Andre has a red flag, Chiang Ching's is blue

[venta]

OK, you people know Stuff about Things. Please can you help me out?

Every year I have a huge struggle trying to find something for a couple of my best friends for Christmas. I'm not entirely sure why, but I find it impossible to gauge their tastes accurately, and have ended up with some fairly limp presents of late.

They're big boardgamers, and I've always avoided that because I'm not very well-informed on the topic. I love games, but they don't seem to happen much in my life at the moment. The last time I felt I had my finger on the pulse, Settlers of Catan was big news.

So, I'd like recommendations of things to give a couple of hard-core boardgamers for Christmas this year. I'm really quite unsure what games they already have stashed round their house, so I think it probably needs to be something quite new, or something quite obscure, to be certain of not giving them something they're already familiar with.

I think they already have all the Arkham Horror expansion packs in the world (ditto Carcassonne). I've played Tales of the Arabian Nights, Shadows Over Camelot, Robo Rally and some other Greek-myth-based game (whose name I forget) with them in recent years. Also Apples To Apples, which one of them described as "what you play while you're waiting for enough people to show up to play a game".

I think they also play a lot of the more traditional games like chess, Go, backgammon and Othello. And poker. Lots of poker.

Any advice or recommendations gratefully accepted.

PS beckyl, if you're thinking "why don't you just come in to the shop and ask me this?", then I shall probably be doing exactly that on the way home this evening :)

Comments

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I guess from the remark about Apples to Apples that they like proper games and not vaguely game-ish diversions, and beware that some of the list above are in the latter category.

Cthulhu Fluxx is the game that's been trying to get written in previous Fluxxes. I rather like it, and would try it even with people who aren't wild keen on Fluxx. It's become our standard Nerdvana beer-and-pretzels game.

Clare and I rather enjoyed 1805: Sea of Glory, but this really is a hardcore game for the sort of people who have old copies of Star Fleet Battles lying about the place.

If they like beer in their beer-and-pretzels, Family Business, and tell them the alcoholic rules.

Lord of the Fries is my favourite of the old Cheapass games, if still available. If they're filthy goths they might be amused by Gother Than Thou.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hang on a minute, I don't know the alcoholic rules for Family Business...

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Really? Clearly I should bring my set to Whitby.

Each player needs a distinct set of counters, like those little glass beads all Tragic players have. The counters are there to track who is responsible for a lobster's death.

Every time you send a lobster to the hit list, put a counter on them. Every time a lobster is shot, the owner drinks in their memory. Anyone with a counter on them also drinks, because they got the bastard. If a lobster is removed from the hitlist, remove all counters from them.

Responsibility can be shared. In the event of a Substitution, the player playing the card adds a counter to the lobster, but does not remove the existing counter. When Mob Power is played, both the Contract player and the Mob Power player put a counter on the lobster - this will likely result in the Contract player taking two drinks.

Normally you are encouraged to sip. However, when the Finger card is played, both players involved should drink one finger immediately - the Fingering player also puts a counter on the lobster.

You can never have two counters from the same player on a single lobster.

Effects that kill lobsters directly are special. In the event of the Hit, counters on the victim are ignored - the victim did not have to be on the hitlist for the Hit to be effective. The lobster placed on the hitlist after the Hit gets a counter from the Hitting player. However, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre causes the player who played it to take one drink for each death as well as all drinks for the owners of the lobsters and the counters - counters are not ignored because the victims had to be on the hitlist to be killed.

We believe the worst possible case is for 102 drinks to be taken as the result of a St. Valentine's Day Massacre, 42 by the player playing the card. In practice the worst it gets is Double Cross -> Vendetta -> St. Val's which is "only" about 16 drinks for the St. Val's player.

[venta.livejournal.com]

... blimey.

If I tell you that I honestly don't think we ever called them lobsters, either, you're not going to believe I've ever played this game, are you? At least, I don't think we did. It's been more than a decade since I've played it...

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Nah, my group's just odd like that.

Oh, I forgot. Optionally, if you usually exclaim "BANG!" when a lobster dies, there is a penalty drink for forgetting that the correct expression is "GLUG!".