The joys of auto-decapitation

[avram]

Gaming today, a short CthulhuPunk session, just a couple of hours, partly because we’d all been up till 5 AM or so the previous night. We wrapped up a long-standing plot thread, tricking one of the campaign’s major ongoing villains into cutting his own head off. “Suddenly he’s playing RuneQuest!” sez I.

Then we played a boardgame, Puerto Rico, amazingly cool. Lots of simple yet inter-related resource management. I recognized many of the features from other games, but Puerto Rico introduced new wrinkles that made them more interesting. For example, Verräter (one of my favorite games, I wish I could find my copy) is an example of a game where each player chooses one ability that he gets to use each turn, but in Puerto Rico, you choose an ability that everyone gets to use, but you use it first and with some special bonus or twist.

Josh and Matt had an advantage from playing it before, at Games Club last night. They’d already started by the time I got there, and I wound up not playing anything, just socializing. Which I really ought to do more of, since my natural tendency is to just be a hermit most of the time.

Oh, the socializing did give me another comic book idea. It’s sort of a cross between Highlander and The Family Circus.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Somewhere the campaign's major ongoing villain's mom is going "See? I told you you'd go blind if you kept that up! But did you listen? No! No one ever listens to me. Just because I'm a campaign's major ongoing villain's mom everyone thinks they can just roll their eyes and walk away."

Etc.

Chris says Viva Borinquen!

[(Anonymous)]

Which is Long Live Puerto Rico in Spanish. I must see this game that relates so directly to my heritage one of these days.

And I'm so glad you're talking about someone else cutting his head off! I was afraid you'd had a shaving mishap or something. Don't go all dying on me, OK? You're too cute to be pulling that crap.

Re: Chris says Viva Borinquen!

[(Anonymous)]

I'd love to have you join us for a game of Puerto Rico, but it doesn't have a lot to do with the island. (Or it didn't seem to.) I thought of a designing a game that was *really* about Puerto Rico, where one person plays the Education Commissioner and tries to force everyone to learn English. It'd be a different game, though.
Viva Borinquen,
Matt

"Borinquen"?

[avram]

What? I thought "Puerto Rico" was Spanish for Puerto Rico. What's the deal?

Re: "Borinquen"?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, OK, Borinquen is actually the native Arawak/Taino Indian name for PR, but it's often used as an alternative/poetic name by us paisanos. Kinda like Columbia as alternative name for the US, but with more justification.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

A cross between Highlander and Family Circus, eh? So kind of like the early-late portion of the Highlander TV series, then?

It's Chris again

[(Anonymous)]

Highlander crossed with the Family Circus??

There can be only one -- Not Me!