Different Quacks, Different Hats, Part I

When I was in Junior High, I hung out with some guys that would have been referred to as "metalheads". When you're that age, you look for things to identify with, or to help you identify yourself; I listened to bands like Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica, Danzig, most of the "power metal" and "gloom and doom" type stuff.

Yes, some of us actually took something like this seriously...


One thing was obvious, though--once you'd "identified" yourself with something at that age, you were not allowed to venture outside of that boundary, generally speaking. You didn't try other types of genres for fear of disassociation; you often blindly and blatantly judged other genres, dismissing them out of hand. "Pfft! Top 40! I'd rather have my eyes gouged out!"


What I find funny now is to see this happening in the boardgame world, except this time with grown adults who have long since left Junior High and should know better. I'm no saint--I've been guilty of this myself--but it's too easy to fall into divisions and schisms, to look down on the "other side" without ever trying them. "Pffft! Party Games? I'd rather have my eyes gouged out!"

I was supposed to get "Bungee Jumping" from THAT?!



Which is a pity, really. I think even the driest of Euro player (such as those who would in all seriousness talk about "social contracts" in gaming) would be well-served to cleanse the palette with a night of heavy dice-chucking, yelling, and backstabbing. Just for something different--something raucous and removed from what they're used to.

"But wait!" I can hear you saying. "You're writing this from a blog focused on Ameritrash games. Isn't that hypocritical?"

Ha! I'm glad you (hypothetically) asked that question.

Ask any of us--"do you ONLY play Ameritrash games?" The answer will be a resounding "No!" I mean, I can't say that with absolute certainty, but from my own experience that answer holds true. Sure, our heart may lie with the plastic-filled smash 'em ups, but most of us have a soft spot for at least a handful of Euros, and I know for one I've been roped into plenty of Party Games in my day.

I'm supposed to get "Black Christmas" from that? Can I have another partner?

I think the difference for us, for gamers *like* us, is the need for us to wear "different hats". Let's face it--when we're not gaming, we're scheming how we're going to game next time. Every family gathering, work group, whatever gets our minds to churning about how we can work a game in. Hobbyists are usually at least slightly addicts by nature, and that's how we operate--looking for the next gaming fix.

Most of us learned a while back that not everyone will be into "our" types of games. Even on a site devoted to the hobby such as Boardgamegeek--not even in that subcommunity will you find everyone willing to play an Ameritrash title. It's understandable, to a degree; grandma isn't going to know what to say when you hand her a Marine card, two special power cards, some ammo tokens, and turn her loose in the bowels of hell in Doom: The Boardgame. Fact is, she probably won't make it past the cover with the beast slobbering and screaming at her. The uninitiated at work would take one look at Quest for the Dragonlords and think you've just invited them to join the occult--sort of a "Noontime Necromancers" support group, if you will.


So we're forced to look for games that fit those different hats we're often forced to wear. What games will fit in a lunchtime? What games have rules that won't scare Uncle Hank away? What games won't have my co-workers thinking we're going to ritually sacrifice them at the 5:00 whistle?

Over the next few weeks, using my own experiences as examples I'm going to detail the "different hats" that I often wear in terms of gaming. I'm also going to give examples in each instance of what did and didn't work, some short reviews and suggestions, hopefully something that you can use if you find yourself in the same boat and need some help finding the right hat for the right occasion.


And no, I will NOT have a "hat" for "Games to Play With My Wife/Husband/Significant Other". For those who have significant others who will game, consider yourselves very fortunate. The rest of us have seen this for what it is--folly. A fool's errand. I will speak no more of this thing.

Thanks for reading, be sure to check out the next installment--I'm going to start small with the "two-player lunch hour" stuff and work forward from there.

Guest Article - The Art of the Lie

Dennis performs a public service by teaching us how to be better bullshitters, because goodness knows we aren't full of enough shit already! Anyway take it away Dennis - Mr S.

The Art of the Lie



We are fascinated by the skillful lie. The ability to make someone act against their own self-interest, using nothing but words, feels almost like hypnotism. We can't get enough of movies about con men using an intricate plan to pull the wool over a greedy mark's eyes. And crafting an effective lie is just plain fun.



Alas, one does not get much opportunity to practice the art of lying in polite society. But that's where games come in! Below I list some ways in which games incorporate lying and talk about whether the mechanic works in that game or not. I also present my rules for executing the perfect lie. Be sure to add more in the Comments section.



The Diplomacy stab



The classic example from my #1 all-time game. "Yes, England, you should definitely abandon your homeland and attack Germany in full force. Mon dieu, of course I will support you! That fleet in the English Channel is...also on its way to Germany!" Which brings us to:



Lying Rule #1 -- A good lie must be clearly in your self-interest.



The biggest mistake I see new Diplomacy players make is to offer a deal that rivals Mother Teresa in generosity. "You do this and this and this, and I'll support you in all of those moves, and you'll gain three centers!" Who is going to believe that you have willingly turned into someone's lackey? The brilliance of Diplomacy is that to make a truly effective stab, you must often concoct two completely different and equally effective battle plans, and present each to a different subset of your opponents. Each potential ally must see that you are both benefiting equally (approximately) from the plan, or they will surely smell a rat. Which plan you follow then depends on how your potential allies receive your ideas, how much they trust you, how much *you* trust *them*, and so on.



Diplomacy also makes for the best "all-time greatest lie" stories after-the-fact. That example in the first paragraph? I really did that once as France, and swallowed half the island in one go. The German's rant at England was legendary.



The Junta foreign aid allocation



"Oh dear, it's been another bad year...." In Junta, each year El Presidente Grande draws eight bills from a random deck to represent foreign aid from fickle Uncle Sam. Each bill is 1-3 million pesos (or whatever the unit is), so the total will be 8-24 million; only the President knows how much. The President then declares a budget allocation to each cabinet member (which is everybody else), and keeps the surplus; only the President knows how much! Since the President never wants the room to know that they are awash in cash, the opening line of this paragraph is as traditional as the ceremonial first shelling of the Presidential Palace. Which brings us to:



Lying Rule #2 -- You can't fool all the people all the time.



The quickest route to a bullet in the back is to screw your cabinet year after year. Give the people nothing, and they will have nothing to lose. So if you want to exploit the Presidency for all it is worth, it helps to tell the truth...at least once, anyway. Give one generous budget -- or better yet, in a lean year, dole out all the money, and show that you have nothing remaining. That way you don't help your opponents too much, and you put them at ease long enough for you to make the big grab.



But should you even be trying to stay President? One move I have tried again and again goes like this. First, give generous budgets to build the people's faith. By getting a lot of cash in circulation, you also draw out a lot of assassin cards, as player's try to steal from each other instead of you. Second, when you finally do draw a healthy amount of cash (16+ million), declare that it's been a truly horrible year, and nominate a budget that no one can possibly accept. Third, make sure it gets voted down, since when that happens, the President gets it ALL. Fourth, get to bank. Fifth, profit.



On second though, replace step 4 with "and then a miracle occurs."



No matter how much trust I build up, I never seem to pull this move off. Has anyone ever managed it, or does the "budget rejected" rule exist just to get the President killed and create chaos? Not that there's anything *wrong* with that....



The Civilization calamity pass



"I have three goods, total value 7, one of which is Salt." Yeah, and another of which says Your Doom in bright red letters. In Civilization, some resource cards are replaced with calamities that do not affect the person who draws them, but the player that accidentally trades for it (trading in Civ uses incomplete information by design). This is one of my least favorite lying mechanisms. Usually it becomes pretty clear who is trying to pawn off a calamity, and someone always ends up taking it anyway, because it is just too important to get the other goods included in the offer. A lie is not as much fun when the opponent sees through it and still plays along. But it does lead us to:



Lying Rule #3 -- Try to be nonchalant; the lie should be forced out of you.



Nothing screams "I have a calamity!" in Civilization like the guy who immediately finds a deal for everyone requesting a trade. "You need Salt? I have Salt! Oh wait, you need Cloth? I have that too!" Patience, Grasshopper. Wait until the leader is feeling a bit of an embargo. After a minute or so of stonewalling, come back with "Well, I suppose I could do it, but I really need something good in return." Hilarity ensues.



The Settlers/Bohnanza "future considerations"



Whaaaaaa? An Ameritrash mechanic in a Euro standard and...BEAN TRADING?!? I cast thee out!



Maybe it's just my game group, but even Euro games can spawn the big lie if there is trading involved. Many times an extra layer of trading will develop called the "future considerations." Note that I'm not talking about a metagame, since it never extends beyond the game currently in progress. But in our group, the promise to go easy on a future deal in exchange for some help right now is a gold standard currency. Bohnanza is the perfect game for this, since during the trading phase, all beans in play must be planted, even if you have to dig up a promising field to do it. So often the active player will be desperate to take *any* deal, just to get rid of the cards in front of him. And thus comes..."OK, I'll give you a Stink for those three, but I'm going to want some future considerations." Settlers also works well in those moments when you are trying to trade down to seven cards to avoid being robber fodder. All of which leads us to:



Lying Rule #4 -- Save the big lie for last.



The "future considerations" show up in our trading games because we actually do make future considerations, which work out beneficially for both parties. Right up until they don't. As Mr. Burns said when taking the Pin Pals bowling trophy, a true leader knows when to make the sudden grab for personal glory. Tell the truth right up until the lie will guarantee the win...and then lie like a rug.



Don't forget to add more Lying Rules in the Comments section!

Mr Skeletor’s Mailbag, 14th May

We will just skip over the fact that this thing is late (real world get’s in the way sometimes) and get straight in…

Dennis “139 lines that distill down to “theme good.”" Ugolini writes:


My article entitled "The Art of the Lie" is included below.

And for what it's worth, I'm not trying to be a dick. My posts are motivated by two things:

1. I think the whole "BGG are closed-minded jerks out to get us" focus is limiting how good your site could be.

2. The problem with setting up shop away from the people who disagree with you is that you stop questioning each other, for fear of being labeled "one of them" and cast out. Looking for holes in each other's arguments can be a healthy thing. Nearly all of the blog comments right now are "great read", whether it's a great read (which some are) or not. I'd like to see more "yeah, but what about this?", because that's how interesting discussion starts.

Anyway, that's my deal. I hope you like the article.

- Dennis Ugolini

I’ll post Dennis’ article in a separate post so that it can get its own conversation thread going.

Gary “I watch your microbadges” Sax writes:

Mr Skeletor:

One thing that always strikes me when I look at many of the more
"elite" gamers in the BGG scene is that many (most?) of them seem to
be evangelical Christians, Mormons, etc. Tom Vasel, for example, IIRC
is doing missionary work in Korea. Does this have a big effect on the
themes and moral constraints of the games that get discussed in the
overall discourse of BGG? You could also broaden the question to
boardgamers in general. Many of the game groups I see being discussed
and played at on BGG are being played at churches and church groups.
Could this be part of the reason we're constantly playing games themed
to trading resources and moving camels across deserts? Many AT themes
and mechanics would not fit well with a group of good Christian
gamers.

I'm not sure if I'm bothered by this, but it occurs to me that I don't
see as much of a slant, say, in wargames, which I play a lot--most of
the people who play wargames don't seem to be advertising themselves
as Christians or evangelicals and often discuss drinking beer all day
during a game and whatnot.

One might be able to do some interesting analysis looking at the
Christian microbadge and who holds it and what games they tend to be
fans of and rate highly, etc. That may reveal whether this feeling on
my part is more empirical trend or just my own spurious observation.

-Gary Sax

This trend has been noted by more than a few people. What you have to remember is that unlike other forms of gaming such as videogames or gambling, boardgames are viewed as a wholesome family oriented activity which therefore attracts the Sunday Church crowd. On the other hand plastic space ships and big titted Amazonian women tend to attract the Kevin Smith style ‘nerd’ crowd into boardgaming, which are basically us. One group are all about niceties, sharing experiences and spreading the word of boardgames, the other wants to cuss, be obnoxious and bitch about which Star Wars movie sucked the most.

Euros tend to have more wholesome themes and less direct conflict, so it’s natural that they will tend to appeal more towards the Churchies. On the other hand, the geeky themes and boisterous violent game play of AmeriTrash is more likely to appeal to the nerds as Wargames will appeal mainly to history buffs. While most people will say they ‘love all games’ which to a degree is true, I think deep down everyone has a subtype that appeals to them above the others.

If someone did do the study you suggest, I think the safe money would be on most outspoken Christians preferring Euro games, ‘cept for Jesus of course who was a big Titan fan.

The question is who out there is up for doing this analysis?


Thaadd “Shorts with back stockings is the new look” Powell writes:

Dear Mr. Skeletor,

What's your take on collaborative Ameritrash games - can you be 'trashy' without elimination? What would you consider the best of that variety? We know you like Descent - how about Arkham? Are there other ones that are less well known?

/A Trash Fan

(Might not be a problem to use my name, but I don't want to look like a company shill, and I know half the company reads Fortress now... /Thaadd)

Don’t worry Trash Fan, you’re identity is safe with me.

I am quite a fan of Collaborative games - arguably most dungeon crawls, which are my forte, are collaborative to some degree, which is a topic I may write an article about. Collaborative games also tend to be very story driven, which is something I enjoy. Also they are easy to solo, for those of us who don’t have wives to game with.

As a young lad I was a real gamebook freak, and still have an entire collection of the old ‘fighting fantasy’ series sitting on my second to bottom shelf. . These things were essentially solo games, were you the player ‘took on’ the book - I may write an article about these things one day. Anyway collaborative games are pretty much the same thing, except that instead of taking on a book you’re taking on a boardgame, and the experience can be shared by many players rather than just yourself.

I’m a huge Arkham Horror fan, I have it rated at BGG as an 8 though it should be a 10 considering I played in 4 times in one weekend not too long ago. I’m scared to up my rating though as Nate will tease me.
Lord off the Rings is a game I originally didn’t like but have recently done a 180 on and now really enjoy. Shadows over Camelot is a game I really enjoyed but now am not so sure if it’s that good – without the traitor the game would be really bland I feel. Warhammer Quest still stands as the essential dungeon masterless dungeon crawl, though it does have a few problems (hmm, I smell another article.) I automated the Night King’s role in Runebound’s Midnight expansion which turned that into a pretty cool co-op (if only it wasn’t so freaking impossible) and normally play World of Warcraft in a co-op mode when teaching new people.

Can’t think of any more co-op games I have played, so I’ll have to throw the floor open to the masses to let me know which ones are worth checking out.

If you have any mail for this segment that you would like to send in address it to fortressat@gmail.com with [mailbag] in the header.

Letters from....Somewhere

Hail to the King baby

“Never get involved in a land war in Asia, and never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!” – A modified version of Vizzini’s final line in The Princes Bride.

Being of Sicilian heritage, the above quote would probably be my most used during gaming. It means in short that if you go after me my revenge will be long and bloody, so don’t do it or you’ll be sorry.

A few nights ago I got to play “Fire and Axe”, Asmodee’s new transvestite game. I say transvestite because that is essentially what it, a Euro game dressed up to look like AmeriTrash. Overall it was an OK game, I’d play it again but it did seem somewhat disposable, like much of what I have played of late. I guess I am going through bit of a board game lull, but that is a topic for another day.

At the beginning of the game I sent my ship out on it’s own to raid 2 towns so I could claim a card. Now at this stage of the game everyone was doing there own thing, up until it was time for me to raid the second town (which I had already softened up by trading with) when some dirty fucker playing yellow decided to sail his ship round to my area, raid the last town and nick the card I was working so hard to complete.

I was fuming, so I gave the prick the Malocchio (evil eye) and dropped my “don’t fuck with a Sicilian” line.

“Pfft, you can’t attack other players in this game so there is nothing you can do!” was the smarmy bastards reply.

“Oh really?” I smirked as I played a sea monster card on him. Unfortunately the stupid beast didn’t inflict a single casualty on him, marking my revenge as a failure. But I still had an ace up my sleave – a card that allowed me to attack another player’s settlement.

It wasn’t until near the end of the game when I got the chance to play this card on him (revenge is a dish best served cold after all.) By this stage most of the settlements were occupied and red looked like he was in the lead. So I sailed towards some red and yellow ports and *BANG*, hit the yellow one with a mad cackle.

You can guess what happened next, can’t you?

“Why are you attacking yellow for?” protested another player, “Red is in the lead, you have to attack him otherwise you are going to hand him the game!”

“But yellow fucked me over earlier on. Now is my chance for revenge!”

“No! You’re KINGMAKING!”

In other words I wasn’t playing a game involving a bunch of Vikings hell bent on revenge, but rather a bunch of victory point counting accountants who decided to go sailing. What a crock.

Kingmaking, which is making one or more moves that will hand another player the win, is regarded as one of the greatest of evils and blackest of sins when playing a game. But is that really fair? After all, don’t many people complain when games have artificial catch-up mechanisms to keep losers in the game? What is mandatory leader bashing (which is basically what you have to do to not be accused of kingmaking) if not a catch-up mechanism?

Certainly in most cases attacking the leader makes sense. After all it keeps the player who is your greatest threat from running so far ahead that you no longer have a chance to win. But should I be forced to do so by gaming etiquette? If a player is earning his victory by cutting a bloody swath through my territories, while another is earning his victories by leaving me alone, I don’t see why I should not target the guy who is putting my poor peasants to the sword just because he is a few VP behind the leader. In essence what I am doing is rewarding the player who managed to get into a winning position without damaging my standing. This means that to win a player either needs to tread carefully so as to piss off the least amount of other players on the table, or smash the players he is targeting so hard that they cannot mount an effective revenge later on. I see nothing wrong with that.

The other side to Kingmaking which is so important is the art of diplomacy. If you want to be kingmade, odds are you have to convince at least one other player to do it. Convincing another player to let you win the game at their expense is not an easy thing to do and requires an asp’s tongue, so I fail to see why a player who is skilled at manipulating others should not be allowed to win by doing so.

Finally from a thematic standpoint Kingmaking makes sense. After all aren’t all the houses in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series merely engaging in Kingmaking? Towards the dying days of World War 2, were the French supposed to start shooting at the Americans because they now had more victory points then the Germans? Should minor political parties not lend their support to the big ones even though they cannot win the primary vote? Kingmaking a part of human nature.

If a player is meant to have no further influence in a game once he or she reaches the point where they no longer have a chance of winning themselves, then the design of the game should have that player be eliminated. As most games do not, then I argue that those players have every right to kingmake, shaping their future as deciding who will lord over them and get bragging rights. After all no king ever forged his own crown.

F:AT Exclusive! CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB doesn't suck!

I love horror. I eat, drink, and breathe horror. I have ever since my mom got me this _Encyclopedia of Horror_ book when I was like 6 years old and from the Peter Cushing introduction to the red-tinted black and white film stills throughout, I absolutely cherished that book. But even at that early age, I knew that the Mummy sucked. In whatever incarnation, the Mummy has always been a spookshow second-stringer, classic B-team material to the A-listers Dracula and Frankenstein that made me think more of the horrors of a nursing home than that found in crumbling gothic castles. Don’t get me wrong- I love Karloff as THE MUMMY and Karl Freund’s direction in that picture is second only to James Whale’s in the Universal canon and there’s plenty of merit in Hammer’s Technicolor version of the story even if it seems awful anemic compared to the previous issues of HORROR OF DRACULA and TERROR OF FRANKENSTEIN. And the less said about those god awful Brendan Fraser big-screen video games the better.

So it stands to follow that if the UK’s greatest film production studio can’t make the Mummy awesome, then neither can its greatest game publisher- even in league with FURY OF DRACULA designer Stephen Hand. Of course, the game in question is the much-maligned CURSE OF THE MUMMY’S TOMB, largely regarded as the red-headed stepchild of the GW boardgame family. I finally got to try the game out for myself to see if the reports of its horribleness were grounded in truth and I have to say that all the negativity this game receives is somewhat misguided. Come to find out, the Mummy isn’t lame, he’s just terribly misunderstood.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that the game is awesome and a forgotten classic because it isn’t. But what I will tell you is that the game isn’t nearly as bad as most of the online reports and reviews would have you believe and it seems to me that there’s a pretty severe misinterpretation as to what this game really is and what it isn’t. Fundamentally, CURSE is an odd hybrid of a very light TALISMAN-style adventure coupled with a simple take-that card game but it’s not a horror epic like FURY and it’s definitely not anything approaching a serious adventure game. Nor is it a game of high strategy and sophisticated, “clever” mechanics. It’s easy to have high expectations given the promise of the theme and its pedigree but with a reasonable understanding that CURSE is simply a just-for-fun card game with a board movement element (taking place on a fantastic, 3D tri-level pyramid) you’ll likely find more to enjoy than you might have anticipated.

The object of the game is to be the first player to ascend to the Chamber of Osiris at the top of the pyramid and find some immortality-granting elixir. Classic Mummy stuff. On the way, explorers will have to contend with the titular Mummy, guest appearances by the Egyptian pantheon, traps, getting lost, and a monocled German with a penchant for torture called Otto. Explorers have four lives and a battery of skills (tested with a low-roll d12 or added to combat rolls) and there is a simple economic system based on the collection of tana leaves- a very nice thematic touch.

At the beginning of each round, players bid- yes, bid- a number of tana leaves for the right to control the lumbering mummy for the turn, getting to move him one space if they win the bid. The mummy causes loss of a life or a “discovery”, which is the game’s way of saying “treasure”. A player’s turn consists of playing a movement card which features one or more directions to move or even a set of stairs to move up or down a level. The pyramid floors have spaces with numbers ranging from 1-3 which indicate how many encounter cards can be played there. Encounter cards represent hazards, creatures, and discoveries. A player can also choose to forsake movement in favor of discarding cards to redraw for a better hand and there is the added benefit that discarded cards pay out in tana leaves.

Here’s where it gets a little funky and this is where I think the game loses a lot of people. After you move, each player gets an opportunity to play another movement card on you, so if you’re sitting on a prime 3 space (which guarantees you’ll get a discovery as long as you can weather the encounters) the other players will likely conspire to move you to a less desirable 1 or 2 space where you’ll almost certainly be on the receiving end of hazards and creatures and you’ll reach the encounter limit before you can play a discovery card. So you can, in a 4 player game, wind up three spaces away from where you intended. There’s even a dead-end card that makes you lose a turn. So planning strategies based on movement is right out. Once movement is settled, the other players get to play harmful encounters out of their hands on you that you’ll have to contend with by fighting (which means you can go mano-a-scorpion with strength rolls, trying to outwit the baddie with a cunning roll, or retreating with a speed roll) or passing one or more skill tests. Hopefully, at the end of all that you’ll have a discovery card that will give you a helpful piece of equipment or even the Key of Osiris, which grants you access to the chamber at the top.

As the internet board gaming cognoscenti have presumed, there does appear to be a complete lack of control in the game and that is a criticism that isn’t without merit since other players, particularly in a full-table game, will get to move you more than you can move yourself. I don’t think this odd mechanic is without a thematic basis since it is intended to represent the fact that the explorers are wandering around, completely lost in a very ancient and very dark tomb. There is equipment, such as a map, that lets a player reject movement cards played on them and as long as you make a bee-line for the top from the very beginning rather than loitering around then it at least feels like you can guide your explorer if not completely control where he goes. Part of the fun is the nastiness inherent in denying your fellow players the satisfaction of imposing his will on where he winds up going. It’s not totally random- you are still making decisions throughout the game. A good comparison would be DUNGEONQUEST although player interaction (and interference) is much higher in CURSE.

What emerges from all this is something that more closely resembles a take-that card game than a board-based adventure game. Between the mummy and cardplay, expect players to pound on each other mercilessly and with impunity and throw any notion of developing an elaborate long-term strategy out the window. It just isn’t the kind of game you play to win, and it isn’t the kind of game you play to demonstrate your outrageously superior intellect to your friends. You play through it, and if you win you say “yay” and have a good laugh. There’s plenty of atmosphere and of course the flavor text is great despite a couple of egregious errors in the card descriptions that common sense can easily correct. The possibility for some fun metagame rivalry, negotiation, and nastiness brings a lot of fun to the table so it is definitely something that you’ve got to play in the right spirit and with the right people.

Where it all gets pretty close to going horribly wrong is that by its nature it is the kind of game where other players can play expressly to prohibit a player from winning and it also can hinge on drawing the right cards- if you’re on level two with a key but can’t get a stairs card, you’re screwed. You’re double screwed if every other player has one and they decide to move you down to the first floor. There are some things to mitigate this (including a couple of nifty card effects like switching locations with other explorers and the ability to redraw a new hand every turn if need dictates it) but the net effect is that the game can go on much longer than it ought to and it becomes a matter of hoping to squeak by the other players to secure the win. There’s also increased danger as you ascend since the levels are smaller and it’s easier for the mummy to get around to do whatever it is mummies to make you lose a life. At 45-60 minutes, the game feels just right for the level of depth and style. At 90-120 minutes, it feels like the game has outstripped its potential as frustration and repetition sets in. It isn’t hard to correct this problem by simply playing through the deck twice with everyone losing a la DUNGEONQUEST or agreeing to play to a set time limit. Note too that this is a player elimination game so if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the pyramid.

CURSE OF THE MUMMY’S TOMB isn’t a "great" game by any stretch of the word since it can't seem to wrap itself up in a timely fashion, and it certainly doesn’t stand up to the genius of FURY OF DRACULA and it definitely feels like a second-rate GW title but I still enjoyed the game and I think there’s plenty of fun to be had with it. I’m the sort of person that gets a lot more satisfaction from ordering a mummy to strangle some guy than, well, pretty much anything that’s ever happened in a Wolfgang Kramer game and I can’t help but like the game regardless of its fumbles. Of course, anyone who follows the horror genre in games knows that’s really the curse, that horror games are more prone to failure than any other theme. At the end of this long, Egyptian day I believe that fans of DUNGEONQUEST and take-that style games will likely get more mileage out of the game then some of the more “serious” board gamers out there seem to have.

But I still think the Mummy sucks.

The Weekly AT Snapshot - 5/11/2007

Professor Euro Seriously Injured


From the back of the box:

Castle Caylus is already erected, and now the King desires another task. You and your fellow players are interior decorators who compete for the King's attentions. You will bid on statuaries, paintings, and kuhlschranks to stand inside the castle walls. But beware of the Provost and Bailiff who jealously guard the King's interests! With much tactics and a dash of luck, will you definitely curry the King's favor.

This week's AT Snapshot was submitted by "PowderedToastMan" who asked that his real name not be revealed.

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Calling all photoshoppers and imagehounds! The Weekly AT Snapshot wants YOUR images! You send the picture, we add the back-story!

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Feedback Time!

Tomorrow will be the end of the second month of our starting Fortress: Ameritrash, and we'd like to take the time to get an idea how we're doing, what you'd like to see improved, and most importantly, who is reading us.


Here are some things we'd like to know:


1. How often would you like to see Fortress: Ameritrash updated? Once a day? Twice a day? Less than that?

2. What do you think of the content so far?

3. Would you like to see more reviews on our site?

4. Would you like to see more session reports here?

5. Would you be interested in reading interviews with boardgaming personalities?

6. What can we do to improve our blog?

7. What games are you playing right now? What games are you looking forward to the most?



Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for checking us out every day. We really appreciate it, and the comments section on each blog has been filled with top-notch discussion on both sides of the fence--it may get heated sometimes, but it's always reasonable, and I've honestly learned quite a few things just from reading feedback from our viewers.

Next week I hope to have something really exciting lined up, so make sure to keep checking us out at Fortress: Ameritrash.

Eliminating the Elimination Myth

The ground trembles. The Kraken wakes. Titan is to be reprinted.

And what seems to be the majority response to the idea that one of the very best games of the eighties is to see the light of day again? Complaints about it player elimination.

Discussion of player elimination is an ongoing bugbear for me because it seems to be missing a very fundamental point. We'll return to what that point is in a little while but we'll begin by reviewing the complaints that are usually raised against player elimination in games.

The basis of the argument against is that elimination is bad in longer games because it means some players have to leave the game early, spoiling the game session for them. I have mixed feelings about this particular argument not least because there are deeper facets that don't usually get discussed. Consider one of the grossest offenders in the player elimination league - Risk. During discussion of elimination I heard one guy quote an example of a 7-hour risk game they once played in which two players were put out early because both decided to scrap for Australia on the first turn. The exact same thing has happened to me once, although my game didn't drag on quite so long because we were playing with the mission rules.

The key word in the above paragraph is once.

Think about it. This is *Risk* we're talking about here, no Go or Chess or some similar ancient game with vast depths of subtle strategy. Any gamer worth their salt who has played Risk will have spotted that the attacker has a considerable advantage given equal numbers of troops. If it looks like this sort of situation is shaping up during your initial deployment then for Gods sake, if you're not going to be going before your opponent, don't get sucked into it! If you do happen do get into this position, then it's an error you are unlikely to repeat. I have an excuse for my behaviour: I was horribly drunk at the time.

The point is that many player elimination games have this sort of built-in policing - early aggression will often damage you as much as your victim, leaving your ripe for the picking by other players. Titan has it - because early stacks tend to be the same sort of size and power, an early attack will often leave you too weak to compete with other players in spite of the points reward. Getting eliminated early in this sort of game is far more often a consequence of bad play (or inebriation) than randomness. Isn't that one of the things Eurogamers often complain about in AT games? That they don't sufficiently punish bad play? Well, I beg to differ.

I'll admit that any elimination games that don't come with some sort of mechanism for limiting the number of early exits are definitely a bad thing. But here's the rub - I can't actually think of any that don't.

So we're left with long-running games which have elimination during the later stages. I personally see this as much less of a problem. If I get kicked out of a 4 hour game after 3 hours then I've still had a good game night - I can watch the game, play on the computer, maybe play a Euro-filler against some other knocked-out players, go home early or - god forbid - actually hang around and indulge myself in some good old fashioned socialising. But lets run with this for a moment and suggest that a game player might not want to do any of those things, does that suddenly make player elimination undesirable?

Well no. It adds spice to the game. What sort of feeble taunting are you going to be able to deliver to your opponents when you've all finished simultaneously within 5 victory points of one another? What kind of exhilaration can you feel when your only option for taking revenge on the guy whose moves have been bugging you all game is to force him to ship his coffee instead of selling it (I hate exclusive examples, so for the uninitiated, the latter is a Puerto Rico reference)? How much greater is your stake in, and attachment to, success in the game when you face the knowledge the doing badly is going to result in an early and ignominious exit? In short, what sort of memorable game night are you going to have unless there's a player elimination game on the table?

Back in the days when a lot of the games around did revolve around random dice rolls I can see how there could be a complaint of elimination. If you've just sat out 2 hours of a five hour game purely because you couldn't roll enough sixes while you were at the table then yes, sure, I can see why you'd never want to play that game again. But those days are, for the most part, gone. The games that survive (such as Titan) survive for the most part exactly because they weren't games like that - they were games that rewarded good strategy and clever play. I wonder sometimes if all the venom that gets directed at player elimination arises from genuinely shitty experiences older gamers had with badly designed Ameritrash games from the eighties. But it's not the eighties anymore, and of all the lessons that AT designs have learned from the Euro-revolution, the increase the number of important game choices has to be the one that's been most widely accepted.

But lets get back to my opening promise of ratting out a fundamental misconception about player elimination. Take a typical Eurogame - to avoid accusations of bias we'll use an AT favourite, Settlers of Catan. In Settlers no-one can be eliminated - everyone is locked in to playing until the end of the game. What's more you're all racing to ten victory points and everyone starts with two so it's a short course anda close finish is virtually guaranteed. All good stuff, right?

Wrong.

It's all a myth. I can recall playing a game of Settlers in which I was in the lead most of the way through. I was the first player to hit eight points and shortly thereafter it dawned on me that I was completely boxed in - I couldn't build any more roads or settlements and all my settlements had already been upgraded to cities. The only way in which I could get my last two points was to burn resources drawing cards and hoping to get a VP card, but my setup didn't specialise in the necessary resources to make that anything more than an outside chance. I sat through the last half hour of that game knowing I'd lost but having to play on regardless. At the game end it looked close - the winner had ten, of course and I came second with nine (I did get one card) - but the game wasn't remotely competitive after the halfway point and everyone knew it.

This situation is far worse than actually being eliminated from the game. Because the system demand I continue playing I had no choice to get up and do something else, I had to carry on making my futile moves. Worse, I had the potential to spoil things for everyone else by doing the kingmaker thing - biasing the game by picking and choosing who I traded with on what terms and who I put the robber on. That sort of bias (which is common in AT games) isn't too much of a problem in an open game where everyone gets the chance to do it and react accordingly, but in a "closed" Euro it can completely destroy any chance of a meaningful game. I didn't do this - but I could have.

Euro designers are very far from stupid of course, and there are a number of mechanisms employed to combat this problem in other designs. The most common one - and my absolute #1 vote for the laziest, most over-used mechanic in game design ever - is hidden victory points. I feel I should qualify that latter statement by saying that it's not the mechanic itself that's bad but rather the number of times it's been used to cover up problems in what are basically badly designed games. But I digress. By hiding the victory points you stop people being certain that they've fallen badly behind and as a result keep them interested in playing for themselves rather than playing kingmaker.

So what does this achieve? A game in which you can actually be eliminated but you just don't know it. Call me old-fashioned but I thought the idea of covering up and effectively lying to people was generally considered a bad thing.

On consideration, if we're talking about manners, I should probably concede that stealing someone's country, pillaging their resources and slaughtering the populace probably ranks somewhat higher on the impoliteness scale than white lies so maybe AT games can't take the high ground here. But you take my point.

Games are competitive. Elimination is built into the nature of competition. How can you have a game that rewards better players over weaker ones unless at some point in the game those better plays build into a cumulative advantage which eventually becomes overwhelming? All the concepts that have been used to combat this - hidden VPs, low VP targets, exponential build-up to a victory condition, granting weaker players privileges in the early rounds - are just blinds to the fact that all games must, sooner or later, turn into elimination competitions.

So long live Titan. And, paradoxically, long live elimination.