December 26 2001 RussCon Report

News

Meta Party Game

Clay was the Meta Devil. He didn't design a Meta Game, no doubt due to a holiday vacation.

We were uninspired to create a Meta Game on the fly, so the evening was non-Meta. I will create one for next year!

In fact, here it is, so you can plan ahead:

White Elephant Gift Exchange

I had never done a white elephant gift exchange until this year, when I got involved in two, and moderated both.

Since many of us probably got at least one less then optimal gift this holiday season, here's your chance to share the love and pass it on!

Players bring a wrapped unmarked gift. Around 9pm or so, we'll do the gift exchange. Each player will receive a random number from 1 to n. Then iterate:

Player i has the choice of stealing an unwrapped owned gift from some earlier player j<i, or taking a random wrapped unowned gift from the booty pile. Anyone who's been robbed can then take a random wrapped gift from the pile, or (more entertainingly) they can steal an unwrapped owned gift from anyone. Chain reactions of successive thefts are possible and good fun. A spiffy gift may well get stolen several times. No gift may be stolen more than 5 times. There is a simple ko rule: you cannot immediately steal back from the player who just stole from you.

The gift you bring doesn't have to be something you received over the holidays; it can be whatever. You could even buy something for the event if you're desperate. You are discouraged from bringing a complete garbage gift, because the Meta Devil is the player who brought the spiffiest gift -- which is of course the gift which was stolen the most times! In case of tie, there will be a vote among all present for which gift was spiffiest. To avoid any tainted appearance of conflict of interest and unseemly bribery and threats, try to keep donor identities anonymous until the Meta winning gift has been determined.

Our Most Assiduous Reader may notice that if the spiffiest gift happens to be unwrapped last from the pile, it will not get stolen at all, and so it will unjustly earn 0 meta points. If you want your gift unwrapped early, wrap it enticingly. Conversely, if you don't care about being Meta Devil and just want to get rid of some piece of crap, well, I think you're good to go.

Rank ratings:
 1.0000 PJ (1 game played)   
 0.5000 Marty (2)
 0.4737 RussW (6)
 0.4074 JP (7)
 0.2727 William (4)
 0.1667 JonathanC (4)
 0.0000 JeffF (4)
-0.1579 Steve (6)
-0.2727 BradSmith (3)
-0.3333 Clayton (7)
-0.5000 Fina (2)
-0.6471 Whendy (5)

New Win ratings:
 1.0000 PJ (1)
 0.5455 William (4)
 0.5000 Marty (2)
 0.4167 JonathanC (4)
 0.1481 JP (7)
 0.0000 Steve (6)
-0.0741 Clayton (7)
-0.2000 JeffF (4)
-0.2105 RussW (6)
-0.2727 BradSmith (3)
-0.2941 Whendy (5)
-0.5000 Fina (2)