Tournament?
I think it would be fun to have a quick tournament.
The languishing Twilight tournament taught me that the event should be done in a single evening. I'm suggesting we'd have 3 rounds in a night, changing groups.
Therefore I suggest we should pick a game with these characteristics:
1. Plays 3-5 players
2. The group owns several copies
3. Should play in 45-60 min
4. Light and fun enough to play 3 times in a row
Two games that come to mind are San Juan and That's my Fish.
Does anyone else think this is a worthy idea?
posted by Ted @ 6:35 PM
18 comments
18 Comments:
The Twilight Struggle tournament shall rise again with the arrival of the 2nd edition!
Other nominees I'd suggest:
Lord of the Rings: Confrontation
Roma
Memoir
TTR (and its siblings); round one would be vanilla TTR; round two TTR: Europe; round three Maarklin.
Those are some good options. The advantage of a multi-player game like TtR is that you can get more folks involved simultaneously. I wasn't thinking of an elmination bracket, but a three round system where everyone plays every round. Overall winner is determined by total points.
I could be convinced differently.
Yep, that sounds like a good plan, Ted. Count me in
If I ever get back in San Antonio, I'll finish the dice towers for tournament prizes.
Group or 2-player is fine by me, but length is more important (that's what sh...).
Games like the ones Ben mentioned sound great to me.
Using "that's what she..." on something you just said is like giving yourself a nickname. It's just not valid.
By the way (not that I'm around on Mondays anymore for my opinion to matter), but I don't see the point in tournaments.
A) You have to play the same game over and over.
B) You are playing fewer games over the course of the night with fewer people.
C) It welcomes AP and turns games from fun into work
...etc.
I'm a happy ball of sunshine, baby!
Well Simon, it was hard to put the subtle emphasis we put on words when we are saying something that is an obvious "that's what she.."-able line, in here. So I just went after it too.
Je suis le president de Burundy. -EE
Personally, I enjoy the thrill of spirited competition that tournament play brings. When MtG first came out, I even found getting thoroughly annihilated by 10 year olds in sealed deck tournaments to be some of the best gaming I had ever had.
I guess it all boils down to personal taste. To me with meaty games I enjoy tasting the many subtleties and gaining the depth of understanding that comes only with repeated play.
However, there are a lot of things we can do to avoid it seeming like one is playing the same game multiple times in a row if this is a big concern (but think of the poor fools in chess tournaments!). Something like Ted and I outlined above for TtR involved three different, though related games. The same could be done by creating a Battle of the Knizias; using different scenarios/modules/games of the Command and Colors series of games; or different Blue Moon decks.
If we have a tourney using something multiplayer, it has to easily define not only the winner, but 2nd-5th place (or how ever many we have playing each copy). I think everything mentioned so far is viable. I was condsidering Cartagena, since it meets most of Ted's criteria, but playing with the rules as written, it defines one winner and N-1 losers, so it's not good for a no-elimination, most-points-after-three-rounds-wins style tourney.
Ted: If Dennis gets a Blood Bowl league running, would that scratch your tournament itch?
Ben: I agree. Some of the most exciting, heart-pounding games I've every played have been in tournaments.
I'd agree to maybe Hive, Blue Moon, PitchCar, or Crokinole... Mostly because I have a pretty decent shot in all of them...
I think leagues are cool in general, though whether I'd be able to make the commitment is a different question.
I like tournaments for the reasons outlined above, to whit: meta-game thrill and deeper appreciate of the game.
Jeff corrrectly added a key criterion. The game should end with a score or at least a ranking(vs 1 winnner and many losers) so that that tournament points are easy to compute.
League vs tournament is a trade-off of quick vs deep. Leagues are great because you really learn the game and can even begin to develop a style of play. Problem is that leagues take a big committment. Tournaments don't have the depth, but they are much easier, and they have quite a thrill, too.
I lean more towards tournaments. If there weren't so many cool games out there, league would be the way to go.
If I were just a Chess player with no knowledge of these cool euro/war games, of course, leage would be the way.
Both are a large time commitment. A blood bowl league made more sense when my wife worked odd hours and I could spend random nights gaming.
That being said, Blood Bowl makes a nice league because there are balancing mechanism between teams that have played different numbers of games (No idea bout LRB 5.0, but 3.0 with Deathzone provided some brutal handicaps).
I'll commit to picking up a copy of Blood Bowl if we get enough people for a league. At least 5, I'm thinking... Its $75 at the GW store, but I wonder if it can be found cheaper... then there's the price of buying your team's minis unless you want the stock ones in the game.
Of course, the totally $0 option is to start a league on-line, play via Java using LRB 4.0, and see if there's till interest.
I'm just not an on-line gamer. If I'm going to play w/ people, I need to be F2F. If I'm on a computer, no human required.
I'm more than happy to give Blood Bowl a try. When I stopped by DL Th night two guys were playing. If it costs $75 to get started, it might take some convincing for me to buy my own set.
Well, for a FTF BB league, we'd someone willing to be the commissioner and organize it. I would, but I'm just honestly swamped right now with other responsibilities.
I can bring Hive, Hey That's My Fish, Memoir, or TTR Marklin. The problem with Memoir is finding well balanced scenarios (or do we all play the same scenario over and over).
Another suggestion is Odin's Ravens, but I'm guessing not many have that one. Great game, especially between two good players.
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