March 20, 2011

The real life roleplaying in board games.

The other night I played Arkham Horror for the first time as Joe Diamond whose abilities coupled with my superior rolling really saved my ass the entire night.

For those not familiar with Arkham Horror, let me explain: It's a several hour long board game where the game brutally attempts to kill you at every turn with monsters and demi-gods, while you're just a lowly human with $7 to your name. Why this is so much fun...I really don't know. But it is.

Until you're brutally killed, anyway.

After playing board games for a while now, it dawned on me during the middle of Arkham that there are distinct types of players.

Ooo, shiny! That one guy that wants to buy and own and horde all the special items regardless of how truly bad they are because, "Omg, it'll give me +9!" "But only once, this item will give you +5 all the time." "...but it will give me +9!" The guy that thinks all his useless items are going to save his ass and the rest of the game, when in actuality he's going to get his teammates killed.

Case in point, my friend spent several rounds attempting to close a gate, almost killing himself and me in the process because the board hates me and threw me into his portal during his long struggle of beating it into submission hoping that his hoard of items would save him.

They didn't, actually, what did save him was...

God Gamer The person that basically knows everything about the game mechanics, the cards, predict what the game may do next, what series of events would screw over the entire party, and so forth. He bails out the Ooo, Shiny! 90% of the time as he usually ends up with the item transferal ability.

Mod Gamer The guy that wants to control what everyone in the party is doing in order to bend to his in game agenda. Need to kill that monster for the last token you need to seal a gate, and sealing gates is what wins the game? Too bad! He's going to kill it instead because his character doesn't have any tokens and he definitely needs one in order to buy this spell he really wants on the other side of the board that he may use never.

Focu--SQUIRREL The one who is most invested in the game at the beginning and ends up doing something entirely not related to the game towards the end.

The Girlfriend Unfortunately this was me for a while because I had no idea what was going on at all. The one that needs their hand held and directions reiterated to them on every single damn turn they take. You probably even need to tell them how to roll the dice or pick a card as they probably won't be able to figure it out on their own. I was given the express direction to kill and seal gates, and so I did, becoming the--

MVPony Player that basically does more than half of the work, then gets shat on at the end. I sealed three gates by myself, one by beating Ithaqua on my own (yes, ON MY OWN), and raced through a forth gate that was being sealed by Ooo, Shiny! In fact, I sealed two gates and ran through the third two turns after Oo! Shiny attempted to seal his first and only gate. And then tried to kill me by sealing me inside of it.

Of course, there are other types of players, like Failmind, the person that tries to be the master mind and orchestrate everyone else's downfall in the game, only for it to horribly backfire in the end resulting in reaching bankruptcy first. The Hoarder that attempts to own every item, card, your potato chips, and every tangible thing in existence (I usually end up being the Hoarder) just for the sake of having it, and usually becomes the prime target for thievery by death towards the end of the game.

Bottom line, it might not actually be the board game trying to destroy you, but your friends unintentionally sabotaging you.

March 9, 2011

Thank You

Back when I first really got into reading blogs, I stumbled across Bakerella, a really fun and happy woman sharing her sweet creations with everyone else. I use her cake ball recipe yearly for Valentine's day. I check her blog every Monday when it updates because it's such a pleasure to read her entries and look at her pictures that are posted with such obvious joy. Her blog is one of the few I read that isn't snarky, isn't about pointing out the idiocy of others, and doesn't find humor in the stupidity of someone else.

Her blog is about pure happiness and positivity and just good things, and I am extremely sadden to hear that her donated kidney has failed.

There is a lot of pain and a lot of suffering in this world, and Bakerella acknowledges that she's fortunate to have such a fanbase and has been able to do what she loves to do these past few years. But for a woman who has brought me and so many others a little bit of happiness each week with such a positive and loving attitude, she deserves some love and some wishes, and I hope she'll be able to continue to bring a smile to our faces for several more years to come.