Dice-Rolling Lessons

[Mich]

So, instead of celebrating Thanksgiving yesterday, my family got together and played 9 hours of board games. Most of which was a 6 hour game of super-Trivial Pursuit, my brother against the rest of the family. My brother took the card sets from Genus 1-6, two Disney editions, Silver Screen, RPM, 60s, 80s, 90s, and several other versions that I can't remember. The game entailed rolling two dice. I still don't know exactly how the system worked, I just did what my brother told me. But one die determined which version you had to answer questions from. We were pretty evenly matched and it came down to both of us in the middle trying to win. And we're doing it all over again today! Aren't you jealous?

That sounds really amazing! I love making old favorites more interesting. I was always trying to come up with modifiers when I was little, but no one ever believed that I was keeping the rules consistent.

[Luet]

Today we played Scene It for a couple hours (original, Disney and TV editions) and then the super-Trivial Pursuit for hours. Once again, it came down to my brother and I tied and in the middle. We called it a tie because it was taking too long for someone to win.

[LilBee91]

Do we have a card game thread? I played a bajillion of those over Thanksgiving, but not a single one involved dice.

My aunt and uncle played Yahtzee while I was in the room (wildly inappropriate, if you ask me--that stuff should clearly be confined to the bedroom), if that counts.

[Mich]

Do we have a card game thread?

This has, of course, always been open to discussion about card games, and I won't admit otherwise.

[Platypi007]

In that case: Apples to Apples and Flux. I love those two. And Uno.

[Wind Swept]

Your 'specialized deck' games hardly qualify as card games.

Euchre and Whist are where it's at.

I also enjoy a strange six player variant of Pedro for which I can never remember all the rules.

[LilBee91]

Hand and foot, people, hand a foot. No better card game out there. Though Egyptian rat race comes close.

My family tends to play games with a Rook deck. I know that's technically a specialized deck, but I think they count.

[Dr. Mobius]

I haven't played Hand and Foot in years, but we used to play it all the time. We mostly play Clabber, which is kinda like Euchre only better.

[Mich]

Hand and Foot is my family's go-to game for camping, reunions, Christmas... any time there are enough decks of cards and more than two people, although we've even come up with decent rules for only two people. I find it a very enjoyable game, but I enjoy games with a heck of a lot of rules.

I'm assuming Egyptian Rat Race is also Egyptian Slaps/Egyptian Rat Screw/Egyptian Rat Pile? It has so many dumb names. But it's where each face card has a value that the next person needs to pump out of their deck, unless they produce a face card during that time, in which case the counter resets and the next person goes, right? With the slapping on the doubles?

Man, summing up card game rules in a written sentence is hard.

[LilBee91]

Yup. That's the one. I never know which name I should call it by so people will know what I'm talking about. We like to add on the slapping of sandwiches and other random card combos. We like to slap. =]

[Jayelle]

So, instead of celebrating Thanksgiving yesterday, my family got together and played 9 hours of board games. Most of which was a 6 hour game of super-Trivial Pursuit, my brother against the rest of the family. My brother took the card sets from Genus 1-6, two Disney editions, Silver Screen, RPM, 60s, 80s, 90s, and several other versions that I can't remember. The game entailed rolling two dice. I still don't know exactly how the system worked, I just did what my brother told me. But one die determined which version you had to answer questions from. We were pretty evenly matched and it came down to both of us in the middle trying to win. And we're doing it all over again today! Aren't you jealous?

I missed this when you posted it the first time! I'm totally jealous. I wish I could find people (besides my husband) to play trivial pursuit games with! There are pub trivia nights around here, but we can never seem to get a sitter when they're going on.

[Luet]

I would love to play trivial pursuit with you guys!

[starlooker]

Cribbage, whist, and 500 are our family get-together games. Oh my gosh. It's so fun. The entire extended family is quite competitive. And, also, we sit there after hands and recall former games where similar things have happened, kind of like major sports fans recalling previous games they've seen. My grandpa loved it so much. Oh my gosh. He'd "cheat" at cribbage, but would do it in such a way that his grandkids always caught him. Which isn't a bad teaching tool, come to that. There's a certain family language, too. "Bid 'em high, sleep in the streets." "Deucer, deucer, never loser," "hand like a foot," "a card laid is a card played," "Who dealt this mess?" -- which is considered particularly amusing when the dealer says it -- and some others I can't think of off the top of my head.

Donny and I sometimes play cribbage together. (Whist and 500 require four players.) It was one of his initial attractions, that he knows how. He's pretty damn good at it, actually, which annoys me

[Mich]

We like to add on the slapping of sandwiches and other random card combos. We like to slap. =]

By the time I was done with my Boy Scout troop, we had so many house rules it was ridiculous. Sandwiches, double-slaps, slap-piles. All kinds of stuff. I once slap-inned to a game with one guy holding all but three cards and managed to win.

Slap-ins. Those make you feel like a boss.

[zeroguy]

Sheepshead! Oh man, sheepshead/sheephead (or one person told me he knew it as "shaska", but I've never seen that anywhere else) is the most fun I've ever had with a card game, second possibly only to Mao. I've never gotten people to play sheepshead often enough to be any good at it (or know anybody that's good at it), but that probably just makes it more fun, I think. I've never played another game with the "secret partner"-like element to it, that I remember. It's like a murder mystery!

[Noodle]

I grew up playing Nerts. but nobody knows that game so I can't play it with anybody now.

It's like a multiplayer fast paced solitare. We always played in teams, with either two or three teams playing. It's fun.

[Mich]

Oh man, I love Nerts! We called it Oh Heck, but it is super-fun, especially with a large group, like six or seven people. Two-player Hand and Foot can end up being a lot like Nerts, actually.

[Noodle]

finally someone who knows what I'm talking about. I mention Nerts to anybody around here and they think I'm insane. It's all sheepshead sheepshead sheepshead in Milwaukee.

[LilBee91]

Nerts is way fun, and may be on par with blue shells in making me want to use profanity. We often play it as a method of determining order of play in the next game.

[Petra]

Oh man. Oh man. I was walking through DC today and stumbled on this game store. It's nerdvana. I've always wanted to get into gaming but have never had a group to do it with. But I'm proud to announce that this Wednesday I will be attending their weekly D&D mini-campaign. And then I will buy Munchkin. And then I will buy ALL THE GAMES.

Though I do love Risk, and Stratego, and Mastermind. Apples to Apples is the official party game of my apartment, as well.

As for cardgames, does anyone here know Spite and Malice?

[wizzard]

For me, the only non-classical boardgame I've been playing with any regularity is Arkham Horror, the extremely complicated boardgame based on the Lovecraft Cthulhu mythos. All of my friends love it and we have had some truly awesome nights.

[delurk]

I love Arkham, it's what got me really involved in board games a few years ago, and I still play it regularly. In the gaming group I'm part of, there are at least 4 sets, most of them with all the expansions (and one of them with the official figurines to replace the cardboard character markers, and every encounter/mythos card sleeved). About once every 6 months, we host "Arkham and Pie" - everyone brings a pie or other edible, and we play Arkham for hours on end, with 3 or 4 games going at once.

I just picked up a set for myself so I can share it with the family when I go home for Christmas

Other favorites of mine are Bang! (Mafia game meets spaghetti western), Cosmic Encounter, and of course, Catan.

I've also been involved in some tabletop RPG's, most recently an epic 3-year campaign of D&D 3.5, starting at level 1 and going all the way to 20. The DM is a great storyteller, and the campaign was very heavily plotted with good characters. It's much more fun than a simple dungeon-crawl type game; if I wanted to do that, I could just play a video game.

For those of you who don't know much about games but want to get involved, find a local game store, and just go in and chat with somoene who works there. I've never met a gamer who didn't love teaching new people to play, and the shops often serve as a meeting place for gaming groups, who are always happy to have new members.

[/delurk]

[Luet]

As for cardgames, does anyone here know Spite and Malice?

Friends of ours were just telling us about this but we have yet to play it.

We also really want to order a board game called Pandemic. Instead of playing against each other, the players team up to play against the board (the virus) to try and defeat it. I have heard really good things about it.

[Petra]

No. Way.

I have a mild (read: outrageous) interest (read: addiction) to anything about pandemics. I will purchase this game.

[LilBee91]

O my goodness. I need that game. Adding to the Christmas list now.

[Luet]

We are waiting until we move into the new house to buy it, so it will be one less thing to move. So, if you guys get it first let me know what you think.

[steph]

Pandemic is FUN! Brian loves it. We've played it with some friends, so we don't own it ourselves. Each player has a different advantage, so there is strategy about who to send where and for what. I'd definitely recommend the game.

[Noodle]

I have PIT on my christmas list. It's another game we played growing up, and my brother got it and we played with his family recently. It's a good game.

Never heard of Pandemic, though it sounds interesting.

[Mich]

Guys, you're overlooking an important fact:

OMG OMG OMG WIZZARD DELURKED TO POST IN A THREAD AND EVEN TO RESPOND TO SOMETHING I WROTE.

Sound the trumpets. Alert the press. It's Wizzard!

[thoughtreader]

Guys, you're overlooking an important fact:

OMG OMG OMG WIZZARD DELURKED TO POST IN A THREAD AND EVEN TO RESPOND TO SOMETHING I WROTE.

Sound the trumpets. Alert the press. It's Wizzard!

OMG! LIMEADE FOR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!

[Claire]

Wizzard!!! Come back, we miss you!!

Hey, is anybody else interested in a Pweb Mafia game like we used to do? I would be willing to moderate if we have enough interest.

[Petra]

Hey, is anybody else interested in a Pweb Mafia game like we used to do? I would be willing to moderate if we have enough interest.

Yes!

[Wind Swept]

Hey, is anybody else interested in a Pweb Mafia game like we used to do? I would be willing to moderate if we have enough interest.

f***. Yes.

[Bean_wannabe]

Mafia game?

[VelvetElvis]

Pweb mafia: because, damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.

[Claire]

Should I make a new thread? Should be in the game room? Because I can't remember the last time I went in there, so I doubt many people would see it...