LudoNJ 3-Way

After some touch and go moments I got to hook up with Gil Hova and Joe
Golazeski for some gaming in the hinterlands of New Jersey. Thanks to Gil
for driving down to my hotel and giving me a ride!

Joe had been hinting that he would have a new gae for us to try, the
MYSTERIOUS GAME OF MYSTERY. The clue was that the game was fresh off
Nuremberg, by a well-known designer and from a well-known publisher. That
combo had two games in the BGG top 50, and it wasn't Celtica. (I got it in
one guess.)

I'll run a session report when I get back to Manila. We played 5 games,
including Gil's word game prototype, in about 6 hours.

The "Big" Order

Well, I'm sitting in my hotel room in Jersey. I'm still a bit woozy from turning my body clock around. It's 8:30am here, but it's 9:30 back home and my system is still insisting that I get ready to head to bed.

Anyway, I just sent off an order to Fair Play Games as recommended by Mr. Joe Gola. I hope this goes off without a hitch. On their website they estimate 2-3 days to deliver to the East. Assuming they get the shipment off by tomorrow, I should expect the games to arrive by Friday. This also marks the first time I've ever put my credit card information online, ever. I'm just ultra-wary of credit card information theft on the web. And here I am risking it all for a bunch of boardgames. It's an unhealthy fixation, I tell you.

Anyway, as I've written before my wishlist is woefully thin at the moment. I augmented my order with a bunch of R&R party games which cannot be had in Manila. Sometime, a good party game is what we're in the mood for and you can only play so much Cranium. Besides, Snoop Glenn's new "You Must Be an Idiot!" is intriguing to me.

So, this is what I ordered:

Hacienda $24.45
Merchants of Amsterdam $27.95
Meuterer $8.45
Power Grid Expansion : France & Italy $10.55
3 Puerto Rico Expansion $10.35
Sticheln $8.45
Thingamajig $13.95
Tichu $7.95
Time's Up $14.45
Time's Up Expansion 1 $6.95
Time's Up Expansion 2 $6.95
You Must Be An Idiot! $13.95
Sub total : $154.40
Shipping - United States - UPS : $0.00
Total : $154.40

Thanks to Tom and Joe at The Dice Tower, I had the discount code for free shipping for an order > $150. I was just short so I tossed in a copy of Tichu even though it's likely that I'll never get that to the table, ever.

If the games arrive by Friday I'll have something to bring along if the rendezvous with the Hovas and Gola (wow that rhymes) happens.

Off to NJ

Just a quick post - I'm sitting on Northest flight 20 headed for Minneapolis then on to Newark. It's a business trip, but it looks like the stars will align and I'll get to meet Gil "ingredient X" Hova, Heather "guenlian" Hova and the most esteemed Joe Gola.

Pardon the format if it's screwy, I'm doing from from a Blackberry and the results have been unpredictable.

Next post will be from NJ!

Of Killer Bunnies and Beer Money

I've played Killer Bunnies exactly once, and that was enough for me. I've never played Beer Money, but the description of the game convinced me that it wasn't for me either. Apparently, I'm supposed to imbibe large amounts of alcohol before even attempting to play.

I listen to a really fun podcast from The Dragon Page called Wingin' It where the crew led by Michael R. Mennenga and Evo Terra drink beer and talk about... well, practically anything. It's usually somewhere in the genre universe of science (speculative?) fiction and fantasy and it's almost always funny. Anyway, the folks on the podcast are sometime (casual) gamers, and lately Evo's been on a Killer Bunnies kick ever since some bloke from Australia named Phil visited their studio in Phoenix and introduced them to the game.

As a person who would never willingly play Killer Bunnies ever again, I'm fascinated by the way they talk about it. They're passionate. Excited. Pumped. And they're ready to play Killer Bunnies right. this. second. After drinking some beer. In the referenced show, the people on the cast talk a bit about some of the games that many of the Euro or War game crowd probably wouldn't touch with a 10-foot meeple.

I mention all of this because of this thread on Boardgamegeek disparaging party games, of which Killer Bunnies and Beer Money are a subset of, if not in form, then certainly in spirit. People seem to forget that we play games because they're interesting or fun. Moreover, we play boardgames and cardgames instead of computer games or online games because of the PEOPLE. Even if you're playing the biggest baddest multiplayer brainburner on the planet, you've still got other people sitting at the table around you. So what if they want to play Killer Bunnies or Cranium or Taboo? Suck it up and play, or sit out and shut up. But don't complain that they're stupid or retarded or uneducated. That just proves that YOU are stupid, retarded and uneducated.

Listen to the people playing. Are they having fun? You're not having fun? You're the problem, not them. You need to find people who like the same stuff as you if you're unable or unwilling to suck it up and just enjoy the company of other human beings. Or, maybe you can imbibe some Arrogant Bastard and that'll loosen up your clenched ass enough to have fun. It doesn't always have to have anything to do with what game you're playing.