March 29 2000 RussCon Report

14 of us, including newcomer Cindy. 13 games were played, fewer than normal due to the Mu marathon...

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Game Results:

Frank'sZoo 6 Clayton 5 JP 3 RussW 1 Jay -1 BobR -3 William -5
Guillotine 3 Steve 2 Jerrie 0 Fred -2
StephensonsRocket 4 Marty 3 Steve 1 Bob -1 WendyWhi -3
BlackDiamond 4 Bob 3 Marty 1 Allen -1 WendyWhi -3
SchottenTotten 2 Marty 1 Bob -1
ZirkusFlohcati 4 Fred 3 Cindy 1 Allen -1 Jerrie -3
Mu 6 Jay 5 BobR 3 JP 1 RussW -1 William -3 Clayton -5
Cosmic 4 Allen 3 Cindy 1 Fred -1 Jerrie -3
Zero 4 WendyWhi 3 Marty 1 Bob -1 Steve -3
TabulaRasa 4 Bob 1 Marty 1 WendyWhi -1 Steve -1
Guillotine 3 Steve 2 Bob 0 BobR -2
Zero 4 JP 3 Marty 1 William -1 RussW -3
Zero 5 RussW 4 Steve 2 Marty 0 William -2 JP -4

I finally played Mu, and with 6 players it took forever! I think we spent about 3 hours playing, after a half hour explaining rules. Those who'd played before say it normally goes much quicker. But several in the group were surprisingly unfamiliar with standard hearts/spades/bridge style trick-taking game concepts. If you've never played such games and use a Windows computer, then fire up Accessories/Games/Hearts and learn to play! It's a gap in your gaming background! Hearts is simple and fun. Mu is a much more complicated version of trick-taking, with its concepts of 2 different trumps, and numbers not just suits being a possible trump, and duplicates of certain cards. Anyway, I liked the game and am glad I finally played it. I like the dynamically chosen partner concept, rather than fixed partners (i.e. a team game) like bridge. Interestingly, the box is "Mu und Mehr", i.e. there are several games all using the same funky deck of cards, but apparently everyone likes Mu so much no one's even tried any of the games in the box.

Zero is YAKG (yet another Knizia game) of Marty's. Nice and simple and elegant, although card counting memory skills are rewarded. But even without using memory I was able to win the second game once I got the hang of it.

Ironically Cosmic got played without William, who was trapped in our multi-hour Mu-fest.

BlackDiamond was a game which Cindy brought to playtest. I know nothing about it except it involves skiing!

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Evening's Soundtrack:

Babes in Toyland, Painkillers
Insane Clown Posse, The Great Milenko
Ruggero Leoncavallo, Pagliacci
Prick, Prick
Sparklehorse, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot

These all have clowns on the cover art.

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Rorschach's Journal. October 16th, 1985:

Heard joke once:

Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel.

Doctor says "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up."

Man bursts into tears.

Says "But, doctor...

"...I am Pagliacci."

-- Watchmen by Alan Moore

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Rank ratings:
 0.4000 Jay (2 games played)
 0.4000 Marty (7)
 0.3333 Cindy (2)
 0.1765 JP (4)
 0.1765 Steve (6)
 0.1111 Allen (3)
 0.0667 Bob (6)
 0.0588 RussW (4)
 0.0000 Clayton (2)
 0.0000 Fred (3)
-0.1667 BobR (3)
-0.3333 WendyWhi (4)
-0.6471 William (4)
-0.7500 Jerrie (3)

New Win ratings:
 0.4000 Jay (2)
 0.4000 Clayton (2)
 0.1250 Fred (3)
 0.1111 Allen (3)
 0.0588 RussW (4)
 0.0500 Marty (7)
 0.0000 JP (4)
 0.0000 Steve (6)
 0.0000 Bob (6)
 0.0000 WendyWhi (4)
-0.2353 William (4)
-0.2500 BobR (3)
-0.3333 Cindy (2)
-0.3750 Jerrie (3)

Jay is the Devil! He wasn't sure if he'd be back next week since he's preparing to move to Oregon... perhaps this will encourage him to show up and lay claim to the dining table. Marty, Allen, and Clayton are Co-Vice-Devils (in that order).

Marty wins the Dedicated Award. Jerrie is the Generous Angel.

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Links:

Why did William have cat whiskers and a circle around his right eye painted on his face? Read the "marker" comic and find out:
http://www.angelfire.com/pq/comic/main.html

A nice collection of many links to gaming sites:
http://pages.about.com/strategygames/wizzo.html

Gallery of Huge Beings:
http://www.infomagic.com/~martince/hugebein.htm

'Colonel' offered bogus deals worth billions;
Electronics firms may have lost as much as $50 million.
An entertaining con artist news story:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/388145.asp

My ever-evolving page:
http://russcon.org

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Hurm.

Russ