Game Day, April
This game day happened at Lisa’s for the first time. She was a very good host with plenty of gaming snacks and drinks. The day outside (outside, what’s outside? Nothing beyond the game table exists on a game day) was reassuringly dreary and drizzly.
In attendance were Lisa, Andrew, AJ and myself. We started at noon with pizza and Talisman. Half our group was new to Talisman and I was worried the game may take a little longer than usual. My fears slowly came to fruition as the game lasted a little over SIX hours with nary an interruption. But excessive play time doesn’t necessarily mean low quality of gameplay. Au contraire, mon frère! The gameplay was some of the best I’ve enjoyed in my years of playing this game.
Some observations on this Talisman session:
- We had no less than THREE toads
- I believe all four of us attempted an assault on the Dragon’s Tower
- At least two players died and restarted
- Due to an unfortunate slip of the tongue, AJ’s Bag of Carrying became a Bag of Caring. It then promptly morphed into his He-Man Man-Bag until finally, comfortably, settling into the moniker, Love Purse. Our gameplay productivity quotient faltered a little around this point as we reveled in our cleverness.
- I went over four hours without ever carrying a weapon. Once I got a broadsword, Lisa turned up a storm card on the next turn and I immediately lost a life as a penalty for carrying said sword.
- Andrew, while hopping about as a toad, turned over an Adventure card and found a Princess follower. Sadly the princess did not kiss him and undo his toadness.
- AJ monopolized both the Doomsword and the Skullwand. Though I suppose he deserved it after dying mid-game and restarting.
- The gaming gods had their retribution on AJ for the above by blasting ALL 4 or 5 items he was carrying off to the discard pile during his trek up to the Dragon King.
- AJ had terrible luck in the Tavern.
- Lisa had slightly less bad luck in Jail.
- Andrew had difficulty thwarting gravity.
- There were several instances of confusion over special situations. We decided them variously by chance, by similar rules interpretation and by referencing the internet. Note: Morak’s Hammer is a Special Card. I guess after all these years, I still haven’t seen all situations. Here is a short reference.
- We agreed the figurings would look better painted, but that task would be pretty challenging
After Talisman, we tried AJ’s new game Bogus. It’s a trivia/betting game. It’s easy to learn and play, though we had difficulty accumulating more than the two betting chips you start out with.
Andrew had to leave to head back to VT, so we finished the evening with a couple of games of Star Munchkin.
April 23rd, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Yes, it was a fine Game Day, indeed. Though I died twice in Talisman I put forth a good effort, but sadly was cast down by forgetting my warrior’s special ability when in battle…and just plain bad rolling! If not for picking Andrew’s toad-ly body clean, I couldn’t have even gotten as far as I had. Go Toad-chant, go!
April 27th, 2006 at 12:41 am
Sounds like a fun day. Turns out I could have made it since there was no amnio. I spent the day watching hockey and falling asleep on the couch (the Rangers were pretty boring).