May 23 2001 RussCon Report

23 of us played 20 games. It was a crowded night, with several new folks and long-lost RussCon people! Brad and EricS were new. DaveB (recently married to Kate, congratulations!) returned (his annual RussCon appearances are starting to become bimonthly, watch out!). There was also Amy (whom I hypothesize is JeffF's sister, who came October 14 1998, which was coincidentally Steve's first RussCon.) and the return of Jeffles's pal Ben.

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Now playing: William Shakespeare's Memento.

Comicollage: daily ongoing comic jam with 7 artists and no planning ahead! There's a russ strip every Tuesday.

News

Several of us saw Carmen: the music and performances were good, but the venue sucked. Operas are usually in Bass Concert Hall, but this one was in City Colosseum, and the visibility was really bad. Plus the slide machine for the supertitles was right behind us, making distracting clicks every few seconds.

Several of us worked at the game company Kinesoft at various times; they are officially defunct now. There was some sort of fire sale and wake-like event which I regret not being able to attend; I would have enjoyed seeing the old gang together. Apparently Lance & Brendan made it, and WendyWhi (who never even worked there).

Speaking of WendyWhi (& WendyWhe) a new spelling proposal came up by accident as new guy EricS was recording a game and told to write "Whi" for Wendy, so he wrote Whindy. Thus Whindy & Whendy were suggested as nifty spellings for WendyWhi & WendyWhe. So it shall be.

Game Results

Carabande	8	Marty 7 BobR 5 Clay 3 Brad 1 RussW -1 Clayton -3 Daniel -5 Steve -7
TallyHo	2	Daniel 1 JonathanB -1
UnionPacific	6	Jeffles 5 Ben 3 Carly 1 EricS -2 Marty -2 DaveB -5
Carcassonne	5	RussW 4 Steve 2 BobR 0 Brad -2 Clayton -4
Wettstreit	4	Clay 3 Whindy 1 Matt -1 Bob -3
Guillotine	5	Brad 4 Clayton 2 RussW 0 BobR -2 Steve -4
ZirkusFlohcati	3	Matt 2 JonathanB 0 Clay -2
HighSociety	5	Brad 4 Steve 1 BobR 1 RussW -2 Clayton -4
Palenque	4	Bob 3 EricS 0 Daniel 0 Whindy -3
Evo	4	JonathanC 3 Kara 1 JP -1 RussD -3
Attila	5	DaveB 4 Jeffles 2 Ben 0 Carly -2 Marty -4
Evo	4	JonathanB 3 JeffF 1 Amy -2 Matt -2
Carcassonne	3	Brad 2 Carly 0 Clayton -2
StephensonsRocket	3	RussD 2 RussW 0 JonathanC -2
Entdecker	4	JeffF 3 Matt 1 JonathanB -1 Amy -3
Evo	5	JP 4 Bob 2 Daniel 0 BobR -2 Steve -4
Mu	6	Marty 5 Whindy 3 EricS 1 Jeffles -1 Ben -3 DaveB -5
Can'tStop	3	Ben 2 Jeffles 0 EricS -2
Carcassonne	3	RussW 2 JonathanC 0 Carly -2
Carcassonne	3	BobR 2 JP 0 Steve -2

Carabande is one of the few dexterity games we've played. It involved flicking wooden disks (representing race cars) around a track we built from its sturdy road pieces. Good silly fun.

I got 2 games of Carcassonne in, and won both. This game rules!

Evo was perhaps even more popular tonight, for meta reasons.

I enjoyed playing Stephensons Rocket again (even if that bastard Knizia ripped off Star Venture, ha!). RussD kicked our asses, so Sea Biscuit and I demand a rematch soon.

Palenque has a huge pretty board with grotesquely large player pawns. I have no idea how it played.

Meta Party Game Results

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

I happen to think that a Meta Devil should do their damnedest (heh heh) to fully act the part and engage in devilish tendencies. To this aim, I announce the procedure to become next week's Meta Devil:
For every game played, a player has the chance to gain up to 6 Meta Devil points:
+1 if the game has at least one fully-red game piece (example: red meeple from Carcassonne)
+1 if a game component prominently features horns (example: 6 Nimmt, Evo)
+1 if a game component prominently features a tail (example: Frank's Zoo, Evo)
+1 if a game component prominently features a pitchfork or trident (example: Titan the Arena?)
+1 if a game component prominently features a really hot place, like a bonfire, desert, or blast furnace (example: Durch die Wurst, Evo, RoboRally)
+1 if the game prominently features Hell (example: HellTrain)

(Since Hell is already supposed to be a Really Hot Place, the last point-chance automatically gives a player the preceding point-chance.)
Add 'em all up, and the highest total garners the next Meta Devilship.
One more note about this week's Meta Game:
If the majority of players in a game agree that a player committed a devilishly evil play during the game (Hi, Russ, you Carcasonne-tilespot-blocking-fiend!), that player earns a bonus +2 Meta Devil points. only one such bonus per player per game, and please note the bonus in The Book, preferably with a summary of the Evil Deed.
(Now, folks, don't go voting for venal petty stuff -- we want Truly Evil plays to get the bonus.)

It appears Evo was the ultimate Meta-Point scoring experience. JP was the only one to play Evo twice, so I'm gambling that he has the most Meta Points and making a lazy judgement call that JP is the Meta Devil! He will email out next week's Meta Party Game.

Evening's Soundtrack

King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King
King Crimson, In the Wake of Poseidon
King Crimson, Lizard
King Crimson, Starless and Bible Black
King Crimson, Red

I am a big fan of early King Crimson. In fact, one of the first vinyl records I ever bought as a kid was In the Court of the Crimson King.

Ratings

Rank ratings:
 0.6667 JeffF (2)
 0.4286 Brad (5)
 0.3750 Jeffles (4)
 0.3333 JP (3)
 0.3333 Clay (3)
 0.3333 Kara (1)
 0.2857 Marty (4)
 0.2000 Bob (3)
 0.1600 BobR (6)
 0.1429 JonathanC (3)
 0.1304 RussW (6)
 0.1250 Ben (4)
 0.1111 JonathanB (4)
 0.0909 Whindy (3)
 0.0000 Matt (4)
-0.2000 RussD (2)
-0.2000 EricS (4)
-0.2308 Carly (4)
-0.2667 Daniel (4)
-0.4286 DaveB (3)
-0.5238 Clayton (5)
-0.5600 Steve (6)
-0.8333 Amy (2)

New Win ratings:
 0.4762 Marty (4)
 0.3810 Brad (5)
 0.3333 JeffF (2)
 0.2222 JP (3)
 0.2000 RussD (2)
 0.1429 JonathanC (3)
 0.1429 DaveB (3)
 0.1250 Jeffles (4)
 0.1000 Bob (3)
 0.0870 RussW (6)
 0.0833 Clay (3)
 0.0000 JonathanB (4)
-0.0625 Ben (4)
-0.0909 Matt (4)
-0.1200 BobR (6)
-0.1333 Daniel (4)
-0.2381 Clayton (5)
-0.2400 Steve (6)
-0.2667 EricS (4)
-0.2727 Whindy (3)
-0.3077 Carly (4)
-0.3333 Kara (1)
-0.3333 Amy (2)

RussCon virgin Brad is the Devil! I predict he might try to get a game of Dampfross going at the table. Marty is Vice-Devil. JeffF is Vice-Vice-Devil. Amy is the Generous Angel.

Links

The Story About Ping is brilliantly reviewed at Amazon: "Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and intuitive explanation of one of Unix's most venerable networking utilities." Scroll down to the review by El Segundo. Delightful!

Brett & Komputer has lots of links to boardgames ported to computer (including my own 1830).

Aaron's Game Variants include playtested variants to "fix" problems in Mu, Euphrat, King of the Elves, Titan, and more.

Perhaps this new rules translation of Druidenwalzer will make more sense to us.

Chess fans will agree that Russian chess babe Sashenka is simply a marvel.

The Tongue Page has lots of photos of weird tongue stuff.

Learn more about the morel mushroom which rumor says Alfred enjoys. Man, they look like creepy brains.

I have attracted the amorous attentions of the Empress of India!

jubilee -- tell me if you can't see this png image file

Russ