Formerly: Much More Sane And Normal Discussions In English

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I thought this forum, indeed, desperately needs a Sane Corner.
Since the demand for it is not as high as the demand for the already-existing one, I thought of making a little refuge here at this little table.
You are free to ask relatively sane questions and, in general, relax from the overall madness, flying chairs and Grimm-ConfInt duet songs that reign in that big corner some people try to avoid. =)

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I do have a question that might be a good start.
Do you have any board games (or card games) that you like to play? Something like the Decktet Magnate, Hive, Cribbage, Go (Gomoku), Shogi or Xiangqi?
Are there any good board games that you enjoy with a small or medium-sized gaming group of yours?

[dpeg]

Life long two player board game: Go (Baduk, Weiqi)
Diversional and original two player board games: Lines of Action, Epaminondas

Personal favourite card game for four: Tichu I think it's better than Bridge or Skat. Try it!

[BlackSheep]

My wife and I get together with a couple of friends each month for a game night. Usually we play Settlers of Catan (or Cities & Knights when I can talk them into it), but I recently bought copies of Dominion and Puerto Rico so I'm hoping we'll try those out soon. When their relatives are visiting, we'll switch to card games like Pinochle or Tripoley

[XuaXua]

Iron Dragon
Ticket to Ride
Puerto Rico
Robo Rally
Settlers / Seafarers of Catan
Carcassonne
Mertwig's Maze
Ragadorn Ale-House Brawl
Castle Panic! (with Wizard's Tower)
Advanced Hero Quest
Warhammer Quest
Dungeon! (classic and '90s)
Arkham Horror
Illuminati
Claydonia / Clay-o-Rama
Ra
Oasis
Vegas Showdown
Nexus
Geist
Tile Chess
Zoki
Fluxx
Falling
Metro
Mausoleum
Chez Geek
Thunder Road
Domination
The Great Khan Game
Magus
Search for the Emperor's Treasure
The Baton Races of Yaz
File 13
King's Table
Ringside
Food Fight
Munchkin
Polarity (2-Player or more)
Cathedral (2-Player)
Khet (2-Player)
Awful Green Things from Outer Space (2-Player)
It Came from Pleasantville (2-Player)

Not to mention a few things coming from Kickstarter.

[Grimm]

upvotes for anything Tom Wham

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

For whoever you worship, that is excellent! =)


Who taught you to play Go, Dpeg? =) I thought of trying it (at least of building a Marbles version), but you need a partner for it, and preferrably a real one, and there are no Go players in my town...

BGG users praise Tichu a lot: is it really that good? Can it be recreated with a standard 54-card deck?


Nice one, BlackSheep. =) Can you recommend a good card game?


Looks like you are an inveterate one, Xua. =) Any special preferences?

[XuaXua]

upvotes for anything Tom Wham

I pretty much got everything Tom Wham.

[XuaXua]

Looks like you are an inveterate one, Xua. =) Any special preferences?

Yeah, not Arkham Horror. The only Lovecraftian thing about it is the resource management.

If I had to play, based on availability, I'd say:

Iron Dragon
Ticket to Ride
Puerto Rico
Robo Rally
Polarity (2-Player or more)
Castle Panic (but only with the Wizard's Tower expansion)

Also have to add Gemblo to the list (just got it from Kickstarter).

---

Kickstarters I'm waiting for include:

Dungeon Roll (I don't care for dice games, but this seems fine)
Compounded : Better Gaming through Chemistry
Storm the Castle! (impulse purchase - not expecting anything great)
Moonghah Invaders (waffled on it, then suddenly there was an influx of attention; unfortunately, I think this one may end up as a "take all the money and run" scam; the only one I regret, but my kid loves giant monsters )
We Are Dead : Zombie Mall game
DungeonCraft / Treasures and Traps + Expanded Realms / Villagers and Villains (another impulse)

also, I have a ton of kid games adults can play like Zimboos, Animal upon Animal, and CooCoo the Rocking Clown, and Flush!, but those aren't technically mine.

[dpeg]

MyO: I learned Go as a kid from my father, but didn't really play until I picked it up as an 8th grader again. Berlin is big enough that you can visit Go clubs every night, so that's what I did. Later on I managed to turn a friend who is a great Go player into my teacher, and I play a game per week ever since (I became shodan early but never improved beyond that).
I know younger Go players who learned the game only and basically only play via KGS but I cannot recommend that.

Tichu really is that good. It has traits from a large number of games, but it combines them awesomely well. First, it is a game with fixed teams, like Bridge. This makes for more strategy than any other combination in four player games. Next, it has a very attractive tactical play. As a climbing game, the following card combinations can be played: single card, pair, full house, straights of length 5. This means that you may have to completely reevaluate your hand as the game goes on. Next, Tichu allows for interesting backgames, partly due to even more flexibility from the four special cards and bombs. In a nutshell, Bridge may have greater depth than Tichu in the strategic department (Tichu has much less partner communication, although there is some) but (a) you don't have to memorise bidding rules and (b) the actual gameplay is not scripted at all. I have teached Tichu to many people, and it worked very well both for hardcore gamers (I introduced it to the BrettspielWelt guys) and for very casual gamers.
Yes, you can make your own Tichu deck from an ordinary 104 deck.

As far as commercial board games go, I have to recommend Tom Lehmann's Race for the Galaxy (you can play Keldon's AI at home to try it out -- start with the basic set until you know whether you like it). There are oodles of great boardgames, but they come out at such a pace that I completely lost track. RftG guarantees an extremely good decisions/minute ratio.

[XuaXua]

BoardGameGeek is also a good place to check on recommendations for board games.

[Grimm]

I pretty much got everything Tom Wham.

Ever played King of the Tabletop? I printed it out once but never got around to actually playing. Looked fun. Was almost certainly the source of Magic: the Gathering.

[XuaXua]

No, and MTG was one of the things I avoided because addiction.

[Grimm]

It's on the 'Geek if you get the urge to print 'n' play.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I found WizWar a bit more appealing than KotT, Grimm. Did you try it out? I heard it makes a good beer-and-pretzels game.

Are there any good Go parlours in the Internet, Dpeg?

[Grimm]

It's been decades since I played WizWar but I remember it being fun.

[chukamok]

I like the Fluxx games (particularly Star Fluxx and Cthulhu Fluxx). I recently got Small World and Dixit. I have only played them once so far, but really enjoyed them. I also like Balderdash and Apples to Apples.

[Jabberwocky]

Pandemic is a fun game for a small group of people.

[jamezq]

It would be go for me also, very fun game.

[Rapigel]

Ever played King of the Tabletop? I printed it out once but never got around to actually playing. Looked fun. Was almost certainly the source of Magic: the Gathering.

I played it on the weekend for the first time and I found it very similar to the Great Khan Game. I think it has a better magic system though, and it is much harder for a player to achieve a game-breaking impregnable position. Flipside of that, of course, is that it can turn into a long game. Worth finding three friends for.

[Grimm]

I'll have to give it a try. Someone on BGG did a polished version of the components.

[cerebovssquire]

A board game that won several awards over here in Germany, and the International Gamers Award, is Saint Petersburg. It's a great game (it only has money as a resource, and the only thing that money gains you is points - or more money, to gain more points) but despite this, it does a very good job of making its resource management interesting, especially when you weigh up short-term and long-term benefits. I've been playing it since I was 8 or 9 years old, and am still enjoying it today. I imagine it would be a good game for Russians as well

edit: Here is the BoardGameGeek link as well: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/ ... petersburg And wow - there's expansions!

No, and MTG was one of the things I avoided because addiction.

I am officially clean since three weeks. My wallet is pretty clean too, but that's another story...

[cerebovssquire]

Google Translate says that the guys in yandayixia's thread are talking about eggs, landlords and... growing Chinese hair? I'm glad we have this topic!

[tcjsavannah]

Search for the Emperor's Treasure

PLEASE tell me where you can find a copy of this. You don't know how many used book stores and comic book stores I've searched through to try and find a copy of this still in the insert of Dragon magazine.

And yes, there are vampire bats in Floo-rida.

[Grimm]

Wham himself recommends the version in the "Best of Dragon" collection, of which there is one currently on teh ebay for not much money, as well as many in the BGG marketplace and even one here. However the BGG entry for the original suggests that the boxed version is significantly different, so you could grab a lot of the files linked on the BGG page and try to basteln one by yourself. Or contact this guy, get a pdf of the issue, and print out a proper copy of your own. I'd say that's your best bet.

Really all the Wham games should be properly digitized and archived for posterity.

[tcjsavannah]

Thanks.. I think the .pdf is the best bet as well. I did not play the "Best of Dragon" version when I was younger, I played the original version, so that's the one that has the nostalgia lure.

[Grimm]

If you get the pdf could you give me a copy too?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Can you tell me who is a morris dancer, Grimm?

[Grimm]

Yes.

[BlackSheep]

In Soviet Russia, grammar corrects YOU!

Also: Morris Dancer

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Yes.

Are you a mathematician? =)

[Grimm]

No. I am a wizard.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Grimm, could you help me to decipher the lyrics of "Tak' It, Man, Tak' It"?
From what I can understand, this song is about a miller who was deceived by "the happer" (the dark whisper?) who first started stealing flour bit by bit, then started dealing with smugglers, then took to bigger theft, but after all was caught after he told somebody his story. Is there a bit-by-bit deconstruction of these lyrics in Modern English?

[Grimm]

That looks like a job for a Scotsman. I'll see if I can summon one.

[Jabberwocky]

I do have a question that might be a good start.
Do you have any board games (or card games) that you like to play? Something like the Decktet Magnate, Hive, Cribbage, Go (Gomoku), Shogi or Xiangqi?
Are there any good board games that you enjoy with a small or medium-sized gaming group of yours?

Just thought of the card game. I could send instructions on how to play and make cards if you want and still need a game of that nature.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I do have a question that might be a good start.
Do you have any board games (or card games) that you like to play? Something like the Decktet Magnate, Hive, Cribbage, Go (Gomoku), Shogi or Xiangqi?
Are there any good board games that you enjoy with a small or medium-sized gaming group of yours?

Just thought of the card game. I could send instructions on how to play and make cards if you want and still need a game of that nature.

Send! =)

[Confidence Interval]

That looks like a job for a Scotsman. I'll see if I can summon one.

By what dark art dost thou summon me, Jessica?

MyO, your interpretation is broadly correct. The text is in Scots, a dialect of English (of which there are many variants). If it's useful to you I could write out the text in standard English, though it will take me a few days (mostly because I'm on the road right now and can't do it til I'm back home next week). Would that be useful? (And, in any case, why are you interested in this text?)

[Grimm]

By what dark art dost thou summon me, Jessica?

Macramé.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

MyO, your interpretation is broadly correct. The text is in Scots, a dialect of English (of which there are many variants). If it's useful to you I could write out the text in standard English, though it will take me a few days (mostly because I'm on the road right now and can't do it til I'm back home next week). Would that be useful? (And, in any case, why are you interested in this text?)

Thank you for your attention. =) After I heard "Wha'll Be King But Cherlie," I decided to go through more songs akin to this. Carrickfergus is something I can point out as a nice example. The one in my earlier message is a much harder hazelnut to bite apart for me!

[Confidence Interval]

I did it in a parallel text but have no idea how to present text here in two columns, or even whether you can, so what is below is just my "translation" - you'll have to compare to the text. The main thing I'm uncertain about is what a happer is - I suspect he just made this word up for this song. The only thing close I can find is this French usage (there are historical connections between French and Scots that result in some shared vocabulary). Other uncertainties I've marked with a question mark.

For future use, the online dictionary on this page is useful.

There is a lot of good Scots language poetry around - let me know if you'd like any recommendations.

Spoiler: show

When I was a miller in Fife [part of Scotland]
Oh! I thought that the sound of the happer
Said “Take a few oats to your wife
To help make brose [a bit like porridge] for your supper."

Then my conscience was narrow and pure
But by chance it was knocked
Because I took two fistfuls or more
While the happer said “Take it, man, take it”

Then hey! for the mill and the kiln
The decoration and equipment for my drinking glass
And hey! for the whisky and gill [a whisky measure]
That washes the dust from my throat

Although for a long time it’s been considered
That rogues get rich by deceit
I can see it doesn’t suit
Honest men to become thieves

For my heart was beating hard
So hard I thought it would be broken
So I threw away the fistful of oats
But the happer still said “Take it, man, take it”

A man that’s accustomed to the plough
Might be deafened by its noise
But few people would suffer the sigh [or light wind]
After knowing what the happer says.

I sometime though it scoffed at me
Asking if my conscience was not knocked
But when I grew dry [?from a horn]
It always changed to say “Take it”

The smugglers sometimes came with their pouches
Because they knew that I liked a drink
So I bartered with the cuckoos [i.e. the fools]
And gave them grain in exchange for drink.

I had for a long time been accustomed to drinking
And every time I tried to quit
That thing with its [unclear? – perhaps onomatopoeic]
Always said to me “Take it”

But the worst thing I did in my life
And there’s no doubt you’ll think I was wrong to do it
I told a small person in Fife
All my tale, and he made a little song about it

I have always had a voice
But I’ve never got the hang of singing
But I try sometimes to please
Greedy people by singing “Take it, man, take it”

Now even though I’m a miller
I can see through this matter to this extent
There are more notorious men around
Greedier then me [?of the muter]

It would seem that all men
Or at least half of them
Have a happer inside that speaks
And says to them “Take it, man, take it.”

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Now that I think of that, a "happer" might be just as well as "inner intention to obtain something". =)

Frankly, I thought a craigie was a vessel from which you drink, a crude and volumous at that.
And I could not understand the part about him throwing away what he has stolen in the first place: thank you!
I think that "growing dry from a horn" might be a reference to the horn of plenty.
Nice to have a humane conversation, not a flood battle as we usually do in the Corner!

I would like some recommendations indeed, apart from Richard Burns of course. =)

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Grimm, Confidence Interval, are you still enjoying the usual closed-circuit discussions in the Corner?
Perhaps you should organize a Play-By-Forum section somewhere around here, be the game masters, and introduce a few players into it?
Something around the Paranoia RPG, Paranoia XP setting, would do nicely.

Quirks of Paranoia:
- inducing SUBJ in players: they are a rag-tag team of people that want to complete the task -- and eliminate their opponents and do things that are good for them and promote and complete secret tasks and to survive after the mission;
- can be adapted for Dungeon Crawl type: let's say the Computer is replaced with something connected to the Orb of Zot!
- game masters have control over everything!
- players either have fun or fail;
- does not need rulebooks to be set up (and, unfortunately, you definitely cannot find them online anywhere, even if you look!).

http://www.paranoia-live.net/wiki/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/T ... e/Paranoia

[Grimm]

I bought all the original Paranoia modules when they came out. Great reading. And this is the desktop icon for my computer:

Fullscreen capture 9182013 95309 AM.bmp.jpg (7.1 KiB) Viewed 15370 times

[Confidence Interval]

I bought Paranoia too but never played it. Great geeks think alike. I'm not sure how it would work online, all the same. Or maybe... we're already playing...

[Siegurt]

The computer is your friend, all hail the computer.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I bought all the original Paranoia modules when they came out. Great reading. And this is the desktop icon for my computer:

Fullscreen capture 9182013 95309 AM.bmp.jpg

I am freakin' itching to ask you to [deleted] and send the scans to me.

Have you ever played it in real life? How did you manage the note exchange?

[Grimm]

I'd do it for you without hesitation but I sold them all maybe two decades ago. I tried playing once or twice but I was never around people who were actually interested in making RPGs work. It usually devolved into bullshitting.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Just like in real Alpha Complex!

Still, ask Galehar if you want to. I am not going to be an Ultraviolet, but I can provide you with a few ideas of Reeserch and D'Velpent weapons and tools -- and will gladly participate!

[Confidence Interval]

Doesn't your life already consist of enough lies, manipulation, and bullshitting? Maybe not everyone works in a complex bureaucracy where such things are the norm but I understand that many people do.

[Grimm]

Yes but we aren't issued lasers.