century Games)… but folks in Europe have access right now!

This review originally appeared on the Opinionated Gamers website.

Accurately Handling the Word of Truth (Part III)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:10-17 (NIV) 

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

I keep my eyes wide open all the time

I keep the ends out for the tie that binds

Because you're mine, I walk the line

"I Walk The Line" from the 1956 album Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! (Johnny Cash)

...the English now hailed the Bon Homme, to know whether they had struck. Jones himself answered, ‘that he had not yet begun to fight.'

from The Life and Character of John Paul Jones, a Captain in the United States Navy During the Revolutionary War (John Henry Sherburne)

“Put on the full armor of God. Stand firm against the left’s schemes. You will face flaming arrows, but if you have the shield of faith, you will overcome them, and in Florida we walk the line here,” DeSantis told the audience at Hillsdale College in February. “And I can tell you this, I have only begun to fight.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, speaking at Hilldale College (Miami Herald)

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Two years ago, I wrote a post admonishing former vice-president Mike Pence over his misuse of Scripture. In 2021, I did the same for President Biden when he did the same thing. It seems only right that I do the same now as I've become aware of this February 2022 speech.

I get it. I understand rhetorical flourish and echoing classic passages of literature to evoke emotion. (In this case, echoing Holy Scripture, popular music, and an iconic though likely incorrect quote of a U.S. naval hero.)

But we as followers of Christ are called to "be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15, NASB). What Governor DeSantis did is not accurately handling Scripture.

You can have a conservative political viewpoint (whether or not I or anyone else agrees with you)... but this is playing fast & loose with the Bible - conflating "the Left" with Satan, suggesting that political disagreements are the flaming arrows of the evil one metaphorically referred to in Ephesians, calling for a "shield of faith" to defend against those on the "wrong side" of the political spectrum.

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I almost let this one go... but then on Wednesday, Gov. DeSantis joined in the "fun" that Gov. Abbott of Texas has been having by sending migrants (from San Antonio, no less) via planes to Martha's Vineyard. 

I cannot possibly express my outrage at this better than Jonathan V. Last in his Bulwark newsletter yesterday:

Let’s put aside the theology of immigration. Let’s pretend, just for a moment, that Jesus would have nothing to say about whether or not the state should seek to discourage undocumented migrants as a high-level matter of government policy.

Those planes were filled with actual human beings. People with dignity. People with hopes and dreams, problems and challenges. People with names and families.

And this Christian man used them as props. He didn’t clothe the naked or feed the hungry. He literally did the opposite: Evicted them—and not because he felt that he had to, because it was a requirement of the law. But because he saw that he could use them as a means to the ends of his personal ambition.

I’m trying—really trying—not to get too hot here. But Christians should look at this act and be revolted. They should be horrified.

Because using vulnerable human beings for your personal gratification is evil. Full stop.

If you want to construct a Christian ethic for immigration restrictionism, you can do it. It’ll be twisty and tortured. It probably won’t be terribly convincing, by the lights of Christianity. But it’s doable...

The Christian ethic of dignity and life isn’t easy. It can be uncomfortable. It often asks us to do exceptionally hard things. But whatever. You can see the outlines of a defensible position.

But even that position would hold that immigrants who do arrive here illegally must be cared for with love and charity.

And it would look with horror on a politician who sought not just to abdicate this affirmative duty, but to do the opposite: to take advantage of his neighbors.

If this politician were a conspicuous, self-avowed, follower of Christ it would be a thousand times worse. Because now he’s not just doing evil. He’s doing evil while claiming Jesus as his justification.

Read the whole thing.

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I wanted to come up with something wise and convicting to close this post with... I wanted to turn on my "pastor mojo" and finish with marching orders to my fellow followers of Christ.

But I'm tired. So tired of watching Biblical truth being used as a prop... by both political parties.

So, I once again leave you with this.

Pray always. Pray in the Spirit. Pray about everything in every way you know how! And keeping all this in mind, pray on behalf of God’s people. Keep on praying feverishly, and be on the lookout until evil has been stayed.

Ephesians 6:18 (VOICE)

Wreckland Run: A Solo Gamer Preview

Wreckland Run is a tower defense game… if the tower was barreling down a dirt road at 60+ mph while being fired upon by the cast of all four Mad Max movies and a couple of scary refugees from a Michael Bay film. It’s a dice allocation game… but because Scott Almes (the designer) has a dark heart, you’re forced to allocate dice for the bad guys as well as your own.* And it’s a campaign game – complete with choices that make for a wonderful story-filled experience.

Renegade Game Studios is getting ready to publish the third game in their solo game series… and over the next few paragraphs, I’m going to suggest some reasons you need to check it out.

*Note: Scott doesn’t actually have a dark heart. He actually seems to be a pretty nice guy – but it hurts me every time I have to assign a red die to one of the chasing cars.

The Solo Game Series

Over at the Opinionated Gamers, we’ve been more than happy to review the two previous games in Renegade’s solo game series:

• Our Fearless Leader, Dale Yu, delved into the fantasy world of Proving Grounds.
• Your humble author (me!) wrote extensively about the sci-fi craziness of Scott Almes’ Warp’s Edge.

I own both games and enjoy them… but I think Wreckland Run, the newest entry in the series is yet another step forward in solo board game design.

The Story

Wreckland Run is set up as a campaign – the protagonist (you!) have a vehicle with a few attachment weapons with which to wander the wasteland and, well, steal stuff from bad guys. (I like to think of myself as a post-apocalyptic Robin Hood while I’m playing.) As you start the campaign, you choose from one of four vehicles and one of four different drivers. Each driver has their own special power that (hopefully) helps you in the Mad Max-like adventures that are about to occur.

Each game begins with a couple of pages of story – and more than the extended short story that accompanied Proving Grounds or the “choose your own adventure” story that walked players through their first game in Warp’s Edge, these stories move the campaign forward and set up the scenario for the chapter/gamer right in front of you.

There are seven chapters in Wreckland Run – and each chapter has an envelope with cards that add new enemies as well as attachments for your vehicle. They also add twists to the game – some you simply deal with, while others require you to make decisions.

The Game

Each chapter/game is broken into three rounds with two distinct sections: Wreckage & Run. During the Wreckage phase, you use the roll of the eight 6-sided dice (3 red, 5 white) plus any Scrap you have to purchase and place Parts (attachments/weaponry) to your car. You can also repair your vehicle – particularly sections that suffered Destruction during a previous round.

During the Run phase, cars from the Enemies deck are place around your vehicle in four zones (front, back, left, right) and the dice are rolled again. The bad guys take the first turn as you assign a red die to one of their vehicles and then suffer the consequences. You follow by using 1-3 white dice plus Scrap to activate your various attachments to attempt to escape this particular Run. The remaining dice are rolled and the bad guys are activated again, followed by you. There is a final roll of the dice, followed by the enemy activation and your response.

The Runs in rounds one & two end when you reduce them to two or less vehicles (who, thankfully, give up and drive away). If the end of a turn doesn’t result in the end of a Run, you start over again rolling all 8 dice and continuing the fight.

Runs in the final round go until you take out the boss – who is usually difficult to hit unless you can isolate them in a zone. And, in the tradition of video game bosses, they have a pile of hit points.

I’ve used the word “Scrap” a couple of times in the description above – it’s an important concept in Wreckland Run. If you can take an enemy car precisely (giving him the exact amount of damage to knock him out), you get to claim his vehicle card as Scrap – which means you can use the die number on his card to activate your Parts or to purchase Parts.

What you have to avoid is damage to your Core – the center of your vehicle where (presumably) you’re sitting during all this mayhem. Core damage cannot be repaired… and if you reach or exceed that damage level, you’ve lost the game.

Of course, there’s more to the design than that:

• You can ram cars, both to damage them and to push them into a better position to fire on them.
• Some weapons have focused fire; others spread damage around to all the targets in a zone.
• Some Parts (and enemy cars) have Shields, which reduce the amount of damage they take.
• You can place a die equal to or higher than the number on a Part… but if you put the exact number down, each Part has a bonus action that makes your mission a little bit easier.
• You can use low number rolls to adjust other dice and/or reroll them.
• You can set the difficulty of the game by the amount of Scrap you receive at the start of the game.
• In the Wreckage portion of a round, you can use red dice to buy Parts… but you do so at the risk of damage on the Wreckage chart. (Each chapter has charts particular to that chapter.)
• In the Run portion of a round, red dice which can’t be placed on a car trigger a roll on the Run chart… which is something you’d like to avoid.

The Verdict

I’m four games into my first campaign in just a week… and I’m hooked. I squeaked by the first chapter, took down the second chapter with some clever moves (and some serious luck), and have found myself manhandled by the third chapter (with two losses, both in the third round and with significant damage on the boss vehicle.) I fully plan to take Wreckland Run with me on the road next week as I’m traveling for work and it makes for an excellent “hotel desk” solo game.

Like I hinted at earlier, I believe this is the thinky-est game of the Renegade Solo Series… the numerous ways in which you can manipulate the dice and spend Scrap are both intriguing and frustrating – and I mean frustrating in the best possible sense. You can’t do everything – and you have to take chances in order to set yourself up for the best possible plays.

I can’t say enough nice things about the quality of the production of this game series – and the amazing way in which they dealt with issues with plastic token add-on for Warp’s Edge. (Finding out some folks were having issues with the print rubbing off/scratching, they simply had them reprinted and sent them to every backer who’d purchased that add-on. Classy.)

The game was Kickstarted back in the spring and production is complete - meaning the KS should fulfill on schedule in November with the game arriving in retail soon after. Keep your eyes open for it!

Notes: I received a prototype copy of the game to review... and this preview originally appeared on the Opinionated Gamers website.

Reconstructing My Faith: Cheaters, Ice, and Déjà vu

Cheater!

As regular readers of my blog know, I play a lot of board games. (Ok, 800-900 plays per year… “a lot” may not quite cover it.) As far as I can remember, I’ve only cheated twice in my life while playing a game.

The earliest game cheating memory is against my sister during a game of Parker Brothers BILLIONAIRE. It’s a blind bidding game (that’s gamer-speak for “game where everyone makes their bid for something simultaneously”) that used the old school “magic slate” style notepads for writing those sealed bids. I figured out how to write down two bids and pull up the edge of the wax paper to eliminate one of them as we revealed our bids to win. (I have long since apologized to my sister for this underhanded behavior.)

My second cheating memory is a game that my good friend & roommate (Tim) played against our girlfriends (now wives) back in the late 80s. It was the AH classic RAIL BARON (more recently republished as BOXCARS by Rio Grande Games) and Kim & Shari were, not to put too fine a point on it, completely and utterly destroying Tim & I. The two of us decided that the only way we could survive is if we (a) flirted with our then-girlfriends, in order to (b) surreptitiously abscond with some of the piles of money the girls had collected. The plan worked – and after taking large amounts of their cash, we admitted our “plan” and apologized. And flirted some more. (Ah, young love.)

Anyway, I don’t like cheating – and I refuse to continue playing games with someone who ascribes to the “if you’re not cheating, you’re not winning” philosophy.

Moreover, the accusation (even made playfully) that I cheated pierces right to my heart. I can feel the anger rise and I have to fight to control my response to gently ask them not to keep heading down that particular teasing road. (I have some theories about where that particular wound comes from – but I’m going to save that discussion for another day & time.)

Ice in My Carbonated Beverage

I am not a fan of fountain drinks. I like my Coke Zero in a deeply chilled bottle or can. (And, while I prefer Coke Zero over Diet Coke, both are infinitely better than Diet Pepsi. Trust me on this one.)

The reason I don’t like fountain drinks is that you really need to put ice in the cup to cool down the cola to the appropriate temperature… and when you do that, you have to drink it at a decent clip to beat the inevitable watering down of the flavor and carbonation by the melting ice.

What you end up with is a slushy brew of 50% cold-ish tap water & 50% once-delicious cola.

Blech.

Déjà vu All Over Again

I promise that my wandering stories will eventually pay off in something semi-profound… but you’ll have to keep reading a bit longer for that to happen. (Thank you for your patience.)

I grew up attending Southern Baptist churches on the West Coast… primarily in the suburbs of Los Angeles. (Yes, I lived in “The O.C.” – only we didn’t call it “the O.C.” and I recognized very little of my upbringing in the TV show.)

It was in an SBC church in Anaheim, CA, where I surrendered my life to Jesus… and it was the care and love of my youth leaders at an SBC church in Yorba Linda, CA, that encouraged and nurtured my call into vocational ministry. Both were decent-sized churches (running 250-350 folks each Sunday)

So when I went to Baylor University in Waco, TX, as a college freshman, I was taken aback at my first visit to a truly large SBC church. It really wasn’t the size, though… it was the fact that the bulletin, the structure of the worship service, even the language used from the front was almost identical to the churches I grew up in 2000+ miles away.

I came to realize that many of the folks who made up my home church in suburban Southern California were transplants from Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri (my parents), and the deep South… and so they did church much like the churches they’d grown up in half a country away.

Tying All of this Together

The obvious takeaway is that we’re likely to choose the worship practices that we grew up with – whether that’s a preference for a particular type of music, the use of only 100 or so hymns out of a hymnal with 500 of them, or a reliance on a “set in stone” order of worship.

No one likes to be told they’re simply mimicking their parents or grandparents – which makes it easy to develop “spiritual” reasons for worship structures, denominational polity, certain kinds of songs… the list is endless. Just like I react badly to being accused of cheating, folks inside a church/denomination can often struggle to hear good-natured prodding towards creativity and variety as an affirmation rather than an attack.

A less obvious takeaway was the realization that part of my (mostly) positive experience with the SBC comes from being raised in churches that were Baptist in theology but not falling all over themselves to reproduce the cultural prohibitions and hang-ups that were (and sometimes are) common to SBC churches in the South. We had a band of Jesus People leftovers visit on a regular basis in the late 70s/early 80s that played rock music in the Sunday morning service… and the fact that I played D&D didn’t cause anyone to try to cast demons out of me.

Putting a bunch of southern Southern Baptists into a cultural milieu where Sunday morning church attendance wasn't expected and the surrounding community didn't automatically defer to the churches in the area was, it turns out, a positive influence on focusing on the fundamental truths of Christianity. 

When I went to Baylor and got involved with other SBC churches who were attempting to reach college students in (relatively) innovative ways, I continued to see Baptist life in terms of potential rather than limitations. My spiritual mentor was an assistant director at the Baptist Student Union – and a single woman. (Her wisdom and godliness continue to inspire me.)

As I branched out and experienced other churches in the South, I started to see the problems more clearly – racism, winking at sinful behaviors if the individual was socially or financially connected, bitter infighting and gossip, church splits, etc. – all of which we’ll talk about in the context of this series of posts. But because my early experiences had been positive, it watered down the effect of those problems on me… or at least the way I reacted to them.

That’s not only true for my relationship with the SBC… it’s also true for my experience of large chunks of the evangelical subculture. When we get to my thoughts about the book “Jesus and John Wayne” (an upcoming post in this series), I’ll be struggling with how I managed to survive all the things I took in with my faith intact.

For today, I’ll leave you with a final thought: we can’t leave our past and our experience with church unexamined. It’s playing a role in how we follow Jesus right now. It affects how we worship, how we pray, how we treat each other, and how we do life together.

Socrates is credited with saying “The unexamined life is not worth living” at the trial leading to his death… which puts a very dark spin on his words. I think stating it in the positive – “The examined life is worth living” – isn’t quite as poetic but much more applicable. 

This is the third post in a series... if you'd like to read the first two, here they are:

• #1: Reconstructing My Faith: Rocks, Dross, and Almonds
• #2: Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word

“The battle of wits has begun.” – A Review of It’s A Wonderful Kingdom

MAN IN BLACK: All right: where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right and who is dead.

The shortest and easiest way to describe the newest game from publisher La Boite de Jeu and designer Frédéric Guérard is “It’s like their previous hit, It’s a Wonderful World, only with a ‘you cut / I choose’ mechanic in place of drafting.” That’s fair – as far as it goes – but it misses the full flavor and breadth of this two-player game design.

Yes, I know there is a solo mode as well – I promise I’ll get to that in a minute.

Previously On “It’s a Wonderful…”

OK, so a quick recap is in order of the basic mechanics at the heart of both It’s A Wonderful… games. Let’s start with the basic structure of both games:

• Draft (IaWW)/Choice (IaWK) Phase: Players acquire a set of cards over multiple drafts/choices that are set aside. 
• Planning Phase: Players choose to add cards to their construction area or discard/”recycle” them for resources to be placed on cards in their construction area.
• Production Phase: One resource type at a time, players receive resource cubes which they use to complete cards and add them to their tableau.

And we can keep the recap going with some details that are the same for both World and Kingdom:

• Extra unused resources are collected and 5 can be traded in for 1 Krystallium – the wild resource.
• Cards provide points, points multipliers by card type, and/or resource production… they also may have bonuses that are received one time when they are built.
• There is a Supremacy bonus for producing the most of a particular kind of resource.
• Cards in your construction area can be recycled at any time – but the resource they provide is treated as an unused resource towards trading for Krystallium.

For a more detailed look at It’s A Wonderful World, you can check out Terry Noseworthy’s review of the base game and my review of the expansions – both on the Opinionated Gamers website!

I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

VIZZINI: But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you. Are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet, or his enemy’s? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I’m not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

MAN IN BLACK: You’ve made your decision then?

VIZZINI: Not remotely. Because iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows. And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

MAN IN BLACK: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

It’s A Wonderful Kingdom definitely twists the basic structure a bit:

• Different number of resources: There are only four resource types (Materials, Population, Gold, and Exploration) instead of five.
• Different deck composition: The deck for It’s A Wonderful Kingdom is smaller and only has four types of cards (rather than five). In addition, there are ten Treasure cards in the deck, which are simply recycled for extra resources during the next Planning Phase.
• Different Supremacy bonus: Instead of Generals or Financiers, producing the most of a resource type either sends a Soldier to your training ground or moves him from your training ground onto your duchy card.
• Different method of acquiring cards: Rather than a 7 Wonders-style draft (IaWW), It’s A Wonderful Kingdom utilizes a ‘I cut/you choose’ system. 
• Different ways of varying up gameplay: It’s A Wonderful World has one large box expansion and two smaller campaign expansions; It’s A Wonderful Kingdom comes with three different modules in the base game (plus one more in the Legends version of the game). Each time you play, you must choose a module to add to the system.

As you can probably guess, the most important twist is the way cards are acquired. At the beginning of each of the rounds, the two players each draw a 7 card hand and then add a single Calamity card. Both Offering areas receive a single face-up card and the game begins in earnest.

The first player chooses two of the cards in their hand and places them face-up in the Offering areas – both can go in the same area or in different areas. The second player then chooses one of the two Offering areas and takes all the cards in that area. Now the second player chooses two of their cards to place, followed by the first player choosing and taking cards. The cycle happens four times, using up all the cards in each player’s hand.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple. Each player has two Trap tokens, which can be used each round to place a single offering card face-down. Since Calamity cards are worth -4 victory points (as well as being useless for building anything), avoiding them is important… but maybe the cards in that particular Offering are worth the pain. Or not. 

My younger son described It’s a Wonderful Kingdom as “similar to Wonderful World but much more brain burn” – and the decisions about which cards to offer and which cards to pick up are at the heart of that ‘brain burn’. 

You’re just stalling now.

VIZZINI: Wait till I get going! Where was I?

MAN IN BLACK: Australia.

VIZZINI: Yes — Australia, and you must have suspected I would have known the powder’s origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

MAN IN BLACK: You’re just stalling now.

I know, I know… you want me to tell you exactly what I think after my eight plays of the game. I promise we’ll get there – but there’s some more details to fill in first.

As mentioned above, there are 4 different modules (3 with the base game) that are added to the game. Each game the players choose one of the modules to add.

The good folks at La Boite de Jeu have cleared up one of my first questions over on BGG… you can’t combine the modules because you don’t produce enough Soldier tokens over 4 rounds to power multiple modules. 

Let’s take a (slightly) closer look at each module:

Menaces: There are a number of different sets of cards which replace the Calamity cards of each player – so, for example, you could have Frost Giants and Thieves in the game. Each of these sets has its own special effects:

• Frost Giants freeze buildings under construction
• Giant Rats attract Vermin
• Shadows suck away resources to your opponent’s Alchemy area
• Thieves keep you from producing certain resources
• Other Menaces were added in the Legends version of the game

Menaces can be defeated – but the cost of doing that slows down your ability to build. In short, think of this module as a slightly meaner version of the “base” game.

Advisors: Each player is dealt two Advisor cards and chooses one to keep and immediately place in their tableau. Ten Advisor cards replace the ten Treasure cards in the main deck before the game starts. For a certain number of Soldier tokens, an Advisor in your tableau can be activated to gain some sort of special power – and it is acceptable to do it multiple times during a game if you have enough Soldiers.

This is probably the most straightforward of the modules – and along with Quests (coming next) would be my suggestion for your first game.

Quests: An over-sized Quest card is chosen that has four tasks on it – these are special powers that each player can do one time each. (Markers are provided to note which tasks a player has completed.) The final task is required in order to win the game. 

Like I noted above, this is not a bad module for your first game… though you’ll need to pay close attention to acquiring and constructing cards that give you enough Soldiers to fulfill the final task.

The Legends version of the game provides additional Advisors and Quests.

Conquest: Using an additional map (there are six of them on three double-sided pieces), players recruit and move army figures in order to claim territories. Those territories provide resources and other in-game benefits… as well as points at the end of the game. Recruitment and movement is powered by Soldier tokens.

This module is only found in the Legends version of the game… I’d likely suggest this as the last module you try since it adds an additional complication to the game.

You’ve given everything away.

VIZZINI: You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? You’ve beaten my giant, which means you’re exceptionally strong. So, you could have put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you’ve also bested my Spaniard which means you must have studied. And in studying, you must have learned that man is mortal so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

MAN IN BLACK: [nervously] You’re trying to trick me into giving away something — it won’t work —

VIZZINI: [triumphant] It has worked — you’ve given everything away — I know where the poison is.

It’s A Wonderful Kingdom is designed specifically for head-to-head play… and for solo play. Each module has instructions for how to modify it for solo play in addition to the changes to the base game

Eight cards from the top of the deck are mixed with 4 Calamity cards… this Danger deck is set to the side. Then each Offering area is filled with two cards from the face-up Development deck. The solo player chooses one of the two sets of cards, then adds a face down card from the Danger deck to the Offering they did not choose and two new cards face-up from the Development deck to the empty area. 

Instead of Trap tokens, the solo player has two Spy tokens – one of which is active (face-up) to begin the game. By spending the Spy token (flipping it over), the solo player can examine a face-down card. At the end of the round, one of the spent Spy tokens is re-activated. 

I’ve tried each of the modules as a solo player – and each of them offers interesting challenges. As with It’s A Wonderful World, solo scores are rated on threshold scores for Bronze, Silver, and Gold… which does a nice job of telling you how accomplished you were. 

Then make your choice.

MAN IN BLACK: Then make your choice.

VIZZINI: I will. And I choose [stops suddenly and points at something behind the Man in Black] what in the world can that be?

MAN IN BLACK: [Turns, looks] What? Where? I don’t see anything.

VIZZINI quickly switches the goblets while the MAN IN BLACK has his head turned.

VIZZINI: Oh, well, I-I could have sworn I saw something. No matter.

The MAN IN BLACK turns to face him again. VIZZINI starts to laugh.

MAN IN BLACK: What’s so funny?

VIZZINI: I’ll tell you in a minute. First, let’s drink — me from my glass, and you from yours.

Let’s be honest – the first play of It’s A Wonderful Kingdom was pretty rough. Both my son and I were trying to figure out how best to use the Trap tokens, how to preserve the cards we wanted, and how to fulfill the quest. In the end, he did a much better job of scoring points than I did and also managed to squeak out enough Soldiers to fulfill the final task. Moreover, we were working through our expectations that it would be a lot like Wonderful World. (He and I have played 25+ games of the original game with 2 or 3 players.)

Subsequent plays have revealed something interesting – this is a game with its own rhythm and feel. While it shares the same basic mechanics with It’s A Wonderful World, the structure of how you acquire cards and the push/pull of the different modules make for a very different experience.

And one worth pursuing. 

I will note that there’s been some discussion over on the ‘Geek of how to restore more straight drafting to the game… which, on one hand, I understand, and yet I think that multiple plays are going to reveal fabulous bits of double-think and clever play that don’t need for the two games to work in the same way.

I can heartily recommend this for both solo and folks looking for a think-y two-player game that finishes in 30-45 minutes (depending on how long it takes you to decide which cards to offer). 

And because it seems unfair to start quoting one of the greatest scenes on film without finishing it, here’s every Risk player’s favorite passage.

MAN IN BLACK: You guessed wrong.

VIZZINI: [roaring with laughter] You only think I guessed wrong… [louder now] …that’s what’s so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned. Ha-ha, you fool.

The MAN IN BLACK sits silently.

VIZZINI: You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” But only slightly less well known is this: “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!Ahahahaha, ahahahaha, ahahaha–

-THUD-

In case you’re wondering, the extensive quotes are from one of the best films ever made, THE PRINCESS BRIDE. If you haven’t seen it, you should go remedy that this evening (if not sooner).

This review originally appeared on the Opinionated Gamers website.