September 15 1999 RussCon Report

15 of us, including YAJ (Yet Another Jeff -- there are 5 in the database now). I knew JeffD back at SimTex, where he did art for MOO and MOM. He brought his latest project, the boardgame WarChest which he demoed at ArmadilloCon and several of us enjoyed enough to buy. It's a miniatures game, but with discrete movement (and no randomness; it's pure strategy, or as some of us might loftily say, a combinatorial game). Check it out.

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LaserQuest:

Now that JeffF has won a subsidized trip to our next LaserQuest outing, I could just leave it up to him to organize this... but I'll try again.

Some Monday evening in the next few weeks we will rent the whole LaserQuest for ourselves. If you have a preference on which Monday, email me. Otherwise I'll just pick one and announce it. If fewer than 20 people want to do this, then it's probably not worth it, so let me know if you're interested!

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Game Results:

Can'tStop 3 Harry 2 Tim 0 Steve -2
LostCities 2 William 1 Tim -1
Euphrates 4 Tim 3 JeffF 1 Steve -1 Marty -3
UncleHappy'sTrainGame 2 JeffF 1 Tim -1
AufHellerUndPfennig 4 William 3 Harry 1 Bob -1 WendyWhe -3
Mu 5 JeffF 4 Bob 2 Steve 0 Marty -2 WendyWhe -4
VeldSpoorweg 5 JP 4 RussW 2 Alfred 0 KevinH -2 Clayton -4
RicochetRobot 4 Tim 3 JonathanC 0 William 0 JeffD -3
Can'tStop 3 JonathanC 2 Tim 0 William -2
Metropolis 5 JP 3 Harry 3 Alfred 0 KevinH -2 RussW -4

There was another game of Auf Heller Und Pfennig, but it looks like Harry and Marty both played one position so I can't rate that. I'm guessing the Jeff who played Uncle Happy was JeffF. (Remember those last initials for ambiguous names...)

Veld Spoorweg (aka Ferrocarriles South Africa) took 4 frickin' hours to finish for some reason. Last time it didn't take that long. It's a good game, fixing the some of the problems of Ferrocarriles Pampas. We heard there is a new third game in the series.

Metropolis is a Sid Sackson (Acquire) game. It seems to be an obvious inspiration for the German game Downtown, with the notion of different types of development and the value being affected by nearby development.

Late in the evening we also played some fluffy experiential "After Dinner Games" like Botticelli, Wink Murder, I Have Never... William brought a little book full of those sorts of party games. Naturally we didn't rate them since you play to entertain the group rather than to win. I can report that Alfred will kick your butt at the I Have Never (aka Deprivation) game. He has done impressively few things! Of course early on he played his sure-fire "I have never seen Star Wars" bombshell.

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Evening's Soundtrack:

The Cranberries, Everybody else is doing it, so why can't we?
The Geraldine Fibbers, What part of Get Thee Gone don't you understand?
Oasis, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Utah Saints, What Can You Do For Me
The Who, Who's next

Was the common theme obvious?

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Rank ratings:
 0.8750 JP (2)
 0.7500 JeffF (3)
 0.6667 Harry (3)
 0.4000 JonathanC (2)
 0.3333 Tim (6)
 0.2222 William (4)
 0.1429 Bob (2)
 0.0000 Alfred (2)
-0.2500 RussW (2)
-0.3333 Steve (3)
-0.5000 KevinH (2)
-0.7143 Marty (2)
-1.0000 Clayton (1)
-1.0000 WendyWhe (2)
-1.0000 JeffD (1)

New Win ratings:
 0.8750 JP (2)
 0.5000 JeffF (3)
 0.4444 Harry (3)
 0.2222 William (4)
 0.2000 JonathanC (2)
 0.1667 Tim (6)
-0.2500 Clayton (1)
-0.2857 Bob (2)
-0.2857 Marty (2)
-0.2857 WendyWhe (2)
-0.3333 JeffD (1)
-0.3333 Steve (3)
-0.3750 Alfred (2)
-0.3750 RussW (2)
-0.3750 KevinH (2)

JP is the Devil. JeffF is Vice-Devil. Harry is Vice-Vice-Devil. Then Sea Biscuit and William. Many of us were hideous losers this week. Tim wins the Dedicated Award.

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Members Only Clarifications:

Marty, William, and I were exploring some Members Only rules ambiguities. After getting some translations from people who speak German better, we believe that we handled the white disk wrong in one respect. Everyone may use a white disk in the first round of bidding, not just the first person to bid. And, as we've been playing, the white disk played with your double disk indeed makes the bet triple (not quadruple as one might argue).

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URLs People Have Given Me Lately:

http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html
A collection of geographical and abstract maps about the net, etc.

http://www.plus1wear.com
A seemingly idiotic clothing idea, unintentionally funny IMHO.

http://www.thehungersite.com/index.html
Advertisers pay to give food to the starving for each hit the page receives. The ultimate in lazy yet worthy activism!

http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/19940.html
Serial killer tracking neural networks.

http://www.thewizardofodds.com/
Excellent page about theory, practice, and traditions of casino gambling.

http://www.io.com/unigames/unigames.html
The WarChest web page.

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Hang Out with a 2-Year-Old:

Mr. Jay L. of Austin, Texas writes:

Lacking as I do everyone's mailing address, I am writing by email to invite interested parties to Bronwyn's First (Second) Birthday Party. She will be two years old on October 22nd, and that will be our first birthday with her. We will be celebrating in Eilers Park from noon to 3 pm on Saturday, October 23rd. That's the park adjacent to Deep Eddy Pool just west of Mopac. There will be live music, kids in costume, lots of adults ot talk to, etc.

Hope to see some of you there!

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"Aggie math is working to his advantage."
(Harry summed up JP.)

Russ