Buckets of Blood and Showers of... Other... Bodily... Fluids

WARNING: This review contains concepts of a graphic nature which may be unsuitable for younger readers. It also contains unfettered waxing philosophical. Reader discretion advised.

Chaos in the Old World, far from being a game about monkeys running the European Union (*rimshot*), is a area-influence / mild wargame with variable player powers, card-based spells / effects and an action point (in this case "power point") mechanic. Underneath the blood-spattered chrome, this is actually a pretty clever little game.

I don't have time for a thorough review of mechanics and play - I'll leave that to the esteemed Agent Easy should he so wish, but I did want to record for posterity my thoughts on the theme and feel of this thing.

I'm not a squeamish person - I've attended (and remained entirely lucid through) two drug-free births and treated a few pretty bloody wounds in my time. I've watched my share of Tarantino films and various splatter-filled gorefests of movies. One would think I'd be "desensitized" by this point. Be that as it may, Chaos in the Old World makes me feel like I should be handling it with latex gloves and a haz-mat suit to avoid the ichor dripping out of its suppurating infectious wounds.

Once again, the game itself is not bad - I want to be clear - but the idea of drenching an entire continent in blood, pestilence, dark magics and perverted sexual frenzy as a game theme somehow turns my stomach in a way that playing wargames (which, to be quite honest, depict similar, if not quite as exaggerated, forms and degrees of pain and suffering) doesn't.

Board games and video games are, for me, ways of exploring alternate realities and possibilities of existence which (for a multitude of reasons) are impractical, impossible, undesirable, unachievable or sometimes just inconvenient. Quite aside from their mental challenge (and their sense of competition) - the theme of games allow me to stretch my imagination and play with perception and reality.

It's fun to imagine oneself a fighter pilot, business tycoon or even a lowly pre-industrial German farmer. To play at being a god dedicated to chaos and destruction... well, it just feels... wrong to me.

To simultaneously invoke Godwin's Law (yes, yes, I automatically lose) and use gobs of mega-hyperbole, I have a icky sense about this game that I'd imagine I'd feel playing a game about rounding up hidden Jews in France, playing a serial killer in1977 New York, scheduling various sexual escapades in a Caligula-esque court, or distributing smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans.

This is a game where the theme specifically invokes (and revels in) rape, murder, disease, torture, slaughter of peasants, blood sacrifice, insanity, corruption and a host of other unpleasant concepts.

"But it's just a game," you say.

True. Completely true.

Playing Devil's Advocate (almost literally, in this case), I've often felt that understanding what is attractive about evil helps one to know how to combat it. The concept of unbridled lust, wrath, violence, manipulation, random change and the like, represents for me a kind of personal freedom which is incredibly seductive. The idea of giving into all of these impulses of a carnal nature - to kill and torture without remorse, to have frequent and consequence-free sex, to scheme to give oneself power by trickery lies and deceit - appeals to the primeval urges of the amygdala and the crocodile-brain cerebellum and medulla oblongata.

To live as a god - without sin or fear of retribution - is attractive. It's certainly one of the appeals of Existentialism. I'm sure Shemp and I could have all sorts of interesting debate on its ramifications for society and individuals given his and my opposing views on religion and selflessness. In any case, I can see why some people might enjoy the sense of power and freedom that one might derive from playing this game (theme-wise)... I guess I just want to say that I'm a wee bit uncomfortable with it.

We're being evil in this game, kids, and it's not the usual hand-wringing, mad-scientist cackling cartoony-evil. We are trying to literally corrupt and reduce to ruin an entire continent. Capital "E" evil. Is that different that being a cutesy imp-commanding overlord in Dungeon Lords or corrupt government officials keeping down the populace in Junta? Or playing SS troops in Squad Leader? (I love those games, by the way).

Yeah, it's a game. No, I'm not asking that it be banned or people run screaming for the hills or shout "for Heaven's sakem won't someone think of the children?!". I'm not thumping a Bible and saying this offends God.

I do think that people should occasionally stop and think about what's going on in this game, what it says about the fictional world it represents and the real world it... parodies? satirizes?

What we think about good and evil, in short.

Heaven knows there's enough suffering in this world - in Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, the Phillipines - to want to invent more in our fantasies.

Play this game, if you're interested in it. It's pretty good. But like reading Lolita, The Story of O or Blood Meridian, there are imagined acts and events contained within which are pretty unsettling and world-view challenging.

To quote the internet meme "What is seen cannot be unseen."

Or you can just shrug it off and say "It's just a game."

Note: Play this More Often than Once a Year...

Vampire: Prince of the City.

Last time we had this out (according to the blog) was March 9th, 2006. Strangely, almost exactly a year ago. Somehow I thought it had been longer. I guess we've just gone through a lot of games since.

As before, we (well, I) made some rules errors. The rulebook, as atmospheric as it is, is poorly phrased and organized in many cases, which makes for quick location of critical rules difficult.

Concerning Re-rolls: Any card or ability which specifies re-rolls allows re-roll of any dice involved in the challenge or contest, not just those belonging to the player. This is covered under the heading "Dice" in section 3.6. This may have made a difference in Shemp's strategy at one point.

Torpor arising from Resolution Phase loss: Agent Easy was sent into torpor in the last turn of this game because he only had one vitae remaining. This is incorrect... the vitae is lost if the game continues. (section 5.5 - Resolution Phase). This is my error in reading the rules. Fortunately, it would not have made a major difference for this game (though it would permit Easy to place second instead of fourth). It did make a major difference in our first game, so we should definitely remember this.

Where to draw from: For some reason, I told people in this game we drew from the bottom of the deck. I must have confused this game with another, because no where in the rules does it mention this. I can't recall the game where you draw from the bottom, but I know it happens somewhere. In this game, you draw from the top, and put event cards into play as they come up.

Cards in play cannot be put back into the hand. During the game, I lost two zones (harbor and mercantile district) which made it impossible for me to maintain my Labor Union Domain. Thinking it was legal, during my next Resource Phase, I put the Labor Union Domain card back into my hidden hand. This is illegal. Cards must be discarded outright or otherwise lost - they cannot be put back into the hand in normal rules. I used this card later for its one point value which enabled a event to be beaten (the one where Shemp and I were working together) so this had a moderate effect on the game. My mistake.

I am sure there are other rules we got wrong, but I was nonetheless really pleased to be able to get this one back on the table. It is very atmospheric and bloodthirsty - I'm not usually a bloodthirsty player, but one lovely benefit of games is acting out impulses that otherwise aren't socially acceptable.

A very important lesson to learn from the layout of this rulebook: Try not to use more than three to four typefaces on the same page (a generally good graphic design rule, I'm told) ... This rulebook uses five or six... a script-like (and therefore not easily scanned) font for major headings, a bolded, indented serif font for its sub-headings, Casablanca Antique (a "distressed" serif font) for headings of summaries and expositions and a sans-serif font for the summaries and expositions themselves. In addition, the examples are given in italics, and there are often very large blocks of italicized print.

This makes for a very visually dense rulebook, which makes for rapid location of certain rules difficult. Don't do this if you want an easily played game.

I'd really like to play this game again soon while the rules are fresh in our minds. Unfortunately with 5 players, the suggested play time of 2 hours for 6 turns is not feasible - even with five experienced players, I think 3 hours for 6 turns is more realistic.

So, let's play this one again soon, shall we?

Oh yeah, Bharmer won. Kill the leader is vicious in this game!

Control your Areas (China x2, El Grande, Saboteur)

Area control was the theme of the evening. China, El Grande and Louis XIV were chosen, but we ran out of time and had to substitute Saboteur for Louis.

The first game we played was 3 player, my favorite number for China. At 3, you can react to what is going on and feel like you have some control over the board. At the other end of the scale, too much happens between turns and I feel like my only option is to see "what points can I score/ secure RIGHT NOW", with no regard to long term strategy. Shemp and I went for a balanced approach between roads, houses and advisors. Luch, who often uses the advisor angle, did so again to good effect: when all was said and done, he made huge gains and leaped to the forefront. Lucky for me, I was the only one to complete a long road, and those 4 points gave me a slim victory.

Bharmer then arrived and we played a second game with four. He had never played before, but as usual he picked up pretty quick. He and Luch fought over advisors, while I went for a house/ long road strategy. Bharmer made impressive gains on his placements at the end, but I received 20 points from a well placed fortification (12 for a 6 segment road, and 8 for the majority in the region) and won again. I was shaping up to be a good night for me! I don't think the other players were very comfortable with the fortification pieces, since Shemp was the only one to actually play his. In both games, this probably gave me a bit of an unfair advantage.

El Grande, the king of Area Control games, was next. I am always excited when we can play this, particularly with 5 players. Luch had talked it up to Bharmer, so I think he was quite looking forward to it as well.

It was a fun game, and unusual in the sense that the cards which came up consolidated our caballeros more than usual, and several were removed. The result was that each player had just a few concentrations in 3 or 4 regions (often predermining who might fight for 2nd or 3rd in a region). I had the lead for most of the game, but Shemp eventually breezed past me and managed to hold on to the lead. I think Bharmer came in second, which is pretty impressive for the first time out (I don't know about you, but I was pretty clueless the first time I played EG). The only downside is that things were moving a little slower than usual, but that might be because we had a new player and none of us had played for a while.

Saboteur was reasonably fun, but something needs to be done about the card mix. The game always seems heavily balanced for or against the saboteurs, meaning that whichever side wins the first hand will likely win EVERY subsequent hand unless the number of players changes. Too bad, because it's an interesting concept and simple enough to play with a wide group of people... it just needs better tension. Maybe I'll buy a 2nd copy used and try to add more "good" labyrinth pieces, relying on the hazards and rockfalls to aid the saboteurs. Either way, priority= low.

Tikal, the Domaine of Paranoia!

This Wednesday, Luch decided to pick Domaine and Tikal. I brought along "Paranoia, Mandatory *Bonus Fun* Card game", a fairly recent acquisition, as filler.

Domaine has been a staple in our group for some time. Initially, I was put off by the big land grab at the end which was always determining the winner. With a few plays, this simply became part of the strategy... try to keep other players from getting such a windfall, while trying to line one up for yourself. The other issue I had was that we never got the rules right. Even after several plays, the rule which prohibits using the chancery after all face down cards have been drawn kept getting forgotten! This session was the first where we played 100% correctly.

I started out with my usual strategy... aim to capture as many mines as possible. One of my initial placements, right in the middle of the board, was adjacent to 3 different mines. I was able to take them quite early and had plentiful income for the whole game because of them. The other players weren't far behind (typically 2 apiece), however, so the advantage wasn't that great. I wound up with a really good shot at getting a large chunk of land, but didn't draw the cards I needed to close it up. That, and the other players noticed it in time to make sure they weren't helping! I did eventually get a large chunk of land out of it, but by then it had been cut nearly in half by the others. Meanwhile, as Shemp, Kozure and Luch built fairly powerful kingdoms across the board no one noticed the end run Kozure was planning on. Before we could react, he closed of a large chunk and won the game. Another fun session of Domaine!

Next was Tikal. It was Shemp's first go at the game, and after a brief rules explanation we off exploring! I started pouring explorers onto the board, thinking that I it would give me an advantage over time to be out early (this is normally a good strategy in El Grande). I combined this with a plan to set up "corridors" and base camps at choke points to give me near exclusive access to sections of the board. Unfortunately, each and every one of these decisions turned out to be bad ones! The mass of of explorers at the beginning of the game haunted me because it's very difficult to maintain a majority there since it's so wide open and accessible to everyone. To make things worse, they are low value temples which require a significant investment to improve. As things developed, the map did have many corridors, making movement quite difficult for everyone. I managed to get base camps far enough down those corridors to get me there faster than other players could, but Shemp (drawer of all volcanoes this game), kept laying them in ways which effectively reduced those corridors to dead ends. My explorers had a very difficult time to get anywhere. The others had much more effective strategies of reaching and holding harder to access temples. In the end, Kozure had his pieces well distributed at many otherwise abandoned mid level temples and ran away with the victory (Shemp, in his first playing, came in second closely followed by myself and Luch in a tie for last). A wonderful game!

Last was Paranoia. This is a new game by Mongoose Publishing. I didn't really know what to expect, because there weren't any reviews for it (even at BGG!). I mostly bought it because I really liked the old RPG.

This appears, at first glance, to be a fairly typical "Take That!" type game. The result is better than I expected, but I have a few reservations:

The world of Paranoia involves a "Brave New World" type future, with a computer in charge of keeping everyone happy. Unfortunately, the computer has been reprogrammed too many times and has now gone insane. It is now paranoid and thinks that "Commie Mutant Traitors" are everywhere. Problem is, they sort of are. In fact, each player is a mutant and part of a secret society. Second, the Computer wants everyone to be "Happy", by lethal force if it has to. You get the idea. For the purposes of the card game, most of this is unimportant, but it puts things in context (powers and secret societies are alluded to in card text, but don't directly come into play).

Players represent "Troubleshooters", citizens of Alpha Complex unfortunate enough to be charged with accomplishing impossible missions for the Computer. Each character has a security level, which determines how many hits they can take, how much treason they can commit before they are deemed "Traitors", and how many actions they can perform (i.e. the size of their hand). One player is the "Team Leader". He starts with a higher rank, which would be an advantage, but one of the best ways to improve your character is to kill the team leader and become one yourself, so it's pretty hard to stay alive. Incidentally, all players receive 6 clones, or "lives" in video game speak...

Each round, a "Mission" card is revealed. The card identifies what the characters are told to do by the Computer, what happens if they succeed and what happens if they fail. Players hold "Action Cards" which are dealt at the same time as the mission. These are the only cards they get for the entire mission! On a player's turn, they may play one card, either on the mission or another player. Each "Action Card" contains several boxes, each containing instructions for the cards effect depending on if it's directed to yourself, another troubleshooter or *gasp!* the mission. The mission ends once any player runs out of cards, once all characters but one have died, or once the mission is accomplished. At that point, survivors get their bonus or penalty depending on the success of the mission and any characters who have too many "Traitor" counters are executed.

Then, a new Mission is revealed and new "Action" cards are dealt to each player according to current security level.

Keep doing this until one player runs out of "Clone" tokens. At that point, the highest security level character wins.

I didn't have terribly high hopes for the game after reading the rules and examining the cards. Surprisingly, I had a very good time playing the game! This might be because the basics of the game are fairly simple (All card effects and missions boil down to just three things: gaining or taking away rank, traitor tokens and/ or wound tokens). The cards are funny, but more importantly the game play is funny... with characters framing other players, attacking each other, getting screwed by "out of turn" cards which cancel or redirect effects. The sense that most missions are hopeless, and that the best way out is to backstab your friends is well preserved. On top of that, the "Mission" cards and limited hand of cards seem to focus the play a little bit (In a game like "Chez Geek, there isn't much rhyme or reason to playing your turn... you just do stuff to other people and hope to get ahead). Once players match up what's in their hand with the results of potentially succeeding or failing the mission, each one will need to try something a little different to come out ahead (or alive).

Of course, it's got issues. 6 lives is probably too much, you can wind up with a hand of cards which aren't useful and the components aren't exactly world class (though the cards are a fairly thick plastic). The biggest problem, though, is the graphic design. All instructions are rendered in text. With so many potential applications of a card, and several cards in your hand, it's just too hard to know at a glance what you can do. The frustrating thing is, since the game is reduced to just a few concepts it would have been very easy to replace most of the text with easy to understand symbols. In fact, point form text would have been an improvement! ("+1 treason" is much easier to see that "Assign 1 treason token to any player"). I'm tempted to make paste ups for the cards before I play again.

We'll see how it stands up to repeated playing, but for now I'm pleasantly surprised.

Luch won the game, and we had lots of laughs. This is not a game to take seriously. It could have been done better, it could have been done worse, but what we got was a fairly clever and enjoyable game of "Screw yer Neighbour"

Paranoia:(provisional) 7