A relaxing afternoon in Berkeley

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Spent the afternoon and evening with CC and some friends of his in Berkeley at the friend's house. We kicked off Pirateer, CC's favorite starter game. I forget who won, doesn't even matter.

We then went to CAH, a game I'm not all that enchanted with, but everyone else likes it so I played along, hopefully fairly nicely.

Pandemic was next up. I'd played this with CC once before, many years ago. We played the 4 epidemic deck, and squeaked out a win. I'm torn on how to bring people into this game. On the one hand, making it too hard risks alienating people from it. On the other hand, if it's too easy, some people are likely to get bored and not want to play it again. The case for bored is what happened with some other friends with Flash Point.

We finished out with 6 Nimmt! This time CC got skunked, and I finished second of four places, by just a little bit.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.