Boarding Pass, episode 2: The Hobbit card game

For this second entry in my Boarding Pass series, I’m inaugurating a little faceted analysis of the games reviewed.  These represent my initial effort at breaking down some key facts about every game, developed after not a little bit of research through sources like Board Game Geek and by playing and playing and thinking and playing.  I want to capture both the traditional game-y info that people would want to know for the purposes of actually playing, as well as the more--dare I say--artistic considerations, such as board games’ very own versions of genre and medium.  Am I missing anything key?  Is something I have included superfluous?  Are any of those listed here unclear in purpose to you? Please do let me know! Now, on to the post...

• Game medium: Card game
• Game genre: Unknown! Any thoughts?*
• Context genre: High fantasy (Tolkien’s Middle-Earth and The Hobbit)
• Mechanic type(s): Trick-taking
• Player role: Prosaic (literary characters)
• Number of players: 2-5
• Time for setup: Quick
• Time for play: 10 minutes - infinity

*Two typical genres listed by some experts are Ameritrash--super complex, super thematic games--and wargames, which are somewhat self explanatory.  I’m open to making up new genres!  What could we call subtle, mildly thematic, engaging yet low-key gameslike this?  British-style Games? ;-)

Picture from http://news.mymiddleearth.com/

Overview

In a game that expands and contracts for the number of players around the table, the forces of light and shadow face off in a war that brings together orcs, elves, spiders, wargs and all the rest of the races of Middle-Earth.  A simple bid and trick mechanic dressed up in the trappings of The Hobbit makes for an engaging entree into themed gaming.

Play as Thorin, Bilbo and Gandalf on the side of goodness or as Smaug and Bolg from the seedier side of Tolkiana.  Each card has a value, and the higher bid wins the trick--allowing the player to assign damage, health, or bonus draws where it will be most helpful to his cause, whether pure or nefarious.

My thoughts

This game is simple, but it borders on addictive.  It was my first experience with the trick-taking mechanic, and The Hobbit card game demonstrates that it is effective outside the realm of faux-economics or casino lite games; it’s simply a fast-moving inroad to a lot of subtle strategy.  It’s not so easy as to just always assign damage to your foe and health to yourself, as health for one faction doubles as damage for the other, and vice versa; you have to weigh your strikes against the hits you think you can sustain safely.

Things are nicely balanced and play out in such a way that each faction, and even each character, approaches the game in a different way.  Smaug is a powerhouse, absorbing loads of damage while dishing out even more, as well as discarding threats to himself and help for his foes.  The good guys, meanwhile, perhaps in token of their more benevolent nature, are unable to discard at all, leading to situations where you have no choice but to hurt yourself or help your enemy.  This makes for interesting choices and delicate expressions of power: you might choose to lose a trick now and then rather inflict pain on yourself (even though, yeah, I know, the baddies will just do it to you then, but hey, there’s a psychological factor here).

There really isn’t too, too much here that screams “Hobbit!” in the actual gameplay; yeah, each character’s unique rules for disposing of won tricks sort of broadly reflect their literary personalities, but not in any kind of quintessential way.  The theme is light but effective enough in mirroring the literary modus operandi of the characters to lend a bit of impetus to in-game choices.  What really marries the theme into the game is the beautiful artwork on each card, delightfully reminiscent of the classic art in the Middle-Earth canon.  It makes perfect sense, for example, that “Dragonfire” would be a devastating attack, so placing it as a high-value card depicting Smaug’s desolation (sorry) makes great sense.

If you’re familiar with the card game Crazy Eights, this is essentially a souped-up version of that.  It satisfies and it’s compulsive.  It’s not the most complex marriage of theme and mechanic, but it’s a good starter game for fantasy enthusiasts interested in getting into the gaming artform.

Library Use

• Good simple game for beginners; neither too long nor too quick
• Opportunity to connect novice players to the more experienced who can talk them through the rules
• Illustrates a mild but effective marriage of theme and mechanics to enhance gameplay--works to illustrate this principle of modern gaming to novices
• With the second of three Hobbit movies due this holiday season, this game might provide extra pull to your library for game programming!

Over-involved

It's just about a week until that holiest of weekends, the American Library Association Annual Conference.  This year it will be held in Chicago, Illinois (for fun and profit) and, as I believe I mentioned in my inaugural post, I'll be attending with three other freshly-hatched librarians from the UB LIS program!  We're all very excited, especially as this year's theme is Science-Fiction and Fantasy: The Factual and the Counterfactual.  Oh no, wait, it's Experimentation and Innovation in Libraries: What We Can Learn from Startups. No, that's not it! My mistake.  It's Introduction to RDA and Ontologies for the Semantic Web.

Not really.  In fact, the conference doesn't actually have a theme; the three that I listed above are merely the names of three of the many programs happening across the four days librarians take over the Windy City.  The many, many programs.  I mean, unless the tagline on the ALA Annual website--"Transforming our libraries, ourselves"--is meant to be a theme, in which case it's so general as to be not really very useful, and, based on my very thorough survey of all those programs, not particularly binding of presenters' focus--which, we can all agree, rather defeats the purpose of having a theme at all.

Now, I don't really mind this, myself.  We have a varied field and we all approach our corners of it in our own way.  I would rather give all my librarian buddies full range in which to develop presentations and poster sessions and so forth than force them all into any particular thematic cubbyhole for the year, however expansive a cubbyhole it may be. (And, again, expansiveness of theme has a certain limit beyond which it starts to get self-defeating.)

But I did run across a peer voicing concern with this tendency toward sprawl on a social network group the other day.  He worries that the breadth of offerings at ALA Annual bespeak a certain lack of coherence and discipline on the part of our profession.  And despite my above approbation, I think he has a point.

You can't take my approval of sprawl as evidence that everything is dandy--I am, after all, lacking in coherence and discipline myself.  My ALA schedule runs the gamut from graphic novels to Deaf culture to LGBTQ support to late-night programming and LITERALLY EVERYTHING in between.  If I could tame my own incoherence I might be happier, but I would almost certainly have less fun.

So is that it--is our profession undisciplined?  Are we less of a single body than, say, dentists?  (A dangerous force, dentists.)  Are we the professional equivalent of the over-involved college student, desperate for a snatch of everything campus life has to offer--drama club, newspaper, debate team, track and field--taking part in a little bit of everything but excelling at nothing? When the Meta-Librarian gets together with the Ur-Dentist and the Quintessential CPA and all the other Professionals Up In The Sky, are we the guy whose face everybody knows but whose name they can't place?  Is that the source of our under-appreciation and our embattlement in society at large?

We are very good at some specialized things, and I would never give up our engagement in the cultural, intellectual, and academic lives of our patrons.  And I still believe that's a good thing.  But is it possible there is a better thing? A leaner, meaner librarian? Slam, bam, reference interview, thank you, ma'am?

I think it bears some questioning.  As long as we keep all the extra-curriculars I'm interested in; I'll work on my self-discipline later.  Meanwhile, I think my dentist would REALLY like to hear about my Deaf LGBTQ overnight treasure hunt program idea.

UPDATE: "Transforming our libraries, ourselves" is, in fact, the conference theme.  I guess that's cool!

The David A. Howe Public Library

How about a picture essay! Let's take a virtual swing around the David A. Howe Public Library in Wellsville, Allegany County, New York--my mother's hometown library and social and intellectual incubator.  (Hi, Mom.)

The 76-year-old building is full of beautiful architectural touches and accessories.

The spacious reading room and research area is studded with helpful little pamphlets, like this one spelling out the library system's online catalog...

...and this one about the Dewey Decimal System. I haven't seen a resource in quite this user-friendly format before!  Maybe in academic libraries, but not public, in my experience.

A lot of nice 'soft programming' (I just made that up, I think)--

--invitations to the community to interact with the collection and intellectual material in self-directed, meaningful ways.

The children's room is the heart of the building.  Those chairs, that table, the toys and posters...all original from the 30s.  What an amazing place to learn to read.

Nice touches of local flavor abound, like this painting in a meeting room showing the famous Wellsville Balloon Rally.

There are lots of things that make this a perfectly fabulous library.  It seems distinctly suited to serving the needs of its community--quiet yet active, with a lot of focus on its sizable print collection (the above photo underscoring the collection of photo books, for instance, or a daily-shifting author birthday display near the front door that shakes occasionally-dusty classics to the top of browsers' considerations).  On the other side of things, the Howe seems dedicated to ensuring its patrons come along with its 21st-century advancements through its handy pamphlets and guides to technology.  All in all, the building carries a sedate, weighty presence appropriate to its position as a local landmark; and yet there's a vibrancy to the proceedings as well, between its sprightly children's room complete with Batman action figure and the full-size theatre in the basement.  My grandmother once staged a full-scale production of an original kids' play there--my earliest experience with some seriously non-traditional library service. (Perhaps I have her and the David A. Howe Library to thank for my interest in such things!)

If you find yourself in the southern Tier, consider taking a look around this great institution.  And if that's not in the plan, why not poke around the library website instead?

Bonus Post

Just wanted to highlight this comment on an article found here, continuing the interminable conversation on what to call the people who use our institutions:

scades  Mollie • 7 days ago

• −

"Client" is exactly right. Librarians, like faculty members, have a body of knowledge and skills that they can bring to bear to assist those who seek their services, not as commodities, but as valuable to each individual, dependent on unique needs. Just as accountants, lawyers, etc., we, as professionals, offer services that users may seek, or not. But our users do not seek one-size-fits-all mass-produced products, as do "customers." So let's convince our colleagues and administrators that "client" is the appropriate word.

Personally I'm not into the word 'client,' but I love this person's definition of who our, er, clients are and why they make use of us.

Or to go in another direction, maybe we should start referring to our customers as 'library pets.'

Shoulder to Shoulder

I found this lovely photo by Elizabeth Felicella here.

The NYPL notes that this particular branch of their system, the Chatham Square Library, has been serving the Chinese-American population of its neighborhood since the early 20th century--just about exactly when there started to be a Chinese-American population to serve.  It has evidently adapted well to the context it has found itself in.

Our libraries stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other facets of the communities we live in, as this photo reminds us in beautifully concrete terms.  Whether you're talking the urgent needs of a new immigrant group or the comfortable wants of an entrenched subculture, the library has got it.

Or rather, it should.  Remember that we are here to represent you, in a truer way than any politician or pop culture figure can or wants to.  If there is a need you do not feel is being addressed by your library, tell the librarians!  It is our ambition to do everything in our power to serve you.

And if your home library (because they are, after all, a kind of home for all of us) has suffered cutbacks in recent years--or decades--or is under threat now, step up to the line with them, brush shoulders, mingle your greatness, and refuse to take the cut without a fight.

Here's a neat way you can do that. It's a start, at least. If you decide to share your story over there, let me know in a comment!

Breathless at the (Wide) Edge of Innovation

I’m noticing something odd as I dive into a new project assigned to me at the public library where I volunteer.  The director is having me digitize the library board’s meeting minutes with an eye toward composing a scintillating history of the institution to post on the website.  I dove in with some of the earliest type-written minutes available, which reach back to an admittedly only modestly-ancient 1979. (I kid, of course.)  

What I’m finding is that, in my education as a librarian, I’ve had things presented to me as if they’re bold new ideas--but many of the shiniest library school tropes seem to be, actually, time-tested common sense.

Just in the brief chrono-window I peered into, I find a board and staff preoccupied with “library as community center,” with attendant interest in multicultural and bilingual programming.  There was outreach to the Latino community, a program of ‘embedded librarianship’ at local rest homes, and a series of events focused on folklore, of all things.  (Interest in the folkloric underpinnings of our culture seems very un-80s to me, what with Thundercats and all.)

In the arena of “library as tech early-adopter,” I’m finding meticulously-kept tallies of videocassette circulation, and a board eager to procure a slide projector to loan to the public, since the local public school refuses.

There’s also a fair amount of excitement about the ‘minicomputer’ made available for public use through a loan from the library system headquarters, as well as certain forward-thinkers on the board demonstrating great zeal about purchasing a Commodore 64.  (In an early, if slightly misguided, iteration of crowdfunding, one board member put up $50 of his own money if the librarian could find others willing to match him.  He was matched by other board members in the course of that very meeting, and the Commodore 64 was on its way--I’ll have to see if it ever materialized.)

I even found evidence of a preoccupation with “library renovation” and “library greening.”  The board and staff made use of the professional community to acquire used shelving from a nearby library that had been upgraded; we can only hope the items acquired suited a need other than economy.  Meanwhile, the community in general came through to improve the children’s room, with the local Kiwanis club donating its money and manpower to re-carpet that section.  (The minutes note, dryly, that staff “put every book back on the shelf” to ensure proper order was maintained.  Some things are, of course, timeless.)

And environmental concerns didn’t stop with the Boy Scout who volunteered to accomplish the building’s landscaping one spring; there are actually several indications of staff attending professional development sessions on greening the library.  And this at the dawn of the Reagan Era!

Speaking of Reagan-era surprises, I found a page in the minutes called “Economic Impact Report 1980.” I was sure no one had bothered calculating this type of thing until the 2000s, at least!  The quaint sheaf (which offers no evidence that it was ever shared beyond the membership of the library board, for shame) states that “If the materials and services used by the public last year were ‘purchased’ by them, this is what the approximate cost would have been.” Rather more bluntly put than our PR gurus would advise today, but imagine the jarring impact of finding that sentiment inscribed in blocky Courier font on wafer-thin mimeograph paper! (For the record, this library saved its patrons an estimated $960,953.  Pretty hefty in a nation still getting over Jimmy Carter’s ‘malaise’ speech.)

Perhaps I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am to find these indications of contemporary-feeling thought on the part of librarian-types a generation or two removed, but my recent stint in library school had me primed to view all of these progressive movements as brand new.  Or maybe it’s a symptom of my own “Millennial” status--maybe we’re as self-centered as everyone wants to believe we are, thinking that nothing positive could ever have come from any other time and place.  But I could swear I’m not fabricating my memories of breathlessness in speech and print when I’ve brushed up on these types of subjects in sources dating back no earlier than 2010 or so.

Of course, there is a downside to realizing that these efforts have been in progress for decades.

Yes, most every library you walk into has transitioned to successful public computer technology lab--a testament to the field’s overriding character, I think, as the outriders of information access and provision.  Put another way, I don’t think we’ve progressed so much as we’ve continued to be comfortable in our role, and have adapted and expanded as technology has done the same.  Laudable, but not really earth-shaking news.

Less encouraging is progress on the green front.  We’re a long, long way from every library ballyhooing its carbon neutrality, from every librarian as paper-free as reasonable, from rooftop gardens on every building and rainwater cisterns in every nearby alleyway.  Perhaps the “let’s get green!” sentiment seems so new because it stalled out at some point and is only recently seeing a revival.  I hope that’s the case, anyway, or I’ll feel even more dismal about our prospects than I do. I’m hoping this catches the librarian community’s attention span, this time, as readily and permanently as e-readers have.

On a more local level--what happened to all that delightful multiculturalism at this particular library?  Well, I know what happened--it’s a struggle to keep up with the needs of a single constituency, much less the great variety that can be found in my community.  I regret that very much, and I suspect that multicultural community-building has fallen by the wayside at many more small libraries beyond my own.  There are segments of the population that are going terribly underserved, and I’m not sure how to address the problem.

But this glimpse into yesteryear gives me helpful insight; apparently a Polish-themed heritage film festival drew great crowds--now to figure out how to repeat that success with other populations.  And immensely popular (in 1980) American Sign Language “mini-courses” could certainly merit a cross-cultural revival.  There’s potential here.

Progress and inertia--an eternal dance.  Perhaps I should welcome the breathlessness that comes about when all things old become new again.  But I can’t help feeling like we should just let it be “normal.”  Nod and smile and carry on.  Celebrate progress when it takes hold.  But the act of setting it all up as arch-nouveau makes this progress seem somehow broadly unattainable.  It’s not--we’ve been cultural centers and tech labs and environmental boosters for decades now; let’s own that.  Save the cover of the next American Libraries for something truly new, and let us get back to work cementing these types of very worthy--and apparently venerable--initiatives.

Cutbacks on prime temporal real estate

I've been living it up in Miami and Miami Beach the past little whiles, having journeyed down here to visit my lovely and ever-patient boyfriend via Amtrak, stopping in NYC and DC along the way to see friends.  (10-ish days in south Florida adds up to a large chunk of the month with long train rides at either end.)  So, while there have been no posts here for a while, I wanted to send out a brief one lest my millions of loyal fans think this blog has gone the way of every other public writing outlet I have tried to establish over the years.

So, what I had initially wanted to write about was something positive--the first of my library critique photo essays, for which I have been gathering copious material over the past few months.  My aim is to demonstrate that every library, no matter how tiny or how specialized, has amazing things to offer the public. Sadly, I'm going to have to proactively harsh that mellow with this post, as I came upon a library situation the other day that rather frustrated me.

The public library branch in Coconut Grove--an affluent, tourist-drenched suburb of Miami along opulent coastline--was closed on Friday afternoon.  And the sign said it would be closed Sunday as well.

It upsets me that libraries find themselves having to close twice a week due to economic conditions.  I can understand one day a week, but two is an awful lot and I hope it's only because of the economy that this, and other libraries in other communities, are closed that often.  (Given my druthers, funding and staffing would be at adequate levels to open every library seven days a week without overworking anybody, but that's just me.)

What really bothers me, though, is the choice this library has made, or has had thrust upon it, of which days to be closed.  The weekend is prime time for library visits, circulation, and programming, yet here two thirds of the weekend are out of commission.  I can't help thinking that this isn't too much of a bother for the wealthy Floridians spending the summer in nearby gated communities such as the Cloisters (and how many of them do you think even use the library except for occasional ivory tower descents to check out genealogical info or have their new tablets explained to them?).  However, not much farther up the road is a much more economically distressed part of the area that would probably benefit from having a library open when they're not at work and when their kids are not in school--and Saturday alone just doesn't cut it for me.

So, failburgers all around, I say.  Not to pass too harsh judgment on this branch and its system, since I don't know what led to their decision to close those days--maybe they even determined that those days work for some reason--but it brings to mind the many hundreds of libraries making tough cutbacks in hours.

I'm curious--if your library (either where you work or where you visit) had to be closed two days a week, which do you feel would be optimum to avoid impacting access as much as possible?  Or would you get creative? Me, I'd opt to close down altogether on Wednesdays, then shave hours from the early mornings and/or late evenings to make up the second day, which is what I think the library I volunteer at did.  (The hour-shaving, not the Wednesday closing.)  

However you shave it, losing out on prime temporal real estate does not seem like the best answer.

Why 'Librarianism'?

Well, you all made it through my first couple of blog posts, so your reward is a much shorter one!  I’d like to cover something that should have been the subject of my first post, but it kind of took second place to addressing the situation in Boston that week.  Nevertheless, I will tackle it now--why did I name my blog ‘Librarianism’?

There are a couple other blogs with the name out there, thus my inclusion of the word ‘viva’ in the url.  My apologies to those who have gone before, but I figured my way was clear, as those blogs seemed inactive, and their use of the word ‘librarianism’ didn’t seem to have any especial political bearing on their content in the way it does on mine.

I have an idealistic notion of the place of ‘-ism’ in our world.  It gets a lot of guff, mainly from its association with a certain Red Menace of yesteryear, whose influence I theorize has colored certain folks’ perception of anything ending in those three letters ever since, no matter how benign.  Or, if not exactly benign, then no matter how positively if uncomfortably transformative.

To me, the main purpose of the ‘-ism’ appendage is to transform an identity into a movement.  The ‘-ism’ makes a statement that there is a body of goals and characteristics--not necessarily shared by every member of the group, but which every member can point to and agree makes up the tapestry of a collective identity they all share, an identity that is bigger than stereotype and misconception, an identity that is worth making known.

And so it is with librarians.  We are legion, and we are varied, but we almost invariably share certain common goals and values.  Those are well known to most of my audience, and for others, I’ll be getting into some of them in the future.  For now, suffice it to say that to turn ‘librarian’ into ‘librarianism’ is to turn those values, all too often idle in the midst of day-to-day library management and customer service, into action.

(I should mention that I don’t presume to be one of a few librarians leading active, value-driven careers.  There are many who live according to their versions of my idealized actionable librarian values, and have done so since long before I was born.  My only presumption is to throw my hat in the ring with them, and offer my particular views on the action in that ring.)

I would consider myself on the radical edge of the librarianist tapestry.  I’m still figuring out what that means.  There’s the intellectual freedom angle, there’s the LGBTQ service and access angle, there’s the inclusion of non-traditional materials angle, and so on--but those are hardly unique to me, or even at all remarkable among librarians.  Even my desire to confront the conventional wisdom of the profession, to shake up the foundations of our training--these are not really radical among my peers, in that they seem to be widely accepted concerns in the community, if to different degrees from librarian to librarian.

I can sum up my radicalism, I think--such as it is--in my assertion of what ‘service’ really means.  Service to our patrons and our communities, I believe, entails more than simply serving what they like and what they ‘need’ in a sort of subsistence fashion, but to look deeper, to push their boundaries, to see what is coming next; and then presenting it, advocating for it, and making our communities uncomfortable until they adapt.  I think you can see the trouble with that philosophy, compared to the library’s ‘traditional role,’ dictated as it is in part by the community’s approbation (and funding).  I stand by it, though.  We’ll talk.

But that is something I intend to get into in much greater depth down the line.  Sooner, I will treat you all to the instance of librarian-on-librarian intellectual aggression that actually compelled me to start this blog.  And after that, we can get into that time (yesterday) when I got into a fight with a more senior librarian about her deceased cat.  Not really.  But kind of.  And there’s a lesson in every tale!

But first, a library photo essay.  Look for that next week, if I find time during my trip to Miami Beach.  Have a good time in the meanwhile!  Mix it up and make it squirrely!

(Feel free to help me out with my sign-off.)

Boarding Pass, installment one: Game of Thrones board game review

This post originally appeared on the Dunkirk Free Library tumblr, also maintained by your humble blogger.

Game of Thrones Board Game (Second Edition)

Designed by Christian T. Petersen

Based on “A Song of Ice and Fire” books by George R.R. Martin

Published by Fantasy Flight Games

[Contains mild spoilers for the “Song of Ice and Fire” novels and Game of Thrones TV series.]

What are you into?  What fascinates you?  What do you love?

These are the questions you should consider when diving into any new artform.  If you want to get into non-fiction books, and you’re already an avid gardener, you might consider garden-based memoirs.  If the secrets of the universe fascinate you, then maybe poetry based on the ebb and flow of cosmic bodies will slake your burgeoning interest in that medium.

I’m a fantasy fan, so it’s not surprising that a game based on one of my favorite fantasy novel series should be the one to get me to seriously consider the artistic value of gaming.  Of course, I didn’t seek this new interest out; a normal night of fun with friends served as an unexpected entree into what is becoming an obsession with implications on my personal, professional, and creative life.

As I’ve gotten more and more into contemporary board gaming lately, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of the twin features that set these games apart from the Milton-Bradley family fun diversions of yesteryear: theme and mechanics. It was the beautiful marriage of these two factors in a game that spoke to my pre-existing interests that has sparked my wider, abiding interest in this creative medium.  Please allow me to share with you my thoughts on Game of Thrones.  The game.

(Warning: the word ‘game’ is undoubtedly going to pop up in this review even more often than it normally would.  By the end, ‘game’ will no longer make sense as a word.  Game game game.)

Game of Thrones (the game) is titled after A Game of Thrones (the book), the first volume in the subversive epic fantasy opus “A Song of Ice and Fire,” by George R.R. Martin.  You might also recognize it as the name of HBO’s immensely popular Game of Thrones (the TV show), the first season of which is based on A Game of Thrones (the book) but which kept that title (Game of Thrones (the TV show)) so as not to confuse any fans of Game of Thrones (book, TV show, graphic novel, or even game).  It’s enough to make an RDA cataloger’s head explode, but I assure you, it’s all very cool.  (Game game game.)

The book and TV show are equally known for their dark, morally ambiguous treatment of the fantasy genre, with true heroes few and far between, villains complex and well-motivated, and magic a slowly-encroaching force out of legend.  These thematic complexities naturally give rise to complexity in any adaptation, most especially in board game form.  Remember ‘theme’ and ‘mechanics’?  The one usually helps dictate the other--to preserve the flavor of being in a particular world or context, you need to feel like the game actions you are taking fit in with that world or context in some essential way.

In Game of Thrones (the game), players vie for dominion of Westeros across a familiar-looking playing field as Houses Stark, Greyjoy, Lannister, Baratheon, Tyrell and Martell. They must choose when to invade neighboring territories to claim victory points, and when to negotiate with opponents to avoid damaging conflict. In addition, they must be crafty with their power to influence affairs, parceling out their clout between retaining territory, bidding for important titles, and confronting the threat of the Wildlings.

In this fun, interactive, hours-long playing experience, we have a twist on other familiar games--notably Risk and Diplomacy--giving us essentially a ‘conflict of nations’ style mechanic playing out on a map of the continent.  Players build forces through a number of related sub-mechanics, such as ‘mustering’ determined by random card draw, then place those units on the map-board and plan their movements.  In a nice departure from the Diplomacy style of free-form writing of orders, orders in Game of Thrones are determined by a series of tokens representing different types of moves (as well as bonuses to those moves).  These are placed face-down on the board so that all players can reveal them simultaneously, nicely capturing the thematically-appropriate feeling that you never know what’s coming around the bend; players don’t move from space to space linearly, but rather attack, defend, support and so forth with no obvious warning.  (Even better, if you really want to mess with people, you can lie about your intentions in hopes that opponents will let their guards down!  Fans of the books and show will appreciate that facet of the game.)

So to reiterate the central dynamic of modern gaming, a good game will do everything it can to immerse players in the game’s world through mechanics and theme.  In the case of Game of Thrones, the theme is not merely ‘based on a fantasy novel’--for which simple stylistic accoutrements might be deemed sufficient to capture the flavor--but rather the literary themes and particular hallmarks of that novel itself: moral ambiguity, shocking reversals of fortune, and the depredations of total war.  The mechanics of the game are in service to these themes, keeping players off-balance and on their guard.  A series of randomizing mechanics fulfill that need ably here: each round, three cards are drawn that determine some of the factors affecting all players equally during that period, such as restrictions on types of orders that can be placed or calling for the readjustment of units; a non-player threat is always gaining strength and could strike at any time, necessitating unexpected bouts of cooperation; and the simple requirement of diplomatic sessions, where players attempt to gauge each other for threats and strike bargains to divvy up neighboring territory, imparting a naturalistically randomized quality to the proceedings.  

Combat is also left nicely difficult to predict; the strength of units can be bolstered by special orders, and each combat session requires the use of a character card representing important figures from the source books that add further strength to an attack or defense.  A canny player might be able to keep track of an opponent’s unused characters to determine the best time to strike ("House Starkhas already used Eddard, Robb and Rodrik, so they will be helpless when I attack with Tywin!").  Even then, victory cannot be assured, because players are always able to ‘call for support’ from their own nearby troops, or from another player’s troops, provided the right kind of order token is in play.  Such aid could cement alliances and open up new fronts in the war.

Another interesting feature of the game is the function of ‘power’--thematically, the level of clout a player enjoys due to his successes and accomplishments, represented mechanically by tokens bearing each faction’s family crest.  The accumulation of these tokens is necessary for the retention of unoccupied territory, for bidding on three ‘titles’ that impart special abilities and affect turn order, and to combat the non-player terror from the north.  A player has to keep a careful eye on his power pool or risk being caught flat-footed when it comes time to bid or to defend the realm (failure to do so having dire, randomly card-determined consequences).

The goal of the game is to occupy the most territories marked with strongholds, a sensible endpoint for a board game but one with which I have to quibble: in the books (and the show), the point is never merely to hold the most land, but rather to seize the coveted Iron Throne and thus hold dominion over all of Westeros.  One could argue that these strongholds merely represent the support of enough vassals to effectively wrest control of the throne, but I long for a somewhat more visceral victory condition; there gets to be a point toward the end of the game where minutes are taken counting and re-counting territories held across the cluttered board, the thrill of victory somewhat diffused by math (simple though it may be).

Another thematic criticism I’ll level is that two of the most important factions have been left out of the proceedings entirely.  The game covers the threat of the Wildlings, a population of ‘uncivilized’ folk living beyond the northern limits of the realm and who engage in raids to the south--that’s the non-player threat that players have to come together to face now and then.  But the books establish an even more terrifying and existential threat from the same quarter, a race of zombie-birthing ice demons whose slow advance is becoming more obvious as time goes on; one would think that this rather iconic and central antagonist would make its way into the game.  Also absent is any mention of Daenerys Targaryen, the exiled survivor of a deposed royal family who is building support in the east on the strength of her three dragon hatchlings, the only living in the known world.  Though working her in, remote as her storyline is, would be a challenge to the board game medium, it seems strange to elide one of the essential storylines and fan-favorite characters completely.  I don’t presume to know how to fix these omissions, but I know there must be ways!

Somewhat easier to imagine including would be some kind of seasons mechanic.  One of the only obvious indications that the book series takes place in a fantasy universe is that seasons last for years, with fertile summers followed by brutal, seemingly endless winters that affect the whole continent.  It would seem a simple matter to incorporate a randomized ‘season changer’ into the game, imparting bonuses during the summer and imposing penalties during the winter.  But perhaps that would have been a (Frey-controlled) bridge too far for an already very complex game, with its multiple phases per round and intricate system of interwoven turn orders.

Along with matters of theme and mechanics, I’ve become familiar with design and genre as considerations of contemporary board games.  In terms of genre, Game of Thrones definitely fits the bill for an “Ameritrash” game--a game full of complexity, a million parts you’re destined to lose, and slavish hewing to a theme.  I think that’s a pretty awesome set of characteristics for a somewhat sneering name.  As far as design, Game of Thrones is beautiful and functional.  The board game is big and bold, with regions well delineated despite all the little icons present on many of them, and the non-map areas of the board--victory and population tracks, title tracks determining turn order and tie precedence--coming clear after a few rounds’ play.  The other bits and pieces, like power and order tokens and various player identification markers, serve to clarify and entrench some of the more byzantine of the rules, helping with iconographic reminders of a given token’s function and value.

Game of Thrones is the game that got me into gaming games.  (Game game game.)  For me, the hook was the theme--it fulfilled all my expectations of living in the world of a beloved novel for a few hours.  The interplay between that theme and the mechanics that determine players’ actions and behavior got me excited to try the next modern board game, and the next one and the next.  It goes to underscore that central question when you begin considering where to start with any new medium: what are you into?  What fascinates you?  What do you love?  A novel, a time period, microbiology, economics--if you can name it, there’s a game for it.  Game game game.

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Readers! How do you think this game could have gotten Daenerys into play somehow? What do you think of that 'Ameritrash' genre title? And what modern games have you been enjoying?