$5K Games, I've played in a few ....

Message:


I didn't know it at the time.

(1) Skull Mountain in Vegas will all custom characters. A game of one session unique to all and more splendid than all the Dagger Hearts combined. I was flexo-dude and I had to make may way through the shaft Charles Bronson style to free the party. The odd tooth count would even foil a master like IronSquires.

(2) The Battle of Troy with the master of Arithmetic. IronSnake proclaimed no individual hero would matter in the game. Yet, when the battle was lost, it was determined that they missed the roll by a single hero. Only to discover that IronSnake did not count himself in the totals. A single hero could make the difference for good or ill.

(3) The last game with Winneker now crossed over. We didn't know it was the last game ...Cutlass or Battle Born ... but we wall all have that game eventually.

(4) One Punch Percy on the beach of Savages. No man can make 50 rolls in a row. Percy, was a Holy Man of Adventure of course. When the day ended, he stood atop the wreckage.

(5) DaGaSoMaHaaa - the name alone would be memorable but if I remember, that was the game where the skeins of destiny were tangled and presumably wanted to put things right. Eventually, we realized, he who held the symbolic Axe became the King. Everyone wants to be the King. Was that a metaphor for life as well or simply a child's game.

(6) Finding the Cake recipe in the apartment in Salt Lake. How could that mission be special? Cutlass is a game of brutal action and daring doo. Empires are destroyed on the shot of a single cannon. What of value could a throw away mission of flour and nut meg be. Simply it was generated from the deck and showed where it could go if you simply let it. Anyone could make a mission to chase a villain. But, the deck created a mystery. Was it AI or something more magical?

(7) The Vikings rescue the King in the land of the dead. This wasn't one of ours but we played in this one with our fellows and laughed while rolling dice and playing mundane D&D. But, in the end, when the big test was given, we all had our "I am Spartacus" moment. No one needed to be cajoled or the mechanism explained. Each hero offered themselves to save the King ... who was probably onerous and unjust ... but ... everyone grok'd the moment and acted without hesitation.

(8) The First Monster Mash - What would you give to be back in that first Monster Mash when IronSquire's encyclopedic knowledge of the game was revealed. It was simultaneously "The Computer who wore Tennis Shoes" and "Omen" moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS6psAU0Drw

He brought that dragon down with the force of his mind.

(9) Fritz the Paladin fights himself - A warrior of prowess and strength of arm where the solution was to finesse the problem Beowulf concluded to strangle the demon grim but Fritz could not shed his power to achieve his goals. Perhaps the goals were not as precious.

(10) Big Monsters First - the details fade but the big monsters were first Trolls or Ogres and the little monsters last ... goblins or Kobos. Normally in a dungeon, you slaughter your way in and fight the big bad in the end with 70-80% of your strength. In this case, we were at the end, battling fodder but doing so with ultimate tension.

(11) The K Factor: It would be folly to say it but having seen it multiple times, it cannot be denied. The Referee would pose a puzzle of tremendous complexity. We would set upon it ... what is another word for bird? How many sides does a rhomboid have. How many electrons in Erbium? Then, K Man Supreme would step up with a napkin and a few pencil scribbles and point out the answer desired and HOW the Referee made a mistake and the true result was indeterminate. The Boolean truth revealed. I before E except after C or some such nonsense.

In games with multiple puzzles, it was even better because the Ref would just hand us the solution.

(12) The Throne of Gold - I'm not sure if this was the intent of the dungeon but it became that. Having made our way through the creatures and finding nothing of significant value, we decided that the Throne of the King would fetch a nice price. But, it was double a man's height, could stand 10 across and weighed easily 10,000 sack of wheat.

But, we set upon dragging that from the living dungeon with ox and sinew. The warriors guarded the intersections and the wizards quelled. Just quelled. The noise would have woke the gods.

The point of course was that that silly dice and elf game needed no revision since it could be morphed to do anything.

I can't remember when to take my meds but I can remember 20 more games of significant value. But, who knew when the moments would emerge?

Yea, some were sentimental favorites ... a weakness ... but others were pretty solid ideas. One could read them in a book and they would mean nothing.


Yours,