So today I got to have a chat in person with Jamie at Athena Games, had a look at Jurnets bar and talk with Jherek over a coke, and finally stuck my nose into St Stephens and the City Centre Games evening and a quick chat with the guys there.
So Athena was great - it has oodles of space and Jamie was a real friendly stand up guy who was clearly keen to give us space and let us do our thing. And if it promotes gaming all round, then this can only be a good thing for a gaming store ! For those with misgivings about this I would really recommend you go check Athena out and possibly talk to Jamie, it's a good offer and we have a lot to synergise with there.
The cons to this are of course no beer. And parking is, eh, a little tricky. But not entirely impossible.
In the spirit of trying everything out - the Great NoBoG Game Crawl - I have pencilled in us turning up to Athena en masse on the 23rd June. I would really recommend everyone give it a go - particularly if you are on the fence or have misgivings. This is what the tryout is all about right ?
Seating : Oodles. 200 ? Refreshments : Simple snacks and drinks. More planned. Full bar possible as a future plan. Parking : Tricky Closes : 10.30pm
Moving on.
Jurnets as it turns out is something of a sleepy bar / club type thing ( at least when I was there ) owned by the City Council, and has what I found to be a fantastic space, and again another really friendly and helpful soul - Jherek who was enthusiastic about trying to help us out to find a place to game.
First impressions were pretty amazing tbh - the space is great, the tables are good, and off the top of my head we can all fit in, by and large in one space. It also has free parking and serves beer, coffee, snacks.
This ticks a lot of consensus boxes. But it's not without cons.
The first con is that Jurnets is closed for the summer, every summer. Basically the six weeks holidays it shuts, so for that period we would have to go elsewhere - or, hire the place out at £100 a pop.
The second con is that once a month on Tuesdays we would clash with a poetry group which wouldn't work. So we'd probably have to move to Thursdays. Thursdays look pretty good on the calendar as far as Jurnets is concerned. Or some other day. Or change every fourth week. Or something !
The Third con is that there is a membership fee. £3 a *year*. Which amounts to 6 pence a week. Until October this is actually free - so no fee for a year. On the other hand, some of the bar prices are cheaper. I neglected to ask the policy about one off visitors and whether they'd need a membership or what. Or further details on how this works - I think some nights they are free ? I'm not sure.
Then some borderline cons. The lighting is definitely dark. Although Jherek said they could maybe replace some bulbs and lighten the place up a bit.
The place closes up at 11pm. Which is kinda what we do now, but probably a deal more strict.
It's a limited bar - don't expect full on huge ranges of everything.
All in all Jurnets is close to what we need with some caveats. Of course. It would be far too easy otherwise.
Seating : 50-60 ish ? Refreshments : Snacks, beer, soft drinks. Cheaper than a regular pub. Parking : Excellent - free and on site. Closes : 11pm ( 10.30pm on Tuesdays, but this has only recently changed from 11pm because the place is so quiet.... )
Lastly I popped into St Stephens and had a quick chat with the guys there. Again a friendly bunch, and I have to say, if you are interested in gaming, really go check them out, it's a lovely space and a relaxed atmosphere.
Serious cons for St Stephens are that they are far too busy to do much more than a once a month gaming session, they close at 10pm, and again, no beer for those that are into their beer.
There was talk about arranging some crossover events, or doing something, and getting everyone gaming, which sounds like a good idea, but I think ultimately St Stephens is just too busy to accommodate a weekly gaming session.
Seating : 100 ? Refreshments : Tea, snacks, future chili nights ! Parking : Adequate, standard council paid parking around. Closes : 10pm
This is by no means the end of discussion about possible venues et al, just a report on what I found out today.
Giving Jurnets a go at some point after the 23rd should be on our to do list I think.
I've opened a discussion on facebook about whether NoBoG should consider moving venue and or time based on the fact that the Ribs of Beef has reduced its table space, and is also holding a fortnightly darts event.
If you dont' have facebook setup, then here is a copy of what I posted there.
So I am going to throw this out there for everyone to comment on, discuss and wade in with opinions and ideas. If you know NoBoGians who aren't on facebook or follow the NoBoG fb ( and I know there are plenty that don't ), then give them a poke about adding in their opinions. Spread the word. Leave comments either on here, via the blog, on twitter, or just sending a message privately or emailing if you don't want your opinions public.
This evening as... it turned out the Ribs of Beef held their first darts evening - surprise ! - and had the front half of the pub reserved.
Whilst I already mentioned that splitting site to Take 5 would probably be the solution, I am now questioning whether that's actually the best idea and wondering if there are other options - say leaving the Ribs entirely to find somewhere else or changing evening.
There are lots of things to consider with this, pros and cons, and of course as NoBoG is nothing more than the NoBoGians who attend ( and some virtual lurkers ! ) it seems sensible to get everyones opinions and ideas.
This topic has come up before but never got very far - The Ribs has mostly panned out well for NoBoG - we have split site to Take 5 before, and seemed to be a reasonable compromise, but in light of this issue coming up again, I am opening this up for debate.
Other sites ? Other times ? Comments please !
Whilst everyones opinion is welcome, I would say that if you are a NoBoG visitor in person then please chip in over and above our lurkers who don't attend ( and therefore possibly don't have a "dog in this race" - but maybe changing site and times would change facts for some that attend now, and some that don't ).
On a purely personal note I have to say that I was unimpressed with how this went down at the Ribs this evening and the absolute chaos that it caused - particularly impacting some newcomers who must have wondered WTF was going on. Of course as ever NoBoG being a great bunch of people, Fletch and Martin stepped into the breach to take a group to Take 5 - very appreciated thanks guys - and eventually mostly everyone got sorted out. But it wasn't easy. At all. It would have been nice to know beforehand.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this week, the blog is the size of a small novel.
What happened to May ? May was a blur of gaming - for those of you who attended NoBoG, you will already know this. For those of you that didn't then you can imagine that parts of Norwich slipped into a gap in the space time continuum, only to finally reappear several weeks later, beer drunk, bar snacks consumed and games played.
First off some possibly important news. The Ribs has declared that there may very well be a darts farrago kicking off in the near future held every other week on a Tuesday night and laying claim to the front half of the pub.
On busy NoBoG nights this will straight up mean there is no space in the Ribs for some of us. As we have trialled the overflow of Take 5 before, another pub like establishment a very short walk down the road and they seem to be amenable to us turning up, I propose that we just do that on Darts nights. This may mean you want to think twice about ordering an early pint at the Ribs if it turns out you have turned up only to then decamp to another pub.
It's not certain if the darts extravaganza will be a thing, but if it is, I or someone will make sure to warn people which week is dart week so you can be prepared for downing a pint in 10 minutes or just not bothering until you know where you are sitting.
Enough of that. Onto an admittedly highlights version of what has been going on down the pub in the last three weeks. We'll start with Ewan.
This week I was the table for A New Dawn; which is the follow up to Among the Stars.
In a New Dawn you play an alien alliance officer charged with exploring, researching new tech and sending out ambassadors. Hoping to colonise abandoned space stations or planets in a very 4X'y way. Competing against other players over limited resources.
Overall the game was enjoyable and the different aliens you can play all have their own unique feel. Not only in their special powers but in the tech available to them. As we found through our play through there are some power combos.
I can't remember who won but throughout a hard fought game In which I felt i wasn't doing well and at least I ended up not finishing in last place. Was so involved with the game I forgot to take a picture or more notes. But New Dawn is definitely worth a play if you are into 4X space themed games.
I've got you covered Ewan - New Dawn in action.
Looked cool when I walked past it. I'd like to give it a go myself. Then we have some words from Tim.
For our fist game we played Smash Up. On the night, I took to
describing Smash Up as a Deck Builder without any building during the
actual gameplay. Players start by choosing two teams (or races) from the
selection, and combining their separate decks of cards. Our group
became a four way battle between Ewan’s Time Lord-Zombies, Adam’s
Dino-Ninjas, Guillame’s Super-Ape-Plants and my own band of Steam
Punk-Robots. Each turn sees the players playing one Minion Card and one
Action to one of the five open ‘Bases’. Each base has a different Break
point, and scores differently dependent on how much power each player
contributes. What eventually transpired was a situation where it looked
impossible for anyone to best Ewan and his really annoying, they just wont leave you alone,
Time Lord Zombies. I had the last turn of the round, was closest to
Ewan on points, but could see a way to get over the line without feeding
him what he needed to win. I took quite a while (sorry) to figure out
if I could do anything, eventually just playing a ‘Draw Cards’
action out of desperation. Who should I draw, none other that the female
mechanic, hence forth known as Kaylee from Firefly. She allowed me to
rummage in my trash for a steam-punk minigun with which to power-up my
bots and surge to Victory!
After Smash Up,
Rich IV joined us fro a game of Get Bit, which sees Robots desperately
swimming away from a shark in order to avoid getting eaten. Needless to
say, Kaylee worked her magic and my bot emerged as the last Robot
Swimming, narrowly getting away whilst Guillame’s poor mechanoid was
crunched to pieces.
To end the night, we played
a few rounds wild-west dice shoot-em’-up Bang! The Dice Game. I was one
of the Outlaws both times, and died quickly both times, having revealed
myself to be a little too eager to kill the Sherif. What can I say,
Kaylee never did like guns.
Power boats !
Myself over the weeks I've got to play Power boats an *almost* old school family game with it's dice to move mechanic which was funny, cool and mildly infuriating all in one ( Punk Rich won this despite failing spectacularly in the first race and instead of actually competing managed to go off on a Broads Cruise with Hazel in a leisurely exploration of the map ), and a good few hands of the classic Tichu, which doesn't get played enough anymore now that Jimmy disappeared from our midst years ago.
Tichu is great. If you've never played it, it's a bit like a chinese version of bridge with tricks played reminscent to poker hands. If that makes any sense. Groovy, but the kind of strict four player limit ( to play the proper Tichu ) makes it surprisingly tricky to get to table.
The very nice Machi Koro. Martin won from nowhere.
Stu also kindly taught a bunch of us Machi Koro which is a game I have wanted to try for a while but never quite got round to. Everyone agreed it was a fun simple card game, and as Stu initially described it, a bit like Settlers of Catan without the board. Buy cards. Roll dice. Earn money from the cards with a matching dice roll. First player to build all their special cards wins. Simple.
I'd give this one a big thumbs up personally, and definitely a great gateway type game for those board game shy types. Despite me urging Martin not to calculate his turn as it was just "far too complicated" and better to just roll the dice again, he calculated his turn and ended up the winner. My
Machi Koro Aerial Shot
feeble social engineering had failed to net me an opposition mistake.
Libertalia also made it to table having recently aired on Tabletop. Libertalia has made it down the Ribs on a number of occasions in the past, and it's a pretty solid fun game. Rather surprisingly everyone at the table knew the rules - either having played it before or watched the tabletop episode - so we got off to a quick start where it has to be said I was picked on relentlessly and came in a very comfortable last. Guillame was first pursued hotly by the treacherous Sam who after assuring me he wouldn't pick on me then killed a valued member of my pirate team. You were the only one worth killing he lamely defended. Curses to ye scurvy dogs the lot of you.
You can check out Tabletops own playthrough here, complete with outrageous pirate talk.
Keeping a nautical theme we also played Lifeboats, the game of sinking lifeboats and voting to see who goes in the water. Getting tipped out of the boat into the water is instant death for the poor sailor so chosen, there being presumably sharks in the water. Myself and newcomer Heather forged a very strong alliance at the start and did really well, with poor James found in a boat on his own receiving most of the "bad luck" dished out by everyone else. He had a very glum face at one point. I cheered him up by saying he'd probably go onto win it - a prescient call as it turns out.
Midway through the game I had no choice but to turf my erstwhile bestie Heather out of the boat and from that point on things went positively tits up, the great allegiance breaking and Heather swearing vengeance forever.
Uh huh.
I ended up with a reasonable score, but James was the winner, although he was picked on at the start he came through in a triumph.
Finished with Cheaty Mages. I won by an embarassingly large amount. It was all rather spectacular.
Hal flexes his game design muscles and brings along his own game.
Hal apart from bringing such cool things as Powerboats also brought along a game of his own invention. Off the top of my head this brings the number of game designers in our midsts to half a dozen. I didn't stick around to get much of a gist of the game, but it seemed to be a deduction thing, working out where or what something was.
And finally, a beer report. It's been too long. Ewan reports...
Had a nice pint from Wolfs Brewery called For Fox Sake. A beer with a witty name, dark and fruity and very easy to drink.
Thanks to the lovely Monika for the pictures. The decidedly less lovely me supplied some pictures too. I'll leave you with the Gallery.
Six player Caverna. Hardcore !
Cas$h n Gun$ - Lauren ended winner as this I think
Batman Love Letter. Possibly the best Love Letter variant ??
Wherry Room at the Ribs
Bamboo ? Gardener ? Panda ? Must be Takenoko
Lords of Vegas
"Jazz Hands !"
Lords of Waterdeep
David Chloe Tim and Ewan playing what looks like a Legendary variant
Lifeboats, the vengeful Heather pouts
Punk Rich, Hazel, Pete, Rich IV and Hal partake of Hal's game
