Marsden is Here

Today I hosted board games, from about 11am until kicking the stragglers out at about 11:30pm. 20-25 people attended over the course of the day and at any one time there were up to four games being played. I'm pretty sure there was about an even mix of guys and gals. I'm pretty sure everyone who attended had fun at least some of the time.

I personally played
- Race for the Galaxy
- DC Heroes
- Dominion
- King of Tokyo
- San Juan
- DC Heroes (again)
- Timeline
- Lords of Waterdeep

Other games I know were played
- more DC Heroes, King of Tokyo, Lords of Waterdeep
- Ankh Morepork (twice)
- Pandemic
- Seven Wonders
- Some Munckin variant with a board
... and there were probably more

All but one of the games I played had people who hadn't played that particular game before. We even had a couple of people along who were completely new to modern "eurogames".

I'd splurged on supplies for a BBQ dinner, weather permitting, weather didn't permit so it was cooked on the stove / in the oven (only setting off 3 of the smoke alarms). had greatly overestimated the amount of sausages required so sent the remaining 30-odd pre-cookeds and a spare loaf of bread off with one of the last to leave. This may have been compounded by the fact that B went out for food mid-afternoon and returned with several large roast dinners from a local place I wasn't even aware of - I had the lamb, it was delicious and I now have a fallback takeaways for when the Foo San isn't open or what I feel like. But come dinner time - still pretty full.

Having written all this down while it was still fresh in my head - now crawling off to bed.

Machine Of Death - a co-operative game of imaginative assassination
MoD variant - much like Cards Against Humanity but you are a psychopath trying to get as many of your hostages killed as possible
Enter the Avenger - a slightly structured storytelling game.

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Also had a game of The Good, The Bad and The Munchkin to start.

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Tomorrow I will probably try and run an Ace of Spades starter.

Had other obligations and wasn't able to turn up until about 11:30am Games:

Castles of Burgundy respectable score, not a win.
Lords of Waterdeep respectable score, loss.
DC Heroes x2 respectable score not a win; miserable loss.

By this time it was 6pm and the last 3 games all included heavily spoon-draining players. faced with more of the same and feeling very down about the whole thing I quit out and stocked up on comfort food for dinner before coming home. (To be fair dinner was what I'd already planned, but I had intended it to be an indulgent end to a more enjoyable weekend.)

Having skipped lunch after a somewhat physical morning probably didn't help at all. I was faced with the choice between
- getting lunch, seeing my parents and probably having to wait for a game when I got back
- making critical mass in a game I wanted to play and which was likely to end before my parents finished doing things around town then going for lunch

I opted for the second and made do with oat-bars and SIFI bananas - but due to spoon heavy player the game took much longer than anticipated and I manage to miss both my parents and any reasonable semblance of lunchtime. By which time I figured that I might as well play more and hold out until dinner instead of eating late and throwing my body-clock out of whack.

Other factors may also have contributed.

It's disappointing that the most enjoyable period of time I had today - possibly all weekend - was an hour of otherwise-dead-time spent weeding in the sun at the Hall.

Hanging out, board games* and fish 'n chips with good people I don't manage to socialise with very often.

* well that was the plan. I practice I turned up part-way through a one shot (Ghost/Echo) and observed then taught two people to play Race for the Galaxy (2 games both of which I had an excellent score and they had good scores despite beginner status) the watched some Limbo.

I dreamed a lot last night. This included two boardgames which occurred either the evening before or at an event like BoD or KapCon

The first was actually card-based, but was played a scored on a board. I remember that the board and art on the cards were of excellent quality and I felt it was good value at $40, although I may also have found it on a sale table. Rarely, it was one I had purchased without plying before. I also remember explicitly calling out what company it was made by although I can;t for the life of me remember who now. The cards (in the deck I was playing with) had names like "Plague of Orcs", "Gravediggers Curse", "Troop Levy" and "Tower of [something]" (the picture was a dark, square-crenellated tower on a hill).

The mechanics were that there were 3 slots on the tableau (per player) where you played cards, and each card had three abilities, which one activated depended on which slot it was placed in.
- the first slot was purely for the point value on the card
- the second slot modified the first card played - usually either multiplying the points or changing the card type. These weren't always beneficial.
- the third slot could retain it's card between rounds (so you didn't always play into it). The card here would affect something else about the game - the only explicit two I remember were giving you an additional scoring stack (then discarding), and forcing your opponent to clear his 3rd slot. I suspect others might include extra points for particular types of cards, a larger hand/draw size or forcing the opponent to discard/draw fewer.

Once all three slots were full the first two cards went to a scoring stack and points were recorded. This was the most recent scoring stack and the top card of any other scoring stack in the line was also scored again.

It seemed there were two ways to handle drawing cards (agreed before the game) - draw one, consider, pick a slot, draw second ... kind of ala Biblios, or from a hand of 5 drawn up to full at the beginning of the turn.

I'm not clear what the winning conditions were but probably most points once both decks (two players) were exhausted.

At some point instead of physically we started playing this pseudo-electronically using an overlay - it wasn't even an interface yet more of a wireframe - developed by morbid_curious. The focus shifted away from the game to feedback on the wireframe which then became intended for a study examining how the order in which questions were asked - or more specifically how the images accompanying earlier questions affected peoples answers to later questions in the series.

~~~
The second game had an outer scoretrack (scores started at 100 for reasons which will become apparent later) and an inner numbered track winding its way from on end of the board to the other. On this track each player had 3 or four tokens starting at various points and there was a dragon token which started at 0. The mechanic was rolling two dice each of which you could use to move one of your tokens and the sum of which your scoretrack marker moved, and another dice which moved the dragon token.
- if you managed to land one of your tokens on another of your tokens you could thereafter move them as one
- if you managed to land one of your tokens on another player's token you could have it removed from the game.
- If the dragon landed on or overtook a token it was removed from the game and if it was another player's token the person who rolled the dice moved back the number of spaces on the scoretrack that the token had reached on the inner track.
- The game was be won by having the lowest score when there was only one (or fewer) surviours or the dragon reached the end of the inner track (I've an idea that if you got a token off the end of the inner track it was "safe" but that's not clear. At one point it also seemed there was a way for the dragon to get onto the outer track and nom on your score markers.)

My opinion on this game was that it was probably too snakes-and-ladders-y and dice driven, and wouldn't stand up to much replaying.

~~~
I was able to pick out the influences for most of the mechanics in these two games, including the little card game M is developing and brought along to SAGA on Thursday to playtest.

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Other dreams for the night that I remember parts of featured some form of mechanical trade fair or show, getting my hand nicked by the tail rotor of a helicopter just starting up (just a scratch - mmm nommy blood), missing a couple of phone calls and some very pleasant encounters with willing young ladies.

Last night I dreamed I was playing a board game. I have no idea if this game actually exists, I cannot remember playing it if it does.

The board was asian themed, and had 3 things you could buy on it as tiles (you could also buy these things from other players) - Bowls, Vegetables and Spices. If you had one of each you could "make a bowl of soup" and trade the three in for points - different bowls, vegetables and spices were worth different amounts of points and cost appropriately. If you didn't use something it sat in front of you and other players could buy it on their turn. Tiles on the board replaced (randomly from a pool of the type) as they were bought.

To buy you had 2d6 worth of money plus whatever other players had given you since your last turn and maybe the option of saving - not clear if unspent money vanished at the end of the turn.

Winner was first to a certain number of points.

I think this game would be aimed at children, teaching simple math and elements of money-management. I also think I'd add a "dummy" player which bought and scored according to a simple set of rules to have a few more tiles in play, let an adult be involved or let the game be played solo.

This weekend is SAGAs first Mini-con of the year - two days of gaming. After dealing with some things-that-needed-to-be-done at home this morning I managed to spend the afternoon there.

- Lords of Waterdeep - only related to (A)D&D by the franchising - respectable score for my first time playing.
- Robo-rally - despite running myself off the board completely unaided during my first turn I managed to come a respectable 2nd or 2nd-equal.
- Race for the Galaxy - 3 games with 3,4,5 players respectively, win followed by two low-but-middle-of-the-pack scores.
- Pandemic - what felt like a fairly easy game on "normal" difficulty but we only "won" with a turn to spare.

Don't think I played anything else today. Hope to be back tomorrow.

Not as many people (as usual for a Thursday) - but still ~26 when I did a head-count. Not a lot of interest in roleplaying tonight - enough for two games but one group of us couldn't agree on a which of the available one-offs to play so we just relocated back to the board-games room.

Played 6-player Seafarers of Catan - I placed last, cocked up my initial placement, was unable to play anything for several rounds and was just starting to get back in the game when it ended. Next was Death Angel where all but one of the team died horribly by the end of the second room. Finally was Biblios[sp?] - new to me but a convincing win.

It was a maudlin christmas this year. I went to bed about 8pm on Xmas eve in a bleak mood and despite sleeping OK rose about 12 hours later in no better frame of mind, busying myself with gardening and cleaning until it was time to head out to the family. Much of the day I found myself on the verge of tears.

( on consideration )

I came nowhere near breaking even on presents but I didn't expect to. I could afford to be somewhat generous this year. I even managed to come up with something thoughtful for my parents.

Mostly this year it's been foodstuffs - and mostly home-baked biscuits - starting with a visit from a cookie ninja on Christmas-eve-eve and so on until waifs and strays. Youngest sister varied the trend with a gift-pack containing crackers, condiments and fudge. I shall be consuming slowly - this time of year always leads to overdoing the gluten.

Much of the afternoon was spent scanning photos from and old album and various material from a couple of family reunions, I now know significantly more about some of my family 3-4 generations back. Mind, that's starting from not very much at all.

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There was an #AH alarm while I was on the way back into town - still 30 minutes out but someone was available to respond and whoever it was was gone anyway.

There weren't as many stragglers at Waifs and Strays as usual when I arrived, but it was pleasant to see people and wind down there.

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Today I dropped in on two boardgaming sessions and between them managed two games of Seven Wonders (last, 1st equal with Leaders expansion) and Tongiaki (middle of the pack) which I enjoyed. I am still feeling quite exhausted but no rest for the responsible - tomorrow is a barbeque which I seem to be left organising.