Top Five Board Games for the Holiday Season

So being a self-professed dork comes with a couple perks.  A) I've always had plenty of room on public transit, as geeky waves of nerdiness surround me like dirt on Pigpen, and B) I am occasionally asked for my opinion on certain topics as if I'm some sort of expert, which I'm not, but the ego boost is nice.  I was recently asked about what games would make suitable gifts this holiday season, games that would be engaging, thought provoking, and of course fun.  After a couple titles popped into my head, I decided to compile a short list for you fine folks.  These games are not just great gifts, but one or two at the right Christmas or New Years get together might be just the thing to go down with the eggnog, turkey, and/or champagne.  So...without further ado...

Top Five Board Games for the Holiday Season:

1. Dead of Winter
This is currently my favourite game, and with The Walking Dead taking a break until the Spring, this game is an excellent way to fill the void until its return.  Even if you are not a fan of zombies, Dead of Winter is a phenomenally good game with the right mix of people. 

In Dead of Winter, two to five players each control a small group of survivors, and the combination of these groups form the colony.  The game is semi-cooperative, as the players must all work together to find food, medicine, weapons, and perform other tasks to see their way through a brutal snowstorm during a zombie apocalypse.  Like all great stories from the genre, the true threat of Dead of Winter is not the zombies, but from the human drama that unfolds, for one player is most likely a traitor who has a hidden agenda and is attempting to secretly foil the plans of the other survivors.  There are also special cards (called Crossroads cards) that are drawn every turn that pose players with moral dilemmas that have to be resolved.  It has the all the tension of a taught thriller, and is the perfect game for a chilly December evening.

2. Codenames

Codenames is a great party game I recently discussed in one of my weekly reports.  Here's what I wrote about it a few weeks ago: "The game is incredibly simple to play, but it's also a game that rewards creative thinking and risk taking. Players are divided into teams, and each team has a "codemaster". Looking at a five by five grid of cards, (each card featuring a word) each codemaster tries to encourage their team into guessing certain cards representing operatives, all the while avoiding innocent bystanders and an assassin."  Codenames is great for large groups as the players break into teams.  It's a very easy game to learn with simple components.  The card design is smart in that the words are presented so they can be read from different angles.  It's a game that is bound to generate some interesting "house rules" over time.  I see this game replacing classic party games like Scattergories and Cranium.



3. Sheriff of Nottingham

The term "Instant Classic" might get thrown around a little loosely at times, but after one game of Sheriff of Nottingham, you'll be hooked.  Up to five players take on the role of humble merchants attempting to import simple goods like bread, apples, cheese, and chickens.  Each merchant might also be attempting to smuggle in contraband like crossbows, alcohol, and spices.  Each round a player takes on the role of Sheriff, who basically acts as a customs agent, inspecting shipments of goods each merchant is bringing in to Nottingham.  The joy comes from the combination of bluffing, suspicion, bribery, and corrupt shakedowns.  There's some sublte roleplaying as well, as each player tries to appeal to the Sherrif.  "I'm just trying to import some cheese...oh...how did these coins get here?  Well, why don't you just put this in the Sheriff's Retirement Fund, and let me be on my way with my...'cheese'...".  This is a great game.

4. Camel Up!

The award winning Camel Up! kills quite a few birds with one proverbial stone; it can play up to eight people (few games can), it's suitable for all ages, it's easy to learn but has enough strategy to keep hardcore gamers entertained.  Again, I mentioned the game a few weeks ago; "The game actually has you playing as the spectators, playing bets on first camel, last camel, placing obstacles on the track, and advancing the race through rolling dice. The dice are rolled via a pyramid you construct before you play. Dice are dropped into the pyramid, and a neat locking mechanic allows one die to be released at random, changing the position of the camels. When two or more camels occupy the same space, they stack up, with the "lead" camel being the camel on top of the stack. " An expansion was recently released for the game, making the racetrack a little longer. 

5. Mission Red Planet (2nd Edition)

The second edition of Mission Red Planet was recently released, and is a very fun game.  It's a good game for fans of Settlers of Catan who are looking for a new challenge involving area control and resource management.  The players (up to six!) send rockets to Mars and the nighbouring moon of Phobos.  Players not only attempt to control territory, but can also sabotage rival rockets to be redirected or even blow-up.  The game has great components and a geat Steampunk aesthetic for fans of the genre.  It's not overly-complicated, but like 'Settlers, it has room for some clever strategies.  Meeting condition cards drawn at random at the start of the game add a great deal of replayability.

To get a better idea about each of the games mentioned, check out the videos below.  Each either demonstrates the game or gives it a more in-depth review.  Thanks for reading!

Dead of Winter

Code Names

Sheriff of Nottingham

Camel Up

Mission Red Planet

Table Top Game Club Week Twelve and Thirteen: Pandemic, Pandas, Cowboys, and Kidneys

Sorry for the late update folks.  I developed kidney stones recently, and they have a way of taking precedent over blogging about board games.  Anyway, I'm on the mend and feel like typing.  I have a week and a half to catch up on (last Friday's session was cancelled due to the previously mentioned kidney stones).

Week 12's Feature Game: Pandemic

Chances are if you're reading this blog, boardgaming is a hobby of yours, so you already know about Pandemic.  It is arguably the most popular cooperative game on the market, and the new Pandemic: Legacy is already a smash success.  We played two games of Pandemic, but prior to the game, I incorporated some of the cards and roles from the expansion On The Brink.  We played two games, and luckily won both times.  At first we felt like the game was too easy, but upon further investigation we realized in both instances we were one turn away from losing the battle against Ebola/SARS/Chicken Pox/Cooties.  Both games were fun, tense, and there were high-fives all around.


 Friday's open gaming session had a great turn-out, which allowed for simultaneous games of Takenoko and Sheriff of Nottingham.  Both games worked well.  I will expand on the two games later as they become weekly feature games, but they are both extremely popular.  In an upcoming post, I am making a Top Five Games for the Holidays list, and Sheriff of Nottingham definitely makes the cut.

Week 13's Feature Game: Flick 'em Up!

Flick 'em Up! is a wonderful surprise.  It's a dexterity game that blends the disc flicking of the classic game Crokinole with the manuevering and shooting of a miniatures war game.  It's also one of the few games that allows for two to ten players, and still offers satisfying gameplay.  There is a great deal of strategy in the game, but the best laid plans go out the window with a lame flick.  We played two games from the scenario book, the opening tutorial encounter and a second round where the villains had to rescue their patriarch from the gallows.  It was tremendously fun, and I want it to hit the table again.

Thanks for reading folks.  Check back soon for my Top Five for the Holidays!

Table Top Game Club Week Eleven: Camels and Code Names

Sorry for the late update folks.  Last week's (Week 11) game sessions included a few games of Camel Up! and our Friday play test (what I call playing while we read the rules) was all about the new party game Codenames.

Tuesday's session was a very low turn out, but it still made for a fun time once we busted out Camel Up!  Camel Up! is a unique racing game that plays up to eight people.  When people first see the game, the instinct is to "pick your colour" (colour with a "u"... welcome to Canada), because most players believe they will be a particular camel. 

The game actually has you playing as the spectators, playing bets on first camel, last camel, placing obstacles on the track, and advancing the race through rolling dice.  The dice are rolled via a pyramid you construct before you play.  Dice are dropped into the pyramid, and a neat locking mechanic allows one die to be released at random, changing the position of the camels.  When two or more camels occupy the same space, they stack up, with the "lead" camel being the camel on top of the stack. 

One criticism of the game is that it lacks any strategy, and the game is too random.  I found it to have plenty of strategy, especially when you're deciding whether or not to roll the dice.  Advancing the race grants you money, but also lets your opponents get a clearer picture of who is in the lead, and having the jump on your fellow players matters when it comes to betting.  Only three of us played, but all three of us enjoyed the session.

Friday had a much better turn out, so we decided to try a recent acquisition: Codenames.  The game is incredibly simple to play, but it's also a game that rewards creative thinking and risk taking.  Players are divided into teams, and each team has a "codemaster".  Looking at a five by five grid of cards, (each card featuring a word) each codemaster tries to encourage their team into guessing certain cards representing operatives, all the while avoiding innocent bystanders and an assassin.

We had fun, but there were some frustrating moments.  I accidentally nailed a perfect clue to scoop up two cards, but I mixed up the colours and scored two for my opponents.  "Table talk" on behalf of the Codemasters is forbidden, but the cross talk of the teams can steer the game into a particular direction that some might find manipulative and cheating.  Should players use the sand-timer that's included, and if so, how? 

The game was also a great challenge for our EAL student (English as Additional Language).  If you read my previous post I mentioned the challenge of the player I called "C" had with The Resistance when English is not her first language.  Codenames was educational, helped expand her vocabulary, but also put up some roadblocks in terms of her enjoyment.  It's a game that helps if you understand synonyms really well, which also happens to be a challenge for EAL speakers.

In the end, we all had fun.  We will hash out some "house" rules before we crack open Codenames again.  In the mean time, I believe it's time for some Pandemic.

Thanks for reading! 

Table Top Game Club Week Ten: Lies, Lies, and more Lies!

Due to a Teachers' Conference, the club will not meet for its usual open gaming session on Friday, so I can file my report early.  As you can tell from the title, our friendly little game club was turned into a house of lies; we played The Resistance.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, The Resistance is known as a "hidden role" game, where groups of five or more players represent factions in a futuristic dystopia.  The Resistance (usually considered the heroes) is trying to "stick it to the man" so to speak, while two of the players are really government spies (usually considered the villains).  The job of the spies is to pretend to be loyal members of the Resistance and hopefully blame other players for their dirty work, thwarting the plans of the Resistance by intentionally failing missions.

If you have the time, check out this link.  Wil Wheaton's Youtube show Table Top demonstrated the game, and captured some of the great moments you get to experience with the right group of people.  It's a great game that has few components, is easy to learn, and has tremendous re-playability.  There are several different strategies one can use, and the game-play is entirely verbal.  If you're going to win, you will need some serious acting chops of the best kind; you have to be able to lie and manipulate an entire table of players.

In order to describe the game session, and preserve the anonymity of my students, I'm going to refer to particular students with just a letter.  The players included:

Yours Truly

Ms. L:  The other teacher who guides and co-chairs the game club.

B: Grade 12 male, and the only club veteran in today's session.   

S: Grade 9 female.

C: Grade 9 female, originally from Chile.  The fact English is not her first language comes up in the game.

Ms. W: Another teacher who stopped by to watch, but was pulled in to the game.

M: I'm not sure what grade she's in.  She was a brand new member who was recruited in the most interesting fashion.

We had four solid game sessions.  In the first game, S completely fooled me into thinking she was loyal.  On a two player mission she kept herself off the team, which to me looked like a virtuous choice.  I was perfectly played and she thoroughly enjoyed the big reveal at the end.  At the start of the second game, Ms. W stopped buy to watch, but we quickly recruited her and brought her into a six player game.  The Resistance easily won this game when the two spies were on the first mission (a two player mission), and one of them tanked the operation.  This brought instant suspicion to the pair who were essentially pariahs for the rest of that round.

After game two, B left, admitting he just wanted to win one session.  He was pulled home by the apparently undeniable allure of Fallout 4.  This was where I was a little heartbroken.  Although I'm a fan of video games, the social aspect of table top gaming is what I consider the major draw and advantage over digital gaming.  A video game could never replace the mechanics of lying and bluffing a table full of players into believing you're on their side.

Down to five players, I decided to throw a wrinkle into the game; I added a pair of cards and a small deck from the expansion Hidden Agenda.  Hidden Agenda adds some interesting variations to the original game.  The new rule set we played used two additional cards: Defectors, one Resistance and one Spy.  These two cards replace standard versions from the base game.  After the second round, a small deck of cards is added.  At the start of each round, loyalty cards are flipped to see if the two Defectors switch allegiances, the Defector loyalist becomes a pro-government spy, the Defector spy jumping to The Resistance.  The game came down to the last round as both the loyalist Defector and spy Defector were on the same team.  It tanked, and was a win for the spies.

At this point, Ms. W had to leave.  With only four players remaining, it looked like we were going to have to switch games, as The Resistance must have five players minimum.  I went to the washroom,  quickly trying to figure out how long it would take to teach the group Blokus.  Upon my return, I was pleasantly surprised that Ms.L had gone to the commons and done some recruiting.  Our new player, M, is a student I've never seen before.  She seemed a little nervous, quickly thrown into a game out of aggressive (but friendly) recruiting.  I think she just took pity on us by helping us round out the group of five.  After quickly explaining the rules, she picked up on the ideas right away, and proved to be a solid player.  Afterwards she mentioned that she might return for future game sessions, which was encouraging.

It was also during this game that language barrier became a small issue, but also reinforced the value of games as a teaching tool.  The Resistance requires players to bluff, lie, and be quite persuasive.  C, who is a very intelligent and shrewd player (she was the one who cleaned house in Small World), was feeling a touch frustrated.  C's ability to speak English became a small hurdle for her as she wanted to eloquently get her argument across to the table.  Luckily, Ms.L speaks Spanish, so she was able to translate C's persuasive points to the rest of the group.

At that point I realized that for EAL (English as an Additional Language) students, a game club is a smart destination.  Like I said earlier, C is a clever and very strategic player, no matter if we're playing Elder Sign, Smash Up, or The Resistance.  Her only (temporary) weakness is her struggles with English, and the game club gives her a fun destination for her to develop her English skills in a non threatening setting.  It's an interesting bi-product of this strange journey I started just over a year ago.

Game 4 ended with a win for the spies, and featured some of my best work as a manipulative liar.  M was shocked and impressed. 

Next week will be a full week of class and my usual gaming sessions.  I think it might be time to bust out some Camel Up! 

Table Top Game Club Week Nine: Skeletons, Lovecraft, and Poe...Oh my!

This was a great week for the Table Top Game Club. 

On Tuesday we introduced the students to Small World.  This year, with so many new students joining the club, it's been a joy to introduce the some of the "old standards" of gaming to fresh audiences.  Small World delivered, and it was neat to see how new players adjusted to the strategies.  One player's Trolls dominated the northern part of the map.  Two other players traded territory between Halflings and Ratmen.  I thought I had made a good decision to sweep across the board with my Amazons, completely wiping out another player's Triton army.  That was a huge mistake as that player swore vengeance upon me.  She proceeded to launch an attack of Skeletons that not only destroyed me, but scored her the win.  Her new nickname is "The Beast", and we're all thoroughly intimidated.


After finally posting my thoughts on Lovecraft and gaming (it's the post below this one), I decided to introduce the crew to Elder Sign, a cooperative, supernatural game of teamwork as each player uses an interesting set of dice to fight monsters, look for special items, and investigate rooms of a museum.  It might be a little lighter on theme than its more complicated brethren (Arkham Horror, Eldritch Horror), but gameplay is fun.  It was encouraging to see students high-five over the successes of others, and after an hour, we succeeded in vanquishing the snake cult of Yig.  I think next semester we will try the Gates of Arkham expansion, which I have heard is quite good.

With about half an hour left, the players decided to play a little Nevermore, a card drafting game that has some neat mechanics, but suffers from a lack of clarification when it comes to rules, especially when resolving conflicts during ties.  I happen to think it's a fun game, but certain moments can slow the game down because the rules aren't clear enough at times.

It was a good, solid week of gaming.  Next week, we're down to one day (Friday is a Teacher PD Day).  I think it's time to see how devious and sneaky our Grade 9s can be... it's time to play The Resistance!

Thanks for reading!

H.P. Lovecraft's Gift to Gaming

Hands down, my favourite t shirt I've ever worn is this one here.

This shirt comes courtesy of TeeFury, a website that sells t-shirts that are obviously geek related.  The trick with TeeFury is that an artist makes a design, and Tee Fury sells it for 24 hours. Then the design is gone, so you have to check the site often, otherwise you might miss out on that perfect shirt.  Once in a while, TeeFury will revisit some previous designs and run reprints.  Shirts like this mash-up of Lovecraft's most famous creation and the world's most popular pop (soda to you Americans) represent a secret handshake, a signal to fellow enthusiasts of his work.  I've had people look at the shirt, disgusted that I would shill a popular soft-drink, and miss the point entirely.

On the other hand, not too long ago I walked into a mall with the shirt and a woman threw up the devil horns and proclaimed, “Cthulhu!!  Right on man, right on!!!”  I found her enthusiasm and approval both satisfying and startling.  I remember I actually peed a little.

My wife is easily the most literate person I've ever met.  Not only a retired English teacher, she’s a voracious consumer of books (mysteries and thrillers especially), and a published author.  She’s in love with the written word, and as a scholar, she’s fascinated by trends in literature.  

So it comes as no surprise that she would be the one to ask the question (I’m paraphrasing here): 

“Okay, what’s up with H.P. Lovecraft?”

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“How do people know him?  His prose is dense, thoughtful, and packed with imagery, but is so verbose modern readers might shy away from his work.  It's a throwback to a writing style that requires such dedication from a reader, and yet his body of work isn't overwhelmingly extensive.  People know about his creations, but I imagine many of those same people haven't read his work.  How is he this pop-culture icon? ”

It’s a fair question.  H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is credited with being a pioneer of weird fiction, cosmic horror stories, and had a profound influence on Stephen King, who claimed that no one author had a greater influence on his work.  That said, Lovecraft was not the most well-known author in his own right.  His work was primarily featured only in Pulp Magazines of his era, and like many authors and artists, did not gain real notoriety until after his death.  Lovecraft’s work was liberally modified with great artistic licence, serving as partial inspirations for a few films, but the versions were often so twisted from the original work (and were just not good films to begin with), that no one bothered to learn of their original source.  Stephen King mentioned his name in a few interviews, along with Poe and Algernon Blackwood as forerunners to King, but these small mentions here and there aren't enough to launch Lovecraft into the spotlight he’s been given courtesy of the geek community.   Something had to take Lovecraft from relative obscurity into the world of South Park , music, and comic books.

In my opinion... it's all thanks to games.

After his death, Arkham House publishing began to collect and re-release Lovecraft's work to a growing audience, many of whom are partial to the escapism of table top RPGs. One of Dungeons and Dragons' original supplements, Deities and Demigods, used to include material on the Cthulhu Mythos prior to Chaosium locking down the rights for their own game.  As the popularity of the material increased, other companies began developing table top board game versions of the RPG (with video games following suit).  It's my belief, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this, that the increase in popularity of RPGs and table top games are what kept Lovecraft alive in the realm of Geek-culture, and right now Geek-culture is Pop Culture.  It's a good time to be a nerd.

Lovecraft's work has had a notable influence on our game club.  Games inspired by his mythos permeate the world of table top gaming, so here are four notable games from our collection that bring Lovecraft's work to life. If reading his anthologies aren't giving you enough of a taste of cosmic horror mixed with ancient rituals designed to drive an archaeologist insane, check out these fine games:

Unspeakable Words:  This game received a great deal of attention courtesy of Table Top, and is now part of a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new printing.  Unspeakable Words is a word game where players use cards to create words, and then roll a die in order to challenge the value of the word.  If you lose the roll, you lose one sanity, and if you run out of sanity, you're out of the game.  There are some brilliant variant rules, one of which occurs when you have only one sanity left.  If that's the case, the rules of spelling no longer apply to you.  "Hlnkqww" is a word, or at least it is to those who are nearly insane.  It's a "hail mary" play as you teeter on the edge of spelling madness.  The sanity markers are also adorable.

King of Tokyo: King of Tokyo is a wonderful game that combines the dice rolling of Yhatzee with the mayhem of a giant monster battle royal.  As fun as KoT is, the individual characters you could pick were essentially identical.  Each monster had a unique look and name, but they were merely cardboard pawns without distinct gameplay...that is until the Power Up! expansion arrived. 

Besides introducing the ever-so-awesome character Panda Kai, the Power Up! expansion included Evolution cards, distinct powers for each specific monster, adding a much needed level of character depth to the game.  Iello games decided that the character known as the Kraken, a seemingly generic sea creature, was in fact another version of Lovecraft's most famous Elder God.

 The Kraken's evolution cards Cult Following, Sunken Temple, and Eater of Souls are clearly an homage to Lovecraft, and catapulted the Kraken to become my second favourite character (Panda Kai is still #1 in this geek's heart).

Smash Up: The Obligatory Cthulhu Set: Another expansion to an already fun game, The Obligatory Cthulhu Set adds four factions to the huge pantheon of characters already available.  Fans of Lovecraft's work will recognize references to characters and places such as Miskatonic University, the town of Innsmouth, and the Dunwich Horror.  The game also introduced a sanity mechanic called Madness cards.  Playing certain cards force Madness cards into your deck, and count against you at the end of the game.  In fact, a player who thinks they have won the game on points may end up losing because of an onslaught of Madness.  You can't get more Lovecraftian (an actual word) than that!

Elder Sign:  Fantasy Flight games has a couple of wildly popular Cthulhu based games, notably Arkham Horror and Eldritch Horror.  Both of these are fine games, but a little long for an after school gaming group (each game is between two to four hours long).  The shorter version of these epic games is Elder Sign, a great little cooperative game where each player takes on the role of a unique investigator with their own special abilities.  The investigators team up to explore a museum which is currently being invaded by the minions of an Elder God who are attempting to release an ancient evil upon the world.  The investigators fight monsters, search for relics, and open dimensional doorways by rolling special dice.  Like the other games mentioned, maintaining one's sanity is as important as keeping all of your organs in tact.  It's a fun game that still maintains the atmosphere of its larger cousins, but only taking an hour to play.  It also has an IOS version that plays nicely on the iPad (but not nearly as fun as playing with a group of people).

Thank you all reading another verbose discussion.  Come back in a few days to read about Week 9 of this year's Table Top Game Club!  We already had a rocking game of Small World, and we'll see where Open Gaming Friday takes us.

Thanks for reading.

Table Top Game Club Week Eight: Betrayal, Zombies, and Courtly Intrigue

As we headed into Halloween, we decided to feature some classic spooky, haunting games.  Tuesday’s session was all about the modern classic, Betrayal at House on the Hill.  As most folks know in the gaming community, Betrayal has some flaws.  The powers and abilities can be a little off balance, the Haunt can appear a little too early, or as we saw last year, the betrayer can be stuck in the basement while the heroes gather every possible item like a Supernatural Easter egg hunt.  That said, it’s also an incredibly entertaining experience, with wonderful tension and atmosphere.  The week’s game brought in Haunt 15: Here There Be Dragons.  This could have been a brutal feast for the dragon, but the betrayer was upstairs while the remaining survivors were isolated in the basement.  By the time the dragon and betrayer finally made it to the basement, the survivors had every necessary item to make quick work of the beast.  Still, the group had fun, and it was a good introduction to the game.

The Friday before Halloween called for Last Night onEarth.  I really enjoy the idea behind this game.  The game mechanics are easy to handle, the components are well made, and I appreciate the different scenarios.  I think the cards are clever, and the art direction gives it a cinematic feel (although the female characters are a bit weak in a cheesy, 80s horror movie kind of way).  We played the basic Die Zombie Die scenario.  Like with many other examples of this type of game, sometimes the balance can be thrown off early.  Both zombie players rolled sixes right at the start, so the maximum number of zombies were spread all over the map.  We hapless humans were unable to get any real traction or gather suitable weapons before we were swarmed and turned into lunch.   A similarly quick game was played last year.  I still think it’s a good game, and we’ll probably revisit Last Night at a later date.

The quick game of Last Night on Earth gave us time to crack open Love Letter.  For such a simple game, there’s some nice strategy involved, and I was happy to see a new gamer pick up the nuances, and score a win.  It’s also a good game to prepare groups of students for Coup, when the time comes.

Next week, we’ll feature Small World, plus stay tuned(?) for my upcoming post about H.P. Lovecraft's influence on table top gaming.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Table Top Game Club Week Seven: Pirates and Astronauts

This week was the first full week of class in quite some time.  Tuesday's feature game was Libertalia, not only a fantastic and easy to learn card game, but one of the few engaging games that can play six players.  It was a great game, and after the first of three rounds, I was impressed with how quickly the grade 9s picked up on the subtle strategies.  With everyone working with the same decks, everyone knows what the others are holding.  It takes a great deal of patience, guile, and dumb luck to scratch out a win.  If you need any more convincing this is a good game, check out this.

Friday was our first open gaming session we've had in a few weeks, so I ran a playtest of Mission Red Planet.  Playtest is the term I use to refer to a game session where we don't know the exact procedures, so we have to read the rules as we play through it (I'm aware of the actual term 'playtest' in the industry, but the term also has an exciting connotation of mystery my students like, so I adapted the term for my club).  Even with the awkward bits as we read the rules here and there, this is a fun game.  It's tremendously fun to load up a ship with astronauts, sabotage a player's strategy, and send a rival to the moon of Phobos while you harvest ice planet-side.  It's a game that has great visual appeal and is really easy to pick up.  The students really enjoyed it, and this will definitely hit the table a few more times this year.

Next week, in honour of Halloween, we feature Betrayal at House on the Hill.

PC Gaming: I'm Sorry, Your Game is Racist

PC in this case stands for Politically Correct...see it's a pun on PC (Personal Computer) Gaming which is a popular...it's a play on words...see what I did there....right....

So I might end up alienating readers right off the bat, but here goes nothing.  You might not be a fan of political correctness, but I figure with us only a few days from Halloween, I think folks could use a quick refresher on things that are racist towards our Aboriginal population.  Bear with me here as I make a short list of racism in pop culture and its relationship with table top games.  This might get a touch verbose, but here goes:

Washington Redskins- There's no real surprise here.  The recent movements that have been made towards changing the team name, and owner Dan Snyder's refusal to change the logo and mascot, have been well documented.  Aboriginal mascots are dehumanizing caricatures that are designed to reinforce a colonial worldview that insists Native people were noble savages who shared more in common with animals than human beings.  The Washington Redskins aren't the only major professional sports franchise with this issue, but they are currently the poster-children for colonial bigotry in the name of profit, which brings me to...

Halloween Costumes- Yeesh, how is this still a thing?  Buzzfeed did an interesting review of Aboriginal themed Halloween costumes.  It's pretty cringe-worthy.

Peter Pan- As I've explained to my Native Studies students, there's some sad contradictions that appear on the history of Disney films.  The one I address is that Disney, for reasons of cultural sensitivity, has tip-toed like a ballerina in a minefield over the 1946 film "Song of the South" and its depiction of African American Southern culture.  Disney has never released for home video a complete version of the original film, yet continues to re-release Peter Pan, a film featuring a horrible portrayal of Aboriginal people.  Hop on YouTube and check out the song "What Makes the Red Man Red?", and like the characters you'll say "Ugh" and "How?", but for very different reasons.

The Lone Ranger- Sorry Mr.Depp, but a white guy playing a white guy's misinterpretation of a fictitious Crow man to stand in for a fictitious Comanche man, all in the name of being a role model for Aboriginal children, creates such a twisted exercise in cultural appropriation, it makes my stomach hurt.

The X-Men- Going back to the 70s folks.  In 1975, after a five year drought, Marvel released a new X-Men comic, Giant Sized X-Men #1.  In the story, Professor Xavier and his protege Cylcops had to throw together a group of X-Men to search for the original team who were captured by a living island (trippy, I know).  The team had a distinctly international flavour, featuring Wolverine from Canada, Storm from Kenya, Nightcrawler from Germany, the Russian Colossus, Japan's Sunfire,  Banshee from Ireland, and finally...yeah... Native American Thunderbird.  Thunderbird's alias was John Proudstar, an Apache who was seen wrestling a buffalo on his reserve (I'm not kidding).  His outfit had all the markers of an Aboriginal Halloween costume, and he basically looked like Billy from Predator (another noble savage) after doing plenty of P90X.  He would die a couple issues afterwards, but his little brother would début a few decades later as Warpath.  Aboriginal people are one of the few superhero types where their powers and abilities are linked to their ethnicity.  It would be like an Italian superhero with the ability to drive a fast car and shoot pasta from his wrists.

Still with me?  Okay, so where is the relationship with boardgames and other Table Top Games?  What's the connection?

I'm sorry, but Bang! and Bang!:The Dice Game...you're a bit racist.

Now before the right wings and left wings start flapping, please let me explain.  Bang! is a card game that features two interesting mechanics: "take that" direct conflict cards, and "hidden roles" where one player is the Sheriff, and the other players are deputies, outlaws, and renegades.  Each character type has a different win condition based on who gets eliminated via the aforementioned "take that" cards such as the dynamite card, or the titular "bang" card, which simply means "I shot you, because that's what you do in a Western".  Bang! was published back in 2002 in Italy, and the game tries to capture the chaos of the Italian or "spaghetti" Westerns.  The cards are also written in Italian with English translations.  In the original card version of Bang!, the set includes two "take that" style cards called "Indiani!" or "Indians!" which implies "we're being attacked for..well...something.", because the card doesn't go into any detail why the players are attacked. Once played, each player must discard a "bang" card (to simulate fighting back) or lose one life point, because Indians hurt white people who don't have guns...or so the game implies.  The Indians are not true characters; they're presented more like a hazard, like a hailstorm or torrential downpour.  There might be Indians, so bring an umbrella.

It's an awkward idea that evokes images associated with the westerns of John Wayne, where a "good Injun was a dead Injun."  The idea is dehumanizing at best, so it becomes quite a quandary when playing the game with students of various backgrounds.  Our current game club has a couple members who are First Nations, so slapping a card down to reinforce Colonial ideals and Manifest Destiny is not something I want to do as an educator, a gamer, a Canadian, or a decent human being.

Now earlier I declared that Bang! is "a bit racist", and readers might be thinking "how can you be a 'bit' racist?  You are or you are not."  This is true, but the racist overtones in Bang! are easy bullets to dodge.  In the entire deck, there are only two "Indiani" cards.  Last year when we played the game, my colleague who introduced the game to the club had wisely pulled any potentially offensive cards...and no one noticed.  Gamers really enjoyed the game, and all racial overtones were gone, period.  It was an easy fix.

What's not so easy is eliminating an entire side of a die.  Many people in the games industry view Bang!: the Dice Game as a superior version of the card game.  It plays quickly, avoids the Italian translations, and has that wonderful tactile sensation you get when you grab a handful of dice and chuck 'em, hoping for the best.  Symbols on the dice represent the actions from the card game, but like I said, it plays faster and in a more elegant fashion than the card game.  For my club, I want the players to have the best experiences, but sadly the "Indiani" are back.  One side of each die is an arrow to indicate the "Natives are really restless".  When you roll an "Indian Arrow" as it's described in the rules, players grab one of nine arrow tokens.  When the last arrow token has been grabbed, players lose one life point for every arrow token.  As before, there's no rationale for the arrows; it's apparently just par for the course in the world of Bang!.

BtDG has an alternative version based on The Walking Dead comic franchise.  Arrows are replaced by Walker bites and arrow tokens are now zombie heads.  It's a nice idea that doesn't jive for my club.  For starters, we have plenty of zombie games already (Zombie Fluxx, Dead of Winter, Zombie 15, Last Night on Earth), and I like the idea of a western themed game.  Also, the components for the Walking Dead edition of BtDG aren't as good as the original, as the Walking Dead version uses stickers on the dice instead of quality engraving.

I think I have two solutions for my desire to engage my club in a fun, Western themed experience:

Flick 'em Up and Bountytown.

Bountytown is a simple to learn game as each player takes on the role of a bounty hunter.  Cards are placed on the table to represent a town, and bounties are placed on criminals.  The players gather sets of cards to simulate hands of poker, with the stronger the hand, the better the ability to resolve conflicts and claim the bounty.  It's a quick game, but nicely simulates the old west in a culturally appropriate manner.  Flick 'em Up is a dexterity game.  Incredibly popular, but a touch pricey, the game has players taking on the roles of Sheriffs or Outlaws, either protecting the innocent or robbing banks and stealing loot.  The game mechanic here is the flicking of small disks to simulate shooting, entering a building, etc.  It looks incredibly fun, but the price tag and demand for the game is currently making it a little difficult to acquire.  Either way, cultural decency is maintained, and I feel much better about my hobby in general.

I know it was a verbose journey, but if you've stuck around this long, I appreciate your attention.

In the weeks to come, along with my weekly Table Top Game Club report, I want to write about H.P. Lovecraft's profound influence on the world of games.

Thanks for reading,

Dan Buday

It Begins!!!!

Um.... hello.....

So, I was encouraged by a post on www.boardgamegeek.com to start a blog based on weekly reports I was making about a club I started at my school, that we simply refer to as the Table Top Game Club (frighteningly original, I know...). I created a thread on one of the forums that documents the inception of the club, and our weekly sessions over the course of an entire school year.  Other teachers across North America have also contributed to the thread, documenting their own game clubs in their respective schools. For those interested, you can read the thread here.

For my colleagues in education, the thread on Games in the Classroom on that site offers some excellent examples of ways to incorporate games into teaching and learning.

This blog will serve as a way for me to report upon the weekly trials and successes of running a game club at school.  I also want to highlight some particular games that we have found enjoyable, discuss issues and themes in gaming, and maybe have a weekly segment about game components, and some other not so random thoughts of  a geeky educator.

The title "Board at School" is inspired by a meme I saw recently declaring proudly "Bored Online? Board Offline!" as a response to the rise of the popularity of table top games in a digital world.  It's a great sentiment, so I stole the play on words around "board".  That said, if you are an administrator, superintendent, or any other SPSD employee, I want you to know I enjoy my job, and I am not "bored", so just relax.  We're here to have fun and learn.

In closing I want to send a shout out (yeah I just typed that) to fellow teacher Evan Cole and to fellow board game geek Wil Wheaton (only one of whom I actually know), for helping me set up this blog and inspiring me to start a game club respectively.

Thanks for reading!

Dan Buday