October 8 2003 RussCon Report

News

I went camping at Pedernales last weekend with Moloch and we lucked out - the weather was awesome. I hadn't been camping in years (Whendy & I used to camp occasionally). This was in the primitive camping area, hiking in several miles, and no one else around. Very pleasing! It was quite amazing and wonderful to be out in the woods under the moon and stars with only the sounds of nature. I should not let several years go by before I do it again.

Heads up that the Austin Celtic Festival is coming up (Saturday Nov 1 and Sunday Nov 2). I've gone the last 2 years and loved it. Lots of different bands, highland games, vendors, etc. I was outdoors both days in the cold rain last year and still had a great time. I might even go so far as to call it The Best Weekend Of The Year. Some performers this year that are known to some RussCon folks: The Killdares, Cluan, Doc Grauzer, Pubcrawler, Ed Miller, Silver Thistle Pipes and Drums. I'm afraid it looks like two of my favorites Maggie Drennon and Jiggernaut may not be there, darn it. But it should still be a great time for Celtic music fans!

Sabaton la 8-an de novembro okazos la TutTeksasa Kunveno, por ĉiuj teksasaj esperantistoj!

Whendy says that this Saturday at 4pm, there's a good chance her interview about the screenwriting conference will be broadcast on a writing program at KOOP radio 91.7 (also streamed across the Internet at www.koop.org)

Game Results

CosmicCoasters	2	Doug 1 RussW -1
Tichu	2	( MarkG Ben ) 1 ( MarkH Whendy ) -1
Zero	4	MarkG 3 Ben 1 MarkH -1 RussD -3
Guillotine	4	Ben 3 RussD 1 MarkG -1 MarkH -3
Exxtra	3	MarkH 2 Doug 0 Ben -2
PuertoRico	5	Doug 4 Kate 2 RussW 0 Clayton -2 Sam -4
Carcassonne	4	Clayton 3 MarkG 1 RussW -1 RussD -3
Vinci	5	Jeremy 4 JP 2 Matt 0 Justin -2 MarkY -4

Cosmic Coasters hadn't been played in a while, and is a good clever filler game for 2 people waiting for more to show up!

This session of Puerto Rico was quite unusual. The top 4 finishers were all quite close in score, and it was the first game I recall where nobody bought any of the big violet victory point buildings! I should have bought one; I'd have ended with about 7 more points than I did, which would have handed me victory, but I foolishly didn't realize the game was going to end as quickly as it did, so I bought a wharf, which I only got to use once.

The Vinci players ended up taking all evening on their game!

Ratings

Rank Ratings:     
 2.3026 Doug
 2.0794 MarkG
 1.6094 Jeremy
 1.3863 Ben
 0.6931 Clayton
 0.6931 JP
 0.6931 Kate
 0.0000 Matt
-0.6931 Justin
-0.6931 Whendy
-1.0986 RussW
-1.3863 MarkH
-1.6094 MarkY
-1.6094 Sam
-2.3671 RussD

Win Ratings:
 1.8971 Doug won 2 of 3
 1.6094 Jeremy won 1 of 1
 1.5041 MarkG won 2 of 4
 1.3863 Ben won 2 of 4
 1.1632 Clayton won 1 of 2
-0.1699 MarkH won 1 of 4
-0.2231 JP won 0 of 1
-0.2231 Kate won 0 of 1
-0.2231 Matt won 0 of 1
-0.2231 Justin won 0 of 1
-0.2231 MarkY won 0 of 1
-0.2231 Sam won 0 of 1
-0.6931 Whendy won 0 of 1
-0.8630 RussD won 0 of 3
-1.2040 RussW won 0 of 3

Doug is the Devil! Jeremy and MarkG are Co-Vice-Devils. Ben is Vice-Vice-Devil. Clayton is Vice-Vice-Vice-Devil. The Russes are tag-team Generous Angels!

If you are confused how the ratings work, you could peruse the FAQ.

Meta Game

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

The meta-game is simple.

Anytime you play a game that has a god or gods you earn 1d6 meta-points.

If you actually play one of the gods you earn 2d6 meta-points.

Any game without gods you earn minus 2d6 meta-points.

The person with the lowest score becomes the meta-devil.

Ties are broken by JP in any manner that he sees fit.

If a group of people playing a particular game cannot decide on the godliness of it then Russ has the final say.

To help Russ out please record your meta-points per game in THE BOOK.

Enjoy, dwf

p.s. This is inspired by the short story by Ted Chiang "Hell is the Absence of God." A good read that I highly recommend. http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook4145.htm

It turns out we are apparently a bunch of godless gamers (not to be confused with Godless Gamers) as none of the games played had God or gods! (Our Most Assiduous Reader may recall the analogous recent scantiness of seasonal games.) A few candidate games were considered, e.g., Hera & Zeus, Ra, and perhaps Credo, but none were played. Thus it all came down to random chance (or fate, if you prefer) as we earned random negative meta points for each game played. (We misremembered the rules of the Meta Game, and only rolled 1d6 instead of 2d6, but I suppose the effect is the same.) RussD, after earning a fairly large number of negative meta points, remarked that he hoped he was not going to be the Meta Devil - so of course the gods of irony have bestowed that honor upon him! As you can see, the negative points earned correlated fairly well with number of games played, as one might expect:

Player	games played	meta points
RussD	3	-17
MarkH	4	-15
RussW	3	-14
MarkG	4	-14
Doug	3	-10
Ben	4	-8
Justin	1	-6
MarkY	1	-6
JP	1	-4
Jeremy	1	-3
Kate	1	-2
Sam	1	-2
Matt	1	-1
Whendy	1	-1

So RussD is the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game! As flies to wanton boys is he to the gods... they make him Meta Devil for their sport!

October 8 2003 RussCon Report

News

Game Results

Ratings

Meta Game

Evening's Soundtrack

Links