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2004-11-17 RussCon Report

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News

13 of us played 14 games! Well, 12 if you don't count Dastardly Dan, the non-human player in Magnificent Race.

There will be RussCon As Usual next Wednesday (2004-11-24), unaffected by Thanksgiving being the following day. Clayton and I might host a not-very-carnivorous (I'm not cooking a turkey, I'm a frickin' vegetarian!) low-key potluck and gaming on Thanksgiving if there is interest (let me know).

The Inks Lake camping has been cancelled due to park flooding from the recent rains. :(

Game Results

TanzDerHornochsen7KevinU 6 Marty 4 RussW 2 Jeffles 0 Clayton -2 JP -4 Ben -6
JefflesTriviaGame7JP 6 KevinU 4 JimG 2 Ben 0 RussW -2 Marty -4 Clayton -6
Exxtra3SarahM 2 Clayton 0 Ben -2
Zero3Ben 2 SarahM 0 Clayton -2
Frank'sZoo4Ben 3 SarahM 1 Clayton -1 Whendy -3
Settlers4JP 3 Jeffles 1 Matt -2 RussW -2
Bluff5Jeffles 4 Matt 2 JP 0 Chad -2 RussW -4
SettlersCities3JimG 2 KevinU 0 Marty -2
Tichu2( Ben Chad ) 1 ( SarahM Jeffles ) -1
CarcassonneCastle2Clayton 1 RussW -1
Attika4JP 3 Matt 1 KevinU -1 JimG -3
MagnificentRace3Jeffles 2 Ben 0 DastardlyDan -2
SaintPetersburg4RussW 3 SarahM 1 Clayton -1 KevinU -3
SaintPetersburg3SarahM 2 RussW 0 Clayton -2

Tanz der Hornochsen is a boardgame version of 6 Nimmt. It seemed to most of us to be total random chaos, and not particularly enjoyable chaos. The only fun part for me was coming from last place due to some total random chaos luck during a period of double secret reverse scoring where you move the opposite way on the track, landing exactly on Jeffles's score, and thus (due to the rule that only one person can occupy a given score space) moving one more space, thus pipping Jeffles and getting 3rd place and moving him back into 4th. The rules for interrupt rounds seemed a needless complication. Ugh.

Jeffles prepared a trivia game for us, which worked as a single elimination - the player with the most incorrect answer each round was knocked out, and the best answer got to choose the category for the next question. Thus only 6 questions were asked, of the apparently 32 or something which he had prepared. It was entertaining and I'm glad we did it, but I'm thinking elimination is less fun than keeping a tally of how many questions each player gets right.

It was good to play Settlers again, even if I was suffering the whole game. We were sidetracked by much discussion of exactly how victory cards were supposed to work if you play strictly by the rules. Note that for accidental historical reasons, Settlers Cities and Knights was just recorded as Settlers until tonight, when I decided to name it a separate game since it is distinct for meta reasons. I have no intention of attempting to retroactively correct the past records on this matter!

I had a great come-from-behind in Saint Petersburg. Suddenly getting out several aristocrats who were earning me a dozen points suddenly shot me from way in the back into the running again, and then the final distinct aristocrat bonus gave me a handy win. In the second game I tried doing that approach again, but I didn't quite catch up from behind that time. Both games, I am happy to say, I got an observatory at the start and actually remembered to use it every round...

It sounded like Jeffles and Ben had a magnificent time defeating Dastardly Dan in the Magnificent Race.

Ratings

Rank Ratings:    
 3.6199 JP
 2.4204 Jeffles
 2.3150 SarahM
 1.2528 KevinU
 0.4055 Matt
 0.2231 JimG
 0.1336 Ben
 0.0000 Chad
-1.0987 DastardlyDan
-1.0987 Marty
-1.3863 Whendy
-1.6094 RussW
-4.7677 Clayton
Win Ratings:
 4.3412 JP won 3 of 5
 2.0588 Ben won 3 of 7
 1.5731 Jeffles won 2 of 5
 0.8109 KevinU won 1 of 5
 0.6568 JimG won 1 of 3
 0.5232 SarahM won 2 of 6
 0.4700 Chad won 1 of 2
-0.2877 Whendy won 0 of 1
-0.4054 DastardlyDan won 0 of 1
-0.5314 RussW won 1 of 7
-0.7138 Marty won 0 of 3
-0.7985 Matt won 0 of 3
-1.4069 Clayton won 1 of 8

JP is the Devil! Ben and Jeffles are Co-Vice-Devils! KevinU and SarahM are Co-Vice-Vice-Devils.

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

I used GraphViz to generate the graph image.

devil graph

Meta Game

So, JimG was the Meta Devil and designed the following Meta Game:

Verily, "What was once ours, is ours again!"

Quote, the Yangs to the Coms, Star Trek Original Ed.

========================================

Yes, once Settlers was Russcon's game, being played many times over the years (141 times of as the 7/7/04 census, most in The Early Years). Sadly, it has waned of late. Further, variants (6 player, Islands, etc) seem to rarely/never get played.

Hence, the use of tonight's Meta Game as incentive to play Settlers and its variants.

Thus, score points by:

First, playing any Settlers variant -- 10^13 pts / game played (yes, you can play the same game over and over and score each time)

Second, win any Settlers game -- 10^13 pts

Third, for each non-original Settlers variant played (includes 6 player orig) -- 10^13 pts

Fourth, play in a mini-tournament (at least two boards of the original game) using the same board designs and the same dice rolls/card order for all games (I will be moderating this, if there is interest) -- 10^13 pts

Lastly, in the unlikely event there is a tie:

Cleverly, the first person of the tied players to see the pattern in this email and describe it to me, wins. However, if none of the tied players can, you will all be labled lame-oid meta-gamers, and several dice will be cast to determine your lot.

Hopefully, everyone will bring their Settlers games, variants and all, and Settle down to some old fashioned (at least in Russcon terms) fun!

Sadly, only two games of Settlers were played. (Such disrespect for the ancient traditions! I hoped we'd do better, but oh well.) JimG reckoned the scores as follows:

Jim G: 3x10^13 metapoints (1x10^13 metapoints each for playing any Settlers brand game, for winning same, and for playing a variant from the original, Cities and Kniggits)

Kevin U and Martay: 2x10^13 metapoints (1x10^13 metapoints each for playing any Settlers brand game and for playing a variant from the original, Cities and Kniggits)

JP: 2x10^13 metapoints (1x10^13 metapoints each for playing any Settlers brand game, for winning same)

Jeffels, RussW and Matt: 1x10^13 metapoints (1x10^13 metapoints for playing any Settlers brand game)

Next metagame, the scores may be measured in googles!

Or, maybe in nanopoints. Nano stuff is really popular these days.

Parenthetically, I might add that I was the first person to email Jim about the pattern in his email.

Thus, JimG is again the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game!

Evening's Soundtrack

The Blarney Brothers, A Fine Line Between Ambition & Delusion
Maggie Drennon
Jiggernaut, In Search of More
The Killdares, A Place to Stand
Widening Gyre, Reel Shadows

Older acquisitions by me as a result of previous Celtic Festivals, from bands which sadly were not at the Festival this year!

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