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Weekend of games
Games run amok this weekend. Hadn't played any tabletops in a while so it was all good.
On Saturday![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
classicaljunkie had a birthday party and lo the games were busted out. I brought along my copies of Citadels and Shadows over Camelot and actually got to play both.
Played Citadels first, and I won... again. Maybe my fifth win in a row. I am chronic at winning this game. I do not have a clear recollection of the last time I lost at it... maybe at J&C's foo two Decembers ago? Please play it with me some more so that I will lose. I am inviting you to BRING IT.
Oddly I have never played this game with five people and so never encountered the rule that each round starts with some number of role cards tossed out face-up as well as face-down. I have only played the game with three or seven people, I think! So that was a new, and I liked this version of the game as much as I like the others (that is, quite a bit). I'm glad that another experienced player was at the table to note the rule difference.
Shadows over Camelot - I have been lugging this around to different game events for months without playing it, so was very happy to finally get a chance Saturday, and it ended up being the craziest game of it I've ever had. I had a Loyal role, and while I was gearing up the courage to accuse one player or another of being a traitor (one kept promising to help me with the Grail quest and then going somewhere else, while the other consciously chose to play an Evil card that caused a quest to fail) I found myself at the end of an accusation!
My jaw literally dropped at this, not just because I don't think I was acting particularly traitorous but because a lot of the table thought I was it, and I wasn't even aware of it. Apparently treachery was seen not in how I was playing the game but in my lack of interest in the other players' discussion of who the traitor might be. Interesting! Of course the traitor turned out to beclassicaljunkie herself, who spent the whole game playing as quietly and passively as possible, and she ended up winning by lasting the whole game undetected for a final sword tally of 7 dark to 5 light. Very nice!
Having played Shadows a few times now, I think I understand how to play within the spirit of the can't-reveal-your-cards rule, as well as the letter of it. A couple of first-time players were sticking only to the latter so that the whole rule became meaningless, but everyone was clearly having a lot of fun so I didn't press the issue. (doctor_atomic, you would have been proud.) Still, it would have been nice if the printed rules showed how this was done, maybe with a sample player dialogue.
Finally, there was semi-spontaneous Settlers on Sunday, at a visitingmeerkitty suggestion. The Andys were over, and trolling for anyone else interested hooked pheromone. Who, after mumbling about unfamiliarity with the vanilla rules (being one of those C&K people) and having made her apologies ahead of time for not playing well, proceeded to leisurely stomp the four of us into the dirt sheep pastures.
Beware the Settlers sharks! But really any sting from the loss was soothed by some fun followup conversation about my business because boy do I love to talk about that because you know it's all I do ha ha HA ha HA ha though I am blessed that I can occasionally take breaks to engage in sinful acts of random number generation with friends. Coz that's what it's all about ultimatley.
On Saturday
classicaljunkie had a birthday party and lo the games were busted out. I brought along my copies of Citadels and Shadows over Camelot and actually got to play both.Played Citadels first, and I won... again. Maybe my fifth win in a row. I am chronic at winning this game. I do not have a clear recollection of the last time I lost at it... maybe at J&C's foo two Decembers ago? Please play it with me some more so that I will lose. I am inviting you to BRING IT.
Oddly I have never played this game with five people and so never encountered the rule that each round starts with some number of role cards tossed out face-up as well as face-down. I have only played the game with three or seven people, I think! So that was a new, and I liked this version of the game as much as I like the others (that is, quite a bit). I'm glad that another experienced player was at the table to note the rule difference.
Shadows over Camelot - I have been lugging this around to different game events for months without playing it, so was very happy to finally get a chance Saturday, and it ended up being the craziest game of it I've ever had. I had a Loyal role, and while I was gearing up the courage to accuse one player or another of being a traitor (one kept promising to help me with the Grail quest and then going somewhere else, while the other consciously chose to play an Evil card that caused a quest to fail) I found myself at the end of an accusation!
My jaw literally dropped at this, not just because I don't think I was acting particularly traitorous but because a lot of the table thought I was it, and I wasn't even aware of it. Apparently treachery was seen not in how I was playing the game but in my lack of interest in the other players' discussion of who the traitor might be. Interesting! Of course the traitor turned out to be
classicaljunkie herself, who spent the whole game playing as quietly and passively as possible, and she ended up winning by lasting the whole game undetected for a final sword tally of 7 dark to 5 light. Very nice!Having played Shadows a few times now, I think I understand how to play within the spirit of the can't-reveal-your-cards rule, as well as the letter of it. A couple of first-time players were sticking only to the latter so that the whole rule became meaningless, but everyone was clearly having a lot of fun so I didn't press the issue. (
doctor_atomic, you would have been proud.) Still, it would have been nice if the printed rules showed how this was done, maybe with a sample player dialogue.Finally, there was semi-spontaneous Settlers on Sunday, at a visiting
meerkitty suggestion. The Andys were over, and trolling for anyone else interested hooked pheromone. Who, after mumbling about unfamiliarity with the vanilla rules (being one of those C&K people) and having made her apologies ahead of time for not playing well, proceeded to leisurely stomp the four of us into the Beware the Settlers sharks! But really any sting from the loss was soothed by some fun followup conversation about my business because boy do I love to talk about that because you know it's all I do ha ha HA ha HA ha though I am blessed that I can occasionally take breaks to engage in sinful acts of random number generation with friends. Coz that's what it's all about ultimatley.
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She always does that.
Okay, not always. Last time I played C&K with her she did stomp on us and win, but this time she did avoid protestations of not playing well.
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To state my case, what I said (or meant, anyway) was that I wasn't entirely clear on all the Settlers rules where they differed from C&K so I might have to ask questions and check the rulebook and such, which could be construed as annoying and so I was apologizing ahead of time. I ended up checking the rulebook and such with some frequency, but it didn't seem to bug anyone.
(I did assume I would play poorly since I wasn't sure about the strategies involved in generic Settlers, but it turns out it's not as much that they are different from C&K as much as lesser.)
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Is it not a prime law of tabletop gaming that the person who first says "I'm totally gonna lose at this" - and believe it to be so - will end up squishing everyone else? I think so.
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It's true, though. The person who believes they will lose has let go of their desire to win, and as we all know, our desires are at the root of our suffering. Thus through their release do they find enlightenment. And victory points.
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It is possible to decouple wanting to win from playing to win.
Sometimes I do get seriously grouchy when I lose, and this is because I was clutching at both when one was denied to me. It is good to always play to win, though, regardless of your desires, because that makes you a more worthwhile opponent for your friends!
I need to practice keeping this in mind.
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It didn't take long before I found that this strategy was actually winning me games, and it was pretty much about knowing which subgoals I should choose to focus on. (And there's always luck, of course.)
I remember one game where what I wanted most, from turn one, was to get my road long enough to reach a particular port because I knew if I just had that port, I could do anything! As it ended up, finishing the road to that vertex got me longest road and won me the game. I had the cards to build the settlement, too, and was actually a little sad at not getting the chance to do so and use it.
I know it sounds goofy, but that really was a turning point for me in terms of gaming and game strategy.
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