Worldcon loose ends, Gen Con day 4
Aug. 2nd, 2020 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petrea_mitchellI usually don't sign up for games starting before 8am my time, but I made an exception for Zohn Ahl, a traditional Kiowa game. This was another one played with the GM pointing a camera at a physical board, but it did not work so well in this case because it cut players off from the one interesting aspect of the game, which is how you roll to move.
Movement is determined with four counting sticks, flat on one side and round on the other. You find yourself a large, interesting rock and then drop the sticks on it, moving one space for every flat side that points upward (unless all four land on the same side). The "board" only allows linear movement in one direction for each team, so there wasn't really any playing of the game, just watching the GM play both teams.
This worked better for the next game, Patolli, a board game which was popular in the Aztec Empire. This has some striking similarities with Sorry!, but one big difference is that victory is determined by a betting mechanism. Each player starts with some beans (or whatever you want to bet) and landing on certain squares forces you to pay a bean to the player to your left.
Rolling would normally consist of tossing five beans which have been painted on one side, with each painted side displayed counting as one space of movement. The GM substituted d6s, which made things easier for playing on video but messed with the odds a bit, making it harder to get counters on the board.
Once you get multiple counters on the board you do get to exercise some strategy. I can see how this was crazy popular in Aztec times.
After finishing my games for the day, I went back to Worldcon to watch the closing ceremonies. I also found on its Discord that before it was locked down, someone had posted an invite to an unofficial server on all the social channels for fans to continue hanging out on.
So now it's all over, and there's no rush to pack and get home, just the return of reality and work tomorrow.
Movement is determined with four counting sticks, flat on one side and round on the other. You find yourself a large, interesting rock and then drop the sticks on it, moving one space for every flat side that points upward (unless all four land on the same side). The "board" only allows linear movement in one direction for each team, so there wasn't really any playing of the game, just watching the GM play both teams.
This worked better for the next game, Patolli, a board game which was popular in the Aztec Empire. This has some striking similarities with Sorry!, but one big difference is that victory is determined by a betting mechanism. Each player starts with some beans (or whatever you want to bet) and landing on certain squares forces you to pay a bean to the player to your left.
Rolling would normally consist of tossing five beans which have been painted on one side, with each painted side displayed counting as one space of movement. The GM substituted d6s, which made things easier for playing on video but messed with the odds a bit, making it harder to get counters on the board.
Once you get multiple counters on the board you do get to exercise some strategy. I can see how this was crazy popular in Aztec times.
After finishing my games for the day, I went back to Worldcon to watch the closing ceremonies. I also found on its Discord that before it was locked down, someone had posted an invite to an unofficial server on all the social channels for fans to continue hanging out on.
So now it's all over, and there's no rush to pack and get home, just the return of reality and work tomorrow.
