January 10 2001 RussCon Report

20 of us played 19 games. A good turnout; clearly people wanted to see hats... Pseudo new guy Adam (who came once last year) returned.

The big surprise was the appearance of long-lost Bob (aka Blond Bob, aka Jungle Bob) who's been MIA for over 7 months since the birth of his twins! William had predicted we wouldn't see Bob again for 18 years...

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Now playing: This is how Watchmen met Tyler Durden.

Comicollage: daily ongoing comic jam with 7 artists and no planning ahead! I'm Tuesday.

News

Clandestine is coming to the Cactus Cafe January 13. That's this coming Saturday! There are 2 shows (7:30 and 10:00). Some of us are going to the 7:30 show. We'll be eating dinner first at Veggie Heaven (on Guadalupe across from Dobie Mall) at 5:45, then walking to the Cactus Cafe to get in line and ensure admission and decent seats.

If you're a cheap bastard and want free entertainment that night, I recommend checking out Squeaky's phat band which is sure to get medieval on your punk ass:

Istanpitta, a Texas based Medieval Ensemble will be performing this Saturday at the Borders Bookstore in South Austin.
Istanpitta Performance Schedule
Jan . 13, 2001
Istanpitta (Early Music)
8-10pm
(Al Cofrin, Thea Goldsby, Jonathan Brumley)
Borders Books (South Austin)
4477 Sth. Lamar, Austin, Tx. 78745, 512/891-8974
Al Cofrin: Oud, Vielle, Bagpipes, Saz, Percussion
Thea Goldsby: Vocals, Vielle, Cornamuse
Jonathan Brumley: Recorders, Krumhorn, Lute, Percussion

I will accept submissions for the All-Time Top 10 Games list for another week. I've gotten a dozen submissions, but I'm sure we can do better. If you want to see the list of games, it's in last week's news. As a special incentive, one randomly selected submitter will win, uh, nothing.

Game Results

HatTrick	6	RussW 5 Matt 3 Fred 1 JP -1 Dan -3 Marty -5
Torres	3	Bob 2 Clay 0 Alfred -2
Can'tStop	4	Clay 3 JeffF 1 Alfred -1 Jonobie -3
Entdecker	4	JeffF 3 Jonobie 1 Clayton -1 Adam -3
UndTschuess	5	Steve 4 Remi 2 PJ 0 RussD -2 WendyWhe -4
UndTschuess	5	Remi 4 Steve 2 WendyWhe 0 RussD -2 PJ -4
WebOfPower	5	ChrisH 4 Bob 2 Adam 0 RussW -2 Carly -4
Siesta	3	Marty 2 Alfred 0 Adam -2
Carcassonne	3	PJ 2 RussW 0 JP -2
Vampire	4	Alfred 3 RussW 1 JeffF -2 Adam -2
ZirkusFlohcati	3	JP 2 Carly -1 Matt -1
ZirkusFlohcati	3	JP 2 Carly 0 Matt -2
Vampire	4	WendyWhe 3 Carly 1 Clay -1 RussD -3
Carcassonne	4	RussW 3 Bob 1 ChrisH -1 Steve -3
FlinkePinke	4	Bob 3 RussW 1 Steve -1 JeffF -3
DieFuerstenVonFlorenz	5	JP 4 Marty 2 Matt 0 Fred -2 Dan -4
Medici	5	Adam 4 PJ 2 Carly 0 RussD -2 Alfred -4
LostCities	2	Alfred 1 Adam -1
Frank'sZoo	5	Carly 4 Matt 2 JeffF 0 Dan -2 RussD -4

Marty the Devil suggested we begin with Hat Trick, appropriately.

Bob, legendary for his Torres skills, won again after his long hiatus from RussCon.

Web of Power continues to intrigue me even as I do lousy at it. This game had a rare instance of a mutual nonaggression pact as Chris and Bob were both competing for advisors and each had one in Schwaben; there was room for a third, but they each agreed not to try and screw the other by putting another advisor in. They stuck to their agreement, alas, to their mutual gain as they both had advisors in countries bordering Schwaben.

The Carcassonne game was delightfully close. We had a huge city which all 3 of us kept trying to weasel another dude into. By the end of the game we all had 3 dudes in it! On JP's final turn he drew a tile that completed the city. On his penultimate turn he could have placed a farmer which, in hindsight, would have given him 12 points. Instead he only got 8 points by placing the farmer on his last turn. I said the usual quip about "If you lose by 4 points, we'll laugh at you." Well, it turned out to be a remarkably close finish, as I was 1 point behind PJ, and JP was just 2 points behind me; therefore with 4 more points JP would have won instead of coming in last! It was a beautiful thing.

Meta Party Game Results

I was again the Meta Party Devil. Here is the meta party game I emailed out:

This week's Meta Party Game is the Hat Game.
All participants must wear a hat for the evening. Whoever has the most popular hat is the Meta Party Devil.
Details: Bring your own hat. I have a few spares, but don't depend on it. All hat-wearers will cast a vote for their favorite hat other than their own, using whatever criterion they feel like. All non-hat-wearers are also permitted to vote, but their votes will be pooled to count as a single vote of weight equal to a hat-wearer's vote. Winner is determined by plurality. In case of ties, the person who entered the house earlier wins. To be eligible, you must wear your hat the whole evening -- this contest rewards superhuman hat-wearing endurance as well as psychological/diplomatic skills. It's kind of like Hands on a Hard Body, but with hats. Well, sort of. Voters may submit a ranked list of votes in case their first choice candidate later disqualifies themselves by ceasing to wear their hat before the evening winds down or before they leave. E.g. if you write Biff, Eugene, Humbert on your paper, and Biff & Eugene remove their hats and continue to play boardgames or otherwise "hang out" and/or "hobnob", then Humbert will receive your vote.
Game Designer's Notes: There has been talk of too many meta party games lately boiling down to simply trying to play a lot of boardgames. We needed something fresh, different. Something more subtle and sophisticated. What could be more sophisticated than a bunch of people wearing hats all night and trying to convince others to vote for their hat? Wait, don't answer that.

I confess the voting was a bit poorly organized (as I needed to distinguish the votes of hat-wearers and non-hat-wearers, but some people were submitting anonymous votes). However it was fairly clear that the most popular hat was the hard hat worn by RussD! Close runners-up were the Dr. Seuss red & white rave hat worn by Wendy and the frontiersman coonskin hat worn by Fred. Thanks to all the hat wearers (I think there were about 10, including RussD, Wendy, Fred, me, Jonobie, Marty, JP, Clay, Clayton, and Bob (who borrowed a hat from Wendy); apologies if I've forgotten someone). JP was the only hat-wearer to bail out and remove his hat.

Condolences to several folks who intended to bring hats and forgot. E.g. Dan has several excellent hats (remember his fortune teller "Jiffy Pop" hat from Halloween?). Jeffles was out of town, or I'm sure he'd have worn something entertaining.

The obligatory rules-lawyering discussion centered on how participants would play What's That On My Head? Also whether someone else could disqualify you by knocking off your hat, but of course nonconsensual hat removal would not disqualify someone. (They would need to put their hat back on though to stay in the game.)

Evening's Soundtrack

Altan, Harvest Storm
Clandestine, The Ale Is Dear
Clandestine, The Haunting
Clandestine, To Anybody At All
Loreena McKennitt, The Book of Secrets

One of these times when Clandestine's coming, I'll do a nonobvious musical theme, I promise...

Ratings

Rank ratings:
 0.7500 Remi (2 games played)
 0.6667 Bob (4)
 0.4286 ChrisH (2)
 0.4000 RussW (6)
 0.3333 JP (5)
 0.2500 Clay (3)
 0.1429 Steve (4)
 0.1176 Matt (5)
 0.0000 Carly (6)
 0.0000 PJ (4)
-0.0625 JeffF (5)
-0.0909 WendyWhe (3)
-0.0909 Marty (3)
-0.1111 Fred (2)
-0.2000 Alfred (6)
-0.2353 Adam (6)
-0.3333 Clayton (1)
-0.3333 Jonobie (2)
-0.6842 RussD (5)
-0.6923 Dan (3)

New Win ratings:
 0.4286 ChrisH (2)
 0.4000 JP (5)
 0.3750 Remi (2)
 0.2500 Bob (4)
 0.2000 RussW (6)
 0.1250 Clay (3)
 0.0909 WendyWhe (3)
 0.0714 Steve (4)
 0.0000 Alfred (6)
 0.0000 Marty (3)
-0.0526 Carly (6)
-0.0588 Adam (6)
-0.0625 JeffF (5)
-0.0714 PJ (4)
-0.2222 Fred (2)
-0.2308 Dan (3)
-0.2632 RussD (5)
-0.2941 Matt (5)
-0.3333 Clayton (1)
-0.3333 Jonobie (2)

Chris and Remi are Co-Devils! Then JP, then Bob, then me.

Links

Don't miss these fashionable and lovely hats of meat.

An Anti-Inaugural March, Rally and Ball.

See the screenplay for the ill-conceived (and mercifully long-dead) movie adaptation of Watchmen.

Ha ha ha ha! (Hey, I said I'd laugh at JP if he lost by 4 points...)

Russ