6 Days til GOF4

Well only a few days left til Gathering of Friends 4 in Clarks Summit. Kevin has been rounding up participants from Northampton, and I've been encouraging a few from Carbondale. Estimates look like about 16 players for Saturday.

I've been rethinking the tournament format during the week. At least 4 of the folks from up this way will not have played most of our games before, and certainly never played in a tournmanent.

The thing that bothers me a bit is the qualifying aspect - being forced to start with a 2-player game. For most of us, the choice of Chess, Stratego, Pente, etc. all makes sense. We've played these games before, and have a decent chance of winning unless we play an expert (i.e. the owner of the game). We will not be discouraged with a loss, and will give a good game regardless of outcome.

But what for the non-gamers? There will be a few there who are not familiar with the rules of chess. I have "Baseball Pinball" (a simple 'pachinco' or upright pinball game based on a baseball theme) which is noisy, simple and fun. Five 9-inning games take about 30 minutes. All the Kings Men is a simple chess variant, with easy to explain rules. And Lost Cities is a fairly simple card game that I can explain.

But will this be fun for the newcomers? I know that many of us will get a kick out of a game of chess based on the Fischerandom setup (eliminates the opening move memorization problem by randomizing the setup of back row pieces), and will enjoy the opportunity to play almost anything. We'll enjoy the rankings because it will make each game mean something, and encourage better play.

I am concerned that this phase of the event will be too dry for some - not knowing many of the games, certainly not considering themselves to be experts, do we risk turning them off in the first 30 minutes of the day by making them duke it out in a 2-player game of Stratego?

Should I instead match them up 4-player games of Settlers or Risk? Alhambra or Through the Desert?

Your thoughts would be appreciated, click "x comments" below and leave them!