May 14, 2008

Participants: Jon, Jonathan, Nadine, Yitzchak, Dylan, Ari, Bill

We're back to a weekly Wed schedule after the various hagim. Also, Bill returns from the U.S. for a few weeks, to try once again to introduce us to the joys of roleplaying outside of D&D. Ari has been with us before, but not for a long time.

It's Alive

Jonathan 60, Jon 52, Nadine 49

I introduced Jonathan to the game, and we played the advanced version. Nadine got all the Villagers, while Jonathan seemed to get all the coffins. Nadine still completed her board first. But in the end, Nadine only scored 49, even with the 5 point bonus, while Jonathan scored a hefty 60: 44 on his board, and 16 coins.

Robo Rally

Jon+, Jonathan, Nadine, Yitzchak, Dylan, Ari

We weren't sure how long we wanted to play this, since we were waiting for Bill to come and start a roleplaying session. So we chose a single board and a single flag. And each robot had an option, two of which were very painful (if they shoot you, they switch your program for theirs/they push you instead of damaging you). What could go wrong?

Turns out nothing, for me. I saw that the game could be won in three turns with perfect cards and play and no interference. Somehow or another, I actually did it. The whole game went three turns, which was an hour.

On the very first turn, my cards were Move 2, Move 2, Move 1, Turn, Turn. I almost left them like this, when suddenly I realized that it would be safer to start with a Move 1 rather than a Move 2, so I switched cards 1 and 3. That was the key to winning. Everyone else went in front of me and I just shot them or pushed them. If I had done it as I had originally planned, someone would have fallen behind me and eventually shot or bumped me.

R-Eco

Dylan 17, Nadine 16, Jon 5

I'm amazed I got a score above negative, actually. It didn't seem like it for a while.

I came up with a variant for the game right before playing. I mixed up all the chips upside down, stacked them into four stacks of seven, and then flipped them right side up onto the four cards. We knew what the top chip of a pile was, but not what the next one was going to be. Colors and numbers were completely randomly ordered.

Turns out to be a blast. The scores are higher, since more people can acquire 5's, which makes the game more interesting, and not simply who takes the last chip, which is often what happens. Give it a try.

Caylus

Ari 103, Yitzchak 92, Jonathan 71

Jonathan's first game. I didn't see what happened.

Universalis / Children of Fire

Bill (GM), Jon, Dylan, Nadine

CoF is a light roleplaying system based on angels which you can download for free. Dylan and I had pre-made characters. Nadine claims that she had made one once when Adam had been planning to run a session, but either she never gave it to me or I couldn't find it. So she had to come up with a character as we played.

Universalis is a points base storytelling experience where it costs you points to introduce items or events that change the story, or to interrupt. The point was to create the setting for the CoF game. The whole things took about twenty minutes, during which I was trying to wrap my head around my first non-D&D RPG experience. In the end, the story setting was pretty much what Bill assumed it would be.

In, CoF, the three of us angels were sent down to Wichita to examine why a lot of prayers have been coming up to heaven, as well as complaints about strange abuse cases, crop circles, and loss of memory. I think we're supposed to think it's aliens, but obviously it's some sort of demon activity.

My character looks a bit like Dream from Sandman, but with a wolf motif and always has a wolf with him and a rod that can glow. I am distracted by the suffering of animals over humans, which I hammed up a lot. Dylan's character is a short portly guy with a glass eye. And Nadine's character looks like a 17 year old girl with blue hair and weird colors (think Delirium from Sandman). We made an impressive looking group. Wherever townsfolk ask what we're doing in town, I just say that we're here for the sci-fi convention.

So far, we're hitched a ride to a motel, heard some complaints from the townsfolk. Then we scouted out at night and I rescued a 16 year old boy from a crazed dog (or vice versa, depending on who you ask). That's it for two an a half hours. We got interrupted a lot and had fun.

February 21, 2007

Participants: Jon, Nadine, Elijah, Josh (*), Adam, Gili, Zack, Binyamin, Dylan, Genia, David K, David E

Nadine opened up game night, as I arrived late again. A new player, Josh, joined us for his first visit. Josh has been playing games in Jerusalem for quite some time, but only managed to make his first visit tonight. Dylan and Ganya also made a return after some absence. David E is one of my friends from Beit Shemesh, who happened to be around this evening and joined us for some Bridge.

I didn't take any notes, and not only forgot the details, but even the games we played. As usual, there were the various false starts as people jockeyed for the games they wanted.

I'll fill in what I remember, and others will fill in what they remember later.

Chrononauts

A commenter helped me find the name of this game. It might have been one of the expansions.

Nadine adds:

We played history fluxx or whatever it's called, the historical assumptions
are interesting but the play was confusing.

Power Grid

David K, Nadine, Zack, Elijah

Nadine adds:

David won. He did a good job and was ahead throughout. He had a capacity of 17 most of the game, while Zach and I were stuck at 16; we had both passed on the last 6 plant that David got. When we finally reached Step 3, I was second to bid, but there were no 6 or 7 plants so I passed. Zach was last, and one of the few 6 plants came up, letting him power 17. So he tied with David, who won it on money. Which is excellent for Zach's first play of this game. There was not a lot of competitive bidding for plants, many good ones were taken at cost by the last person. Elijah had a lot of free power and tons of money, but not enough capacity.

Zertz

Jon, Binyamin

This was my fourth game of Zertz, and it was the first game I played with any real seriousness. Binyamin and I thought things through in various directions, and made various exchanges. Each turn was carefully considered.

As the game rolled to a close, Binyamin needed either a white or gray stone to win, while I needed either a gray or black stone. And then we hit a situation not described in the rules.

This was surprising, since Kris writes his rules very well, and his games are designed with elegance. He even adds rules for special infrequent situations that may come up. Unfortunately, he missed this one.

In our game, Binyamin was able to place a stone but not remove a disk; all the disks were interior to the board. So, the balls were not isolated, but he was also unable to complete his turn. We didn't know if that meant that he should remove a disk, even though he couldn't slide it out, or if he didn't remove a disk at all. Of course, one way I would win, and the other way he would win.

The game was still an excellent game, aside from this quirk.

Update: Ah ha. I thought Kris wouldn't have overlooked this. From the rules:

However, it may occur that you cannot remove any of the vacant rings without disturbing the position of the other rings. In this case you must not remove a ring (i.e. your move ends after having placed a marble).

Thanks, Kris.

Cosmic Encounter

Dylan adds:

Josh - Warpish/Macron; Dylan - Vampire/Bully,Gambler; Genia - Vacuum/Clone; Adam - Vulch/Wrack +?

Adam sort of won. I got a very near first turn win by playing a demon flare to force Adam to cede me two bases, plus one I gained from allying with Josh on the first turn, and one I gained in my first challenge. I lost the second challenge by a near margin, and it all went downhill from there.

It was a rather weird power game, with most of us forgetting or being unable to use their powers - I forgot about Vampire and Bully (I used a Pentaform flare to swap them); Genia never got a high card to clone; Adam forgot or chose not to use Wrack and very few edicts were played for Vulch; and Josh's Macron powers paled in comparison to his Warpish. We went several rounds without any Warp Breaks or Mobius Tubes, and Warpish reached something like +40 to his strength before Adam finally got a Mobius Tubes.

Other strange things happened - I drew tons of cards because all I kept drawing were flares instead of attack cards, though I did get both the 30 and the 40. Josh barely got any cards, because nobody would attack him with his Warpish bonuses.

In the end, Adam sort of won - in that, he used a flare to win his last challenge, which Genia canceled. But we thought Genia's card only worked on edicts, so it passed and he won. Only after we started picking up did I read Genia's card and noticed that it said edicts or flares.

I think the game would have played very differently if everyone had been paying more attention (like forgetting about power usage, as noted above). A lot of fun, regardless.

Stephenson's Rocket

Jon 89, Gili 81, Binyamin 78

I like train games, so I thought this would be a no-brainer. Gili was also willing to give it a try.

Unfortunately, as the rules were explained, I began to get a sinking feeling. This was a Knizia game, through and through. It wasn't about trains, it was about points and set-collection. As the rules explanation wore on, I began to think "Acquire" done by Knizia.

Now, Knizia is brilliant, of course, and makes great games, sometimes. But you have to be in the mind set for him.

Worse yet, as the game progressed, it began to look more like "Acquire done by Knizia, but not quite finished". Leaving aside the mismatch between theme and mechanics, there were just a whole lot of mechanics which felt awkward. As usual, this may very well be because we played wrong or read the rules wrong.

One, moving the train and then putting the track behind it is annoying, especially when you have to pick up a station and place the track under it. That doesn't feel right. Two, when tracks merge, there is no way to indicate this, and trying to visualize it is made difficult by the track patterns that don't actually connect.

Three, the passenger mechanic, where you get a passenger if you connect to someone else's station, didn't feel right. Neither did the good chips, which were simply set-collection that perforce dominated the first part of the game.

Also, we kept bidding one share when someone else proposed to lay a track just to make them lose a share. It was so easy and cost essentially nothing.

Now, many of the above could simply be a result of first play inexperience. Maybe we just didn't value things properly. But the entire experience, so thematically promising, turned out to be rather dull in the end. Move collect money, move collect money. Collect lots of money. Gili was bored to tears. I was rather unengaged, myself.

I will have to read the rules myself to see if we missed something.

In our game, I quickly realized that it was not worth fighting for things with other people because there were so many other ways to win points. As a result, Gili and Binyamin fought a smidge more than I did, and I walked away with a relatively easy victory.

Update: The only rules we appear to have gotten wrong is: Stations may not be placed on towns, cities, or tracks, nor adjacent to locomotives or existing stations.

Grave Robbers From Outer Space

Bridge

Jon, David E, Nadine, Binyamin

After Stephenson's rocket, I went out for a few minutes and returned and sat down with a deck of cards. Others who were lightly playing a few other light card games that Josh had brought left and joined me for a few hands of Bridge.

David E and I have a special bidding system, which I essentially remember, but we didn't get to use it much, as we only played two hands.

Nadine adds:

Jon and Binyamin made 4 Spades, bid 2
Jon and David made 4 Spades, bid 4
Nadine and Binyamin made 3 NT, bid 3