November 1 2000 RussCon Report
NewsI hope everyone enjoyed Halloween. JP & I visited Sixth Street. Thanks to Wendy, Dan, Jeffles, Great Hall Games, and probably other people who supplied buttloads of leftover Halloween candy. My favorite was the Snickers bars with Scooby Doo riddles which were delightfully non-funny. E.g. "What does Scooby Doo wear on his feet? Scooby Shoes." "What does Scooby Doo say to his cow? Scooby Moo." And so forth.Congrats to JP who placed 2nd in his division of the Houston Fall Go Tournament last weekend. For those who haven't heard, William will be moving to New Orc City sometime in the next few weeks. Last night we pondered on the early history of this gaming group. William and RussD posted on rec.games.board in early 1993 look for more people to play Cosmic and other games. I contacted them, as did Evan (who has since moved to NYC, so he and William should get together). Marty was also a regular. Also Bryan (now of Seattle) was around in those days. Also Randy and Mike were around back then (who were housemates with Lara who didn't game but by coincidence is pals with current RussCon regular Matt), but have since left Austin (Mike watches stars in Tucson; Randy teaches nubile young women in the Middle East). WendyWhe joined in occasionally. Evan brought Ken to the group a few times (I remember winning a joint Cosmic victory with Ken the first time he came to William's). Evan & Ken were my entry in the computer game biz, via SimTex. Some of us at SimTex began boardgaming, including WendyWhi and Dave, which soon become a Wednesday night event with RussD and Marty and Bryan sometimes William showing up. Eventually it migrated to my house, and thus was born RussCon As We Know It, and I'm sure I omitted some interested tidbits and crucial people, but oh well! |
| UndTschuess | 6 | Daniel 5 Jeffles 3 Dan 1 Matt -1 RussW -3 Clayton -5 |
| AnHofeDesKoenigs | 6 | PJ 3 Marty 3 Dawn 3 Steve -2 JonathanC -2 RussD -5 |
| AnHofeDesKoenigs | 5 | Steve 4 Marty 2 JonathanC -1 RussD -1 PJ -4 |
| Ra | 3 | JP 2 Marty 0 Steve -2 |
| Hare&Tortoise | 4 | Steve 3 Marty 1 RussD -1 Dawn -3 |
| Empire | 6 | Daniel 5 RussW 2 Dan 2 Carly -1 Matt -3 Jeffles -5 |
| Tutanchamun | 5 | Jeffles 4 RussD 2 Matt -1 Dawn -1 William -4 |
| Frank'sZoo | 4 | Jeffles 3 Carly 1 Dan -1 Daniel -3 |
| UndTschuess | 6 | Marty 5 JP 3 Steve 1 Matt -1 William -3 PJ -5 |
| WebOfPower | 4 | RussW 3 JP 1 Marty -1 William -3 |
| WebOfPower | 3 | William 2 RussW 0 Daniel -2 |
| BigCity | 3 | Steve 2 Matt 0 PJ -2 |
| Bluff | 3 | Daniel 2 William 0 RussW -2 |
| Guillotine | 5 | PJ 4 William 2 Daniel 0 Matt -2 RussW -4 |
| Euphrates | 4 | Marty 3 Jeffles 1 JP -1 Dan -3 |
An Hofe Des Koenigs comes from a very heavy expensive wooden box of Knizia games Marty brought. It has 6 different wooden game boards inside, plus various pieces including real beans! Beans are very rare and valuable. Sometimes they are even magic!
Empire is a new game from unnamed game designers who really don't know how to write good unambiguous rules, which is a pity since this game might be fun. It's vaguely Risk-like, but with lots of special event cards (with enjoyable historical quotations as flavor text). It uses the most abstracted hexgrid map of the earth we have ever seen in a game, and has some very odd symbols. What we thought was a squid or jellyfish is actually a hand holding a couple of cards. The downward pointing gun is actually a flag on a flagpole. If they rewrite the rules and cards to eliminate the amazing number of holes, this could be a cool game. As it is, I say it's good that Marty merely borrowed it instead of paying money for it.
I am pleased to have finally won Web of Power!
I had an awful game of Guillotine; after collecting 4 nobles, my score was 0. Fortunately I got to Double Feature two more Palace Guards, which helped my score but I was still too far behind to recover from those early grays.
Meta Party Game ResultsHere was this week's meta party game, requiring no conscious participation: This is the Mediocrity Game. I will find the median (not mean) rank and win ratings next week. Then whoever is closest to those is the Meta Party Devil! ("Close" means the sum of your two distances from the medians is smallest.) In the case of ties, I will break it arbitrarily, since I wield the Russ Power.The median rank rating is -0.0833 (Dawn) and median win rating is -0.0952 (RussW). Ironically, the sum of my distances to these medians is smallest and so I am the Mediocre Meta Party Devil! I will make a more participatory game for next week! |
|
Death Records, Deathmeister Volume 1
Marianne Faithfull/Kurt Weill, The Seven Deadly Sins My Dying Bride, 34.788%... Complete The Tiger Lillies, Births Marriages and Deaths Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die |
Rank ratings: 0.5200 Marty (7 games played) 0.3846 JP (4) 0.3333 Daniel (6) 0.3000 Jeffles (5) 0.2857 Steve (6) 0.0000 Carly (2) -0.0625 Dan (4) -0.0833 Dawn (3) -0.1905 RussW (6) -0.2000 PJ (5) -0.3000 William (6) -0.3125 RussD (4) -0.3200 Matt (6) -0.3333 JonathanC (2) -1.0000 Clayton (1) New Win ratings: 0.4286 Daniel (6) 0.2800 Marty (7) 0.2000 Jeffles (5) 0.2000 PJ (5) 0.1905 Steve (6) 0.0833 Dawn (3) -0.0769 JP (4) -0.0952 RussW (6) -0.1500 William (6) -0.2000 Clayton (1) -0.2400 Matt (6) -0.2500 Carly (2) -0.2500 Dan (4) -0.3750 RussD (4) -0.4444 JonathanC (2)Marty is the Devil (as well as being the most Dedicated)! Daniel is Vice-Devil. Jeffles is Vice-Vice-Devil, then JP, then Steve.
Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard.
Wendy & I will be in Houston this weekend watching the 1931 classic Dracula film (starring Bela Lugosi) with live music by Philip Glass and Kronos Quartet. This should be pretty cool. It's also going to be in Austin on November 5 if anyone's interested.
The Nori is a surprisingly expensive salt water pitcher thingie to clean your nasal passages.
What comes out of Scooby Doo's butt?
Russ
