Games night and socials on Wednesday and Saturday

When February the 18th came around I was anxious to go to the “Croft pub where RAWSoc was organizing a games night. That night featured co-op games.

To clarify RAWSoc organizes several different kinds of games nights. On some nights it is “Dragon’s Hoard” board game night. On these nights all kind of board games and also several card games are played without distinction for certain genres. On other nights however only co-op games are played. The goal of these games is to play as a team and beat whatever the game throws at you (examples will follow later ;) and the goal of the evening is that the group wins more games than ‘the game’. Then there are the nights where the genre is traitor/hidden role games. In these games players try to achieve a goal while some of them covertly try to make them fail. An easy example is “the Village” known by family and Dutch friends as “Weerwolven van Wakkerdam”. And then there the occasions when Role Playing Games (like Dungeons and Dragons) and Wargames (when hearing this I think about leading armies of soldiers to beat opponents) take place. Oh and before I forget there are also LARP, or Live Actual Role Playing, occasions.
In short RAWSoc is a lot like the games club, “de Fanaat”, in Enschede, not only due to types of games they play but also due to the people that go to the gaming events. Don’t get me wrong. I liked everybody I met that night. But I have a hard time following all the jokes and references made to series. But that’s just because I haven’t seen nearly as many series as they obviously have. I have to say though the few jokes I did get I had that internal triumphant feeling that said “yes, now I can actually laugh for a reason and not just because of the infectious laugh of others”.

But I digress. Co-op night. To state briefly I had a great time. The first game I played was a co-op card game which I played with David. It centers on the concept of collecting cards and playing them in a certain sequence to open doors. The second game I played (with Kieran, Will and two others whose names I shall remember next time) was called escape and the goal is … to escape. The scene is an ancient maya temple and by rolling certain combinations with dice you need to explore the temple in order to find the exit. While exploring the temple be sure to check for treasure that may help you get to other rooms, but beware in ancient maya temples there are bound to be terrible curses that will try to prevent your escape. The third game I played (with the same players) takes place in a world assailed by terrible diseases. You are a team of characters that each have special skills that should help with keeping the diseases at bay until cures are developed to rid the world from those diseases once and for all. The last game we (the same group minus 1) played was a co-op game, or at least it could be set up that way. However it is originally a traitor game, named “Shadows of Camelot”. The goal is to complete quests in a successful manner to bring back white swords to Camelot. A total of twelve swords can be collected. However if you cannot complete enough quests to collect at least 7 white swords darkness takes over in Camelot and the game is lost (unless you were the traitor working for darkness all that time in secret). In the final game I got the difficult role of traitor. Why difficult? Well simply because I am not known for my poker face. And I have to say I pretty much co-operated until the last moment where I abandoned a few key quests and enabled dark to win. Still if my fellow players had not assumed that there was no traitor due to the fact that it was co-op night they might have pinpointed me as the traitor much sooner. It is a very interesting game as you can seek hidden motives behind many of the actions taken by players on quests, which makes it all the more interesting.

Regrettablyall good things come to an end eventually and before I knew it the night was over and it was time to go home. However I have been given something to look forward to: The next night of games.

Well that was it. Oh wait I forgot about the other nights didn’t I? Well settle down and I’ll tell you everything about those “eventful” nights. … Nothing happened. Miscommunication on Wednesday and the group coming late on Saturday resulted in two nights of gaming, reading and playing guitar on my own. And honestly in retrospect they were good evenings. Also I have noticed that I play a lot more often than in the Netherlands. By this rate I might be back to my old level when I get back.

Ok this time I really have finished all the interesting topics of last week. Until next time! Something to look forward too though. On Wednesday the 26th I have my first tournament in Wales and the week after I have no lectures making it almost a certainty that I will plan a few trips to see noteworthy sites in Wales. Bye for now!