The End of Gaming as We Know It...

As a terrible storm descended upon Toronto, the members of WAGS huddled together in Kozure’s home for the final WAGS session of 2004, minus one member, Easy, who had wisely elected not to brave heavy snow and slushy streets to get into town.

In keeping with the “final days” theme of the evening, I had Wreckage and Gammarauders as the games for the evening.

We have played Wreckage a few times before, but I haven’t felt satisfied with any of our sessions. I keep thinking there’s a better game in there trying to get out. Tonight the game provided a fairly satisfactory result, but still had some nagging issues which I am now satisfied are part and parcel of the game design.

The first game, Tili joined us for the first time and demonstrated that survival of the fittest need not always go to the combative. While I engaged in aerial stunts and Shemp and Hapi battled it out near the centre of the table, Tili quietly sneaked in the victory by fairly rapidly poaching three gas cans.

In the second game, a much more drawn out battle occurred; with more manoeuvring and some drivers managing to limp on after sustaining a lot of damage, the game felt more strategic than usual. Unfortunately for Tili, battle damage left her unable to turn save in one direction, and unable to slow down except by collision. By this point, I had grabbed two cans, Shemp one, and Hapi had been eliminated by trying to go head to head with Shemp’s SUV in a mid-size sedan (my attempt to ram Hapi in reverse with my motorcycle predictably did more damage to me than to him). With all of us carrying gas, but none with enough to win, it was evident that we would have to hunt down one of the survivors to win.

In the end, I managed to snag Tili’s gas cans after she careened into a wall at full speed, in a conscious attempt to put herself out of her own misery. Reversing the whole way, I managed to run over the cans and tap lightly into the wall without destroying myself in the process. Reversing, it seems, is an overlooked tactic (I am Reverxxor!).

Wreckage is a game that I want to be better somehow. It seems to have all the right elements for a quick, fun game, but somehow they don’t add up. I think one issue is player elimination – Hapi had to sit out for about 15 minutes while we finished up. Another is the rather crippling effect of critical hits – and the very steep price for fixing oneself in an emergency repair. If you are (randomly) affected by critical hits early in the game, you can find yourself literally spinning your wheels with no chance of a comeback.

Suggested future house rules might include that any eliminated player may return in a new vehicle of the same colour (flip side, preferably) but has their victory condition upped by one – that is, they must now take four cans instead of the three required initially. They begin in a standard start location furthest from the action, or if two locations are equidistant, use the spinout counter. Another house rule may be to reduce the requirements for emergency repair – a player may, at his option, regain a steering card by sacrificing one card from the hand and applying a hit counter, as well as the standard sacrifice of two steering cards. As the game already punishes emergency repair players by effectively skipping one of their action phases, I believe this substitution is fair.

The second game was Gammarauders. Unfortunately with a long rules explanation and already running overtime as a result of a slow start, we only had about forty-five minutes to play. This tongue-in-cheek TSR game from 1987 puts a strange Godzilla/Mechagodzilla/Giant Robot spin on the usual Post-Apocalyptic tropes, adding strange twists like the “energy podinoids”, or pods for short, and “factoids”. All too convoluted to explain in a short blog entry, the game world is essentially the Gamma World universe from TSR put through a humour/bizarre blender and left overnight on the shelf to congeal. The result is a mutant creature that feels a little like Settlers of Catan (hexes, variable location resources) mixed with a wargame.

I really enjoy this game, having played many day-long sessions in high school, and I think that Shemp and Hapi warmed to it as well after the initial unfamiliarity. With less than an hour to play, we were well short of anyone winning (though I was on my way to losing) so hopefully we’ll get another crack at this in the new year.

So, with the last blog of a WAGS session in 2004, I’m pleased to say that this has been a great year for gaming. Thanks to Shemp for setting up the blog site, and thanks to all of my honourable opponents for a year that was much more recreationally fulfilling than years previous.

Big Drunken Tiger Kickboxer : Fatal Killer

It's a semi random title, and although it was actually the name of our hand of "Kung Fu Samurai", it appropriately sums up the theme of the evening: Frankenstein creations.

The bulk of the evening was spent playing an unholy union of HeroClix and Robo Rally (RoboClix? HeroRally?). Essesntially, we formed teams, as usual, but played on the RoboRally boards. To make up for the relative freedom of movement alloed to us by ditching the programming cards, we made the course pretty long... 4 boards, start flag int he center and the next 4 flags in the corners (in such a way that the board needed to be crossed diagonally between flags). In RoboRally, that would be a recipe for a 16 hour game, in Robo-Clix (Henceforth christened) it took about 1 1/2. Since I'm a HeroClix dummy (I'm not a comic book fan, and therefore can't really tell the superheros apart, or know what they are supposed to do), I picked my team based on cool figurines. I wound up with Iceman, Doc Oc and a sniper. I don't really recall the other teams that well, but here goes: Luch had Blade, Daredevil and a blue/orange guy with a gun; Kozure had Captain America, Storm and another girl, Shemp had Jeanne Gray, Toad and Rogue.

Either way, random beat out knowledgeable this night, as I somehow cruised to victory. Doc Oc seems to be the ultimate RoboClix character, since his combination of leadership (which potentially allows a second action), Willpower (which allows pushing without damage) and climbing (which allows him to break away without rolling, and otherwise ignore character and terrain hindrances) proved extremely powerful. Iceman, with his ability to put up barriers, could also have been very useful... (Side note: My original plan was to put up barriers around the flags and have Doc Oc climb in and out on successive actions... I wasn't really able to get the timing right. Oh, and Ice Man died).

Other MVPs:
Kozure's Captain America, since he was in second place
Shemp's Jeanne Gray, for throwing many a character into a pit.
Luch's Blade, for taking a lickin' and keepin' on tickin'

All in all, a fun game. It improves on HeroClix by making the terrain an important feature, and for giving direction to an otherwise random fight-fest. I'm still a little uncomfortable with the rules (esp. the move OR fight rule, which gives an ENORMOUS advantage to the few characters who can do both... like the magneto clan). Also, I realized that if I had been killed, I would have been twiddling my thumbs for an hour or so until the game ended (since everyone else had pretty much abandoned chasing the flag in order to take me down). I think that Kozure's suggestion was a good one: Take the team to 200 points, so that more actions can be undertaken concurrently (chase the flag AND kill the leader).

Next up was Kung-Fu Samurai, a silly card game involving making a movie and sending your protagonists and antagonists to fight the characters of other movies... or something. Either way, the game was fun (and funny). This one is firmly entrenched in the Star Munchkin/ Chez Geek "play to have a good time" type game. Strategy is pretty much nil, it's mostly about having a chuckle at the cards and seeing how the whole thing plays out (oh yeah, and you get to make up a kung fu movie title at the beginning, too!). Draw cards, fortify yourself, screw yer neighbour, end your turn. Draw cards, fortify yourself, screw yer neighbour, end your turn. That type of thing. More than Star Munchkin or Chez Geek, there is quite a bit of text to read, and more cards in your hand each turn, which slows things down a bit more than the others. It's probably my least favorite of the three, but still fun for what it is.

RoboClix: 6.5
Kung Fu Samurai: 5.5

Rambling on the Rails to Pirate's Cove.

This entry will be a bit more free form than most. Rambling, so as to entertain Easy, who was absent. (Punk.)

(It's a busy time of year, that's my excuse, and I am sticking to it.)

How'd it go Wednesday? Anything interesting?

The standard sort of interesting. Game-playing, Kickass Chilli (thanks to Ogami).


We played two games of Ticket to Ride. Ogami won the first with four players
(Tilli played) and Kozure won the second with three players.

Then we played Pirate's Cove. Shemp won the first game. I think we played a second game of Pirate's cove, but I can't remember for certain, or who won.

Actually, I am certain we played a second game. The first game of Pirate's Cove we played, Shemp and Kozure actually tied for points, which by the rules is resolved by a final player-vs-player battle. Shemp won, but it was a big fight. It was a three player game, so we had two legendary pirates on the go. Kozure and Shemp both teamed up to defeat Blackbeard, and then fought. And then there was a tie, and another Kozure-Shemp throwdown. Epic.

The second game of Pirates Cove, Tilli played. The winner of the second Pirate's Cove game was either Kozure or Ogami, but Kozure still can't remember who won, but knows it wasn't him. I know it wasn't Shemp or Tilli. Must have been Ogami, then. I think that matches up with my recollection. There was a battle with the Flying Dutchman, who was also hanging around on the first game. Of Pirate's Cove, not Ticket To Ride. The Flying Dutchman in Ticket to Ride would just be wierd. Since I am dictator, I decree that Ogami won the last game last week.

If we can't even keep track of winning, so much for being able to keep track of winning, showing, and placing. Maybe we can start that with the New Year. We could resolve to...

HMMM - this is a little light on analysis. That's the problem with waiting nearly a week to Blogue.

Ticket to Ride (actually, both games) have relatively simple mechanics which lend themselves to a finite set of tactics that can be mastered. Strategy is almost beside the point in TTR, I think, due to the randomness of the tickets that you can recieve. Both are fun enough to play with anyone at any point, but neither seems particularily DEEP. Maybe that's why I am having some difficulty writing about them.


Look. Hey, look. Here's the thing. Both games are prime for what Kozure calls "Meta Gaming". Playing the players. Trying to guess what others will do. Trying to conceal your intentions. The players are all trying to pull off a con (a confidence game), with brightly coloured, well designed pieces. It's a more elaborate poker.

Fun. Interesting. You can do some math on the game. Resistant to commentary.


Apologies to Kozure for the liberal cut and paste theft from his email.

I am such a punk.

Win, Lose Or Draw

Well folks, it's been nearly a year, so I decided to roll up my sleeves and attach some quantitative values to our decidedly qualitative experiences in WAGS. In short, the win-loss rates of our various players.

Although I can't really attach the Excel chart itself, I can post our respective records, in alphabetical order:

Easy: 29W, 56L, 0T = 34%

Kozure: 15W, 72L, 1T = 18%

Hapi/Ogami/????: 21W, 63L, 0T = 25%

Shemp: 32W, 53L, 1T = 38%

Tili: 1W, 3L, 0T = 25%

We have played 99 rounds of 39 different games in 45 sessions, averaging 2.2 rounds a session. The most played game is tied three ways between Domaine, Carcassonne and Princes of Florence.

One thing that this chart does not reflect is the rank order of finish, i.e. 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th, which might be more instructive. Since we have not been keeping track of this ranking quite so dilligently, I could not generate these statistics. Despite my relatively dismal win record, I do think that if points were awarded for 2nd or 3rd place, I would rank a little higher.

But, as it is, I am teh suXXor.

Return of the King

This Wednesday we played two games which look similar on the surface, but are substantially different in practice... El Grande and Risk (Lord of the Rings Edition).

First up was El Grande. Frankly, I'm surprised at how long it's been since we've played this one. It' s probably my favorite game, yet there has been a constant flow of new games, or games I'd like a second crack at, keeping this one off the radar for a while. Either way, I'm happy we played it! The game started with Shemp letting us all know that he had been on the 'Geek, and come up with a new strategery to try out. OF course, that's all it took for us all to target him as the leader! Unfortunately, it was to no avail... in the end he won by ONE POINT. I say that with all caps because I was the one who came in second... Always nice to see a photo finish.

Second was RISK, Lord of the Rings Edition. All of us had played standard RISK before except for Shemp. After a brief recap, and an overview of the considerable changes specific to this edition, we got going. True, this is still RISK... and the game is therefore somewhat "simple" in concept and execution compared to most of our other "big" boardgames (think El Grande, Ideology, Civilization, etc), but the changes bring enough to the table to make this a pretty fun game. The movement of the ring eliminates the original's two biggest flaws... player elimination and eternal game length; the leaders, Keeps, places of power and missions add depth and strategy options completely missing in the original; the instants and events add a fun level of surprise; and finally the board and pieces are pretty attractive.
The game saw me and Shemp as good while Kozure and Luch were evil. It's a shame that this distinction has nothing to do with the game other than inital placement (and a few card mechanics). Having the good somehow work together, somehow related to the movement of the ring, might have brought the game closer to the actual theme. As it is, me and Shemp started doing what we do best... fighting each other (in the North-West) at the expense of either of our chances. Meanwhile, Kozure and Luch were amassing armies and territories to the East. Kozure was dragged into a few fights he didn't do to well in (the dice were not his friends this night), leaving Luch and his massive hordes with total control of two regions and a runaway win by the time the ringbearers made it off the map.

I had a great time, and I have to say that I was very surprised to get a whole game of Risk in after El Grande while still being out by 11pm!

Note to self: Saying "Really?!!! You're going to do that? Are you sure?" never actually deters a player from making a good move against me.

RISK (Lord of the Rings edition): 7

Easy

So... many... cards

This week we delved into the CRAZY world of healthy (?) snacks and quick'n'dirty card games.

Ever had organic gummy bears? They are yummy. We also had smartfood popcorn, cranberry trailmix and veggies. Of course, we're all still devastated that Luch's soy "ice cream" bars were accidentally left out of the freezer... or not.

The quick and dirty card games started with Falling! Still don't have a handle on this one. Either we're not playing right (seems likely) and/or the game is somewhat broken (again, likely). Our first 3 hands were chaos, and the last two had all players stuck holding cards they couldn't play until we landed. Anyway, all that took about 6 minutes...

Next up was Chez Geek. this was a pleasant surprise! Not a serious game by any means, and not one involving a whole lot of strategy, but here is a game that is just about getting a bunch of people together to laugh and have fun. Essentially, everyone plays roomates, each competing to be the most "Slack". Slack is accumalted by vegging out, sleeping, having great nookie, eating, drinking and having fun friends. Slack is frustrated by loud garbage trucks interrupting nookie, obnoxious aquaintances intruding on your space, and TV distracting you from a more "Slacktastic" endeavour. Every player has a different job and slack goal, and the mechanics essentially revolve around drawing and playing cards on yourself or others. Every turn you can call aquaintances to your or your roomate's rooms, and/or buy stuff or go places according to your finances and free time (your job constrains how much money and free time you actually have). our game saw plenty of nookie being had and interrupted (it should be noted that Tili consistently had the best nookie... Kozure you lucky dog). Probably my favorite card in the game is "Over enthousiastic guy", an aquaintance who goes from room to room congratulating anyone who does anything particularly "SlackWorthy". The game encourages the acting out of scenes, and there's quite a bit of laughing... always a good thing! My only criticism would be that it runs a little long for what it is, but that could easily be solved by having everyone agree to playing to a slightly lower goal. I'm not normally a guy who goes for theme over mechanics, but this one does what it does pretty well, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

After that, we played Star Munchkin. We'd all played this one before. this is a game which essentially aspires to the same goal as Chez Geek... Funny, light, some competition but not much real strategy. It succeeds just about as well, but given the chance I'd probably play Chez Geek again first.

Next, we played Chrononauts. Again, we'd all played this one before. I felt a bit more comfortable this time, and didn't waste as much time trying to corelate the "patch" events with the trigger dates. It plays pretty smoothly once you are used to it. The outcome seems too random to make this a favorite of mine (it seems that "right time, right place" happens a lot, such as having other players trigger the right paradoxes, and not cancel certain patches, can often win the game). Quite chaotic in that sense, but still fun to play and defintely an admirable effort in game/ theme/ mechanic design.

We closed off by playing another round of Chez Geek. All in all, 9 games played in one evening! I can't remember who won any of them for sure, but I had a good time!

Chez Geek: 7

Easy

Conquest-A-Go-Go

So, last night was an evening of TWO rounds of Domaine, a chaotic game of Tigris and Euphrates, nice wine, chocolate, and of course Easy's spectacular venison stew!

Things were interesting this week, as we had a chance to explore strategies in a couple of games that we had played before, but are far from having mastered. First up was Domaine - this time we got the rules closer to correct than ever before, only messing up the endgame rule that one can't draw from the chancery after the last card is gone from the draw pile. That's fairly minor, considering some of the flagrant errors that we have made in the past on this one.

First time around, we were all fairly aware of what was happening on the board, but it didn't quite prevent me from completing an L^3G, which is Shemp lingo for the Large Late Land Grab, typically the winning maneuver in one of our games of Domaine. Second time around, we were all wise to this, and Ogami pulled off a new winning strategy, employing a central starting location and judicious use of Treaties/Alliances to keep others with more firepower (like yours truly) from encroaching on his region. Other notable strategies this game were Kozure's second place effort (attempting to control one resource laden side of the board), my mostly-failed attempt at using one soldier laden region to roll over other players, and Easy's disasterous attempt to control a resource scarce side of the board.

After these efforts, we moved on to Tigris and Euphrates, for the first time in more than four months. We mostly had a good retention of the rules, but strategies were foggy indeed. Easy easily displayed the most Snucular/Sneakular tactic, by causing conflicts between two other players, disrupting both of their tactics. That kept me, personally, off-balance and reacting most of the game. Luckily, last night off-balance, reacting, and judicious timing of the end game were sufficient to give me a win with 8 victory points. Easy recieved 7, Kozure 6, and Ogami less than that.

Seems to me that we will need to play this one a little more frequently if we hope to get more respectable final scores happening - on the up side, though, we are all fairly evenly matched. Definitely competitive, and definitely fun.

And the dinner? Let's just say that it was definitely the classiest we have had on a WAGS night, and is unlikely to be matched anytime soon - special thanks to Easy for the meat and Mrs. Shemp for the wonderful selection of vino. 'Twas bellisimo!

Bid-O-Rama

Bidding Based Game Madness - last night's session consisted of a longish 5-player game of Traders of Genoa, 1.75 rounds of Modern Art, a meat lasagna, and some x-tra crispy garlic bread.

mmmmmm, garlic.

The Tili playing = Shemp winning hypothesis recieved some supporting evidence, but is still far from a foolproof predictor of results.

mmmmmmm, results.

Well, actually, results will follow shortly; first, a commentary on Traders of Genoa. I continue to be confounded by the ceaslessly shifting character of ToG. It seems to me each time we play has a vastly different 'feel' to it - they are all enjoyable, but pacing and results vary a lot. I have a feeling that this is intrinsic to the mechanics of the game - the part of the board that any given turn takes place in is random, and the fact that everyone's conflicting agendas are in play means that the course of a turn is chaotic without being random. I think that this game definitely hits the sweet spot of "Variable, but not too Random". For further reference to this point, see Kozure's post about The Perfect Game. I also think that, as the social interaction is a vital and large component of this game (The Perfect Game Point 7), the shifting players and their shifting moods lead to a fairly wide variation in the "feel" of each session.

This was Tili's first time playing ToG, and she was definitely the most accomplished first time player that has showed up in our corner of the universe - I don't remember dollar values, but each played earned far more than in times previous. Collectively, our game ending scores broke the bank, so it seems that we are learning the game. I was able to pull it out in the end, following a strategery* of accumulating priviledges and delivering messages (coupled with total stinginess) to get a final count of 840 Florins. I believe that Easy place second in this one, as he was an order filling machine.

We had planned on playing Domaine, but there wasn't enough time to do that, so instead we pulled out the Modern Art deck and Chips - Easy gave us a heads-up about the distribution of cards (less esteemed artists have the greater number of works available), and we were ready to go. (Not too much was different from the last time that we played. We all seemed to absorb the lesson that it is usually better to take someone else's money for a painting that you are selling, rather than try to purchase it yourself, and had a fun first round, where I managed to pull out a victory.

The second game was slightly truncated due to a general sleepyness, and resulted in an Easy victory for Easy. This was thanks in part to a critical math failure on my part, choosing a profit of 40 G's over a profit of 60 G's, and giving the 60 G's to Easy. I believe that the margin of victory was less than 20, but I'm not positive. If that's true, though, I messed up on the Double Fixed Price auction of Krypto's work big-time.

Overall: a fun night of bidding games.

Next Week: Conquest-o-rama! Domaine followed by Tigris and Euphrates. Back-up quick game is still under consideration. We should try to play Domain by the proper rules, this time, eh?

The Quest for the Holy Grail... of Gaming

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add,

but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 - 1944)

Like the Perfect Storm, the Perfect Woman/Man or the Perfect Hamburger, the Perfect Game is likely to exist only in the realm of theory and sweet, sweet dreams (well, not the storm, but you get the idea).

But that doesn’t stop us from theorizing about them.

Strangely, though I have found video games and movies which I find to be as close to perfect as is possible, I’ve not yet found a board game which seemed to succeed quite as well as those other media. Some come close, but at least for me, none seem quite ‘perfect enough’.

Obviously, the ideal will vary from person to person, and, perhaps more significantly, from gaming group to gaming group. The concept of “meta-gaming” – that esoteric atmosphere of groupthink which affects how any player games in a well known circle – has a marked effect on what games might “fly” and what games might not in any given group.
So, keeping in mind my own preferences, but also that of our own illustrious Weekly Amateur Gaming Society, here is my rough outline for the perfect game:

1. PLAYING TIME: Playable in 60-90 minutes – 120 minutes at absolute outside.


2. PLAYER LIMIT: Playable by 2-6 players, and scales well at all player numbers


3. DOWNTIME: Has low levels of downtime and low amounts of “move paralysis” – that is, the number of action options available to a player during any given turn or turn phase should be neither so numerous nor so complex as to be daunting.


4. BUILDING: Involves “building” in some way – creating and improving on something, so that you end the game with something “better” than you started. For example – more money, better city, more powerful character.


5. CONFLICT: Involves “conflict” in some way – either actual fighting or economic/qualitative/quantitative competition.


6. NOT TOO RANDOM: Minimizes randomness – players should never feel as though the luck of the die/draw is the only factor in success


7. SOCIAL INTERACTION: Involves enough player interaction that a social atmosphere is created, while avoiding interaction which otherwise slows down the game.


8. EASY TO TRACK: Minimizes calculation or the need for extensive record/bookkeeping – i.e. everything is at your fingertips or in front of you and does not have to be closely tracked by a complex process.


9. SCREW YOUR NEIGHBOUR: Gives the opportunity for “screw your neighbour” tactics – a way to play to thwart the plans of others, but in a manner that is otherwise avoidable by careful play and not overly frustrating.


10. DOWN BUT NOT OUT: A mechanic for dealing with the possibility of being knocked out of the game – that is, if someone is in a losing position, there is a way to fight back if carefully played.


11. LEADER REWARDS: A mechanic to address the standard “kill the leader” situation that rewards being in the lead without making being the leader unstoppable.


12. VICTORY CONDITIONS: A victory condition track (victory points or score) which permits the fun of being able to see how roughly how close other players are to each other (fostering competition) while maintaining some element of surprise.


13. THEME/FEEL: Game has a strong and interesting theme that is colourful but also relates to the game mechanic without bogging down the game. Execution of the mechanics of the game and the theme should mesh well at all levels. It should “feel” right.


14. REPLAYABILITY: Game should have enough “depth” that it can be played more than once – conversely, it could be simple enough that complex strategies are possible (like chess or bridge) even given relatively simple rules.

That’s all I can think of right now in terms of criteria. I’ll now analyze the top-rated/most-liked games in our group based on these points.

Puerto Rico – generally considered by popular opinion to be the best game out there. Going through the list, it’s successful on points 1-4, 6, 8, 9,12-14. Items 5, 7, 10 and 11 are less successful.

Pirate’s Cove – Does well in points 1-5, 7-9, 12-14. Only item 6 and 10 are not as well addressed. No one is ever knocked out completely, but if you fall behind, you’re probably screwed.

Tigris and Euphrates – This one is debateable, just because my mind doesn’t deal well with the more abstract strategy involved in some areas of this game. Points 1, 2, 4-6, 8, 9, 12-14 are done well. Point 3 (for me), 7, 10-11 are not as good.

Settlers of Cataan – Very popular world-wide, but very flawed. Points 1, 2 (sorta), 3-5, 7-9, 12-14 are good. Major drawback is point 6; 10 and 11 are less successful.

Bang! Done well are 1-3, 5-9, 11-13. A major, major drawback in this game is point 10. The other weakpoint in this game is almost complete lack of building/improvement – point 4 – and point 14, due to the non-fun of being forced to sit out.

Deadwood. Good: 1-4, 6-11, 13,14. Not so good: not so much conflict (5) and its generally hard to tell who’s winning (point 12) if the money is hidden, which it generally is.

Princes of Florence: Well done: 1-4, 8-14. Less well done: 5 (virtually no direct competition except in bidding, which might be enough), 6 (card draw at the beginning can make or break strategy) and 7 (no real need to talk to anyone except during bidding process)

El Grande: 1-2, 5-9, 11-14 are all good. Downtime/Move Paralysis (3) is a bit of problem for me in this game because of the depth of strategy involved. You never actually feel as though you’ve “built” anything (4), even though your kingdoms generally become larger. If you fall behind in this game (10), you generally stay behind, but the mechanic of the bid cards does permit a certain degree of comeback possibility if played correctly, so it’s half and half.

Civilization: (only included because I like it so much, but admit its flaws) 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12-14 are done well. 1 is way out (6-8 hour play time), 3 can be a problem if you don’t pay attention, 6 is a problem with combat, 8 for resource difficulties (though they probably did as well as they could), 10 because if you’re out in this game, you’re OUT. 11 – big time kill the leader issues with this game, with no real tangible benefit for being the leader to offset.

Now – if I’ve forgotten a popular game in our group, let me know.

During the comments, I’ll look for suggestions and possible themes for a possible future “perfect” game. Feel free to throw out suggestions or additions/modifications to the list of “perfect” criteria.

We are All Bulldogs on the Pantleg of Opportunity

"All hail to the thief

But I'm not!

Don't question my

Authority or put me

In the dock

Cozimnot!

Go & tell the king that

The sky is falling in

When it's not

Maybe not."

2+2=5

from the album "Hail to the Thief"

Radiohead

As jackbooted blackshirts goose-stepped their way through the streets of Wellington, New Zealand, for the second time in the night, I decided it was time to reflect on the timely political commentary that doubled as a game in the form of Ideology: The War of Ideas.

Ideology, a first-time effort from designer Andrew Park and published by Z-Man Games, is a very compact game, both in terms of a well-written and bug-free ruleset as well as its physical box size. Once out of the box, however, the game both literally and metaphorically expands dramatically.

Ideology represents the 20th century conflicts between clashing “ideals” – Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism. Each of the ideologies, controlled by 2-5 players, competes to obtain 12 points of global influence by bringing various regions under their sway.

Using military, economic and culture influence, drawn at the start of every turn during the resource phase, players may influence uncontrolled regions during the foreign influence phase, or initiate conflicts to eliminate enemy influence during the conflict phase. During the trade phase (just before foreign influence and conflict), players may discard influence card up to the number of regions controlled by the ideology. After trade comes development, wherein the players improve their holdings and develop advancements. After the dust has settled, a diplomacy phase follows, in which a very elegant method of determining political stance (peace, neutral, war) can have dramatic effects on the following turn. Finally, during the assessment phase, nations are increased in development and players check to see if anyone has fulfilled the end-game condition of 12 global influence points. If not, turn order is determined for the next turn and play continues.

The game seems initially complex, but gameplay is smooth and interactive. Ideology also often manages to mirror historical conflicts and situations (with the exception of the Fascist takeover of Hobbit-land above) with startling familiarity.

In two game sessions, the Soviet-Afghan war, a mini-WWII and the rise of dictatorships in South American made their appearance. Not to be confined to history, however, the games also saw Canada become completely Communist, a brief Islamic revolution in Japan, and a fascist invasion of Cuba.

In our first session, with Adolf Easy, Commie Shemp, Mullah Hapi and King Kozure competing, we failed to recognize the threat of the Red Menace’s iron curtain ability, and reacted too late to Mother Russia clasping most of Asia to its ample steel bosom. Communism reigned supreme in this world, comrade.

In the second, with our lessons squarely learned, somehow Shemp and Easy drew identical ideologies to the previous game, but with President Kozure and Emperor Hapi now making an appearance. The game was much more strategic this time, with an all-out “kill the leader” tactics much in vogue. Despite constant attacks and a very weary-looking Adolf Easy weathering union riots in Germany, the Fascists marched to victory. Shemp made frequent use of the totalitarianism special ability to stomp on the head of fledgling Capitalism in Canada. Capitalism, under the shaky leadership of President Kozure, managed only a dismal last-place finish, with Hapi and Shemp taking third and second respectively.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the game. Mechanics were tight but not confining, pacing was good without a lot of downtime, and the theme was well explored. My only quibble might be with the thin cardstock of some of the counters. I initially had a problem with the small size of the influence and advancement cards, but after actually playing the game, I realized that any larger and you would need a ping-pong table to play. As it was, even on Shemp’s medium-small dining room table, we had a tight fit. A minor drawback to a game debut which, in my opinion, is one of the strongest so far in my collection.

To kick off the evening, in honour of our theme, “Hail to the Thief”, we played a round of Taboo with US election-themed words. Chimpanzee, Pantleg, Pie, United Nations, Moral Majority, Fallujah, Al Gore, George W. Bush and other similarly loaded words, people and phrases made their way into the lexicon. A lot of fun that certainly put us in the mood for Ideology.

Betrayed by Bugs, Snakes and Bad Art

Last night, at a special Holloween edition of WAGS, we tried out two new games... Betrayal at House on the Hill and Modern Art.

To the tune of an eclectic (and sometimes only tenuously related to Holloween) playlist handpicked by Shemp, we gorged on the scariest food of all: Arby's, Twinkies and something... else (which was white and stretchy but otherwise unidentifiable). It is worth noting that Kozure's "Extreme Baked Potato" probably ranks as the single scariest part of the evening...

The first game, Betrayal at House on the Hill, had us all exploring a haunted house toghether. As each room is revealed, we would find items, witness unspeakable events and uncover terrible omens. Each omen revealed makes it progressively more likely that one of the players' character will go insane and betray the group (which is called "the haunting"). When that happens, the traitor reads a text which describes the nature of his insanity/ transformation, as well as his diabolical mission. Similarly, the remaining good players read a different text describing their objectives to get out of this mess.

Our first session saw Luch transform himself from a kid who feared nothing skeleton related, but was terrified by bugs, to... a... Bug Lord. Suddenly, giant insects filled the mansion and the rest of us were left scrambling trying to concoct a bug spray we could use to kill them all. Sadly, we didn't even come close. (Although, we had a very "movie" moment when Shemp came rushing down to rescue Kozure from a giant beetle with his very sharp axe, only to have it THUD into it's hide and then get eaten.)

Our second session had us exploring a house which was almost entirely basement. This time, Shemp turned on us by turning into a giant two headed snake. The rest of us where supposed to rush to cast a spell so we could destroy the heads before he got too big. Unfortunately, we forgot the rush part and pretty much just let him grow to full size. Obviously, he won (and I had the distinction of being the only character eaten alive that game).

All in all, this game was fun, but not as much as I had hoped. For some reason, most of these "exploration" games seem to have a problem with pacing. I had read that the first game would be the best, because you didn't know what to expect and the flavour text on the cards and rooms would be new. I didn't feel that way. Having to stop and read the text all the time ruined the momentum for me. In our second game, the first exploration phase went more quickly becasue we were breezing through most of the text, and I enjoyed it more. Once the haunting begins, we hear the only flavour text which matters... the transformation of the madman. This is when the real fun begins (although having to stop the game to absorb our goals and set up the board with the monsters also breaks up the pacing). In the two scenarios we played, I was impressed by how different the game felt due to the nature of the haunts. If they can be equally "fresh" across all 50 scenarios, I would be impressed. I look forward to experiencing more of them!

Next up was Modern Art. This is an older game by Reiner Knizia (Tigris and Euphrates) in which everyone plays art dealers, trying to make as much money by buying and selling paintings. The mechanics are nice and simple, yet there's enough variety and surprise to keep it interesting. Essentially, you put up a painting for auction and have everyone bid for it according to the auction type on the card (free auction, sealed auction, once around, fixed price or double lot). The winner of the auction pays the player who put it up (unless the auctioneer himself gets it, in which case he pays the bank). The game goes on for 4 seasons, and at the end of each season (concluded once any artist sells five paintings) the artists are ranked by popularity (most paintings sold). The top three are worth money and the others aren't. At his point, the players sell their all their purchased paintings back to the bank and hope they turned a profit. The trick is that which every passing season, a mechanism allows buyers to capitalize on an artist's earlier fame. In the end, the most money wins.

We played two games of Modern Art. As with any bidding game, the first go around is difficult because you really don't know what things are worth. Still, since the game has simple mechanics it didn't take us too long to get into it. We drastically overbid everything the first time, but in the end Kozure (House of Tokyo) came out ahead. The second game had us all bidding lower than our first game (but, still too high,I'm guessing). Lucky for me, I made a KILLING by banking on an artist who had placed first on the first two rounds. Everyone else thought there wouldn't be enough cards left to have him place highly again, but I had three in my hand. I payed next to nothing and he came in first for a third time. I won that one by a large margin!

Modern Art was lots of fun. It was quick, simple and still had us very involved. I could see quite a few different types of people liking this one, and I think it will come out quite a bit. I was thinking about the transactions last night on my way home. It occurred to me that when we look at an artist which is likely going to make, say $40 000 per painting that round, if we pay another player $37 000 for it then we make only $3000 while the seller made $37 000!!! (in other words, paying money to give another player a big lead). Seems obvious now, and maybe everybody but me figured this out last night, but considering this fact I'm surprised we weren't bidding closer to HALF of what a painting is worth rather than near it's total.

We'll see next time...

Betrayal at House on the Hill: 6
Modern Art: 8

Clever people, those Romans.

They knew how to create an empire and hold it together.

This post will be a hopelessly inadequate report on TWO sessions spent finishing our epic, long format game of Civilization. The first session has been ably logged by Kozure here, and also by Easy, here.

Our second session began with the Medeival Age, and was very chaotic. The previous posts mention the barreness of the world that we were playing in, and it led some of the newer players to unwise military conflict. While the Shempezuelans and the Causcausians made unwise military forays (resulting in handicapping losses) the Kozurians and Tilitumblers were largely peaceful, trading with each other, expanding, and racking up a huge lead in terms of victory points. The Easylanders were hemmed in to a tight territory, geographically, and forced to pour resources into defending their land against the Shempezuelans, meaning that they couldn't get an effective expansion strategy going. The second session ended about halfway through the gunpowder age, and had Kozure and Tili well in front, with scores in the mid to high twenties, and the other three players clustered with scores in the low to mid teens.

Sometime in the two week gap between session two and three, the weak players with no resources realized that fighting amongst themselves would not work, so the third session became a game of "try to pull down the leaders", that being the only way to get any resources. Unfortunately for Kozure, Tili was more advantageously located, and he suffered the brunt of this tear-down-the-leader approach. Tili was able to end the game with a diplomatic victory, and fifty-some victory points. Shemp came second in the low thirties, so it was an extremely convincing victory for largely staying out of conflict with the other civilizations. Thanks to some highly unlucky rolling, Kozure dropped to third place (high twenties), followed by Easy (teens) and ????, with nine.

Whew. Now for comments on the gameplay.

1) The fact that Tili had a vast lead, and was able to purchase the UN card resulted in a very strange last round, where each player went all out on combat, knowing that there was little to lose. This means that the final standings didn't really reflect what would happen if Tili's lead hadn't been quite so gigantic.

2) I think all players would agree that there really needs to be some better way to distinguish the units of different ages from each other. They just look too similar at a glance, and this resulted in some (thankfully hilariously) one-sided conflicts. Coloured bases perhaps? Dots indicating age? I'm not sure what, but some improvement here would smooth out some of the rough patches of the game, for sure. The obsolesence mechanic itself is great, and allows for some real ups and downs in the course of each civilization's history. Just needs a bit of cosmetic tweaking to make things easier, in my opinion.

3) We also need to come up with some kind of chart showing which military units are current and which city improvements are available, and who should get the credit for each. Everyone had to ask the questions too many times.

4) I think that a lot of the problems players had with resource scarcity were particular to this session, and therefore not really a game mechanic problem. Playing again would be the only way to test this. I would note that Tili was the only player to place her two initial settlers on different continents from each other. It didn't work out initially, but it did give her a better shot at being near whichever lands turned out to be productive. I think that is a tactic to consider for next time.

5) This is all really just nit-picking. I loved the epic sweep of the game, and would gladly play again...in a couple of months for an interrupted game, or on a day off. Unlike some other players, I would want to stick with a four-age game, because I feel like we didn't really get to see the modern age play out. Things were truncated by the Diplomatic victory.

6) I just accquired and started to play the computer game that started it all: Civilization One! Seems OK, but not as fun as the board game, since there is no human interaction.

There you have it.

Viva Shempezuela!, and looking forward to the comments. This game deserves them.

Duel of Ages... The Theme!

In sharp contrast to the last two weeks (both spent playing one game of Civilization, which is still unfinished), last night we played 4, count 'em, 4 different games! While Duel of Ages was the theme, we didn't actually play that game... instead, I chose 1 game suited to each of the four eras (Ancient, colonial, modern and future).

For Ancient, we played Citadels (with the "Artist" from the expansion thrown in). This is a fun game which I always wish we could play more often. True, something seems missing (we actually discussed that the game would feel more satisfying if the "district" cards somehow had more character or functions... leading us to the interesting possibility of combine Citadels with a Princes of Florence type board). This session saw Kozure spend most of the game as the King, Shemp and I in between and Hapi screwed as the last player of almost every hand. Not surprisingly, he found it hard to find his footing while the rest of us battled for first. In the end, Kozure won (he was very excited becasue he had never one at this one) by the narrowest of margins (Kozure 28, Easy 27, Shemp 26, Hapi 18). I'd say that the addition of the artist had very little impact on the game. I'd probably go back to the original set for the next game.

For Colonial, we played Bang with the High Noon expansion. Even though I still enjoy this game, it's beginning to wear on me. I find that the game can go on for a little too long. The High Noon expansion definitely shakes things up, but there;s still lag. Shemp, as the renegade, won the game. I'd never seen the renegade win before!

For modern, we played Deadwood. Always a good time, I'd say this is EASILY the best Cheap Ass Game. The cards, roles and combinations thereof had us laughing the whole time, and yet there's just enough of an actual game in there to keep it interesting. Kozure managed to become the master thespian early in the game (seriously outclassing our 1 and 2s with his 5). Despite Shemp best efforts at falling off a roof, Kozure wallopped us in the end (he had something like twice the money of the second best player... Over $80 bucks, at any rate).

For Future, we played Robo Rally. This one was a bit of a miscalculation on my part. True, we only used two boards, but we placed 4 flags. While the three other games clocked in at 45 min. to 1 Hour each, this one took 2. Still, it was a highly entertaining game. A Misshap on my first turn sent my poor little robot on an unplanned tour of the wrong conveyor belts, where he miraculously survived a ride along the edge of the board only to be crushed in the 5th register. I was behind, but not out... Luckily, Hapi did what he does best (which is playing to screw others rather than try to win), screwing himself at the same time as Shemp and Kozure. After what had to be the most full contact, unpredictable and uncontrollable rounds I had ever seen in the game (we're talking three robot trains, massive front and back laser fire, reprogramed robots, robots spending a good chunk of the game with frozen registers, and howitzer fire, Oh My!), I managed to slip through and get quite a wide lead. Sadly (for me), I made another major mistake which sent me leaping off the board. Nearing midnight, Kozure and Hapi were playing chicken at the third flag while Shemp and I were racing for the last flag but he was more successful and beat me pretty easily. Not bad, since he was the only one who had never played before!

And now... Back to Civilization !

What the **** do I care? I'm in Asia!

Truer words were rarely spoken. Last marked the debut of the monster epic crazy game, Sid Meier’s Civilization, the board game based on a video game inspired a board game. Still following? Good.

Civilization, or "Civ", as it is known to the terminally addicted, is a board game for up to 6 players. Although the back of the box says that it can be finished in 1-2 hours, that’s really only for the standard game and for experienced players at that. As we all know, standard games are for wusses! After two or three good tries at this game, I can pretty confidently say that this game will take a minimum of 6-7 hours with average players and the advanced rules.

The object of the game is no less than to create the most glorious civilization in the history of mankind, covering 6,000 years of human development, from the dawn of civilization at the end of the stone age until the first steps of man towards the colonization of another world. There are two different rulesets, standard and advanced, each using fairly different mechanics.

The game is played on a massive 36” x 47” board, using a veritable boatload of counters representing most of the military units you can imagine for a game of this scope from primitive swordsmen to modern machinegun infantry. The game plays out over four different ages – Ancient, Mediaeval, Gunpowder and Modern. Thrown in for extra spice is an array of City Improvements ranging from Ziggurats to the Internet (improves productivity my butt!), an assortment of randomized Civilization Markers (for resources and special events like plagues and barbarian hordes) and a technology tree that will be very familiar to players who wasted the better part of their young lives figuring out how to get Mechanized Infantry units faster than anyone else or how many superstructure modules to build.

To explain the rules is an epic in itself (though no so tough as many early SSI and AH games), but the general gist is that there are four phases in each turn: Purchase - where players buy new units, improve their cities and convert settlers into cities; Movement and Battles - in which players move their units about and wreak terrible miniature wars over the cardboard plains; Trade – which permits players to trade resources for special monopoly, unique resource and critical resource bonuses; and Production – allowing players to convert the hard work and sweat of their minions to gold. Technology is bought with cash during the Purchase phase, and the game moves to the next “Age” at the end of the phase in which the first technology of the new era is purchased. The advanced game has no less than four separate endgame conditions – final conquest, military victory, diplomatic victory or technological/space victory. Players receive victory points for wonders of the world constructed over the course of their civilization, populace size, and depending on the final endgame, points for military units or technologies.

Well, after a rules explanation of the advanced version at the beginning of the night and the usual lengthy set-up, we were finished eating and ready to play at 8:00 PM. We quickly discovered that ours was a resource poor world, and even things like a stretch of three wine producing regions on the west coast of North America were going to be fought over viciously. A number of factors lead to the usual situation of one player holding dominion over a particular area – in this case, Hapi in Central Asia, Tili in South Asia and Australia, Shemp in South America, Easy in North America and yours truly (Kozure) in Africa. A brief scrap in Central America lead to an ouster of Tili’s forces, leaving Shemp and Easy to scrap it out for California and the Mississippi. A few small skirmishes later, Easy’s early monetary income lead was erased. Shemp vaulted us into the Mediaeval age a few minutes before we closed up shop at 11 PM, with the game very close and all of the VP scores ranging from 10 to 15. We took digital pictures of the board so as to allow continuation next games night at Chez Kozure.

I really enjoy the epic scope and feel of this game, despite the relative complexity. The earnestness of the diplomacy and negotiations over territory and resources was remarkable, leading to Hapi’s immortal line in the title above. The combination of resource management, diplomacy and military competition make this game a real winner in my book, striking the right balance between the need for careful culture building and bold aggression. I’m looking forward to seeing how this game plays out.

What the @!?#!! do I care, I'm in Asia!

Last night, we played what has got to be the most excessive boardgame going: Civilization.
The gameboard, so huge that only the largest of tables could possibly accommodate it, sets the tone of the game. Everything is excessive. The theme (simulating the rise of civilization), the components (so many bits that it takes every player to keep track of them), the play time (+/- 8 hrs minimum).
Players take turns exploring the world, uncovering resources, founding settlements and develloping technologies and wonders of the world. Meanwhile, conflicts arise and politics emerge. Sounds complicated? It is, although probably not as much as it could have been. Clearly measures have been taken to keep the learning curve within reasonable limits, but a game for your parents this is not...
Our game last night included 5 players (Kozure, Luch and Tili had played before, while me and Shemp hadn't). At the beginning of the game, Kozure said he thought we might get through the first of four ages before the night was over, and he wound up being perfectly accurate (as the evening came to a close, we had just played our first round of the gunpowder age).
Things got off to a rocky start right away, as Shemp and I talked about truce dividing the North and South america amongts ourselves (respectively), but then immediately saw the whole thing go to hell. Shemp's first move was to expand into california, and my first move was to try to get it back so I could get a monopoly on wine. I succeeded, BUT AT WHAT COST?!!! Perceived as the leader, I had a vengeful Shemp and a deceitful Tili gunning to take me down. Many military units later, they did (boating technology "shrunk" the worlds considerably, allowing Alaska to be taken pretty easily by Tili as Shemp distracted me to the south). Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, minor skirmishes were occuring between Luch (who managed to corner most of the military market early on) and Tili and Kozure as that part of the world was slowly getting fully discovered (oh, and there is that potentially explosive build up of military might at the European/ African border... but so far peace has prevailed). As it stands, the main characteristics of this session would be: Kozure has a problem with barbarians, Tili has a problem with the plague, Shemp has a problem with me and the board has a problem producing actual resources (ours is a barren earth). Luch's game, so far, seems to be going slow and steady (in fact, when asked to comment on the state of one of the skirmishes elsewhere in the world, he replied "What the @!?#!! do I care, I'm in Asia!"... the title of this week's blog. For the evening, Kozure was ahead... with my poor self pulling up the rear.

Personal comments on the game: To me, the game is fun but feels a little like an expanded and protracted version of RISK. This may be due to the scarcity of resources in our game, forcing people to fight amongst themselves to get anything going. The game can slow down with new players, like me, trying to reference all the inventions/ wonders of the world and improvements that are available for purchase (and a couple of really long negotiations didn't help, either!). This problem will probbaly diminish with every new game, but at 8-10hrs a pop, that could take a while!

Rating: A provisional 7

The problem with naming your ship "Revenge" is...

...that it implies you will lose the first fight.

This Wednesday was Pirate's Cove, a game of featuring pirates, plunder and players trying really hard to think of other words than "Yaaar", and "Scurvy" to help them sound in character.

Simple game in concept: 5 outer Islands (where treasure, fame and fortune can be found), an inner island where treasure can be buried and another where defeated pirates go to lick their wounds. Every turn each player secretely determines which island they will try to plunder, and if more than one player pick the same place combat occurs.

Add to this a roving legendary pirate, parrots, upgrades to ship and crew, and you have an excellent Pirate game!

I have to admit that going in I was starting to think that Days of Wonder games where largely style over substance affairs ("Ticket to Ride" was fun, but not fantastic, and I wasn't crazy about "Mystery of the Abbey"). I was happily proven wrong with this one. Pirat'e Cove is FUN. The theme is captured very well, everyone is involved at all times and it's not very long. I would say that it may be a little complicated, but not so much that most people wouldn't catch on (The game with all the variants we added, however, is a different story).

We played three games, and the last one included several variants that Kozure had found online and others that he invented himself. The first game didn't feel bogged down by learning the rules. It picked up quickly, and I had the good fortune of not getting in too many people's way (and soundly defeating Shemp a few times) and winning.

The next game, however, didn't go so well. I spent nearly the entire game fighting Luch over cannons... and ALWAYS losing. I came in last, and Shemp won handily.

The last game included many variants (ships could get boarded, duelling rules were introduced and combat could happen at treasure island). IT was quite a bloody game, with my ship getting torn to pieces and boarded quite early by Luch (my nemesis for the evening, it seemed). He took my substantial hoard of treasure and money, and I was left plotting revenge. When I got my chance, I ganged up with the Royal Navy to attack/board Luch. Ultimately, I miscalculated and killed of the army myself and Luch sent me packing once more. Later, I lost a psitol duel with Shemp! Meanwhile, kozure seemed to be the leader with a strong ship and much fame. I think he suffered quite a bit of "Kill the Leader" from the rest of us and was beaten down. In the end, it was a very tight game but Luch won by a point.

My one problem: I feel that the game rewards those who avoid conflict a bit too much. IT seemed like most of the time, the winner was the one who snuck past everyone. This is compounded by the fact that hurt players are the easiest to target (because you pretty much know they will head to the island which will heal there lowest stat), and that they are the most attractive targets since they are easy to beat. I wonder whether a rule which allowed pirates out from the cove a turn where no combat could occur, or something like that, could alleviate the problem. The rule which allows defeated pirates to draw cards helps a lot, however. Maybe the answer is simply to draw one extra card. Another tactic would be to offer fame points according to the power of the player you fought (if the defeated pirate started the fight with a stat on the 1st or 2nd space=0 fame, 3rd or 4th=1 fame, 5th or 6th=2 fame, etc).

I also think that players with cards like the parrots, etc should be allowed to replace them with another by playing the new card and discarding the old.

Still, small quibbles. Great game.

Rating:8

Yaaarrrrrr!

Pirate Games this Wednesday, loosely interpreted. Kozure, you know what you need to do. Easy - bring Epic Duels, and Tigris and Euphrates, if you would.

Yaaarrrrr!

-The Cap'n

W games!

Electoral themed goodness - G.W. Bush's favourite games are revealed! Hopefully he'll have plenty more time to play them in 2005. I'm just surprised that Misunderestimate wasn't included.

I am Shemp, and I approve this message.

Thx to Easy for the heads-up.

The Second Last Thing You Want is Another Big Mouthful of Nerve Puppet

So, last night, again with the Duel of Ages - Kozure proposed a few rules variations, based on our discussions of the last time we played DoA.

The variant rules we used were thus:

We will play Duel of Ages with four platters, all domes, the Lith Strategica key, all labyrinth keys but none of the expansion adventure keys. There will be six characters per player. Characters will be assigned randomly, but each will begin the game armed with a weapon that is suitable for the character by consent of all players. Each character will also begin the game with one piece of equipment suitable for the character (mount, armour, equipment). Any disagreement over whether a piece of equipment or weapon is suitable for a character will be resolved by die roll. Each team has one single-use "veto" to veto any piece of equipment or weapon which they deem imbalancing. As this game may become deadly, if any player is reduced to two characters or less, a replacement character will be chosen randomly (also with starting equipment as above) will spawn in during the reinforcement round in the turn FOLLOWING the death of the fourth character to be killed. In this way, no player will ever be reduced to less than two characters.

Piles of equipment will be shuffled, but within their category (weapon, mount, armour or "other"). When drawing cards as a reward from the labyrinths, characters may draw from any of the four piles indicated.

Teams were KozureEasy vs. Shemp?????, and the fact that characters started out appropriately equipped infused the game with bloody mayhem, right off the starter's pistol. The biggest effect of our rule changes was to create a large number of op-fires, which resulted in injured or dead characters, which in turn created an impetus towards further combat, trying to even the number of players and deny the other team a point. (A very centralised style of platter and key placement also contributed to the mass mayhem.) The black team (S?)'s Wilder and Princess Sunglow were offed almost immediately, as were Suva and Frostdancer of the white team (KE). Further problems were created by a vast number of pets running around - the Hawk, Crawler, Gryffalcon, Black Bear, and Muffin all made it into play.

Another effect was that labyrinth challenges had less value, since characters were already equipped, and otherwise occupied trying to kill each other. The first two hours of play saw only one successful challenge occur! Things picked up a bit after the number of characters thinned out a bit, but the poor rolling of the black team doomed it to a 4-1 loss, in a match that was closer than the score makes it appear.

Awards:

MVP (tie): Sir Gawain, on a horse, wearing kevlar, with the M-60 and Private Sanchez, in a frilly cape, with spines, both for the winning white team.

LVP: Adigan the Mouse accomplished NOTHING. At least Jolie took a potshot at Dr. Hume and unleashed Muffin.

MAP:(Most Annoying Player). Likely the Shifter, with an accellerator tube, who just wouldn't die, and ended up getting to make 24 (!) improvement rolls over the course of the game - becoming quite tough in the process.

Survived (White): Dr. Hume, Dr. Memnar, Smoke, Sir Gawain, Whip Vypyr, Sterling Jack, Ghengis Khan and Gregory.

Survived (Black): Jedediah Smith, the Nerve Puppet, Corporal Janus, Adigan the Mouse, Jolie La Ravissant, Shifter, and Rider-of-Comets.

Dead (White): Suva of Orion, Private Sanchez, Marcus Aurus, and Frostdancer.

Dead (Black): Wilder, Princess Sunglow, Thump, Homer Morgan, and Jade the Unicorn.

The Last Thing You Want is a Big Mouthful of Nerve Puppet

Last night we had a big ol' game of Duel of Ages. It had been a while (easy to tell by how often we had to refer to the rules), but it was a good game none the less.
4 hours
4 platters
10 characters per side
all challenges in play

It was Easy+????? vs Shemp and Kozure.

Where to begin?

I was surprised that even with this many characters, and this much time, that none of the special keys where finished. The Royal Tournament, always popular, was nearly won by both sides at various times. The rest, however, barely passed their 2nd to 3rd spaces. Still, characters had unusually good luck acquiring weapons properly suited to them (Bill Cody got a Varmint Rifle, which was eventually passed on to Kidd, Redlegs got a pretty lethal spear, Dr. Penopolis and the bike to compensate for his slow move, etc). By contrast, all characters had unusually BAD luck completing challenges (a black challenge survived multiple attempts, as did a few blues). Not surprisingly, it was also the night of highly improbable rolls (Kozure rolled 3 12s when attacking, losing a powerful weapon every time. 36x36x36=46,656. Sheesh!) ????? missed almost all of his targets by 1. Whenever the Whyp Vypyr attacked the Martians, they each rolled 10 and missed.) Lastly, it ws the night of the Nerve Puppet and Crack-Whore attacking the Bengal Tiger. A fight which seemed to go on for quite some time, but produced little results...

It was a tight game the entire time, but in the end our team (Easy+????) won 3 to 1 (I think).

MVP: Ygunna Gecha. With her poisonous fingernails, she knocked out a few opponents, and placed fear in the rest.

LVP: CRACK-WHORE (Kraator). Coulda, shoulda, woulda. This guy sure tried to beat up a lot of folks, but never really did. I think the nerve puppet did more damage.

MAP:(Most Annoying Player). 3U. Of course. Annoying.

MSPP (Most surprisingly Powerful Player) Dr. Pennopolis, or Dr. Panopticon as Shemp called him. Not fearsome, exactly, but very powerful with white idea,+2 on all adventures and various other special abilities. Slow, and not too strong, but still maybe unbalanced.

Enhanced (?) Navigation

All - after an offhand comment of Kozure's about being unable to find the entry on a certain game session, I was inspired. Please notice the results of this inspiration, over in the sidebar to the left. I've moved "Links" to the top of the page, and added a new "Navigate by Game" section immediately below that. Games are listed alphabetically, and all archived session reports are included, through the end of August. I'll try and keep the list maintained and (somewhat) up to date.

Let me know what you think - useful? not? something else?

Also, new suggested links are always welcome - would throwing one for Board Game Geek be beneficial?

Talk to me.

Land Ownership in the Efficient German Style

Well the games of choice this week were Löwenherz and Puerto Rico. ????? had bought Löwenherz after being impressed with Domaine. Löwenherz, or “Lionheart” when translated from the German, is essentially an earlier version of Domaine. The principal differences are that the number of land tiles is cut down by three from nine to six in Löwenherz, and the turn mechanic is bid-based, rather than simple draw-or-play. The elder game also uses a different method for scoring areas, and adds “treasure” and “parchment” cards which are good for extra gold and end of game scoring respectively.

Due to its reduced size, Löwenherz feels much more “cramped” by comparison – but as a consequence, domains come into contact with each other quickly. As a result of this, knights, alliances and desertion/traitor cards become important much earlier in the game.

The bidding mechanic is interesting, and lends a social/negotiation aspect to the game which is largely absent from Domaine. Of course, negotiation and social aspects rely very heavily upon the make-up of the gaming group, which is why I imagine it was removed from the revised Domaine. Simply stated, each turn, an action card is turned over which has three actions listed on it. Each player bids for one of the three options with a special bidding card. Since there are only three options, two or more players can compete for the action in a “power trail”, essentially a negotiation of how much one player will pay the other to perform the action; if neither can come to an agreement, or three or more players bid for the same action, there is a “duel” – players secretly bid gold or treasure for the card and the highest bid wins, with the rest keeping their money.

The mediaeval tapestry look of the game board is appealing, but overall the newer Domaine wins in the looks department. A few other minor tweaks (cards for money, altered silver mine rules), combined with the major changes mentioned above makes Löwenherz significantly different from Domaine as to not be simply a “variant”. They play differently, with a few similar mechanics.

Easy won the match easily with a devastating combination of really knight-heavy domains and shrewd bargaining. My attempt at a massive early land grab was subsequently smacked down by a surgical expansion which effectively cut the entire domain in a 1/6 to 5 /6 portion, leaving me with the smallest bit.

As a side note, I thought it was amusing that Löwenherz features a king who is dying (rather than in Domaine, which features a king who is returning from a far-away land) since Richard the Lionhearted of England was famous for being an absentee king and having to deal with squabbling nobles and a prince brother when he returned.

Our second and third games of the night were Puerto Rico, an old favourite which we haven’t played a lot recently. As we’ve become more familiar with mechanics of other German games, we’ve been carefully re-reading and clarifying previous rules, especially the Captain phase shipping rules, which we have played incorrectly previously. Given our collective brainfreeze on the first game of Domaine last week, this is a very good thing.

We were also careful to watch the timing of certain actions, especially with the Settler phase and haciendas, which can make for some confusion, especially with ?????.

The first game felt oddly rushed for some reason, with no one managing to get large buildings completed in time for some reason. Both money and goods seemed in short supply, so much as to elicit a careful recount of components before proceeding. Even colonists were recounted, since the game seemed to be over before anyone was ready. We had no one to blame, though – we had the correct number of everything.

I believe a major factor in the rapid depletion of colonist reserves was the presence of multiple hospices, as well as haciendas, the combination of which can spell a very quick draw from the pool. There also seemed to be more concentration on erecting buildings which had long-term pay-off, rather than actual production buildings. Other than that, none of us could quite account for the odd feeling of our first game.

In the end, Shemp and I tied for first place, with exactly the same amount of victory points and combined goods and doubloons. – 23 victory points and about 12 combined points of goods and doubloons.

The second game felt much more right, with people managing to develop strategies well (confusing Shemp at the same time) with two people building large buildings before Easy brought the boom down by grabbing the Mayor card.

It was a good thing too, because Shemp looked to be pulling away from everyone with not only a harbour and plenty of goods to ship for VP, but also the doubloons to pick up the Custom House in the next building phase. Shemp carried the day with 47 VP, I came in second with 44, and Easy and Hapi brought up the rear with scores that I can’t remember, but were relatively close.

An enjoyable evening, with three solid games (well, two solid games and one shaky one) and some tight races. Also, I tied for first in Puerto Rico for the first time since the first or second time I played. Yay me! I'm usually the bridesmaid for Puerto Rico. One day, I will win, my precious, one day...

My Castle is My Domain(e)

Note: When I wrote this, there was no evidence of Easy's blog. I pressed publish, and the Blogger website went into paroxyms of refreshing the same page over and over again. When it was finished, I saw my log posted. When I came back, I noted my blog was missing and now Easy's with a much earlier publish time, was present. I have no idea what happened. Here's my blog, for the record.

Well, what’s a games night without a theme? Well, a themeless games night, but beyond that, it’s boring and uninspired. Fortunately, we had Shemp to lend a thought to “Mediaeval” games night. The dinner lasagne didn’t quite fit in, but we had “hearty cheese fritos” to help out.

The night opened with Castle, the game aforementioned. With four players, the gameplay tilts over from the tactical side of things to a little more random in nature. Easy caught on quickly, but not quickly enough to deny Shemp the win.

We then switched to Domaine, which I thought had been reviewed before, but I can’t currently find any mention in our blog. Domaine is a game of expansion and territory enclosure, by one of our favourite game designers, Klaus Teuber. It allows two to four players, with slight modifications for two player play, and the theme is that you are lesser royalty (dukes or counts or what-have-you) trying to divide up the spoils of a kingdom before the king returns from a long journey. This theme makes a lot less sense than its original Germanic predecessor, Lowenherz, where they’re doing the dividing while the king is dying. That’s political correctness for you, I guess.

The board is a well drawn map of what looks like a fantasy kingdom – nine moveable large cardboard squares, arranged into a square with the castle at the centre – with each of the nine squares being divided into around eight to ten by eight to ten (can’t remember the exact number) 2 cm grid by light black lines. Terrain of plain, forest, mines (diamond, bronze, silver and gold), towns and a castle is indicated clearly and with fair quality.

The mechanic is very simple – each player executes one of two actions per turn – play a card by paying gold for it, which allows you to either: 1) erect walls to enclose a “domain”, 2) expand already enclosed domains, 3) place knights which protect your own domain and allow you to expand into others, 4) create alliances which stops either domain from expanding into each other, or 5) cause knights from other domains to “defect” into yours.

A second possible action is to sell a card to the chancery – a temporary holding area - for the second (smaller) value printed on the card – one of only two ways to gain money.

After performing one of the two actions, the player then draws from either the chancery or the draw pile to replenish his or her hand.

Players score points by enclosing forest, towns and the castle (1, 3 and 5 points). Additionally, players can supplement their income by enclosing mines, each type providing one gold piece at the beginning of a turn each. Enclosing three of one type of mine scores 5 points.

Victory is gained by points – either by reaching a maximum dictated by the number of players, or by having the most points when all possible cards have been played. Extra money also counts for points – the player with the most scores 5, the second wealthiest scores 3.

For our first game of Domaine, we misremembered (Bushism) some of the rules, forgetting proper rules for placement of knights and the very important rule of only taking one action per turn. Fortunately, this had the effect of speeding up the game.

I got pretty badly boxed in the first game, but wasn’t doing too badly when ????? leapt ahead into the lead for the win.

The second game, we corrected our misrememberings of the rules and played correctly. I was doing better this time around, but Easy took advantage of a really easy massive land grab late in the game and sealed the win. Domaine is interesting for the need to not only grow your own earnings, but also pay attention and smack down other players who might sneak their way into a massive inheritance.

This technique is henceforth christened “snuclear” or “snuculear” tactics, after Easy and Shemp’s strange, giddy exchange. “Snuclear” apparently involves really, really sneaky tactics, to the point of being nuclear sneaky. Apparently.

The evening was ended with a round of Castle, which started out with a huge siege engine vs. soldier battle and ended with a lot of people trying to kill-the-leader Easy, which didn’t help us in the end. Easy took us down, leaving the rest of us just steps from playing out.

?????'s Rules

Last Night, we played three different games:
Castles
Domaine ?R*
Domaine

*?????'s Rules

I was the only one who hadn't played castles, so I expected to get buried, but the game is pretty easy to pick up despite the large number of cards that you need to get to know (probably because it isn't THAT important to get to know all of them). Shemp got the first win, but we were all close. I was more successful on my second try, getting a squeaker of a win (thanks to a few helpful moves by my unsuspecting opponents). Overall, I thought it was a good game. Pretty light, but fun and seemingly quite replayable (and both games were really close, so the ending was exciting). I did find the concept strange, though: The game simulates a castle seige, complete with soldiers on the ramparts defending against seige engines. However, the actual gameplay doesn't have much to do with it. Players don't take sides, the outcome of the battle is irrelevant. It's just a story which unfolds as players play their cards. Not a problem, exactly... just strange.

Castles:7

Next up was Domaine. Klaus Teuber, fromt he two games I have played of his, seems to make fun games which also seem somehow arbitrary. I think that this quality came through last night as we accidentally played an entire game using incorrect rules...
err... I should say "????? Rules". We played that:
1: Every player had two moves per turn (should be 1)
2: The deserter simply took a knight from the board (the knight is supposed to be stolen)
3: Cards could continue to be drawn from the chancery after the deck ran out.

I'm pretty sure the were other "modifications", but the bottom line is that even though the game played differently, it wasn't broken. I don't imagine too many games could with

Role Playing Game Systems - A Look Back

I had originally put these comments in another forum, but I thought you gents might be interested as well.

RPG systems.

I'll be the first to admit I'm pretty finicky when it comes to RPG systems. I've designed three (well, the first two got rolled into the third) and I'm pretty happy with the final result. It's still amateursville compared to most complete systems, but I like it better than most.
I'll just run through the systems I've tried and run through the pros and cons of each. For fun, I'll list them in the order that I played them.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
My first ever, at age 10. Was completely at sea, since our DM was 10 as well. I think this is a fair to middling system, but it's popular.

PROS: Great for fantasy play - lots of spells and magic items.
CONS: Poor combat, action and skills systems, even with recent d20 make-over, plus my personal nemesis - hit points.

Star Frontiers
I played maybe three sessions of this game. I can hardly remember anything about it, other than the name of the bad guy Sathars, and that the other alien races seemed interesting.

PROS: Nice diversity of species - humans didn't seem like the be-all and end-all.
CONS: Forgettable

Gamma World
I'm a huge sucker for post-apocalyptic settings, especially in a sort of Mad Max future. This one was different in that the apocalypse happened about 75 years in the future of our time, which made for very interesting lost technologies.

PROS: A whole system for figuring out how to work pre-war gadgetry was a nice touch. The mutation system was extensive and interesting. The game world was pretty neat - my 2nd edition rules had a great map of post-war North America
CONS: Suffered from most of the same problems as D&D, since it was based on the same system.

Middle-Earth Role Playing (MERP)
One of the most complex and detailed RPGs I've played, which sort of fits the whole Tolkein mystique.

PROS: Great diversity of skill advancement and roll modifiers. Fantastically funny critical hit tables. Interesting that critical hits are divided by type of damage.
CONS: Super-kludgy character generation and skill advancement, thought I'll probably revisit it now that I'm not 11 and know a lot more about RPGs in general.

Top Secret
I liked being a superspy, what with the gadgets and the cars and the near-death.

PROS: Nice theme. It was a lot grittier than most RPGs, which meant it was easier to get hurt or die. The luck point mechanic helped out a lot with that.
CONS: Too many tables. When you've got a table for escaping death traps and torture, there's a problem. Also, the background info provided in the basic game set didn't provide a good framework for getting campaigns off the ground, unless you know a lot about world espionage and politics, which I didn't at the age of 12.

Robotech (Palladium RPG system)
Ahhhh... megadamage. A kludgy way to deal with the fact that you've got some things which are small and puny, like humans, and big and mighty, like veritechs.

PROS: set in an interesting and pre-made universe, with lots of depth and variety of enemies, especially with the multiple expansion rule books. Plus, any game where you can fly a veritech and fire off salvoes of AP missles is supa-cool.
CONS: Palladium level-based skill/percentage plus combat systems is clunky, with the need to cross reference a lot of abilities that affect skills, and skills that affect abilities. This is a cross-the-board criticism of Palladium games, not a specific swipe at Robotech.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

PROS: Mutating animals with BIO-E is cool.
CONS: See Robotech critique above.

Call of Cthlulu
Super creepy. Insanity sucks.

PROS: Very atmospheric. Super easy to die. You had to really ROLE-PLAY to stay alive. H.P. Lovecraft world is great to muck about in.
CONS: Sometimes TOO easy to die or go mad.

Star Trek (FASA version)
This was actually the second role-playing game I bought, but when I first got it, I had no idea of how to figure out the character generation system, so it sat on my shelf for several years until I could figure it out. When FASA lost the license, a lot of the modules and supplements went for super-cheap, so I've got a lot of books for this game.

PROS: One of the best character generation systems around - it really feels like a Star Trek character career. I cribbed this system for use in the home-made Aliens RPG mentioned above, then modified it until it wasn't quite as derivative in the Void Angels iteration. Once we got a campaign going, it felt like we had our own ship and familiar cast and crew which made for some fun evenings.
CONS: Action point movement system never really worked. Playing "goody-goody" Fed types can be very limiting, as can the resources available to a big Fed starship. I don't really comment often on manual and module artwork, but FASA had a really poor artist for a lot of the illustration and manual work.

Twilight 2000
More post-apocalyptic goodness - basically role-playing as former soldiers in the wake of WWIII Europe trying to get home to North America. Poor GDW, we barely knew ye.

PROS: Fantastically realistic post-war world. Great character creation system. Excellent volume of supporting modules and supplements. The vehicle guides and attendent colour plate explanations were excellent. Every module that I bought was well thought out and chock-full of great NPCs, settings and plotlines. Just about the grittiest game I can think of - any game where typhus and dystentry is covered as a real danger in the rules just about wins for the blackest sense of doom category (with Wraith: The Oblivion a possible contender)
CONS: Piece of crap combat and ammunition system. The only thing that seemed to make sense was the range and penetration values - damage and ammo were based on some weird burst/grouping method. A combat round took a long long time to resolve. Vehicle combat was better done, with component specific damage, but also a lot of time to figure out.

Star Wars
Everyone knows the Star Wars universe. You can role-play in it.

PROS: Great cinematic feel - very fast paced and very role-playing oriented. Star Wars universe is a fun place to beat on Stormtroopers.
CONS: Sometimes dice-rolling got a bit much. As easy as addition is, adding more than 8 dice slows down the game. Character templates ease character creation, but more options for custom design should be given.

Marvel Superheroes
Also familiar to most.

PROS: Super simple task resolution chart. I stole it, with modifications, for all three of my homemade games because I liked it so much. Super powers and character generation well thought out and fun to play. Surprisingly, this is probably the game that I have fewest beefs with - it's simple, easy to play and goes quickly. Character generation is easy.
CONS: I'm not a huge superhero fan, so this game didn't really have a lot of appeal for me. I don't recall at all the advancement system - which probably means it wasn't anything of interest.

Shadowrun - 1st Edition
This is the best RPG setting ever in my opinion, with the possible exception of Twilight 2000 and the "World of Darkness" series. Cyberpunk meets fantasy, with a lot of other influences thrown in.

PROS: Fantastic - literally and figuratively - game world. Art - layout, graphics and illustrations were fantastic, with the very rare exception of the one FASA artist from Star Trek (I guess they kept him on out of pity or something) who wasn't very good at all. Fortunately, he didn't get many pictures in. Very interesting spell system, which brings us to the cons...
CONS: In its first edition incarnation, Shadowrun had to have the most klugdy ruleset I've ever encountered. It improved in 2nd (and 3rd, I think, though I haven't looked at it) editions, but by that point the damage had been done. Combat was clunky, spells were very interesting but took a while to figure out and opposing skill checks were arcane. I had only the briefest of looks at 2nd Edition rules, but they looked much improved. I'd like to try this one again some day, if only for the game world.

Ninjas and Superspies
Another Palladium offering - Shemp cobbled together elements from this game and Beyond the Supernatural to make a very interesting game world.

PROS: Interesting concept - sorta Hellboy/Buffy idea.
CONS: Palladium system.

Traveller 2300
Picked this up cheap after GDW went under. Like almost all of the GDW games I ever looked at, this had a very "real" feeling universe, with really "alien" aliens that weren't just humans with forehead prosthetics.

I guess for my own games I grabbed elements from a number of games that I found interesting.

From Marvel, I took the task resolution chart.

From Twilight, Star Trek and MERP I grabbed the concept of developing the character from childhood through a career to present times.

I drew inspiration from Traveller 2300's take on the future, if only because it seemed the most likely of the many futures I've seen presented thus far.

From Star Wars I took the cinematic mechanic of FPs, which are very helpful in a high-fatality setting like the Void Angel universe.

The main thing I've learned from three attempts at RPGs (plus one or two others which were never really completely baked) is that the temptation is to make things over complex, when in fact, simplicity while still maintaining the flavour is what makes a game shine. If your game has too many mechanics, it collapses under its own weight - you're spending all your time looking up charts, modifiers and tables.

Ford - American - Most Def... *

Cryptic and irrelevant titles aside, the choice of games went to Easy this week. He selected an Italian theme and we went with Princes of Florence, Traders of Genoa and Citadels, which though not set in Italy, is designed by an Italian. Complementing the theme was pizza for dinner, "Italiano" dorito chips and pizza-flavoured pringles. In the nice-idea at the time but ending up tasting like fishy spiderweb dust-in-our-mouths-category were "the desserts that shall not be named" but looks like an attempt to be icing sugar-coated bocconne but staler, drier and less appealing. They're called anginetti, and I hope to be acquainted someday with a much better version.

The opener was Princes of Florence. With five people, the game was a bit slower starting than most, with everyone eying various strategies for ensuring they had sufficient professions for endgame, which was frequently the complaint of our first few forays. Tili and Easy vied for polar opposite principality awards, with Tili creating a sprawling complex of parks, forests and buildings and Easy packing in the buildings like sardines, with a lone forest for relief.

In the end, Easy's new strategy of multiple builders + many buildings + two prestige cards won the day, but all of the other players were within 3-6 PP of the leader, so it was by no means a blow out.

I miscalculated on the final two turns, thinking I had one more action than I had. I must remember that buying action cards takes an action, as does completing a work and building. No doing all three in the same turn. Bad prince strategy. Bad!

Traders of Genoa was much quicker this time with a few rules clarifications from Easy, but trading was shrewder as people began to figure out the cost vs. profit margins of many actions. Easy carried the day with a respectable final bankroll of 590 Florins. Once again, a turn miscalculation left me holding a large order and all the goods to fill it in my hand at game end.

Two courtyard rolls accelerated game end by two turns, putting a crimp in the plans of most of us who were concentrating on large orders. Easy ducked under the wire to get his orders in.

Easy's early game strategy of multiple messager jobs and ownership of several key properties netted him a lot of floriny goodness, but the three rapid fire large job orders towards the end didn't hurt either. All my wheeling and dealing netted me 395 Florins, a unfilled large order and six goods laying unused in my warehouse. Unrealized earning potential is always a sad thing.

Everyone seemed to have learned their lessons about not overbidding on certain building actions and knowing their profit margins. This game wasn't as close as Princes of Florence had been, but it was fun nonetheless and we finished in an hour and a half, much shorter than the whined-about three hours that most complain of.

Rounding out the night at just after 10 was Citadels. With a few games under our belt of this game, strategy was much more in evidence. ?????, unfortunately, was a magnet for assasinations,
thievery and hocus pocus. Also a feature of this game was the frequently passed around hand (courtesy of the magician) which went from ????? to Kozure to Easy over the course of three turns. Easy grabbed the hat trick by completely destroying us with a final score of somewhere in the vicintity of 30 points, with the closest follow ons being ten points behind.

So, the night belonged to Easy, in more ways than one. Fun night, with much Simpsons quotation and confusion about speaking (see title).

* For posterity, the meaning of the title related to a discussion of the upcoming Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. We were discussing the fact that Zaphod was being played by an American. Shemp pointed out that "Ford was American - Most Def." I thought that Shemp meant that Ford was "most definitely" an American (partially right) while Hapi thought he was talking about the former President (not right at all). Evidently Easy didn't understand the relation of any of the three sentence fragments and had to ask for a full-on clarification, which only ended up confusing things, since I don't believe it is generally understood that Most Def is a legitimate name for an American rapper, quite apart from it's apparent similarity to valley-speak. Much hilarity ensued.