Saturday, August 07, 2010

Is it okay to weasel?

Got a call from Greg this morning, who had a few minutes before he had to dash off to a LARP. The Kraken game convention is going very well, and he's having a great time. He's been showing the Europeans Crisis, a boardgame by the Hain Bros. It's a riff of the Life board game, except with crime and a bus pass for those who can't afford to start off with a car. Greg somehow managed to squeeze the box into his already-full luggage. Since they didn't make a lot of them, it's hard to come by and a lot of people have never played it. (Valley of the Mammoths, a really fun game, wouldn't fit in Greg's bag with Crisis already in there, so he left it. Too bad, too, since down the road from the schloss where The Kraken takes place is an elephant sanctuary. Plenty of atmospheric odor when the wind is right, says Greg.)

Does this make me look medieval?

So, Crisis. American gamers gleefully play weasel cards on each other ("I see you downloaded some movies off the Internet...that's illegal! Tell you what: you can pay a fine of $200, or give me $100 not to say anything!") but Greg said the Europeans were having trouble getting behind weaseling. They didn't feel comfortable doing that to each other! Which is not what I would have guessed from reading The Economist every week.

Except the Finns and the Dutch. They got right into it, no hesitation at all.

Sure does seem to be a lot of french fry consumption this trip.

2 comments:

Sarah Wynde said...

That's so funny. Playing WOW the other day, one of my guildmates (people I play with all the time) tried to make me say, "You fail, X" to one of our fellows Trash talk, it's part of the game. But...I just couldn't do it. Just...nope. Not in me. Can't trash talk. And I have to admit, I don't think I'd be American, Finnish or Dutch when it came to weaseling!

brandegoris said...

LOVE IT! If Greg is bringing it back u need to play it. I Would Certainly weasel! YESSSS!!! And I hope Greg is having the time of his life!