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Let's Talk Illuminati
- Legomancer
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- Dave Lartigue
I love the game but I understand why others don't. It's clumsy, the different Illuminatis are not remotely balanced, and it has the usual Ameritrash polarizing elements: dice, randomness, player elimination, take-that, direct attacks, general goofiness. It plays exactly like a game from the 80s, down to the fact that it doesn't recommend playing with three, assuming you have four people who are down for a game of Illuminati.
But it's got so much good potential! Part of the attraction for me is the theme. I was into the whole Illuminati conspiracy nonsense back before the Internet made everyone an expert on it. I'm the guy who was the only person who ever checked out Charles Fort's The Book of the Damned from the LSU library. I read The Illuminatus! Trilogy not once but twice, and then later a third time! Hell, I read Cosmic Trigger, which was as big a load of nonsense as could be communicated on paper. So yeah, I'm down with the theme, and that probably explains 80% of my enthusiasm for the game. (Side note: It really, really bugs me that SJG acts like it invented and owns the whole Illuminati, Pyramid, Fnord, Discordian, etc stuff, but we have a post to get through so let's not get me started on why SJG bugs me.)
I was completely stoked for the CCG, Illuminati: New World Order (INWO), but found it to be utterly unplayable as sold. It had absurd rules (you got one automatic takeover every turn. Imagine, Magic Players, if once per turn you could put down any creature you wanted without having to pay for it. What would your deck look like?) and broken cards that essentially gave a player multiple turns in a row. Back then I hopped on usenet and asked people, "Are we playing INWO wrong? All of our game last only three rounds." and got the response, "If your games don't last three rounds you're doing something wrong."
The game is dated not only mechanically, but thematically, with cards like "The Phone Company" but I think there's something there. It might be as simple as paring down the massive number of cards to a more reasonable stack to get rid of some of the dated and wonky ones, as well as the boring ones that don't add much. I know some folks have ways to fix INWO that I haven't really looked at. I should, but I just don't know how well I could sell even an allegedly fixed Illuminati game to my group again.
Anyone have any thoughts on these games?
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- san il defanso
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- ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
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Why did we play it so much? There weren't as many games back then, and Illuminati offered a lot of replay value. It was mildly funny, and allowed for a lot of player interaction: bluffing, bribery, threats, attacks, alliances, backstabbing, etc.
Why did we stop playing it? Other games came along. The extensive arithmetic was sometimes tedious, with lots of +/- 1 modifiers to be tallied with every takeover attempt, changing as people spent more money. The expansion with the mind control laser that could change alignments wasn't fun enough to justify the hassle. The biggest problem was that the endgame took almost half the game. One or two players would get close to winning, and then the leader-bashing would drag things out for a long time.
Although I enjoyed several CCGs, I didn't like the idea of an Illuminati CCG, so I ignored it. Eventually, the local game shop had a sale that I couldn't ignore: the factory box for $12 and the Sub-Genius expansion for $1. I have only played it a couple of times since then. The CCG did improve some things, especially by disposing with the tiny bits of money that were always drifting about the table with the slightest air movement. But other things seemed off, especially that one automatic takeover per turn.
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- Michael Barnes
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- Mountebank
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- Space Ghost
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- fastkmeans
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I still have a copy, and dragged it out for my brother (who had _never_ played back then) and my nephew (who wasn't born back then). I told them, "It looks cool, but we're going to stall out and this is going to take two hours before someone can push through the other players and win." But by some god draw or the other, I won in like 20 minutes. My brother says, "That was fun! Let's do that again!" Two hours later, we finished our second, and his last, game.
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- Legomancer
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- Dave Lartigue
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Space Ghost wrote: I think that INWO is a pretty good CCG -- it is different enough than other CCGs that it is interesting. However, it does take some time to get used to the rule set and the flow of play.
Which rules do you play by?
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- SuperflyPete
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- Salty AF
- SMH
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The artist.
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- Legomancer
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- Dave Lartigue
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SuperflyTNT wrote: If anyone wants a copy, hit up Eric J Carter on Facebook.
The artist.
Did he get "paid" in copies?
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