Tabletop

"Perhaps I should write about Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker!," I mused. "But of course they can't play this thing, since it's not only out of print but incredibly obscure, and basically no copies are available anywhere."

No problem; I emailed JFD and got his permission to put the game up here.

In one sense, Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker! is a truly exotic bit of esoterica -- a game on the Columbia riots, printed back in 1969 in the pages of the Columbia Daily Spectator, and designed by James F. Dunnigan, one of the finest and most prolific designers of board wargames.

But in another sense, you can argue that it is a seminal title: Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker! may well be the first commercial simulation game not on a military theme.

That is, military simulations for use in military training date back at least to the 18th century, and by 1969 think-tanks like the RAND Corporation and many businesses were using simulations of one kind or another, often computer-mediated ones (running, of course, on mainframes). And commercial wargames date at least back to Little Wars (1913), and by 1969 were a small but thriving market, mainly served by Avalon Hill. But commercial boardgames then, as today, tended to treat their ostensible themes as useful for marketing, but not as something that should inform actual gameplay.

In Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker! you play either as Columbia University's administration, or as the radicals who have seized control of Fayerweather Hall. You are attempting to influence the opinions of various stakeholders in the university -- students of different sorts, the alumni, and so on. Random event cards influence play. Ultimately, the side that gains the greatest sympathy on the part of university stakeholders wins.

It's not what you call a deep simulation; I suspect that Dunnigan, Avorn, and Glynn bashed this thing together in an afternoon, and probably played it only a handful of times before printing it. It's more of a goof than a serious game, and indeed, it's quite unbalanced -- the Administration will win, barring a lot of luck (and a well-timed Motherfucker Gambit) on the part of the Radical player. But of course, you can argue that this is realistic; only at Brown did student protests make deep and lasting changes in the way the university is administered (without, it should be noted, a riot).

The mere title of the game has proven somewhat controversial; when SPI published Chicago, Chicago (a game on the Chicago riots during the Democratic National Convention of 1968), there was an internal debate about whether or not to republish UATW,MF! along with it -- they decided not to, lest the title offend some subscribers. When Boardgamegeek first listed the game, some of its members objected, as well, and the title on the site is now censored. To me, at least, these objections seem rather hilarious, particularly given the existence of games such as Cunt.

JFD was purposefully cocking a snoot at Avalon Hill, in particular, his then-publisher. Eric "Papa" Dott, its head, went so far as to change the title of a game called "Grand Prix" to Le Mans because he feared how American shopgirls would pronounce the original title. You could get away with shit in a university paper that you certainly couldn't in anything like mainstream media. And JFD has certainly never objected to shocking; he not only funded SPI's early operations by stealing and reselling Ma Bell equipment from his dayjob as a security guard at one of their warehouses, but is perfectly open about that fact today (the statue of limitations having expired).

Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker! resonates well today with the punk aesthetic of modern indie gaming, and we're proud to offer you this important document in the evolution of modern games.

The Dungeon of D is a "print-and-play" (PnP) game, meaning it's not available for sale, but instead you can download PDFs of the components and print them out to make your own copy. In other words, it's an amateur rather than a professional production, but it's worth remembering that "amateur" has its roots in the Latin "amare" (to love); that is, an amateur does what he does for love, not for money. While its rare for any amateur product to reach or exceed professionally-produced products, it can and does happen -- as it has with this game.

Dungeon of D is a dungeon-crawling game; you draw one character card to represent your character, but can encounter others (and learn their special skills) in the dungeon. Your character starts with zero in all stats (strength, intelligence, and agility), but can increase them in play. You also start with 9 "power" cards, which are used in many ways during play -- to overcome obstacles, to determine the power of a monster you fight, to determine what normal or special item you encounter, and what kind of potion you've got. They also represent hit points: you have as many HP as cards currently in your hand.

There are eight levels to the game, and winning means finding the Amulet of D'eugor (read it backwards). Each level contains 9 rooms, one of which is the portal to the next level, but as challenges increase with level, you don't always use it when you find it -- you may want to explore the rest of the level to gain power and items.

There's an inventory system as well -- everything handled with cards, there's no recourse to dice or the like. A clever system of positioning cards under or nearby your character card, and turning them to display different values, suffices for almost everything.

In short, playing The Dungeon of D is something like playing a Rogue-like, but there's also a strong strategy element in choosing which of your Power cards to use (you want to keep the best for critical moments, even at the cost of possibly failing actions in the shorter term).

It's also a beautiful game, mainly because fans of the designer's original edition put together a set of cards that are of professional caliber -- close to Magic: The Gathering's cards in both attractiveness and intelligent information design.

And because it's purely a card game, it's easier to assemble your own PnP version than with most such games -- just print on cardstock and cut apart.

Unsurprisingly, The Dungeon of D has a better-than-7 rating on Boardgamegeek -- which is quite impressive for an amateur effort.

I am now officially tired of the "why can't we have games that do ______?" conversation. Like, you know "games can't do conversations, games can't do tragedy, games can't do X, Y, and Z", so we're stuck with nothing but Gears of War until the end of time.

The basic problem with this idea is, of course, the insistence that a "game" is a 3D high-poly-count app created for tens of millions of dollars by wageslaves in an EA/Activision/Ubisoft sweatshop.

A Bitter Aftertaste is a jeepform roleplaying game for four players that premiered at Ropecon, the Finnish national roleplaying games convention, in 2007. It is about two lovers who have just had the best sex of their lives, sitting on a balcony overlooking their city, and talking. Something games supposedly can't do, to be sure.

Why does a game about two people talking require four players? Because, of course, the game is a jeepform, and uses several of the techniques common to this game style: inner monologues, "insides & outsides," and imaginary scenes.

Harviainen imposes a narrative arc: by the end of the game, the insecurities of both members of the couple will lead to the loss of their love. Many narrativist "indie" RPGs also impose a narrative arc, but unlike those games, jeepforms have no die-rolls or other external mechanics for either action or scene resolution. They are pure roleplaying -- with a set of rules that allow players to seize and usurp the nature of the roleplaying, complicating the situation. Jeepforms have rules and mechanics, but they are rules and mechanics that control who roleplays what, and when and how. They are, in many ways, closer to "acting games" than traditional tabletop RPGs -- and yet, derive ultimately from the tabletop roleplaying tradition.

At game start, the lovers are chatting on their balcony. Two players represent them, and roleplay freely. At any moment, any of the players -- the lovers, or other two -- may interrupt, and act out an imaginary scene: A scene depicting what is going through the head of one of the lovers. For the purposes of this scene, any of the players may be chosen to represent either the lovers or other characters. As an example, let us say that one of the lovers is Robert, and the other is Sara (A Bitter Aftertaste is gender-neutral, and the game provides for both same sex and heterosexual couples). Something Robert said may have suddenly triggered, for Sara, the fantasy that he might betray her by having an affair with a co-worker. The player theoretically playing Sara on the balcony may not be aware of this fact, until another player seizes the action and grabs other players to act out the scene, one of the players (not necessarily the "balcony Robert") representing Robert, and another the coworker.

One rule of the game is that all such scenes must create doubt. None are permitted to end in happy resolution. And any return to the scenario in a later scene must escalate -- a greater fear, a greater consequence. During such a scene, the "dreamer" -- the person proposing that this scenario is running through one of the lover's head -- may request a monolog. S/he speaks this, facing away from the other players; the other characters do not hear it, but the players do.

Another rule is that imaginary scenes may not establish facts -- only doubts. And a third is that the game must end in a break up.

Like other jeepforms, A Bitter Aftertaste blurs the boundaries between theatrical improv and tabletop roleplaying; indeed, you could see it being performed before a theater audience, and perhaps one day games of this type shall be.

Pit is a wonderful game, probably the best game released in 1904. I imagine that Wheedle came about by Knizia taking a look and saying to himself "that's interesting... but I think I can do better." And so he did.

Like Pit, Wheedle is a lightly-themed stock game, played in real time, where players are frantically trading cards with each other to try to collect sets of cards. Each card represents stock in one of several satirically-named companies (like "N Securities" and "Hard Cell Phones"), and players are trying to get at a majority share of as many companies as they can.

Unlike Pit, all trades are made with full disclosure. You say not only how many cards you are trading with other players, but also which cards. Trades can be uneven; you can trade one card for two, or you can even give away or accept cards in exchange for nothing.

Additionally, there is one face-up card in the center of the table (the deck has 61 cards, so there will always be one left over, whether you play with three, four, five, or six players). Anyone can trade one-for-one with the table at any time -- first come, first served. This does occasionally lead to disputes of whose cards are whose when several players put a card on the table to exchange at the same time; as players get more experienced at playing, this tends to happen less.

At any time, any player can end the round of trading. The game rules do not suggest a mechanism for this (and I have witnessed games where some players are concentrating so much on their hand that they do not notice that the round has ended), so you would be encouraged to supply your own bell, air horn, or some other sufficiently attention-grabbing device.

Scoring is as follows: for every company in which a player has a majority share, they earn one point per card; a player gets two points per card if they own all cards of a particular company. There is one modifier to this: whatever single card is face-up at the end of the round is the company that went bankrupt, and all matching cards are worth negative points (even if part of a majority). As such, there is often some frantic trading with the center once players perceive that the round is close to ending.

The player that ends the round gets a five-point bonus if their hand consists only of majority or totality shares. They pay a five-point penalty otherwise. This mechanism generally prevents players from just ending the round on a whim, unless they are far enough ahead that they can afford it (in which case, it offers a way for a game to end faster if the winner is essentially determined anyway).

You play a number of rounds equal to the number of players, with highest combined score being declared winner. Overall, it is a fast-moving game that serves well when there is not much time for an extended game, or if you are looking for lighter fare after playing something particularly involved. Be aware that the game often involves lots of frantically-raised voices, so do not play in an area where you would be disturbing anyone else's quiet time.

Oh, and I make absolutely no excuses for the box art. Getting people to look past the eyesore red-and-yellow logo is probably the hardest barrier to entry for this game, and I can offer no suggestions there.

Bitch (verb) is a very short (rules on one sheet of paper) pick-up-and-play RPG for up to eight players. In this, it is quite original: an interesting roleplaying set-up, intended for a single, quick session of play, with minimal rules. It comes out of the indie RPG scene, but reminds me strongly of "acting games," the improv scenarios used by actors to hone their skills.

Possibly the most daunting challenge any game designer could set himself is this: to design a new game with the rules simplicity but strategic depth of classic abstract strategy games like Chess and Go. Those games have been refined over hundreds of years and pondered by millions of people; for an individual to create anything remotely as deep is -- well, not impossible, but clearly astonishingly hard.

And yet, with Arimaa, the Syeds seem to have succeeded.

Mystic is a card game released in 2000. Like James Ernest's Brawl, it came in several standalone sets (there were four in all, two under the label "Domination" and two more under the expansion set "Companion"). Each set came with two playable decks of cards, so you could play a two-player game right away, and more cards allows more players (up to 5 at a time). While the decks of cards are pre-constructed, players are able (and encouraged) to construct their own custom decks according to certain restrictions; it is therefore a customizable card game, but not collectible.

James Ernest is the designer of, among other games, Falling, Lord of the Fries, Diceland and Button Men. Cheapass Games is his vehicle for self-publishing quick-playing and generally very cheap games (as Lone Shark Games is his vehicle for corporate event games).

Three earlier Cheapass titles are available for free download (print and play) from the company's website -- and while these aren't Ernest's best titles, free is a nice price, and they're fun enough.

I have previously made much of A Journey Through Europe, published in 1759, and the first boardgame in the English language to which we can ascribe an individual designer; I called it "the first designed game," and Rob Rossney quite rightly pointed out that the card game of Cribbage was designed sometime around 1630 by Sir John Suckling. But at least until now, Journey was the first designed boardgame of which I know.

I swear, it seems each year we see Eurogames with odder and less cohesive themes, while the gameplay just gets stronger. Finca is a case in point.

The premise, if you can call it that, is that the players are farmers living on the turning blades of a giant windmill, where they harvest fruit. They then get on their donkeys and sell their fruit to the neighboring towns. When a town runs out of demand for fruit, a "finca" (some kind of monument) is erected there, because... I don't know, they're holding a festival for the god of fruit or something. But none of this has the slightest thing to do with the gameplay.