Hi All:

Today I thought I’d give you a taste of what it was like my first time to a gaming convention.

Several of the people in our regular gaming group go to Gen-Con Indy each year.  This year, much to my amazement and their trepidation, they invited me along.  I was also a bit surprised when my wife gave in fairly easily so it was off to Indianapolis for me!

Gen-Con Indy has been around for a long time in various forms. It is a very large convention with thousands of activities scheduled over a four day period. If you have some little known game that was a short run, you’ll probably find at least one session of people playing that game. There are sessions on everything from how to play various games to the introduction of new games and how to be a Game Master to movies and craft beer tappings and famous guests and costume contests and a massive exhibit floor and more (yes, I intentionally made that a run-on sentence to try to convey the enormity of the event).

Needless to say I was quite excited the first day as we walked into the convention center.  One of the very first things I saw was a “kilted” storm trooper. Yes, I’m not kidding, a storm trooper wearing a Scottish kilt!  Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture because I forgot the camera in the hotel room (a couple of minutes later my friend mentions: “You have a camera in your phone, don’t you?”, Duh!). So I got some pictures that day anyway but not of the kilted storm trooper.

Probably the best way to give you a perspective is by showing you some of the photos I took.
There were several “giant” board games.  If you ever wanted to feel like you were a part of “Settlers of Catan”, just look at this version:

Now if you are really into gaming and would like a very fancy wooden gaming table, there are lots of (expensive!) options.  Here is one that I really like:

As I mentioned, a lot of people were costumed.  Here are just a few of the very many:

Here are some Ghostbusters:

A very good Darth Vader and Tie Fighter pilot (with an Obi-wan partly cut off):

And in the Star Wars theme, here’s a decent Darth Maul:

Also, there was this awesome “Predator”:

Here are some “Dark Elves”:

And I love this one, old-school GI Joe with new-school GI Joe!

Star Wars was well represented, here are a scout, storm trooper and rebel pilot hanging out:

There was no lack of Dr Who fans as well.  Here was an interesting display of a Tardis and gold Dalek:

Another interesting area was the Artist’s hall.  Here there were a lot of different original items from paintings and drawings to sculptures.  This one is entitled “Too Much Radiation” (and you can see it fits!):

Anyone for a baloon dragon?

So that gives you a bit of a visual idea of what it’s like.  This only scratched the surface as I didn’t get any over pictures of the exhibit hall or the costume parade that was put on each day.

A few other areas of interest were:

- The auction hall where they were running continuous auctions of games, art and collectibles.

- The playtest room where you got to play test new games with the game authors watching and interacting with you on the play experience.  (This was my favorite part, I was able to play test four new games all of which were very interesting.)

- My Traveller players made me go to “How to GM 101″ which was an interesting seminar.

- The exhibit hall with vendors showing and selling their newest games (my wallet cringed everytime I went in there and my backpack was always full by 11:00 am; we usually got there around 10:00 am).

There is so much more that it can’t all be covered here but, if you have the chance, I highly recommend you try to get to Gen-Con Indy.

Hi All:

I’ve been gaming since I was a small child.  As soon as my sister and I could handle a deck of cards and identify what the different cards are and what a “suit” was, my mother was teaching us how to play a bidding game called “500″.  She had worked out a three-handed version that we could play and by the time I was seven I could bid and trump with the best of my parents friends.

My sister and I also played a lot of board games as kids.  When you live in the middle of rural nowhere Minnesota there’s not a lot to do.  We didn’t have any board games of our own once we got interested in them so we would play games like Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders and Stadium Checkers at our friends and relatives homes. I remember when my cousin got “Trouble” (you know the one with the “Pop-O-Matic” dice mounted on the board?) for Christmas one year it made me very jealous.

Our first board game was Monopoly and we spent many hours playing and customizing the rules (just as others have done).  Once we had a few more games we ended up make lots of modifications to the rules to suit us (though my sister will probably say the changes suited me more than her!).

One day, shortly after I started the ninth grade, a model ASR-33 Teletype showed up in the math room and I was instantly hooked on computers.  This was no speed demon, it was capable of only 10 characters per second but it unlocked the whole world of computer programming for me.  Since we actually had no computer programming courses in our high school until my senior year, I taught myself Basic programming out of the one book on programming in our entire school library.  By the time that I took the one programming course that was first offered my senior year, I ended up teaching part of the class since I knew more about programming than the teacher did.

I wrote a lot of simple games in Basic on that TTY and learned a bit about how to program computer opponents. At the time, none of my computer players where very good unless the solution space was very limited (like Tic-Tac-Toe).  Many of these players had a tendancy to get confused and make really stupid moves (but I’ve learned a bit since then).

After high school I met up with a couple of guys who were into board gaming (especially war games) and we spent many Saturdays playing Avalon High war games and Axis & Allies. We also went a few rounds with Diplomacy which was a very different way of gaming (mostly negotiation, some strategy and virtually no tactics at all).  They also introduced me to the concept of “play by mail” (now that should really date me if the TTY didn’t!).  We had some interesting times playing “Beyond the Stellar Empire” that way. We did a lot of design work on a play-by-mail game of our own but never got it out into the public.

Then real-life intruded and I didn’t have a lot of time for gaming for many years, just the occasional card game or, if I was lucky, a nice long session of Monopoly.

Now, after getting married and rasing two step-sons (9 and 11 when I got them, now 21 and 23), I’ve been getting back into gaming with a regular Friday night group.  We’ve been playing lots of board games as well as minatures (Star Wars, D&D) and I’ve been running a Traveller Campaign with them as well.

I have a tendancy to collect games (especially board games) and now have a closet full of them.  As one of the Friday night group has said, “Just mention a possibly interesting game to Dean and it’ll be at the next Friday night session”.

This year I was priveledged to go to Gen-Con Indy and that will be my next post for you.
Short Bio of the Author:

Dean lives in rural Minnesota with his wife of 12 years, two dogs, two cats and one son who just got out of the army.  He is currently Vice President of Engineering for a local company that makes wireless sensors.  Aside from gaming he is also into amateur (ham) radio and science fiction of all types (movies, audio, magazines and books).

Posted by George, gamura collecitalius.

If you spend any amount of time playing games, you will hear the phrases “bad game design” and “negative play experience” quite a bit. While these issues can be unrelated, it is not unusual for the first one to lead to the second one. I will explain a little bit of each of these experiences and what can happen when you experience them together.

Bad Game Design:

My regular readers know that I play a lot of trading card games (TCG’s). Although I now spend most of my time playing Magic the Gathering, this wasn’t always the case. One of the first card games that I played was Star Trek CCG, by Decipher. This game had a lot going for a Trekkie in engineering school (that is to say, me). At the time, Star Trek, the Next Generation was still on TV and apparently a lot of engineers like Star Trek. Surprising, I know. Anyway, for me, this game was big!

The game concept was relatively simple: Build a deck to solve missions, while using obstacles called dilemmas to slow down your opponent. The game play during each turn was simple—draw a card, play a card, and attempt missions. Sounds good, right? Well, there was a problem. One of the cards was called “Red Alert.” What this card did was allow you to play any number of cards from your hand at each turn. Since this drastically changed the flow of the game, many times the game came down to who could get their Red Alert in play first. This would enable you to play most, if not all, of the cards from your hand, run through a bunch of missions, and win the game.  

In my opinion, the Red Alert card is an example of bad game design because this one card skewed the way the game was played. While the idea of the Red Alert is important in the show, and the card adds flavor to the game, the implementation was bad. The problems caused by the Red Alert card led to a new card being released, called the Yellow Alert card. The Yellow Alert card canceled the Red Alert card. Problem solved, right? Not exactly. It turns out that the Yellow Alert card caused players to stop using the Red Alert card and because no one used either card, both cards ended up being wasted.

This particular example of bad design has always bothered me. Using a new card as a magic bullet to kill an old one just leads to cards not being used. This is just one example, from one game, of what I consider to be bad game design. There are many others, and maybe somedayI’ll write an article on them all.

Negative Play Experience (NPE)

This issue is one that is harder to quantify. In general, anything that isn’t fun can be considered a negative play experience. In my opinion, NPEs are the biggest problem the first time you try a game, or possibly when you replay a game for the first time after a long absence. One common NPE in card games is when you draw a horrible starting hand that leaves you at a serious disadvantage for the entire game. Let’s see some ways that this has been addressed in TCG’s.

In the case of a bad hand, Magic allows you to draw a new hand, with a penalty of one card, leaving you with a slightly smaller starting hand—I call this a “mulligan rule,” after the golf term (Google it). This process can be repeated as necessary, with a reduction by one card each time (the second mulligan is two cards less than normal). Unfortunately, this can still be considered a NPE for players, as luck has given you a poor starting position and although the rules give you an out, it is with a penalty.

Occasionally, new players will have a hard time with this. The Lord of the Rings TCG also uses a mulligan rule, but lets you draw the same number of cards. The idea here is that you have already been penalized with a poor random draw, so why continue the NPE? This seemingly solves the problem with a minimal affect on the game. While advanced players sometimes lament the loss of luck on the opening draw, it works well for new players.

The Perfect Storm?

What happens when you mix a dose of bad game design with an NPE? Let’s find out:

On New Year’s Eve 2011, my wife and I took a trip to visit friends. We knew that we would be playing some games at some point during the evening. As it turns out, this group of people can be fairly competitive, regardless of the game. So what was the game of choice when the perfect storm hit us? Pictionary  

I don’t play a lot of traditional board games. I have played this one before, but it has been many years. In this version (which may not be the newest), every team starts on a square that is “all play.” That means that each team has to play and the first team to get it right, plays again. So what’s the problem?

If you are a new player, or a new team, you have to compete with everyone else starting with your first turn. If you don’t get the answer first, then you lose that turn to a more experienced team. So what? Well, on your next turn, you still have to compete in the all play. This process repeats until you actually win a puzzle. While you are sitting on the first square fuming about the rules, the other teams are moving around the board, more often than not on a square with just their team. This happened to my team and it took five turns before we got off that first square. The other teams were half way around the board, playing in squares that they had to themselves while we sat and watched.

In my opinion, this bad starting square is a prime example of bad game design. Adding to that, the NPE that resulted from our team being frustrated was hard to deal with. I sat there, looking at the rules thinking that this couldn’t actually be right. At the end of the game, I clearly remember stating that I would never play the game again.

One bad experience has resulted in my decision to not play the game again, and worse, for the publisher, not make a purchase. And the really frustrating thing with this is that it is so easy to fix! For the first turn, you start on a square that says start, roll the die, and move. You play the square you land on, whatever it is, and let the game continue. You always run the risk of hitting an “all play” square, but it’s not a requirement. Honestly, I am not sure how something this obvious was missed in development.

So what’s my point? Well, to be honest, this was a bit of a chance for me to vent about a bad game experience that I had. It also allows me to talk about some game design items that I think game designers can avoid. Next time, I’m going to be back to talking exclusively about Magic.

How about you? Have you had any bad game play experiences or NPEs you want to vent about? Share in the comments section!

I am a software designer and engineer. One of the first things I was taught when designing software was to always K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid or Keep It Stupid Simple). Basically, this means to not add too many features or bells and whistles to what you are working on. Try to accomplish the necessary task with as few items in the interface as possible. Now, you may be asking “What does this have to do with gaming?” I have found the K.I.S.S. pinciple to work in many facets of life outside my chosen field and I have noticed that game designers do not always follow it, sometimes to the game’s benefit and sometimes to the game’s detriment.

The game that brought this to my mind was a new role-playing game that I am trying with my gaming group, Traveler. Well, new to us anyway; in fact the game itself has been around for a long time, but it is our first time exploring and adventuring in space with Traveler (5th edition). Anyway, the thing that got me thinking was that, instead of using decimal numbers (1, 2, 3 . . . 10, 11 ,12 . . . 19, 20, 21 . . . ), they decided to use an eHex system. Basically, you can specify any number between 1 and 32 using either a number or letter (you know, 1, 2, 3 . . . A, B, C . . . K, L, M). Now, using this does save space as they claim,  but it really raises the barrier for new players. I may be going out on a limb, but I think most of us do not add up pips on 3 or 4 six-sided dice and come up with D, K, or M in our heads. The thing it does do is give the game a very futuristic and technological feel, which does fit with the game. Whether or not this is a good or bad deviation from K.I.S.S. depends on your point of view.

Another game we have talked about before in this blog is Heroes of Graxia. What is interesting with that game is that when playing it, you would think that K.I.S.S. was as far from the designer’s mind as possible. It is an extremely complex game with about a hundred things to keep track of as a player. But remnants of even more complexity suggest that K.I.S.S. principle must have been applied at some point in time. The game comes with miniatures—six various colored minis!?! Now keep in mind this is a card deck-building game. Miniatures just don’t belong. The only reason for this that we have been able to come up with is that they were included as part of the game play in the original design (maybe you used them to block card stacks or something), and remained after some subsequent revising. Who knows exactly, but I think someone K.I.S.S.ed this game!

Mostly these were just the random thoughts of a software designer applied to game design. I hope next time you play a game with extra random pieces, remnants of strange rules, or just things that you think are more complex than they need to be, you will think about K.I.S.S. and decide to simplify the game yourself (you know, use decimal numbers) or come up with your own rules to add that complexity right back in.

Have you experiened the pitfalls of failed application of the K.I.S.S. principle, or seen where it was elegantly put into play? Please share your favorite K.I.S.S. gaming moments below.

I love to play games and the types of games I like to play the most are something of a social event.  Whether it’s online, in a game like Dungeons and Dragons: Online, or at the weekly event I host at my house, it’s the social interaction that appeals to me the most.  Then again, I also like to win.

Many of us have busy lives. This is especially true, I think, for those of us who work and who also have families.  My wife and I have young children, our oldest of four just started first grade this fall.  My schedule allows me to play DDO on Monday nights (after the kids are in bed), on Tuesday nights I play in a billiard league, and on Friday nights, I host a gaming night at my house for adults.

Our gaming group has a great time together! We play games from each of our collections, and many of our game collections do not overlap, so there is a wide variety of game play available.  Some of the games we play are Settler’s of Catan (Cities, Sea Farers), Carcasonne, Power Grid, Dominion (and Intrigue), Munchkin (and Star Munchkin), Fluxx (and Martian Fluxx), Small World, Puerto Rico, Race for the Galaxy, Apples to Apples, Banagrams, and many others.  With all of us being collectors, we often get the opportunity to play new games—and this, the holiday season, is a great time to obtain games (or give games to others).

The types of people who play games weekly:

1. Those who enjoy frequent interaction with friends
2. Those interested in trying new games
3. Those interested in playing their favorite games
4. Gamers

There are times when I may be traveling for work, or something else comes up, and we may not have our weekly game night, but out of the 52 weeks in a year, I probably host a game on at least 40 weeks of the year. I send out weekly email reminders about our Friday gaming sessions, and this has worked well for those of us who game regularly.  Although Facebook is another great reminder tool—all of my email friends are also Facebook friends—for those of my friends who are not regulars on Facebook, the weekly email gives them an opportunity to participate if they like.

Because of schedule conflicts among our group of gamers, not everyone is present every week, and we have guest visitors from time to time who are a great addition to our game night. At the end of the day, we have a core of regulars that brings the group together and provides that continuity from game to game. That is key, as I think a successful game night consists of players that can attend regularly. 

The reasons I like to play games weekly:

1. The social interaction with friends
2. The opportunity to play games I enjoy
3. The opportunity to play new games
4. The adventure
5. Problem solving

Whether it is every Friday, every other Friday, or even one Friday a month, any regular attendance schedule makes for great possibilities to play any of the games our group likes to play.

Do you have a group of people that you game with regularly? What are some of the challenges or advantages that you have experienced with your gaming gang? Share your story below in the comments section!

Posted by Mitch, gamura compeditorus.

Sometimes mistakes work out in your favor.

My latest gaming addiction is the Facebook game D&D: Heroes of Neverwinter (D&D HoN). D&D HoN is currently in its BETA version, so there’s bound to be a few glitches with the game. For some reason, when I first started playing, the quantity of some of the potions in the inventory of one of my characters would grow exponentially every time I logged into that character. That meant that I ended up with about 150 Potions of Healing and 25 thousand Potions of Life. The Potions of Healing are nice, in that you can use them to regain 10 lost hit points, but the Potions of Life are really sweet because you can use them when one of your party members dies to immediately bring that character back to life with 50 hit points. So basically, for some unknown reason, I found myself with a character that made my party, for all practical purposes, indestructible (or immortal, if you prefer). With this new found power, I, of course, had to see how badly I could abuse this party. I must say that it was pretty fun to play through quests that I really should not have been able accomplish using only one character, just reviving him every time he fell, allowing me to overtake much stronger enemies and defeat the quest solo. This was also an easy way to get a lot of experience. Although this eliminated much of the game’s challenge, it was still fun!

 Easy come easy go.

Having received all of these potions through some fluke, it was inevitable that they would eventually be taken away. Shorty after finding I had this vast amount of unearned treasure, the game was shut down for maintenance for a period of time. When it came back online it was no surprise to me that my endless supply of potions was gone. After the update, my potions no longer grew each time I logged in and the number of Potions of Life in my inventory went from over 25 thousand to 999. I am no longer immortal, but I still have a huge wealth of treasure that was completely unearned, so I still get to abuse the game, although now the amount of twisted fun that I can have is limited.

 A fun experience but going back to normal probably is for the best.

Being indestructible was fun, and I will definitely enjoy using my remaining unearned potions while they last, but I am also enjoying playing the game as it is meant be played. This is definitely the most a game mistake has ever worked out in my favor, and it is much better than when a game mistake has worked to my determent (such as having a game crash after I finish a board but before I get experience).

Final thoughts.

This was really just a fun story that I wanted to share. What is the best (or worst) way that a mistake in a game has every affected you? Share in the comments section below!

Posted by George, gamura collecitalius.

There is more than one way to play the Magic the Gathering trading card game (TCG).  Games can be played as one-on-one duels or in groups of three or more players.  For the competitive player, most game stores hold organized events where you can test your latest deck against the decks of other players from your area.

The way many organized tournaments are constructed, you bring a deck of at least 60 cards from your entire collection.  The current constructed formats for organized play are: 

• Standard
• Extended
• Block
• Legacy
• Vintage
• Modern

Modern is the newest of these formats.  Modern was introduced earlier this year and was featured at the Magic Pro Tour in Philadelphia in early September.  At the beginning of November, local game stores were allowed to start running events in this exciting new format.  Last Wednesday night, my local game store, All Stars Collectibles in Langhorne, PA, ran our first event.

About 6 or 7 years ago, Wizards of the Coast changed the appearance Magic cards, and named the new look “Modern.”  The Modern format not only names the look of the cards, it also defines what cards can be used.  I was not interested in this format initially, because I don’t have a lot of these sets and I am not interested in investing in the cards needed to compete with the decks.  During a discussion with the guys in my play group, however, it was pointed out to me that I already have most of the Modern cards needed to play my favorite deck ever, Mythic Conscription. Given that fact, I decided to give a Modern Mythic Conscription deck a try.

Mythic Conscription is a fun deck that tries to play small creatures early in the game, and then later “conscripts” cards from your library to make a much bigger threat mid- and late-game. The deck should be able to win consistently on the 4th or 5th turn.  I made a few trades for some new, Modern cards and my Modern Mythic Conscription deck was complete and ready to go.  Turnout at the shop was good, with ten players in our first event, which was great for a new format on a Wednesday night. 

Round 1 vs Joel with “Ravager Affinity”

Ravager Affinity is a deck that uses lots of artifact cards and plays a creature called Arcbound Ravager.  Arcbound Ravager allows you to pump the power of an unblocked creature to deal lethal damage to your opponent as early as turn 3 or 4.  This was not a deck that I had seen in action, although I know how it works.  Joel dropped the Ravager early in the first game, and he was able to get the damage through pretty quickly.  In the second game, I sided some cards in that helped slow down the fast attack of Joel’s creatures.  I managed to hold him off a little longer, but I didn’t get enough damage in fast enough.

Loss 0–2

Round 2 vs. Dave with “Elves”

Both Dave and I lost the first round of the tournament and I knew Dave’s elf deck was probably a bit faster and more consistent than my Mythic Conscription deck.  This match ends up essentially being a coin toss, with the player who goes first winning a good percentage of the games.  Both games in this round were over quickly, and I managed to lose both of them by the 4th or 5th turn.  I was beginning to get discouraged, but I knew that I had not been getting good starting hands and there were still a couple of rounds left for improvement.

Loss 0–2 

Round 3 vs Will with “??? Combo”

I knew that Will was playing some kind of a combo deck, but being so far behind the curve on all of the cards in the format, I wasn’t sure how his combo was working.  As a result, I wanted to jump out for an early start.  My plan was to attack as early as I could, and disrupt the combo when it went off.  I missed stopping the first part of the combo in the first game, but was successful in stopping the second part and got a win!  I sided in a few more cards for game two that I hoped would disrupt Will’s deck. Luckily for me, the second game went pretty much like the first game. I missed stopping the early part of the combo, but was able to stop the second part.  Fairly quickly, I had won my first match of the night! 

Win 2–0

Round 4 vs James with “Grixis Control”

The Modern format is pretty fast and most control decks are just a bit too slow.  I thought that this would be a good match up for me because my deck also seemed to be a bit too slow.  I managed to jump out quickly in the first game and get a win.  Games two and three, however, were different.  I had hoped that I would continue to do well, but I had some bad draws and wasn’t able to get much momentum going.  James used some unconventional cards for the format, and that really slowed me down.  As a result, he was able to pull out both games two and three.

Loss 1–2

Overall, the tournament didn’t go that well for me.  I finished 1–3 in 8th place and found out that my preferred deck was not very successful for the format.  I think that I have a lot of work to do on the deck before our next event . . . Wednesday.

The Modern Mythic Conscription Deck:

If you have a chance to try out the format, I recommend it.  It wasn’t something that I was interested in, but even with the losses, it was a great time.

Have you had a good experience with a Modern deck? Or have you had a bad experience with Modern or some other format? Share your story in the comments section.

Posted by Jesse, gamura bibliophileous.

So, the other week I dropped the hint to our gaming group’s collector that he should get the game Talisman for us to play.  Now, dropping a hint to our collector is pretty rough; it usually consists of “I thought game X was fun,” and then he buys the game.  Anyway, I was remembering that I enjoyed playing the game once about 8 years ago, and I was getting a little nostalgic when I dropped the hint.  In any case, my brilliant plan worked, our collector bought the game, and it arrived before our next game night!

I have talked about how our game play can become the story in a past post.  And as much as that is true, I think that maybe our memory (or imagination) makes up a whole lot of that story (it is mostly fiction, right?).  I remembered Talisman being a huge daring conquest across battlefields and ending with a huge epic struggle to gain the ultimate control. 

Well, turns out the game isn’t really like that.

It is great fun and was a wonderful play, but not really how I remembered.  Now granted, my memory wasn’t relying on a ton of prior game play.  Like I said, I played it once, 8 years ago.  But the two things I distinctly remembered were that there was a ton of infighting amongst the players, and that when the players got to the end, they had to battle something (draw a card or something), and didn’t know what they’d face.

Well, in our game there was no infighting.  Now, that could be explained just by the different players in this game play.  We could have fought if we chose to . . . though I think the guy who spent more than half the game as a toad might not have liked that.  The ending I got was nothing—literally, I battled nothing—maybe they changed that with the new edition?  I don’t know where my brain comes up with some stuff . . .

In the end, I think the lesson to take away is this:  Be prepared for the “games of old” to surprise you when you play them again.  They may not be anything like you remember.  They may be worse . . . they may be better!  Or, as in this case, they may just be completely different.

Surprises aren’t bad—when you are ready for them.

Have you experience a “game of old” surprising you? Tell us about   it in the comments section below!

Hello, World.

My introduction into gaming was to those games typical to the 70s and 80s, such as cards, dice games, and board games like Monopoly.  Rather early on in my middle school years, the Apple ][ was introduced and I was immediately hooked.  I had played video games in the local arcade, such as Pong, Battle Zone, and Missile Command, but when our school got its first Apple ][, the thought of creating my own games was born.  Do you remember the red Apple ][ Reference Manual from January of 1978?  I still have one.  From it, I learned Basic Programming and 6502 Assembly language.  I created my first video game while in high school, but it was never published.  It was written entirely in Assembly, as that was where you could really get the speed you needed on the one Megahertz 6502 inside the Apple ][.  Many of the skills I learned back then would later transfer to my future career.

Fast forward to today, and I am back where I started: Using my skills to write games, only now on mobile devices.

What Do I Play Today?

High school was also where I was introduced to the game Dungeons and Dragons.  My friends and I spent many hours reading the Player’s Manual and the Dungeon Master’s Guide.  We created worlds of adventure and spent our time exploring these worlds. For the gamer in me, this was a game with endless possibilities, a game with no winners or losers, and a game that you could play over and over again. Today, I play Dungeons and Dragons Online, or DDO, and I am still at a loss for words to describe what happened when my wife asks, “Did you win?” after playing with my friends. My group, or guild, plays just once a week, though any member can play at any time.  The guild is guaranteed to have a few members every Monday, our guild’s game day.

With the exception of DDO, I play mostly board and card games, and a smidgen of miniatures, especially at the yearly trek to Gen Con in Indianapolis. You can find me playing Carcasonne, Settler’s of Catan, Munchkin, Fluxx, Puerto Rico, Power Grid, and Dominion, to name a few of the games.

I also play billiards in a Pool League, and have played in one state tournament with my team.  We lost, but had a great time playing!

Once a week I also host a gaming session that I like to call Friday Night Game Night.  I will expand upon that in a future post.

Short Bio of the Author:

Steve lives in the frozen tundra of Minnesota with his wife and four kids, all 6 years old or younger.  A serial entrepreneur, Oblique Diversions is his 6th company, but not his last, as he has already started another.  Besides gaming, his other passion is biking, having ridden 1400 miles this calendar year and looking forward to an even higher goal next year.

Posted by George, gamura collecitalius.

Innistrad: A Magic the Gathering^TM Prerelease Story

Wizards of the Coast releases a new expansion for its flagship card game, Magic the Gathering^TM, four times a year. While a release of a new set is always an exciting time, the large set released every fall is always a game changer. Among other things, these new sets introduce the storyline for the upcoming year and set the stage for the two sets that follow.

On September 30^th, Innistrad will be released into the Magic environment. This new set is based on the classic horror genre where you find vampires (think the classic Dracula, not Twilight), werewolves, zombies, and spirits. In addition to a new story, this set has some of the best artwork I have seen in my time with the game, and introduces double-sided cards that show the transformation werewolves make under a full moon. I have been following the card spoilers online and what I have seen makes me really excited about the release of this set.

On September 24^th, All Stars Collectibles hosted our local pre-release event. I have been working with the owner for some time as he has increased the number and size of his events. As we did with the release of Magic 2012 (the last set), we hosted a large tournament in the store’s community room. We had 80 players for the last event in June, and we planned to host even more players for this event.

The day of the event dawned, rainy and humid. Heading to the mall at 8 am for a tournament seemed a little crazy, but we expected a big turnout. The mall housekeeping crew had the room set up pretty much the way we wanted, and we set up the products for sale and the computers we needed to run the event. A minor computer glitch with my printer meant that I was running behind. All the while, the room was filling up with gamers ready to go. Once we got the computer issues worked out, we started letting players into the event. All said and done, we had 100 players, exactly! The previous prerelease had 80 players, so we were ecstatic about the turnout.

With 100 players, the event ended up having a full six rounds for all the players, with a single elimination event for the top 8 players. With 200 packs as prizes for the top 8 players, this was going to be a great event. Because this is my local store, I know many of the players personally; this made the event a lot of fun for me as I was pretty much pulling for everyone to win every round. As the results poured in, players came to me to show off their decks to and tell stories from their games. It was just as much fun for me to run the event as it is to play in one.

New sets also come with lots of new questions. Although I am not an officially sanctioned judge, running these events requires that I provide the rules guidance for the event. Luckily, we had support in the form of an “off duty” official judge who was playing in our event. Between the two of us, we managed to get through the event with no particular difficulty.

After six rounds, we were down to 8 players. These players included our judge and the dominant  player in our store (ironically, both of these players were named Mike). Our local Mike ended up winning the day, with his sixth win in a row during the first event.  As the first event was going through the top 8, I was busy starting a second event. If players didn’t have enough fun the first time, we were going to do it all again.

The second tournament was much smaller than the first one, with only 28 players. For many stores, this would be a great turnout and we were happy to have that many for the second event. Unsurprisingly, running the second event was a lot easier  than the first and went just as smoothly. At 9 pm, the mall closed and we had to move back into the store. There were two more rounds, the top 8 players opted to split the prize, and we were done! After I packed up and got some dinner, I called it a day at just after midnight. All in all, a 16 hour day packed full of Magic.

The point of my story this time is that events like this are not that uncommon. No matter what game you play, there is likely something like this out there for you. If you live in the greater Philadelphia area, I urge you to check out All Stars Collectibles for Magic Events!

Do you have a favorite local store, or a great tournament story you want to tell? Please share it with us in the comments section!