Playing Steam and Not Getting MurderedPosted by dhoffman on March 3rd, 2010
Last night was gaming night; I didn’t expect to fear for my life.
Okay, it’s a bit of an exaggeration. The way gaming night works is this: a bunch of us get together at someone’s house and we play boardgames. Simple enough, right? The sessions are coordinated through an external web-site, which is great because it lets us meet new people but is also terrible because . . . it lets us meet new people.
Last night was a thin night. Only three of us regulars showed up, plus one new guy. Let’s just call him Frank.
When Frank walked into the room, my first thought was; “this guy’s going to murder us all.” No idea why. Just something in his demeanor, the way he introduced himself; the dried blood on his boots and under his fingernails.
I keed, I keed.
Side Note: I find it interesting that, in today’s society, if you get an I’m going to kill you vibe from someone, you’d be the bad guy if you screamed and ran for it.
Well, that wasn’t really an option. So, we picked a game (the great Steam from Martin Wallace, one of my favorite game designers), set it up and played.
The thing was, Frank wasn’t really up for Steam. As I was unloading track tiles (Steam is a train-game, where the players work to build up networks and deliver goods for money and victory points), he told us all of another gaming session he’d gone to. They’d tried to play Uno but he couldn’t work out the rules.
Oy.
Now, I’m sure I’m sounding a bit snotty here. A year ago, I doubt I could have played something like Steam. Hell, I still play games where I feel lost and confused and get my arse roundly handed to me because the game just isn’t clicking.
But at least I try.
Frank wasn’t interested in trying. Frank looked at the game board (a cross-section of the Northeastern United States, with a pinch of Canada tossed in for good measure), the pile of hex-tiles (representing different kinds of tracks) and the goods cubes (in different colors) as we put them out on the table and very clearly shut his brain off.
Goody.
Steam with four players takes place over eight rounds. Over those eight rounds you do the following:
- Select a special action.
- Build 3 hexes of track.
- Move 2 goods and/or improve your locomotive’s strength.
- Collect income/victory points.
There’s some nuance to it, but that’s Steam in a nutshell. Here’s what Frank saw as his actions for each step:
- “I get points now?” — moved his counter up 20 points.
- “I get points now?” — moved his counter up 20 points.
- “I get points now?” — moved his counter up 20 points.
- “I get points now?” — moved his counter up 20 points.
Now, Frank did wind up getting some points during the course of the game — because I and the two other regulars had to play his game for him. The only thing he did seem able to do was pick a special action card — though all he really seemed to be doing is picking one at random so he could fiddle with it in his hands that turn (which screwed other people over more than once as he randomly snagged something one of us wanted).
Now, I try to be nice when we’re gaming. Sometimes someone will take a long time, or I’ll be in a rotten mood (Tuesday nights I come from work, and that sets me back about five steps from “good mood”), but I try — I really try — to reign in my inner douche. Oh, I know it’s there, and I can feel it rising, like bile, but I do what I can.
And the thing is, as frustrating as it was playing with Frank, I felt like I was doing alright. At first. The problem is, when you have to tell someone, “no, you don’t get points yet” and move his counter down 20 points almost thirty times over the course of three hours . . . eventually it doesn’t matter how nicely you’re saying it.
You’re a douche.
In the end, Frank didn’t murder anyone. Well, he didn’t murder us (who knows what he did after he left?). The other regulars liked the game, which is great because it’s one of my favorites and I’ve been trying to get it on the table for months. So, I think they’ll play again. For my part, I got my arse completely handed to me — I spent the first 1/3 of the game sorting out everyone else and didn’t realize I’d managed to put myself almost into bankruptcy. If it weren’t for a generous move by one of the other players — an intentionally generous move — I would have been eliminated (no income, no victory points — poof!)
As it was, I came in dead last, though I did feel like, once I started actually looking at the board, I did alright (it didn’t help that at least once, possibly twice, when I made deliveries-for-points, the guy adjusting the points track “accidentally” gave my points to Frank). I improved my crappy network, made deliveries and had a small but positive income, as well as a reasonable pile of victory points at game’s end.
I was a little keyed up when I got home to write last night, but I did get my head together enough to get some work done; so that’s a nice thing, too. And, now that some folks other than me know how to play Steam, I figure I’ll get to play it a bit more. Which is sort of the whole point.
And hey, if Frank isn’t pulled over with a trunk full of heads, who knows? Maybe his curiosity was piqued and he’ll go online and learn more about these types of games. And next time — if I didn’t scare him off — he’ll actually pay attention and try to play the game on the table.
Hey, you never know, right?