Playing the Fool: Getting Rules Wrong in all the Right Ways

Yesterday morning Lyndsay Peters and I played Martian Dice via Google Hangout, which is when I discovered that I have been playing it incorrectly this whole time.

I thought if you wanted to capture humans, you had to capture them before cows and chickens. If you captured cows or chickens first, you couldn't capture humans in a later turn. However, you could capture as many cows or chickens as you liked until you busted a roll or ended your turn.

This wasn't the case at all, as it turns out. You may capture humans, cows and chickens in any order you like, but you couldn't take one type if you had done so earlier. I'm still not sure how I got that so wrong. I think it's because there was a line break in the sentence explaining that rule. But really, it's just silly how wrong I got that. Sheesh!

There are no rules so short and clear that everyone will follow them as intended. In fact, the shorter rules are just as prone to misinterpretation.

But on the bright side, this got us in a discussion of actually using my misinterpretation as the core mechanic of a new dice game. After all, I've been playing it this way for so long, I thought it was perfectly sensible. We combined with the point-dice mechanics from King of Tokyo. The basic idea was this:

• Roll 13d6. This guarantees you'll get at least three identical results.
• You must keep one set of three or more identical results and score their face value in points, plus 1pt for each die beyond the initial three dice in the set. (So a set of 3333 would score you 4 points.)
• Thereafter, you can keep rolling the remaining dice and keep one set from each roll, as long as that set is of equal or greater face-value as one you've already kept. (So if you kept 333, you could not keep a 111 or 222, but you could keep another 333, 444, and so on.)
• If your roll results in no legal sets, you get a STRIKE. Strike three times and your turn is over.

That led to still further discussion of expanding the long-term gameplay to an area control mechanic for endgame bonuses. Something with a noodle-making theme, perhaps, describing each set as a strand of noodle. That's a subject for another post. For now, I'll just remember to check my rules knowledge more often. Who knows what new games will come?

Thanks a lot, Jesus; Crosby, Martin injuries suck joy out of everything

By Artistry (follow me on Twitter)

WTF, Jesus. SOME EASTER. And your hands aren't clean either this Passover, Yahweh. Sorry, no offense to anybody. Not blaming anybody except Brooks Orpik - this is no one's fault. It just all feels very fresh right now, very raw. Right as we're basking in the excitement of Jarome Iginla's debut with the Penguins and a potentially record-breaking winning streak, this happens.

What an awful, awful break for Sidney Crosby, who is out indefinitely with a broken jaw. Just sickening, as he had the Hart and Art Ross Trophies, to say nothing of the league itself, by the throat. Can he make it back by the playoffs? No one knows, but Google says the average recovery time for this injury is 6-8 weeks. My mind goes immediately to 1991, when Paul Coffey took a puck to the face in Game 1 of a second round series against the Capitals. He had surgery, missed 10 games, and showed up at less than full capacity in the Stanley Cup Finals, looking like this and not doing much:

Make no mistake, this is a really, really bad development. And Paul Martin missing 6 weeks (including the first round of the playoffs) with a broken wrist may be an even bigger setback for this team. They've got high end forward depth - not so much on the back end. Kris Letang better get healthy.

Sufficiently devastated? OK, the good news after the jump....


Wait.

Sidney Crosby's regular season is over. Paul Martin's regular season is over. So there's good news?

Well, yes. Here is the good news. The Penguins are still one of the top two teams in the East without either player. They can beat anybody. They just pitched three shutouts in a row in the midst of significant roster turnover, untimely injuries, and the Jarome Iginla media circus. They are essentially entrenched as a top seed. If Dan Bylsma chooses, he can leave the Malkin and Sutter lines alone and simply slot Dustin Jeffrey between Kunitz and Dupuis, thus ensuring as little disruption to the forward lines as possible. When Sid does come back, it won't be with a cloud of uncertainty over another concussion.

The onus is on Malkin now, and we don't need to belabor the fact that he's risen to almost unparalleled  heights in Sid's absence before. And if Ray Shero is worried at all about the defense, it may have escaped notice amidst all the hullabaloo, but the trade deadline is still three days away and he has cash in hand. Everything will be OK.

Also, Crankshaft.

Fast, faster and fastest chess

I've done my bit for traditional game shows. So now it's on to chess shows. Like yesterday's death match on chess.com.

For those of you who don't know - which is undoubtedly just about all of you - the website chess.com sponsors three-hour online blitz matches between chess masters every month or so. Yesterday I watched a couple of grandmasters duke it out: Alexander Ipatov, originally from Ukraine and now playing for Turkey(?), and American Marc Arnold.

These death matches feature five-minute games, then three-minute games, and then the ultimate, bullet chess or one-minute games. Somehow the Ipatov-Arnold match went into quadruple overtime. Ipatov was one game down but tied the match in a buzzer-beater, the last game in regular time. Then came three excruciating draws. Finally, Arnold got a pair of queenside passed pawns to win the fourth sudden-death game and the match.

International master Danny Rensch, who runs the site, provided quick-witted commentary on the games, along with English IM Lawrence Trent. The games flew by so fast that these guys often ended up talking really, really quick. So you had to know a little about chess notation (and the rules of the game) to follow along.

He is Risen

He is the Alpha and the Omega. He encompasses all, within and without the socio-sexual hierarchy. And what is Christianity if not the very purest expression of Game? Is the Christian not, quite literally, to be a "little Christ", who despite his fallen nature attempts to emulate the perfect example provided by the ultimate and definitive natural?

Christ is Risen!

Ripper Street (season 1) short review

How I found out about this series is a bit weird. West Wind's Andy Cooper had sculpted 3 miniatures for Empire of the Dead: Requiem and called them "The Hell division". I had no clue about that until another participant of the Kickstarter campaign asked who they were and got the answer they were the main characters in a show called Ripper Street.

Sounded interesting enough, so I watched the entire first season (which was just 8 episodes long) and have to say that it's a pretty good show. Ripper Street is set in the late 19th century, a few months after the Jack the Ripper murders have ceased. It centers around 2 Policemen and 1 former Pinkerton agent that work with solving crimes and mysteries in Whitechapel Police precinct  also known as the H division.

In terms of grit, dirty locations, brutality and even intro theme it feels like a distant cousin of the show Deadwood - though without all the colorful cursing. It does include some gruesome murders and the occasional on screen naked breast (although nudity isn't as frequent and pointless as in Boardwalk Empire).

The cast is great, one of them - Jerome Flynn - you may recognize from Game of Thrones where he plays "Bronn" (and we also get a guest appearance by Iain Glen (Ser Jorah Mormont) in one episode. It does center upon the trio of lawmen who have a good personal chemistry with each other on the screen. There are a couple of side characters that are also worth mentioning, like the smug reporter always trying to get a "Ripper angle" on murder cases, the occasional appearance by chief inspector Frank Abberline who is quite obsessed by the Ripper and a the cathouse madam.

Each 60 minute episode is a "case of the week", a format which I prefer when it comes to shows like these. So the main characters have to solve a murder mystery or something else in a self contained storyline, although the shadow of Jack the Ripper seems to loom over London  and often enough people believe that the Ripper has returned which makes it interesting when the main characters have to work against those presumptions and finding out the truth about their cases.

In any case, the show is a great looking and well acted crime drama which I can recommend to anyone liking crime drama series or just a pretty and well acted period piece. The score would be higher if all of the episodes were as good as the first and last one, but the short season included a few weak episodes which dragged and occasionaly the part of solving the mystery feels rushed.

If you are painting miniatures for a game set during this period, then the show offers a great deal of inspiration so it may be worth checking out just because of that.

7.5/10

A Very Different March

With a spectacular finish, March 2013 represents a huge change  from some of the cool early springs of the past few years.   Let's compare at Seattle-Tacoma Airport!

March 2012 was dismal.  As shown in this plot of temperature (the average highs and lows are shown by the red and blue lines), no day got above 60F and only five days got to or above the normal high in 2012.  Many days cooled to below the normal low.

In contrast, March 2013 had several days above 60F and 19 days got to or above the normal high (note scale on left is different). 

Precipitation?   March 2012 had nearly 7 inches of rain, roughly 3 inches above normal

March 2013?  Drier than normal (by about an inch) and nearly no rain during the last third of of the month.

The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center is going for much warmer than normal for the next 6-10 days (see below) and the latest model runs suggest dry conditions for the next four days.  The reason:  major ridging over the western U.S.
Enjoy.

Today (Sunday) should get near 70F over the western lowlands, with clear skies over the entire region (except for some low clouds offshore).  Eastern Washington--mid 70s.

Surprise! The older-is-better bunch doesn't like recent game shows

First, are Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford really that old? This must mean I'm getting really old myself. Hm...

Anyhoo, in the least surprising news since the sun rose this morning, the older-is-better crowd at what's left of what used to be Matt Ottinger's board is trashing recent game shows. Of course, the board is enormously traditionalist. That guy at the top is Bill Cullen, who last hosted a game show a quarter-century ago.

Sorry to state the obvious, but it apparently needs stating. There have been a lot of bad game shows in every era. There were a lot of rigged game shows in the supposedly good old days. Hey, Bill Cullen hosted some bad game shows.

And a lot of the recent shows that get trashed are actually pretty good, or more than pretty good. Engvall Lingo, 5th Grader, GSN's Chain Reaction (much better than the old Cullen version, by the way), Stump the Schwab, to name a few. A lot of people enjoyed these shows and continue to enjoy some of them in reruns on GSN. But naturally they bring no joy to the older-is-better bunch.

It's really a little sad that date of production means so much to some game show fans. They just won't allow themselves to enjoy some good shows due to their ideological commitment to old stuff. Oh well, the rest of us don't have that problem.

Perils of live TV

It's a slow news weekend. So it's time again for Richard Carson's awesome I've Got a Secret YouTube channel.

This stunt comes from the May 13, 1959 episode. By the way, the 1958-59 season was the last for IGAS in the top 10 shows on American TV. The 1955-59 period was the show's golden era, at least for the Nielsen Company. I've Got a Secret averaged an unimaginable (by today's standards) 29.8 household rating in 1958-59.

Anyway, this particular stunt concerns soap bubbles. Really, really big soap bubbles. Henry Repka, a dentist from Mount Vernon, NY, tells Garry Moore his secret: he's going to put Garry inside, you guessed it, a soap bubble. In the Q&A round, the panel never really gets close to the secret.

When it comes time for Henry to demonstrate his sudsy skill, the stunt doesn't quite come off, though he gets very close. This is live TV with all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. At least Henry manages to produce some mighty big and beautiful bubbles for the audience, though he also generates some soapy fizzles which get a few laughs.

At one point Garry says the bubbles would look gorgeous on color TV. They don't look bad on black and white television, either, as YouTube testifies. 

Dreadfleet all ships finished - group pictures

To celebrate that all the ships are at long last finished (and that I only have the terrain left to paint) I took some group pictures to show the collection. Not the best quality pictures but it's hard to take these kind of photos and get the light and sharpness right with my camera - which works better for closeups. But at least you get the idea of how things may look.

Alpha Mail: is sigma the alpha of gamma?

The League of Bald-headed Men posits an interesting theory in light of the discussion of Thrift Shop Game:

An interesting ditty. It shows that the hipster irony culture has filtered down to the proles, wiggers and normals. 'I could take some Pro Wings, make them cool, sell those."

This hipster irony culture is pure gamma, it's the acme of gamma. "You made fun of me for being a geek, and now I'll make geekdom cool."  This goes hand in hand with my theory that "sigma is the alpha of gamma", ie that sigma is what happens when gammas enact their will to power. 

I, on the other hand, have tended to be of the opinion that sigma is what happens when OMEGAS successfully enact their will to power or otherwise transform themselves into sexual dominance.  Let's consider the evidence for the One Man Riot's theory, pro and con:

PRO:

• Sigmas often appear to have intellectual interests more in common with the average gamma than those of the average alpha.
• The gamma-sigma antipathy appears, in some circumstances, to be even greater than the gamma-alpha version. A product of similar traits clashing?
• Neither sigmas nor gammas tend to be socially dominant.
• Both sigmas and gammas often appear to be vengeful.

CON:

• Gammas are extremely concerned with hierarchy.  Sigmas and Omegas are not.
• Hipster irony culture is pure gamma, but it is extremely fashion-conscious and therefore hierarchical. While it may be the acme of gamma, it doesn't appear to have anything to do with sigma.
• Gammas are bitter, jealous, approval-seeking, and rule-abiding. Sigmas are contemptuous, disdainful, and rule-breaking.
• Gammas find conflict painful and tend to avoid it. Sigmas find conflict enjoyable and tend to thrive on it.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of applicable observations; feel free to add more, either pro or con, in the comments.  In summary, while I don't think the League's theory is absurd, I don't think it holds up when considered in sufficient detail. And I can't honestly think of a single sigma of my acquaintance that I would have considered to have been a gamma in the past.

Speaking only of my own experience, I can say that one thing that separated me even as a pre-adolescent proto-sigma from the omegas and gammas alike was my supreme confidence in my intellect and in my athletic abilities.  The refusal of my age peers to value the former and the inability of my coaches to understand and utilize the latter never caused me to doubt either for even a millesecond.

So perhaps that imbalance may be a key to understanding why a sigma develops such indifference towards the hierarchy.  He is aware that he is objectively superior in one regard or another but also knows that the hierarchy is incapable of recognizing that superiority or valuing it fairly.  It also would explain the apparent similarity between the sigma and the gamma that The League has observed, the important difference being that the gamma's belief in his proper social rank is subjective and intrinsically delusional.

Every number tells a story

GSN is dropping reality bomb Family Trade from its schedule starting the week of April 22-28. The show's lonely supporter on the GSN board offers some hope. Which I think is completely forlorn...

Other poster: According to Futon Critic, this past Tuesday [March 26] at 8pm got 249k. I'm sure if it goes UP, they will reinstate the show in May.

Yeah, sure, if it goes up to 500K-600K, the show might be back. But it's never done anything like those numbers even when it got a huge lead-in from American Bible Challenge. The show just looks like another Beat the Chefs flop.

In the latest published week March 18-24, for instance, Family Trade got 347K viewers on Thursday at 10:00PM, losing seventy percent of the 1.15M lead-in from American Bible Challenge. The 10:30PM run of Family Trade then dropped even further to 188K. In fact, that 10:00PM Thursday run was the show's only slot during the week which got more than 250K viewers. Family Trade averaged a paltry 187K viewers for all of its runs during the week, despite mostly prime-time and near-prime-time slots and endless promotion.

And as Futon Critic points out, the 18-49 numbers are negligible, so the show isn't bringing in any younger demos. Which was the whole idea of the reality slate in the first place. No viewers, no demos, no Family Trade. It's that simple.

Oh, no?

We've got another set report from Hollywood Junket. This time the junketeers take in GSN's remake of Minute To Win It.

The show sounds like a paint-by-the-numbers re-do of the NBC version with Guy Fieri, except the top prize is a GSN-sized quarter-million.

And except for a different host. There's no Fieri, and Hollywood Junket is not happy about it. They dump on Apolo Ohno, who GSN summoned to replace the Food Network fellow. The dumping is downright severe:

[Ohno's] personality is not strong enough to host a game show. Sure, he is likable, but the only thing he adds to the show is his name...he lacks the ability to connect with an audience as a host. He does not appear enthusiastic when he is on stage. People want to see someone that is happy to be there.

When the show finally turns up on GSN, we'll see if these criticisms are fair. A while back I said Ohno might be a risk because jocks tend to look lost outside their sports. I'm a little concerned to see similar comments from somebody who's been on the set. But it's not fair for me to judge sight unseen.

Fridaygram: high school computer science, desert termites, YouTube sleuthing

By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor

Computer Science for High School (CS4HS) is a Google-sponsored program to enable professional development for high school and middle school students around the world interested in computer science. CS4HS holds workshops for teachers and provides funding to develop the workshops, along with help from local Googlers.

Earlier this week, we announced the recipients of this year’s grants, which will be the fifth year of the program (and you can see a list of previous years’ programs here). Computer science education isn’t just for university students any more.

Education leads to the scientific method, which is how researchers discovered that mysterious circles in the Namib Desert are probably not fairy circles or the work of an underground dragon, but are actually caused by termites in the sand. Norbert Jürgens of the University of Hamburg learned that sand termites eat the roots of grasses, creating the circles in the sand. That’s not nearly as cool as an underground dragon, but it seems more plausible.

Finally, you probably remember that astonishing meteor that lit up the sky over Russia last month, and you might have seen some of the many videos that recorded the event. So did Swedish blogger Stefan Geens, who figured out that he could learn more about the meteor from the videos in non-obvious ways. Geens used a video showing shadows cast by the meteor, along with Google Earth and Photoshop, to roughly calculate the meteor’s trajectory and landing place. From there, scientists figured out more about the meteor, including its size, track, and point of explosion. So this weekend, if you get inspired, you too can use YouTube to figure out something new.


Yes, meteor videos and sand termites are just part of the usual fun here on Fridaygram, where we eschew our usual developer fare and present just cool stuff instead, even if it doesn’t involve coding.

Pretty damn good Friday: Pens stomp the Jets, 4-0

By Artistry (follow me on Twitter)

Two months ago, the Penguins looked stale, disinterested, and mediocre. They were coming off a brutal 4-1 loss to the Islanders, Eric Tangradi was on the second line, and Dan Bylsma realized his job was in jeopardy unless he shaved a really unfortunate goatee. Now? Now they look fresh, engaged, and dominant, among other things. They are coming off a 4-0 win over the Jets that probably shot their team Corsi rating into the stratosphere (read: they had the puck, like, the whole time). We need to figure out if it'll be Captain Morrow or Captain Iginla on the second line. Eric Tangradi is now missing the net for Winnipeg. The Penguins have won 14 games in a row, and they are powering right along without Kris Letang. Things have changed.

"We are, once again, enormous beasts"

Before you read on, make sure to listen to our two podcasts recapping the Pens' recent moves.  If you're listening on your smartphone, the best ways to make sure that you have an uninterrupted experience are: 1) download the podcast from iTunes OR 2) download the Spreaker app by going to the App store and searching for "Spreaker." Then search for "Get To Our Game."

1) Our stats-free, emotion-filled reaction to the stunning Iginla deal:



2) Our analytical discussion with Neil Greenberg of ESPN Insider and The Washington Post about why the advanced statistics still don't have the Pens as Stanley Cup favorites.



More thoughts on the game and what's ahead, after the jump...

- If the clinic the Pens put on last night illustrated anything, it's that too much is being made of potential line combinations when Iginla finally penetrates America's border. It should be a given that Crosby, Kunitz, and Dupuis see time together 5-on-5, because they absolutely torture teams both in transition and on the forecheck. They're like human pinballs relentlessly bouncing off the boards and toward your net. You can't even keep track of them.

Sure, Iginla will share the ice with Crosby at times, but here is the underrated aspect of the recent trades: it will be much easier now for Bylsma to pair Crosby and Malkin at even strength to exploit a good matchup. Put the two big guns with Kunitz as he likes to do at times, and now for the next two shifts the Pens can still roll out some combination of Sutter-Neal-Iginla-Morrow-Dupuis-Sid/Geno again.  As much as we talk about seeing our new prize wingers with 87 and 71, we should expect to see 87 and 71 together more often.  Because those two together presents the scariest matchup for any team, by far.

- If the Pens were looking to open up space for Geno and Neal with the Morrow acquisition, mission accomplished. Looks like we found our Tomas Holmstrom.

- The Winnipeg Jets appear to be the best the Southeast Division has to offer. Let that sink in.

- Crankshaft.

"Look at me.  Look at my neck. Look at the size of my head."

- Pascal Dupuis averaged .19 goals per game before the age of 27. Between the ages of 27 and 33, Dupuis' average has climbed to .23 goals per game. And since Dupuis turned the magical age of 32? He's up to a rate of .36 goals per game, or basically double the goal scoring production that he had before the age of 27. Just an FYI, Alex Ovechkin.

- Not that we care about the consecutive wins records of the 92-93 Penguins (again, that team crashed and burned in the second round of the playoffs), but it's certainly there for the taking, is it not? Two home games against the Isles and Sabres, followed by a home-and-home with the Rangers are on tap for this week. Run the table, and this Pens team has 18 in a row. That's WINS in a row, Stephen A. Smith.

Sexual equality or freedom

It is no accident that many of the leading proponents of Game have backgrounds in economics.  This excellent post by Dalrock exemplifies why:

Through a combination of legal and social “reforms”, the US now has what appears on the surface to be a dual family structure but is in legal reality a single family structure organized around the concept of child support.  Where in the past a woman needed to secure a formal promise from a man in the form of marriage before she could expect him to support her and the children she bore, in this new structure the law declares that any man she has children by are bound to support her and her children whether she marries or not, and whether or not she honors her own marriage vows.
While men were motivated under the old family structure, they absolutely detest the new child support system of family formation.  Under the old system a man who married before fathering children could reasonably expect access to his children and the opportunity to direct their upbringing (in concert with his wife).  Under the new system the children are de facto considered the property of the mother, whom the state compels him to pay so she can direct their upbringing generally as she sees fit.  Since the new system has removed the incentive for men to work hard to provide for their families, it has to rely instead on threats of imprisonment to coerce men into earning “enough” income.  Where men used to take pride in the birth of their children and celebrate with cigars, large numbers of men now fear fatherhood more than anything.
Under the new rules even if a man chooses the structure of marriage he is always subject to being forced into the child support model for any or no reason by his wife.  No fault divorce laws are unilateral and openly celebrated by both social scientists and modern Christianity as a tool for wives to threaten their husbands.  Fathers have gone from being the respected head of household to deputy parent serving at the pleasure of their wives.
Fortunately for society the awareness of the reality of the new system has been slow to spread.  Most men are either uninformed about the true nature of the family court or assume that the woman they marry would never detonate their family for 30 pieces of silver.  Because of inertia men continue to earn more than women, and those who have studied the question (Hymowitz, Farrell) have found that this is due to men choosing to work harder, longer, and/or more difficult and dangerous jobs than women.  While the MIT economist is correct that men earn fewer degrees than women, those men who do earn degrees are far more likely than women to choose majors with real economic value.  However, the gender earnings gap is still shrinking, and this has the author of the NY Times business article both puzzled and worried:

The fall of men in the workplace is widely regarded by economists as one of the nation’s most important and puzzling trends. While men, on average, still earn more than women, the gap between them has narrowed considerably, particularly among more recent entrants to the labor force.

He should be worried, but he shouldn’t be puzzled.  The hard earned lesson of the twentieth century was that incentives work far better than coercion when it comes to generating economic value.  Yet despite winning the cold war the US and the western world has quietly elected to move from an incentives based family/economic structure (marriage) to one based on coercion (child support).

For all of its flaws - and they are manifold - even the generally poor level of economics training provided by the American university system teaches the student of economics to think in terms of incentives and probabilities.  Dalrock has clearly identified where most of the non-economics observers have gone wrong in failing to notice that the change in male behavior is not coincidental with the changes in female behavior, but rather, is a consequence of those changes.

And Dalrock points to the root behavioral issue here: "The more women delay, avoid, and abuse marriage the less men will be willing to generate the surplus economic output our economy depends on."

If history is a reasonable guide, as the negative consequences of the male refusal to generate the surplus output that provides for women and children increase, the societal powers will respond with attempts to coerce rather than abandon their destructive ideology.  And these attempts at coercion will fail, as do all such attempts to build a complex society on a foundation of force rather than mutual and voluntary benefit.

Because women are collectively more short-sighted and more self-centered than men, giving them an equal voice in society is tantamount to a slow-motion execution for any society.  This is not theoretical, it is observable, as the equalitarian societies of Europe are already demographically in demise and in the process of losing their democracies and their property rights.

I understand that many people believe women's rights are important.  But are they more important than property rights?  Are they more important than democracy? What those who support women's rights are understandably reluctant to accept is that equalitarianism necessarily requires the elimination of democracy, property rights, freedom of movement, and even, in the end, capitalism and most of the tenets of Western civilization.  But like it or not, that is the choice that has been made, and is being made, even today.

The Founding Fathers of the USA were no more mindless sexists than the Conscript Fathers of the Roman Senate.  They knew full well what would happen if sexual equality was ever granted.  It is not a coincidence, still less ironic, that those who built the greatest and freest human societies have always vehemently opposed women's rights, while the totalitarians who most avidly sought to curtail human freedom it have tended to support them.

What's in the egg?

Back in 2011, I posted this simple push-your-luck dice game called Bombs Away that could be played with one die. I soon discovered some similarities to a 1994 casino-themed dice game called Sharp Shooters, which was later reimplemented by Ravensburger as Royal Casino and Temptation.

The basic mechanic still appeals to me, though I've since taken as a personal challenge not to design any games with violent or combat themes. So, the bomb has to go. Curious about alternate "ticking timebomb" metaphors would work with this mechanic, I kind of like the image of a mystery egg. Players are taking turns sitting on an egg until it hatches.

The longer you sit on the egg, the more claim you have over it, but what comes out of the egg may not be what you expect! The egg is represented by one d6. You roll the die to sit on the for one day and place one of your colored cubes in an open space beside the result.

1     [   ]    
2     [   ]     [   ]    
3     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]    
4     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]    
5     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]    
6     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]     [   ]   

You can continue sitting on it, rolling once for each day, or you can pass your turn to the next player. If you ever roll a result which has no empty spaces, the egg hatches! All sorts of things might hatch from the egg, resulting in different benefits and penalties for each player who sat on the egg. There is quite a bit of information to draw from this simple system.

• Did the egg hatch on a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6? Each might be a special group of results, with 1 being the most rare results since it's so unlikely.
• Who sat on the egg the longest? Whatever hatches may reward this player for taking the time to incubate it.
• Who hatched the egg? Even if you didn't spent much time sitting on the egg, whatever hatches might imprint on you, giving you some benefit in the long-term.
• Who sat on the egg the least? Whatever hatches might resent this player for not spending enough time caring for it. Or maybe go the opposite direction and reward this cautious player!
• Which row is most occupied when the egg hatched? This might determine the value of whatever hatches, meaning if there were a lot of 5s filled on the egg, but it hatched on a 2, it gets some special ability.

Want to get even crazier? Make it a worker placement game where players incubate a whole roost of eggs. Each player bids to lay on a chosen egg, each being incubated at different rates based on the preceding die roles. In this case, pecking order really does matter. Neat!

Dreadfleet Auxiliary vessels finished

The tiny Auxiliary vessels, (cogs, dirigible and dragon) are all painted up. I tried painting the sails and hulls of the tiny ships to make them resemble their parent ship as much as possible for easy identification on the table. They took a bit more time to paint than anticipated, despite their microscopic size and rough details they required some work to look decent. Probably most happy with the dragon which wasn't that exciting and I feared that my lack of enthusiasm would affect the paintjob.

Podcast: Neil Greenberg of ESPN and The Washington Post tells us what the stats say about Morrow, Murray and Iginla

Neil Greenberg of the Washington Post and ESPN Insider joins us to discuss what the advanced stats are saying about the Penguins' acquisition of Brenden Morrow, Douglas Murray, and Jarome Iginla. Are the Pens the favorite? If not, who is? We also talk about the pros and cons of advanced stats, whether it's teaching us anything we don't already know, and what the stats are telling us are the best (and worst) of the playoff teams.  Whether you know a lot about advanced stats or know nothing at all, you will learn a lot.

[And make sure to check out our stats-free, emotion-filled podcast on the Pens' big trades by clicking here]

Click here to subscribe on iTunes (if you were already a subscriber, you will have to resubscribe because this is a new feed).

***If you're listening on your smartphone, the best ways to make sure that you have an uninterrupted experience are: 1) download the podcast from iTunes OR 2) download the Spreaker app by going to the App store and searching for "Spreaker"

A post about Emmy

Hollywood Reporter has posted a story on the critical issue: what the hey is a Daytime Emmy worth? The answer seems to be not much, except to PBS. And station affiliates who like to say they're running Emmy-winning shows.

To be fair, the awards might mean a little something to game shows, which have become one of the main genres supposedly honored by the daytime kudos. Todd Newton looked pretty happy last year to win his Emmy for hosting Family Game Night. And who knows? The award may have helped the show stay on the air, after rumors surfaced that Hub might ax it.

Harry Friedman, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy showrunner, has won more of the awards than any mere mortal should. He agrees that Dear Emmy might help some shows to a renewal or three. Generally, I have little patience with Hollywood self-congratulation, even on the reduced scale of the Daytime Emmys. But if the little statues help a few game shows survive, I can tolerate them, barely.

IRRELEVANT BUT DESERVED UPDATE: Game Show Newsnet won the 2013 best game show site award from Carrie Grosvenor at About.com. They've won every year. I've been nominated every year. And I've lost every year, but am I bitter? Hell, yes! (Okay, just kidding.) Anyway, congrats to everybody at the Newsnet.

Thrift Shop and Game

The amusing and popular song by Macklemore is a veritable primer of Game.  It begins with irrational confidence: "Walk up to the club like, 'What up, I got a big cock!'"  Key word: like.  Whether he does or not is irrelevant, it's the being pumped up that allows him to successfully imitate the alphas, to such an extent that even the brothers who would normally disdain their Caucasian competition are forced to acknowledge him as their superior in style: "Damn! That's a cold ass honkey."

The language throughout is masculine.  The Thrift Shopper is not self-pitying, he's not lamenting his lack of money, indeed, he is triumphant over even the smallest victories, the most insignificant come-ups. Contrast with this the sad, pathetic figure of the gamma who has a good job, a house, and a nice car and still feels the deck stacked against him.  He's not shopping, he's "digging, he's "hunting", he is a literal man of action.

The peacocking aspect should be sufficiently obvious as to require no explication.

The Thrift Shopper is centered on himself and confident that others envy him.  He doesn't compare himself to those around him, but to the iconic John Wayne, and not to his own disadvantage either. It's not the clothes that make him cool, he is what makes the clothes cool.

I could take some Pro Wings, make them cool, sell those
The sneaker heads be like "Aw, he got the Velcros"

He even AMOGs the more fortunate who are foolish enough to spend $50 on a Gucci t-shirt and expect to derive some advantage from that.  He knows that distinguishing himself from the crowd is more important than having the right, most fashionable stuff.  And while those lower on the socio-sexual hierarchy will complain that he is a clown and has no rational basis for his superior attitude, the women will not care, but will flock to him.

And it inadvertently reveals the secret of what women actually mean when they advise: "Be Yourself" in order to attract women.  They're not lying, they are simply not being sufficiently clear due to their inability to fully understand what it is that appeals to them. What actually attracts them is not a man being himself, but rather believing in himself.

What the specific belief happens to be is almost irrelevant. 

Your lunchbreak podcast: Talking Jarome Iginla and the Pittsburgh Penguins

Incredibly exciting times as the Pens add Jarome Iginla from Calgary. Here's your emotional lunch-break podcast.

If the player below is not working for you, click here to listen.  If it's taking a while to load, just stick with it.  LGP.

More Playtest Findings from PAX

While I was at PAX East, I playtested three other prototypes currently in various stages of development.

Princess Bride Drafting Game has been long in development, but finally hitting a breakthrough now that it has departed from strictly simulating the Battle of Wits. It's now a drafting game in which players bid for milestones and landmarks to complete their personal quests while also trying to bluff their opponents into drinking poison. It's a drafting game where you're not just bidding for resources, but also turn order on the next draft and how many resources you'll get to draw. Most feedback was positive and I hope to formalize this prototype into something more pitchable soon.

• Retheme the cards slightly so that there are more main character options, including the villains of the story.
• Make the secondary characters in the deck landmark locations.
• Give the main characters unique abilities, like The Man in Black's immunity to poison, or Fizzik's great strength.

Belle of the Ball was a hit again. I got many play requests from people who had heard of the game from this blog. I also got a few thanks for non-violent/non-colonial theme. I tried out several new cards that generally followed the model of the "bad cheese" card, negating scores for certain interests in a scoring group. I also added several new Belle cards that scored you points based on other players' behavior, such as when they paid bribes, accepted bribes, invited lords or ladies or played Belle cards. On top of all this, I also tested the new two-lane format. It went swimmingly, offering far more substantial choice on each turn, preventing bribe-hoarding, and making a more satisfying experience overall.

• Come up with evocative names for the new Belle cards along with new diagrams that can more easily be recognized from a distance.
• Make the heraldry more subtle so it doesn't distract as much.
• Remove underlapping border around the interest icons so they have less interference with their silhouettes.

Suspense: The Card Game probably got the most play overall, simply because of its small footprint. The pitch really drew in the core gamer demographic: "Deduce the victory condition while also trying to meet it." I'm exploring ways to expand the game to four or five players, which might be difficult. I'm thinking about another set of six cards with red numbers, each victory condition based on highest/lowest black/white sum in play/hand. The problem of course is that 13 cards elegantly creates one possible outlier in an even deal, adding anymore makes things a little more messy. I'll figure it out though.

• Explore expanding the game to four or five players.
• Instead of waiting until the end of the round to introduce the "Fold" option, state it up front so players always have it available.
• Explore a gambling variant based on Wits & Wagers' wagering chips. (Score points equal to your wager chips x stars on the winning card.)

Stunner: Pens acquire Jarome Iginla from Calgary for almost nothing

By Finesse (follow me on Twitter)

You can listen to our lunch-break podcast breaking down the Iginla trade in the player below, or by clicking here.


Like everyone else, we awoke to the news that the Pens had acquired Jarome Iginla from the Calgary Flames after spending much of last evening hearing that the Bruins were on the verge of landing the prized winger.  This is an absolute stunner.

To get Iginla, the Pens gave up Bruce Gradkowski, Kenny Powers, and a first-round pick in the upcoming draft which, clearly, Ray Shero hopes is the 30th pick.  I was prepared to say that this move meant Ray Shero not only went all-in but then topped that off by putting his testicles on the poker table.  But giving up only those guys makes this more of WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!?!!?

Wait.  Their names are Ben Hanowski and Kenny Agostino?

Hanowski is graded as a "C" prospect by Hockey's Future.  He was drafted in the 3rd round of the 2009 draft.  He's currently playing for St. Cloud State.  He's 6th in scoring there with 29 points in 34 games.  (As a point of comparison, when Crosby was 4 years out of the draft, he won the Cup).

Ken Agostino was a 5th round pick in 2010.  He's graded as a "C" prospect.  He is the leading scorer for Yale with 37 points in 33 games.

To recap: The Pens just got Jarome Iginla for Yale's best player, St. Cloud State's sixth best player, and a (hopefully) late first round pick.

Flames' GM Jay Feaster will get destroyed for this deal, but remember that Iginla had a no-trade clause. He must have really wanted to come to Pittsburgh, so much so that he didn't mind screwing the Flames over (at least compared to the rumored Boston offer) to get here.

You don't bring in a guy like Iginla and NOT give him a shot at the top-two lines which means there is an odd-man out somewhere.  I think the most likely scenario is that Brenden Morrow drops to the third line with Sutter and Cooke, meaning Kennedy plays on the 4th line with Craig Adams and hopefully anyone but Tanner Glass.  Based solely on name recognition, it seems crazy to keep Dupuis on the top lines over Morrow, but Dupuis has great chemistry with Crosby and Malkin, is familiar with the system, and is, oh yeah, better at scoring goals than Morrow at this point.

As for the first two lines, Bylsma now has unlimited options.  He could give Iginla a shot with Crosby which was probably a big selling point to bring him here.  That would move Dupuis to down to play with Malkin and Neal where he would undoubtedly do the same thing he does for Crosby -- forecheck like a crazy person and get pucks to the big guy.  Or Iginla could play with Malkin and Neal, which seems almost unfair, although we should remember that sometimes chemistry trumps pedigree when it comes to a line being effective.

Either way, these seem like great problems for the Pens to have.  We never really thought the Pens would be in on Iginla, especially after getting Brenden Morrow.  But we also didn't think that either Iginla wanted to come to the Pens so badly or Jay Feaster was dumb enough to take two college kids back for Iginla.

This is a time for optimism, but it doesn't mean shit unless the Pens win the Stanley Cup.  The Pens are on a 13-game winning streak without Iginla, Murray, or Morrow (for 12 of them).  On paper, these guys make the Pens look incredible.  But being Paper Champions doesn't matter.  Being real champions is what matters.

Isn't that right, Lee Flowers?

Muskets & Tomahawks 24/3/13 game AAR

Played another game of Muskets and Tomahawks over at my friend Thomas, it was a 360 points per side game though I didn't record anything  so will keep this post brief and let you guys focus on the pictures from the game.

It was once again the French and British fighting it out, this time a force of French Regulars made up or regular infantry, French marines, a cannon, and some Huron attacked a British village guarded by Provincial troops and militia backed up by a couple of indian allies.

The scenario conditions for the French were to slaughter at least 2/3rd of the enemy force, the British had to defend their civilians of which there were 12 people. If more than 50% of the civilians got killed the British would lose the battle.

The side plot for the British were that one of the officers was a spy and was just visiting his comrades in the village when the enemy attacked. As such he must keep a low profile and try to remain unseen by the enemy if he is to be able to infiltrate them again.

The side plot for the French was, and Thomas really has a good knack for rolling these kind of side plots, that they had an insane officer. It turned out to be the senior officer riding a horse too! This crazy old fart is demented and doesn't know what he is doing half of the time. Each time he is activated both players roll a D6, the player who rolls higher activates the officer. However, if the opponent activates the officer he can only move him about - no shooting/fighting. Still, in order for the French to succeed with their side plot they had to keep the old deranged officer alive until the end of  the battle! Good luck....

It was a real slaughter, beginning with the French decimating one of the Provincial units - forcing them to hide inside a building which was then destroyed by the artillery (killing everyone inside!!). The rest of the British troops were confused and panicking, civilians moved slowly trying to get away while the fighting troops were having a hard time to find good firing positions and ended up shot or killed in close combat by muskets and blood crazed Hurons!


A true spectacle. In the end the insane French officer rode into the lines of the British and was killed by a hail of bullets, but the British spy was spotted and recognized by the French and the civilian evacuation broke down completely resulting in over having more than 50% killed (last two by a damn cannonball!). There British were really messed up by the end of the fight, while the French were largely untouched, having taken light casualties only.

It was great to play with some civilians, and I hope to have more painted up for our next game. Thomas have steamrolled through a box of Warlord French Infantry so they will be joining the fighting next time as well. I also managed to try out the Last of the Mohicans rules proposed to me over at the Lead Adventure Forum by user "Eric of the Shed"  HERE and found them to be working quite well. I had also managed to paint up the Mel Gibson miniature and the two armed kids just in time for the game so it was nice to have them on the gaming table.

You may have noticed the absence of smoke puffs in this game, I forgot my cotton balls at home... It make a huge difference having them around. Makes the game more immersive and it is easier to keep track of who has fired their weapons.