Gamers: Jeff Au (jack208), Lai Wah (alw8871), Wai Yan (waiyan), Alan Woon (alanwsl), Jamie, Wai Keen, Kah Yee, Wei-Jie, Mandy, Neoh, Mun Loong, Jacques Aw, Stan Phang, Pak Hoe
Games: Pompeji, Ticket to Ride, Lost Cities, Werewolf, Citadels
Location: Kids Edusoft Centre
Date/Time: 4 Mar 06 (Sat) 9.00pm - 5 Mar 06 (Sun) 6.30am
GAMING REPORT @ BOARDGAMECAFE.NET 4/3/06
by jack208
Our gaming group has now grown to a healthy 15+ gamers with about 10+ being regular ones. We've two new gamers coming this week and while they stayed for two games - Pompeji and Werewolf - they have seen enough to be asking us whether such gaming sessions are regular fixtures. Oh yes... most welcome to come back next Saturday!
POMPEJI
We started off the gaming session at 9.30pm with our current in-trend gateway game - Der Untergang von Pompeji or more affectionately known as Pompeji among us. Three gamers have not played this game - Kah Yee, Wei-jie and Mandy - so that's the perfect excuse for us to take out this game for them to have a testdrive.
Lai Wah did the explanation of game rules and pretty soon, they were placing their citizen and relatives into the town of Pompeii..... until Vesuvius erupted and blind panic ensued as each player desperately helped their citizen to escape the flowing lava. Not sure why, but everyone delights in having the chance to "toast" their fellow citizen with lava!! <devil>
LOST CITIES
Some of the gamers were having their dinner session at Fatt Kee Restaurant (downstairs). So while waiting for them (and also for the Pompeji game to finish), the other gamers who have arrived decided to start a few rounds of Lost Cities. Our Lost Cities Queen (waiyan) declined to participate, preferring to let others hog the limelight for the time being. :P Anyway Mun Loong (the guy) decided to play against Jamie (the lady) and we forgot to tell him that this is a game that's almost impossible for GUYS TO WIN OVER A LADY!!
Our idea was to start a game of Werewolf since we now have enough gamers (12 here and another 5 coming) for today's session. But it seems Pompeii was taking its own sweet time to sort out the lava flow... When the dinner gang were done with their dinner, Pompeii was still in the midst of "volcano restructuring" and we cannot start the Werewolf session yet.
TICKET TO RIDE
So what else can we do with 5-6 gamers? Aha... Ticket to Ride comes to the rescue especially since a few of them - Neoh and Mun Loong - have not played the game yet. Jamie did the game rule walkthrough this time and they started on a "testdrive" game while waiting for the Pompeji game to finish.
They didn't get to finish the game as we adjourned it so that everyone can join in a 11-player game of Werewolf.
WEREWOLF
Didn't take too long for the Pompeji game to conclude and after a few more rounds of Ticket to Ride, we were ready for the main course - Werewolf! Or rather, we were ready to be the Werewolves main course for the evening LOL.
We use the daVinci edition of the game - Lupus in Tabula - which has very nice role pictures for the werewolves, villagers, seer, etc. We do play with some revised/house rules (summarized below).
- No one gets killed in the 1st night. Or you can consider the Moderator gets killed in the 1st night. This is to allow the villagers to play a full game on the 1st day and not have one unlucky player gets bumped out of the game for no particular reason.
- Special characters are the Seer (Fortune Teller), Medium, Bodyguard, Freemasons, Werehamster, Little Girl, and Owl (Sorcerer). How many special characters are played depends on the total number of players. But typically the popular ones are Seer, Medium and Bodyguard.
- Seer (Fortune-Teller) - can point to one player per night and moderator will identify whether the person is a werewolf or villager.
- Medium - can point to a dead player in the night phase to find out his/her role. Moderator will identify the role as villager, werewolf or seer
- Bodyguard - can choose to protect (or not protect) one player per night. Protected player is safe from werewolf attack. But cannot protect himself or the same person twice in a row.
- Freemasons - two villager who identifies each other on the 1st night phase. These two therefore know both of them are villagers. Death of one freemason does not result in the death of the other (unlike the Lovers role)
- Werehamster - plays by himself. Similar power to werewolf, can come out at night and make one kill. But if pointed to by the Seer, he is killed immediately. Medium sees him as a villager. Werewolves are not able to kill him. He wins only if he's the last one standing (much like the Renegade role in Bang!)
- Owl (Sorcerer) - he plays a similar role as the Seer but on the Werewolves side. He points to a player in the night phase and the moderator tells him whether the villager is a seer or otherwise. The owl and the werewolves do not know each other. He could still be killed (accidentally) by the werewolves. Seer sees him as a villager.
- When a seer points to a player, the moderator speaks out the identity of the player eg "That person is just a villager" or "That person is a werewolf". We find that this heightens the pressure on the werewolves whenever everyone knows the seer has found a werewolf!
- Dead players' role are not revealed. This helps the remaining players continue to play their charade of claiming to be this role or that role. Not to mention the villagers not having accurate information as to whether they managed to lynch any werewolf. The medium has access to this information but has to risk his/her neck to convey the info to the others.
- Lynching is by two-phase vote. 1st vote to choose lynch nominees (top 2) and 2nd vote to choose who to lynch (kill vote). Nominated person does not get to make the kill vote. If there's a tie, no one is lynched.
- Dead players are to remain quiet (ghosts) once they are killed but they can continue to observe the game and make lynch nomination votes! They do have to close their eyes in the night phase and they cannot make kill votes. We find this helps to keep the dead player in the game (otherwise it could be a long wait for them).
Werewolf Session #1
Jeff started off the 1st game by briefing everyone of the game rule. The special characters are explained and only three were selected for this session - Seer, Medium and Bodyguard. Two werewolves and 5 villagers make up the number.
Ten players in this session - Alan, Jamie, Wai Yan, Lai Wah, Wai Keen, Kah Yee, Neoh, Mun Loong, Wie-Jie and Mandy. Moderator: Jeff.
This game started off in a quiet way since everyone was playing Werewolf for the 1st time. The werewolves (Neoh and Mandy) started off by getting to know each other and killing off the Moderator. In the day, the angry mob selected Alan to lynch.... poor unlucky chap. The Seer (Wei-Jie) did not manage to find the werewolves until it was too late for the villagers.
The villagers were not helped by the fact that in one early round, they nominated both the Seer and Medium (Kah Yee) to be lynched!! The werewolves hidding among the villagers were obviously laughing all the way. Obviously both the Seer and Medium pleaded for leniency claiming the villagers would be doomed if they lynched them!! In the end, the angry mob lynched the Medium to satisfy their bloodlust.
Without the help of the Medium and with the Seer now wary of his own angry villagers, a healthy number of villagers were killed, and the werewolves were able to take over the entire town! Victory to the Werewolves.
POMPEJI
While Werewolf Session #1 was in play, the Pudu Boys dropped in (Jacques, Stan and Bee). Since Alan was eliminated from the session, he offered to teach the newcomers Pompeji so that they can be occupied while we conclude the 1st session of the Werewolf game.
Werewolf Session #2
As my good fren Chua always say, "The first session does not count". We gathered again (after the Pudu Boys have also completed their game of Pompeji) for another round of Werewolf. This time, the gamers having gone through one session understood the implications of some of the roles better...
The two newcomers to our group Wei-Jie and Mandy have to leave (it's 12.30am now!) but they enjoyed the gaming session and will be joining us next week again.
We have three more gamers joining the Werewolf session, making this a 11-player game. An additional villager (total 6) was added to the Werewolves (2), Seer, Medium, and Bodyguard roles. Jeff continued to be the moderator.
The werewolves for this session were Neoh and Alan. Alan was again hotly nominated for the 1st Day's Lynching but he pleaded for sympathy after having been lynched early in the last game and this ploy worked - he was spared!! sigh, the villagers spared a werewolf because they sympathized with him?
Alan (werewolf) using sympathy votes to stay in the game - and it worked!
Anyway the werewolves got started on their killing spree soon after and one after another the villagers saw their numbers reducing. The Seer (Wai Keen) managed to fingered one of the wolves but could not make a convincing enough argument. To his credit he did manage to get one of the wolves lynched though it was very late in the game. The medium (Lai Wah) was able to find out a werewolf were killed but before she can spread the word around, she was silenced by the other werewolf.
The game went to a nailbiting end with three players remaining; one werewolf and two villagers. And a villager was chosen to be lynched!! This gave victory to the Werewolves team.
Werewolf Session #3
Everyone got so hooked onto this game, they wanted a 3rd session! Same players, same roles. Jeff remained as the moderator. Werewolves in this round were Mun Loong and Jamie, Wai Keen was the Seer, Kah Yee was the Medium while Alan was the Bodyguard.
In the 1st night, when the werewolves made their first kill in his eagerness (have to forgive him as this is his first werewolf kill) Mun Loong made too much noise when pointing to the victim, and this alerted Lai Wah who suspected that one of her neighbour was a werewolf! Not sure how many villagers believe her but she was taken out by the werewolves soon after.
The werewolves were doing very well in this session.. able to hide themselves so well among the villagers that no one suspected them and were instead lynching innocents. The Seer were pointing at everyone except the two werewolves!!
They did manage to lynch one of the werewolves (Mun Loong) - perhaps they started to believe Lai Wah's story of suspicion on her neighbour (Mun Loong sat next to her) after she was brutally killed by the werewolves. The medium obviously managed to find out that the lynched villager was a werewolf (note: we play this game with roles not revealed on death so the only one who knows whether a lynched villager is a human or werewolf would be the werewolves or the medium).
The Medium Kah-Yee was afraid of telling the town that a werewolf has been lynched for fear of suffering the same fate as Lai Wah so she quietly whispered this fact to her neighbour Neoh (who happened to be a villager). And one of the werewolves (Jamie) disguised herself so well that Neoh who sat next to her actually told her what the medium told him therefore exposing the identity of the medium to the lone werewolf! And do you think the medium survived after she's been exposed?
The werewolf (Jamie, lady in dark blue tee) making everyone laugh while she quietly knocked them off one-by-one at night. The medium is Kah Yee (lady in green tee) while Neoh is the guy in black between both ladies.
Surprisingly the medium did survive until the end of the game!! Not because the werewolves didn't chose to kill her but due to a mistake by the moderator who knocked off Ah Bee (the guy in striped t-shirt above) instead of the medium when the werewolves made their kill. Then again, the werewolves were so afraid of openly pointing to their victims (see early paragraph about Lai Wah hearing "noises" when the werewolves made their 1st kill) that they were not able to show the moderator clearly who they wanted to kill, hah!
In any case, this game again went to the nailwire with three players remaining - Kah Yee (medium), Jamie (werewolf) and Wai Yan (villager). Both Wai Yan and Jamie were nominated for lynching. Kah Yee was to make the deciding kill vote and she almost chose Wai Yan... until her gut feelings pointed her to Jamie and the village (or whatever's left of it) were saved! Victory to the Villagers.
Werewolf Session #4
And everyone LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH, we did a 4th session!! This means we've to shelf our plans to do a Memoir Overlord Challenge (next week then).... Anyway Jeff was requested to participate in the game instead of being the moderator. Lai Wah volunteered to take over and Jeff joined them. Still a 11-player game with 2 werewolves, 1 seer, 1 medium, 1 bodyguard and 6 villagers.
Roles were distributed and the werewolves were Jamie (again!) and Stan, Seer was Jacques, Medium was Kah Yee (that's her 3rd time being a Medium tonite) while Bodyguard was Jeff! 1st night went without much event.. and unexpectedly the angry mob selected Jamie (werewolf) to be lynched on the 1st day. Not sure whether it was a lucky day for the villagers or they could smell her wolfy scent. But no one remotely guessed she was the werewolf (after all, she was the werewolf in the last game and the probabilities of her taking the same role again in this game was like....). The Medium knew but was conspicuously quiet for fear of giving away her identity too early.
Alan who was seating next to Jamie was killed by the remaining werewolf on the 2nd night. Perhaps the werewolf were seeking retribution for his partner's early demise. Jeff had voted strongly for Alan's lynching earlier in the day and the werewolf Stan quickly used that to try and convince the villagers that Jeff was a great suspect - after all why was Jeff so eager to lynch a villager! Not surprisingly Jeff was nominated for lynching on the 2nd day together with Neoh.
Jeff has to pull out every tricks in his book to sway the crowd over to his side. The Seer (Jacques) helped by coming out early to tell everyone that he knew Jeff was a villager. Mun Loong did not believe and accused both Jeff and Seer Jacques as werewolves!! This made Jeff suspect Mun Loong of being the werewolf himself!! Seer Jacques then told everyone that he also knew Mun Loong was a villager - the seer happened to identify both Jeff and Mun Loong on the 1st two nights.
Mun Loong was hesitant to believe Jeff/Jacques but agreed to grant a stay of execution to give the Seer one more night to find out the identity of one more person. Neoh was chosen as the scapegoat for the day's lynching. He was confirmed later as an innocent villager... sob sob.
Neoh showing off the lynch votes he got! He's an innocent villager by the way.
Seer Jacques was supposed to find out the identity of Wai Keen (who was a little bit quiet) but it was a step too late as the werewolf got to Wai Keen first in the silence of the night. The werewolf would have attempted to take the Seer Jacques life but the wolf knew Bodyguard Jeff will be protecting him. Another villager lost to the blood thirst of the werewolf.
At this point in time, the suspicion grew on both Seer Jacques and Bodyguard Jeff as villagers seemed to be getting killed left and right while Jeff/Jacques continued to plead their innocence. Are they wolves in disguise? Jeff wanted the Medium to check out the role of some dead villagers but the werewolf mislead the group to think the Medium was probably dead.
The entire village grew tense.. everyone was wary of sleeping lest the werewolf comes and take them in their sleep. Everyone was getting edgy and wanted to lynch just about anyone they suspected to be a wolf. It was in such tense situation that Ah Bee, a quiet and nice villager was lynched for no particular reason except that he sported a hairstyle that some people (Jeff included) thought resembled a werewolf (goodness grief.. what's the whole village turning into?)
Ah Bee (the guy in striped t-shirt) was lynched and later found out to be just an innocent villager (oops)
In actual fact, Jeff was actually trying to buy time for the Seer Jacques to find more information on the werewolves whereabouts in order for them to fish the wolves out. The village is now down to 6 people after Ah Bee was lynched.
Night falls.......
When dawn broke, the entire village mourned the death of the Seer (Jacques). The Bodyguard (Jeff) has protected the Seer for one night but could not protect him for two nights in a row... It was clear the werewolves were growing stronger by the day. Without the power of the Seer or the Medium, the village knew they were doomed. They cannot possibly take on the might of two werewolves, not with only a small group of 5. Despair was setting in.
A bond of trust was formed between Jeff and Mun Loong. With the death of Seer Jacques, both can see clearly that Jacques was indeed a villager and Seer and he has been telling them the truth all along.
A gut instinct told Bodyguard Jeff that perhaps the Medium was still alive and perhaps one of the werewolves had already been lynched. An obvious clue was the lack of a supportive voice among the villagers save for the trust between Jeff and Mun Loong now. If there was a 2nd werewolf, surely it would have supported the 1st. But it has seemed there's only one werewolf acting alone...
Jeff made a final plea for the medium to show himself/herself.. and Kah Yee finally stepped forward to tell everyone that she's the Medium and that she knew one of the werewolves were dead. She pointed to Jamie and everyone was surprised because we all taught Jamie was the dead Medium! Stan (werewolf) then tried to mislead the group by saying Kah Yee could be the werewolf and Jamie was the real medium.
Confusion reigned in the village.
The spotlight was now on Kah Yee and she pleaded with everyone to believe her.... saying if we chose to lynch her, the entire village would be doomed. But don't they all make the same plea? It was indeed hard to make any decision. A wrong lynch and the power would shift to the werewolves permanently.
Jeff questioned Stan's motive for lynching Kah Yee especially since Stan had earlier wanted the group to lynch Mun Loong becoz he said Mun Loong was suspicious of Jeff/Jacques earlier and therefore must be a werewolf.
This made the village thought twice about Stan's motives...
After some deliberation, the village decided to lynch Stan and if another villager did not survive the night, to lynch Kah Yee next.
Hopefully someone from the village survives this nightmare to help save the village. At this moment, Stan bolted off.... everyone gave chase and when they finally caught up with him, he still tried to resist.. but the folks were getting too frenzied and lynched him!
It turned out Jamie was indeed a werewolf and Stan was her partner-in-crime. 4 villagers survived this ordeal to claim a victory for the Villagers.
BREAK TIME
It was already close to 4.00am Even though someone still wanted to play Werewolf, we decided to take a break at the nearby 24-hour Payathin food court to refill our stomach.... The Pudu Boys and Mun Loong have to make their leave (one of them working tomorrow).
CITADELS
After the break, we still have 8 players left and wanted to play "one game" instead of splitting the group into two games (of 4). Everyone agreed on Citadels and we added the Queen to the standard 8 roles (total 9 roles) for a 8-player game. We built to 7 buildings.
Kah Yee and Neoh quickly got themselves to 5 buildings. Jeff were holding the Warlord role and had wanted to dismantle one of Neoh or Kah Yee's buildings to slow them down but Kah Yee has the Graveyard as one of her buildings. The Graveyard allowed her to buy back a building dismantled by the Warlord with only one gold.
- If Jeff dismantles Kah Yee's building, she can buy it back for one gold so that'll be an exercise in futility.
- If Jeff instead dismantles Neoh's building, Kah Yee can buy it for one gold taking her building total to 6, an even undesirable situation.
So it looks like either Kah Yee or Neoh will end the game in a round or two.
The game ended with Jeff building his 6th and 7th building as an Architect but Neoh also managed to raise his 7th building with Kah Yee coming close with her 6th building (she was assassinated in the earlier turn). Neoh won the game with more building points (29 pts) to Jeff's 27 pts. Kah Yee was 3rd with about 23 pts.
NEXT GAMING?
Whew... a whole 8 hrs+ of gaming through out the night ending at 6.30am in the morning!! We had a series of fantastic Werewolf sessions... followed by a good warmdown with Citadels. Didn't get to play other scheduled games like Memoir 44 Overlord, Die Handler, Tigris & Euphrates, Bang! Well, anyway there's always the next week to look forward to.
I've still a few gaming reports pending... especially the long gaming held during Chinese New Year and last week's Overnight Gaming at this venue. Come back here again soon and you'll be able to read the other gaming reports.
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