Sundays are the only days that Sarah and I reliably have free, so Sundays are when we let the Dungeons and Dragons Roll. Sarah runs a campaign in the afternoon and I run a campaign in the evening. In Sarah's campaign, I play a bard. She has developed an incredibly detailed, fleshed out word with plenty of intrigue. Our party is a group of adventurers comissioned by the Crown Prince to locate a magical artifact, the Celestial Crown. In my campaign, a ragtag rebellion fights a losing battle agaisnt the Imperial Army of Harlandy, struggling for control of the Blood Throne. If Dungeons and Dragons, or fantasy aren't really your shtick, I can't imagine either on of these stories appealing too much to you, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. In the future, I will be posting information on worldbuilding and campaigns. However, with the current campaigns already in full swing, I feel like blogging on that would be like throwing someone into the deep end of the pool.

    After Dungeons and Dragons, some stayed, some left, and some new players came over, and we had a boardgames night! Or, to be truthful, Elixir night. We played two games of Elixir, a card game where players strive to collect magical ingredients to cast spells which can change the very rules of the game. Challenging, yet fun. Especially when someone casts the "Lark" or "Cyrano" cards which oblige musical and poetic performances (respectively) from the other players. I had a few readings to catch up on, so I sat out most of the final game of the night, Disney Scene-it.

    Speaking of readings, today I had my three hour lecture on post-industrial democracies! If you don't follow politics, you would be bored to tears. One of the subject we touched on (albeit briefly) today was the Prisoner's Dilemma. If you follow the link, you can get the link to Wikipedia, which will be able to give you both a wider depth and breadth of knowledge on the subject than I can possibly provide. To sum it up, look at this handy picture I made.

    This is one of the most basic and well known examples of game theory. It has a readily understandable system of who wins what, under what circumstances. It is applicable not just to game design (more on that later), but also to political interaction. I found it helpful to consider what political actions can be explained with such a model. We'll be talking about it more next week, but suffice to say, this is the kind of stuff that really gets my motor going.
-Alastair

    Last night, Sarah and I attended a Post Christmas gift exchange. Stacy Muise, the mastermind of this event, laid out the rules:

1. Gift wrap something you own that you no longer use (still in working condition, of course)
2. Bring it to the party.
3. Determine an order for choosing presents (we drew cards, lowest went first.)
4. Choose a gift-wrapped item from the pile.
5. Congratulations! you just got someone else's stuff!
6. If you see a gift you would like, you may, instead of choosing an unknown gift, steal an unwrapped gift from another player. They must then choose another unwrapped gift, or steal from another player.
7. Repeat this process until all gifts have been assigned. Trades may be made at this point.

    All in all, it was a tremendously fun event. I ended up with a set of twelve six-sided dice, some pixie sticks, and a poutine kit. Sarah ended up with a phonics word game and some chocolate. Stacy ended up getting some old CDs I had, and Darwin ended up with some of Sarah's kitchen gadgets.

    We preceded the gift exchange with tree decorations and delicious cake. We finished off with a nice bunch of board games! Dixit, Tsuro, and Wizard all made appearances. I will explain Dixit and Wizard in future posts. I intend to start posting reviews of board games for two reasons:

1. It will give you an idea of the games we tend to play around here.
2. It will inform you of games that you might no have heard of, and give you a chance to figure out if you'd be interested in them.

    In any case, Regiftmas was a rousing success. Big thanks to Stacy for organizing this event!
-Alastair

    Last night was pretty spectacular. About a year ago, Sarah got the crazy idea to make the board game Settlers of Catan out of edible cookies. After enlisting some help from friends, she made all terrain tiles out of cookies, icing, and the occasional candy. However, conflicting schedules prevented us from getting together for a boardgame night, so cookie Catan was sent to the freezer.

    All you really need to know is that it was absolutely worth the wait. The cookies kept very well, the icing was delicious, and the level of detail on each cookie was really impressive. Using liquorice, gummy bears, and jujubes playing pieces, we made a completely edible gameboard. My personal favourites were the prairie tiles, which included little gummy tractors.

    After Settlers of Catan, we started playing Cards Against Humanity. The quickest and most accurate summary of this game is Apples to Apples for horrible people. Witty, quick-paced, hilarious, and always offensive, this game gets pretty regular play on boardgame nights.

    We finished off the night with Tsuro, a simple strategy game. I had looked at this game many times before, but last night was my first opportunity to play it, and it was an absolute blast. A quick game that marries simple mechanics to deep strategy. Furthermore, this game is very aesthetically pleasing. Tsuro is a perfect closer to the evening, being equal parts serene and engaging.

    All in all, it was an excellent boardgame night. Many thanks to all involved; this is absolutely what I needed to relax from the holidays.

-Alastair