January 31 2001 RussCon Report

PowerpuffGirls	4	RussW 3 Daniel 1 Jeffles -1 Dan -3
DurchDieWueste	4	Steve 3 Alfred 1 JeffF -1 Jonobie -3
Carcassonne	5	RussW 4 Dan 2 JP 0 Bob -2 Clayton -4
Ra	3	RussD 2 PJ 0 Marty -2
Clue	5	WendyWhi 4 RussW -1 Dan -1 Clayton -1 Steve -1
Euphrates	2	Bob 1 JP -1
Entdecker	3	RussD 2 Stephanie 0 Marty -2
Cosmic	5	Clay 4 Daniel 0 Matt 0 Jeffles 0 Carly -4
Chrononauts	5	Daniel 4 Jeffles -1 Matt -1 Clay -1 Carly -1
TitanArena	4	Jeffles 3 Daniel 0 Carly 0 Matt -3
WebOfPower	5	PJ 4 Steve 2 Dan 0 RussW -2 WendyWhi -4
Orcz	4	RussW 3 Steve 1 Jeffles -1 Dan -3
Cartagena	5	JP 4 Marty 2 Stephanie -2 RussD -2 Bob -2
UndTschuess	6	Daniel 5 Matt 2 WendyWhi 2 PJ -1 JP -3 Carly -5
Carcassonne	5	PJ 4 Matt 2 Carly 0 WendyWhi -2 Daniel -4

Daniel brought a hardcore new wargame strictly for the serious grognard: Powerpuff Girls. We played a grueling long game of it (which lasted at least 10 or 15 minutes) and involved the 3 heroines doing battle with supervillains across the city. It was actually a fun little kid's game!

I had an unusually good game of Carcassonne as I won it and had 3 or 4 spare dudes practically the whole game; it's very rare not to run out of dudes normally!

In other Carcassonne news, Dan has used the scanned tiles from my distribution chart to prepare a handy wallet-sized chart, which I bet he'd give you a copy of if you ask him!

We played a game of serious Clue, where copious notes and agonizing were fine. Somehow I brainfarted and messed up and my notes became inconsistent, alas. We played with Dan's spiffy Deluxe Anniversary edition in a metal box. It has very nice pewter (or some such metal) figures of the 7 weapons (yes 7! There's poison in this deluxe set!) and 6 protagonists... and since his set was defective (missing one and a duplicate of another) he wrote the manufacturer and received a second full set! The 2 Mr. Greens are different from each other; one is older. There was near universal agreement that Miss Scarlet was a hot babe, and frequent suggestions involving her were made.

Last Friday I won 2 games of Web of Power through some fluke, but tonight I did mediocre as usual. PJ got a large number of advisor points despite his belief that he was losing.

Orcz is good silly fun, with fun simple rules and lots of wacky diplomacy.

Meta Party Game Results

Daniel was the Meta Party Devil. Here is the meta party game he emailed out:

Honors of War
For each campaign you wage you earn a service stripe. For each distinct game that involves war, killing, battle, etc. you earn a service stripe. This does not win you the metagame, this is a sublevel of the metagame. There will be a reward for the person with the most service stripes. Ties will be broken by number of metals awarded (see below). SILVER STARS (the one with the most stars wins the METAGAME) After each game (war or other) with at least 3 players all the players vote secretly who they thought was the best sportsman, most gracious, took care of their emotional needs or whatnots. In otherwords you pick who you most enjoyed playing with. You can not vote for yourself, but you may vote for no one. Whomever gets the most votes earns a silver star. If there is a tie all players get silver star with a max number of stars awarded equal to (number of players +1) / 2 round down.

Players     Max # of stars

1-2 0

3-4 1

5-6 2

7-8 3

9-10 4

etc...
So if in a 3 player game each person votes for another (yielding a 3 way tie) no one gets a star. If in a 6 player game 2 people receive 2 votes each then they would both get stars (and perhaps other awards).
*Specials*
GOLD STARS (each gold star counts as 2 stars) If you win a silver star and won the game you receive a gold star instead of a silver star.
PURPLE HEARTS (do not count as a star for victory) If you win a silver star and came in last in the game you also (in addition to a silver star) receive a purple heart. Also when you receive your purple heart you get to pick the next game played.
RUSCONION METAL OF HONOR (counts as 2 stars) If everyone (besides you naturally) votes for you in a game of 4 or more players, you receive the coveted RMH in addition to any other awards you might receive.
Final tally
Most service stripes gets a special award for dedication...
    ties most awards, then most RMHs, then most gold, then most games
Most stars (the MetaDevil) silver = 1, gold = 2, RMH = 2
    ties broken most RMHs, then GS, then most stripes, then most games
Most purple hearts Gets a spot at one of the tables next week whenever they arrive and the game being played ends
    all players tied get the honor
Most RMH is the devil of the lesser table for next week.
    ties broken by most purple hearts, most stripes, most gold stars
So if you win a 5 player game and get 4 votes you would get a Gold Star and a RMH (4 stars), had you lost the same game you would have gotten a Silver Star, a Purple Heart, and a RMH (3 stars). Also if it was a war game everyone who played would get a service stripe unless they had already played that game.
So decrees CSM Metadevil Daniel (if I missed anything I am the final ruling authority for rules disputes).

Daniel came prepared with gold, silver, and purple stars to be awarded, along with stripes (brass paperclips); quite a fun array of props! Kudos for running the game with, uh, military efficiency! The results were quickly computed at evening's end:

Daniel is again the Meta Party Devil since he had the most stars! So Daniel will create another meta party game for next week.

Marty had the most purple hearts (thus gaining a guaranteed spot at the table) next week.

Jeffles had the most stripes and wins a special prize of a $10 certificate to Great Hall Games! As Daniel explained, "I take care of my people."

Thanks to Daniel (as well as Matt for last week) for doing so much preparation and bringing fun props!

Evening's Soundtrack

Philip Glass, Mishima
Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass, Passages
Philip Glass, "Low" Symphony
Philip Glass, La Belle et la Bete
Philip Glass, "Heroes" Symphony

Happy Birthday, Philip Glass, who turned 64 today!

Ratings

Rank ratings:
 0.4667 PJ (4 games played)
 0.3889 RussW (5)
 0.3750 Clay (2)
 0.3571 Steve (4)
 0.3333 Alfred (1)
 0.2609 Daniel (6)
 0.2500 RussD (3)
 0.0000 JP (4)
 0.0000 WendyWhi (4)
 0.0000 Jeffles (5)
 0.0000 Matt (5)
-0.2500 Marty (3)
-0.2778 Dan (5)
-0.3333 Bob (3)
-0.3333 JeffF (1)
-0.3333 Stephanie (2)
-0.5000 Carly (5)
-0.6250 Clayton (2)
-1.0000 Jonobie (1)

New Win ratings:
 0.4444 RussW (5)
 0.4000 PJ (4)
 0.3750 Clay (2)
 0.3750 RussD (3)
 0.2174 Daniel (6)
 0.0714 JP (4)
 0.0588 WendyWhi (4)
 0.0000 Steve (4)
-0.0588 Jeffles (5)
-0.1111 Bob (3)
-0.2500 Carly (5)
-0.2500 Clayton (2)
-0.2500 Matt (5)
-0.2778 Dan (5)
-0.3333 Alfred (1)
-0.3333 JeffF (1)
-0.3333 Jonobie (1)
-0.3333 Stephanie (2)
-0.3750 Marty (3)

I am the Devil! PJ is Vice-Devil. Daniel wins the Dedicated Award. Jonobie pulled off the rare and dangerous Reverse Brady Maneuver.

Links

I have contributed some of my Ko Fight Club art to that wacky Low Pass comic strip tool, and I'm amused to see other people making strips combining my art with others' art! I believe the first one with my art is #3269, which uses my laboratory and white house backgrounds and seems to be written in a hybrid of English and some Scandinavian language... the very next strip uses the ghost of Dr. Manhattan and Tyler Durden, then Holly, and so it goes! Just go forward through the list and you will see a lot of strips with some of my art, made by people from all over the world. It is the most fun I've had on the internet since I found that live webcam from the expensive German brothel!

In case you're in the mood for more ponderous entertainment, check out this rather litcrit article The Vilifying Rhetoric of The Usual Suspects: Rhetorical Power and Inquiry on the (Terministic) Screen.

Will you still love me when I'm 64?

Russ