With the success of the “What are you playing this weekend?” articles, we’ve decided to try out adding a mid-week community discussion. This week we’re talking about our favorite gaming moments. It can be anything from a great die roll to a full on story, and don’t forget to say what game you were playing 🙂
I’ll kick things off:
An epic gaming moment for us was during a game of Mansions of Madness. I was the keeper and the other four investigators had just discovered that their uncle was an evil sorcerer and they had to destroy him or be destroyed themselves. They were chased by zombies to the final room where the uncle was. My brother was playing the guy with the two pistols, Joe Diamond, and throughout the game had constantly been dropping his gun, misfiring, shooting walls… pretty much anything BUT killing zombies. The evil uncle had set the room on fire, and Joe Diamond was the first to enter the room… oh, and Joe Diamond had a broken leg as well. (caution… things are about to get a little graphic)
So he hobbles into the room and manages, in blaze and glory, to shoot the evil uncle, removing a good portion of the evil uncle’s head, yet the sorcerer lived on with one health left. The only one close enough to possibly defeat the evil uncle, while also saving Joe Diamond, was our friend playing Sister Mary… but Sister Mary had no weapons at all. What does she do? She walks in, and performs the “No Weapon” attack. The card might have read different, but this is how we all remember it… she took a swing at the evil uncle and successfully slapped him clean in the jaw, causing one damage, just what they needed to defeat him! We cheered and laughed (yes, even me, the evil keeper of the mansion cheered!)
I played Resistance, we were like eight or nine playing together. I was eager to help in the missions, but around the table they sat accusing me of being a sabotour. Not being able to hold a straight face, I promised dearly that I was a good guy.
So we won the game, and we were about to reveal our roles. Everyone were at me, to see if I was a bad guy. Turned out, I was a good guy, but two of the loudest accusors were bad guys, and didn`t even know it. They had misunderstood their roles. The third guy being sabotour told us as we sat laughing, that he had opened his eyes as the rest of the group had their eyes shut, so he couldn`t tell who his allys were. Very fun game! We laughed throughout the whole game, and even more at the end from all the mistakes
Most of my favorite board gaming moments are bittersweet. Let me explain: my friends are rules lawyers and jerks. I love them like brothers, but my friends are engineers, rules lawyers, and spend most of their time busting each others butts. So, when we pulled out Pandemic (the first cooperative game I taught them) the first thing they tried to do was break the game. And they did. They figured out how to play the game, eradicate all the diseases, and win, without having more than one character leave Atlanta. They abused all the powers to move the game in exactly the right direction to beat the game. The only person who left Atlanta was the Medic! It was incredible. I’m sure someone else has done this too, and it was very successful (there were no outbreaks in the whole game!), but it kind of sucked all the fun out of the game. Honestly, I have not been back to try Pandemic again yet. Kind of sour on it now. Maybe with the expansion, but once broken, I don’t know how to fix it. Anyone else have an experience like this?
Great idea! I’ll take a shot..
The game was Circus Maximus (Avalon Hill 1979 – By Don Greenwood) the year was 1995, Gen Con in Milwaukee. Playing a huge table-top version with 72 scale miniatures complete with a stadium of cheering (model) Romans.
Being a classic game, you roll dice and move ahead – you have a custom made chariot and driver and in the game, besides racing straight ahead you can whip your horses to go faster ( at the cost of their endurance), you can bash into other chariots, whip opposing drivers, all the while trying to make sure you don’t go too fast around turns. In the game, (much like Formula D) you can push your speed in the corners and if you roll unsuccessfully, your wheels take damage you can even flip your chariot.
My brother and I were playing against 10 other players. The game is three laps and my brother and I did well in the first two laps, in fact by halfway round the third and final lap I was in the lead, by brother was close behind, and a few others were trailing. The rest had either flipped their chariots, hit the walls and / or got run over by the advancing horses. Approaching the final turn I had only two points of damage on one of my wheels and no damage on the other. So I opted to move fast through the turn. Each lane has a maximum safe speed in the turns. If you exceed that number you are “straining in the corner.” Not a big deal. I made the turn. However, if you are straining in a corner you must also roll if you have any wheel damage. My one wheel with two points of damage was fine and I only had 4 points of wheel damage on the other. The rule is: if you roll higher than the amount of damage (in this case 4) on two d6, you are safe, roll equal to the total and you take a another point of wheel damage. (no prob). Roll less than the number and the wheel flies off chariot flips.. boom… death, defeat.
The finish line was in sight; my brother was hot on my heels. My horses were exhausted but healthy! I confidently rolled the two d6 knowing that all I needed was a 4 or higher. I let the dice fly, smirking in confidence.
2.
My brother shouted in victory and his chariot and horse team rumbled over my broken body as I choked on dirt and defeat. It was a great race. My brother rode well and deserved his victory. It was lesson in humility, and a test of good sportsmanship. I have never had such a dramatic ending of a game since. And my brother will never let me forget it.
I think one of my favourite evenings of gaming involved playing Ave Caesar with additional chariots. We used regular playing cards for our movement cards and used some fairly random miniatures for the extra chariots. I can’t remember if we had 8 or 9 players in the end, but it resulted in some very silly races during which only half the field finished each race. Wouldn’t want to do that every time, mind…
Not sure if I should link this but I will and take down if needed. Fact is Mr. Bistro is ten times more eloquent at telling this story.
http://fortressat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=710&Itemid=365
This was absolutely my best boardgaming moment of all time….the mix of people was awesome and everyone played it out so well. Not sure If I will ever have one as good as this story. Worth the read…..
I remember playing Dixit with a group of friends who were also illustrators. After finishing our first game, we decided to grab some 3×5 index cards and create our own storytelling cards before the second game began. We tried to knock out as many pictures as we could in fifteen minutes while keeping our completed sketches hidden.
We ended up with a lot of hilariously funny pencil drawings – slightly better than your typical Pictionary sketches. All bizarre and silly and open to interpretation. The second game was fantastic, and changed the way we’ve played Dixit since!
This is one of my favourite gaming memories and I’ll never be allowed to forget it even should I want to.
We were roleplaying Star Wars for the first (and as it turned out last) time, a printed scenario because it was our first time with this game mechanic. The party consisted of pre-roled characters that we chose from: all very brave “good guys”, not a realist amongst us. We arrive at the star port from the ship we’ve been travelling on when the GM describes the port surroundings, to the right is the city, ahead is the sea, to the left is an imperial base, bristling with armaments and armed guards, certain death in other words. Everyone independently chose to go left, the GM tries very hard to persuade us: nope we are adamant, the only thing our characters would do is face the imperial guards, with no attempts at subterfuge. At this point the GM gives up, says there is no point going on as a) we’d all be dead before we reach the base and b) there’s nothing written for idiots who turn left, no maps, no combat stats, no description.
You know since then, if I write a scenario, I always put in several different win conditions and try never to leave an undescribed angle.
My most recent moment was during a game of Elder Sign. My girlfriend was rolling on a pretty tough card and we had really been pretty beaten down the hole game as it was one of our earlier play throughs and we were still working out some kinks.
Anyway, she had used a special die and had made a few rolls to the point where she was down to a single die and needed one particular icon to be rolled to get an elder sign verses letting loose Cthulhu to wreak havoc on all mankind. She knows she’s in a pinch and doesn’t want to roll it. I inspire her with my words of, “It’s not going to happen, just go for it.” She tosses the die and don’t ya know, she gets it. High fives all around. I don’t even remember if we won that game, but I remember that roll.
Getting ganged up on by 5 players during Twilight Imperium for two turns; diplomatically and Militarily. I had coyly set up a push to achieve “Domination” (take control of two opposing homeworlds) on turn 6 of a very tight game. One player noticed it and the gang-up began. I enjoyed this I guess because it was fun to see what a massive threat I built up and nearly snuck in with.
Just finished a game of Fiasco. We had a run down hotel, a government conspiracy, two maintenance men with a tendency to shoot guns indoors, a gay love connection, and a secret room that contained all the mysteries but only some of the answers.
The game finished with a massive explosion, loss of limbs, and a smoldering copy of TV Guide.