Random Acts of Violence

Lst night my RPG group stalled out because neither gm planned anything so we pulled out a game of Vinci. If you've not played, its not bad. You get empires that expand till they run out of guys and then they go into deciline and then you get a new empire. Each empire has a set of special powers that can purchase for victory points that give them special scoring or discounts when fighting. You end up having wave after wave of new empire cascading over old declining ones and score the lands you keep (plus any extra from special powers.)

About a third of the way through the game I was pretty happy with how my empires were doing. I was sitting on a nest egg that was not threating anough to get a lot of attention but was raking in a tidy sum of points. My new empire was about to invade with a ton of guys and I had at least a couple of rounds of big points ahead.

My freind Dan Baden had just set himself up with the perfect expanisionist empire and was busy brokering deals. As I reached to place my first barbarian horde, the evil spirit of mischief bore its ugly head. Jerking my hand to far side of the board, I plopped down the handfull of tokens right in the center of his new empire. Dan Gibbered, Aaron (one of my RPG buddies) roared with laughter, Frank was astonished, the room was in chaos. Needless to say, The rest of the game Dan had a singuliar goal- get Steve. But the damage was done, even though Dan recovered nicely, neither one of us came close to winning.

My point is though, that I will remember that game, the look on Dan's face, and the chaos I spawned. Would I have remembered scoring 2 more points for having the shipbuilder power or how I managed to conserve enough men to eak out a victory? probably not.

BTW, if I turn up missing- some one check Dan's catacomb of games. I'll probably be found there mummified with a meeple in my mout.

Steve"100%PureBastard"Avery

It's odd hthat you mention this particular dilemma Steve, because it's one that I generally have to make when I'm playing with my pals: Optimal Play? or WREAK AS MUCH HAVOC AS FUCKING POSSIBLE!

I generally go for what's behind door #2. Random acts of violence equals good times had by all, and I'll gladly take one for the team.

One of my best gaming experiences was during the playtesting of the 25th anniversary edition of Divine Right. My friends and I played the game heavily when we were teenagers, and many years later, I found myself living just a few miles away from the game designer.

Anyway, Glenn Rahman (the game designer) quickly and efficiently put half of my castles in danger on the second turn, and due to great luck, took both of those castles by turn four. The other players weren't going to get in his way, so it looked like the game was going to be a tough one for me.

Then I shocked Glenn. I picked up a new ally, and had my original troops abandon the homeland and embark on a journey of vengeance. Instead of trying to defend any of my castles, my wandering horde methodically laid waste to both NPC countries that had joined Glenn's alliance. I racked up an obscenely large victory point total, while Glenn learned a new way to play his own game.

Using random acts of violence is a terrible was to actually win games. But its a hell of lot more fun than turtling. I love playing the Zerg in Starcraft because they have lots of crappy units that you can send out for random acts of violence. I like attacking the guy who build the most workers in turn 1. Then I can yell "What are you Euro-ing this game. Die Euro worker die."