A few nights ago, we had our newish friends Monty and Lynn over to play Arkham Horror. Monty works with Stick, and I’ve hung out with his friend Lynn a few times outside of our D&D game. I guess they’re more acquaintances, but, hey, socializing with people in North Carolina, outside of Stick’s family!
Arkham Horror is a complicated boardgame based on HP Lovecraft stories, where players play against the game, not against each other. It’s got a good story and characters, with a strong random element, and a lot of resource management. It’s a bit like Betrayal At The House On The Hill, although not enough like it to make up for Betrayal House going out of print. We played over two evenings, and when we finished on the second night it wasn’t too late.
“What about a quick game of Axis and Allies?” Stick said. He has a special super-deluxe exclusive edition where you can manage everything, down to what color socks your troops are wearing. He loves this game, I think he’d sleep with it under his pillow, but it’s the opposite of quick.
Although Stick has a lot of games, we decided on a quick round of Uno, out of my ESL materials box, since it wouldn’t require any time to set up or explain the rules.
Our quick game turned into the longest Uno game in the history of the planet.
Somehow we all ended up with huge hands, while the pool of drawable cards dwindled. No one was going to be able to call Uno! But this was a group of players amused by statistical possibilities, so we tried to see if we’d break the game by playing only draw cards, creating a smaller and smaller pool of cards with a higher and higher proportion of draw cards. While shouting Trienta y nueve! or Veinticuatro! to break up the card-drawing monotony.
I think that means we’re friends now.
Sounds like no one involved was a meanderthal! 🙂
Hey, is HP Lovecraft where DC Comics got the idea for Arkham Asylum — the loony bin where all of Batman’s villains wind up??
I’ve heard it is, which is a cool piece of nerd crossover.