Review of the Order of the Stick Adventure Game

You're probably thinking "Why the heck is she reviewing a board game?", but it's a board game based on a webcomic, and since that's kinda sort of a book (if you squint a little and like pictures), I'm going to review it. That and it's a whole lot of fun, so it deserves a review. ;) I'm going to stick this up on Amazon, methinks.

Seriously, this game is a lot of fun! And it's funny! (I love the cards that parody D&D spells, and most of Elan's cards are so silly, like "Gratuitous Nudity".) You don't even have to know the comic to enjoy it; one of my friends loves this game, and she's never read the comic. Then again, all my friends who have played this with me have been from my Dungeons and Dragons group, so it's probably to be expected that they'd enjoy a game that's based on a comic that's a parody of D&D. The characters that you get to play are the members of the Order of the Stick: Roy (the intelligent, lawful good, easily annoyed human party leader), Haley (the second in command- she's a loot-obsessed, chaotic good human thief), Elan (the moronic, cheerful, chaotic good human bard/swordsman), Durkon (the good, rather bland, dwarven cleric), Belkar (the probably-evil, bloodthirsty halfling), and Vaarsuvius (the good, gender-ambiguous elven wizard). The point of the game is to move into rooms (room cards get put on the table to create a map, or a kind of "Clue" board) and kill enemies to get their treasure, or "loot" as the game calls it. You can also attack other players for loot, but my group has its own house rules where we ignore that rule; so far no one playing Belkar has wanted to attack the others, and the rest of the characters don't really need to attack any of the other players.

In the game the characters all have their strengths and weaknesses, but balance out pretty well against each other; in theory, Roy and Haley would seem to be the best at the game since they're the ones with the most powerful attacks, but the other characters have just as good a chance at winning the game since beating the final boss (Xykon) isn't what determines the winner- the winner is the person with the most shticks (attack, stealing, and action type cards) and loot cards (these would be the equivalent of gold or money). The trick is to not let the other players pull ahead in how many of these cards they have.

For instance, I've read reviews online where people think Haley is too strong; the trick there would be to follow her around and stay on the same floor as her so she asks for help (since the loot without her face on them don't do her any good other than as bribes) instead of letting her go off on her own floor and kill things by herself, hence getting all the loot and making her start getting more powerful shticks where she won't need much help. Also, I've found that players really need to pay attention when there's a Haley in the game; when I played her, no one realized how often I was coming in and stealing their kills and loot until it was too late, which they could have somewhat prevented by not letting her get so powerful early on (make sure you kill an enemy before she can get there, and help, help, help!).

It also depends on the luck of the draw- what cards you get, how much loot you can snag in the beginning, and how many shticks you can get early on. I've kicked butt as Elan when I lucked out in getting lots of cards early, but last time someone played Elan without making him follow the other characters, so he ended up falling way behind on loot cards and shticks (the point of Elan is to help others and get loot that way, but you can't do that if you're not on the same floor as the other players). Really, you have to strategize and use what works best for the character you're playing, and everyone has an equal chance at winning.

The other problem I've read about in reviews is how long the game runs. It tends to run about 4 hours for my group; we've gotten the game down now so don't have to keep looking up the rules, but when we first started it took longer. But what my group does if the game starts to run long is to make up house rules- for instance, make it be three floors instead of four, or only need six shtick cards at the end instead of eight. The Board Game Police aren't going to come after you if you change the rules up a bit. ;)

This game is an awesome alternative to Dungeons and Dragons when some of the group can't make it (since my group doesn't play D&D if more than one person can't make the game). It also runs about the same time as our D&D game, which is perfect for us.

Ugh, moving is such a pain

I'm still feeling rather crappy from the medicine withdrawal (see this post for info on that mess), but at least I'm starting to feel creative again sometimes! For the past few months I've just felt so lethargic and apathetic that the last thing I wanted to do was make something, but I finally feel some of that pull to create again! It's not as strong as it used to be (there are some days where I still don't feel like doing anything), but at least I'm able to crochet sometimes and actually come up with ideas. :D I'm currently working on a pair of sleeves for the March EtsyFAST challenge of "books" (I'm making them to look like something that would be on one of Eowyn's dresses in The Lord of the Rings), and I started crocheting the next square for my Pratchgan. I also got a request for a custom pair of earrings, and as soon as the rest of my art supplies are here, I'm going to work on those.

And speaking of that (and the title of this entry), I'm in the process of moving my stuff from the apartment to my parents' house. Unfortunately, it's a very full house here (my parents, grandparents, and sister live here, too), so I don't have much room for my stuff; a lot of it is going to have to go into storage (like my desk, my bookshelves, most of my books [if Josh isn't able to keep them at his parents' house], my pottery wheel, my polymer clay oven, and most of the random furniture and knickknacks and things in the apartment). I'm going to try to keep most of my art supplies here, but I still have to figure out where exactly my craft bins will go. My main worry is that I won't be able to have my books with me. My library is my favorite thing (I have 455 books- it's definitely a library, lol) and I hate the idea of not having most of my books handy. I'm definitely storing my mysteries (I can't read crime books anyway while withdrawing since they make me too depressed), but I'm just hoping Josh will have room for my fantasy and classics; at least that way if I want a book, he can bring it down with him when he visits me. I'm also going to miss my many Lord of the Rings posters; my mom won't let me stick anything to the walls. At least I'll still be able to have my fantasy plaques and my Legend of Zelda wall scroll- that way my parents' den will at least look like I live in it, lol.

But anyway, the other hassle is changing my address. I have to go to the post office sometime in the next week to change it so my mail goes to the right place, then when I get my bills in the mail I'll have to change those so the address is different, and I also have to change my address online (hopefully I can remember all the sites!) and call my doctor, the cat's vet, the SPCA (for the tracking chip in said cat) and various places like that. Sigh. I also might be losing my cell phone (I can't afford it), so I'd have to alert those kinds of places again later.

Hopefully I'll be finished some of the art I'm working on soon (depending on how creative I feel and when Josh can pick me up the extra yarn I need for the sleeves). When I do, I'll finally post some art pictures. :)

Cuteness update

Still not an art update- or even a book update- but I wanted to share the cuteness of Clarabell interacting with my parents' bichon puppy, Chloe. There are a bunch of pictures here, so hopefully they won't stretch my blog or something. Be prepared for cuteness overload!


Yup, Chloe is pretty much sitting on the cat. XD Clara's thoughts: "See what I have to put up with?"


"Hey, what are you doing, kitty?"


"What the heck is she eating?"


Bookends guarding the doorway to the outside.


"We're not doing anything! I swear!"


This is Chloe's idea of "hiding". She always has her face or her butt sticking out from under the couch, thinking we can't see her.


Where the cat spends much of her day- enjoying the view of outside on a comfy ottoman. She doesn't get this kind of seat or view at home, and boy is she making up for it!


And this is an older picture, but I wanted to post it, too. This is the puppy giving kisses to Josh.


Hopefully these pictures made you smile- I know they did for me. :D

Long time no update

Sorry for not updating in a while- health problems have hit again. My back finally started to feel better, but then the medicine withdrawal got so bad at the end of last month that I moved back in with my parents (I didn't want to be alone for 12 hours a day while Josh is at work). Then I got hit with an allergic reaction that's lasted three weeks (we think it's from laundry detergent; I'm on steroids and Benadryl for it now and rewashed everything, but it hasn't cleared up yet), and the weather can't decide whether to be below freezing and snowing (last week) or 40 degrees or 70 degrees or sunny or rainy, so my back has been killing me again. Never a dull moment with my health, or lack there of!

I'm taking a bit more time off from art (at least until my back feels better when hopefully March will decide to stay one temperature and this allergic reaction stops driving me nuts), then I'm going to have Josh bring me my art supplies- at least the fibery and jewelry ones. At the moment I only have my sketchbook, colored pencils, and markers with me. I'm hoping to get back into my street teams once I'm feeling a little better, too. Until then, I'm mostly just reading and watching funny things because they make me feel happy in the chaos of the medicine withdrawal.

So that's the update on me. I may post some book reviews soon and pictures of my cat's antics with my parents' bichon puppy (if I can commandeer a camera), but probably not much art things for a while.