I haven't played backgammon for ages, but I'll give it a shot omnis. Maybe Sunday?

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What are your favorite card games? I've recently learned and am really digging Pinochle. I also love Euchre and our old family standby is "Oh Hell."

I like the multi-player games. Pit's a longstanding favourite. (I once played with a group that actually stopped to think between bids. How perverse is that?) Oh Hell is great fun with a group, as is Masters and Slaves (Scum by another name). Another good light game for a group is Take 6. (You're adding cards to four piles, and trying not to be the one to take a pile to six cards, because then you get the whole pile and its penalty points.)

Right now, though, the multi-player game I always reach for is Bohnanza. It's a trading game set in the competitive world of bean farmingand has an excellent balance of fun and competitiveness. Wallybee is just so much fun to play against, she really takes to trading games. I wound up buying a board game, Traders of Genoa, on the strength of her enjoyment of Bohnanza.

Oh, if you enjoy Scum, or Masters and Slaves, or however you call it, look for a game called Tichu. It uses the same play mechanism, but is a four-person partnership game with some interesting strategic depth.

Nowadays, though, I play more two-player games (as Wallybee's quite a keen opponent). When I was a teenager, my first choice was Spit. (My brother created a variant where you have two layouts, and you play one with your right hand and one with your left. Ratchets up the difficulty several notches. Of course, he rocks at it, the left-handed bastard.) I played an obscene amount of 500 and Black Lady at uni, to the detriment of my classes, sad to say.

Lately I've been playing more of the custom card games. Lost Cities is a great one for less serious gamers, it's simple enough to learn but still has some tricky decisions. I find Odin's Ravens to be more fun, but Wallybee's quite taken with Lost Cities.

If you can find it, there's a book, Abbott's New Card Games, that contains some clever games that aren't quite like the ones in Hoyle's. I've had a lot of mileage out of Auction, though on the whole the strategy isn't that demanding. (And it has another trading game, Babel.)

billytea, Acey-Deucy is played the way you were saying. It starts with all the pips off the board. If you roll and one and a two (acey-deucy) you get your choice of doubles and get to roll again.

No, I know Acey-Deucey. I don't like the 1-2 rule, it makes things too swingy.

As far as D&D 4th goes, I think it's going to be a fun and solid system. I actually got some friends together a few weeks ago to run through fan-written adventure that had been cobbled together from the information that's be released so far and it went pretty well. You definitely have a lot more to do at 1st level than in previous games, and your character feels less fragile.

That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to it. I've just started GMing a 3E Eberron-setting game, and the PCs are ridiculously breakable at the early levels. Not sure yet if we'll wind up converting over to 4E. Probably not immediately, the 4E Eberron sourcebooks are apparently due out next year, and I'd probably leave off until then. I don't think it'll make that much difference to the feel. Eberron's such a distinctive setting, I think that'll carry over the D&D feel regardless of the rule changes.

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I've played lots and lots of card games. And dog knows I've played lots of computer solitaire. My family played lots of card games, and the kids were always included once they were old enough to play.

Generally cards are a passing diversion for me, with a couple of exceptions -- I *love* Euchre, and will happily play it at the drop of a hat (Great Lakes area represent!). Seriously. Love Euchre.

I also like playing Blackjack, for the mathy angle. No, I'd have no hopes of doing well at a real casino, but it's fun to play casually. Along that same line, I also enjoy most forms of poker, for the people angle. There's math and odds in poker, but it's as much about understanding everyone else at the table as it is the cards.

As far as D&D 4th goes, I think it's going to be a fun and solid system. I actually got some friends together a few weeks ago to run through fan-written adventure that had been cobbled together from the information that's be released so far and it went pretty well. You definitely have a lot more to do at 1st level than in previous games, and your character feels less fragile.

4th edition D&D. Well. I'll definitely try it, probably with somebody else running the game. And as more comes out, I think I understand what they're doing with the new system. I think it remains to be seen if their stated design goals and what they actually achieve are the same thing.

But...

I can already tell by stuff they've debuted that this is not the game I want to run. There were lots of changes I would have liked to see in the mechanics of the game, but none of these were it.

I also have a philosophical issue with their blatant move away from Open Source Gaming, but the beauty of Open Source Gaming is that it still exists.

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I can already tell by stuff they've debuted that this is not the game I want to run. There were lots of changes I would have liked to see in the mechanics of the game, but none of these were it.

Fair enough. I played AD&D when I was in high school, and then drifted away from it until 3E; I missed out on 2E completely. When I came back to it, I was amazed at both how much more elegant the mechanics had become (only three saves? Unpossible!), and how many more customisation options existed (skills, feats, clerical domains, all that sort of thing). 4E to me looks to be even more elegant, which I like, but I don't know yet whether it allows the same scope for character creation. (Conversely, especially as a new GM, I do like the idea of making character creation easier.)

At the moment, I think I'm keenest to find out more of what they've done with social encounters. If they've made it easier for me to give PCs real challenges outside of combat, then that's a great advance for me. (I like designing combats, but I'd really rather have more time left over to plan the talky meat.)

I also have a philosophical issue with their blatant move away from Open Source Gaming, but the beauty of Open Source Gaming is that it still exists.

Yep, that's a move that's unlikely to be popular. The OGL did probably give away too much (was it Mongoose that published a travel PHB? When a competitor can reproduce almost all of your flagship product, there's a problem), but there's a lot of synergy available in having 3rd parties provide support products (like adventures) that you're less interested in.

I know the GSL isn't released yet, and I hope it's not as restrictive as is currently being suggested. (In particular, I like a lot of Paizo's products, and I'd like them to be able to do some 4E work too.)

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I haven't played backgammon for ages, but I'll give it a shot omnis. Maybe Sunday?

We can start whenever. Like the scrabble, its move as you can. I'm registered with the same e-mail addy in Facebook as I am in here, feel free to ping me.

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At the moment, I think I'm keenest to find out more of what they've done with social encounters. If they've made it easier for me to give PCs real challenges outside of combat, then that's a great advance for me.

I think you'll be disappointed. It looks to me like they've made it more combat-centric (and I wasn't sure that was possible).

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There is a facebook app for backgammon! Anyone game?

OMGOMGOMG! I must now go install it!

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It looks to me like they've made it more combat-centric

well... dang. I haven't played D&D in umpty years, so I don't have much of a stake in it, but all the talk about big gameplay changes had me hoping for some more varied play. Which I think is what it would take to get me in again.

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I think you'll be disappointed. It looks to me like they've made it more combat-centric (and I wasn't sure that was possible).

What gives you that impression? From what I've seen combat's received the most overhauling (of course, as combat has the greatest need for rules), but this is about the first time they've really paid attention to the notion of mechanics for social encounters.

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well... dang. I haven't played D&D in umpty years, so I don't have much of a stake in it, but all the talk about big gameplay changes had me hoping for some more varied play. Which I think is what it would take to get me in again.

Ultimately that's really up to your GM, though it looks like GMs might now have a little more support for designing out-of-combat encounters. If they find it easier to set up a challenging goal-oriented social encounter, they might be more willing to do so. (I know for the campaign I'm running, I'm rather keen on raiding the 4E social encounter ideas to help out with this sort of design, whether or not we convert to 4E wholesale. I've already added the new death and dying rules.)

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