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Mars Colony: sixteen people, eight games, one pile of awesome.



(two more pairs out-of-frame)

Thanks to everybody who tried to save the colony: you guys rocked!

I played with Darin from Abbotsford BC and because we were both unfamiliar with each other's political parties, we had to spend some time finding common ground. We ended up with an environmentalist party (on Mars the Green Party is Red), a labor union party, a social justice party and a conservative-traditionalist party.

That's James and I in the front.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this game as the only two player games I've played have been romantic - as Ben pointed out during our intro to Mars Colony. I'm really glad I played it, though.

What I found most interesting was the simple give and take between the two players without any mechanics dictating narrative authority. I feel we worked very well as a team, even though we have different political backgrounds and understandings. It seemed we hit our flow well and I can only attribute it to the few minutes we started with laying down a framework for our play (politics, parties, health markers, etc.) and our sensibilities as players.

Jackson is keeping his cool, but his whole world is crumbling around him. Mars is torn apart by religious turmoil, and he's just making it worse.

We rolled Child + Politically Powerful for Sympathy, and since we wanted to bring in religion we brainstormed that the kid was a Dalai Lama-style prophesied incarnation, the Hope Child, and that in the minds of the faithful Kelly had a place in the prophesy as well (almost a madonna/child relationship). I expected the Hope Child to be a benign source of inspiration, but man was I wrong -- a couple rolls later and the patient but very critical babysattva was on a shuttle to Mars to chew Kelly our for heresy. What's worse than being lectured by a preternaturally confident seven-year old?

(the cupcake is courtesy of Mike Sugarbaker: he brought one to each GPNW organizer as a thank you, because he is a gentleman and a scholar)