Just signed a couple of contracts:  one for my current project, another for audio books, and another for a movie option.  It’s both incredibly cool and incredibly weird.  It’s safe to say I’m doing far better as a novelologist than I ever expected to do.  I’m still mid-list at best (and probably not even that), but this is a tough business.  A lot of people want to do this.  So many that it strikes me as absurd that I get paid to do it.  But I do.  And thanks to everyone, big and small, who makes that possible.

So I play World of Warcraft.  I play it too much.  But I really like the game (and of course I’m not alone).  Currently, I’m working on a Tauren Paladin, but I hop around.  I’m in a solid guild now, full of cool people, and we’ve even taken to some raiding, which is pretty cool since I’ve never really done that before.

One of the things I love about WoW is the people.  It’s pure science fiction that I can log onto my computer and play a game with people across the world.  People I would never meet in real life or if I did meet them, I’d have nothing in common with.  But in this virtual realm, in this land of digital adventure, I’ve discovered a meeting place for friends and acquantainces I’d have never known.  Oh, sure, they’re not real friends in that they can’t help me move and I don’t know much about their real lives.  But I do know I can count on them to help me kill giant dragons and dare Ice Crown Citadel.  And that’s gotta count for something, right?

I also play a lot of tabletop games, and recently, I acquired one I’d like to recommend.  Sid Meyer’s Civilization: The Board Game by Fantasy Flight Games is great fun.  Almost beat for beat, an adaptation of the computer game, it still manages to be accessible and easy to play.  I wouldn’t really call it a civilization building game because your nation will only have 3 cities at the most and it’s entirely possible to have railroads and not horseback riding.  But as a game allowing you to experience the journey of nation via broad strokes, it’s fantastic.  Highly recommended.

Finally, let’s go ahead and talk about writing because that’s what I do and this allows me to pretend like I’m an authority.

I’m sure someone has said this already and much better than I, but storytelling revolves around emotion.  That’s what’s makes or breaks every story.  It’s not about great sentences or poetic expression.  Those things help, but ultimately, if you can instill an emotion in your audience, then you’ve succeeded.

I love Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, yet most of them are stilted, written in a dated style.  It doesn’t matter to me though because I have a visceral connection with most of his worlds and characters.  I love Tarzan because I can relate to his outsider’s perspective.  More importantly, it allows me to see the world from a whole new angle.  It’s not just that I can relate to Tarzan, but that he allows me to experience things I never will.  His reactions, his character, make those situations tangible.  They open new windows.

When Tarzan’s ape mother was killed by natives, I felt Tarzan’s pain.  And when Tarzan discovered civilization, I experienced his confusion.  And when he strangled a Russian villain to death for daring to threaten Tarzan’s family, I felt his rage and power.  And while I, as a civilized human being, never imagine myself strangling anyone (and hope to The Mighty Robot King that it never comes up in real life) I can relate to Tarzan and his way of viewing the world because the stories make a boy raised by apes and make him real somehow.  Believable?  Not for a minute.  But still somehow someone who I know.

I watched Tangled this weekend, and it was really very good.  Very, very good.  And I think I liked it so much because it struck all the right emotional notes.  Even the songs are built around universal dreams and desires, whether it’s Rapunzel singing about waiting for her life to begin, having a dream, or falling in love.  These notions are so basic that almost all of us can understand them.

The funny thing is that I don’t know if a good story needs to be founded on emotional relatability or if emotional relatability can be relied to happen on with good writing.  It’s almost as if it needs to happen as a byproduct, that if a writer tries too hard to invest his story with emotion that it’ll just come across as forced and obnoxious.  Not always, of course.  And even as individuals we have different assessments of what works or doesn’t.  Still, I’ve always felt that worrying too much about theme or emotion before writing is putting the cart before the horse.  Maybe it’s just the way I write, but I like to discover the emtional resonance of what I’m writing while I’m writing it.  It always seems to end up the stronger for it.

It brings up an interesting question (to me at least).  Is it necessary to study story structure, theme, and other such writerly pursuits to write a good story?  I can see why it could be helpful, but at the same time, it seems the more a writer obsesses over these things, the less natural they can become.  Or not.  I don’t have the answers, and I can’t even pretend that I do.  I could write the greatest novel of all time, and it still wouldn’t mean I knew why it was the greatest.

Except maybe that it will most likely have a slime monster in it.  And probably a giant robot fight.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

So today, I’m going to review Ad Astra (“To the Stars” in Latin) from Fantasy Flight Games.  ( http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=81&enmi=Ad%20Astra )  Yes, it’s another FFG game.  And I do love these folks.  Almost every game they’ve published since the late, great Discwars has been fantastic.  Although I’m not a fan of Cosmic Encounters, a game I find thoroughly unremarkable.  But even that is technically a classic and most every other game player seems to really love it, so I’ll try not to hold it against FFG.

The theme of Ad Astra is that far in the future, humanity has evolved into 5 different species.  These species, with their common background, are still basically in harmony.  This is not a game of cosmic war, and that’s one of the things I find refreshing.  Your goal is to spread throughout the universe and create the most vibrant, successful civilization.  But you can do this best by cooperating with your fellow players.  And, while it’s true your competing for resources and status, aggressive action like attacking your opponents just isn’t possible.  (I really love the idea that in the future, humanity will be civilized enough that blowing each other up isn’t our first response to problem solving.)

Ad Astra has some truly unique ideas.  For one thing, the game doesn’t take place on a traditional board.  Instead, the universe is spread out as groups of larger discs (the systems) surrounded by smaller discs (representing the planets in that system).  This not only allows the universe to be different every game, but allows a nifty cusomizability for how the universe is laid out.

Another nifty aspect is that players don’t take turns like in a traditional board game.  Instead, they start by taking turns playing down cards on a track.  When the track is filled, the action round begins.  The cards are resolved in order, from first to last.  It’s entirely possible for one player to take several turns in a row, although with every card revealed, everyone gets to do something.

Sound complicated?  Trust me, it’s much simpler than it sounds.  And here’s an example:

Production Cards produce resources.  Every Production Card lists two resources on it.  When the card is revealed, whoever played the Production Card picks one of those resources.  All players who can gain that resource do so.  So while the player who owns the card determines what is produced, other players can benefit from it.  In fact, if there’s a shortage of a certain resource, it’s not impractical to use one of your own Production choices to produce a resource you don’t even have, just to get more of it in the game.

Trade is another interesting action.  A player who has played a Trade Card can trade with any other player or the bank.  The bank is sort of a default trader, able to transform two of any of the same resource into a single resource of any type.  But it’s often more cost effective to trade with your opponents, giving them something you have too much of for something you really need.

Your Build Card allows you to build as many colonies / spaceships / terraforming stations as you can afford on your turn.  Your opponents can build too, but only one thing, regardless of their resources.

This dynamic means that an effective player who guesses what his opponents plan on doing can really make the most of his turn.  However, there’s also a gamble there because if you assume that your opponents have laid a build order somewhere down the line, so you’ve used your actions to place Production Cards only to discover no Build is coming can lead to a delay in what you’re planning to do.  (Although you still get the resources, so it’s not like you’re completely screwed.)

And this is what makes Ad Astra such a fascinating game experience.  There’s no “bad” moves, no “game over” decisions.  Every decisions comes with its own risks and rewards, and even if you aren’t playing as effectively as you can, you aren’t going to sink like a stone while your opponents’ soar into universal glory.

This is, however, one of Ad Astra’s weaknesses if you’re playing with the wrong group.  Since every decision, every action, has negative and positive consequences, players who want clear and obvious decisions might have a hard time deciding what to do sometimes.  You might try to monopolize the food supply in the galaxy, but it will be at the cost of resource variety.  You might decide to explore the remnants of a long lost alien civilization, gaining powerful artifacts but relying much more on other players for your resources.  You might decide to build the biggest fleet in the universe in order to get your feet wet in every system on the board, but it’ll be at the cost of establishing a strong colonial presence elsewhere.  Simply put, each of these strategies (and more) are possible winning strategies.  And for many players who are used to straightforward victory conditions (kill all your opponents, get the most cash, stomp your opponent’s monster into dust), this could be a bit overwhelming.

Nevertheless, Ad Astra is a unique and interesting game, thoroughly engaging, and fast-paced.  If you’re reluctant to buy a civilization building game as too cerebral or dull, you might find Ad Astra changing your mind.  But at an asking price of $60, it might be a bit too big an investment for a non-gamer looking for an entryway game.  Or maybe not.

For this game at least, it’s a great addition to my library.  And seeing how I own too many games already, that’s saying something.

FOOTNOTE:  The game is listed as a 3-5 player game.  When I first played, I played with only 2, and it didn’t seem imbalanced.  However, a 3rd player joined us after only a few rounds, so I can’t tell for sure.  However, I do think some simple house rules would allow for a successful 2 player game.  The only change I made for my 2 player version was to keep the total actions in a round down to 8 instead of 12, and it seemed to work.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good Write,

Lee