Next weekend (March 28-30) will see me at Enlightenment XI, a weekend-long convention devoted to Age of Renaissance and Manifest Destiny.

In order to get in the spirit of things, Carrie and I went over to Vienna to play a game of Manifest Destiny. In theory, I was going to play, and Carrie was going to watch and learn. When we got there, Bill Crenshaw (the game designer) and Greg Stripes (a former champion) badgered Carrie to play, so that there would be 4 players. Reluctantly, she agreed, and play commenced. I have played Manifest Destiny once, and Carrie had never played before, so neither of us knew the rules, much less the strategy. At the end of the game, Carrie had won, followed by Bill, myself, and Greg.

At this point Carrie announced that, having beaten the game designer and the reigning(?) champion, she was going to resign, undefeated, from playing Manifest Destiny.

Karl Musser runs the more-or-less monthly annual Brunswick Games Day. BGD is what I would call a self-organizing event. Karl has a sweet deal with the town of Brunswick, MD whereby he gets the use of function space for free once a month year, as long the event is non-commercial, and he advertises that it's sponsored by the town. The space is roughly 100x40 feet, with fold-up tables and chairs. He has a game library that he brings, and then people just show up. People show up, bring out a table and chairs if needed, and start playing games. Towards the end of the day, people start putting away extra tables and chairs, and policing the area. Karl's nominally in charge, but has such a deft touch that everything 'just happens' without appearing to need his direction.

A lot of the Ludans have been going to BGD for a long time; today was my first time. I got there somewhat after noon, and things were already in swing. Grayhawk, B, and F were there, as were Brian and Lije. A couple of people were running a snacks table as a 'please donate' for a kid who's doing an exchange trip to Europe next year. There was a square of tables set up for an RPG, with more than a dozen people playing. Everyone there was involved in a game, and the tables were all full, so I setup another table and sat down. While I was doing that, Bruce and Cheryl appeared. Within moments, it seemed, I was teaching Cheryl and two other people to play Ticket To Ride. I didn't win, but everyone had fun, so I count it a success.

After a short break I pulled out Power Grid and ended up playing a 4-player game on the USA map with Grayhawk and two new players: Ethan and Mary Ann. After a slow start (4 plant the first turn, but nothing worth bidding on for turns 2 and 3), I acquired the 15, 25 and 30 plants, and eventually added the 40 plant. I won by powering 17 cities, when no one else could power more than 16.

Somewhere in there, Tony and Dana appeared, followed by Sallie and Dave. Brian and Lije had recently purchased Khronos so we sat down and learned to play with Tony and Dana. I ended up going first, and everyone else learned from my mistakes ... <grin> Still, it was an interesting game and I'll probably buy it.

Brian spent a lot of time teaching people to play Race for the Galaxy, and we played two games. I did better in the first game than in the second, but still lost both games -- not unexpected. I'll probably buy this one as well.

By this point, it was getting late so we helped strike tables and clean up. While we were playing Khronos, some folks borrowed my Power Grid set. They ended up being the last game, and it ended around 11:30, so there was a mad rush to clean that up before the Brunswick Police kicked us out. I'll probably keep going back, schedule permitting.

I got a lot of comments about the Flying Buffalo Box Bands that I use on some of my games to keep them from opening up at inconvenient times. They're available in small, medium, and large, and they're reasonably priced: 6 for $5. If you haven't seen them, they're 4-way rubber bands that slip over all 4 edges of a game box at once.

EDIT: Corrected -- The full up BGD is annual, not monthly.

There was a nice article in the Baltimore Sun last week; I happened across the AP version and thought I'd mention it. It's about a Maryland gamer, John Goon, who's setting up gaming clubs in the region.

Read the rest of this entry »

Enlightenment XI

March 28–30, 2008, Days Hotel, Timonium, MD

Age of Renaissance and Manifest Destiny

The Boardgame Players' Association is pleased to announce the 11th annual meeting of its Age of Renaissance mini-con gaming conference. Coming off its smallest attendance ever in 2007, Enlightenment will go to a new format in its effort to draw a minimum of 25 players or host its farewell performance in 2008. Manifest Destiny will join the program as two four-round events are held in three full days of gaming. Only one of the eight rounds will conflict on Friday evening—giving players a choice as to which event they want to play the extra round. Note that it will be possible, but more difficult, to win both events since each tournament allows players to drop one of four scores.
Manifest Destiny play will begin promptly at 9 AM Friday with rounds at 2 and 7 PM later in the day. The fourth and final round will be Saturday at 2:30 PM.

The Age of Renaissance action begins Friday night at 7 PM and continues with two more rounds on Saturday at 9 AM and 6:30 PM. A fourth round will be played Sunday morning. The winner for the weekend will be that player with the highest total for any three of the four rounds.

Only the Friday 7 PM slot conflicts and forces players to make a choice which of the two events they'll play for all four rounds.

Enlightenment uses a unique scoring system that keeps most players in contention for a prize throughout the weekend rather than being eliminated by a poor showing or relegated to the "losers' table". Every player scores points as a percentage of the winner's score. This provides a real incentive to play against the leader to prevent run-away victories. In subsequent rounds, players are grouped according to their finish in the previous game ... with all Round 1 winners paired in Round 2, all second-place players together, and so on. The winners compete with each other—earning a bonus point for each other table's winner in that round they best by posting a wider margin of victory. Slow play is discouraged by penalizing all scores in games that take more than five hours. This scoring mechanism has resulted in nearly all Renaissance games finishing in under five hours, with some ending in less than four.

Some updates on EuroQuest V:

• I am definitely going to be refereeing the Power Grid tournament, with Kathy Stroh assisting.
• The schedule is now online; Power Grid will have one heat Friday evening, two more heats Saturday, with the semi-finals Saturday evening and the finals Sunday morning.
• The hot, new, full tournament game is Imperial.
• The current games for the Wild Card tournament are: Age of Empires III, Alhambra, Blue Moon City, Can't Stop, Carcassonne, Leonardo da Vinci, Lost Cities, Louis XIV, Notre Dame, Pillars of the Earth, San Juan, Traumfabrik/Hollywood Blockbuster, Vegas Showdown, Yspahan, the best new game from Essen 2007, and one more to be named November 1st.
• The Days Hotel room block is almost full; the convention rate of $79/night is significantly better than local rates, so book your room fast!
• Pre-registration will end on November 1st, so save yourself $10 and pre-register.

So if you're not doing anything for Veteran's Day weekend, come to Timonium and play games!

The Boardgame Players Association and Games Club of Maryland

proudly present

EURO QUEST V

A European-Style Gaming Conference featuring a new Veteran's Day Friday - Monday format November, 9 - 12, 2007 Days Hotel 9615 Deereco Road Timonium, Maryland 21090

What?

Euro Quest is a unique blend of tournaments and open gaming.

Why?

Euro Quest will provide a competitive forum for the play of popular "European" style boardgames in a focused, in-depth format not available elsewhere. All tournaments will be run to provide multiple opportunities to compete in the same game with a minimum of three preliminary heats preceding the elimination rounds.

Tournaments

Tournaments included: Caylus, Goa, Power Grid, Princes of Florence, Puerto Rico, Ra, St. Petersburg, Settlers of Catan Combo, Ticket to Ride Combo, Thurn und Taxis, and Imperial. A Wild Card event that will include 14 games. The first eight titles included are: Alhambra, Can't Stop, Carcassonne, Lost Cities, Louis XIV, San Juan, Traumfabrik / Hollywood Blockbuster, and Vegas Showdown. Six more titles will be selected in September. The last Wild Card title, the Hot new Essen game, will be selected on Nov. 1. BPA plaques will be awarded for each event, best team and best overall individual performance - providing plenty of laurel opportunities for those who want to improve their standings in BPA's annual Caesar competition.

Open Gaming

Dedicated open gaming space will be provided in the main gaming hall during the entire duration of the convention.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a mention of the World Boardgaming Championships, to be held in Lancaster, PA, during the first week of August. After a little investigation, I decided to go and see if it was interesting. Overall, I found it quite enjoyable, and will probably return next year. Read the rest of this entry »

Most folks escape the DC area for the holiday, but with it being dab smack in the middle of the week, that isn't an option this year. With nothing else to do but sit around watching the grass grow and the mosquitoes breed, we've decided to host a one-day gaming, jewelry, and movie extravaganza. So come, play games, watch movies, make jewelry (or just see how someone else does it), relax and enjoy yourselves!
Feel free to show up anytime after Noon, and stay as long as you like.

We expect to be hosting a normal Ludus, in spite of the holiday.

I thought that it might be nice to have a place to discuss Ludus, and I've been doing more with WordPress, so here we are. Let me know what you think. You'll need to have an account, but I've configured this blog to respond to OpenID, so if you have a LiveJournal account, you're all set.

If you do come in from LiveJournal, please edit your local profile and set your email and a name or nickname. If you do that, then your posts will be tagged by name instead of 'http://ljname.livejournal.com/'.