I'd be interested! A little irony is good for the blood.

Awesome! A couple more and I'll do it.

I'd be in if you don't mind the time zone differential. (Ryan might like to be involved too, he enjoys Pandemic.)

Not at all, will make me feel less guilty when I take a long time to update.

That's 2 maybe 3 room for another one or two if I just manage.

Every player who wants to play Pandemic will need to select a role. This doesn't strictly follow the rules, but I like it better and, more importantly, it's how the computer version works.

The roles are in no particular order.

CONTINGENCY PLANNER - The Contingency Planner may, as an action, take an Event card from anywhere in the Player Discard Pile and place it on his Role card.

Only 1 Event card can be on his role card at a time. It does not count against his hand limit.When the Contingency Planner plays the Event card on his role card, remove this Event card from the game (instead of discarding it).

As an action, take any discarded Event card and store it on this card.

When you play the stored Event card, remove it from the game

Limit: 1 Event card on this card at a time, which is not part of your hand.

DISPATCHER - The Dispatcher may, as an action, either:

• move any pawn, if its owner agrees, to any city containing another pawn, or

• move another player's pawn, if its owner agrees, as if it were his own.

The Dispatcher can only move other players' pawns; he may not direct them to do other actions, such as Treat Disease.

When moving a player's pawn as if it were your own, discard cards for Direct and Charter Flights from your hand. A hand discarded for a Charter Flight must match the city the pawn is moving from.

MEDIC - The Medic removes all cubes, not 1, of the same color when doing the Treat Disease action.

If a disease has been cured, he automatically removes all cubes of that color from a city, simply by entering it or being there. This does not take an action.

The Medic also prevents placing disease cubes (and outbreaks) of cured diseases in his location.

The Medic's automatic removal of cubes can occur on other player' turns, if he is moved by the Dispatcher or the Airlift Event.

OPERATIONS EXPERT - The Operations Expert may, as an action, either:

• build a research station in his current city without discarding (or using) a City card, or

• once per turn, move from a research station to any city by discarding any City card.

The Dispatcher may not use the Operation Expert's special move ability when moving the Operation Expert's pawn.

QUARANTINE SPECIALIST - The Quarantine Specialist prevents both outbreaks and the placement of disease cubes in the city she is in and all cities connected to that city. She does not affect cubes placed during setup.

SCIENTIST - The Scientist needs only 4 (not 5) City cards of the same disease color to Discover a Cure for that disease.

RESEARCHER - When doing the Share Knowledge action, the Researcher may give any City card from her hand to another player in the same city as her, without this card having to match her city. The transfer must be from her hand to the other player's hand, but it can occur on either player's turn.

Contingency planner sounds like it's got interesting possibilities, I'll take that.

Also, we should probably establish how many of us have never played this game.

I think Researcher and Medic are the most powerful roles. After that, I don't know. Those event cards can really save your bacon though.

Hey, Billytea, if you and Ryan are on board we're good to start a game. 4 is a really good number of players.

Hi Gud. Ryan does want to play, but not in a separate role; he'd like to play a combined role with me. His favourite role is Medic, so we'll go with that if that's ok.

Cool. Anybody else want in?

I'll take Researcher. Have you played the game before, chrismg? It sounds like billytea & Ryan are already familiar with it.