The Aubrey-Maturin Series

I have just — as in five minutes ago — finished reading Blue at the Mizzen, the final book of the Aubrey-Maturin series. Or, I should say, re-reading. I have read the roughly 5,000 page series three times; originally during my thirties, once in my forties and now again in my fifties. I also read 21 aka The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey — the novel O’Brian was working on when he died — a few months ago.

I have said before that art is “Something that you can take in repeatedly, with new and different thoughts each time.” And I have seen new things. Of course the series (as historical fiction set in the Golden Age of Sail), deals with ships, sailing, battles. Even in my first reading I noticed that the series might be one of the most intelligent descriptions of the art of management even put into fiction; with frequent keen insights into how an organization’s official hierarchy would often be subsumed and converted (sometimes for the better) based on custom and moral authority.

On my most recent re-read the issues of aging and worrying about disuse seemed to be in the forefront (at least, in the latter half).

So to say that I recommend it is not to say much. But a few offhand comments:

• O’Brian didn’t really write 20+ novels in the series. He wrote ~150 short stories in the series. Reading 21 really cemented that. There are images of the hand written pages, which seemed to flow out of O’Brian like the scene from Amadeus of Mozart writing at the billiard table. Many chapters work well if you were to remove them from the surrounding book. (I have read some of O’Brian’s short stories and I still remember the final lines of one that I have not read in 20 years). Many of the sea battles flow together and I have lost, but I remember scenes of Maturin exploring India with a street orphan, or a first year boy trained in music joining Captain and Maturin’s quartet then go skylarking afterwards.
• The use of language is spectacular. I particularly enjoy the epicly long insults where Maturin refers to a random character as (paraphrased) “an ill-looking, scrofulous, froward, garrulous, impertinent, tyrannical, spotted feckwhistle.” And I do plan on calling someone “little better than a republican or democrat,” which is surprisingly timeless. On the other side, “Congratulations on <X>” seems much weaker than “Give you joy of <X>” and I want to bring back that phrase.
• Discovering that Preserved Killick (Aubrey’s Stewart, looking in the movie like a side-bearded unkempt Eric Idle) used his diamond earring to etch “Preserved Killick, none so pretty” on a jailhouse wall is a detail that crams more psychology into a line than some books have.
• Aubrey and Maturin are probably the most human and balanced than the classic pairings (like Holmes/Watson or Kirk/Spock). Both are experts of their field(s) and hopeless outside of it. Each is flawed in ways that the movie (brilliant though it is) did not have time to touch on.

Rating — Enthusiastic

If you wanted high level bridge training…

Krzysztof Martens writes some of the most difficult bridge books I own (I only have a few of the dozen or two he’s published, because they are small press, hard to get, and make me feel stupid). He’s posting a series on “innovative dummy play” at his website. Honestly, I’m just barely good enough to get something out of it (and his accent makes some of it difficult to follow), but if wanted to see a webinar where one of the early problems is an entry-shifting squeeze (description in wikipedia), he has you covered.

But if you just want some random bridge stories, check out Rhoda’s Rules for Bridge, including the time she played bridge against Maxwell Smart (aka Don Adams).

Against Fairness

Fairness is over-rated (in games).

Looking at my recent convention gaming, I played some games that can be considered “fair,” but by time (and choice) I mostly played wildly unfair games.

I suppose I should define “fair.” Off hand, I can think of multiple types of fairness, and there are sliding scales in each:

Symmetry (Fairness of Abilities) — Are the actions a player can take the same for all players? For worker placement, some abilities may be blocked, but that’s a function of turn order (which can be manipulated) and some spaces may have pre-requisites. A totally fair game would be simultaneous actions; you could argue that Chess is unfair because White has the first move advantage, but it is otherwise symmetric.

Randomness (Fairness of Resolution) — If two players take the same action but dice/cards/etc dictate that player one gets a reward and player two gets a punishment, that is obviously unfair (but may of course be realistic) I’m not going to propose how to define that, but I think we can apply Jacobellis v. Ohio (“I know it when I see it”)

Fog of War (Fairness of Knowledge) — Perhaps one player knows quite a bit more about the world. (Fury of Dracula, for example. Dracula knows where he is, players have to figure it out). In many games the fog of war is symmetric, and players may pay for the information or not, but even in those games you can pay for it on a turn where not knowing is harmless (which again goes back to randomness).

(I’m sure there are more, but this is a tirade against fairness, not a dictionary).

“Not all fair games are boring, but all boring games are fair.” Hyperbole, to be sure, but a stereotypes exists for a reason. Unfair games may be unpleasant, infuriating, or atrocious, but they won’t be boring. And there are limits to unfairness beyond which we don’t tolerate them, but in general we love an underdog story. And how can we have that story without an underdog?

The Red Sox coming back in 2004 ALCS. Jimmy Connors run in the US Open in 1991. These are great stories. Hell, the Jordan Bull’s had one of the most stacked teams in history. Rooting for them was like rooting for Standard Oil to drown baby ducks in a thick black sludge, and we did it.

There are limits, of course. We wouldn’t want to see the Bulls trouncing a middle school team (uh … The 1992 US Basketball team means I’m not so sure). The underdog has to walk up and say “I’m your huckleberry.”

In Magic Realm you can spend 20 seconds failing four search rolls in a roll trying to find a treasure, then wait an hour to try again. In my game last week I aced the search roll on the first try and pulled two treasures from a three treasure stack on the next two rolls. (The odds of this were under a quarter of a percent, not quite one in a thousand but nice). Did I win? No. Did I remember that? Yes.

There is an article by Magic Realm designer Richard Hamblen somewhere (probably an old General) where he discusses some of the differences between boardgames, books and RPGs. If an RPG, a player gets the combination of the Sword of Awesomeness plus the Armor of Invulnerability then proceeds to murder all opposition (including the other players) it’s unfair and unfun, because the Game Master could just be playing favorites. It’s bad storytelling.

But — if anyone could (in theory) stumble upon them; but it was legal but almost impossible to get both … then the one time it happens it will also be unfair, but also a story for the ages.

I played lots of games last week. Mostly games I liked. I’d play Dice Realms again, but I can’t really tell you what happened in my four games. I can tell several stories from my one game of Magic Realm. It’s a slow game, and complicated, and ridiculously unfair.

All of us are just stories, in the end.

The same with the games we play.

Make them memorable.

Quick Gathering of Friends ’24 notes

• I played almost no new games.
  • The Guild of Merchant Explorers is a small and somewhat lovely “each player places their pieces after the same draw” (ala Take It Easy), but each player gets unique powers. I’d play it again, but it’s not a buy or even a suggest.
  • Path of Civilization — I played this twice because my first impression was “maybe” but my second impression was “No.” However, I’d say this was the buzziest game of the weekend (at least for the first few days I usually saw several games going at once).
  • Free Ride USA is technically new; but really just improves Free Ride. I will be buying it.
  • Faraway is clever, fast, great art, and I’d play it again (as an OK filler).
  • Let’s Go! To Japan felt too long for what it was (drafting cards and arranging them in an optimal order) but really nailed the theme and I’d play again.
  • I’ve played a few games of Winter Court prior to the Gathering and then at it. It’s a 20 minute Tom Lehmann game. I like it. No surprises.
  • The library of new games held almost nothing of interest to me. The games listed above were the most intriguing, the rest didn’t get much more than a glance.
• On the “old but new to me” front …
  • I tried two sessions of King’s Dilemma but cannot recommend it. A great idea … a game where you vote on what to do (as rulers of a kingdom) without knowing the full implications of each vote, but frustrating because all of the results seemed so random. It’s like playing a card game and your opponents play the three of hearts, a black lotus, a full house and then castle queenside. Only that would be more interesting, this felt like lazy design. Should have been a computer game. And let’s not discuss the fact that after ten sessions your game is useless. I will give this credit as “at least it tried something new” but this doesn’t quite rise to the status of “Noble Failure.” We live in a world where Oath exists. I may in fact dive into this in more depth as I have thoughts.
  • Star Trek: Ascendancy is one of the better “Dudes on map” game (which is not a genre I really care for) and while I doubt I’ll play it much more I did think it was well done.
• I spent a much larger chunk of time on old games I’d played before, including Dice Realms, Magic Realm, Oath, Pastiche, Cosmic Encounter, Feierabend, John Company, and (of course) Stationfall. I also tried a few small party games that were party games.
• Games I wanted to try and didn’t get around to — Hegemony, Interstellar.

Here’s my games played list

Update — There will likely be geeklists a plenty in a day or two, but for now you can check out Dale Yu’s post to see some new game content.

Also, some things I saw that may be of interest:

• The Slay the Spire prototype — I am already on record as a skeptic, but it was getting played.
• There were a gratifying number of older games getting played (not just by me).
• Really long games I saw played — Napoleonic Wars, Triumph and Tragedy, High Frontier 4 All, some 18xx (and of course I played Magic Realm).
• I didn’t play because the games often started near midnight, but perhaps I should try Blood on the Clocktower. My problem with Werewolf (etc) is that there are mainly only social cues ….

Era: Medieval Age

First of all, I would like to announce my formation of “The Committee to regularize the spelling of ‘Medieval’” I expect it to be divided into five warring committees within this Pope’s lifetime.

But secondly, discussing the game of “Era: Medieval Age” I like Roll through the Ages, this is RttA with a board. Instead of buying technologies you buy buildings (of various shapes and sizes) that you have put into your land, and some buildings give you dice or resources or special powers (like “Set a die”). Roll your dice up to three times, then get food and other resources, feed your people, resolve disasters, buy stuff … and do a bit of murder against your opponents.

But behold a more subtle, insidious change. Simultaneous turns. Roll Through the Ages had slow turns, sometimes you really do have a tough choice. Reroll for the food you need and risk a terrible disaster? Take some famine to try to inflict disaster on your opponents. But some turns are dead easy, roll, claim, done. So sure, you sat and watched on those turns, but the pace was good. Also, the purchasing decisions were relatively easy. Now you have people building and then agonizing over how to place things on the board (because touching building cause disease, and you get double points for buildings enclosed by walls).

So every turn is now a long turn. The downside of yahtzee (you are just watching other people for 2/3rds of the time) is kept.

Roll Through the Ages felt a bit too short, but that’s a good sign. This game overstayed its welcome. Not by much, mind you.

Rating — Indifferent.

Standards Do Not Always Fall

Back when I was playing Chess in High School, there was (some) snobbery about Blitz Chess, where each side gets only five minutes for a full game. In Searching for Bobby Fisher the classical coach (Ben Kingsley) is very dismissive of the game and blitz hustler (Laurence Fishburne), IIRC. But the thing is, you get a bunch of pattern matching training very quickly. No doubt part of the reason that there is a batch of incredibly young grandmasters is that you have an online community and the ability to analyze with computers that are stronger than any human, but part of it is also that they can play as many games in a week as I could in a year (even though I played Blitz, it was a 30 minute drive to the club, which was open one evening a week … on a school night).

So while I am sometimes the “grumpy old man yelling at clouds,” sometimes I am not.

And blitz with five minutes per player per game? So …. so …. slow. (But you can save time by making your next move before your opponent moves).

Enter bullet, at one minute per game. No doubt there are purists rolling over in their grave. But, as a counterpoint, you can watch a ten year old beat the G.O.A.T. Magnus Carlsen and celebrate for a few seconds before the next game starts, then stroll over to Agadmator’s for a full analysis.

I have certainly navel gazed, but ….

I see the video “Top Ten Games that Start with the Letter I” video link and all I can think of is Josh Lyman talking to a Trek-fan coworker.

Another thought on Levels of Expertise …

as an impediment to enjoyment.

I’ve been playing a bit of chess online recently (and watching GM Daniel Naroditsky on youtube). “Though we are not now that strength which in old days moved Earth and Heaven, that which we are, we are….” indeed. I’m easily 400 points worse than when I played seriously (probably 500 in reality), which is to be expected, but it still annoys me. Fortunately ELO exists and I’m playing appropriate people.

Watching the “Speedrun” (where he takes a new account from 1000 ELO up to Master? GM? level) is interesting because he explains each game tailored towards his current rating. It looks so easy when he does it, and particularly for the lower ELO, he only calculates a bit and makes generic good moves, and then his opponent messes up and he wins. At the 1700 level the mistakes take longer, but they come. (He is, after all, a GM).

Played two games of Stationfall last night. The first game was six players with ~3 players on their second game, 1 on his ~fifth game, the TaoLing (~20-25) and myself. I drew Billionaire/Boarder and decided to go with Billionaire and watched my position explode. The TaoLing of course opened with Billionaire to grab Kompromat and move towards Consort to get access to that paranoid bastards gun … I put two cubes on Billionaire next round to at least make him pay, but in general my position was terrible. My first two Kompromats were useless as their targets were annihilated (care of that TaoLing’s Botanist and Fang Moss) before I could use them. My third Kompromat was also never used, because the target died.

But … but … I just kept working to keep Fang Moss from running away with it (as did the other players) and waited, pushing Billionaire in the right direction. Meanwhile Boarder had three players fighting over her (2 cubes each) and she was dashing around the forward hub shooting people. By the five minute mark she had three (!) bribes on her, one of which was the Billionaires (and would therefore only score if he escaped, but I knew that if I Shrodinger revealed the bribe wouldn’t disappear due to Billionaire revealing). So, she was worth probably six points guaranteed, as long as I revealed before someone had her drop her gun or helmet.

So I did. Six points would have been enough for second (a victory in six player game) but a few more mistakes and I managed to spend my bribe to get the briefcase (for a net of three more points) and a win. TaoLing’s Botanist was second with eight(?). (If he’d remembered the other of Botanist’s special abilities, he’d have won). The other six players were something like 0, 2, 3, 4.

The second game was 4p (and done in <60 minutes, as the store was closing) and again a fairly solid win for me. And again I think it was just that I have many more examples to pattern match from.

Watching the Speedrun I’m surprised at how little calculation Naroditsky does. Of course he’s playing patzers, and he does have to do it now and then (more and more as he climbs up) but its all just pattern recognition. Solidify his position and wait. In a game like Stationfall you can’t calculate (although knowing if you have enough actions is always a big deal); I’m mostly just making moves that do a few things I like and spotting opportunities.

I’m reminded of Star Fleet Battles (or 18xx) …. games where I wanted to play and so I simply endured loss after loss until I learned all the basic tips and tricks. But when I taught 18xx to the game store I was at three decades ago, I simply played a game or two with my opponents and then let them play alone for a few dozen games.

Players are turned off by Stationfall because — yeah, the chrome means you are going to likely get surprised and be out by something. It’s a fast game, but still 1-2h, and to play for fifty minutes and then lose because “Oh, yeah, X can do Y” can certainly be frustrating. (There is a thread on the ION discord about how new players will ask “How do I repair this?” and be told “Oh, only certain characters can repair” and that’s it, they have no way to recover).

It doesn’t bother me, but I went bankrupt my first half dozen games of 1830.

Some games have elegant handicapping, but as most of the joy in Stationfall comes from the sudden betrayal, not the score, I’m not sure what to do. I do let newer players pick their primary vs secondary character later, but perhaps I should also let them choose from 3 (or more), which would also let them know which character is not a PC. I should probably also moderate a game or two where I don’t play and can concentrate more on explaining rules and options.

Ideally there would be more copies of the game around and the players would play on nights I’m not there; but it’s not like I’m going to not play Stationfall when I have the chance….

A satisfying third overtrick

Playing in a special unit game, I pick up a monster.

S: KQ8xxx H:Ax D:AQ9 C:A4

I don’t think this is quite worth stretching to opening two clubs, but it wouldn’t be the worst stretch I’ve ever made. In any case, I open 1 Spade. LHO passes and partner bids 1 NoTrump, semi-forcing (the “forcing” 1NT is part of 2-over-1 game force, but I prefer letting opener pass with a balanced minimum). I obviously have a huge hand, and I could bid 4 Spades, but partner may not have any, and don’t want to foreclose slam in NT (or any suit). Three spades is an underbid, so I decide to fake a jump shift and bid Three Diamonds. This is completely game forcing, but normally shows four+ diamonds. Oh well, you can’t have everything.

Partner bids Three Spades, and now I bid Four Clubs, showing my cheapest ace and confirming slam interest. If partner bids four diamonds, slam should be excellent and a grand is possible. If partner bids four hearts (which may mean a heart control or just general slam interest), that will probably make slam 50/50 ish, assuming she has the spade ace. Partner retreats to Four Spades. I give some thought to going, but we’re not shy, so I don’t expected as much as an Ace plus a King.

LHO leads a small heart and I see that Dummy is as I expected.

S: Ax H:QJ8xx D:72 C:J9xx

Partner’s three spades bid was thoughtful. She really shouldn’t have three unless she has a terrible limit raise, so Ax is certainly good enough. I play the heart queen and when RHO plays low I obviously play low.

I am likely getting a great board …. the opening lead appears to have given me a trick. But its matchpoints so I’m going to take every trick not nailed down. I take the diamond finesse and it wins, so I continue with the diamond ace and ruff a diamond, which holds (LHO played small, ten and then jack).

I cash the spade ace, cross to my hand (with a club) and pull trumps, which break 3-2. At this point my hand is three good spades, the heart ace and a club (with the King and Queen both out). In most positions like this I might concede the last trick and go to the next hand, but there’s a good pseudo squeeze. LHO will want to keep his heart king, RHO will want to keep his diamond king. Who will keep a club?

Especially because …. my opponent’s don’t know that I’ve faked my jump shift. It’s rare. I think I’ve only done it a few times in the last few years (although I don’t play much); and I never did it until I’d played for five or ten years. Novices and intermediates rarely fake shape, but sometimes you have to.

With careful play they might untangle the count, but often against a slam even good opponents don’t show count (and these opponents probably aren’t counting anyway). So I play my spades … on the last one LHO agonizes for a bit and lets go of the club queen. I then cash the heart ace. My RHO now agonizes and pitches … the club king.

Making seven.

This is really LHO’s fault (I think). RHO pitched his second heart early enough so that LHO should have known that I didn’t have a heart to get to dummy.

Then again RHO should have noticed on the diamonds that LHO followed three times and he had five, so he also should have known I was out, but he fell asleep during the hand (as we’ve all done from time to time) and relied on the bidding. So they both had to make a mistake, but they did.

+680 (for making six) would have been 18.5/20, but that third overtrick is 20/20. (Nobody bid the slam, but on a club lead it doesn’t make, so that’s fair).

Mage Knight Expansion

I haven’t played MK in over a year but I’ll certainly buy the new Mage Knight Expansion when it comes out. As I’ve mentioned, varietal expansions (where you just add new characters/cards/etc and not so much rules) are often fine, and in any case even if this adds a ton of chrome I’ve played 400+ games of Mage Knight and I’m willing to risk more on it.