Chatty's Break: Game Night Report

We had fun last night playing card games and board games.  I needed the distraction and it was really enjoyable.

See here for a description of the games we played.

We played two shifts of Lord of the Fries and its a fun Card game… Although when played with several players (we were 6 for the second shift) the game slowed down perceptively and several players couldn’t play their hands (The rules mention that).

In such cases, fun was saved by inter player banter and Zombie jokes.

Someone mentioned that it was a good game but that only 2 players were really playing it each shift.  I’d say that’s somewhat accurate.  Control of the game usually shifts between a few players with luckier hands and then later in the game it shifts to another pair.

All in all, I’d replay that game again.

The we played one game of Knock, Knock.  It was cutthroat as we liked it to be (and also very crude).  The game ended up being exceedingly close.  I lost by one point!

Two of our friends felt like playing some Magic the Gathering so we split the group in two.  The remaining four of us: Yan, Eric, Marco (Stef’s Son) and I, played a game of Red Dragon Inn.   It is a cute game with several reversals of fortunes.

However, if a player gets knocked out early, there’s a significant delay where he sits out the rest of the game. Also, as I mentioned yesterday, once you’ve discovered what the game is about, its replay ability becomes limited.

We also played a game of Inn Fighting, the D&D Tavern Brawl game.  I lhave played that game several times and I like that game.  However, I’m starting to feel that my tactical choices (Who I attack) are made for me by the dice I play.

We then tackled the Exalted game.  This game is a very rich (Settings wise) semi-cooperative Quest game.  My friends say that it reminds them of the World of Warcraft Boardgame.  You travel a world to get to quests and try to beat them by rolling your White Wolf patented dice Pool.

As the game progresses, rivals pop up on the map and you must face them or lose renown. Your resources also get depleted and you must seek the help of others to achieve harder and harder quests.

The game is supposed to end when a player completes the 3rd part of an Epic Quest and becomes the undisputed leader of the Sun or some such fluffy nonsense.

As we played the game, I became more and more tired and I had trouble concentrating. I still enjoyed it preety much. I had a particular pleasure in teasing my friend Yan (who owns the game) because he kept ignoring all the little fluffy tidbits of the game like quest text and the Biography of our rivals.  I would of course take pains in reading each one I could find aloud…

I mean dude… that’s a White Wolf game… it demands to be read and appreciated for its fluff no? (I like to tease White Wolf games… I used to hate them, now I just accept that they don’t cater to my needs).

So I played from 5 PM to 10PM, a great evening all in all.

You have a great weekend

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Chatty's Break: Board/Card Game Night

Hot on the heels of me declaring myself a burnt out DM, some of the gang has agreed to secretly meet in the depth of the Northern Suburban Jungle of Montreal tonight. As the title subtly hints at, we’re going to play some card games and Board games.

Anything but D&D and Magic the Gathering!

Here’s what we have planned for tonight:

Chinatown

My friend Dave the Game quoted someone saying that Chinatown was Monopoly done right!  And I must agree with him. I won that game at Draconis (Montreal’s main gaming convention) and gave it to Yan’s girlfriend since its was in French.

This is a pure negotiation game whose simplicity and pace is hard to beat. The setting is set in New York in the late 60’s where laws of the city were supposedly changed to encourage immigrant commerce.

Each player gets building lots and Shop tiles randomly.  Placing a tile gives you a payout at the end of one of the game’s 6 turns. Placing a tiles of the same type adjacent to one another (up to a maximum set by the shop type) gives you larger payouts.

Since everything is random, you must negotiate with others to get adjacent spots or to get the missing tiles. I played it about 3 times and its a lot of fun.  I trust I will also get better at it the more I play.

The Red Dragon Inn

This card game is a subversion of the fantasy adventure game trope.  Instead of focusing on a party of adventurers killing monsters and taking loot, the game is actually about trying to get your fellow adventurers sloshed and/or broke at the Tavern after the adventure.

The game is at heart a card game where each player represents an archetypal Fantasy adventurer. You play cards that will either rob a player of its Fortitude points, steal their money or force them to drink (i.e. increasing your drunkenness) more than what the core rules require. If Fortitude = Drunkenness or if your money drops to zero, you are out!

I played twice and while interesting, I’m not sure how replayable this will be. I’ll tell you later tonight.

Lord of the Fries

Each player is a staff member of Friedey’s, the Fast Food Restaurant of the Damned. As Zombie Fry cooks, you must build meals and combos with your cards and deliver them as called or rolled by the game’s current leader.

I have yet to play that game but it does look fun!  Game play is apparently fast and the premise is humorous enough. I hope we play at least a full game tonight.

Plus, I mean Fast Food and Zombies… its like the perfect mix… no worries of dying of Coronary Failure.

Knock! Knock! (French Version)

A favorite of Eric, this little bluffing game is about getting the most monsters to join your Haunted Castle party.  Each turn, a player sends one of his secret guest cards to another player’s castle.  That player must then decide to open his door or not.

Interesting in itself, this game takes a whole new dimension when you play it with a bunch of semi-drunk 35-45 year old males that make lewd comments about how the Vamp (Female Vampire) sucks your best visitor away.

Exalted: Legacy of the Unconquered Sun

If we feel up to tackling a game that takes more than hour, we also have a copy of this White Wolf game based on the Exalted RPG.  Having historically been allergic to White Wolf products, I’ve not been introduced to the game’s setting and I currently have no idea what the game is about.

At first glance it seems to be one of these ‘achieve quests and get loot to become the head honcho’ game like Talisman.  I like those… especially during the game’s exploratory/discovery phase.

I don’t think we’ll play them all, but we have more than enough to spend a good night.

And if push comes to shove… there’s always Rock Band on the X-Box!

Looking forward to it!

Have a great weekend.

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