(cross-posted to Boardgame Geek)

(I borrowed “bugs on drugs” from Ron Edwards. Thanks!)

Continuing the Buka Invasion, Crystal and I moved onto Buka vs. Pillar. I’ve been wanting to try out this combination for a while. First, I thought that the Pillar could have a couple of tricks available to combat the Buka. Second, I’m wanting to work on discovering what “good” Pillar play looks like.

Disclose is a powerful tool against the Buka. Part of the trick to fighting against bluff is tracking how many of the Fire and Earth bluff cards have gone by. Disclose lets you locate them early. Also, it then lets you better target the use of your Caterpillar cards. Several times I was able to flush out Bluff cards from Crystal by setting up power requirements that she couldn’t meet without using or discarding a Bluff character.

The converse is that there were several times when Crystal simply used the Bluff card as a support, matched to the right element, and there was nothing that I could do. So, knowledge is power, but it’s not all-powerful. Indeed, Crystal pulled the wool over my eyes at one point, slipping an empty bluff through. Her metagame skills paid off, earning her a win that I could have dismantled. Grr.

I also discovered that it’s important to try to flush out those high-power Buka characters. There really aren’t that many, as most Buka cards hover around 3 or 4 points of power. If you can force them to be played at a bad time, it can definitely help in the endgame. In the first game, where I was able to do this, I was able to earn some dragons fairly cheaply, simply by leading with high-powered characters that Crystal couldn’t match.

I’m also poking at the idea of “buying down power” by calling bluffs, even if you know what they are. Remember, a called bluff is discarded, even if it is the correct element. If staying in the fight is a good thing (e.g. you could earn two dragons), then it might be worth calling the bluff, simply to remove those two points of power. That can make the difference between staying in a fight and losing altogether. I haven’t figured out which are the right times to do this, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Crystal also figured out a couple of good ways to churn her hand while gaining ground. The best one involved the use of the Quartermaster (play as many supports as desired) with the Letter of Marque (can’t call bluff). She just played those two cards, then dumped the rest of the cards as bluffs. Bingo! Instant 12 points of power, a brand new hand, and nothing for me to do but retreat. She’s done similarly with the 3-capacity ship that lets you load it immediately. This ability to churn is a major strength of the Buka.

Now, to the Pillar side of things.

The Pillar actually have a number of hefty characters. This is important to keep in mind. However, I think that the temptation is to view their potion boosters as ways of increasing their power. That’s not really the case. Rather, the potion boosters provide [i]flexibility[/i]. I think of them as adding mutability. Using the potions, you can mold your characters into what you need them to be. Indeed, I found that using a “mutated” character early in a battle was a pretty good idea, saving unmodified characters for later in a battle, when I needed the booster/support action to put away the battle.

Also, because the Pillar can be booster-dependent, it can be a good idea to consider yielding the right to start a battle so that you will be able to play boosters. Also, don’t forget that Free boosters can be played on the first round, so dropping a Caterpillar or Giant Butterfly Morningwind on your first turn can be good, if you’re needing to churn your hand a bit.

I also think that the Pillar need to move pretty quickly through battles. In this way, they are similar to the Aqua, in that they are actually fairly balanced in their Fire/Earth distribution, but individual cards tend to be fairly unbalanced. So they tend to have little staying power, except that which is provided by the potions. Pillar can’t really afford a slugging match. I know this, because I got into a costly slugging match in this game which gained me nothing.

I used the Caterpillars mostly to force her to burn through her characters, especially trying to force out the Bluff cards. Because the Buka values tend to be on the low side, this was pretty effective, particularly Caterpillar Lightseeker, which eats 5 points of power. Finding 5 Fire or 5 Earth in a Buka hand can be quite painful. Combined with Disclose, I could judge how hard to push with the Caterpillars, trying to make her pay to stay, rather than retreat.

Of course, being so booster-oriented, I took a beating from the Buka lookout (discard all boosters or all supports) and the Coxswain (discard the entire combat area when coming off a ship). Force those out early, if you can.

So, what was the final outcome? We’re still in the middle of this match, as it got late, but we currently stand 3-3 after two games. Definitely better than my Vulca outing against the Buka. Also, I felt less encircled by the ships, for some reason. This could just be familiarity, but I’m not sure. I felt like I was able to reach across the table and disrupt Crystal’s plans more effectively with the Pillar, and it shows in the current scores. I guess that we will have to see how it all turns out.

I’m not totally sure who will be the next people to oppose the Buka onslaught. Maybe the Aqua, as they are one of my favorite decks. Maybe the Khind, as they apparently have the Buka fits in playtest. Stay tuned….

these tears
not one
is wasted

Raquel says, “If I fall, I want to fall on my face. At least it shows I’m leaning in the right direction.”

Toward a Biblical View of Obscenity
Modern Sex-Speak
On Vulgar Language

I particularly appreciated his discussion on the use of poetry in the first article. Food for thought.

However, the bulk of his argument is in the article “On Vulgar Language”, wherein he deals exegetically with the various verses at hand regarding the use of vulgar and crass language. As one who has been dealing with this issue from time to time, I found the discussion to be helpful and on point.

And now for some related humor. One of my jobs at work is the maintenance of our custom software. Everything in this software was hand-coded, except for the spell-check module. We located an open-source module that worked just fine, and we integrated that into the software. Much easier to use someone else’s work than trying to code your own.

Just the other week, though, someone discovered that there were various vulgar terms in the spellcheck dictionary. I guess that the authors of this module wanted to make sure that people could cuss with proper spelling. So, guess who had to go root around in the spellcheck dictionary, looking for vulgar words? That’s right: me.

Talk about skubalon, and suddenly you’re the expert. Sigh.

(Also, see Cooler Heads. I’m glad to see that he received and accepted wise counsel from his friends, although I can sympathize with his frustration.)

(cross-posted at Boardgame Geek)

My wife has decided to work on mastering the Buka. In particular, she is attracted to the mind games that you can play with the bluffing ability. So, on Sunday, we had a strategy discussion about the Buka and then sat down to play. To make it straightforward, I decided to use the Vulca. High Fire values (to counter the Earth slant that the Buka have) and lots of denial cards, but no “tricksiness”. We were also going to play to five crystals

I was massacred.

One of the things that I’ve found that people miss about “bluffing” is you have to use it as part of the larger metagame. You have to set up expectations that extend beyond the current game. Crystal understands this instinctively. For the last couple of outings, she has only used matching bluff cards, which has driven me off from calling her bluffs. I’m sure that she will now start slipping an empty in, from time to time, because she can.

The upshot of this approach is that Crystal picks up the occasional dragon by drawing me out into calling her bluff. Then, beyond this, she establishes her bluffing “space”, which will actually give her more freedom to use empty bluffs in the future.

Also, based on a couple of previous discussions, Crystal finally connected with the idea that the game has auction elements, a la Shannon Appelcline’s article. This produced skillful play on her part, as she forced me to expend four or five cards on one-dragon fights on a regular basis.

We had also discussed how the Buka are a really fast deck that rarely gains a two-dragon win. So, she quickly hit upon the strategy of attracting a dragon or two then blitzing through her deck quickly, both through the occasional bluff and through quickly loading her ships. This was frighteningly effective.

For myself, it was horrifying to be on the receiving end of the Buka. Certainly this is not a deck that plays itself, but seeing Crystal’s developing skill with the deck was scary. I always felt like I was under attack from two directions. On the one hand, I had to fight the actual battle in process. But, invariably, there were ships that were filling up at the same time. There were several fights that Crystal would slow-play, keeping the power level low, just so that she would have more time to fill her ships. There wasn’t really anything that the Vulca could do to stop it, either.

Pandemonium was nice, as it prevented the play of support cards, which pretty much guts the Buka deck, and Cast Cataclysm was an effective nuke on the bluffs, but, in the end, the Vulca could not stand up to the rapid-fire assault of the Buka. After our third games, Crystal stood at eight crystals, while I still had not earned a single one.

Next time, I’m bringing the Pillar. I think that the disclose ability could be quite handy against the Buka. I’ll report back….

A little Alyria news here. Now you can buy my roleplaying game Legends of Alyria at Indie Press Revolution. Also, I hope to have more publishing news in the near future, so stay tuned!

To quote Fritz, “We are now stupider for having watched this.”

Urban Ninja II

Once again, Peter Leithart says something helpful. As an added bonus, he’s funny

From Presbyterian identity crisis:

Broadly speaking, Christian theologians spent the twentieth century with ecclesiology, the ecumenical movement and Vatican II being the most visible results. “Federal Vision” theology is an effort to drag conservative Reformed theology, kicking and screaming, into the twentieth century. (That’s not a typo or mistake; I know it’s the twenty-first century.)

It has been brought to my attention that there may be folks who could misunderstand the last couple of blog posts. So, allow me to explain.

First, as I noted elsewhere, I have the greatest respect for R.C. Sproul, Jr. and Doug Phillips. So, these posts were not directed at them.

Rather, they were directed at the bloggers who have been attacking these men. One of them has been caught faking a hack of his blog. A couple of others have also claimed to have hacking trouble, which I don’t believe. However, in the wake of these “troubles”, the accusations have flown, claiming that someone from Vision Forum/Highlands Study Center/some other target ministry were responsible for the hack attempts.

Quite frankly, this is absurd.

Thus, these posts.

In the wake of writing this post, I discovered that I was unable to access my blog on a couple of occasions. There’s only one possible explanation: my blog has been hacked. Doubtless that’s why I have received no comments on my previous post; the hacker must have deleted them.

(Confused? Click here.)

In a surprise move, R.C. Sproul, Jr. and Doug Phillips have revealed the existence of a secret hacker organization started as a joint project by the Highlands Study Center and the Vision Forum. “We’re pretty pleased with the results that this group has produced, and we thought that they should be recognized,” said Sproul.

This group of home-schooled hackers, known only as c4lv1n’$ b0y$, has been patrolling the blogosphere for the last several months, enforcing the whims of these two ministry leaders on any hapless blogger that gets in the way. Sproul and Phillips refused to confirm any specifics, but c4lv1n’$ b0y$ are suspected to be the masterminds behind the hacks of Little Geneva and Ministry Watchman, as well as a number of smaller bloggers.

“It’s quite simple, really,” said Phillips. “I just get on the phone with my boy LU7|-|3r and tell him to drop a hammer on some upstart. He does all the rest. It’s been an honor to work with a man of God like him.”

“LU7|-|3r” was not available for comment.

Despite their ongoing successes at suppressing free speech on the Internet, Sproul and Phillips say that they are still not content. As the next phase of their plan, Vision Forum has begun selling Dominionist ™ Killer Robot kits. “This is a perfect opportunity for a father with a multi-generational vision to teach his boys basic robotics while helping me conquer the world,” said Phillips. “We estimate that we have already shipped 5,000 of these kits. Within a few months, my army will be complete. Then, all shall fall before our armored wrath.”

(Confused? Click here.)

All we need now is power armor to go with these jump packs.

This is why I read Leithart: an analysis of the theology of the novels of Stephen King.

Yep, that one.

For King, “God isn’t a well-meaning weakling, holding our hands and hoping things turn out OK; rather, he’s so far above the various adversaries . . . that the possibility of their winning passing victories concerns him not at all. The demons are a means to chastise and test a struggling humanity, not a threat to God himself; they are the potter’s wheel on which King’s characters can be broken without placing God’s providence in doubt.”

I found this article to be quite interesting and helpful.

One of the problems that I see a lot of folks struggling to come up with description at the table having is that they don’t have a media focus to hang their description about. I mean, they may have character attributes, tags, and rules of three — and those always help — but when it comes time to put those things in motion there is often a lot of stuttering as we try to get our cool cliffhanging moment to come off just so. Very often this is because while the person knows what they are trying to describe, they get caught by not have definite and clear ideas of how they should describe it….

I have had great success in getting past this, and helping others get past it, by co-opting conventions for various other media in order to give a focus to the descriptions in an RPG. Before each game starts up I’ll say, “This game is a graphic novel” or “this game is a movie” or “this game is a western novel.” From then on in the game all the players focus their descriptions through the lens of that medium of presentation. The results are that people have a better, more tangible ability to focus the contents of their minds eye and to develop a shared language to convey the meaning behind the description by using tropes we all already know.

Of course, it has prompted some questions regarding Dirty Secrets. How can I help encourage a shared communicative approach through my design work, especially in a genre that often revolves around the clever use of language?

A Puerto Rico cake. Goes nicely with the gingerbread Tikal board.

Boardgames and food. Two great tastes that taste great together. Especially like this.