Following the discussions of Monopoly and Junta, I thought I'd start a new thread to discuss some of the other wierd and wonderful games out there.

My friend Hugh has several, including 'Nuclear Attack': a card game that tends to get rather silly.
One of the best is 'Cults Across America', in which your objective is to get an unbroken chain of Cultists in cities across North America. There are personalities to control, like the Miskatonic University Marching Band, who add 1 to morale in a fight, and the Governor of the Medical Insitute, who can be used to spread plague. The first game ended memorably when Tony produced a double-whammy of cards on Phil. He first played a card, saying that liberal governors in one of Phil's cities (New York), had increased the dole, so all of Phil's population within one move of NY promptly went there to claim the dole. This was most of his population, as he was squashed into New England. Tony then played the Nuclear Meltdown card on NY, where Phil had built a reactor. NY went into meltdown, as did most of Phil's population. Sheer genius !

I also spent a happy afternoon with friends playing 'Spree !'. This is a simple game about looting a shopping mall. It's possible to speed things up by shooting the other players and stealing their loot, so it pays to be careful.

Who says board games are for kids ?

Niether of these are board games, but I'm gonna post 'em anyway.

A friend of mine has a card game called Global Thermonuclear War, complete with population cards, propaganda cards, and warheads of various tonnages. We got some glares from the head of the youth group at a church summer camp for playing it there, but we pointed out that since usually everyone died and nobody won, they should actually be pleased with how educational it was.

A favorite among my friends is Guillotine, in which the players are rival executioners trying to execute the best people, while avoiding martyrs and heroes of the people and such. You have a line of cards with nobles and commoners (from Loius (5 pts) down to the piss boy(1pt)), and take turns taking whoever is in front, after playing cards to change the order of the line. There is a Master Spy, who moves to the back of the line every time anyone plays a card. If you kill Robespierre, the day's executions end and everyone in the rest of the line goes free. Very silly when played with people with a warped sense of humor (which describes most of my friends).



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

These sound great! I'd be tempted to chuck my playstation if it wasn't for my love of playing a samuari who can hack demons to bits . :)

Magda- I have a great deal of time for a game where you can behead Robespierre!

I've played a 'Nuclear War' card-game which might have been one of the ones already mentioned in this thread, but that was back (decades ago) at university.

'Credo' is a game of politics, missionary activity & intrigue in the early Christian church. There are three sorts of cards: 'Church' (Bishops [who can preach at other players Churches, and vote in Ecumenical Councils], prominent laypeople such as the Eastern Emperor [whose controller can call Ecumenical Councils together to vote on clauses of the Creed], and
'Flock' cards of varying strength from 1'000 up to 1'000'000), 'Articles' (different sects' & heresies' views on what should be in the Creed; getting the versions of Articles that you support into the Creed helps to strengthen your 'Church'), and 'Events' (which range from the criminal & political to the miraculous, and include ones that let players other than the Emperor's controller summon Ecumenical Councils). The aim is to control the largest amount of Flock at the point just after the final clause of a ten-part Creed gets voted through: All of the players are then supposed to recite the new Creed.

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"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."



Post Edited (06-12-03 10:02)

not so much a board game, but book related. Ex Libris.

Pack of cards, each card has a book synopsis on it. One player chooses a card and reads out the author, title and synopsis. Flip a coin to choose first line or last line. The other players write down what they think sounds like a plausible first/last line. The reader writes down the actual first/last line (it's on the card).

Reader collects all the lines together and reads them out. players vote on what they think is the correct line.

Point if you get the correct one, point if someone votes for yours, point for reader if no-one gets the right one.

Next person becomes reader, game goes on. Splendid fun. Quite often you're not writing what you think the *actual* line is, more what you think the other players will think it is. Or, if you play with the bunch I've played with (yes, that's you rob), you get a bunch of comedy lines.

example. The book was Black Beauty. Pete's offering for first line was:
'neigh, neigh and thrice neigh'.

It's very hard to keep a straight face, as pete tends to write something specifically designed to crack you up.

Who ? Me ??

We go for competitions within competitions. Some are playing to get most points, others (possibly me) are playing to get the biggest laughs.
Great fun.

What was the name of that extremely weird board game with the hexagonal areas of land and the killer penguins?



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Did it have three different colours of land stuff and some octopuses and little boats? (Don't remember killer penguins, though, so it might be something else...)



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Do something pretty while you can...

Wait a moment, I think it may have been called "Kings and Things". If I remember rightly, there were quite a lot of "Things" and some of them were very deeply surreal!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Ah. I'm thinking of one called, I think, Escape From Atlantis.

My favourite was Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs, but it's not TOO bizarre. I think I had boringly normal games.



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Do something pretty while you can...

The game I'm thinking of is owned by Skiffle. Enough said. ;-)



..........................................................................................

That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Ahhhh, escape from atlantis, I remember playing that recently. I think, maybe, not sure where though, fairly sure I was less than sober though. All pieces of my memory should be sent to the usual adress, thankyou.

YEAH Magda!!! Another Guillotine player! That is one of our FAVORITE games.
here's a link for those unfamiliar: [www.wizards.com]

My brother-in-law got it for Christmas 2 years ago and we got hooked. So we immediately had to buy it for everyone we knew. Now I believe it is out of print and it's EXTREMELY hard to find, but if you get a chance it's a fantastic game that anyone can play. My then 6 year old niece loved running around the house going "Piss Boy! Piss Boy!" (he's one of the, uh, "nobles" in line to have his head unceremoniously removed - and "piss" is not exactly a word you want children saying here in the US!)

My husband's family is also into playing this railroad building game by Avalon Hill called Rail Baron. We have tournaments, people dress up in their best oldtime railway togs (conductor's hats, overalls, etc), we listen to railway style bluegrass music, and we have a plaque that goes to the winner as well as a coffee mug with all the railway names on it. That person keeps those until the next game which is usually once a year. And we get to proclaim aloud, "I *AM* the Rail Baron Champion" to as many family members as we want and no one can get upset. Them's the rules!

oh and by the way... I *AM* THE current RAIL BARON CHAMPION!!! hehehee

I know a couple of people who own a wonderful game called 'Zombie !' The playing surface is a set of map tiles, which are put down in turn to create a town. The players are represented by little plastic figures, and there are dozens of glow-in-the-dark zombie figures to chase them !

The object is to be the first to reach the helipad and escape the zombie infested town, but the heliport pad tile is the last to be put down, so in the meantime, you might have been heading in entirely the wrong direction. There are cards for cool weapons and for doing nasty things to other players. It is *such* a fun game !

Who comes up with the ideas for these games? And why can't I get them in Aus?

I actually have my own copy of Guillotine somewhere, still in the sealed box, since I usually only play it at the house of the friend who also has it (and it fact, gave me my set (and a book) for my birthday--you can tell she knows me pretty well).

Another good card game (although I've only played it a couple times) is "Once Upon a Time" in which you get cards with fairy tale style story elements. When you get the floor, you make up a story as you go, and every time you mention something that's on one of your cards you get to put it down. If you mention something on one of someone else's cards, they play their card and take over the story. Great fun if you have creative friends.

More details here:
[www.rpg.net]

I haven't got around to playing with my set of 'Unexploded Cow' yet, but I'm told it's good fun.

Sounds like it could be messy if that cow ever does explode.

Better bring a shovel...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

So, does anyone ever play fantasy card game things? Like Magic? or Buffy?

I played Magic for a while and nearly got back into it recently. Much fun.



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Do something pretty while you can...