We met with Lisa and one of Lisa’s friends for a picnic in Dolores Park. We got there right on time, but Lisa and friend were running about 20 minutes late. Steph and I went to get lunch really quickly and then we went back to the park to meet Lisa. We played Mr. Card Game, but I don’t think Lisa liked it. Steph seemed to be a little more enjoying it, but still didn’t understand the basis of the game. After the picnic we went back to our bikes and I had a flat. We walked over to Ritual Coffee to meet with Stefan.
We did another MTG draft with 4 people again. We had Adam, Andrew, and Kevin. I did very well in this draft and think I found the right way to do the draft. Pick a color, usually blue, then wait to figure out what color the other people don’t want. I won the first draft with Andrew getting second. The second draft had me leaving early with Andrew and I tieing.
We went to a picnic at a park for Jeremy’s 30th birthday. There were a good number of people there, and we had a good time. There was a pinata in the form of a wombat that Jeremy eventually had to take down with a practice sword. It was enjoyable.
This book is quite good, but the characters are a little shallow. There isn’t too much changing about them, and they don’t seem terribly human. The story however is very good. I like the interactions between the races in the world, and the way the gods are displayed. They are Olympian style with the gods having very human drives.
Chris, Jeff, Eric, and I played Mr. Card Game for board games night. It was better than I was expecting, as it had most of the fun parts of Munchkin with few of the bad parts, and none of the king making. The final boss fight was pretty interesting and I could have prepared much better for it. In most games I play I both can’t tell when to switch into playing the end game, and how the end game should be played. The rules will let you know how to start a game, but they don’t tell you how you should best end it. I look forward to playing it again, as it should go much faster and be more fun.
I joined Steph and her martial arts group at BJ’s. The dinner wasn’t that good, but the dessert was great. We had a big cookie with ice cream on top of it. It was delicious. Steph’s martial arts group are enjoyable to be around, and I might want to go to one of their lessons.
Chris, Andrew, and Kevin met me at Beachhead to do drafts of MTG. We started out with the guilds decks, 1 of Gatecrash and 2 of Return to Ravnica. That draft was decent for me, but mainly because nobody else got particularly good cards. The second draft was much better, with Mirrodin. Andrew was able to get a really good deck. I lost to Andrew, and won against Chris. Chris got an indestructible golem that was massive, but I was able to take it down with an infect dragon that I pumped up with my own life total. After that we split up for dinner, then Kevin and Andrew came over to my place to try out a sealed style game. Andrew got the best cards by far, including a god card and a planeswalker.
Iliya and I played a nice game of Galaxy Trucker. I had a really amazing torus ship, that had only one hole. The ship was designed to shield from everything and carry a lot of cargo. I should have put in more aliens, but it wasn’t too bad. There were tons of armed crew, and a good number of cargo spaces. I left a lot on the table and should have picked up even more of the cargo spots. The last round I got completely destroyed early on by boarding parties, and killed on the last card by pirates. It was a very enjoyable game.
For board games night last night, I played against Tina and Steph in two rounds of Factory Fun! Tina won both games, and I did pretty well in the second. Since I’ve told Steph and Tina all my secrets of making fast decisions and knowing what you need I’m not winning all the time, and if I do it isn’t by nearly as much. I then played a really interesting game of ‘We haven’t playtested this theme’ or something along those lines. The game has lots of arbitrary rules of how you can lose, and the point is to play a lot of quick rounds where people lose over and over. I then played Stone Age with Nick and Chris. We changed the rules a bit so that the starving people strategy is much harder. This meant that the tools strategy won. I was the one who pulled off the tools strategy, and got all of the tool multipliers. It was a pretty nice end to the day.
It's an Exciting World 