Pax Pamir 2nd Edition

Gary Sax wrote: "All you can do is nudge the whirring contraption in your direction and ride the situation like a hapless stooge atop a thrashing bull."

The reprint of this is up on kickstarter, by the way:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1243243962/...r-reprint?ref=eh0nj3

I'll say that my enjoyment of this remains quite high, a little below Pax Renaissance but higher than most games. There's a lot of game in these small Pax packages.

Glad to talk about it or answer questions if anyone is thinking about getting the reprint.

I... I... I'm tempted by the coins now that I now that I know it's in my permanent collection. Kill me.

Promptly report to the "what am I resisting" thread for re-education.

Oddly enough, I think this one will work for us (@ 3 players). Not resisting.

It works well with 3, but you miss the alliance dynamics. On the other hand, Pax games are much more predictable/strategic with 3. With 2 actions and 5 players it's incredibly tactical, no way to know what the board state will look like when it comes back to you.

I find it fantastic with 3.

Fuck you all, I bought the fucking coins and minor minor non-gameplay affecting upgrade kit.

Still waffling here, but trending towards it.

Clearly a forever shelf game.

It helps (me justify myself) that thing is already fucking gorgeous.

Aaaaaaaarghhhh.

spacebiff.com/2020/06/29/talking-games-9/

Great post on this game and its themes by Dan Thurot.

What does this have to do with the game’s setting? Everything. And to Eklund’s credit, his own calling-out of some of Britain’s bad behavior in India often goes missing from the discussion, whether thanks to the structure of his essay — there’s a reason your thesis should be stated up front — or the aspersions readers cast upon anything that seems pro-colonialism. Pax Pamir is not set in India; its topic is Afghanistan, which Eklund emphasizes was a buffer state between warring empires. As dismal as colonialism proved for those who existed outside its power structures, Eklund asserts that “Afghanistan’s legacy as a plaything of superpowers has left it as one of the world’s worst places to live.” Unlike Britain’s colonies, to which they owed at least the appearance of responsibility, both Britain and Russia approached Afghanistan with an attitude that was all take, no give.

In other words, fertile soil for Pax Pamir, a game about eking out survival as a chieftain teetering between forces too large to care about their wellbeing. As framing, this casts Pax Pamir in two very different ways. The first is a work of apologetics for the failures of empire and colonialism; unfortunately, this is what many people took from Eklund’s essay, withering their interest in the game before they had a chance to actually experience it. The second is comparative and hardly even controversial, although it’s still principally interested in the story from the perspective of empire than the indigenous: better British colonial rule than Spanish or Belgian, and certainly better than being relegated to a buffer state and having your soil churned as a playground of empires.

The interesting thing for me is the amount of people who kick off over Eklund's essay without having read it. Afghanistan stands apart in that it's a country in which colonialism failed, nor does it seem it was really used as a buffer state (British attempts failed, the Russians never really tried). Pax Pamir 2e is particularly good for pointing out any imperial victory is suborned and becomes a local one.

PP is also notable for having a treatment of multifactionality that should be standard; that is, it allows people to change sides.

spacebiff.com/2020/06/18/sbbs-5-cole-wehrle/ - the Space-Biff! podcast with Wehrle was excellent.

Yeah, I dunno. Like Dan says, an opening thesis is pretty crucial. It begins there, and so, the biggest issue with the essay (which I just read again in full) is that it doesn't address the subject matter of the game. Which I suppose is what Dan and Cole have both said - that the thesis/argument of the game is something different - it's not about Colonialism. Afghanistan wasn't colonised, so, what are we talking about exactly - why isn't there "In Defense of Russian Expansionism?" and "In defense of Afghan Nationalism?" to partner the British side? As Dan also points out, there are some pretty big holes in Phil's acknowledgement of the downsides, too. It's just incongruous with what's going on in the game.

I got my update kit on this thing (2nd edition). The control tokens are way better and I splurged and got the coins which are nice too. The funniest part of the whole thing is the "errata" which as far as I can see are simply some updated historical facts where Cole found something wrong in the historical flavor or typos in the historical flavor. Phd in history problems.

Would love to play a TTS game of this again, any player number. Let me know if you want to schedule something.

Went into the FLG(comic)S today and was talking with the owner about this very game, since we both love it, but it's kind of a hard sell with people we know since it's such a thinker and, if you don't know the history, the theme isn't much of a draw, either. But it's still brilliant. Yeah, we should try to set up a TTS game again, at some point.