Sunday, March 12, 2006

February Gaming at the JSGC

Again, a very busy month of new games brought by our enthusiastic new member Binyamin. But stranger than that was our first session of roleplaying. I wrote a long session report which you can view on the JSGC website, along with all of our other session reports.

http://www.freewebs.com/jergames/reports.html

As usual, the below represents only those games played at the club, and not my own gaming.

AD&D 2nd edition (and preparatory sessions): rolling up characters and going over rules, followed by a long game session. We played with too many people, which made it a little noisy and occasionally some boredom. However, even with all of that, it was enjoyable. Even when you are not swinging, you usually have something to do or something to research or something to pay attention to. We played 2nd edition because I refuse to play 3rd.

Bohnanza: I had traded this game away a long time ago because I didn't find it to be enjoyable with grown-ups, only with kids. I should have kept it for that reason, but I don't really miss it. Binyamin bought it anyway and figured out the same thing.

Clans: I didn't play it, but I heard good things about it.

Geschenkt x 2: Binyamin brought a live copy of this, although I usually play on a mockup. Very nice filler.

Goa: And he also bought this, even though my copy is currently traded to a Tel Aviv group in exchange for a host of other games that they don't like as much. I still don't like it that much. Most of the other players disagree with me on this, except for a) the flipping for colonies, which they all agree (as far as I know) is a bad idea. We just add 4 to your attempt to found a colony. and b) we pick two cards and keep one. I kind of hate card mechanics like this.

Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation x 2: Can't help it. I've grown to like it a lot.

Maharaja: I like it slightly more than the other players. It's got so many nice planning mechanics and strategies. And it's so much like El Grande. However, it's one of those games that seems to dwindle out rather than finish properly. Some guy pulls ahead, and that's it. We have a lot more playing to do to see if there is something we can do about that, however.

Power Grid x 2: Despite this having a similar dwindling endgame, the dwindling happens only towards the last or second to last round and it takes a long time to get there. Our group loves the game, and so do I.

Puerto Rico: The classic.

San Marco x 2: A game that I just get. And pretty good, too. Other agree, I believe.

Settlers of Catan: The other classic.

Ticket to Ride: We thought this game was a bit too lightweight for us. Maybe we're playing it too nicely. And surely we would have thought differently if it were our first Eurogame. I'm still happy to play again, in any case.

Yehuda

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