Thursday, September 13, 2007

G Is For Gaming

During August and September, I played games at three different events starting with the letter G.

GenCon

As usual, I got play one game at GenCon, but it was a doozy. A while back, Judd Karlman from the Sons of Kryos floated the idea of Star Wars Episode LV. It was basically Star Wars reinterpreted through the God-Emperor of Dune lens. Several people, including myself, thought “Heck, yeah!” So we played it at GenCon, using Primetime Adventures for the engine (a game which Judd describes as his “Narrative GURPS”). And it rocked. Hopefully recordings of the game will pop up soon, because it was one of the most satisfying convention games I’ve ever played.

Gateway

Speaking of satisfying, the game of Grey Ranks I played at Gateway was remarkably fulfilling. It’s designed as a three-session game, but we were able to play out a beautiful little story arc in just one, using Jason’s recommended setup. I talked more about this one over on The Voice.

I also got to play in the third installment of Denys’ Heroes of Middle-Earth game. This time around we seriously derailed Tolkien’s timeline by killing Smaug twelve hundred years before The Hobbit. Sadly, our hobbit companion died in the process. He was buried in Rivendell, a place he greatly loved.

On the last day of convention, I managed to sneak away from the booth long enough for a game of The Napoleonic Wars. I once again took the field as Austria, and after a two-turn game featuring an incredible French attack on Britain (Napoleon was in London on turn one, and Bagration was unable to get him out), I managed to pull off the win. It was definitely a case of being the guy no one was worried about, though I did manage a bit of a finesse at the end of turn two to keep France out of my capital.

Gwen’s Birthday

For Gwen’s birthday party, we had a few people over to play some board games. While we waited for everyone else to arrive, the early arrivals broke out Tongiaki, which I’d played a few times before. I think I agree with Roy: this one is best with three. Otherwise, the chaos and downtime make it not quite as fun as I’d want a game this light to be.

After that, we finally broke the shrink-wrap off of our copy of Amun-Re. We’d all played it before, but it had been a while. I think we all overpaid for auctions early in the game; I know I did, and I saw how badly it hurt me. I was glad this hit the table again, as it really is an excellent game.

Finally, we played a long game of A Game of Thrones, which Gwen had been wanting to try for a while. It went a bit a longer than all of us would have liked, but I still enjoyed it. Once again, I played Stark, but this time my conservative strategy held me back a little. I had a shot at the win, but I needed to have moved a turn earlier to really have a chance.

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