POGOB! in Dire Straits

POGOB! needs a new executive, as the old one is becoming more and more illegal. Please email me if you're interested.

The work load is effectively nil, unless you want it to be more, and the prestige is limitless, if nonexistent.The only caveat: you have to be an undergraduate student at the UofA.

So, please help save POGOB!

Worst. Blog. Ever. (You could say we have a Monopoly on suckiness.)

So bad, I doubt anyone's even reading anymore. But if anything can bring the readers back, it is that most classic of commercial board games: Monopoly.

Of course, among nerdy boardgamers like, um, us, Monopoly doesn't get a whole lot of respect--in fact, in general, nerdy people tend to be snobby about popular classics.

I, however, believe that Monopoly is a good little game. It has trading, auctions (on the off chance you're playing it properly), and in general more strategy than a lot of mainstream games, and more than it gets credit for.

Still, I have to admit that it is pretty random, and that can be annoying to us nerdgeeks. But must this lead us to shun this classic game forever? No, it must not.

With that in mind, I have a challenge for the members of the club: I want you to come up with a variant of Monopoly that would endear it more to the gamegeek crowd, i.e. us. I propose that we then try out the best of them (which may very well be more than one). Sadly, the pride of having your idea played is the only prize I can offer, but I think it's a good one.

Variants can stick relatively close to the official rules, or they can differ wildly, as you prefer. I have only three restrictions:

- Your idea must maintain the property buying, trading, house/hotel building, and rent paying aspects of the original game.
- Your idea should be playable with a standard copy of Monopoly (and if it must require anything extra, it should be readily acquirable around the house).
- If you include the Free Parking rule, I'll punch you.

That's all for now. Go.

"I'll be there in spirit, cheating, unsuccessfully."

- Dane Bullerwell about the upcoming First Annual Settlers of Catan Tournament

Games We've Played/Are Planning to Play

The number indicates the game's rank on boardgamegeek.

21. Settlers of Catan
N/A. Settlers with Cities and Knights Expansion
1. Puerto Rico
2. Caylus
7. Ra
119.Alhambra
3. Euphrates and Tigris
139. Warrior Knights
2285. The Star Trek Video Boardgame
2435. Poleconomy
N/A. World Domination
1766. Eschnapur
334. Betrayal at House on the Hill


726. Balderdash
1308. Things
1755. Imaginiff
2945. Trivial Pursuit
798. 1000 Blank White Cards
3069. Scruples

FallCon 19- Pity the Fool Who Didn't Go!

This was one of the best weekends I have had in my life. It was so much fun. For all of you who don't know, FallCon is a big Boardgame and Miniature Convention happening in Calgary every year in September for the last 19 years. It lasts 3 days, during which gamers float in a blissful cloud of fast food, gaming, competing, and networking.

From left to right: me(Catrin), Andrew from the Calgary Gamers'

Guild, Game Designer Wilf Backhaus, and Steve playtesting In Fair Verona

As for POGOB, this was the best thing we could have done for the club. It was an extremely productive weekend. Here are the highlights:

1. We were able to talk to the numerous gamers who had driven down from Edmonton to go to Fallcon(in my first game, 3/5 of the table were from Edmonton, and Steve wasn't one of them), and let them know about the upcoming Settlers tournament.
2. Steve won a copy of Nexus Ops in the raffle.
3. We came home with about 15 games we bought in the humongous game auction they have every year. Over 500 games are auctioned off in 2 hours. None of the games we bought cost us more than $15, and some were only $3. One of it was even still shrinkwrapped. So, POGOBs, prepare to play hard next Sunday!
   
4. We connected with John Engel, the owner of the St. Albert boardgame store Mission Fun & Games and operater of the site www.boardgames.ca. For all of you who have never been to his store: go. It is a place of both utter bliss and sheer agony (of choice, of course) for anyone who likes games. Mr. Engel has agreed to sponsor the Settlers tournament in numerous ways by providing us with gift certificates, coupons, and other perks, along with his expertise and connections. In addition to that, he agreed to help out with registration and moderating the day of the tournament, so you will all get to meet him- "the man who lives the dream", as Steve likes to call him.
5. Every gamer at FallCon received a free copy of a new game valued at US$39.95. We were able to acquire two extra copies which will become prizes.
6. We met game designer Wilf Backhaus. For all of you who have experience with RPGs, you might know him as the co-author of the D&D competitor Chivalry and Sorcery. We got to playtest a game he's working on called In Fair Verona, and were happy to give him a thumbs up along with some gameplay feedback. Mr.Backhaus has also agreed to lend us his expertise later on this year when we plan to have our boardgame design competition- he agreed to judge the entries for us!

And, of course, here are the lowlights:

1. Steve and I both failed to make it into the semifinals in the Settlers tournament there with a measly 4.5 points each.
2. We slept in Sunday morning and missed the Cities and Knights tournament. I'm sure I would have won that one!
3. Steve won the Caylus tournament by someone else's roll of a die after tying for first in what he calls "the worst game of Caylus of his life" against three teenage girls who had never played before. I'll be sure to frame that certificate for him!
   

Logo!

This is the current prototype of the new club logo. The colours certainly need to be tweaked, and possibly rearranged—thankfully it's only usage thus far is in black and white—and I may tweak the border rings and even the font, for instance. But this is the general idea, anyway. The green and gold rings are taken from the U of A's colours (they are also, awesomely but coincidentally, Australia's national colours), while the colours of the letters/punctuation are meant to be those of the Settlers pieces (yes, I'm aware that they're all off in this prototype). But this image gives you the idea of what I'm going for, anyway.

So, keeping in mind all that, what do you think?

Squeeze us your thumbs!

The headline is what happens when German is translated into English word by word. In Germany, you 'squeeze your thumbs" for someone or something when you wish that someone or something luck.

After this long and uninteresting introduction, I reluctantly get to the point: I have handed in an application for a conference grant to send the three members who showed interest to the Calgary boardgame convention, and an application for an event grant to hold the first annual Settlers of Catan tournament. I asked for $656 total.

We'll know the results by September 21, apparently.

So, squeeze, people, squeeze.