Invisible Parties — 19 of 31

Book - Games Night

gamesnight is a challenging party in tangle. gamesnight is east of office party. The printed name of gamesnight is "Solitaire With Friends". Understand "solitaire" or "friends" or "solitaire with friends" as gamesnight.

The desolation of gamesnight is "The player opposite you cracks his knuckles. 'Endgame.'[p]The rules change. Armies crawl of their own volition across the map, meet and consume one another. A cluster of fire-blossoms burst across one stretch of the map; in another, an inland sea bursts a channel into the ocean. A vast serpent drags itself from the sea, scattering pieces before it.[p]The room has been replaced by darkness. The other players are lit only by the light of the world spreading below: jackal-head, skull, empty hood, lion.[p]There are fewer and fewer pieces. You don't want to find out what happens when one of them wins."

The demise of gamesnight is "The empty hood directs counters across the board, throwing all its reserves in a surge to fend off the jackal-head. A narrow section of the map boils with activity, and one of the spreading ripples obliterates your last few counters.[p]Nobody appears to notice. The game continues, but it seems further and further away, until it's swallowed up in an all-consuming dark."

The listendesc of gamesnight is "A stereo plays droney white guys with guitars singing about quirky mathematics esoterica with the less-than-covert implication that this is the only way they know how to articulate their interpersonal angst. Fortunately, not turned up all that high." [This is probably TMBG, but it could be any number of geek-rock groups.]

the gamers are a crowd in gamesnight. The description of gamers is "Convivially withdrawn, is how you'd put it. Unkempt."

The description of gamesnight is "A comfortably cluttered room: warm but clear lighting, lots of shelves. You're seated with a half-dozen others around what is probably a dining table, and on the dining table is spread out a board-game with approximately a billion pieces. Beer-bottles have competed ineffectively for real estate, and are relegated to precarious edges."

the game shelves are an unimplement in gamesnight. The description of game shelves is "You crane your neck to read off titles. Pandemic. Arkham Horror. Illuminati. Twilight Struggle. Gloom. Betrayal at House on the Hill. Risk. A ratty old printout of Metrofinál."

the dining table is an unimplement in gamesnight. The description of the dining table is "It's rather too large for the room, but just the right size for the game."

the board game is scenery in gamesnight. The description of board game is "The board takes up about half the table's real estate, and is clearly a map of a city - maybe Renaissance? There's a scoring track around the outside, and a number of areas set aside for little stacks of cards and particular tokens to stipulate special things, and a whole lot of coloured cubes positioned across it. Every player has a hand of cards and other cards in front of them, a little stack of cardboard coins, and their own brightly-coloured set of tokens in front of them. (You're red.)" Understand "pieces" or "cards" or "cubes" as board game.

Does the player mean examining the board game: it is likely.

The tsadesc of gamesnight is "You're about the same as you generally are, though maybe with a little less muscle. Hooded chocolate-brown sweatshirt with a microbrew logo on it, knackered old Carhartts, stripy socks."

The boozedesc of gamesnight is "Microbrews and ciders, in six-packs."

The shortbooze of gamesnight is "You crack a Fremont IPA from its six-pack holder."

The rivdesc of gamesnight is "Rivka Strossi is seated opposite you. She has a great many more cards in hand than anyone else."

The rivcostume of gamesnight is "She's wearing a navy-blue hoodie with ILLUMINATI in big white letters across the chest. She's toying with a gaming figure, hunched and hooded and carrying a pair of oversized shears."

The rivweapon of gamesnight is "a flaming sword"

The closeclue of gamesnight is "There's an empty seat at the table, with a set of yellow-orange markers stacked up in front of it. She was just here."

the game tokens are an unimplement in gamesnight. Understand "token" or "marker" or "markers" or "seat" or "pieces" or "empty seat" as the game tokens. Does the player mean examining the game tokens: it is unlikely. The description of game tokens is "There are at least a dozen different shapes of token, some associated with individual players by colour, some not. Little stick-figure people, coins and cubes and shields. You hope you don't get stuck with the job of putting this all back in the box."

Playing is an action applying to one visible thing. Understand "play [something]" as playing. Understand "play with [something]" as playing. Instead of playing: say "That's not a game." Does the player mean playing the board game: it is very likely. Instead of playing the board game: say "You're already dealt in. You're playing. That's not the issue here."

Instead of playing Jave when the location is gamesnight: try playing the board game.

[PLAY GAME WITH]

Playing it with is an action applying to two things. Understand "play [something] with [something]" as playing it with.

Carry out playing it with:

say "This is not a game.";

Instead of playing the board game with something:

try playing the board game;

Instead of playing the game tokens with something:

try playing the board game;

Instead of playing the orange markers with something:

try playing the board game;

Does the player mean playing the board game with something: it is very likely.

the orange markers are a clue. The javeclue of gamesnight is markers. The description of markers is "Little coloured wood tokens in various shapes, a stack of cardboard coins. Rather a lot of them, compared to everyone else at the table. They've been arranged into a tidy little rank-and-file parade." Understand "yellow" or "token" or "marker" or "tokens" as the orange markers.

The javedesc of gamesnight is "Jave is leaning forward, elbows on the table, expression unreadable. There's an untouched beer at her elbow[one of], and her eyes are flickering from player to player, scanning tokens. Ah. Yeah. You can see why she would be inclined to take this way, way too seriously[or][stopping]."

The javecostume of gamesnight is "She's still carrying a beer-bottle, grip reversed to make it a weapon."

The javeinit of gamesnight is "Jave is seated opposite."

Carry out using commander in gamesnight:

say "You catch Jave's expression. There's that slightly spaced-out look she gets, focused on thin air, when she's roughing out the shape of a plan. Then she looks up, catches you watching, and grins.[p]She takes her moves quickly, almost carelessly, dictating actions in a brisk monotone. She accumulates points and tokens in small increments, spends them on minor advantages before they begin to pile up and look threatening. You do your best to do likewise.[p]She catches the tipping-point; one retained card amplifies another, tokens start changing hands too quickly for you to follow it all, and - well, from the looks on their faces, two of the players have had their hopes and dreams dropped into a meat-grinder, and the rest are scrambling to adjust.";

ruin everything;

Carry out using troublemaker in gamesnight:

say "You don't grasp the rules, or the unspoken approaches supervening on them, well enough to win. Fair enough: then you can allow Jave to do her thing while you play spoiler.[p]You start out with some simple sacrifices that gain you nothing but inconvenience other players. They don't bite. You kick it up, withdrawing at an easily-defended point to expose one player to another, leading to frantic scrabbling to reprioritise; you keep as far out of the ensuing mess as possible, sniping at easy objectives.[p]Jave, who has been quietly orthodox up to this point, executes a rapid series of force-multiplier manoeuvres, making serious gains and drawing everyone's attention. You affect to ignore her, continuing with your bootless pestering and forcing everyone to devote resources to coping with your bullshit. One gets grouchy, devoting unnecessary resources to try and crush you completely, and you make small sacrifices and hedgehog up while Jave ravages their unprotected holdings. You're doomed, but Jave looks comfortably in control of things.";

ruin everything;

Carry out using laughing one in gamesnight:

say "She grins appreciatively at the referential snark that's occasionally thrown around, but this isn't a game overly reliant on social cues.";

Carry out using antinominalist in gamesnight:

say "In certain situations, rules are not just constraints on activity: they [i]form[/i] the activity, and disregarding them makes the act pointless. Maybe if Jave was one of those assholes who consider cheating a metagame always inherent. She's not.";

Carry out using abider in gamesnight:

say "There are games where you can win by treading water, minimising risk, and avoiding unforced errors. You have a strong intuition that this is not one of them.";

Carry out using warrior in gamesnight:

say "Physical prowess isn't much help within the game, and flipping the table would probably count as failure.";

Carry out using forager in gamesnight:

say "You feel rather full, honestly, with the slightly gross feeling that comes from overindulging in junk food.";

Carry out using critic in gamesnight:

say "You find the rulebook and leaf through it; there are a [i]lot[/i] of pages. It's structurally haphazard and has a sort of rhetorical pedantry that muddies as much as it clarifies. You derive some salient insights into the cultural fetishes of its designer and his (definitely his) community, none of which are very helpful in actually understanding how to [i]win[/i] the damn thing."