Old Crew Get-Together: 8/24/02 & 8/25/02
Gopher and Dave came down for a visit this weekend. Of the few friends I manage to keep in touch
with, I’ve known these two the longest.
We went to the same grade school, junior high, and high school
together. The three of us plus a few
others formed my first gaming group. I
was in both of their weddings and they were in both of mine. Nowadays, I see them once or twice a year at
most, usually at Winter War and maybe at a get-together like we just finished
yesterday. We sit around, shoot the
breeze, drink some beer, smoke cigars or pipes, and play games.
|
|
We started out with a game of Settlers of
Catan. Dave’s a big fan of the game
and owns a bunch of the expansions.
We decided to play a straight Settlers game as a warm-up to playing an
expansion game later in the weekend.
I’ve played Settlers a half-dozen times or so total. It’s a great game, probably the best
German game I’ve played. The
components are nice too. |
|
My
wife was also having a Partylite candle party on Saturday, so we were
ushered out of the house for a few hours in the afternoon. We headed over to Cigar World, one of the
local tobacco shops. After buying
some stogies we decide to light up and play a game of darts right there at
the store. We end up playing the
darts variation called Cricket. This
is a game that, among other things, requires someone to hit 3 bulls-eyes to
end the game. We quit early. |
|
|
|
We then go to the mall and hit the local
video arcade. The three of us groove
on some Gauntlet Dark Legacy then break up to play other stuff. The rest of the arcade is most fight games
and shoot the badguys with the toy pistol affairs. In the fighting game department I end up playing Tekken 3, Marvel
vs Capcom I & II, and Marvel vs Street Fighter. These games present quite
a quandary: do I select a badass like Wolverine or do I put a babe on the
screen? Decisions, decisions. |
I also played a Street Fighter title. I can’t remember the exact title, X Plus Alpha 3 Minus Pi
Squared Times Your Momma or some crap like that. I played a pro-wrestler babe in a skintight yellow outfit. I kicked Hayabusa’s butt but Ryu got
me. Since I couldn’t find a graphic of
her in my brief google image search, here’s a pic of Chun-Li:
Chun-Li
is cool.
|
I
also tried CarnEvil. I had no idea
someone had made a pump shotgun based shooting game. Sweet!
Too bad you had to nearly hold the damn thing to the screen for it to
work. The other annoying thing: the
ammo readout showed pistol cartridges instead of shotgun shells. Details, people, details. Still you can’t hate a game in which you
blast zombies with shotguns. |
|
|
|
Back to my place for pizza and Dungeons &
Dragons. We broke out the 1981 Basic
rules and ran a little dungeon crawl.
Dave and Goph each made four characters while I worked out some
details of the adventure. Less than a
hour later the party consisted of Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, Cleric, Elf,
Dwarf, Halfling, and Bill the Normal Human.
That’s right, only the normal human had a name. Our heroes found themselves recruited by
Mordrack the Seer to rescue the King’s daughter, Princess Petenta, from the
vile clutches of Doomador the Dragon.
I know, I know. Rescue the
princess from the dragon is fantasy cliche numero uno but dig this: in ten
years of gaming together we had never used it! Even in grade school we recognized it as a tired old
cliche. So it wasn’t like I was
repeating a plot from an adventure we had all played back in ’86 or anything. |
The party had one basic problem: their level 2 and 3 characters
(and Bill the 0-level henchdork) know that they have absolutely no chance of
defeating Doomador in a fair fight.
They end up having to use their wits.
The master plan goes only slightly awry: three of them make it out with
the princess.
Best moment of the adventure:
Me: The dragon still appears to be asleep.
Dave (playing the
magic-user): I use my ESP spell to scan his thoughts and confirm that he’s
sleeping.
Me: The dragon is thinking “That wizard is so
fucked.”
|
We
end the D&D at midnight thirty or so.
I shamble off to bed after Goph and Dave leave for their hotel
room. The next day we play Seafarers
of Catan. First time for me playing
this variant. Decent game, but took
longer than the original Settlers. It
comes with a little black ship for piratical activity on the board. Arrr! All
in all, I had a great time. It was
good to play games with Goph and Dave again.
I really miss the days when we could game regularly. |
|
