February 5 2003 RussCon Report

News

Last week I noted that Dan suggested I reorder the Reports so that the ratings immediately follow the results, and I asked what other people think. It seems that among those voting, there is unanimous agreement with Dan! In a landslide victory (of 1 vote, from JP) the people have spoken and endorsed Dan's proposal! (At least I think JP was agreeing... he wrote "Reports and results should be together.")

This week's something else has also changed about the RussCon Report web page, but it is more subtle. Bonus points if you detect it.

cnn sucks The sad news about the shuttle Columbia breaking up Saturday morning was somewhat relieved by this virulent net meme showing CNN's amusing physics blunder. I am also happy that Bush wants to continue funding space exploration. It's nice to have something I agree with him on.

Speaking of space, the future, and all that (what a deft segue!), RussCon alum Jay writes from Portland: "I took first place in the Writers of the Future contest quarter ending 9/31/2002...my last quarter of eligibility at that! It's a far future science fantasy of 15,500 words called 'Into the Gardens of Sweet Night.'"

Ratings

New Multiplicative Rank Ratings:   
 4.4308 84.0000 JonathanC (3)
 2.7726 16.0000 Ben (4)
 2.1972 9.0000 RussW (6)
 1.0986 3.0000 William (6)
 0.7340 2.0833 MarkG (6)
 0.5108 1.6667 Matt (2)
 0.1823 1.2000 MarkY (4)
-0.1178 0.8889 Clayton (4)
-0.9808 0.3750 MarkH (4)
-2.0794 0.1250 BobR (2)
-2.4849 0.0833 JimG (3)
-2.5213 0.0804 JP (4)
-2.7081 0.0667 Fina (3)

New Multiplicative Win Ratings:
 4.4308 84.0000 JonathanC won 3 of 3
 2.7726 16.0000 Ben won 3 of 4
 2.2254 9.2571 RussW won 2 of 6
 1.4553 4.2857 Matt won 1 of 2
 0.6286 1.8750 Clayton won 1 of 4
 0.5390 1.7143 MarkY won 1 of 4
-0.4700 0.6250 BobR won 0 of 2
-0.5754 0.5625 MarkH won 1 of 4
-0.6931 0.5000 Fina won 0 of 3
-0.7295 0.4821 William won 1 of 6
-0.8473 0.4286 JP won 0 of 4
-1.2685 0.2813 JimG won 0 of 3
-1.4227 0.2411 MarkG won 0 of 6

Sea Biscuit is the Devil! (And Meta Devil too!) Ben is Vice-Devil. I am Vice-Vice-Devil.

Meta Game

I was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game I mailed out:

This is the same idea as last week's Meta Game, but instead of movie quotes, it's game rule quotes! I'll print out sheets with quotes from game rules and you write down what game they're from.

Email me one or more fun/interesting/weird quotes from game rules (preferably game rules you have access to so the quotes are accurate.)

If you're thinking game rules aren't fun/interesting/weird, all I can say is:

Everybody loves sheep. Sheep go "baa".

(Yes, that one will be on the test!)

Here are the quotes I passed out (and the numbers of how many people identified them; a question mark (?) denotes a partially correct answer, e.g. Magic Labyrinth instead of Master Labyrinth, etc.):

The different rules of this game are presented by homogeneous rubric.
The game is begun by the player who looks most like a pirate...	5
Everyone guesses the current time; whoever is closest goes first.	2
The player with the longest eye-teeth begins; play continues in clockwise order.	8
The player who can drink most milk in one go, starts!!
The player born closest to March 15 plays first, with a tie broken in favor of the older or oldest among those tied.
The meanest player begins the game.	1
The fun begins when our party pooping poltergeist emerges from the dark cellar...	9
You can use anything you like for counters: coins, milk caps, dead flies, whatever you have on hand.	1
Degeneration Counters are sometimes referred to as "Gruntles," because they represent the members of the List getting increasingly disgruntled.
Some players have the Greater Peon sit on something improvised such as a suitcase or a box, or even on the floor.	7
You and your friends are living pleasant and complete lives in Happyville. You are highly trained and well-paid sous-chefs, who have decided to climb to the top of a tall building, as fast as you can.	4
The Most Pretentious Card Game Ever Made	?
Unfortunately, the gold is guarded by creatures called Luckychauns.	1
The Twonky is cursed. It knows exactly what's going on.	2
There is still much to learn about cities and the forces which shaped them. Who knows what secrets lie hidden within this simple game waiting to be discovered.
If a weasel spit at you, you might break in two or go blind, but bones of a white weasel could be used to make yourself invisible.	? ?
And now you absolutely can't wait to take the lying old bastard down.	5
We all know that the Spy destroys a Lair on the way out. It's just part of the super-villain mystique. Sometimes we even make it easier, by filling everything with kerosene.	5
Elbow, Hail Mary, Headbutt, Hook, Jab, Kick, Pimp slap, Uppercut	4
The kids of Ticketa-Koo are troublesome not only because they explode, but because they tend to multiply at a tremendous rate. A BITER explodes into six BLIPS and YEASTS, but it takes only three BLIPS and one YEAST to re-combine into a new BITER! (Negative entropy!)	4 ?
You don't have to bite off someone's head just because you landed on them. You can peacefully coexist with them, if you choose.	6
A Sleeping Gas will break a Grapple.	3
There are eleven spectators in the arena whose blood lust is such that they can't resist interfering...	2
Wild Rabble
When an Orgy card is drawn, no vote of confidence is called.	3 ?
Unlike other war vehicles, they were never called "she." Friendly units of the speaker's acquaintance were "he"; others were "it."	1
Chickacheezabunga	3
When a red herring surfaces, the correct answer is, "That's a red herring."	1
All players then solemnly intone the Creed.	2
Shiver me timbers, it's fun!
Everybody loves sheep. Sheep go "baa".	3
If a player forgets to make a sound effect, his/her BLAST misses and the BLAST card is discarded without effect.	?
You may find the consequences of your failure are somewhat less onerous than you'd otherwise expect.	1
He tells the GM he wants to replace one of his old spells with this new one. His GM says, "and Pamela Anderson would like to be known for her intellect. Sorry, it ain't gonna happen."	2 ?
Perhaps he is right. Perhaps he is not.	?

Answers are here. Thanks to Jeffles, Alfred, Dan, William, MarkG, MarkH (who also pointed out this Games Journal article about who goes first), & Marty for quote assistance. I ended up supplying the majority of the quotes. Some of them were more challenging than I thought they'd be, though I'm not surprised no one identified the source of the famous homogeneous rubric quote (which is part of RussCon lore and has been mentioned in a previous Meta Game). Congratulations to all 9 lovely contestants who dared take up the challenge:

16 + 2? Sea Biscuit
14 + 1?William
13 JP
9 Matt Clayton
8 + 2? BobR
8 MarkG
6 + 2? Ben
2 + 1? Fina

Sea Biscuit got about half of them, so bravo, he 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.

Hive	2	MarkH 1 Ben -1
Barbuda	4	Ben 3 MarkY 1 JimG -1 MarkH -3
Carcassonne	6	RussW 5 MarkG 3 Clayton 1 BobR -3 Fina -3 JP -3
Tichu	2	( Ben William ) 1 ( JimG MarkH ) -1
Exxtra	4	Ben 3 MarkH 1 William -1 JimG -3
Blokus	4	MarkY 3 MarkG 1 Clayton -1 RussW -3
Vampire	4	Clayton 3 William 1 MarkG -1 RussW -3
Vampire	4	RussW 3 William 1 MarkG -1 Clayton -3
PuertoRico	4	JonathanC 3 JP 1 Fina -1 BobR -3
ZirkusFlohcati	3	JonathanC 2 William 0 MarkY -2
Cartagena	5	Matt 4 RussW 2 JP -1 MarkG -1 Fina -4
Bluff	7	JonathanC 6 RussW 4 MarkG 2 William 0 MarkY -2 Matt -4 JP -6

February 5 2003 RussCon Report

News

Game Results

Ratings

Meta Game

Evening's Soundtrack

Links