June 4 2003 RussCon Report

Meta Game

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

1 play an organized sport Sun-Wed before russcon 10 meta points.
     ...day of +4 points
2 come in sports attire                              5 points
3 come with sports equipment                   -1 point
4 Unorganized sports (running, work out... ) On Wed        4 points
     (dance dance revolution -2 points)
5 have sports or beer logos on you            1 point
6 drink  beer during russcon                    1 point each (5 max)
7 bring beers to russcon                         1 point
8 Play a game with sports or beer            2 points  each
9 Convince russconers to go out in the street, drink beer and play sports 
100 points

Dan asked whether some particular sports-type games, including Tally-Ho, and Jeffles decreed: "Personally, I don't think hunting should count. But I'll be inclusive. Everything at least slightly reasonable counts."

MarkH asked whether nonalcoholic beer like root beer counted, and Jeffles decreed: "By my standards, only regular alcoholic beer would count. But I'm not picky, non-alcoholic, root beer. These are fine."

Dan asked about animal race games like Honey Bears, to which Jeffles of course replied: "You have to ask if I will accept bear racing??" (For last week's question about constellations, I said "the red bear", which I know would have been accepted as an answer if Jeffles had judged the astro-metagame instead of Brad.)

To some of my questions seeking clarification, Jeffles explained: "Yes, the idea was not to bring sport equipment. If you disagree with the point. IE prefer people not to wear the sweaty gi to russcon, feel free to change them. Dance dance revolution is an abomination and will only count for negative points. Yeah, the only ones that count multiple is the game playing and beer drinking."

Strangely enough, there was no beer at all this evening (alcoholic or otherwise). JP, PJ, and MarkG went out front to play frisbee for a while, but they did not qualify for the 100 points (due to lack of beer drinking). JP did however throw the frisbee into RussD's car, setting off the car alarm. Fred wins the people's choice award for his cricket outfit (aka cha-cha clothes) and cricket bat. We also failed to play any games involving beer or sports, oddly enough, unless you consider chopping off heads to be a sport.

Anyway, as far as serious contention went, it came down to RussD and MarkG, who both did organized sports the day of RussCon, had sports attire with logos, yada yada... they ended up matching on everything and tying. (MarkG tried to claim an additional 2 points for playing a game with beer (Carcassonne Traders), but we found the casks actually hold wine not beer.) So by Jeffles's tie-breaker, MarkG (being the tallest) is the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game!