Gamers: Jeff Au (jack208), Lai Wah (alw8871), Wai Yan (waiyan), Alan Woon (alanwsl), Jamie (jamie), Neoh (neo), Wai Keen, Jacques, Bryan Lai (brynlwc), Wye Keong (wyekeong), and new members Henry Yeo, Ng, Wing and Fuji
Games: Ticket to Ride, Lost Cities, Bang!, Werewolf, 6 Takes!, Ricochet Robot
Location: Boardgamecafe.net centre
Date/Time: 25 Mar (Sat) 8.30 PM - 3.30 AM
KL BOARDGAMES MEETUP REPORT @ BOARDGAMECAFE CENTRE 25/3/06
by jack208
Ehh... sorry for the delay in this gaming report as yours truly was away to Shanghai last week on a business trip. Hopefully my memory's not failing me and I can still remember enough of the meetup session to do this report.
TICKET TO RIDE
We have a new member from the KL Boardgames Meetup - Henry Yeo - joining today's meetup. Henry's an avid Scrabble player who's has discovered the fun of playing other boardgames. Henry came early and joined a few of the regulars - Wai Keen, Alan, Wai Yan - for a game of Ticket to Ride.
He quickly found out we've been playing two T2R rules wrongly; i) for gray routes, we can play any color cards but they must be of a matching set (we played that you can play ANY color cards without having to match them), and ii) if you choose to pick cards from the open deck, you take one from the deck, replace one from closed deck, and then decide whether you still want to take the 2nd card from the open deck or draw a blind card.
Anyway thanks to Henry for pointing this out to us.
LOST CITIES
Henry was also introduced to the 2-player Lost Cities and had a few rounds before more gamesters arrived. A few of our regulars were missing this evening - M.Hadi has a wedding dinner to attend, Stan has a wedding dinner preparation (his!) to prepare, Bee was watching ManU, Kah Yee went back to her hometown and Jeff (yours truly) was late.
BANG!
Anyway we soon have enough people for a 7-player session of Bang! (another favorite game among this group). Henry had played this before and joined as an Outlaw. Jeff and Wai Keen were the other 2 outlaws, with Bryan the newbie Sheriff while Neo and Jamie were his able deputies. Alan was the renegade and as usual he didn't last long (kekeke).
A pretty quick (and uneventful) game based on our previous sessions of Bang! In the end, the Sheriff won comfortably (both his Deputies were alive) as the Outlaws were quickly hunted down and taken care of.
WEREWOLF
Werewolf #1
By the time we finished Bang!, we have a few more gamesters arriving... making up the numbers for YES, WEREWOLF! Without further ado, we rearranged the tables, got everyone seated and since there were a couple of newbies to Werewolf, Jeff voluntered to be the Moderator and gave the new players a run-thru of the Werewolf rules.
Role cards were distributed and we have 10 players so we did the standard 2-wolf game. No other special roles were added beside the norm Seer, Medium and Bodyguard.
The guy facing camera covering his eyes (Henry) was a werewolf :)
This session ended rather quickly; the 1st wolf (Henry) was killed by the lynch mob quite accidentally or probably because he's "new" or maybe even because he sat next to Alan where statistics from our past Werewolf sessions indicated the chances of the gamesters sitting next to Alan drawing the werewolf role is higher than 50%!! Yeah, lots of metagaming here.
Anyway with the medium identfying the 1st wolf (dead), it was a quick elimination method the 2nd wolf was soon found and killed. Peace returns to the village.
Werewolf #2
Regular readers would know that this group is never satisfied with just one session of Werewolf. By now, three more new members have arrived, friends of Alan - Ng, Wong and Fuji. This is great! Now we can do a 13-player Werewolf session and have 3 wolves!
The gamesters quickly make their intro to each other (for the benefit of the new members) and also shuffled their seating arrangement. We always do that after each round of group games. Alan volunteered to be the Moderator, allowing Jeff to play in this session.
(This session was written from the werewolves perspective to gain a different look at how the game unfolded)
Role cards with 3 wolves were distributed out, and this time the wolves were Jeff, Jamie and Neo. Both Jamie and Neo have been wolves a few times and are thus experienced wolfies. There are still 10 villagers to account for but with 3 wolves on the hunt, this has the setting to be a great session.
On the 1st day, when the villagers were discussing which unfortunate soul to lynch... Wye Keong (1st timer) were the 1st to make some comments. Wrong move especially for a newbie coz talking too much (or too little) for a newbie "attracts" the dreaded Nomination Votes!
Just as the other villagers were beginning to pile the Nomination Votes on Wye Keong, Jeff ((wolf1) spoke up for him and told the rest he can vouch that Wye Keong is a villager implying Jeff was the Fortune Teller (seer). Of course the real Fortune Teller would have smelt something fishy here.... Could both Jeff and Wye Keong be wolves?
Wye Keong was spared and instead Wai Keen was chosen to be lynched (with some subtle hinting by the werewolves). The wolves smelt something threatening about Wai Keen and true enough, he turned out to be the Medium. Losing such a powerful character so early in the game would be a setback for the villagers!
Wai Keen (half-standing) was the 1st to be sacrificed to appease the Lynch Mob. Alan's the one in black tee standing.
But even more threatening to them would be the villagers' growing trust in Jeff (as their Fortune Teller)!
The werewolves struck for the 1st time on that night.. feasting on Jacques (guy wearing cap) as Jacques was following Jamie (wolf2) too closely as if he suspected something.
Day breaks... Henry was getting nervous and was starting to piece together the puzzle... Jeff quickly whispered to Henry that he knew Henry's a villager too and gained another "trusted" ally. The wolf-trust was being woven deeper and deeper into the villagers' midst.
The trio of Henry, Jeff (wolfie) and Wye Keong then began analyzing who's possible wolf, who's not. The three new members - Ng, Wong and Fuji - were just villagers and would always be easy patsy for the Angry Mob. They were being sacrificed one by one.
The wolves main intention was to flush out the Fortune Teller, their biggest threat.. and while the angry mob was lynching one of the three new amigos, Jeff noticed Lai Wah was deep in her thoughts... Hmm.. could she be the all-seeing Fortune Teller?
On that same night, one of the wolves were discovered! There was now real and significant tension among the wolves... could Jeff's cover have been blown? The three wolves quickly meet up and went on the offensive... attacking and brutally killing Lai Wah before she had the chance to tell the others what she has discovered. She did indeed discovered that Jeff was a werewolf masquerading as the Fortune Teller!
The wolves were not yet sure whether Lai Wah was the Fortune Teller but since no one came out to identify the "discovered" werewolf, the wolves already started to believe that they had already eliminated their biggest threat (the Fortune Teller ie. Lai Wah) from the ranks of the villagers.
This made them even bolder... and Jeff was spinning his web of deceit deeper into the villager's inner circles. With staunch supporters in villagers Wye Keong and Henry, Jeff "helped" them to lynch innocent villagers while Neo and Jamie salivated over their next kills.
The dead however kept turning in their graves.... their death unredeemed... Villagers frequently whispered about the sightings of the Three-Who-Must-Not-Talk (ie. Wai Keen, Jacques and Lai Wah). They were trying to warn the living that Jeff was a werewolf and must be lynched else the village is doomed.
But alas, Jeff brought in a priest (Alan the moderator) and shooed the Three-Who-Must-Not-Talk away from the village, condemning them to their unredeemed afterworld.
Neo (wolf3) was unfortunately picked out to be lynched... and sensing there's no way they could save him without blowing their cover, Jeff and Jamie joined the Angry Mob to lynch one of their kind in cold-blood. Yeah, that's how wolves are. They could turn on their own kind in an instant to save their own skins.
With Neo gone, the villagers were now left to a critically low number. There were now only 6 people left, with two wolves (Jeff and Jamie). But Bryan already suspected Jeff to be of dubious character after he saw how Jeff were agitated by the presence of the Three-Who-Must-Not-Talk.
Jeff knew he has to act quickly else his cover would be blown. So he quickly persuaded the villagers to lynch one of the newbies.... leaving the group count to 5. At night, the two wolves then came out in their full fury and killed all the remaining villagers!
The shock were clearly visible on the face of the 3 surviving villagers - Bryan, Wye Keong and Henry - when they realized the man they trusted all this while was a cunning wolf in disguise. But alas.... twas too late to save them.
Roll call
- Werewolves - Neo, Jamie and Jeff
- Fortune Teller - Lai Wah
- Medium - Wai Keen
- Bodyguard - Wai Yan
- Villagers - Henry, Wye Keong, Jacques, Ng, Wong, Fuji
6 TAKES!
A break from Werewolf as Henry suggested 6 Takes! Ten players quickly got together for the game..... Alan did the rule briefing for newbies to this game.. and we played to a score of 50 (i.e. game ends when one gamesters hit 50 bull-heads).
That honor went to one of the new members, Fuji! Another non-regular Wye Keong won the game with the lowest bull-head score of 5.
WEREWOLF
Werewolf #3
Well, two sessions of Werewolf would not be enough especially since we have 13 gamesters and could do a 3-wolf version! Quickly we packed away 6 Takes and rejoined the tables for the 3rd session of Werewolf. Neo offered to be the moderator and Alan now gets to play.
On the 1st night, someone cried "Wolf"! In daytime, Lai Wah quickly stood up, announced herself as the Fortune Teller and pointed to Jamie as the werewolf. Of course, Jamie accused her likewise.
Who do we believe?
After some deliberation, the village decided to lynch Jamie and closely monitor Lai Wah. She's not above suspicion after all especially since in the last game, the so-called surviving Fortune Teller turned out to be the werewolf!
The Medium (Alan) was able to confirmed the lynched Jamie was indeed a werewolf but before he could say his piece, he was silenced bloodily by the other two werewolves. Again the villagers lost one of their key characters early in the game.
Sensing that the medium has been silenced, the villagers now turned to Alan's "silent" nomination vote to try and find the identity of the other two werewolves - if indeed Jamie was a wolf.
Lai Wah survived surprisingly for a long time.. we all thought now that her identity as the Fortune Teller has been exposed, she would have been taken out (or was she the werewolf?) After all the Bodyguard (even if he's alive) can only protect her once. Suspicion starts to grow on her....
One of the newbie Wolf was caught out and was soon lynched... aieeeyaaaaaaa.... the blood of a wolf never smelt so good!
It was not surprising when Jeff was nominated unanimously by the Lynch Mob! And it's all because Alan (dead medium) innocently played a silent nomination vote on Jeff (after having played the previous vote on Jacques) in a bid to hint to the villagers that Jamie (who was lynched on the 1st day) was indeed a wolf.
But the villagers misunderstood his intentions and in their blind fury, lynched Jeff! After all, it's probably better to kill the wrong villager than to let a wolf live especially since their numbers are dwindling and the Fortune Teller was not able to discover another werewolf beside the 1st discovery early in the game which was causing many to give suspicious glance to Lai Wah.
Jeff unanimously lynched!
Who was the last werewolf?
The 1st clue came when Wye Keong made a comment about lynching Lai Wah instead as he thought she's very suspicious. This prompted both Bryan and Henry to analyze the situation and they were slowly piecing the puzzle together but not before Henry was not spared by the savagery of the last wolf.
Yet Lai Wah still remain alive and kicking? She the wolf?
Soon it was down to just 4 villagers - Lai Wah, one of the newbie (in dark tee), Bryan and Wye Keong - but since the moderator did not call for an end to the game, this meant there's only one surviving werewolf.
The wolf made one final kill at nite - the newbie - before Lai Wah and Bryan both combined their might to subdue Wye Keong and strung him up nice and dry on the village gate! The villagers survived... barely.
Roll call
- Werewolves - Jamie, Wong and Wye Keong
- Fortune Teller - Lai Wah
- Medium - Alan
- Bodyguard - Wai Yan
- Villagers - Henry, Jeffrey, Jacques, Bryan, Wai Keen, Ng, Fuji
Prologue
At the end of the game, Neo (the moderator) gave us a "proper" demonstration of how the werewolves should do their transformation at night! And boy, was it a freaking convincing and scary demo... hahaha
Yeah, this is what happens to you if you play too many games of Werewolf! LOL
RICOCHET ROBOT
After the three intense Werewolf sessions, some gamesters decided to call it a night. The remaining ones pulled out Ricochet Robot and grouped around the table cracking their heads on this amazing visceral puzzle/game!
Pretty intense eh?
After burning all their brain juices... we decided to call it Nite2 and bid good morning to everyone. Thanks to Henry, Wong, Ng and Fuji for joining us. Hope to see you all again in our next Meetup.
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