Boulder Dude

This weekend was the Big 12th night and 13th night party at the Consortium. Margie did a wonderful job on the food, with the Ceviche Shrimp being my fave for the night.

Showed up early to help out on setting up of foody bits…something that MK makes seem so darn easy to do when there are 25 to 40 people invited.

This was the first time that the geeks weren’t all herded off to the hinterlands of the Loft, Living Room or Garage as has been the case for the past 12th nights….mostly because there were only about half as many geeks as in past years. This was great since we could be geeky right next to the food and have people wander in and out of the conversations about games, movies and travel….and actually participate in the geekiness.

What a concept. ;P

One sign of a good social gathering is that there are folks that you wish you had talked to earlier…and you find this out just as they are leaving. Such was the case of a History Teacher from a High School in Aurora who is doing a History version of an E-days (Engineering Days) local/State/National competition.

Also fun was a Friend of Dave’s that lives in Boulder and works for the Open Space Department. Much Boulderisms were discussed. The conversation then veered off into the scary side of MMORPG’s, teen age daughters and the state of the world as it is in RL and on-line.

Great food (And Dave picked out a beer called Red Menace for me. ;P ) and drink and home for resting up for 13th night of gaming!

Showed up late, but before everyone else. kibbitzing and noshing with Dave and Margie until Randy showed up…and then some more kibbitzing and noshing hoping that more of the invitees would show. After about two hours it was decided that this was it and we broke out Dave’s Christmas gift….every expansion of Settlers of Catan.

I was unsure of this since Knights and Cities added nothing to the game and slowed down the game play immensely, so the sea/pirates version was decided upon.

And…

And…

Well, I am use to playing a full game with 5 or 6 people in 15-30 minutes using the Island variation and it took 2.5 hours to do playing the sea/pirates version. Partly because it took a long time to set up and figure out what the new bits added, and the other part was because, like Knights and Cities it adds nothing to the game play and slows the game way down. One thing that I think that could help out the game a lot would be to have random number placement, and to have the Desert in the middle of the configuration like normal. Basically all Pirates/Sea is, is an attempt to make money off of the Islands variation of Catan without any added value.

Next up, Kitten wanted to play a party game that she had been eyeing since we got to the Consortium called Turbo Cranium. It is an amusing game, and it needs at least 6 to play, so we had the bare minimum. Some fun stuff and I think it would be better to play while feeling no pain.

There was a mini gift exchange for those present in between games, and back home for sleeping and getting ready for work the next day.

P.S. One thing that I noticed in playing Catan with different folks than I am used to playing with is that the Thief was played differently. In the group that I normal play with The Thief is only used on the person in the lead, and that early in the game (Early in the game being any time under 5 victory points) if it is played on anyone, the person playing it gets taken out by having it placed constantly on their tiles for having been a asshat meany head by not putting it on an empty tile instead. Kind of Gaming M.A.D. in that playing the Thief too early means you get taken out by everyone else playing the thief on you until someone breaks from the pack and starts winning.

This could also be why the games go quickly since resources come early and often.