Kublacon 2007

Just came back from this year's con.

This was certainly an unusual one in some regards, not the least of which being that I played only board games. Not a single RPG in sight. Of course, this also implies one huge disappointment, but more on that later.

For this con I had joined forces, so to speak, with my friend and former bridge partner Ilan who decided to attend this year after a bit of cajoling. Considering he came from New York, that was a truly happy surprise. He checked in thursday night, while I got to the hotel friday and stayed with him till monday. No mucking about this year; we stayed at the Hyatt the whole weekend, and there is no question that this is the correct way to do things.

I arrived around 11AM friday, with a car full of games - over 40 of them in fact. Many were true and tried favorites, like Puerto Rico and Ra, and many were games I had owned for ages and have been hoping to get a chance to play. Last year I did the same and had barely played anything, so it seemed more wishful thinking than anything. Little did I know at the time that I will get to play many new games, rediscover a game I had written off previously, meet some truly fabulous people, and have an absolutely grand ol' time.

I met Ilan at the lobby, got the stuff up to the room, went down to the lobby, and pulled out Jambo to pass the time until registration. Played two quick games - we both play the game well enough that the first player advantage ends up being quite significant, so we each won one. I asked the people at the desk when we could pick up our badges, they said "in a minute", then got upset with me when I stayed and hovered. Why the heck did you say "in a minute" then? why not "in 30 minutes"?

Anyway, we gave up on the badges and went across the street for lunch. Had a great conversation, walked back, picked up our badges, and went upstairs to the boardgaming area to sign up for games. We signed up for a bunch, including overlaps; the Kublacon system of registration for boardgames frankly kinda sucks, as it basically makes it an absolute requirement to sign up in the first hour after they open registration to have a chance to play, and then you HAVE to put in overlaps in case you miss out on the shuffler. Planning is practically impossible.

We then went down to the open gaming area and almost immediately hooked up with Gino and Lori, and a friend of theirs (I think Gene). We ended up spending much of the weekend with these folks, as they proved to be entertaining, kind, smart and just plain fun to be around. I hope to see much more of Gino and Lori in the future. In any case, we started with a full game of Amun Re, which went down extremely well, and proceeded with 5-player Power Grid, which also played fantastically, and ended in a 3-way tie-breaker (Ilan won with 190 electro, I came in second with 185, Gino with 172, proving for the second time in a row just how quick on the uptake he really is by being a real contender to win both games having never played them before).

We broke off for dinner, then made our way to play Ilan's "must play" scheduled event, Age of Renaissance. The rules were explained in such a manner as to bore me to death; I then received France as my country with a very vague idea of what was going on. I got a metal card to begin with, so I went after the two metals near to Paris using a Caravan, taking them both, but getting kicked out of the southern one by a lucky roll (less than 40% chance) made by Genoa. Fair enough; on my next turn I bid enough tokens to make two shots at it, was earlier to play than Genoa - and failed both. I then failed a fourth roll that I should have statistically made, and by the end of round 2, the results of these 4 unlucky rolls (cumulative chance of not making any one of them much less than 5%) had me essentially out of the game. 45 minutes in to an 8 hour game.

Well, I tried my best to stay awake but having lost interest, I could barely fight tiredness, and around 12:30, quit the game after making sure there was a mechanism to do so (indeed, France's misery level simply went to maximum) without impacting the game itself. I suspected it would take at least 4 more hours to play, and I was proven right, as Ilan came into the room after 5AM. I learned later that he finished second. I won't be playing AoR again.

Next morning I went down to catch one of the two games I signed up for. Ilan was sleeping off AoR, so I was alone. My inclination was to go with Age of Steam, one of my top favorites, but then I met Gino, and we caught sight of the hand-made huge Game of Thrones, Feast of Crows board that was set up in the lobby area. I had signed both Ilan and I up for this one, so I asked the moderator if I could swap Ilan's place with Gino; he agreed, and we stayed, but eventually simply played together as a team.

I love Game of Thrones, but a 9-player game of it is quite different. Firstly, some players never really deal with each other; for example, Baratheon and Stark. Second, the game is bound to be won by a blitz by someone, as it is extremely difficult for everyone to always pay attention to everyone else's potential of acquiring six strongholds. Still, the game is as fun as ever, and our house Greyjoy was threatening to win after taking over Winterfell and pretty much all of Stark's lands, when the dog Lannister broke our treaty and stabbed us in the back, only to have Tully win the game immediately thereafter with a blitz that took Lannister by surprise. Lannister always pays his debts...

Great game, that. Gino and I went to our rooms, and I found Ilan had woken up by that time and was getting ready. I went back down, and was walking around the atrium when I stumbled upon Gino and Lori having lunch; they invited us to sit over with them, which we happily did. The conversation solidified to me just how much I liked these folks, and I consider myself lucky to have met them.

We went back down and played a 5-player Princes of Florence based on a request from Gino. I have never played a full game of PoF, and it is quite different, as bids escalate far more quickly and cashflow management becomes much more important. Of course, this plays into my strengths, and I'm pretty good at PoF anyway, so I won in a landslide, scoring somewhere in the high 70's as the other four ended with a 3-point spread (low 47 high 50).

We broke up and Ilan and two of his friends, Nate and Tom, had me join a game of Mu & Mehr. We played a "full round", but I didn't like it. It had too many "bridge elements", while being just too confusing to me. I then brought out my cherished copy of Union Pacific.

Now here is a game that is a holy grail for many people. I had it in shrink for a long while, and a couple of times had almost sold or traded it; people will pay insane money for this one. But I kept it, and boy, am I glad I did. It's a terrific game, worth every compliment paid upon it. It's like Ticket to Ride merged with Acquire on steroids. Terrific. I also surprised myself and the others by winning the game with 123 points.

As an anecdote, when I broke off the shrink I made the comment that because of this game's status, just my action in breaking the shrink off caused it to lose enough value as to be worth two other games... so it had better be good. I'm glad to say it certainly was.

We also played Citadels - a great game which I had been wanting to learn for a long while. I had the win in my hands, but my imperfect understanding of a couple of the rules resulted in my handing the win to another player. I had 7 districts and enough money to build my 8th, which was also the last color I needed (blue). When I received the role cards, the thief was still there. Had I simply picked the thief, I would have been able to build the last district and end the game. As it was, I picked the king, not realize that the magician could swap cards with any PLAYER, not ROLE. Gino who had the magician swapped with me, and the random card I drew was a red district. I ended the game anyway, but with the 3-point district bonus I would have won 34-33. As it was, it ended 33-31.

We then played Colosseum, together with Chris Allen and the couple who played Lannister and Stark in the GoT game earlier. Before the game started I introduced Chris to Gino and his friends as they are big Arkham fans. The price of being famous... anyway, we played Colosseum, which turned out to be a somewhat more streamlined version of Caylus, but still every bit as dry. I didn't enjoy it even as I ended second, with Lannister ending first in a landslide.

Sunday morning was a lazy, and I taught Ilan Blue Moon. For some reason he just didn't "click" with the game, and couldn't figure out how to win. We played three times, then met Lori; she went and got Gino and we went for lunch at Max's. I had matzohball soup and a chopped liver sandwich and felt right at home... we went back to the con and Lori went with us as Gino sat down to play Warmaster. We three went and sat down for a demo of Succession: Intrigue in the Royal Court, which I had bought recently but never played. What a fun game! The mechanics are certainly somewhat warped, but as long as it isn't taken too seriously, this is a truly fun and engaging social game that I am definitely going to spring on some friends. Get it while you can; this guy won't see a reprint and they are clearing out inventory.

Ilan and I played a quick Jambo and then a 6-player Alhambra. Oh. My. GOD. This game is SO different with 6 players than it is with 2 to 4, that it almost feels new. I think Ilan won, but it was so chaotic I barely kept track with what was going on.

Then came my biggest disappointment of the con. When I signed up, I had signed up for only a single event: Dreams of Dierdre's I'll be in my Bunk. After last year's Lockdown, I was looking forward to this one, and had been building my anticipation for it for at least 10 months.

Well, shuffler didn't pick me, but I did put my name as third on the alternate list. That should have guaranteed me a spot, or so I thought.

Only when I made it to the event room did I find out that they had put out a DIFFERENT alternate list, which was the "official" one, which didn't include my name... and so, even though they had 60 characters in play, I wasn't one of them. I felt badly shafted, as if I was being punished for not following a process that wasn't clear, and instead following another process which seemed to be both clear and obvious and had the benefit of having worked "that way" in the past. In my opinion, the folks at DoD should have respected both alternate lists, reading names one at a time from each list, instead of simply ignoring one of them.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, and I made my way despondently to the open game room, where I ran into Kerin and Dava and Jon, who are part of the local Vallejo gaming scene. Kerin, Gino and I played a quick game of Gnome Crystals, and then turned to play Vegas Showdown, one of my favorites. Everybody enjoyed it, and I thought I had it nailed down as I manipulated the game to guarantee that I received the theater at the last turn.

Well, it turned out not to be the last turn; with three premier tile draws, and neither a small NOR a big building available, Tom managed to draw three mediums. That was enough for him to place a final fancy restaurant, which also completed a diamond and a 3/4 diamond, netting him six points and allowing him to win by 2. Great game, enjoyed by all.

After much debate about what to play next, Ilan offered Shadows over Camelot. While I had not enjoyed much the one time I had played this before, I wanted to play SOMETHING, and this was better than just continuing the debate. So we sat to play that, and oh boy, did my appreciation for this game grow! I really enjoyed the ebb and flow of the battle between dark and light, and although the game ended somewhat randomly (Tom the winner again as the traitor), the experience was quite enjoyable. At this point I want to play this a couple more times and see if my first or second experience was the more typical, and then potentially hunt down a copy depending on the results. But it goes to show, sometimes one playing does not do a game justice.

Monday morning started a bit late, and we ended up playing Alhambra with Kerin, Dava and Jon before splitting. Jon destroyed us, playing his first game absolutely brilliantly, running into the lead with a 9-point wall before the first scoring round and never looking back.

Overall, other than the bitter disappointment over being excluded from "I'll be in my bunk", this was a highly enjoyable con, and next year I will most likely repeat the experience of focusing only on board games. I also think to avoid the same disappointment I will simply not even attempt to sign up for whatever Dreams of Dierdre will be running; while I love what they do, I just don't want to even have the chance to go through something like this fiasco again. And if it seems like I'm blabbing about it far too much, consider that improv is my secret passion, one that I never get to indulge except during this particular annual event, that I had been secretly building my own excitement about this for close to a year now, and that I had cared for that one thing alone in the whole con before attending. And I'm no slouch either; last year I won the "best player" award voted on by the participants. And several years back, the only other time I did something along these lines although it wasn't a LARP, I also won the "best actress" award (don't ask). So I do think I contribute to everybody else's experience of these events in a valuable way. I guess I'll just have to figure out another outlet for my passion.