The Opinionated Gamers

I think we ended up with 22 folks being able to attend for some period of time, and here are a few of us prior to some folks taking off Sunday afternoon.

I’m so grateful for those that came and made this reality, and also those who couldn’t make it, but helped out in other ways – like Rand letting us borrow some of this games, and @kumagoro_h and @_kazuma0221 for, well, what we did on Sunday.

Like I think I said a few days ago, @kumagoro_h had organized an event called “Is This a Trick-Taking Game?” to be held in Japan on Sunday, and you can read a good recap (in Japanese) here:

はてなブログに投稿しました #はてなブログ
『これはトリテなのか？展』訪問レポート – 雲上四季〜謎ときどきボドゲ〜https://t.co/nZ8cthxCVt— 秋山真琴＠ミスボド×n’Same 1/25 (@unjyoukairou) January 20, 2019

He and I conspired in recent weeks to arrange so that we could play the same games at T5 as the more than 60 people were playing at これはトリテなのか？I am very thankful for the translation work that @_kazuma0221 did, and to the designers for giving their permission.

I think my view of the roll of pastries in other adults’ lives is probably skewed by watching too many episodes of The West Wing where there was inevitably a plate of pastries in the center of every table at a meeting, so when it’s my turn to host a meeting of sorts for adults, well, there are pastries.

What I’m saying is, wheat domesticated us.

Anyway, I started of the morning with 7 Symbols, and 7 Nations, one of my favorite trick-taking games, and one of my overall favorite games.

7 suits, with 7 cards each, ranging from 1-7, 2-8, 3-9,…7-13, and your goal is to collect 4 of the 7’s in one hand. Alternatively, if you take 7 tricks, without taking four 7’s, then your team loses. You score a number of victory points equal to the difference of the teams’ number of 7s, and the first team to you guessed it, 7 points wins.

Today we’ll start out with a short tour of part of the library people have brought. Luke has set his up on the ledge here. In alphabetical order, of course.

And here’s a list of what I saw played in the house yesterday: Mit List and Tücke, Canyon, Glorious Maximus, Die Sieben Siegel, Voltreffer, 8-Bit Trick,
Fox in the Forest, Double, Pepper, Auf falscher Fährte, Sextet, Investigate & Prosecute, Familiar’s Trouble, Foppen, Voodoo Prince, Let Me Off, Control Nut, Skull King: Das Wurfelspiel, Texas Showdown, Pitch, Eye My Favorite Things, Trick of the Rails, Schnäppchen Jagd, Hexenstich, and Cahoots.

First day is in the books. Three quarters of the folks have arrived, and I’m lucky I had my wife to “run registration” as even with 20 people, name tags, food, a tour of the house, room assignments, and what not took some time. Also thankful for Dale making us name tags and John being our airport shuttle – a job that took longer than anticipated due to an incident with a dog on the runway at LAX earlier in the day.

Here are a few photos of the main gaming space.

The library titles folks have brought is exciting. Titles I knew I wanted to try, titles I haven’t heard of, and rare editions of things. Here is a rare version of Flaschenteufel (Bottle Imp), where the bottle was a piece you had to cut out and assemble (and with incredible art.)