OxCon 2006 report

[jiggery_pokery]

Hurrah, I'm in the USA again! I'm in Athens, GA with the lovely dezzikitty, who makes me smile just when I type her lj user tag, and will be so until the end of next week. Georgia folk, we must meet up

Comments

Bulwark's Lane

[undyingking]

Ive occasionally pondered the name, route and raisedness of this alley, and wondered whether it might be related to a historic rampart or some such.

Re: Bulwark's Lane

[bopeepsheep]

It was 'Bullock's Lane' in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the present spelling of the name dates from 1872. However, it's quite likely that the Victorians were reinstating the original meaning from a corrupted spelling, given the location of the castle and the castle ditch: The position of the rampart is marked by the strips of city property at the re-entrant curve of the modern Bulwarks Lane, which were left waste, and hence acquired by the city, when the rampart was replaced by a wall.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=22810

Re: Bulwark's Lane

[undyingking]

Excellent, thanks! -- never mind the pre-Victorian bullocks!

[bateleur]

I have heard much enthusing from frax and cardinalsin on the subject of Perplex City. Didn't appeal to me much, but the designers certainly seem to be amusing a lot of people with it.

As for your "traitorous hobbit" idea for LotR - that will require some tweaking I think. One of the primary strategies in both the base game and with Friends and Foes is to carefully set up giving the ring to Sam for the final run. This doesn't play nicely with the traitor mechanic !

[undyingking]

Didn't appeal to me much

Nor me -- struck me as "good idea for making lots of money" rather than "good idea for a fun game".

[jiggery_pokery]

That's interesting. We've never deliberately aimed to shuffle the ring onto a particular hobbit for Mordor and had decent success rates, but admittedly this is starting on 12, rather than 10. I've heard that the playtesters can win on eight, and the theoretical best possible is four.

Whoever decided that correct grammar is to use words for single-digit numbers and digits for other numbers needs a kick in the bzerollzerockfive.

[brigbother]

The Cambridge Laser Quest has been around for at least 10 years in the same location.

Or at least it had - it closed down just a few weeks ago.

[jiggery_pokery]

Woe! Another centre I shall never have got the chance to play. With what has it been replaced? A trendy wine bar, perhaps?

[jiggery_pokery]

A-ha! I shall bear that one in mind, but I fear I will only have one opportunity to use it.

Perhaps the song needs a certain degree of portentousness in order to work with emergency lyrics. Christmas carols do the trick admirably.

[zorac]

Y'know, having read the rules in the copy of For $ale I picked up, I suspect that we we're playing the first round completely wrong - it says that bids must be higher (no calling), and the rounding rule is unclear (the wording suggests rounding down, the example is rounding up). That said, I reckon that the Oxcon rules are probably better than the official ones.

Oh, and don't forget the spam song:

Song, song, song, song
Song, song, song, song
Emergency song, emergency song!
Song, song, song, song
Emergency song, emergency song!
So-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong, So-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong.
Emergency song (emergency song)
Emergency song (emergency song)
E-mer-gen-cy!

[jiggery_pokery]

O RLY, as I understand all the cool kids say these days.

Strikes me as being another difference in the rules between the first edition of a game and later editions, which is certainly far from unknown. The no-calls version would speed the first round right up, at least, though I do rather like the current feel of the first round and am not sure why the new rules are an improvement.

Song, song, song, song,
song, song, song, song...