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.