January 15 2003 RussCon Report

...but allen's not bitter!

News
Game Results
Meta Game Results
Evening's Soundtrack
Ratings | FAQ
Links
19 of us played 16 games, including newcomers Pauline and Michelle.
RussCon Mailing List Subscription Info
RussCon Report Archives
Previous Report | Next Report
RussCon Info
Russ Zone
Russ Friends
Ko Fight Club Check out my webcomics.
Comicollage: daily ongoing comic jam with 7 artists and no planning ahead! There's a russ strip every Tuesday.
I make exquisite corpses at deepmachines.

News

Damn this cold weather! Damn it to hell!

Note the final Clandestine appearance in Austin is coming up in a week (January 24 & 25; 7:30 and 10:00pm). This is a Friday and Saturday appearance. Based on past experience, I'm thinking the later shows are better (they're cheaper and seem to potentially last longer). I might even do both nights, 'cause hey, it's their last concert, and I'm a Clandestine nut.

Game Results

Blokus4RussW 3 William 1 JP -1 MarkH -3
Blokus4William 2 MarkH 2 JP -2 RussW -2
Ubi4BradS 3 Dan 1 Martha -1 Ben -3
UnionPacific5Steve 4 Marty 2 Fred 0 Clayton -2 JimG -4
ZirkusFlohcati3JP 2 Pauline 0 MarkY -2
Ubi3Allen 2 Clayton 0 Fred -2
Tichu2( Ben MarkH ) 1 ( Dan William ) -1
Rheinlaender4Marty 3 Steve 1 JimG -1 RussD -3
Acquire4RussW 3 JP 1 JonathanC -1 Michelle -3
Clue5Ben 4 RussW -1 JimG -1 Dan -1 Steve -1
Exxtra6William 5 Dan 3 Ben 0 Allen 0 Fred -3 MarkH -5
Settlers4BradS 3 Martha 1 MarkY -1 Pauline -3
Carcassonne4Steve 3 Pauline 1 Dan -1 RussW -3
Cosmic4Allen 3 RussD 0 William 0 JonathanC -3
TooManyCooks4JimG 2 Ben 2 MarkY -1 JP -3
Bluff5Steve 4 MarkY 2 RussW 0 Pauline -2 JP -4

More Blokus! Woohoo!

I played Clue The Card Game; it was faster than the boardgame, but felt more chaotic/lucky. I think I prefer the classic version, even if it does take longer. (Of course there's also the Museum Caper version which was quite enjoyable and we should play again.)

An amazing Bluff game as it came down to Steve and MarkY each had 2 dice, and MarkY raised the bid to 3 ones. Steve pondered and raised to 4 ones! MarkY called, and it turned out they both had a one and a star! I don't even remember what happened in the final round for Steve's win, but the successful raise to 4 ones was pretty nifty!

Meta Game

RussD was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he mailed out:

Your Passport to Metafun!

This game celebrates all of the travelling that our illustrious RussCon colleagues have done the world over. Anyone who wishes to participate should bring their passport (an expired one is OK and may be preferable if it shows more countries you've travelled to) for display on the piano or other suitable surface. Each player should also get a card or sheet of paper to record their score.

There are two ways to score. First, for every distinct game title, score a point for every current country shown or involved in the game that you have travelled to as shown in your passport. As I hope is obvious, the country that issued your passport does not count. The country should be featured on a map in whole or in recognizable part. Mere mention for flavor or as a border (as in the foreign destinations on TrainSport maps) does not count. You should announce to the other players in the game which countries your are scoring. We're using the honor system here, but if anyone challenges you, you must be able to show proof of travel to the country in your passport. On your score sheet, write down the game title and the number of points scored.

The second way to score is for you passport to be voted the most interesting passport on display. At some convenient point around 9 PM, we will take an Australian style vote (max 5 votes per person.) Besides earning the admiration and envy of all of your less travelled RussCon colleagues, the winner will score an additional 5 points, runner up earns 3 points and third place earns 1 point.

Before you leave, turn in your score sheet. Whoever has the highest score wins. Ties are broken by the most number of games scored, then random choice if there's still a tie.

There was murkiness sorted out by email about the details, and Allen was hopeful due to his world travels, but in the end we had a clear winner as Brad's passport was clearly the most well-travelled (no doubt due to his astronomical excursions), and Brad sneakily brought Ubi (the geography trivia game with a map of the whole world) so that all his passport's countries would earn him points (and of course Allen played Ubi as well). Allen's passport was unanimously the next best, then a 3-way tie broken randomly made RussD's passport a distant third place. Brad earned 18 total meta points, Allen 13, Martha 8, Dan 4, and RussD 1. I included my lame-ass passport with an England stamp just for grins; sadly I don't have my old passport from my teenage years which was actually quite well-travelled.

Thus BradS is the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game!

Reminder of the new incentive to compete in the Meta Game: The Meta Devil gets full table rights, just like a regular Devil from now on, so they could stake out the dining table or the kitchen table. Of course Vice-Devils continue to get secondary dibs on the tables if no higher-ranking Devil or Meta Devil takes a table.

Evening's Soundtrack

The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour england
Carmen, the original motion picture soundtrack spain france
Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade ussr
Samba Thistle brazil scotland
Triology plays Ennio Morricone austria italy

Some of the countries I've visited... England, Spain, France, Russia, Brazil, Scotland, Austria, Italy...

Ratings

New Multiplicative Rank Ratings:   
 4.7875 120.0000 Steve (5)
 2.7726 16.0000 BradS (2)
 2.4849 12.0000 Allen (3)
 2.1972 9.0000 William (5)
 2.0794 8.0000 Marty (2)
 1.6094 5.0000 Ben (5)
 0.4700 1.6000 RussW (6)
 0.0000 1.0000 Martha (2)
 0.0000 1.0000 Dan (5)
-0.6931 0.5000 Clayton (2)
-1.2164 0.2963 MarkY (4)
-1.3863 0.2500 Michelle (1)
-1.3863 0.2500 RussD (2)
-1.5449 0.2133 JimG (4)
-1.6740 0.1875 Pauline (4)
-1.7918 0.1667 MarkH (4)
-1.7918 0.1667 JonathanC (2)
-2.0149 0.1333 Fred (3)
-2.5903 0.0750 JP (6)
New Multiplicative Win Ratings:
 4.0943 60.0000 Steve won 3 of 5
 2.7726 16.0000 BradS won 2 of 2
 2.5257 12.5000 Ben won 3 of 5
 2.3026 10.0000 Allen won 2 of 3
 1.3455 3.8400 RussW won 2 of 6
 1.2164 3.3750 William won 2 of 5
 1.1632 3.2000 Marty won 1 of 2
 0.9163 2.5000 MarkH won 2 of 4
-0.0408 0.9600 JimG won 1 of 4
-0.2877 0.7500 Michelle won 0 of 1
-0.5754 0.5625 Martha won 0 of 2
-0.5754 0.5625 RussD won 0 of 2
-0.5754 0.5625 JonathanC won 0 of 2
-0.6286 0.5333 Clayton won 0 of 2
-0.8109 0.4444 Fred won 0 of 3
-1.0862 0.3375 JP won 1 of 6
-1.2040 0.3000 Pauline won 0 of 4
-1.6094 0.2000 MarkY won 0 of 4
-1.6740 0.1875 Dan won 0 of 5

Steve is the Devil! BradS is Vice-Devil (as well as Meta Devil)! Ben and Allen are Co-Vice-Devils. Then William, then Marty.

you don't have enough rubber bands for whatever feels good to me!
    -- sea biscuit Valid HTML 4.01!

Russ