[GameHack] Improving Game Pieces For Reanimator By Dynamite Entertainment

One of my favorite hobbies is playing boardgames. One of my favorite side-hobbies is tinkering with or improving those same games. I'll create new content or rules for them, or sometimes I'll tweak the game's components to make the playing experience more interesting. Today's project describes the tweaks I made to my copy of Reanimator by Dynamite Entertainment.

A quick overview of the game: You (and a few friends, if you have them) are assistants to Herbert West as he attempts to perfect his reanimator serum. You roam the streets of Arkham, picking up ingredients, research, and corpses for your ghoulish experiments, while avoiding the city watch (as well as any undead you've accidentally let loose). You play through three acts for each player, then attempt to improve the serum. At the end of six rounds, you have one final experiment to finalize the process and either create the perfect formula...or die at the hands of the undead horde you've unleashed.

The game has many nifty 3D buildings that represent the town of Arkham, which is a neat selling point. However, the rest of the components are tokens and chits to represent your health, sanity, the undead, tomes you find, etc. Even Herbert West and the city watch are simple standees. This will not do. So I purchased some bit and pieces here and there and here are the improvements I've made to my "raising the undead" experience:

First, you start with six health and six sanity tokens. Why fool around with 12 easily-lost tokens when one red and one blue die can make an easier-to-use substitute. Just use them to countdown toward death and/or insanity.

For the cadavers/undead, I bought some generic zombie figs. (They glow in the dark too!) If they're laying down, they're cadavers used in experiments. If they're standing upright, they're undead now walking the streets of Arkham.

Tome and ingredient tokens? Feh, how about 3D tomes and small satchels instead! Picked these up from Gamecrafter's Board Game Candy site. (Got the zombies there too.)

For Herbert West and the city watch, I grabbed a couple of DC Heroclix from eBay. Shown here are a Cadmus Scientist and Police Sergeant. I'll swap out their bases for regular mini bases later, but they are a LOT better than the standees.

The Kickstarter for the Reanimator game had a gamemat you could buy that represented the streets of Arkham. I've checked and the mat is no longer available. So I picked up a generic cobblestone gamemat from Frontline Gaming. (Usually used for mini games.)

Put them all together and you have a more immersive Arkham to explore as you play!

Just don't let the city watch track you down and end your research!

Do-It-Yourself Lovecraft/Cthulhu Picture Dice

In my last blog post, I lamented that there wasn't yet a Lovecraft-themed set of Rory's Story Cubes. After all, they have many different sets available, as well as licensed sets like Batman, Doctor Who, Scooby Doo, and Adventure Time (later this year). So why not some Story Cubes based on the brain-melting horrors of The Great Old Ones?

So, as I usually do when I want something that doesn't exist, I made it myself.

My Lovecraft picture dice is a mini-set of three cubes with 18 iconic images of a Cthulhu-esque nature. I went online with a list of icons I wanted to find and, sticking to simple black-and-white line art, found some suitable artwork to use. I created a template of 20 1-inch squares, and fit each of the 18 images within. I had a set of spare white 6-siders that were 1/2 inch across, so I shrank my template by 50% (so the squares were now 1/2 inch across), then printed it out on a sheet of label paper. I cut out the squares, adhered them randomly to my spare dice, and now I have my own set of Lovecraftian picture dice to use with my Story Cubes. (I also plan to use them with Untold: Adventures Await upon Kickstarter fulfillment.)

Here's the image I created. I'll leave the descriptions of what each represents up to your imagination:

Oh, and if you wish to create your own set of Lovecraft picture dice, you can either grab the image above of download the original PNG file from my Google Drive at this link. Print it off, cut it out, and glue the 18 images to three spare dice. Then roll up some Lovecraftian nightmares of your own!

Cthulhu Insanity Dice Now On Kickstarter! Simplify Those Fear & Insanity Checks!

Ben Burns of Dark Cult Games just launched his Kickstarter for Cthulhu Insanity Dice. This set of two 10-sided dice are perfect for horror RPGs when the players fail a fear check or lose that last bit of remaining sanity. One dice has 10 different fear reactions: babbling incoherently, explosive rage, flee in panic, faint dead away, etc. The other dice has 10 phobias that could surface when the player takes enough mental damage. These dice are going to be an invaluable addition for any horror RPG player. And it's only $13 for a set! Check them out!

[Late, Late, Late Show] Random B Movie Title Generator

I believe my RPG of choice for the upcoming "Obsolete Simulations Roundup" will be It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show by Stellar Games.  (Role-playing in the world of cheesy B-movies!) While doing a bit of research, I stumbled across the Random B Movie Titler at Seventh Sanctum.  Not only is this PERFECT for a cheesy movie RPG, the titles it churns out is great fodder for your horror/sci fi adventures. Wouldn't YOU like to play in an adventure titled:


Annie Oakley versus The Bees

Battle Beyond Uranus

Dreadful Journey to Hyboria

Drought!, Part III

Lancelot and Aladdin versus The Ravager
Labyrinth of Satan

Mission of Bloodthirst
Plague Breaker

Ravager Attack, The Return

The Depraved Emperess Miller

The Destruction of De Sade

The Disease Breed

The Evil Case of The Heart Controller

The Eye Healer, The Final Chapter

The Minotaur from The Future

The Moscow Evil

The Paris Damnation

The Sensual Mystery of The Radioactive Eternity

Sniderman encourages you to check this nifty tool out. A bazillion inspirations await!