Monday 12 March 2012

Life in the Hotel Arosa

You know if you can't get your wives to play games with open invitations, one must use subterfuge. To that end, Joe and I arranged a dinner on Saturday evening at my house and underwent lengthy nods to polite society in the form of conversation, food (cooked by Sally - I'm shameless), glasses of wine, et cetera. But of course at some stage we had to get a game on the table, and our pre-arranged plan* meant that Joe was the one to propose it.

*Our pre-arranged plan was actually Joe suggesting it and me being too scared to, suspecting Charlotte secretly loathes me for introducing Joe to Settlers of Catan about 5 years ago. You know the rest.

I would have tried to work up to such a daring proposal, but Joe, his self-respect long-since burnt to hell in a household of game-skeptics, just came out with it. But as it transpired both Charlotte and Sally had been primed, and were resigned to indulging their goonish husbands... And so we played Mord im Arosa, the game where players listen out for the sound of tumbling wooden cubes in order to solve a mystery, and then accuse each other of the murders.

I'm not great at this game, as my method seems to be instantly forgetting anything I've just heard and guessing wrong, meaning more of my cubes go in the tower, and subsequently being more open to accusation. Sally and Joe, having played before, were alive to this in-built ratio, but Charlotte blew us all out of the water by constantly predicting where her own cubes where and eliminating all but the most minimal suspicion of her on the investigation sheet. Sally came in second, Joe third, and I was last, implicated as the most inept murderer ever, leaving my bloody fingerprints on the banisters as I made my way down the fire escape.

*

On Sunday we had Mark and Katie over for tea, and so the games commenced fairly early. I'd been hoping to show them The Downfall of Pompeii, but Katie had a hankering for Trans America. As that's fairly quick, we managed to squeeze in two other games as well.

We started with No Thanks, which was new to everyone but me. The rules are simple, though, and everyone was quickly up to speed. Especially Mark, who ran out a clear winner. Tactics now slightly clearer, we had another game, which I can't remember who won (I think it was Mark again) but Katie played a very nice final round, letting the card she wanted collect about 20 coins before picking it up as everyone cursed her chutzpah. She and Mark both liked this, whereas Sally was less enamoured of it, being innately suspicious of numbers.

Then we played Trans America as agreed, and despite Katie's first-round error of announcing her connections when she still hadn't reached Kansas City, it was another strong showing from the Chiseller. We ended after two rounds with Mark beating Katie by one space on the score track, Sally third and me way out in last place.

My gaming chops feeling particularly droopy, I wasn't confident of winning Mord im Arosa but was looking forward to playing, guessing that Katie and Mark would like it. And they did, though with some reservations. There's something intangibly confusing about the rules that disconcerts everyone on first play, and that was the case here, but after an extended search for the second corpse (who still seemed curiously mobile) we slowly got to grips with it, and were soon accusing each other like old hands.

I finally won a game too, despite leaving several clues next to the victims. We had thrown so many cubes in searching for that second victim that we had implicated ourselves on almost every floor - though of course, we still managed to do the odd sloppy investigation too. Mark was second, Sally third, and Katie was the murderer.

So a weekend of gaming came to an end and I hadn't, as far as I knew, alienated anybody. Katie and Mark were even talking about buying Trans America/Europa for themselves - and Katie mentioned again her temptation to come to Stabcon in January. We must work fast, friends, as going to StabCon too soon might be a tactical error. She doesn't joke about meeples yet or know who Dirk Henn is. The best tactic is to let the geek grow from within, so confronting a hundred hairy fat men quoting Blackadder will seem an inconsequential side-show to the pleasure that is gaming...

2 comments:

  1. Ha! Stockport's rather a long way to drive to drop someone home when they realise what a terrible mistake they've made . . .

    Charlotte is vehemently anti No Thanks, for some inexplicable reason. How can a deck of cards numbered 3 to 35 and a pile of red counters be the least bit offensive, I'd like to know? Think I might try her on 6 Nimmt.

    I really enjoyed MiA on Saturday - especially now we've sorted out the dodgy ceiling tile on floor six. Charlotte did her usual combo of being disdainful of games generally, and winning repeatedly. Very annoying.
    That said, she liked MiA too. I mean, you know, for a game.

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  2. Apologies to Katie, Mark has come clean and confessed she won the second game of No Thanks. It was that final round!

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