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Subject: Fort Worth Gamers: gaming session 01/23/18
From: Michael Ward <mward258@gmail.com>
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Tuesday, 01/23/18 6 to 9 PM at the Hulen Mall food court, at 4800 South
Hulen Street, in southwest Fort Worth, TX.

We eventually had six gamers at two tables this cool evening.

Table #1 - First, Duane's Booty, which was new to Joel C, Michael L, and Michael W. The players are pirates, all on one ship, who plunder other ships, and then divvy up their ill gotten gains. Dividing the spoils is the focus of the game. Here's a photo of some of the components https://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/2837755/booty . The main mechanism is "I split, you pick." Whomever is the current Quartermaster has 18 cards that he splits up into lots (usually of 2 to 5 cards each) and offers the lots one at
time to the other players. If they all pass on a lot the QM must take it. Besides the cards offered with each lot there is a numbered token that indicates that player's turn order in the next round. So to be a good QM you have to make each lot not too good or too bad, or you'll get stuck with the worst one, and someone else will be given the exact cards they want.

Back in 2003 I played a game called San Marco, and later its card game spin off
Canal Grande, both of which used this same mechanic. I was horrid at both. Why? Because I was absolutely terrible at the main mechanic. Whenever there were two lots of cards to choose I'd *always* pick the one that was worst for me. I just couldn't tell which was good from bad (for me). Yet the other players could always tell immediately which to pick. Then they'd laugh at me, exclaiming how I was an complete idiot for picking the lot I did, and why. When
they'd explain the 'why' it was then clear to me too. But only *after* each of
my turns (which did me no good at that point). You'd think I'd eventually get the hang of it, and begin choosing more wisely, but I never did. To me it was like asking a dog that has only has B&W vision to fetch the red ball and not the green one. He's clueless, as he can't see colors. Well, today I didn't receive the level of ridicule I did in 2003, but the feeling and the memory of it was foremost in my mind through whole game of Booty. Consequently, I knew halfway through the explanation I was going to despise every minute of Booty even before we started the game proper. And so I did.

Back to the game at hand, Booty. There were six categories of cards (treasure, relics, commodities, ships, life style, and islands), plus some hidden Legacy cards that points could be earned for. I think by game end (about 6 rounds) everyone had been quartermaster at least once. Then it was time to total up our
scores. Like most games with multi-category scoring, some did well in some areas and poorly in others. For instance, Connor, Michael L, and Duane did very
well in "might" (island control). While Connor and I excelled in relics. Joel did average across the board. And poor Jason got stuck with some negative VP cards that nullified a lot of his positive points in ships. I did the best in Legacy.

Final scores: Michael L 42, Connor 41, Duane 36, Joel C 34, Michael W 34, Jason
P 20. Duration: one hour and six minutes. I *think* the others liked the game.
Whereas I rated it a "3" on BGG, like I did San Marco and Canal Grande. Consequently I hope to never see Booty again.



Three players then split off to another table. Those remaining played my Palazzo, which was new to Michael L. Duane had played 2-3 times, over two years
ago. I did very well the first half of the game. But then my luck changed and I spent the rest of the game unable to help myself; merely playing to hold down
the VPs of Michael L and Duane. (Hence the huge number of tiles I bought and tossed out of the game.) I thereby suppressed their scores to some extent, but not enough. For I knew at the halfway mark I was going to come in last, for I only had two buildings (mighty though they were). My only hope was if the five game ending tiles in stack III all came out early. So I kept drawing building tiles, trying to hurry and force the end game, hoping my opponents would be caught with several unfinished buildings and take some negative VPs. Nope!

At game end no one took and negative VPs for 1-2 story buildings. I had built the only five story building. It alone gave me 23 points. But Duane's four mediocre buildings made more. Michael L's three so-so buildings did almost as well.

Scores: Duane 48, Michael L 45, Michael W 37. Duration: 39 minutes. We all enjoyed the game.



Table #2 - Jason P's Portal of Heroes, which was new to Connor and Joel C. Its some sort of fantasy game about collecting magic pearls. They played twice. I believe the game had no scores per se; merely a winner. And in both games that was Jason P.




See BoardgameGeek http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ for more information on the games mentioned above. And if you're in the area on a Tuesday night feel
free to join us for a game.

--
Michael Ward
Fort Worth Gamers
And check out our MeetUp page http://www.meetup.com/FortWorthGamers/ .
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