Game Day!

Well, since I thought of the idea of Game Day (alternate Sundays for socializing and playing of games, not necessarily RPGs), we’ve managed to do it only once — until yesterday, which sort of makes it twice.

Sort of, since it turned out to be a serial Game Day — the Testerfolk were over (a brief appearance by Doyce) earlier, the Geissingers later, with a brief overlap in the middle.

That did have the advantage, though, of keeping the numbers down enough to play some “4 player” games, which worked out nicely.

First off, SPANC — Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls — in which up to four players maneuver their customizable four-person SPANC crews through challenges to their respective SP, A, N, and/or C rankings — in a quest for loot, toys, and pool boys. A bit more fun to describe than play (and with some fine Phil Foglio art throughout), it was still fun. Margie, myself, Jackie and Justin all joined in the festivities.

The rules are fairly straightforward, the challenges not too difficult to overcome. Results are subject to 2D6 bell curves, occasionally felt a bit too random. The highly flexible assignment of attribute-enhancing toys felt almost too flexible — giving someone something didn’t seem to be all that meaningful since, with just a few restrictions, it could be easily transferred away, even back into one’s hand (this is the subject of some discussion on the boards). The illustrations are fun and the encouragement in the rules to engage in cursing and mocking are entertaining but not enough to lend quite the level of personality I’d like to see. Lots of fine character names for CoH/CoV, though …

Margie eventually won (and handily). Overall time was about an hour and a half (mostly because of coming up to speed on the rules and nuances therein). Definitely interested in playing again.

After that, played some Outburst with the combined group. We’ve misplaced our “regular” Outburst box, and the estate sale copy of Outburst II I picked up for $2 last week was missing some pieces (and had a pretty lame way of tracking the correct guesses). Pulled out our Outburst Ultimate (or whatever it is) edition and used those cards/holder (which are, of course, in a completely different format). Need to find that green Outburst box …

Boys beat the girls, barely. The boys got a strong initial start, but a couple of zonker categories (Howard Stern? Men’s Fashion Designers?) gave the ladies a chance at victory.

After Jackie and Justin (and Kaylee!) left, we ordered Chinese and then played Strange Synergy. Another Foglio-illustrated Steve Jackson game, this is much more of a mock combat simulator. You command a squad of three, each of whom you’ve assigned three of the randomly-drawn powers / gadgets / mutations / etc. you are dealt at the beginning (in addition to a team power. The idea is that every game will be very different because of the zillions of different power combos.

The game was fun, if (initially) slow. We played about an hour and a half or two hours, and were probably about two-thirds done when we finished. It has a bit of a Cosmic Encounters feel, with some powers changing the rules only to be thwarted by other powers that change them in another fashion (often-times in secret until revealed). The game uses an amusing “stick the little cardboard flag into the top or sides of the figurine” way of showing weapons and status.

Less madcap beer-and-pretzels than SPANC, the mechanics are of a similar complexity. The goal is to get back your flag, as well as a “mystery” flag you choose beforehand. The only way to get flags back (though I’m sure there are some powers that affect this) is to defeat the person carrying it, then picking it up.

The game requires cunning as well as deliberate patience. The turn nature of it and various restrictions on movement and action (everything is at right angles, no diagonals for the most part) gives it a very chess-like nature, and keeps the action somewhat restrained. The highly random nature of results (most rolls require a 4-6 on 1d6) paradoxically adds a large element of chaos to a game that screams planning, perhaps too much so.

As I said, we hung it up around 10 p.m. or so, not yet finished. I’d like to get back to it again some time, but it’s definitely something more suitable to a mental challenge frame of mind than a “let’s have fun” one. That the game has a Yahoo! group devoted to it and rules questions (we goofed on targeting an invisible character with ranged weapons, btw) and strategy discussions and how to PBEM it and the like is a good sign that it’s a serious endeavor, albeit with a bit of amusing Foglio art.

Which raises an amusing comment I made to Margie last night as we were headed to bed. She actually excels at games like Strange Synergy which require strategy and planning. She’ll be the first person to tell you that she’s a planner at heart. If she were the sort that enjoyed that sort of thing, she’d be one kick-ass wargamer, or chess player — or, to pick at an old wound of hers, Risk player. She would surely kick my butt at them. A pity (or perhaps a blessing) that she’s just not into those sorts of games.