Subject: MN: Re: Kevan blathering about card games again

From: riffraff@n... (RiffRaff)
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 04:47:12 -0500

>>This project would help enormously with my attempt to make a physical board
>>version... :)
>
>
>As has come up a few times before, Mornington Nomic probably wouldn't lend
>itself terribly well to a physical board game - with moves often taking ten
>or twenty minutes to fully consider, and with a fair amount of miscellaneous
>statistical data requiring maintenance (including fiddly things such as Game
>Time and Charge), I wouldn't relish the idea of playing it over a table.

It would have to be a rather edited version... Many of the possessions
would be gone, for example, and probably charge as well. The board I have
in mind, though, is quite complicated enough to handle a lot of data...
4-sided Circle Line state marker, dials to keep track of time, dry-erase
board for home and damaged stations...

Actually, it'll probably be rather more interesting as a woodworking
excercise than as a game.

You could keep it relatively fast paced, as long as everyone was reasonably
familiar with the game, had appropriate reference cards, and maybe a time
limit. If only they made chess clocks for more than two players...

>I'd be more interested in creating a complicated strategy game, though, I
>think - nothing commercial, just something to amuse ourselves with at
>pilgrimages, to play with friends, possibly even to play online if the game
>lends itself well enough. With a simple Web-based repository of "official"
>cards (new ones being added every so often, old ones being errata'd or
>removed), Players could just download and print off anything they needed.
>Buy yourself a box of plastic card sleeves and some coloured cardboard (or
>spare other-card-game cards), and you can put together a decent enough
>little deck.
>
>A card game is the way to go, I've quite firmly decided, anyway - I think
>it's the only feasible way to get the sheer breadth of rules to the game
>(which is a very critical element of the game's style - "Aha! I respond to
>your Double-Strile with a Beckmann's Token Drain!"), without actually having
>to include a hundred-page rulebook; instead of having to consider every
>possible Action in the Action List, you just look at the few cards in your
>hand. By having a huge database of cards and permitting players to put
>together their own decks, an incredibly wide and interesting range of
>playing styles become available ("My Morden Darkness deck could beat your
>Pigeon Baguette one hands down, you know."); far more than a simple board
>game could ever provide.

Well, if you need anyone to bounce ideas off of...

Actually, if anyone's interested, I have a text file for a card game a
friend of mine and I created, called Leviathan - sort of like a cross
between Magic and Go Fish, with heavy doses of sarcasm. That's my other
other project right now (after building the robots from Mystery Science
Theater 3000 and making a Mornington Nomic board), making a new set of
Leviathan cards, only with pictures this time... If anyone knows where I
can find a picture of a Black Devil Angler or an Egyptian Mouth-Breeder...

>
>Still not sure if there should be a board involved, though. Although it'd be
>extremely pleasing to play on one, it does have the rather nasty drawback of
>players having to carry a damn great board about with them all the time. A
>laminated map poster would be absolutely gorgeous, no doubt, but I think I'd
>sacrifice it for the ability to just play over a table with two decks of
>cards and loose change or a bit of paper to keep track of Tokens and things.

I do have a poster varnished onto wood, with nice brass hinges and handles,
and holes drilled in each station for pegs, plus a box of assorded pawns,
pegs, and tokens. Made it for playing conventional MC... we never got much
chance to play it in public, but we got great reactions from onlookers when
we did. Particularly since no-one around here's ever heard of the game.

Funny thing is, I'd been playing games similar to MC and Cress and Cheddar
Gorge all through high-school; my friends and I were always making up
elaborate non-games on the spot. It was a bit of a shock when I first
discovered MC several years ago...

Maybe if I ever manage to make a Pilgrimage, I'll teach you all to play
Fligett's Nodules, Kleimnot & Tchuse, and Ring the Frog.

--Riff

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