I bought Kings and Things* (K&T - the asterisk is part of the game’s title) back around 15 years ago, mostly because it was from Games Workshop, which had brought out other games I enjoyed at the time, like Talisman and DungeonQuest. It isn’t like those games, however. Those are explorer-like RPG-ish games, where you move a character through an environment battling foes and gaining treasure (and, in the case of DungeonQuest, dying, dying, and dying.) K&T is instead a game where you dispatch a variety of critters across a hex-delineated board for ultimate control. In other words, it’s a wargame. But it’s a very light one.

How light? Well, that’s where the asterisk comes in. The various Things that can be recruited include Gypsies, Slime Beasts, Dwarves, Killer Raccoons, Flying Buffalo, Ice Bats, Walking Trees, Sandworms, Eskimos, Elephants…you get the idea. They populate a land made up of hexes of various terrain types: Plains, Mountains, Swamp, Jungle, Forest, Desert, Sea, and Frozen Wastes. Since the board is laid out randomly, it’s not unusual to have a Kadab (the name of this land) like ours, in which Desert is surrounded on three sides by Frozen Waste. All of this is illustrated through very cartoony Tom Wham artwork. So as you can see, there’s not a small amount of silliness in the game.

My copy of the game, being fifteen years old, is a little worn. One corner of the box is damaged, the rules are kind of wrinkled, and I didn’t do the best job adding an asterisk to the Swordsmaster and Marksman, a little manual errata required due to misprinted tiles. It’s seen a lot of wear. But play? Not a bit. I’d never played the thing. A couple of times I’d gotten close, but I’d never even started round one. I decided the time had come and announced to my friends that I was determined to finally play K&T. TJ, Grant, and Mike answered the call, and Friday night this boardgame finally saw play.

 

I had read the rules in advance, and started to explain them to the others, but we decided that we’d go over the main things and then cover other ground once we got started. As a result, everyone pretty much had a disastrous first round, as not everyone had a good idea of how exploring unowned tiles and combat worked. Our first two rounds or so went by very slowly. However, soon we had most everything figured out and things happened much more quickly.

Combat in the game is pretty slow. Things face each other and then roll a bunch of dice until one side retreats or is destroyed. Since a Thing has to roll under its combat rating to hit, and many of them have combat ratings of 1 or 2, some battles can be pretty tedious.

 

Also, since there’s a wide variety of Things, and they’re pulled out randomly from a cup, it’s very easy to walk into a hex and get annihilated. One nightmarish hex that Grant wandered into early on stayed unclaimed for the rest of the game, even though it held some pretty good treasure. Nobody wanted to mess with the forces assembled on it.

The goal of Kings and Things* is to be the only person with a Citadel, which you get by building up your Tower into a Keep, then a Castle, and then a Citadel. But since building a Citadel requires not only a Castle but an income of 20 gold, you also have to do some other exploring. Several strategies seemed to be going on. TJ seemed content to stay in a relatively small area, building up his forces and recruiting many Special Characters. Mike was all about building forts, and then went after the income to try and get a Citadel. I was trying to do a lot of exploring while staying away from others to keep a buffer zone between me and them. Whatever Grant’s strategy may have been, it got sidetracked by a series of ridiculously poor dice rolls from which he had a hard time recovering.

Eventually TJ, Mike, and I were racing towards the finish. We all were closing in on the prized 20 income mark. I attacked one of Mike’s tiles successfully, allowing me to both get 20 income and deprive him of the same. TJ’s largely isolationist strategy had made him a powerful foe. The portion in the round came where I could turn my Castle into a Citadel and win the game!

Except…I wouldn’t, necessarily. For you see, there’s a catch. If someone else builds a Citadel as well, then you don’t win. At that point you can only win through conquest. You have to control two Citadels at that point, and the only way to do so is to capture another player’s Citadel. So I would have built one, and then TJ would have, and then we’d have to fight it out from there. By the next round, Mike would have one as well, so there’d be a three-way battle for supremacy. Since TJ and I were on opposite sides of the board, we’d either have to slowly crawl across it towards each other, or we’d have to simply wait for Mike or Grant to build a Citadel and then try and wrest it from them. Mike was close, but Grant wasn’t.

And we’d already been playing for about three hours. No matter how you sliced it, the game was only now starting to get ugly. We were probably looking at at least another hour, probably two, before this would wrap up. And even then it was clear that TJ would probably win, as he was in a much more powerful position than I was. So I declined to build a Citadel, TJ built one, and won the game. I conceded.

Thus we come to the great problem with Kings and Things*. Like the kingdom and forces in the game, the game itself is a confusing collection of things. It can’t seem to make up its mind whether it’s silly or serious. On the one hand, it’s got a ton of rules that make it quite intimidating for non-wargamers (though to be fair, the rules ultimately aren’t as bad as they seem at first). But on the other, it’s got far too much randomness and silliness for those who enjoy wargames. On the one hand, it’s light and fun and funny, but on the other hand it takes about four hours to play. Even discounting the extra hour it took us to get the rules down and get into the swing of things, and even if you simply change the victory condition to whoever is the first to build a Citadel, period, you’re still looking at two hours of playing time. In that same amount of time there are tons of better games you could instead play multiple times.

I’m not sure what can be done about K&T. I think it can possibly be revamped into a faster game that’s more satisfying for everyone. But as it is, I think it’s something that is an unfortunate product of its times that has been sidelined by a generation of better, faster games.

(Oh hang on. It’s Silver Age reprints. As you were.)

I finally bought these babies last night (my comics shop got shorted and the replacements didn’t get in until last week):

First thing I open up to is Superman with an enlarged head, no doubt from some brain-evolving ray. I showed this to Becky and said, “See? This stuff never happens to anybody in comics anymore. And I bet I can flip through the GL one and find Hal with a big head as well!” Cause in the Silver Age, there were two types of superheroes: them what currently had big evolved heads, and them that merely didn’t have them at the moment.

I can’t wait to dive into these. Screw the Infinite Crisis. These are Infinite Joy.

“If filming yourself singing along to Romanian techno-pop is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.” This was me, in a discussion yesterday, in which the “Numa Numa Kid” was mentioned.

Then I was thinking…”filming yourself”…the artist in question used no film; he recorded himself via a webcam. All digital. Like a good number of cameras these days, and even instruments used to make movies. Is talking about “filming” something going to someday soon join the list of words and phrases that refer to outdated technology? Things like:

“I know I sound like a broken record…”

“…turn to a different station…”

“I taped that show so I could watch it later.”

“I was just about to dial the phone…”

“I was going to tune into that…”

I read an article the other day (it wasn’t online) that was talking about how technology, especially the internet, is changing language, that linguists are able to observe, as they happen, things usually just referred to as happening in the past. It was strange for me to look at a casual phrase and be able to almost see it fading into obscurity.

Many moons ago, back on the newsgroup alt.religion.kibology, I wrote the following post, entitled “Infocom Presents: Tetris”:

Now someone else has done a similar thing. Katamari Damacy: A Text Based Adventure.

Are you all getting stoked up for the release of Shriekback’s new album, Cormorant, on November 7? I know I am!

In fact, let’s have a contest! Let’s see who can be more excited about Shriekback’s new album, me or you!

Ready? Go!

As an avid student of folklore, I had long heard the references to a mysterious tree spirit that haunted certain forests in the state of Washington. I hope that this record finds its way to the proper authorities, and I hope that my reputation as a strict skeptic and sober scholar will keep them from discarding my findings as mere delusional ramblings. For I know what I have seen in these ancient woods, and I know now the truth behind the Lorax.

In preparation for Halloween, I bring you the zombie of an ancient thread I started three years ago on the Straight Dope Message Board.

I had been reading an H.P. Lovecraft collection (The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales, edited by S. T. Joshi, from Penguin books.) And for some reason it occurred to me that many Dr. Seuss books could be redone in Lovecraft’s style and lose nothing in the translation (many Seuss books I found somewhat disturbing as a child.) So I decided to test my hypothesis. Enjoy!

At once I knew that these eldritch beings were the dread Sneetches referred to in certain unspeakable texts…

—*—

I could hear them in the swamp, though I dared not look. From my position behind the hollow log I could hear their unholy chanting as they worshipped their eldritch gods - Great Cthulhu, Dagon, and Thidwick. Clearly their leader wished to aspire to their lofty heights. “I shall be as they,” croaked his inhuman voice. “Powerful as they! I shall ascend the throne and achieve the grandeur of Hastur, the King in Yellow, the Fox in Socks. More turtles!”

With that utterance I dared to peer out from behind the log and saw their unspeakable ritual. A great Cyclopean throne, built of their own bodies, rising above the swamp. Turtle upon turtle, with one being, the damnable Yertle, perched at the top. “More turtles!” he demanded.

At that point my sanity quitted my mind and I ran, to no specified place, but merely in an attempt to retreat from this blasphemous sight. I awoke in my room at the inn, though I have no recollection of how I got there.

And now, four years later and across two continents, I still feel his yellowed eyes upon me. I have done research and know how many turtles inhabit that dismal bog. The throne completed, Yertle the Turtle would be king of all he could see…and he could see me!

—*—

I scanned the dusty bookshelves and noted the arcane and unhallowed books thereupon. There was a copy of the Latin translation of The Necronomicon of the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, De Vermis Mysteriis, and The Book of Eibon, as well as other profane texts. I pulled a tome off of the dust-caked shelf and began to peruse it.

My mind reeled in disgust at the horrors within. Upon the yellowed pages (which may or may not have been composed of actual paper) were artistic renderings and descriptions of beasts whose existence was protested by any rational person.

As I turned from page to page, I was informed, in cryptic verse, of such entities as the Yink (and its hellish diet); the Thing Found in The Park; the violent Gox and the attire to be worn when dealing with it; the Zans, the Ying, and the dread Wump. The book implied that these things walk among us, presumably unseen, and have gradually integrated themselves into our everyday lives.

When I came across the description of the foul Yop, I could take no more, and slammed the diabolical tome shut, knowing full well that I would never remove its images from my mind. There are things one cannot know and remain sane, and I now was aware of them.

I have not been the same since that day. I walk in shadow, always glancing about furtively, for I know the undeniable Truth, as recounted in that dark text: From there to here, from here to there / Funny things are everywhere.

—*—

June 4, 1907 - I heard the queerest thing today. As I made my way through the jungle, I swore I heard a faint sound of drums. Or, more accurately, a single drum. I know it is not the drumming of the superstitious natives, as they will not go near the supposed temple. The only occupants of this remote area are my small team and the monkeys that inhabit this jungle. And yet, there was a drum. I must not let my brain trick me. I am probably just disquieted because I am nearing the location where Sir Arthur Corwin disappeared.

June 5, 1907 - More drums. The sound is unmistakable, and it echoes all around me. Could there be another tribe in this primeval jungle? If this is the case, they have kept well hidden, as I have seen nothing more human than the apes leaping from tree to tree. My companions seem unnerved by this. Once we reach the hidden temple, they will be suitably distracted and won’t give these drums a moment’s thought.

June 6, 1907 - The drumming is incessant now. In the camp last evening I tried to stuff strips of cloth in my ear to drown it out, but it was to no avail. Two of my men have gone mad, and ran off into the forest with the supplies they were carrying. Even a warning shot from my pistol did not stop them. After I fired my warning shot towards the departing men, I glanced around and noticed a figure beyond a tree past the clearing. I saw it but a moment, and yet its features were unmistakably simian. It was, without a doubt, one of the many monkeys that have been constantly around us, and it wore about its neck a wooden drum. I saw it pounding on the drum, moving its hand, hand, fingers, and thumb in time with the staccato rhythm pounding all around us. Have I gone mad as well?

June 7, 1907 - There are thousands of monkeys and thousands of drums. I am alone now, as my final companion has fled into the jungle, driven insane by the unending pounding of the drums. I am trying to turn back to the base camp, but I have no supplies and the drums are getting louder…

June, 1907 - I do not know what day it is; my only time is measured through the drums. I fear if they stopped now they would continue forever in my brain, though I know they haven’t stopped. There are millions of monkeys and millions of drums. I have made it back to the base camp but the boat is gone. As I write these last words I am keeping my revolver near, but I know the bullets would be better spent on myself than wasted on the simian drummers. I must make it stop. I must put an end to the constant dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum-dum-dum…

Last night we went with Dan and Jen to a Springfield Falcons hockey game. We’d seen the Falcons before, but the games were never that great. However, they’ve been doing pretty good this season, and last night they beat the Hartford Wolfpack, 4-3 in overtime. There were some nice plays (as far as I know, my knowledge of hockey is pretty limited, despite being friends with Kurt) and a couple of good fights. This was our first time at the newly-renovated MassMutual Center, and they did a really nice job with the place.

As has been said before, Becky and I both managed to graduate from LSU (and her from the U of I) without developing any interest whatsoever in sports. But we’ve enjoyed the Falcons games we’ve been to and are hoping to get to some more.