April 16 2003 RussCon Report
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20 of us played 17 games.
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News
The Texas Showdown on May 3 is a conglomeration of various progressive/liberal causes, at least some of which I suspect many folks are interested in. I plan to check it out.
I am getting seriously into esperanto since I first mentioned it last week. I have set up an esperanto links page. Some cow-orkers and I have a public irc channel #esperanto at irc.distributed.net, in which we chat in fractured esperanto and help each other study and learn it while waiting for slow compiles and whatnot. Anyone interested is welcome to join. Dan has already joined us, and he and I began translating "Lords of the Rhymes" lyrics into esperanto. There is also a local group that meets every few Sundays; next one is April 27, 3pm, at Borders Books down in Westgate. If anyone is interested in more info or in getting together to study or chat, let me know.
At this point, I've had "aye" votes from DaveB and JP, and "nay" votes from Fred, William, and MarkG on moving the russcon list to yahoogroups. The main objections raised have been advertisements on the emails and some people having occasional lost email issues (possibly related to hotmail accounts). Anyone else have opinions or questions?
Game Results
| Carcassonne | 3 | BradS 2 BobR 0 RussW -2 |
| Drakon | 3 | Dudley 2 BobR -1 RussW -1 |
| CarcassonneTraders | 3 | JP 2 Steve 0 Fred -2 |
| Exxtra | 2 | Dudley 1 PJ -1 |
| Tichu | 2 | ( Dan MarkH ) 1 ( Ben JimG ) -1 |
| Exxtra | 4 | Ben 3 Dan -1 MarkY -1 MarkH -1 |
| Vampire | 3 | BobR 2 RussW 0 Clayton -2 |
| Vampire | 3 | Justin 2 Fina 0 RussD -2 |
| Settlers | 3 | BradS 2 Fina -1 Justin -1 |
| Eleusis | 5 | Ben 3 MarkH 3 Dan 0 Fred -2 MarkY -4 |
| Cosmic | 5 | Allen 4 JimG 1 Deborah 1 Dudley -3 William -3 |
| DieHanse | 5 | BobR 4 Steve 2 RussW 0 JP -2 Clayton -4 |
| Tightrope | 4 | Allen 3 Dudley 1 Deborah -1 William -3 |
| Bluff | 4 | MarkY 3 RussW 1 JP -1 Steve -3 |
| Can'tStop | 4 | William 3 Allen 1 Dudley -1 Deborah -3 |
| CarcassonneTraders | 3 | Fina 2 Justin 0 RussD -2 |
| Exxtra | 6 | Allen 5 Dudley 2 JP 2 William -1 Deborah -3 Justin -5 |
Die Hanse is a German game I bought years ago; it was last played around 1994, I'd guess, when some of us gamed in the evenings at the SimTex office on 360. I remember it getting a lukewarm reception back then. JP was curious to try it, so we did. It has an interesting central idea: in an n-player game, there are n ships. Each player controls half of 2 ships, sharing control with their left and right neighbor. E.g. on my turn I move the green and purple ships. On Bob's turn he moves the purple and red ships. On Steve's turn, he moves the red and orange ships. Etc. This is kind of neat, and encourages/requires some communication and planning with your neighbors ("We both want ore, so shall we move the ship over here?"), otherwise you can end up in a useless power struggle moving the ship back and forth like drunken sea captains. Overall it's got neat stuff, and I think our only serious complaint was it took too long. There's some chaotic luck in it, including the initial distribution of goals: all of us are going for 3 randomly determined types of goods, and all of us had all of our goods shared with at least one neighbor, except poor Clayton who wanted one type of good that neither of his neighbors wanted, and perhaps not coincidentally came in last. All this would be ok if it was short, but it's not. We spent a good 2 or 3 hours on it. Probably it would go quicker with experienced players, and less agonizing.
I am solemnly obliged, perhaps even honorbound and morally compelled, to briefly mock Clayton for choosing to bring out his sixth set and end the Vampire game under circumstances which ensured him last place, to the delight of Bob and me.
Carcassonne has a new expansion that appears sufficiently different that I'll track it under the name CarcassonneTraders. It adds wacky new meeples including pigs, and apparently weird lengthy new ways of scoring. I got mixed impressions from those who played it.
Eleusis is a card game of deducing patterns which Ben (I believe) introduced last week (but was not recorded by mutual consent), and it got played again this week. I should probably give it a try.
A special public service announcement for William that Allen is spelled "Allen" not "Alan".
Ratings
New Multiplicative Rank Ratings:
5.1930 180.0000 Allen (4)
2.3026 10.0000 BobR (4)
2.1972 9.0000 BradS (2)
1.6094 5.0000 Ben (3)
1.3863 4.0000 Dudley (6)
1.3218 3.7500 MarkH (3)
0.6931 2.0000 Fina (3)
0.5108 1.6667 JP (4)
0.4055 1.5000 Dan (3)
-0.4055 0.6667 JimG (2)
-0.5108 0.6000 MarkY (3)
-0.6931 0.5000 PJ (1)
-0.6931 0.5000 Steve (3)
-1.0986 0.3333 Justin (4)
-1.0986 0.3333 RussW (5)
-1.2040 0.3000 William (4)
-1.7918 0.1667 Fred (2)
-2.1972 0.1111 RussD (2)
-2.4204 0.0889 Deborah (4)
-2.7081 0.0667 Clayton (2)
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New Multiplicative Win Ratings:
4.4998 90.0000 Allen won 3 of 4
2.1972 9.0000 BradS won 2 of 2
1.8971 6.6667 BobR won 2 of 4
1.6094 5.0000 Ben won 2 of 3
1.3218 3.7500 MarkH won 2 of 3
0.8109 2.2500 Dudley won 2 of 6
0.6931 2.0000 William won 1 of 4
0.5878 1.8000 MarkY won 1 of 3
0.4055 1.5000 JP won 1 of 4
0.2877 1.3333 Fina won 1 of 3
0.1054 1.1111 Justin won 1 of 4
-0.1054 0.9000 Dan won 1 of 3
-0.6286 0.5333 Clayton won 0 of 2
-0.6931 0.5000 PJ won 0 of 1
-0.8109 0.4444 RussD won 0 of 2
-0.9163 0.4000 JimG won 0 of 2
-0.9163 0.4000 Steve won 0 of 3
-0.9163 0.4000 Fred won 0 of 2
-0.9808 0.3750 Deborah won 0 of 4
-1.7272 0.1778 RussW won 0 of 5
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Allen is the Devil! (Probably just lucky...) BobR and BradS are Co-Vice-Devils! Ben is Vice-Vice-Devil. Dudley and MarkH are Co-Vice-Vice-Vice-Devils.
Meta Game
William was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he mailed out:
This week's MetaGame will be a take-off of the Apples to Apples game.
I'll have a stack of slips of paper for your use at RussCon. Grab a few
when you get to Russ's.
A round of the MetaGame will be played at the end of every game that has
three or more total players.
On a slip of paper, write down a single word that applies (in your mind, for
whatever reason, using whatever form of logic or illogic) to the winner of
the game (assuming it's not you).
Now repeat the process for the losers (except yourself).
So, for a game with N players, you will generate (N-1) words on slips of
paper.
Everyone then gives their slips (with the words) to the appropriate person.
The person getting the should shuffle them face down. Try to keep it secret
as to who wrote what, or the game isn't as fun.
So. Each person will receive (N-1) slips.
Each person then reads the words out loud to the others. Then each person
decides for themself, which word they find to be "the best" for themself.
The person who's word was chosen, gets a token (I'll provide these as well).
If more than one person used the same word, all of those slips are
discarded and cannot be the winning word for that round.
At the end of the night, whoever has the most tokens can choose to take the
prize (I'll get something for that, too) or choose to be MetaDevil for next
week. The second place person gets what the first place person rejected.
If there is a tie, those tied read out all the words they've garnered
throughout the night and we vote on who should win.
NOTES....
Keep the slips that describe you as you move from game to game (for the
possible tie-breaker and for amusement value).
If the same word is used to apply to you after different games, it's not
discarded (assuming a single occurance). The word(s) are discarded only if
two or more people in the SAME GAME use the same word (or close variants).
Example: I play a game with Russ, JP, and Marty. Russ and JP both write
the word "cute" to apply to me. Marty writes the word "postcard." Russ's
and JP's cards are discarded and Marty wins by default. Later, I play a
game with Clayton, Russ, and Fred. Fred uses the word "postcard" to apply
to me, while Clayton and Russ use the words "lugubrious" and "christ-like."
Fred's word is NOT discarded.
I encourage everyone to participate even if you fear becoming MetaDevil for
next week. Remember, you can always take the prize if you come in first.
And you can always give up the MetaDevil honor and let the next person take
it instead.
We ended up with a 3-way tie (Deborah, JP, and I all earned 6 meta points). So at the end of the evening, those still around voted (with Australian-style Single Transferable Voting, i.e. you rank the candidates) and Deborah won 1st place. She chose to be the Meta Devil and design next week's Meta Game! The ballots for Deborah were then transferred to their 2nd place candidates to see who won 2nd place (out of me and JP), and I won, so I got William's prize, which is a nifty wooden puzzle box with a marble inside a hidden maze: you try to get the marble out. (I knew this was the prize from hanging with William at Great Hall Games before seeing Spun on Tuesday night. Spun was a cool movie. But I digress.)
A few interesting factoids learned about RussCon attendees:
- JP is cautious, deliberate, and agonizing (all descriptions of his Die Hanse play), and also a nonesperantist (though I'd like to change that, of course)
- I am frutescent (intriguingly, upon hearing that Deborah immediately knew Dudley had written it)
- Deborah is a beautiful charming underdressed mammalian risk-taker
- Dudley is an evil perverse vindictive shrewd overwhelming goateed cheater
- Dan, JimG, MarkH, MarkY are all pulers
- Dan is also Fresca-fresh, King-Fresca, FrescanatorTM, Fresh-as-a-Fresca
- JimG is also a devious meddling cunning christ-like criminal-mastermind
- Allen is an exasperated frustrated wussy wuss, but he is also a steady persistent determined ponderous tortoise
- William is a baa baaa tilt-boy
- Clayton is Clouseauian (for choosing to end Vampire at a time that he was in last place)
- Fina is a classy mom
- BradS is victorious and tenured
- BobR is magnificent, pathetic, and Boblike
Evening's Soundtrack
Fiona Apple, Tidal
The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour
Ethos, Triskelion
Eve's Plum, Cherry Alive
George Harrison, All Things Must Pass
Various references to and mentions of apples!
Links
I have set up an esperanto links page. Some cow-orkers and I have a public irc channel #esperanto at irc.distributed.net, in which we chat in fractured esperanto and help each other study and learn it. Anyone interested is welcome to join. Dan has already joined us, and he and I began translating "Lords of the Rhymes" lyrics into esperanto.
Speaking of Quickbeam and Bombadil, they're announcing the "Lords of the Rhymes" Official Spring Remix Competition:
Calling all musical wizards!! Download the "Lords of the Rhymes" vocal track, remix it, double-check your work to make sure it rocks harder than the Deeping Wall of the Hornburg, and send it back to us by the Summer Solstice (June 21st). We'll pick our favorite three and post them on the site for all the free peoples of Middle-earth to enjoy. You'll get mad props and more action than Beren.
I know some RussCon folks are into making and recording music... this sounds like fun!
That Honda commercial I linked to last week is apparently real, not CGI as some speculated.
Death Tape from The Ring Movie (caution pule) is up for auction on ebay, courtesy of cockeyed.com. Speaking of The Ring, it was a great movie, well worth watching if you didn't see it already. Spooky stuff.
As most of us know, the annual Gathering of Friends happened again, and this year Marty broke his wrist and there was a 3D go board.
In case you're not hip to them already, I recommend This Modern World and Ted Rall for political commentary and comics
Italian biographical comics about photographers
Two blasts from the past are the D&D quote list and toilet prank list.
elfa rabaĵo havas animon
elfaj knabinoj ŝatas rock-n-roll
Ĝis,
Russ
Check out my webcomics.