August 18, 2005 |
The first day we arrived at about our scheduled arrival time, 1 pm. We eventually marched to the Convention Center, and Karla was really grumpy about being hungry and not finding places to eat. We checked out the Exhibition Hall, which was overwhelming, as I hadn't been to one of these things in about 20 years. Karla wasn't too crazy about the convention at first, and she was also unimpressed by the Anime movies. Looked like it would be a tough sell...
We found a place that pretty much saved the weekend, the Hard Times Cafe, which had veggie burgers that Karla loved.
| Republic of Rome |
There were four folks that had played before, plus me, who had played solitaire a few times, plus a new fellow.
Scott had the Cornelii, and as he won the first consulship and censorship, he quickly became a target for Nathan and the two other experienced fellows (whose names completely escape me). Eventually, Scott had to wrangle himself out of a prosecution, and to do so, he secured votes - with some negotiation - from me and the other new fellow.
Rome then sent my fellow, Manlius, to go collect a peace contribution for the First Punic War. Rome was war-less after the first round, and Scott (and John, the judge) said that this was the easiest first round ever. It was going to get tough.
Soon we had a few wars shoved down our throats. Then one fellow, who had the Quinctius group, was consul, and when he tried to give a state of the republic address, the people ran riot and I lost two of my senators. Scott lost a senator, and the new fellow lost two. I now had little money, and the senator who had just been consul was now dead. We said he died on his way back to Rome.
Within a turn or two, I managed to get Aemilius elected Consul. The Quinctius guy, ironically, had not lost any senators in the riots, and the rest of us got together and managed to keep Rome alive despite a No Recruitment penalty. Fortunately, despite the appearance of the First and Second Punic Wars (and Hannibal), Rome was able to be kept alive. Aemilius then went and won the Second Syrian War, netting me some popularity...for a moment. He was then killed when a plague or something set in.
The rest of the game my faction was a non-factor. And my slide (along with the new fellow's) led to a decrease in Scott's faction as well. Nathan was doing rather well, getting an office or two each round. Quinctius survived a Prosecution by appealing to the masses. The fellow to my left had a bone to pick with Scott all game, and kept the Cornelii in the shadows (and me as well). I eventually tried mending the fences with him later on, and he started to let me gain some more power.
Soon we were in trouble again, though. Wars were piling up. T. Quinctius left and defeated the Macedonians (and kept surviving). The fellow to my left acquired Cato the Elder and was flinging tribuneships left and right. Quinctius, on his turns, kept rolling events and kept getting us in trouble, usually rolling Evil Omens or something. We kept the masses entertained with gladiatorial games and most of the senators were popular despite the burden of the wars on the state.
Before the last turn, I was offered the statesman L. Aemilius Paulus for two tribune cards. As I was afraid of being Prosecuted (and a tribune can stop a prosecution), I refused. This was kind of crucial.
The next turn, Rome had 5 wars to fend off. The First and Second Punic Wars, the First and Second Macedonian Wars, and the First Gallic War. We were in deep doo-doo. With deep doo-doo, we chose Quinctius Fabius Cunctator as Dictator. He went with Scipio as Master of the Horse, and decided to go after the First Macedonian War. Politics pushed this decision, though. Should Quinctius go to the war and return victorious, he would have a lot of popularity and a ton of influence, and barring an assassination attempt, he would have won the game. So we chose a lesser leader. Quinctius was assigned the less prestigious war. Regardless, we could only muster enough troops to get a +2 on each war. It was going to be difficult.
After much haggling and negotiating, the Dictator set off agains the difficult First Macedonian War. It was a Standoff, which ensured that we were doomed, as Rome was going to be stuck with 4 wars at best. The Republic fell.
My choice of not trading my tribunes had a big effect. Had I chosen to trade my tribunes, I probably would have been Dictator and Rome may have survived, for L. Aemilius Paulus not only had a higher military rating than the Dictator that went out, but he nullified all Standoffs and Disasters in the Macedonian Wars. Quinctius shared a similar ability and would have nullified similar results in the other war. Together, we probably could have wiped out the Macedonians and saved Rome. Alas, 'twas not to be.
This game was absolutely awesome. It took about 3 1/2 hours to get through one age of the Republic (we had just got into the Middle Republic when the game ended), and it was fun. Had I not lost two senators rather quickly just when they were establishing their footholds in Rome, I would have done better. Also, if the Quinctius fellow hadn't rolled so poorly (hurting ONLY Rome, I should add, and never his own senators), we would have done better as a group. I was also very poor all game, and the new fellow had some bad luck with a couple rolls or else he would have been a stronger force, too.
The guy to my left was a bit cutthroat and alienated Scott quite a bit. He did a lot of things for his own benefit while the other two fellows, Nathan and the Quinctius fellow, let him. Those three guys really helped each other out (and mostly avoided the pratfalls that Quinctius kept rolling) while the other three of us had to save Rome. They spent more time personally aiding themselves, though Quinctius was not as vindictive as the other two: he was very nice, he just rolled badly.
August 19, 2005 |
| The Skein |
Asgard had recently had trouble with giants and Odin held a feast. After selecting our roles (and each role had special choices and goals), we went about doing them. I was Hugin, one of Odin's ravens, and I was supposed to gather some info for him, but mostly my job was to report to a fellow named Grimnir. I was also supposed to find out about a guy named Hoenir and try to get the other raven Munin killed.
Karla was Sigrund, a human woman that was secretly an assassin. She was supposed to track down her lover Hygliff (who was already dead) and try to get guys interested in Freya (which didn't happen). Eventually (after telling the GM she was bored) she was assigned to get the horn of Heimdall destroyed.
The whole thing was kind of interesting. I was a messenger for everyone (as was the other raven) and frequently I was asked to do things that I didn't know how to do. I was told to contact the giants, but as the giants were in disguise, I was supposed to find out who they were. (As one of the people playing a giant left, it became that much more difficult to track them down.) Another giant was a teenager, and he didn't do a very good job of role-playing or talking. The last giant, one N'arra, was always out of the way and I had no interest in talking to her.
Finally, in desperation to find the giants (whom Idun and Bragi were also trying to find), I asked Odin. He said, "They are at the Bifrost Bridge." I thought this meant "Heimdall", who, in Norse mythology, guards the Bifrost. What he was really doing, though, was just staying in character. So I spread the rumor that I thought Heimdall was a giant and everyone believed it. Thus the rest of the game was spent conversing with Heimdall and trying to manipulate him.
In the end, Heimdall was NOT a giant. N'arra was, as well as two other guys. Munin, it turned out, was serving N'arra, and then all the other roles were revealed. Some folks had dumb roles and others had good ones, but the wrap up took altogether too damned long. Had it wrapped up more quickly, it would have been more fun. Karla was also upset because her back stiffened up because it was so damned cold in there.
| Killer Bunnies and the Journey to Jupiter |
Notes: After another lunch at the Hard Times Cafe, Karla and I met Jeffery Neil Bellinger, the creator for Killer Bunnies for a play of his new prototype. First, we were supposed to meet in the Board Game HQ, but we were fetched by one of Jeff's lackeys to play in the TCG room. This kind of bugged Karla, and as Jeff himself is a chatty, somewhat rambunctious fellow, I thought that she might get mad at him.
It was silly to worry. Though we played the game going counter clockwise ("It's clockwise from under the table," Jeff insisted), we had a great time, and Jeff, though he accused me of being unmanned a couple times (mostly when I wouldn't battle someone or play a mean card on Karla), paid the final price when I blew his spaceship up. Mwa haha! He shook my hand, then playfully pouted.
In Journey to Jupiter, you have to launch your bunnies in space ships, collect Carrots from various spots in the solar system, and bring them to Jupiter. It works just like Quest, with carrot collection, Run cards, Special cards, Feed (or Sustain) the Bunny cards, etc.
I don't want to get too much into the details here, but it's a more strategic game than the original. Jeff said himself that it was for gamers, unlike Quest, which is a party game. Afterwards, Karla said she liked it more, and I would probably agree with her. It takes longer, but it gets rid of some points of luck, namely the "Choose a Carrot" card. In the original, if you never got one of those cards (or any money), you were screwed. In this game, you have more control.
I had excellent cards and was the first bunny off earth. That was kind of my policy: get collecting early. I had the weakest ship early on, but I improved my ship with a booster, managed to acquire the mini-lith (which was frickin' awesome), defeated both alien ships, blew up the designer's ship (and grabbed his carrot), and generally dominated, making shrewd moves towards the end that helped secure victory. There is, most notably, a lot of tactical plays that can be made when fighting people.
We then checked the carrot countdown. It went from 8 to 7 to 6 to 5 to 4 to 3 to 2 to 1. Jeff laughed and said, "I guess I didn't shuffle it." He shuffled it, and despite knocking off 4 of my carrots with the first four flips, my overwhelming advantage in carrots (6 to Jeff's 1 to the kid's 1) held on.
Jeff gave out some posters to Rebecca (the girl who had some rotten luck) and the other players (Karla got a "Every Cloud has a Steel Lining" poster that she loved). Then he excitedly gave me my trophy, a set of 4 special edition cards in a frame with his and the artist's autograph on it. I was overwhelmed and still am. It was more than I expected and was a fantastic topper to a fun game. Jeff is quite the character and made the game very fun.
Lots of pictures were taken. Most notably were photos taken of Jeff wearing some blinking bunny ears that one of the other players brought (He had a house rule back home that the last person to get a bunny has to wear the ears) and a rather embarrassing picture of Karla and me that Jeff promised "will be on the website."
Notes: Karla and I grabbed some food at a very fine Italian restaurant called Buca di Beppo. I had the Frutti di Mare and Karla had a salad and a side of spaghetti. Then, after drinking some coffee, I high-tailed it back to the con to play some 7-card stud. The Hold 'Em tourney was wrapping up, and I thought it was funny that there were a lot of non-Connie types there. I actually saw a couple frat boys there.
There were no frat boys in the stud tournament, though. Stud doesn't have the TV time on ESPN so it didn't draw them. It was mostly older fellows and poker devotees. I played okay, but had absolutely no cards the whole match. In fact, I won the grand total of zero pots. I only was the second one out in the whole tourney, though.
I had terrible hands and I couldn't play them, because there was a fellow at our table named Joe that raised and raised and raised all the time. Sometimes he had good hands, sometimes he was chasing straights or flushes, and sometimes he had great hands. Regardless, I never had a hand that I could take him on with, and I couldn't afford the steep prices to see cards. (Not with the crap I was holding, which was usually in the realm of T-6-2 or something.)
I made a couple runs at the pot once the blinds got too big and was knocked out by a guy with a flush. I had also been chasing a flush (and a straight and had started with the best hand) but, like the whole night, I got nothing. It really sucked because I had the table pegged. I knew what everyone was doing and had tells figured out on a couple of them. Unfortunately, despite surviving the Raise raise raise guy (he went out first), I never had a hand that could take a pot. Very frustrating. Still, it got me back and in bed before 2 A.M. That's better than sticking around until 4 A.M. to bring home the same thing: a shitload of nothing.
Notes: Karla and I managed to get to this game on time and Rogue Judges (the group that ran it) made it very friendly and fun. It's basically a draw n play card party game. In it, you get a guy and a girl (randomly assigned and pretty silly) and then you try to make your date as bad as possible (resulting in more beers for your buddies to buy you) and making your opponents' dates worse (resulting in less beer for them). The cards are pretty funny and result in a lot of snorts of laughter.
Karla and I played with a couple (Phaedra and Brian, I think). Brian insisted on letting people replace cards, which I thought was incorrect. It turned out to be incorrect, but more importantly, it led to our going through the cards pretty quickly. Once you've seen all the cards, the game loses its charm.
Still, we played one whole game (and I won, netting myself a pixie stix and a funny story about it). Then we played again. The second game was kind of a snore, as we had just seen all the cards. After the second game (in which Karla tied for the win with a Chinese-American fellow), Karla won a free copy of it. So now we have it.
Notes: After eating some expensive food at a Sushi restaurant called Mikado (which, according to Stan Sakai, means "emperor") and taking a nap, we figured out where the costume contest was. The contest was listed in the book, but gave absolutely no hints as to the contest's location. We had to ask The Great Luke Ski twice and then re-check a couple times with various people, who were all wrong. (Luke was right.)
Eventually, we got there, and all the seats were filled up. Karla and I placed some more seats in the back row but were soon told that it was against a fire code or something. I was about to grumble and complain, but another guy beat me to it. He bitched (rightfully) to the security guy about:
1) How hard it was to find the right entrance to the contest,
Karla was determined to sit somewhere though, and the guy tried to put us in some reserved seats. Then a couple simply got up and left, saying, "You can sit here." I don't know why they did that, but we were grateful.
So we watched the contest, which was cool. I really liked the Boba Fett costume, a Dirge costume, a re-creation of the Red Death (from the Poe story), the winged angel costume (which left Karla unimpressed, despite the fact that wings looked real and actually moved), and a woman who made a costume of an Accepted from the Robert Jordan series. A couple guys were trying to be funny, but I was only impressed by the Goat Herder (who won second prize) and a guy in a very home-made looking Stormtrooper outfit.
The talent part was hit or miss. It started with a person karaoke-ing a Japanese song. She(he?) couldn't hit the high notes and it was pretty painful. Next up were the winners, who did a Dark Lord of the Dance. Dressed in heavy maroon cloaks, two sisters did some Irish Folk Dancing to some techno music. Karla loved them. Then a fat guy in a wife-beater, based on some comic or manga show, sang a guitar solo. The crowd loved it (and he won 2nd place) but I found it lame. Then a clown came out and did some boring juggling and so-so magic tricks while salting in a few dud jokes.
After that, The Great Luke Ski (with Carrie, I believe) did a musical mini-opera of Star Wars that was fantastic and hilarious. Four Stars. The crowd then pressured him to do another song, so he did "Geeks of the Industry", a rap parody. Some of the lines were really good, but I missed about 1/2 the song...kind of hard to keep up.
The winners were announced, but Karla and I left after the staff pick (which was a bumbling wizard named Randolph). The winged elf won best Fantasy costume, a Poison Ivy/Harly Quinn combo won best superhero, some female senator won best Star Wars costume (over Boba Fett, somehow), and the potluck category was won by the Teddy Bear hunters, another fan (and Karla) favorite. By this time I was worried that I was going to miss my Die Macher game, so Karla and I dashed off just before the People's Choice pick. According to reactions during the contest, the winner was definitely going to be the winged elf anyway. When I asked Karla why she didn't like her, it was the death of all the pheasants (whose feathers made the costume) that troubled her.
Notes: I bought and drank a coffee while waiting for Mike Webb and Co., who had promised me a spot in their Saturday evening game. We just had to wait for Morgan to get out the exhibition hall. Josh and I were new to the game (as you can tell from our scores). Mike W. was thrown for a big loss in the first region, then recovered to play nicely and nearly snagged second place. Morgan pretty much dominated, though he did my typical technique by saying, "I think Scott's got this one."quite frequently.
The first Region taught me quickly how harsh this game of German Politics really is. I thought I knew how votes were converted and tried to ensure getting the minimum mandate. It didn't work. I shouldn't have felt bad, but I was kind of upset that I wasted resources there. Mike, though, should have snagged a bunch of points and spent even more resources there, but he was ganged up on by Morgan and Scott and he was doomed. Morgan won the region easily and got all the bonuses fromit.
In the second region, I had a strong presence and matched most of the issues. As I now understood how voting worked, I thought I had it all wrapped up, including the media marker and bonus national issues. Instead, Mike teamed up with Josh in a coalition that cost me my national issues and media markers. That really sucked, as it cost me countless (countless I tell you!) additions to my national party. I ended up being in grim shape for my national party the whole election, and only managed to break 20 (Just 20!) by Round 6. Morgan foresook the second region and Mike managed only a pittance...just enough to get the coalition victory. Scott, after two rounds, now led in Mandate 51 to 48 over Josh.
I should have done well in the third region, but the media kept switching issues on me, and my anti-genetic food stance was killing me, but I couldn't change it. Everyone else was pro-genetic food, so they kept changing the issues to be pro-genetic food (Pro Square Tomatoes, we called it). Thus, though I originally had matched up in this region very well, I was now overthrown. I began looking to future rounds and managed to get two media markers in Round 6 and some votes in Round 4. Morgan won his second region while Mike and Scott were shut out. Josh and I barely challenged Morgan, netting 12 and 10 respectively. Worse, Morgan closed out the national issue cards by selecting ones that I didn't match...at all, and my national party strength was beginning to be left in the dust.
In round 4, Mike started to make a move after netting all of 11 mandate in the first 3 rounds. Morgan gave up and Josh and I nabbed a few mandate each, while Mike manipulated the order auction to go last and win the region by a short head. He was now in great shape for the rest of the election. I continued to be shut out on the national issues, as my string of issues was pretty much the opposite of everyone's (including Scott's and Mike's. I matched 1 or 2 with Josh and Morgan).
The fifth round was probably the key to the game. I was doomed, as Mike, who was in control of the media, picked every single issue to be the opposite of mine, and so I had 4 or 5 wasted party meetings there. This was going to be the big coalition round, and Scott assigned Mike to go first...probably his big mistake. Mike chose a firmer coalition (with Morgan), and Scott was stuck in a coalition with Josh. Mike then manipulated the media and the opinion polls to hurt Josh as much as possible. Thus, out of a possible 36 mandate, Josh converted his 10 party meetings into only 19 mandate. Had Scott chosen to go first (and picked Mike as his coalition partner), he might have been in better shape to catch up to Morgan and beat him.
By this point I was laughing at how poorly I was doing...but I knew I was going to kick ass in the 6th region, and I did. I manipulated the media, avoided any coalitions (as everyone had begun focusing on the 7th region, which was the big ass 80 mandate region). I had an overwhelming presence in Region 6 and captured all 48 mandate. Mike had forsook it in favor of going after Region 7, and Josh really floundered. Part of his big mistake was that he didn't take control of the media in the 7th region, leaving it Scott. Had he taken command there, Josh could have really outdistanced himself from me.
Thus, after Round 6 I had about 22 national members, whereas Scott and Morgan (the leaders) were way way up in the upper 50's. Josh had really begun to flag since Round 5 and it would be a race to the bottom between him and me.
Mike paid $91,000 to win the final "name the Startspieler" auction, and he wanted to go last, so Morgan became the Startspieler for a 3rd time. (In fact, he never went later than 3rd the whole game.) Opinion polls were manipulated and triggered, and both Morgan and Mike managed the whole mandate. I didn't match any issues, so I just used my Shadow Cabinet to get as many votes as possible, and I was happy to get to a mandate of 25. Scott did well, but was ganged up on by Shadow Cabinets and Opinion polls, and managed 72. Josh was shut out.
One look at all the scores told me that Morgan had won. It took a while to calculate everything, and sho'nuff, Morgan dusted us all. Josh and I laughed that our two scores combined would have put us in third place.
As you can see, I got walloped everywhere, but especially in the media and party membership. I never did match the national issues at all until round 6 (I had to win a region to do it!) and as I had only one late media marker up there I suffered in that respect, too. Josh benefited from matching a lot of the national issues all game, but he was not very media-focused either, only getting one marker up there when he and Mike screwed me in Round 2 by creating a coalition.
I started to play better near the end, and I now know and understand the importance of the media, opinion polls, and matching your opponents on the issues. In my defense, it was impossible for me to switch my issues for the first 3 rounds as I kept drawing the same cards that I already had in front of me. So while everyone else was able to change their issues in anticipation of the current (or future) election, I was static. Still, this game is fantastic. The time flies by, and the eagerness to gamble and go for the moment versus future investment, among my favorite things to fret over in a game, are at their absolute best in Die Macher.
Well worth the anticipation and the gamer-hype.
Notes: To unwind we played some Penguin Pile-Up, which Morgan had been putting together while we played Die Macher (to his credit, rarely to distraction). We managed to get two games of it in, and though Morgan and I had a few pulls off my victorious Pixie Stick, we never caused a major tumble. Mike won the first game despite my attempt to stick him with a super wobbly glacier, and Morgan won the second game after Josh (for the second time in two games) spilled almost all the penguins off the glacier.
The game went over pretty big.
Notes:My last game of the Con (so it turned out) was a victory over my fellow Die Macherites. In this game, you stack plastic people with little hooks and holes all over their body onto a similar person with a stand. Mike kept cracking himself and Morgan up with the "Asshook Stand" maneuver. Morgan would start laughing, then we'd all laugh at him laughing, and then he'd knock a guy off the stand.
Alas for Josh, his Stacrobatting skills pushed his Penguin Pile-Up skills, and he had far more guys left in his supply when I put my last fellow on the stack. This sounds stupid, but I "got" this game. I just saw all the possibilities pretty quickly and was the only player not to have to take knocked down stacrobats.
After that, Scott and I were determined to go, so I bid everyone a good night and made it back to the hotel room by about 1 am.
On the last day of the Con, Karla and I were too wiped out from playing and running around. We were scheduled to play Turtle Soup with its designer at 10 am, but I was so tired of running around that I put the kibosh on going to the game. Too bad. We made one last run through the exhibition hall (which tried Karla's patience), laughed at a funny Role-Playing movie, scoffed at the people waiting in line near the Axis and Allies set up for free stuff, and ultimately bought Volldampf, the Martin Wallace pre-cursor to Age of Steam (or so it appears). After lunch at the Hard Times Cafe, we managed to get home. The coolest part was that the parking for all 4 days ended up being free, as the garage booth was unattended.
Summary
Die Macher will be a must for next year as will the Boardgamegeek.com meeting, which occurred at 9am on Saturday, but which I forewent due to my (ultimately doomed) 7 stud tourney's lateness. I'll probably pass on future LARPs, and I'll tone down my eagerness to buy stuff. The games, to my dismay, were marked UP and not down at the con. For instance, the Rio Grande booth was selling Power Grid for $45, whereas its retail price is $40, and one can get it through fairplay for probably less than $30.
I'd like to go again, and now I know better than to over-commit myself. The hotel was great, and Indianapolis was a cool city, though it stunk in a few places. Buca di Beppo gets a big thumbs up, as does the Hard Times Cafe. Mikado gets a thumbs down (mostly because it was too expensive).
Seven Card Stud Tournament
Saturday I was pretty wiped, as I stayed up too late the night before. Karla was sweet enough to let me sleep until 10, though, and despite some herky-jerky sleep I managed to make it through the day (and even play Die Macher). Our first game of the day was at noon.August 20, 2005
Boy Meets Girl: A Tragedy Costume Contest
2) How hard it was just to find out when and where the contest took place,
3) How inscrutable the Gencon program was, and
4) How frustrating 1, 2, and 3 were.Die Macher
Results Player Score Place First Time? Morgan (sisteray) 441 1 Scott (Yekrats) 357 2 Mike W. (CortexBomb) 345 3 Josh 180 3 * Mike N. (POvidiusNaso) 173 5 *
Results Player Mandate Media Party Members Issue Matches Total Morgan 203 70 76 (+10) 82 441 Scott 210 15 71 (+6) 55 357 Mike W. 167 40 61 67 345 Josh 87 20 53 20 180 Mike N. 121 12 30 10 173 Penguin Pile-Up Stacrobats August 21, 2005
In all, I had a great time. The Killer Bunnies, Republic of Rome, and Die Macher events were great. Next year, if I should make it, I'm determined to meet more board game geeks and I'd like to spend more time in the Exhibition Hall, so that I can play some more games. I really would have liked playing a demo of Arkham Horror, Dungeon Twister, and Tempus, which, it seems, Morgan himself demos quite a bit.