1KBWC Report
Posted by Rob Herman at July 9th, 2006
We got to play 1,000 Blank White Cards today! Turns out it was a lot of fun. For all those who missed it, we hope to have another game soon. You gotta come, people.
We had 8 players, none of whom had played before. The site linked says 3-6, but 8 was no problem at all. We also have some rules tweaks:
- There should be a “gentlemens’ agreement” that cards should not be played that prevent other people from playing the game or delay their turn for a long time. Examples include “skip a turn” or “reverse direction of play.” These might not be a problem in games with fewer people, but waiting fifteen turns to take your own is frustrating.
- Likewise, cards that require bookkeeping are discouraged. For instance, a card that says “All cards played after this one are worth +100 points” is a bad idea, because then you have to keep track of what cards are played later. A card that only modifies one card (like doubling its value or whatever) is fine because the cards can be stacked to note the effect.
- When all cards are drawn from the deck, players must immediately fill out all blank cards before proceeding further. This is to discourage creating huge, specific, game-swinging effects near the very end.
At the end everyone was allowed to choose three cards for the “Hall of Fame” of cards that would be brought to the next session. We also decided by acclimation to induct all defenestration-related cards.
The Hall of Fame:
As a cat, Lithium is unafraid of defenestration:
And a couple of the cards that didn’t make it to the Hall of Fame, but which were funny or influential:
Sorry about the lousy image quality. All I have is a digital camera. If I can rustle up access to a scanner, I’ll post better images of the cards.
Also, the cards I acquired are great, they look very nice and shuffle well, but they’re difficult to write on. Roller-ball pens smear, as do markers, and Bics have a tough time getting started. Sharpies work great but I didn’t have enough for everyone. This would be an advantage to ordinary index cards.
Everyone: Post your stories and take credit for your cards in the Comments!
The greatest thing (ONE of the greatest things) about this game is that you have a really awesome record of how funny one’s friends are and were.
I’ll take credit for: Ennui, One With Everything, ZOMG, Lock the Windows, Emo Bands Save The Day, and Tasty Mixed Drink With An Embarassing Name. (I was using the blue Sharpie)
Stories (Of course, I remember the ones involving me and my cards, mostly; chime in with your own):
–One With Nothing got created pre-game by a player who saw my One With Everything card. Both got played on the same player in the game.
–Tasty Mixed Drink With Embarassing Name got played on Ken, who drew Slut! and played it on me to remove the Shame Levels.
–I was pursuing a strategy of picking up negative-value cards and relying on a parity-switcher like Mirror Universe. Unfortunately someone played Screw Strategy, causing me to trade away my hand. Damn! I created Emo Bands Save The Day to mitigate the damage.
–Struck By Defenestrated Opponent was the original defenestration-related card. I created Lock the Windows to prevent its victim from defenestrating himself to collect the bonus. I was in the business of creating another Defenestration! card (there was something involving points parity and Lock the Windows getting moved) when Screw Strategy was played, and the person who got my hand had to finish the card. That’s why there are two different marker colors on one Defenestration card.
–At the game’s end, one player used a card called Black Hole to steal all the cards. Unfortunately for him, there was a card called Mirror Universe (reversing all his point values) and Emo Bands Save The Day, giving a large point “bonus” for all those negative cards.
–The Largest Negative Number was an important card all game, reversing all point values. Even more hard-hitting was Second Grader, which negates all multiplication effects. (Mirror Universe refers to “reversing” point values rather than multiplying them, so it was unaffected by Second Grader.)
ALL defenestration is my doing! MUHAHAHAH! I also saw Shruti drawing a cat, so I drew EAT THE CAT, which Rob played to great effect. I also drew the x-wing in response to the death star and SLUT! in response to Rob’s giving me five levels of shame. Sadly I drew a card to plug the black hole which I then found out was only arguably a quantum effect, so my card only arguably blocked it… Very sad. I was amused by all the monkeys and so I drew Shoot the Hostage to discard an animal.
[edited to fix Shruti’s name. -|R]
I’m so sad I missed the game. Lemmie know when the next one is, and if you wanna use the lil scanner. Glad it was such a success
Lets see, I made:
-I’m Rubber, You’re Glue
-Capitalism and Socialism
-A collection of monkey themed cards: De-evolve, Monkey Fight, Knight catches monkey, Monkey Revolt, and the unlisted but very fun Mokey at Typewriter (draw 3 cards, discard 2, some negative point value) [Edit: It’s in the third set of cards there. -|R]
-The 2 color defenstration
-Rock of Aegis
The best play of the night was using Capitalism to purchase One With Everything, and the associated Enlightenment status.
You’ll notice that many of my cards have benifical effects and negative point values. This wasn’t by accident. I think it leads to much more interesting balances than good effect + good points,or vice versa.
I also think an optional rule for some games is to announce a theme, and suggest that half of the cards made that day play into that theme. For example, we had a lot of animal cards, and some cards that affected animals. It was good.
Dude, this game looks awesome.