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GeekNights Tuesday - Sheriff of Nottingham and Mount Your Friends

Tonight on GeekNights, we fully review Sheriff of Nottingham (it's a great game in the same social category as Bohnanza) and Mount Your Friends (gifted to us by a friend and played to great effect at a PAX). Both are solid additions to your collection of games that you can whip out at a party without derailing the social scene. In the news, we've been playing a lot of Dance Dance Revolution again, Hearthstone is coming to iPhone, and a Turkish mayor implores you to respect the robot.

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  • Lies. All lies! (and bribes too.)
  • Have that game on my 360 from way back when. Fuqn hilarious.

  • I resolve to only play Hearthstone from my phone now. I'll uninstall it from my computer and get back to using it for cleverer things.
  • I have totally played Mount Your Friends but now I cannot remember where - I think it was PAX South? We played for a few minutes and it was fucking hilarious.

    I'll clarify the whole Dice Tower / Sheriff of Nottingham situation. It is publishes under the "Dice Tower Essentials" imprint, which is a partnership between publisher Arcane Wonders and Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower (all the rest of the Dice Tower people are hangers-on). Arcane Wonders had really only done one game prior to this, Mage Wars.

    I find this topic fascinating because there is no bigger name in board game media than Tom, yet the guy seems to be operating with no strategy or vision. The dude seriously needs a Robert Khoo, but he's not quite talented enough to deserve one.

    Him partnering with a publisher to create a "the essential games you must own" line has raised a lot of eyebrows. How are you supposed to be the number 1 board game reviewer at the same time as you are publishing your own line of games? There have already been rumblings that designers are being asked to submit games both for review and publishing consideration at the same time. That sounds like a pretty shitty spot to be in. What if you get into some heated negotiation over publishing terms and then decide to publish somewhere else, and in the meantime, the guy you just pissed off is preparing to film his opinion of said game?
  • edited April 2015
    Matt said:

    I have totally played Mount Your Friends but now I cannot remember where - I think it was PAX South? We played for a few minutes and it was fucking hilarious.

    I'll clarify the whole Dice Tower / Sheriff of Nottingham situation. It is publishes under the "Dice Tower Essentials" imprint, which is a partnership between publisher Arcane Wonders and Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower (all the rest of the Dice Tower people are hangers-on). Arcane Wonders had really only done one game prior to this, Mage Wars.

    I find this topic fascinating because there is no bigger name in board game media than Tom, yet the guy seems to be operating with no strategy or vision. The dude seriously needs a Robert Khoo, but he's not quite talented enough to deserve one.

    Him partnering with a publisher to create a "the essential games you must own" line has raised a lot of eyebrows. How are you supposed to be the number 1 board game reviewer at the same time as you are publishing your own line of games? There have already been rumblings that designers are being asked to submit games both for review and publishing consideration at the same time. That sounds like a pretty shitty spot to be in. What if you get into some heated negotiation over publishing terms and then decide to publish somewhere else, and in the meantime, the guy you just pissed off is preparing to film his opinion of said game?

    Hey, what happens when Gamestop owns Game Informer? Oh wait...
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • Clearly, BoardGamerGate is upon us.
  • The conservative portion of the board game audience skews older and quainter than the conservative portion of the video game audience. I base this on nothing but personal observation. Hot-button issues are companies that are "too big" for kickstarter, and people who don't disclose how many times they played a game before reviewing it.
  • I want to cry when both of those topics come up.
  • As for competitive online strategy games, you guys are correct that Hearthstone is the only one that has used the format to structure a game around things you *can't* do with meatspace cards.

    The only mobile strategy games I've played where you could easily get a random opponent were Ticket to Ride (iPad), Ascension, Carcassonne, and Star Realms. That last one is the most recent game. It's just an average deckbuilder in my opinion. Has some neat little twists but does not separate itself from the pack at all.

    Does Neuroshima Hex have online play vs random people? Is it easy to get an opponent? Back in my iPhone 3GS and 4S days I played a shit ton of Neuroshima Hex vs the computer. I have it on Android now but have never launched, and generally play a ton less mobile games than I used to.
  • I have never tried to play Neuroshima Hex against Internet people. We just play local hot swap.
  • Yeah. Neuroshima Hex isn't even that good. It's just the best available for the form factor.
  • edited April 2015
    Rym's tactic of him saying he will accept a bribe and if the player agrees. He then goes and opens the bag anyways. Seems like it breaks the rules somewhat. At what point does the Sheriff cross the line that states he can no longer open the bag? When coinage is exchanged? So if Rym says I'm open for bribes. Can I place a some money on the bag? If he grabs the bag he is grabbing the money as well. Would that counter his tactic?
    Post edited by Josh Bytes on
  • Deals are binding when mutually agreed to and the items/actions are immediately and (effectively) simultaneously exchanged during that specific game phase,

    None of that shit works.
  • I find it interesting that rye bread is listen as a "king's good" in Sheriff. This is a minor historical inaccuracy as during the middle ages, rye was the peasant's bread and plain, white/wheat bread was for the upper classes. This was because rye was a heartier grain that could thrive in harsher conditions than wheat, hence it was less expensive.
  • This is a minor historical inaccuracy

    image
  • I find it interesting that rye bread is listen as a "king's good" in Sheriff. This is a minor historical inaccuracy as during the middle ages, rye was the peasant's bread and plain, white/wheat bread was for the upper crust. This was because rye was a heartier grain that could thrive in harsher conditions than wheat, hence it was less expensive.

    Sorry. You missed an opportunity for an awful pun.

  • It's not a pun. That's how the term originated!
  • Oh snap
  • I find it interesting that rye bread is listen as a "king's good" in Sheriff. This is a minor historical inaccuracy as during the middle ages, rye was the peasant's bread and plain, white/wheat bread was for the upper classes. This was because rye was a heartier grain that could thrive in harsher conditions than wheat, hence it was less expensive.

    WELL ACTUALLY it depends on when and where you are. Olaus Magnus, a Swedish archbishop, wrote a treatise in 1555 called Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus ("History of the Northern Peoples"), which included a section about grains. Specifically, he says of rye:

    "But the Goths, both East and West, who feed on barley and oats, have an infinite abundance given them by the mercy of God. Yet there is use made of all these sorts of corn in both places. But the Swedes provide most of rye, where their women know so well how to winnow rye, that for colour, taste, and for health it surpasses the goodness of wheat."

    Wealthy and high-ranking graves from the Viking age have bread finds whose composition consists of barley, oats, rye, and peas.

    #nerd
  • If I remember my hisory classes when you bake a loaf of bread medieval bread the finest (most well ground) ingredients would rise to the top and the coarse lumps of seed etc. would sink to the bottom. Then the upper crust would be sold to the wealthy and the rest would be sold to the lower classes.
  • Rym said:

    This is a minor historical inaccuracy

    image
    I was curious if that guy was as nasally as he seems.



    Oh yeah. Super nasally.
  • edited April 2015
    I love all the history dick waving.

    Also pretty sure the skinny guy was just trying to deck francis. I got that 'turtling in Australia" vibe.
    Post edited by Jack Draigo on
  • If I remember my hisory classes when you bake a loaf of bread medieval bread the finest (most well ground) ingredients would rise to the top and the coarse lumps of seed etc. would sink to the bottom. Then the upper crust would be sold to the wealthy and the rest would be sold to the lower classes.

    Bread doesn't actually work that way. Also, there is literally no evidence supporting that etymological conjecture, and plenty of textual descriptions of serving and consuming bread that directly contradict that story.

    We first find it used in that way in the 19th century - a wonderful time of amateur scholarship and people making wild and unsubstantiated claims.
  • Wasn't the most common form of bread in Medieval times trenchers?
  • Not necessarily. Bread type depends heavily on when and where you are.

    The early Norse, for example, generally did not have large loaves of bread. The vast majority of bread finds we have are small (~5 cm diameter, 0.5 cm thick) unleavened "wafers" that were most likely mashed in water and drunk like a porridge or perhaps a kvass.

    By the 16th century, Scandinavians were making a bread product that was substantially similar to modern krotekaker or hardangerlefse.

    Meanwhile, I've got this 10th century Islamic cookbook that includes a wide variety of bread recipes. It's actually a staggering variety of bread types, along with their humoral effects and lots and lots of praising God.

    It's funny, because we presume that bread was ludicrously common in the Middle Ages (based on literature and woodcuts and such), but there are almost no extant bread recipes from any point in medieval history. The conventional thinking here is that bread was so common that nobody bothered to write it down.

    There was the 13th century Assize of Bread, which regulated the sizes and prices one could charge for various types of breads. That includes a variety of bread types.

    More than likely, a "trencher" was simply a way to use some stale bread. We have some recipes from various sources that expressly call for stale bread.
  • Well yeah, as I understand it a trencher was just a slab of bread they'd serve stews on. It wasn't meant to be eaten, though peasants and generally starved people would, and the more affluent would simply toss it to the dogs (or peasants!).
  • DDR was part of my identity as a teenager. To this day, I maintain that Single is practice mode, and that Double is the real game.

    Showing Off Leading By Example
  • DDR was part of my identity as a teenager. To this day, I maintain that Single is practice mode, and that Double is the real game.

    Showing Off Leading By Example

    You're not touching the bar, so you get my seal of approval.
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