April 25 2001 RussCon Report

News

It's weird being back in school (with my printmaking class) as we have just 2 classes left as I type, and the last class doesn't count because we'll spend it cleaning up the lab instead of printing. One wonders if there will be a high absentee rate that day.

In my copious spare time I've been reading the hardback collections of the first issues of Alan Moore's latest projects: Tom Strong, Top 10, and Promethea. Good stuff. I think I've enjoyed Tom Strong the best.

A mysterious package has arrived from NYC... watch the meta email for more info.

Meta Party Game Results

Clay was the Meta Party Devil. Here is the Meta Party Game he emailed out:

ALPHA OMEGA LISTING

As all mages who are worth their salt can tell you, words have power. Names have power. They that have the knowledge of the true names of objects and people hold ultimate power over them.

For this MetaGame, I ask you all to exercise the power of one's own name to wield power over the various battles of skill that take place over the gaming table.

Or some such shit like that.

The goal of this game is to "cover" the first and last letters of one's own name by playing games whose first and last letters, it is to be hoped, match letters taken from your name. Example: as my name is

Clay Colwell,
^  ^ ^     ^

I need to cover 2 Cs, a Y, and an L.

PLAYER NAME INFO:

Each player will have 4 letters to cover -- 2 from the first name and 2 from the last name. For those who go by various nicknames and whatnot, the letters to be used will be the first-name that said person is best known by within the RussCon circle. (Dare I posit that Jeffles would need to cover a J and an S, as opposed to a J and an F?).

Duplicate letters must be separately covered (ergo, I would need 2 Cs taken from games played to cover my name. If a game were called "Critic", that would suffice, as would 2 games of "Carcassone").

GAME NAME INFO:

The game's name will be taken from whatever name is given on the box or container. For games with multiple words in the title, the two letters that can be used from it will be the first letter of the first word and the last letter of the last word (so "Hare and Tortoise" provides an H and an E). Games with a single word in the title will provide the first and last letters of that word (so "Zero" provides a Z and an O, and "Mu" provides an M and a U). Diacritical marks will be ignored. Non-alphabetical characters will be ignored (so if the game title is a number, then the players are SOL wrt the Meta Game). In the highly unlikely event that someone brings a game with a single letter, then that game will provide 2 of that letter.

If one plays the same game more than once, it will provide letters for each play (so 2 games of Carcassone will provide 2 Cs and 2 Es).

DETERMINING THE META DEVIL

The person who covers all 4 letters of the person's name endpoints is the next Meta Devil. If no one has covered all 4, then whoever covers the most letters of their name endpoints is the next Meta Devil.

If two or more people tie for the honor, the person who has played the most games that involve the creation of words from a set of letters (like "Boggle" or "Scrabble") will be the next Meta Devil. If there is still a tie, then I shall break the tie via random selection.

NOW THE RUB --

I cannot attend this week RussCon, as I am taking my hubby out for his birthday dinner (he's turned 13 * 3, or 21 base 19). I would dearly appreciate someone collating the appropriate Meta Devil information for me. If no one can do this, then I must cede the Meta Devil game to another.