A short report

Manorcon is an annual convention, held at Birmingham University, chiefly centred around part of the National Diplomacy Championships.  But I won't be covering any of that bit here - I went down to indulge in less brain-destroying boardgames.  Manorcon XVII was held on the weekend of 15-18 July 1999, but I had been in Manchester on the Saturday evening for a concert, so I just went down for the Sunday.

I turned up at the University and soon found the requisite 'Hall of Residence'.   It was a bit harder to actually find my way into it as I didn't come at it from the front.  As I skirted the building I found Mick Haytack of the games club, playing croquet, and he advised me to go in through the open patio window.

I wandered about for a bit to find a game about to start and soon came across Steve Tavener and some others about to play Bamboleo.  This was the first time I had played one of these balancing games, and having the manual dexterity of a fish, I wasn't holding out a lot of hope.  A bunch of wooden shapes are placed onto a large disc that is then balanced on top of a ball on a pole.  Players take it in turned to remove the wooden shapes until someone causes the disc to fall.  Fun and short, but not really my ideal type of game.

They then introduced me to my first game of Can't Stop, a Sid Sackson classic.   This is one of those games in the same style as Yahtzee, Pass the Pigs, etc, where you try to accumulate a large score on your turn, but can end up with nothing if you get too greedy and the rolls go against you.  Steve had a very attractive set with a cloth board and wooden pieces which added to the pleasure of playing.  I got off to quite a good start by being the slow and steady tortoise type.  However, the reckless nature of the hares had caught and passed me before the end - drat!  Still, a good game.

We all dispersed at this point for some reason and I ended up looking for another group.  I found one about to play Modern Art, and joined as the fifth player.  I didn't make the best of impressions when I insisted that they had one of the rules wrong and, going to get my Mayfair set of rules, I found that it was me who had got it wrong instead... Oops!  They all took it in good heart, though, and I got on with playing the game instead.  It certainly still is a very good game, although this one took a lot longer to play than normal, largely, I think, due to 'intense thinking' on the part of some of the players.  I think they were Diplomacy players on a break...

After that I stretched my legs for a bit and returned to find a group about to play Twitch.  This is one of the non-collectible card games from the 'Magic' people and I rather enjoyed it - wining both games probably helped.  It is one of those often annoying games of reaction.  Each card played controls who will play the next card: some indicate the player one or two places to the left or right of the last player, some cause the player of the previous card to have to play again and some indicate a particular colour of player to play next.  But just when you get used to things, there are other cards that cause everyone to change colours or that swap left and right, etc.  The manic level of play arises because each player also has a penalty card in the colour of each of the other players and if they play the correct penalty card to the central pile before the relevant player has played the card s/he is meant to, or if they have played a card incorrectly, the penalised player must take the central stack of cards - the idea being to get rid of yours first.  It's one of those games that leaves your nerves a bit jangled, so you can't play often.  But it's sort of fun too.

In return for that, I introduced them to Nicht die Bohne, the great new card game from Horst-Rainer Rösner.  It was the first time I had played it, but its double-edged nature soon started to emerge as the 'bean chip' player each time started to try to control which card everyone got.  Just writing this makes me want to have another game of it right now!  I mean to translate the rules for the Internet when I get round to it, as no-one else seems to be doing so.

The group were about to go out and eat, so we ended up with Und Tschüss - an excellent game for large groups.  We played according to the variant we use at the club - which is to shuffle back in used cards and to continue until there aren't enough cards to replenish everyone's hands.  I do enjoy playing this when I get the chance!

On to my next group for a game of Doolittle & Waite.  This is a kind of bluffing/bidding game based on court cases.  Each player takes it in turn to be 'the accused' and everyone holds cards which will make it more or less likely that they will be found guilty - these cards are gradually revealed.  Based on knowledge of your own cards and those on view, bluff and guessing other players' cards, the accused player attempts to reach agreement 'out of court' and pay off the others.  The other players obviously try to get as much out of the accused as possible - and then to pay out as little as possible when they become accused in turn.  I did pretty badly at this game, seeming to always have appalling cards when it was my turn - I guess the idea is to buy your way out of a losing situation early!  Good for a game now and then, but not one I'd buy I think.

Then on to Don Pepe, which none of the others had seen before.  It was fine for a light game in that kind of setting - although the slaughter was pretty heavy near the start.  Some of the players definitely felt a bit tied down by the lack of Move cards they were getting, leaving them open to many an exploding cake.  There was a feeling that players should be allowed a free move after their first card rather than be allowed to play a move card only if you've got one.

The group were then planning to play Cosmic Encounter, so I backed out, mostly because I thought it would go on for too long and I still had to get home - later on I wished I'd actually stayed for it as I've never had a decent game of it with experienced players.  Instead I wandered around and found some players reading through the rules for El Caballero.   So I joined them as 'the one who knows things'.  Either my explanations, or the game itself, were too boring for them as there was an overwhelming vote to abandon it after the first scoring round.  It is certainly a slow and cerebral game, but it is one that I do want to keep trying until I've 'played it out' before making up my mind.

So, on a lighter note, I introduced them to Klunker, the trading/collecting card game that is really a board game in disguise.  I am quite enjoying this game as I play it more often and it certainly was a breath of fresher air after the previous game.  While playing this, I got a call from Sally to ask if I was coming home or staying the night.  It was a bit difficult to book a room that late and I had been planning to go home.  But David pointed out that they were redecorating a bunch of the rooms over the back of the building, so I collared my sleeping bag from the car and crashed out there anyway, giving me a chance for another half-day of gaming that wouldn't have been worth coming all the way back for.  Thanks Dave!   (By the way, in case that upsets anyone who was involved in the running of the convention - it didn't happen, I just made it up.)

Woken early in the morning by the return of the painters, I found the, luckily communal, shower rooms, blessed my luck and soon rejoined the gamers below.  I started the day by getting pulled in for a game of Entdecker, hanging around, and then getting chucked out again because they had pulled in too many.  I'm not too sure what was going on here, because the guy doing the recruiting was continuing to do so even after he knew I was surplus to requirements... 

Anyway, I decided to continue my quest to get as many people introduced to Tycoon as possible.  As always, the game went down well, the result was close, and my level of 'being impressed' by it increased another notch.  If you don't have this game yet, go out and buy it!

Moving on to another group, I managed to persuade them not to play their favoured Outpost (a 'brainy' game) and to try Klunker instead - a remarkable success when Geoff professed that he 'doesn't play card games'.  I think they enjoyed it to a certain extent but would be unlikely to rush out and buy it.   They tried to talk me into playing Outpost afterwards, but I was a little put off when they said it should only take two or three hours with four players...

Last game of the day was Mamma Mia, played with yet another group, including Clark, who remembered me from the web site and told me of the happenings at Consim World - I really must get to visiting that properly.  After that, everyone seemed to be heading off home, so I did too.

Thanks as usual to all who played: Stephen Tavener, Mark Jones, Hilary Jones, Ian Harris, Carl Brittain, John Colledge, Kath Collman, David Tittle (special thanks), Sid Ramage, Gery McLaughlin, Ian Wilson, Martin Holden, Rosie Tavener-Jones, Chris Dearlove, Martin Butcher, Chris Boote, Peter Vogelzung (over from Holland specially for the convention), Paul Oakes, Richard Beattie, Geoff Hardingham, Dave Anderson, John Sloan, Clark Finney, Chris Dickson, Tony Dickinson.  Thanks again folks, see you next time.

Cheers.

Trev.