AP and BSG: Fuck shit balls

Have you seen the size of my brain yet?

Gary Sax wrote:

Have you seen the size of my brain yet?

I'm trying to, but it's all covered in latex and lube

I'm usually fairly tolerant of people with AP because I'll then just happily shoot the breeze with the others at the table. But, not too long ago I got stuck in a game of Journey to the Center of the Earth (an easy, EASY eurogame) that took 2.5 FREAKING HOURS. I think it was the closest I've ever come to losing my temper in a game. It didn't help that we (the other players and I) had to keep explaining the rules over and over again to the AP player.

My old game group used to actually have a game of something else going on the side during a game that encouraged AP. The push-your-luck game Exxtra was a popular choice for this. I never really liked doing that, however. It was part of the how-many-eurogames-can-we-cram-into-one-night mentality. I'd now rather spend a leisurely afternoon playing Descent like I did this past weekends. So what if it only counts as one logged play at BGG. Jeezus, I've come a long way.

Once I discover that I'm playing a game with an AP player, I'm done playing games with him. I will finish out that game, if there is time, but that is the last time I will play with him. AP players are selfish assholes who will happily ruin a game for everybody else for a slightly better chance of winning a game. They are also insecure people, worried that everybody will know they are stupid if they lose, so they play slowly, carefully and joylessly, hoping to win against anyway.

Last night, I finally got to play Android. I had studied the rules carefully, and even had the game partially set up before the other four players got there. It took us 45 minutes to go over all the rules and finish setting up the game. And then it took us 4 hours to play halfway through the game. It was a smart group of players, experienced at playing the most complex CCG that's still in print (Jyhad), and maybe an hour of the game was wasted on people getting hung up on rules questions, and insisting that we look them up instead of relying on my pretty good memory.

But one guy started drifting into AP, and that really cost us, because he got slower as the night wore on. Finally, I hit on an idea that put a fire under his ass... I told the other players that I was going to draw dark cards only from the slowest player's deck. Not only did everybody else jump on the idea and give the AP guy a really nasty turn, but some of those dark cards reduce Time significantly, so we were able to mechanically reduce the length of the AP guy's turns, speeding up the game. Unfortunately, the damage was already done, so we cut the game short at 1:00 AM, after about 4.5 hours and 7 turns. I still need to play more before I'm ready to review Android, but I can already say this... everybody loved Android except for the AP guy.

Interesting... do put your Android review on F:AT also.

billyz wrote:

I honestly believe that AP is a direct byproduct some people thinking that if they lose a game it means that they're stupid

Amen to that. Wargames are the worst for that. As far as I'm concerned if you're not playing for money you need to stop giving a damn.

We used to have a tradition in my group where if a guy took too long to make his move, someone would start singing Pop Goes the Weasel. Every time the word "pop" came up in the song the guy to his left got to punch him in the arm as hard as he could. That generally shortened the move a bit.

Sag.

Oh, I definitely don't mind shooting the shit and just kind of ambling through a game...but that guy that sits there and serves as a chokepoint for the whole table since he obviously thinks that his decision is so important that it's worth wasting 2-4 other people's time, fuck him.

Last night at the Game Fest we played a big WORLD CUP GAME tournament...it's usually really quick, but we goofed off and chit-chatted through the whole thing and it went like 90 minutes. I didn't care, the game is light enough that it encourages a couple of a beers, ribald anecdotes, and ragging on Robert Martin. But we didn't have a single beard-scratcher at the table, that would have totally changed the dynamic.

That is a long game of Android. Our first game was 2hrs 45minutes. Every game since then (7 or so) has been between 2.5 hours and 3 hours.

I have been thinking of writing a review, but have yet to have the time. Overall, I like it; however, I can definitely see how it could annoy some. Also, there are some subtelties that I think come out as you play it more and more that make it more interesting.

Am I the only person who hasn't played Android?

I'll add a positive spin to this thread .... me and my main gaming mate at our small club decided (after getting pissed around by people coming and going on our game nights) to have a 2-player night only so we brought in War of the Ring. Disregarding the 30min to set up and read a few of the rules again (we've only played it twice each and not against each other) we got into it and it was a great/fun game (excusing my tactical blunders as Sauron) and ended up either of us could have won on the final turn - I had 4 dice to roll on my turn to get a six, and after that failed I had a 1 in 7 chance of pulling a tile to complete the corruption on the last step of Mt Doom ... but those hairy short-arses won. But we finished it in 3.5 hrs which I think was pretty damn good for a couple of only mildly experienced guys.

There are a couple of guys with AP in my old euro group and that was one of the reasons euros just lost all their fun to me - they are dry and bland enough already without spending so much downtime watching people think.

I haven't played android yet. I don't like what I have read in reviews, it looks like a lot of needless abstracted mechanics to generated VPs pasted to a deep story driven game. I don't think it looks terrible, but I'm not shelling out the money just yet...

Southernman wrote:

But we finished it in 3.5 hrs which I think was pretty damn good for a couple of only mildly experienced guys.

That chimes with my experience playing the game face-to-face as well. I'd played once before via email and my opponent had never played. Including set-up and teaching time the game took 4 hours total. Our game sounded similar as well, coming down to a last-minute corruption die roll as the fellowship toiled up Mount Doom with the forces of goodness (played by my opponent) taking the win. We played one rule wrong though, forgetting to add corruption for the fellowship passing through shadow strongholds.

One of these days I might get round to "dipping" my WotR figures. It's an old technique I learned whilst a miniatures gamer and it might be worth a try for speed-painting the WotR pieces with much, much better results than a flat spray-paint. Essentially you do the spray-paint job then mix up a tub of a darker shade of the same colour, add a few drops of household cleaner (not all brands will work) to disrupt the surface tension and dip in your sprayed models. The disrupted paint will flow neatly into the recesses on the model and hey presto - instant shading.

Oh, and I've never played Android either. And I doubt I ever will.