Don't you just love this party? Everything's so fancy, and there's some kind of hot cheese over there.

Kaylee ,'Shindig'


Gaming 1: You are likely to be eaten by a grue

A thread for the discussion of games: board, LARP, MMORPG, video, tabletop RPG, game theory etc. etc. and all attendant news, developments and ancillary subjects thereof, as well as coordinating/scheduling games either online or IRL. All are welcome to chime in, talk about their favorite games or learn about gaming of any sort.

PLEASE TO WHITEFONT SPOILERS for video games, RPG modules or anything for which foreknowledge of events might lessen one's enjoyment of whatever gaming experience.


billytea - Feb 15, 2011 3:17:52 pm PST #10023 of 26134
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

BSG

Some game highlights:

Round 1.2: The crew passes Legendary Discovery, thanks to Helo's help. If he'd even played low, it would've failed.

Turn 2.4: Roslin makes good use of Preventative Policy to allow Cylon Screenings to be tanked, letting her check Helo's loyalty card. If that card had come up just one turn earlier, it would've been Helo checking Roslin's loyalty; without the Preventative Policy, you probably would've had to pass it, leaving the Sdmiral undetected.

Turn 2.6: Dee activates Comms. Space is entirely empty, except for Sector 5, where Starbuck stands guard over half the civilian fleet.

Turn 3.2: Ellen uses her OPG to great effect, taking the Admiralty from the suspected Cylon Helo and jumping the fleet. The destination choice there was either Barren Planet - 2 Distance at the cost of 2 Fuel - or the one she chose, Lion's Head Nebula. 3 Distance, and get halfway to the next jump, but at a high cost of 4 Fuel. Neither option was cheap; I can honestly say that I had no idea which destination Ellen (as a human) would choose, nor which one Helo (as a Cylon) would've chosen.

Turn 3.4: Dee spikes A Traitor Accused, leaving Roslin to choose someone to brig. Despite the fact that Gaeta had one additional loyalty card (from Helo) and could get out of the brig more cheaply than any other crew member, Roslin - correctly - chooses Dee. If she had brigged Gaeta instead, Dee would have been Admiral for the next jump.

Turn 3.5: Admiral Gaeta uses the Engine Room to assure a jump on his turn. Another tough choice - he could've taken the Fleet to 8 Distance with just one jump left, but with only 1 Fuel; or he could lift Fuel to 3, but at the expense of another full jump cycle. In the event, he made the right choice; the game would've ended nine turns earlier on a Fuel loss if he'd taken the other Destination. (Again: if not for Roslin's pinch decision to brig Dee instead of Gaeta, it could've been Dee-3PO making this call.)

Turn 3.6: A failed scouting mission leaves Starbuck to use her OPG to bury the Guardians.

Turn 4.1: Dee persuades the crew to help her escape. Destiny contributed seven points against, and with Helo's spike - Helo now convinced that Dee was human - the check only passed after Roslin, against her better judgment, played the Declare Emergency that freed her.

Turn 4.2: Besieged adds the first Cylon ships to the board for the final crushing jump cycle.

Turn 4.4: Helo tries to roll the hard six and it pays off. Rather than playing his Super Crisis or activating the Cylon fleet, he hits Caprica to fish for an attack card, and finds it. There are now civvies in every sector but one.

Turn 4.4: Dee is the only one who can move the ships to safety, but she turns on the fleet instead. Four civvies are now undefended in Sector 1 against five raiders.

Turn 4.5: Gaeta gambles on a nuke into Sector 1. Unfortunately, it leaves the raiders untouched, and with a raider activation on his Crisis Card, the civvies Dee placed in harm's way are lost. The Cylons are back in the game with a vengeance.

Turn 5.1: Dee plays her Super Crisis. Massive Assault adds more ships, and also cripples the jump track.

Turn 5.4: Roslin uses her OPG in a desperation play. It fails to improve matters. For her visions, she has to choose between yet another attack card, or Weapons Malfunction, which damaged 2 vipers and left Starbuck alone facing almost the entire Cylon Fleet.

Turn 5.5: Jammed Assault puts the final nail in the humans' coffin.


Polter-Cow - Feb 15, 2011 3:28:14 pm PST #10024 of 26134
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

BSG

Round 1.2: The crew passes Legendary Discovery, thanks to Helo's help. If he'd even played low, it would've failed.

The only low cards I had were Treachery, and even though Ellen made Treachery positive, it sure didn't seem like a good idea to activate a Reckless check right away and throw suspicion on me. I should have just played nothing!

Destiny contributed seven points against, and with Helo's spike - Helo now convinced that Dee was human - the check only passed after Roslin, against her better judgment, played the Declare Emergency that freed her.

Heeeeeee.


-t - Feb 15, 2011 3:32:39 pm PST #10025 of 26134
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

BSG

I had actually sent COs NOT to play that DE but overruled at the last second. Dammit.


Liese S. - Feb 15, 2011 3:43:54 pm PST #10026 of 26134
"Faded like the lilac, he thought."

BSG
 
Heh. Well, you weren`t alone in thinking we should free Dee at that point. Strategically we probably should have left her in just because of the cost of getting her out. But it really was unclear at that point.
 
I think our card management was an issue. Without as many ICs as have come up in other games, we overshot on some, and lost expensively on some, meaning we had to tank some checks we really could have used.


billytea - Feb 15, 2011 4:36:58 pm PST #10027 of 26134
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.

BSG

I think our card management was an issue. Without as many ICs as have come up in other games, we overshot on some, and lost expensively on some, meaning we had to tank some checks we really could have used.

This becomes more difficult in Pegasus too, as ICs don't reveal Destiny. You can reduce the uncertainty but it doesn't disappear (unless you use a Guts and Initiative too).


megan walker - Feb 15, 2011 4:51:29 pm PST #10028 of 26134
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

This becomes more difficult in Pegasus too, as ICs don't reveal Destiny.

I have to say, watching this from afar, I wasn't really liking the expansion, thinking it mostly made things unnecessarily complicated for my enjoyment, but that sealed the deal for me. I feel like I mostly like ICs for the fact that you see Destiny.


Laga - Feb 15, 2011 4:51:37 pm PST #10029 of 26134
You should know I'm a big deal in the Resistance.

BSG

whew! That was a good game. Thanks for running it, billytea.

I think I suspected everyone at one point or another.


Laga - Feb 15, 2011 4:52:34 pm PST #10030 of 26134
You should know I'm a big deal in the Resistance.

Has anyone else been watching Jeopardy? I'm off to go watch in 8 mintes.


Polter-Cow - Feb 15, 2011 4:59:24 pm PST #10031 of 26134
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

I feel like I mostly like ICs for the fact that you see Destiny.

I kind of like that the expansion takes that away so that there's still some uncertainty, but you can try to conserve your cards and force Cylons to play positive to avoid being discovered.

I feel like the Treachery cards didn't prove to be terribly useful, but that's mainly because I never got to spike a Reckless check.


-t - Feb 15, 2011 5:04:07 pm PST #10032 of 26134
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

Yeah, I don't like not being able to see Destiny, but I kind of appreciate its effect on the game. It's a little more weight to chance, but many of the other new cards give more control, so it more or less balances out.

Hey, does anyone play Scrabble on Facebook? I've been playing solo vs the computer on the iPad quite a bit and it would probably be a good idea to occasionally play invisible humans, instead. I'm not sure how it works, but I know it's possible.