I want to lay out what I see as the issue with the game. Or maybe what I want more of in a game, it’ll depend on the experience, and then how I’d fill that need. What I won’t be doing is saying “Game X is bad and it needs an expansion that overhauls everything.”. If it’s bad then it needs a new edition to fix th at, or maybe isn’t one I care about that much anyways. But let’s start with our first game.

Lands of Galzyr

The Issue

So what in Lands of Galzyr am I trying to fix for? What do I want more of in the game that it might be lacking or a strength that I want to double down on?

For me it revolves around an element of the game that I really like, but also an element of the game that is, well, lacking in direction. And that is the story in Lands of Galzyr. I like going around and doing quests. But you do that, and there is no target for it. You get good, light story, but it’s all very separate.

During my playthrough on Malts and Meeples that is what started to get me a bit tired of the game. Lands of Galzyr isn’t a game that, in my opinion works that well in a weekly format. It’s a once in a while game with friends who want a story game but not too much rules overhread.

The Expansion

So, how do I fix it? And it’s not really even a fix in this situation. Lands of Galzyr with it’s story model does something most other games don’t with heavy story. It gives you an engaging story experience in a one of sitting. That is different than most games.

But for how I play games, I want the option, anyways for some more cohesive story. That story, however, I want in a way that won’t become another long campaign game. So my idea is that of story modules. Somewhere between 12 and 24 of them. But branching narrative paths that you can follow, like the quests, but that tell a more specific and linked story. Basically a direction for the game from pick up quests and do quests.

Story Modules

How would this work? The game is already based around quests that are available on the board. What you would do is that you would populate some of the quests from specific areas. So when you set-up the game you might have three generic quests, good to do on the way to stuff. But you would also have specific quests. There’s flooding going on in an area causing people to get out, there is a bandit problem, the mole people from Riglar are invading, whatever, it might be.

Each of those are a module. And each of those gives you a specific direction to go in the game. And a specific story for that game. It might even give you more points that you are going for in the game. So in a competitive game or cooperative, the target score you are looking for is higher. But, then, at the end of the game, you remove the module leaving behind just a few quests that are more generic that reference the events from before based off of what you got done.

You drive back the mole people of Riglar, or help to do so, they aren’t an issue. But if you help them, now you gain certain quests in the pool that will have you dealing with unhappy nobles. More generic quests, but still referencing what you did before. Then you can play again and pick a new module.

Does This Fill The Desire in Lands of Galzyr?

I think that it would. The game each time you play now has more of a direction and story to it. And while you can just reset each time, as a living world it would be fun to play in.

Another big thing, though, that it wouldn’t do, is add much complexity to the game. You would have a bit more sorting to do at the end of each game, but not that much. It’d be easy for those cards to generally stay separate. But in terms of in game complexity it wouldn’t make it much harder to learn and play the game.

And for me, I really like connected story and direction. So maybe even put in a specific order to play events would work well. But that isn’t a need, that is something I just wouldn’t mind. So I can play a 24 game campaign, let’s say. But also, I can just pick a module and go with it. It might just be skip the first 5 quests if you aren’t playing the campaign or something like that.

My guess is the expansion is just going to be more story and quests. And I like that too. I saw a lot of quests when I played so more would be fun. But even more fun, for me, would be that story element in the game to give each play direction.

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Tabletop Simulator (TTS) is a digital gaming system. It is basically an “engine” that can drive any type of board game from simple card games to something as complex as Gloomhaven. To play a game, you have to first get and install the module, but only the person who is hosting the “server” will have to install the module, the other people playing will be able to connect. Then, if the game is scripted it’ll help set-up the game and get you ready to go, if it isn’t, you have to set-up the game. After that you can hop in and start playing the game.

Now, that sounds pretty cool, but I want to talk about scripted versus not scripted because that is an important topic. Scripted games are pretty enjoyable on TTS. It gets you up and running fast, and while there can be some hiccups with how they work, for the most part it isn’t bad. I’ve played Clank, for the first time ever, on TTS and it was easy to pick-up and work with, even with some hiccups in the scripting. I’ve played multiple games of Dice Throne through their official module on TTS and that worked extremely smoothly. On the other hand, we were playing the Forgotten Circles expansion on TTS for Gloomhaven and that was not scripted and set-up was over an hour, some of it was learning the system but some of it is that without scripting there is a ton more work for the set-up. And scripting is often beyond set-up, Dice Throne has a button for the upkeep phase when you start your turn so you don’t have to remember to draw a card and get a CP (combat point).

Game play, I’d say, is generally a little bit slower. Some of that is just the technology. The commands are a bit slower to do as compared to playing in real life as well. Scripted again is faster, but a scenario of Gloomhaven took us, without set-up, around 2.5 hours to get through the whole thing in two nights versus about 1.5 hours if we’d played it in person, or possibly even less than that. Playing Dice Throne, however, was only marginally slower than it would be in real life. I’d say that it would be pretty similar for Clank as well. But it is slower and if something gets messed up, it can take a little while, even with the rewind functionality to fix it. And some of this depends on network speed as well. The processing for everything is kind of jointly handled, so if someone has a slow connection, it can really make the whole thing lag.

There’s another issue with TTS that I want to address. Some of the modules that you can install are fan made and not official. Things like the Gloomhaven one have become officially licensed, but it wasn’t originally. Dice Throne one is official as well. Now, even the unofficial ones can be great to use and will give you an idea about the game, but understand that the company hasn’t signed off on it and technically it is illegal for that to be there, a direct copy of the game. But when companies do use it for a game it’s great. I was able to teach Dice Throne to someone who has been interested in it for a while, but hasn’t had a chance to play my copy. Even for the official ones, I would strongly recommend, if you enjoy the game on TTS to pick it up or at least someone in the group to, so you can continue to support the actual businesses and game designers directly.

With that said, there is something great about it as well. It gives you a chance to test out a game to see if you’d like it before you buy it. And there are some companies that will put out a module with a first scenario or a bit of the game when they launch a Kickstarter or release the game so that people can test it out. So in that way, it can help drive sales to release a limited version, shorter, smaller, however it might be limited, for people to try out and really get an idea of game play. I might be hard pressed to put $100 into a campaign game (I’m really not), but if I could try out an intro scenario that is just made for teaching the game on TTS, that would be great and give me a better idea if I’d like it or not.

So, as a system is it worth getting? I would say, kind of. I think it works well when you want to play a board game as a distance. There are some good modules and a good number of scripted ones. But, it does lack the same feeling as playing across a table from another person. And for me, the little bit of added time, or a lot of added time in the case of Gloomhaven without it being scripted was disappointing. The best way I can describe it is that because the system was made to handle any game, it can’t handle any game extremely efficiently. It works in a pinch, and if you don’t think you’ll get out gaming for a while and you want to game, it’s worth it.

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