Rumors of my Demise have been Greatly Exaggerated

As a typical disgruntled Englishman, I have an inveterate dislike of American cultural Imperialism. Not so much American culture itself, you understand but more of circumstances when annoying aspects of your culture thoughtlessly overwrite lomh-cherished bastions of Englishness. Such as the fact that your bastardised dialect of our fine language is now known throughout the world as “International English” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.

Bearing this in mind, it is with a heavy and grudging heart that I have to admit that one thing Americans do better than we do is Halloween. Halloween is of course originally a Celtic festival, and I grew up in Ireland where it’s still celebrated passionately, and I learned to love it. I mean, a night of the year when the boundaries between worlds become thinner, magic is more potent and the dead are supposed to walk … come on, how cool is that? On arriving in England for the first time I was appalled by the off-hand manner in which it’s treated by everyone except young children. Seriously – over the past few years I’ve made a point of searching the terrestrial TV channels for horror-themed films or programmes shown on or around the 31st of October and there’s never, ever anything on. I don’t remember the last time we had trick-or-treaters at the door, even though I religiously stock up on sweets beforehand so I can reward anyone who is out celebrating the festival (and of course I get to scoff them all myself over the ensuing weeks when no-one turns up). Christian or otherwise, this is a seriously big chunk of our cultural heritage we’re missing out on.

Most gamers seem to love Halloween and no small wonder – many of us who were raised on the Ameritrash classics of yesteryear got into the gaming hobby precisely because we loved ghouls and goblins and all that fantasy stuff. I’d be curious to see if the younger generation who were raised on Eurogames have the same passion, but that’s an aside. The time-honoured way for a gamer to celebrate the festival is, of course, to pull out and play a bunch of horror-themed games. Witness, as evidence, the cavalcade of “games for Halloween” type lists that appear on Boardgamegeek around this time every year.

I’m no exception to this trend. At the same time as stocking up on sweets I always plan to spend the evening playing some horror games from my collection. Since I actually own very few horror games (for reasons we’ve discussed previously on the blog). I occasionally use it as an excuse to buy another one. And then the same thing happens every year: I call up my gaming friends and say to them all “You up to play some games on 31st October?” and, roughly five years out of every seven they replay “That’s a weeknight! No way! I have to go to work the next day!”. These people aren’t sleep wussies either – we used to have regular Titan sessions on a Monday night. It’s just the usual English apathy about the festival rearing its ugly head again.

My gaming friends are usually willing to compromise by having a horror game session at the nearest weekend instead. I am not. I have a firm and unshakable belief that if you’re going to celebrate something, you ought to do it on the specified date or nor do it at all. Would you celebrate Christmas in late January just because it suited your schedule a little better? Of course not! So why pay lip server to less well regarded festivals like Halloween? Indeed it seems to me that of all the yearly celebrations Halloween is perhaps the one which is best celebrated on the actual date. It’s a mystical event in the calendar: on this night and this night only the spirits break forth to terrorise the living. Come Friday night they’ll be gone, so what’s the point of trying to appease/commune with/exorcise them then? So, sad as it may be, I’ve managed to organise just one Halloween game that I can recall.

Because of this fashion for horror games on Halloween night, it ought to be absolute pig-in-mud time for Ameritrash evangelists because it’s the one occasion on which even the most dyed-in-the wool Eurogamer might be persuaded to sit down and trawl through a session of Fury of Dracula. Why? Well, to misquote Bill Clinton “It’s the atmosphere, stupid!”. For the one night of the year everyone can just put aside everything they think they know about “good” and “elegant” game design and just get down and dirty and enjoy the haunt. What they’re enjoying, of course, is what those of us who love our AT games any night of the year usually refer to as “theme”. They’re discovering that a game can be fun to play for the value and quality of the theme and narrative alone, and that in these sorts of games, strategy and elegance are just icing on a cake which is damn tasty all by itself.

So, come Halloween when you sit down to the smorgasbord of horror games that have been prepared for you, remember that the value you’re getting from your play is the value that Ameritrash gamers hold dear. Remember it well, and recall that feeling the next time you’re inclined to mock us for enjoying our pointless, luck-filled, over-chromed games and think carefully before offering an opinion.

Otherwise, next year, we’ll send the Hunting Horrors after you.

Buffy: "We fight monsters, this is what we do."

I spent last week fraternizing with the enemy . . . literally. I was staying with my brother, who is the second best Caylus player in the world (at least according to WBC). He also won the EuroQuest Caylus tournament, but it is more fun to call him the second best Caylus player in the world because it annoys him.

Anyway, we're pounding some crabs and Natty Bo, and the flesh is flying, which brings up the topic of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which leads to discussing Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Game. My sister-in-law, who is mostly a party gamer, gets interested and suddenly turns to my brother and says, "I want to play the Buffy game."

My brother just about swallows his tongue. He sputters, "You wouldn't like it."

Feh! For shame! He says this to a woman who was just about the best Mina Harker I've ever played with. So I have a date to teach the Buffy game to my sister-in-law this summer. The way I get my sister-in-law to play with me is . . . well . . . frankly, I lie like a rug.

Last summer I set up Fury of Dracula. Sis walks in.

I just hand her the Mina mini and say, "Your playing Mina."

She looks bewildered for a moment, but before she can say that she can't play because she is on the way to the Outlet Mall, I tell her, "It's really easy. It's a cooperative game. You play on a team like in Wits and Wagers. Your on the same team as the second best Caylus player in the world. Just do what he tells you until you catch on. The object of the game is to figure out where Dracula is hiding, kind of like you do in Clue. You just move one space per turn and then pick cards, like in Pictionary, except the game is about Dracula. You get to be Mina, the hot chick that Dracula bites."

Sis shrugs and says okay. A couple of turns into the game, she is on her feet telling all the boys to shut up because she has a good card to play, which she did. Half way through the game she wants to know why she has to fetch cards and never gets to fight anything.

I told her that Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Game is like Fury Dracula, but not the hunting part, just the fighting part. It takes place in a city after you have already located the Vampire. You just roll to move. Get next to the Vampire and kick him in the head. Easy. Also the two best hunters are the women, Buffy and Willow, so the boys have to be the ones who run around the board and fetch cards for you. That's when she said she wanted to play.

I won't lie to you all though. Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Game is a compact dungeon crawl that plays in 45 - 90 minutes. It has a fresh, modern feel. There's no geeky elves and orcs, or ugly space marines. The heroes are modern humans, the strongest of which is an attractive, fully clothed young woman with normal sized boobies. This might sound stupid to the guys, but I swear, whenever I try to get female friends to play Runebound with me, they take one look at the female character cards and I get a lecture on exploitation and distorted body image and anorexia and the whole world is going to hell in hand basket because they let 8 year olds wear halter tops to school, and OMG Bratz dolls. And I'm like crap, it's a game. You can use a meeple if it makes you feel better. But it's too late, and we end up playing something with a robber, or obelisks or trains instead.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Buffy-dungeon crawl. The problem that I have with dungeon crawls is that they start out exciting, but about half way through they bog down and become dull and repetitive. Then there is the final excitement at the very end. Buffy has two mechanisms that keeps the game moving and changing. First, at the the beginning of the game four artifact cards are placed at the four corners of the board. One of these will make the forces of Evil obscenely powerful if the Evil player can get it and deliver it to the right character. The other three are also pretty spiffy. The beginning of the game, is therefore, more of a race than a simple slugfest. Get your characters to the artifacts, without getting them killed. By the way, getting killed is something that really happens in this game. Healing is very difficult. And when a character is dead, they are pretty much dead for the rest of the game.

The other interesting bit of the game is the phase chart. Some of the faces of the movement dice have a moon on them. If this symbol is rolled, a token is advanced on a circular path that depicts the various phases of the moon, as well as one sun symbol. If the token is on a New Moon, the Evil player has advantage. If the token is on the sun, vampires can not be outdoors. Any vampires that are caught outside when the sunrises take damage and have to run for cover. Finally, during the full moon, the character's that are werewolves transform and become super powerful and super fast. How strong you are, who's up and who's down can change at any moment.

The result of these two mechanisms, as well as the balances and imbalances between the two sides, results in a game that is more cat and mouse than the average dungeon crawl. It is about maneuvering and timing, rather than running out, guns blazing to meet the opponent head on. It's more like, wait for the right moment. Race in. Bitch slap the enemy and then run like hell. There are always tough choices, and all of them have risks. You constantly feel that you are are on the edge of losing, but that victory is almost within your grasp. Also it is just fun kick vampires in the head, or take a bite out of someone.

Finally, if you enjoy Buffy the Vampire Slayer the TV show, this game captures it's flavor and spirit. It's one of those games that when it is over, you remember the story you created by playing.

Menu suggestion: Bloody Marys