May 30, 2006 |
It was hot today, so I demanded a location with A/C, which was a good idea, as despite the A/C, it was still kind of warm by the end of the night at Peter and Jessica's place. It was only Peter's second week, and yet he hosted. Huzzah!
Attendees were Mike, Lee, Peter, Jessica, Rakesh, Amanda, and Dan, who was a little late.
| Dragon's Gold |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 37 | 1 | * |
| Rakesh | 34 | 2 | * |
| Lee | 33 | 3 | * |
| Amanda | 30 | 4 | * |
| Jessica | 27 | 5 | * |
| Peter | 6 | 6 | * |
Notes: There were six of us, so I volunteered to Peter that we should play Dragon's Gold, which we didn't get a chance really to play last week. We decided to play the basic version, which was fine, and after a quick rules instruction, we played.
The game is a simple cooperation/negotiation game with cardplay. Players take turns placing cards numbered from one to four on the various dragons to get the dragons' gems. The tougher the dragon is to defeat, the more gems the vanquishers get. The lower cards give some moderate bonuses when the dragon is defeated. When the dragon is defeated, any unseen gems are revealed, and the players haggle over the gems. If they don't come to a consensus in a minute, all gems are discarded.
Some gems are worth points (either 1 or 3) immediately, others you have to have the most of to get a 10 point bonus, and one gem is worth 7 points.
In negotiation games, my goal is to get in as many negotiations as possible and look non-threatening by letting other folks get better deals. This makes it less greedy-looking when you suggest something. My plan worked pretty well, but was highlighted by one lucky moment when I defeated by myself a White Dragon with all 5 of its treasures hidden. The black diamond was one of the 5 gems drawn, giving me an uncontested 7 points.
After that, I focused on gold and one set of the "set" gems. The game was notable for Peter trying to completely hose Rakesh on the first vanquished dragon, and then getting completely hosed by Jessica on his second dragon, who took one extra gem from him just before the timer went out and he couldn't complain without losing all his gems.
Rakesh also mixed up Yellow vs. Gold gems, so he accidentally was collecting the wrong thing for a while. One way that I managed to get ahead was when other folks really wanted their gems for sets and I was getting a lot of silver (1 point) and gold gems (3 points) for sacrificing next to nothing. I was shocked by the end when Amanda and Lee had sets of 7, 8 and 9 of their "set gems" (out of 12). I only had 5, which I thought was more than sufficient. Peter had 4 of my gem, so I held him off. Their overkill on some of their sets may have hurt them.
Coming down the stretch, I felt pretty good about everything, so on the last deal, I gave away all the gems just so that the group would have a perfect negotiation record. Lee had two sets, which had me worried, but my massive pile of gold, my black diamond, and my barely sufficient pile of yellow gems gave me a close victory. Peter didn't do so hot, but he took it well.
| Formula Dé |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | First Place | 1 | |
| Peter | 2nd | 2 | * |
| Mike | 3rd | 3 | |
| Lee | 4th | 4 | |
| Jessica | 5th | 5 | * |
| Rakesh | DNF | 6 (Tie) | |
| Amanda | DNF | 6 (Tie) | |
Notes: After having Dan watch the last 2/3 of Dragon's Gold, I thought we should play Formula Dé, which was quickly assented to by the group. I explained the rules pretty quickly and pulledout my Atlanta map to race on.
The track was an odd one, with lots of turns at odd locations. It seems like you were always pressing your luck one way or another. Regardless, here were the poles:
First - Dan
Second - Mike
Third - Rakesh
Fourth - Jessica
Fifth - Amanda
Sixth - Lee
Seventh - Peter
We all got off to regular starts, and then Amanda whizzed ahead of Dan and me. Soon Rakesh had passed us all, and I slipped badly do to some poor turn management. In the rear group were Lee, Jessica, Peter, and I, with Amanda just ahead of us and Dan and Rakesh in the lead.
Then Dan and Rakesh took off, and there was a mob of us bumping into each other as Dan and Rakesh, about two rounds ahead, were ducking into the pits, as each had wiped out their tires. I was in great shape, as was Peter, who had slowed down. Amanda wasn't doing so hot, and Lee and Jessica were fine, but were lagging.
At the end of the first lap, Dan had a nice pit stop and maintained a good pace, but Rakesh really slowed down. Still, Amanda shot into first, and I had my chance. I wanted to get ahead of Dan and risked everything with a 6th gear roll. I rolled a 30, which was about 4 or 5 higher than I wanted. I had a choice - duck into the pits and chance the speed I'd be coming out, or burn up all my tires and stay near the lead. I opted for the second.
The battle for the lead was now among me, Amanda, and Dan. Amanda was a round ahead of us while Dan and I were neck and neck. Peter had caught up to Rakesh, whose pit stop had turned into a disaster, and Lee and Jessica plodded along behind them.
After the first 2-turn stop of the second lap, Amanda slowed badly on a bad d20 roll. Dan and I challenged each other to pass her with decent d20 rolls, and we both tanked. Dan said something along the lines of "That's the race." Not quite.
Amanda kept the lead around the wide 1-stop turn, but then Dan and I managed to catch up. Amanda was faced with a choice - downshift to 4th to prepare herself for the last 2-stop turn or go into it at a good speed, then double or triple downshift. She chanced the second option and rolled an 11, the only way she couldn't get in there. Dan zipped by her, and I took the safe route, downshifting, as I was fresh out of tires.
Meanwhile Rakesh was risking it all to catch up and his freshly tired car was in grim shape. Lee and Jessica were slowly wearing down their cars without much progress. Peter was starting to gain on me and began taking some risks.
Dan now shot ahead, as he had just enough tires on his car to prevent a major wipeout on the final turn. First place was all his. Amanda was forced to stay in a higher gear in order to keep up with Dan and wiped out in the 2-stop turn after all. Rakesh came flying down and overshot the 2-stop turn completely, wiping out spectacularly. Peter, taking advantage of my sluggish pace and his fresh tires, zipped past me, and was second to cross the finish line. I took a safe third, and as Lee and Jessica were still pretty far back, we awarded them 4th and 5th, respectively.
Dan thus had a very fine finish once again in our Formula Dé circuit, rebounding from the DNF he took last time. Here are the campaign scores (awarding a number of points for first = 3*(# of drivers), then going down to 2*(# of players-(place-1)) per finishing spot. E.g. First place out of 7 drivers gets 21 points, whereas second gets 12, third gets 10, etc.):
| Driver | Races | Wins | Points |
| Mike | 2 | 0 | 22 |
| Dan | 2 | 1 | 21 |
| Jamie | 1 | 1 | 21 |
| Peter | 1 | 0 | 12 |
| Amanda | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| Lee | 1 | 0 | 8 |
| Scott | 1 | 0 | 8 |
| Jim | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| Jessica | 1 | 0 | 6 |
| Rakesh | 1 | 0 | 4 |