This past weekend saw a number of games hit the table. After getting a few chores done we met up with friends and played Shadows Over Camelot, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong (twice), and Carcassonne. I lost basically every game. Even though I won. Sort of.
I drew King Arthur (and also the traitor) in Shadows. We don’t normally play with a traitor, but I convinced the group to try it. And there I was, the seemingly loyal king, secretly trying to figure out how to bring down Camelot. Honestly it was a bit of a struggle. None of us were used to playing with the traitor, and I have made such a big deal out of not placing siege engines in prior games, I figured that tactic was off the table. We played several rounds, and things were starting to get dicey and someone else suggested that we really should take a few catapults rather than draw black cards. I begrudgingly agreed. 😉 Still it didn’t seem like I was going to be able to do much.
I even drew the “Fate” card early in the game. That card allows the traitor to reveal him (or her)self and start making things miserable for the rest of the group. There just wasn’t a good time to play it.
Then, just as the light was visible at the end of the tunnel (it was the grail quest, all but finished) I realized it was now or never. We had three quests that were one black card away from being failed, all of which would have added black swords to the round table. I figured my odds were good, so I drew a card, failed a quest, and then played the “Fate” card as my heroic (ha!) action. 😈 It was less than a round later that siege engines overran Camelot, and I…won? It felt dirty though.
For our next game we added two more players (we made the teenagers turn off their video game) and played a couple of rounds of Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. If you are not familiar with the game it’s a hidden role game where one person is the Forensic Scientist who is leading the investigation, and everyone else is either a murderer, an accomplice, a witness, or an investigator. If the investigators (and the witness) can identify the murderer that team wins. Unless the murderer can then identify the witness, in which case the murderer (and accomplice) kill the witness and get away with everything!
Well I was the murderer in the first game and got caught right away. Then as an investigator in the second game I was so wrong it wasn’t funny. The murderer got away by killing the witness in that session.
After a break for dinner we finished the evening with Carcassonne. I had just introduced the game to our friends the last time we played and they really enjoyed it (it was the “night of three times!” 😛 ) This time we went ahead and added in the Farmer for scoring. We ended up with a lot more blocking and defensive playing as well, even if some of it was accidental.
So if you’re keeping score (we’re playing games, of course we’re keeping score) I won Shadows by making everyone else lose, lost Deception twice, and oh, was either last or next-to-last in Carcassonne.
We had good food and good company and good fun. Who cares if Arthur was a turncoat.