Sara and I had the pleasure of hosting this weekend SOG event. Attendants included Liz and Leah (the Fabulous Novak Sisters), Laurie (the Knitting Dervish), Rico ( Also known as "Samantha"), and Vitas (the Professional Hedgehog Photographer). Games played included Magic: The Gathering and When Darkness Comes. Food included my own soup-like experiment with tomatoes, kale, and black beans as well as chinese and thai take-out.
After setting the early guests to work at preparing the ingredients for the above soup, Rico and I sat down to play a few games of Magic, while Sara showed the other guests pictures of our wedding. I was playing with a red-black land destruction deck (based on a similar deck Sara beat me with while we were on vacation), and Rico was playing a red-blue direct damage + counterspell deck. In both games I was able to keep him from building up enough land to fully utilize his deck. In the meantime, Vitas created a white-black deck and was ready for a multiplayer game.
I keep thinking that someday I'll build a good multiplayer deck and just keep it around for such emergencies. I don't think a deck based on land-destruction works well in multiplayer, mostly because you end up making enemies quickly, and while the deck can keep one enemy at bay (so long as the right cards are around), it can not slow down everyone at the table as effectively. Of course, it didn't help that I didn't bring any creatures into play during the first 4 turns. Vitas quickly defeated me, and then (I believe) went on to defeat Rico as well.
We played with the "attack left, defend right" rule. That is, I my creatures could only attack Rico, who could only attack Vitas, who could only attack me. Other spells, instants, etc. could be targeted at anyone, of course, but it made the combat simple, and also gave a better sense of where the threat was coming from. This format, like any that imposes structure, removes some of the uncertainty of playing. Depending on how much you like that that uncertainty (or how much you think it adds to the pleasure of playing multiplayer), you may or may not like playing this way. I think it makes for a quicker game, and makes it more duel-like, and both of these things appeal to me. What is lost, however, is some of the political bargaining ("If you don't attack me, I'll give you creatures protection from blue next turn." "But I have to attack you, you're on my left!")
There was one rules question that we disagreed upon (although it did not effect the game). The question is whether Ramosian gating counts as playing a creature or activating an ability. Vitas had a Ramosian Captain and a Skittering Horror. I believe that he could activate the Ramosian Captain's ability to bring another Rebel card into play without "frightening away" the Skittering Horror. Vitas and Rico disagreed with me, but I still think I'm right (: If you'd like to voice you opinion, please email me.
After the multiplayer game, everyone else joined us in the Game Room to listen to the rules of When Darkness Comes. The game shares the same theme as Zombies!!!! and was written by the same people. However it has much more of an RPG feel to it. I believe that Liz won the game with the most victory points, despite the fact that Rico earned the most victory points. However, there wasn't really much competition. To paraphrase Vitas (explaining how an RPG is different from other games), "the objective is not to win, per se, but to have fun playing, and cause others to have fun as well."
We were mostly concerned with having fun, rather then scoring points, and we did manage to have quite a bit of fun. One of the aspects of the game is that, whenever a player attempts to do something, all of the other players within 3 squares can immediately teleport to the active player's location and assist. As we were working together, there wasn't any reason not to assist, so all the players participated. Except for poor Leah (playing Sharon) who was off in the gun shop seducing a guard.
We eventually discovered that success, as well as safety, was found in numbers. Anything a player attempted to do would be successful, barring an unusually unlucky string of die rolls. I don't think any player accumulated any failure or damage counters during the entire game. Working together made failure a distant possibility, and I'm not sure that I liked that. Another nit-picky complaint about working together: the
squares on the game board are only slightly bigger then the bases of the miniatures. Putting 5 miniatures on the same square obscured small but important details like the location of doors and walls inside the building.
Cell phones: Each player could, on his or her turn, communicate freely with anyone within 3 squares (usually on the same square), and make a single cell phone call to anyone outside of that range. While this mechanic should minimize the meta-game table talk, we mostly abused the system. Keep in mind that towards the end of the game we were all in the same room except Sharon:
Player One: "Hey Sharon, we just killed a bad guy!"
Player Two: "You can't tell her that, she's not within 3 spaces."
Player One: "Oh. Okay, I call Sharon on my cell phone."
Player Two: "But it's not your turn. It's player three's turn."
Player Three: "Okay, I call Sharon the cell phone and relay everything Player One has to say."
Player One: "Hey Sharon, we just killed a bad guy!"
All in all, the game was enjoyable (albeit a bit long at 3 hours of gameplay), but it lacked an element of risk and competition between players. I like how the cooperation mechanisms in the game work, and I think a possible solution would be to pit two teams of players (with 2 or 3 players each) against each other. That way players could both cooperate (assist teammates with skills, invite them into buildings, etc.) and compete (steal objects from opponents, alert guards to get them kicked out of buildings, etc.)
I'd like to end this session report with the good news that Sara and I are planning on hosting another weekend SOG Session in October. Unfortunately, due to Sara's school schedule, we will not be able to host on Monday nights until, possibly, next semester.
posted by FlyingSheep @ 12:10 PM
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