{"id":3887,"date":"2003-12-09T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-12-09T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2003\/12\/09\/finstere-flure\/"},"modified":"2003-12-09T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-12-09T11:00:00","slug":"finstere-flure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2003\/12\/09\/finstere-flure\/","title":{"rendered":"Finstere Flure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finstere Flure<\/a><\/h2>\n

Just a few words about another “Finstere Flure” session. Similar to
\n last time<\/a> the game lasted a lot shorter than we had
\n expected. This time we played without the “extended version” pieces as we
\n believe that these only add unnecessary complexity (and thereby chaos) to the game.
\n Things developed rather quickly mainly because of the long puddle of blood right in
\n the middle of the board, which was used as an accelerator by sliding on it towards the
\n exit.<\/p>\n

Walter right from the beginning used one of his three pieces as monster bait dedicated
\nto keep the monster away from his other two pieces. This turned out to be very effective
\nand soon three of us were able to position two of their piece within reach of the
\nexit.<\/p>\n

Whether it was by chance or clever tactics is unclear to me, but suddenly we realized
\nthat Walter would be able to leave the dungeon with two pieces in the next but one turn
\nwithout any of us being able to prevent this.<\/p>\n

My conclusion: “Finstere Flure” is too complex to make it worthwhile to
\ntrack all possibilities before you make your move. Even if you do, it still leaves you
\nwith the risk that one or more players (including yourself) makes an unexpected move due
\nto some oversight (or just out of pure fun to create havoc). Thus it’s not really
\nworth it to brood a long time about one’s move. Once you have realized this
\n“Finstere Flure” is a fast and fun game.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Karriere<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Designer<\/td>\nn\/a<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Publisher<\/td>\nHexagames\/
\n
\n Heidelberger Spieleverlag<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
released<\/td>\n1988<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Players<\/td>\n4 – 8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Playing time<\/td>\n45 mins.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Karriere Poker<\/a><\/h2>\n

At the time when “Karriere Poker” was first published by Hexagames I
\nsubscribed to two board game magazines: the German “P\u00f6ppelrevue” and the
\nEnglish “Games International”. In the second issue of the latter Brian Walker,
\nthe editor of GI, described “Karriere Poker” as based on the Chinese card game
\n“Zheng Shang You” and as a game where “there are no rules for
\nwinning”!<\/p>\n

This – besides the good rating he gave – caught my attention and I bought a copy of
\nthe game. However, the game was on the table just a couple of times in the late 80’s
\nbecause we did not like it that much.<\/p>\n

After nearly 15 years “Karriere Poker” seemed to be forgotten and it came as
\nquite a surprise when Peter presented it to us as “one of the best card games”
\nhe’d played ever. With some reluctance we decided to play it in our 6 player
\nround.<\/p>\n

The game is explained quickly: players have ranks from the “boss” to the
\n“dishwasher”. The dishwasher is the player who came last in the previous round
\nand is the poor person who has to do all the card game related work like shuffling the
\ndeck, dealing the cards and collecting the cards played. On top of that the dishwasher
\nmust hand his three highest ranking cards over to the boss who returns his three lowest
\nranking cards. You get the idea: it’s not much fun to be the dishwasher. Seating
\norder is according to rank with the boss being the start player of a new round. The goal
\nis to get rid of your cards as quickly as possible. Cards come in six each of the numbers
\n1 to 12 plus two jokers. The start player leads any number of cards of the same suit and
\nall other players must either follow with the same number of cards but with a higher suit
\nor they pass.<\/p>\n

The first player to get rid of all of his cards is the (new) Boss and the lower
\npositions (General Manager, Manager, etc.) are assigned accordingly.<\/p>\n

If this sounds somewhat familiar to you, you are right. “The Great Dalmuti<\/a>” by “Wizards of the Coast”
\nuses a similar principle and quite interestingly, also references “Zheng Shang
\nYou” as its root. What these games have in common is the fun factor. It is equally
\nrewarding to be able to advance from the dreaded “Dishwasher” position as it is
\nto remain the “Boss” for some time and make use of your advantages. The game is
\nnot as much luck based as it may sound and skilful play is certainly rewarded (in our
\nsession Peter managed to remain the Boss for most of the time – no wonder he likes the
\ngame so much). But compared with “The Great Dalmuti” I like Dalmuti more. The
\ndifferent number of cards per suit adds more challenge and the scoring rules that come
\nwith it make it possible to celebrate an overall winner.<\/p>\n

A long time before Dalmuti was published Brian Walker of GI already suggested a
\nscoring system for “Karriere Poker”: the winner of the game is the first person
\nto amass 5000 points. Players receive points for their position at the end of a round,
\nfrom 1000 points for the boss down to 100 points for the dishwasher. In addition higher
\nranks who want to receive cards from lower ranks must pay 100 points per card.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Once<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Designer<\/td>\nJames Wallis,
\n
\n Andrew Rilstone,
\n
\n Richard Lambert<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Publisher<\/td>\nAtlas
\nGames<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
released<\/td>\n1993<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Players<\/td>\n2 – any<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Playing time<\/td>\n>20 mins.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Once
\nUpon A Time<\/a><\/h2>\n

Moritz brought this one along and taking the fact that the game was published 10 years
\nago I was surprised that we didn’t see it earlier on our table. On the other hand, we
\nclaim to be strategy game players and “Once Upon A Time” is all but a strategy
\ngame.<\/p>\n

The goal of the game is to get rid of all your cards before any other player does. The
\ngame comes with two sets of cards: one set representing the “game ending” cards
\nand the other set being the “story telling” cards. Each player is dealt one
\n“game ending” card which must be used as the last cards played; these cards
\nhave sentences printed on them like “And they lived happily ever after” as we
\nknow them from lots of fairy tales. The story telling cards show items, characters and
\nevents which usually appear in fairy tales. Each player receives 6 to 10 (depending on
\nthe number of players) of these.<\/p>\n

\"Once<\/p>\n

The game rules are simple and straight forward. One player starts telling a story and
\nmay play every character, items or event card in his hand that he incorporates in the
\nstory. Other players may take over if the story telling player mentions a
\ncharacter\/item\/event that they have in their hand. The interrupted story teller draws one
\nnew card from the deck and the round continues with the interrupter, who must continue
\nthe story.<\/p>\n

\"OnceThe game works well if played with a group of players who
\n like story telling and have a good amount of creativity in this respect. If the
\n group is really good at this a game will last less than 10 minutes and all will have
\n had fun. If the group is too inhomogeneous some players will never get a chance to
\n play many of their cards as they will be interrupted often and cannot
\n counter-interrupt fast enough due to lack of story telling ideas.<\/p>\n

Finishing the game can also become quite a problem if you are interrupted just before
\nbeing able to play you game ending card. Now, you must draw a new card from the story
\ntelling deck and chances are that you find yourself in the difficult to impossible
\nsituation to use that card to take over control of the story again.<\/p>\n

Given the right group of people the game is a lot of fun and creates a nice
\n“story telling” atmosphere. Give this to a group of strategy players you either
\nend up with lots of story interruptions that cause all sorts of twists and corners (which
\ncan be fun, too) or very fast games where a player after careful consideration tells a
\nshort story incorporating all of his cards.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Ein<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Designer<\/td>\nUrs Hostettler<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Publisher<\/td>\nFata Morgana
\nSpiele\/
\n
\n Abacus Spiele<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
released<\/td>\n1989<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Players<\/td>\n2 – 8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Playing time<\/td>\n1 hour<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Ein
\nsolches Ding<\/a><\/h2>\n

Only while writing this session report I realized that we played 3 games in a row
\nwhere the ultimate goal of the players is to get rid of their cards as fast as
\npossible.<\/p>\n

“Ein solches Ding” is perfectly positioned in this sequence as it leaves
\nplayers with the most possibilities for discussions about the “correctness” or
\n“meaningfulness” of the cards played and statements provided by the players.
\nWhile “Karrierepoker” leaves no room for discussions or interpretations,
\n“Once Upon A Time” may already trigger discussions about whether or not a
\ncharacter\/item really plays a significant role in the story told. With “Ein solches
\nDing” I have yet to see a session where there was no discussion about whether or not
\n“such a thing” really exists or is possible.<\/p>\n

\"Ein<\/p>\n

The heart of the game are cards, which describe an attribute of “things”. In
\nhis turn a player adds one of his hand cards to a sequence of cards already played by the
\nother players, thereby adding a further attribute to the “thing”. The problem
\nis that instead of playing a card any player can challenge the row of cards played and
\nask the player to his right to tell what the “thing” is that has all of these
\nattributes. This usually is the source of many discussions as the “things”
\nmentioned are often hilariously constructed items which are not accepted by the other
\nplayers. We usually resort to voting as a resolution, but this leaves room for tactical
\nvotes by players left with only one or two cards.<\/p>\n

Overall, “Ein solches Ding”, if played quickly and with not too much
\ncompetitiveness can be a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finstere Flure Just a few words about another “Finstere Flure” session. Similar to last time the game lasted a lot shorter than we had expected. This time we played without the “extended version” pieces as we believe that these only add unnecessary complexity (and thereby chaos) to the game. Things developed rather quickly mainly because … Finstere Flure<\/span> weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spieleabende"],"views":6,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}