Tagline: One of four games in WOTC’s family card game line, Pivot has all the potential of becoming a classic card game.

Ultimately, Twitch was definitely the best of the games in this line. Pivot hasn’t gotten as much play through the years, but I did pull it out at a party recently and had a good time with it. I’d still recommend tracking down a copy as a quirky alternative to Uno.

Wizards of the Coast has recently released a series of four games – Twitch, Pivot, Alpha Blitz, and Go Wild! — designed to enter the family marketplace alongside familiar games like Uno and Skip-Bo. After reading a review of Twitch I immediately went out and bought myself a copy of what sounded like a great, addictive game and was anything but disappointed (see my review of Twitch elsewhere on RPGNet).

On the strength of my extremely positive results with Twitch I went out and bought Pivot. After playing this game I would have to say that Twitch is the superior game, but Pivot is fantastic as well – as testament to that fact I’ve played it three nights in a row, and have plans to play it again this evening.

The concept, like Twitch’s, is incredibly simple: You have cards numbered from 1-80 along with a handful of Up cards, Down cards, and Pivot cards. Each player is dealt a hand of seven cards. The first player plays a card and the next player (going clockwise) must play a card higher than the one last played. Play continues in this manner until a Down card is played. When the Down card is played play now goes counterclockwise and each subsequent player must play a card lower than the one before him. This, of course, continues until an Up card is played. Pivot cards have the effect of reversing the direction of play no matter which way it is currently going (if you’re going up, a Pivot card will make you go down – if you’re going down the Pivot card will make you go up). If you can’t play you have to draw a card. If you play a card and no one else can play a card (play goes all the way around the circle and returns to you with no additional cards being played) you can play whatever card you want to. The goal is to get rid of all your cards.

That’s the game in a nutshell. In addition some of the number cards also act as specials – Extra Turn lets you take an extra turn before play goes onto the next player, Next Player Draw makes the next player draw a card before his turn, and Skip Next Player means (surprise, surprise) play skips the player after you. There’s also an optional scoring method if you want to play several games in a row to determine an outcome.

I have only one specific, quantifiable problem with this game. To understand this problem requires a bit of context: The Up card has a picture of a red arrow curving in a clockwise direction (which is the direction play continues when an Up card is in effect). The Down card, on the other hand, is a blue arrow pointing in a counterclockwise direction. The Pivot card has two arrows – one pointing clockwise and the other counterclockwise. So far so good, but for some unknown reason they chose (on the Pivot card) to color the clockwise arrow blue and the counterclockwise arrow red.

No one’s claiming that this isn’t a minor problem, but it confused us several times when we were first trying to get a hang of the game. (“What direction is play going?” “Let’s look at the arrow…” whoops…).

Here’s the final analysis: Twitch is ultra-addictive and a great game – if you haven’t bought it yet, I would say you should buy that one first. Pivot is a fairly addictive game, but also has strategy (which Twitch definitely doesn’t have).

Like Twitch, Pivot isn’t going to find a place on your shelf alongside Magic or the Dune CCG, but it is an admirable addition to your collection of games like Uno or Skip-Bo.

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Title: Pivot
Writers: Andre Francois with Jim Lin, Richard Garfield, Robert Gutschera, Paul Peterson, and Teeuwynn Woodruff
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Price: $6.95
Page Count: n/a
ISBN: 1-57530-597-6
Originally Published: 1998/06/23

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Dread is a storytelling game of horror based around a core mechanic in which the players pull blocks from a Jenga tower whenever their characters attempt a meaningful action: If the tower doesn’t collapse, the action is successful. If it does, the character is eliminated from the story, the tower is rebuilt, and play continues.

The intent is that the tower’s steady descent into precariousness models the traditional horror pacing of “tension rises, something bloody happens, and then tension starts rising again”. And, in my experience, this fundamentally works: In a focused gaming environment, the physical act of pulling the block viscerally and collectively immerses the players into the emotional state of the narrative.

So, at a basic level, the mechanic is very, very effective.

Which makes it all the more unfortunate that the game inherently suffers from a systematic pacing failure that arises from the same mechanic.

Let’s assume that you want a collapse or near-collapse state at the end of the game (for a tension-filled conclusion).

Per the designers of the game in this thread, it takes about 30 pulls to reach a collapse-state on the tower. I haven’t done any rigorous testing, but that sounds pretty plausible based on my experience. Unfortunately, this means that Dread only reduces the time between collapse-states by 10% (by pulling 3 additional blocks per character knocked out when you rebuild the tower). That means that in a two-collapse game one of the players will be sitting out of the action for nearly half the game. In a three-collapse game, one of the players will be sitting out for 60% of the game.

(To put that in perspective, it means that in a two hour game featuring three collapses, one of the players will play for 45 minutes and then watch the other players for an hour and a quarter. Even doubling the rate of pulls after the first collapse only mitigates this problem.)

Obviously this isn’t a problem if you’ve got a pool of players who don’t mind being completely passive spectators for long periods of time, but the “no chatter” rule in Dread (prohibiting players from talking out of character) only exacerbates a problem which is widely recognized as being a bad idea in game design for a reason.

THE END GAME PROBLEM

The logical conclusion would seem to be pacing for games featuring a single collapse-state: People aren’t “supposed” to be eliminated except for possibly a single elimination during the final climactic struggle. This makes the game considerably narrower in its utility, but appears to be the only way to easily resolve the “bored player” syndrome.

Unfortunately, this solution only calls attention to the other problem the game has: Tension deflation following a tower collapse.

Theoretically, of course, this models the tension/release cycle of horror movie pacing (as described above). But the player elimination problem forces us to abandon that pacing. And even if we didn’t do that, the same problem exists at the end of the game: There’s no way to quickly ratchet the tension back up.

Bill is killed by the werewolf… and then the werewolf isn’t scary any more and the group mops him up.

For mid-game collapses, of course, the GM should make the werewolf run off and then come back later (once the tension has built again). That, after all, is how horror movies work.

But the problem is repetitive: Whenever the tension ratchets up to the point that you can trigger an effective conclusion, there’s a high-risk for a collapse. And since a collapse always indicates a failure, it means that the actual conclusion will happen AFTER the collapse. This means that the game tends to either (a) end on a whimper or (b) a sacrifice (in which one of the players sacrifices their character by knocking over the tower to achieve a Pyrrhic victory). The latter is effective… but only up to the point where it becomes predictable.

SOLUTIONS?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any.

And it is unfortunate, because, as I mentioned above, the core mechanic is very effective in practice: The Jenga tower not only mechanically creates tension which normally requires a great deal of GM skill to evoke, but also invests the table collectively in that tension as a shared experience.

The game is intensely good at a micro-level. But its inherent pacing problems create a consistently frustrating experience at the macro-level.

Last week I proposed space scurvy, but deficiency diseases can also be interesting to consider in the context of a fantasy setting.

Imagine for a moment that fantastical creatures like dragons, basilisks, or medusa depend on some vitamin (or a complex of vitamins) which allow them to process magical energy or a “supernatural essence”. For the most part this is no big deal: This “magimin” exists as part of the natural food chain in fantasyland and these creatures get plenty of it from their natural diet. (Some of them might produce it naturally under certain conditions, just like we do with vitamin E from sunlight.)

But when these creatures start suffering from a magimin deficiency — for example, if a dragon starts eating livestock who have been raised in a natural antimagic field — things can turn bad. Our dragon, for example, might find his wings withering and falling off while his heart enlarges in an effort to cope with pumping blood through his great bulk. A medusa’s snakes wilt and become lifeless. A basilisk might slowly grow blind as its own eyes turn to stone.

A little too much science in your fantasy? Maybe. But I like to give thought to this sort of thing because it opens up interesting possibilities.

For example, what if we make the magimin deficiencies a little more magical? Without their magimins, dragons slowly begin to shrink… eventually becoming nothing more than large snakes. But what happens if a mad wizard were to superdose an ordinary snake with magimins… would they become a dragon (or some other insanely mutated creature)? Now we have a mechanism for those “mad scientist” wizards to use when they’re creating owlbears. And that means they need a supply of magimin. And gaining that magimin (by harvesting fairies, for example, or simply having it shipped in) will have consequences that can serve as adventure hooks (and also give the PCs non-standard ways of fighting back).

On the other end of the scale, what if magical creatures went away because their magimins went away? But if magimins were to be reintroduced to the food chain, suddenly we’d have a lot of dragons that have been trapped as snakes for a couple hundred years re-appearing.

Ripped from the pages of my Ptolus campaign, this beasty was created by chaos cultists using an artifact known as the Idol of Ravvan. He was an early test of the monster creation system from Legends & Labyrinths and was specifically designed to take advantage of the Gemini figure from McFarlane’s Warriors of the Zodiac toy line (pictured below).

GEMINI BEAST (CR 8+2*): 256 hp (HD 11d8+40), AC 20, claws +14/+14 (2d8+2d6+4), Save +11, Ability DC 18, Size Gargantuan, Speed 60 ft., Reach 20 ft.

Str 30, Dex 11, Con 18, Int 6, Wis 5, Cha 10
Skills: Climb +24, Intimidate +14, Listen +11, Spot +11
Blindsense 60 ft.

SPECIAL: The Gemini Beast is actually two creatures joined together (each possessing the stat block above). Like a mounted combatant, they take their actions simultaneously. If either moves (as a move action, full action, or 5-ft. step) they are both considered to have taken that action.

If one of the Gemini Beasts is slain, that half of the creature simply becomes inert and dead. The other half can continue taking actions normally, although it suffers a -30 ft. penalty to its speed (due to hauling the dead carcass of its twin behind it).

* Potentate.

Tagline: The first game designed by Richard Garfield and released to the public, RoboRally shows the intriguing conceptual ideas and addictive game play which have since become Garfield’s stock in trade. Like so many games released by Wizards of the Coast I first picked this product up because the description just sounded too intriguing to miss. Like every product I have ever picked up from the Wizards, I was anything but disappointed.

“Like every product I have ever picked up from the Wizards, I was anything but disappointed.” Ah, 1998. How I miss ye. RoboRally remains one of my favorite games. Unfortunately, my original copy was lost in a move and later turned up in the bottom of a box that was being stored in a pole barn. Although sadly water-damaged, it is still tremendous fun. Anyone know what Richard Garfield is up to these days?

GAME CONCEPT

In the future the widget factories of the world are controlled by the mightiest artificial intelligences ever created by man. Capable of solving any problem which might arise and controlling the entire factory from top to bottom to compensate for any problems and keep production right on schedule, these mighty machines suffered from only a single problem: Boredom.

Then one day a processing robot fried a circuit and went careening onto a conveyor belt, which sent him spinning through the high-powered laser systems and dropped him off just in time for his broken and decaying programming databanks to send him plummeting down a bottomless disposal bit on the factory floor.

The computers were … amused.

Immediately they created the game of RoboRally – each computer controlled a single robot and, using a limited set of data registers, was required to send the robots through a specially converted section of the factory floor.

In the boardgame RoboRally you are the computer, programming your robot to cross the factory floor and reach a set of checkpoints in a specific sequence in order to win the game. In your way are conveyor belts, bottomless pits, gears, crushers, pushers, and laser beams… not to mention the robots of your fellow players.

RULES

The game comes with six gameboards which can be played individually or arranged in any combination you want. The checkpoints you must reach are represented by six counters numbered from 1 to 6 – you can place these counters anywhere on the gameboards you want and in any order you choose. The options are practically infinite.

On each turn you are dealt nine program cards. From these you must select five cards and “program” your robot by assigning one card to each of five programming registers. When all the players have completed programming their robots the turn begins – each register is considered in order and your robot moves.

This sounds simple, but in truth you’ll find yourself making bonehead mistakes – especially when you come in contact with the board elements. “Okay, first I’ll move forward, which will put me on the conveyor belt which will move me there, then I’ll turn left, and the conveyor belt will move me again, turning me as I go, so that when I move backwards on the next phase I’ll end up…” And, of course, you can always be pushed around by the other robots on the board so that your preciously planned sequence of movements will suddenly all be off by one square … and the results cascade through the rest of the turn.

Plus, your robot can take damage and be destroyed by various game elements on the board. Plus, your robot and the robots of the other players are all outfitted with lasers – allowing you to whittle away. What can be worse than getting blasted out of existence and having to start over from the beginning (there is also a way of “archiving” a copy of your robot at certain waypoints on the board)? Well, as you take damage the number of program cards you dealt to select from are decreased. If you take enough damage some of your robot’s programming registers may become locked – meaning that the cards you have assigned to those registers will have to stay the same until you can get your robot repaired.

Finally there are ways of retrofitting your robot with special abilities.

STRENGTHS

This game is a tremendous amount of fun. If you’ve ever played Paranoia and gotten great laughs out of watching your characters getting fried you’ll already understand the appeal this game carries with it – nothing is more hilarious then when one of your fellow players suddenly groans, “Oh nooooo…” and you know he’s made a mistake in his plans and his robot is about to go cascading off-course and into jeopardy.

The game is beautifully designed by Phil Foglio – the cover illustration of a ZIP 550 looking nervously over his shoulder as he enters the factory is absolutely perfect at setting the tone of the game. Foglio also designed the miniatures which come with the game.

WEAKNESSES

The learning curve is pretty simple, but there are some rules which could so with better explanation. Wizards of the Coast has posted the complete rules and a FAQ at their website, and from what I’ve seen they have not fixed these problems.

The confusion over these rules is quickly eliminated however by some practical familiarity with the game. Play your first game on a single board and establish up front that rule interpretations could fluctuate wildly during the course of the game as you figure out some of the nuances.

There are several handy reference sheets and the rulebook is laid out in such a fashion that information is easy to find when you need it. This is not an overwhelming problem, merely one of having to play the game first before you can see what some rules mean.

CONCLUSION

This game is great. The idea is great, the carry-through is great, the rules are great, the entertainment value is great. You simply can’t go wrong.

There are also several expansion sets for the game (Armed and Dangerous, Grand Prix, and (coming later in 1998) Radioactive). I hope to own and review both these and the second make of this game in the near future here on RPGNet.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Author: Richard Garfield
Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $34.95
Page count: n/a
ISBN: 1-57530-088-5
Originally Published: 1998/06/19

[ This is a review of the first make of the RoboRally game. The second make of the game (which I do not yet own), slightly altered the lay-out of the rules and changed the design of the miniatures included with the game. However, to my knowledge, game play was not affected to any serious degree. The ISBN product code above refers to the second make of RoboRally, as that is the one which you can still order from Wizards of the Coast. ]

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.