Last Wednesday night we had decided that Cypher System Gods of the Fall was on. I was eagerly awaiting this one for several reasons. But on the day I conceded that sometimes life happens. One of the players was sick. Another could not come because their partner had to work and another may be working late. There was still a chance we would have three players so I planned to be there and the two other players did as well.
Fallback Policy
I have had a fallback policy for the past six months. That policy is that if only one or two players show up we play Earthdawn. It has only happened twice in that time. Wednesday it did boil down to only two players and so they were hoping for a game of Earthdawn. Unfortunately, life had other plans for us. I have started a full-time job working 8:30 to 5 in a town that is about 50 minutes travel away. That means to game (as we game in a lube bay of a service station) I have to take all the books with me. I already had what I needed for Cypher System, notebooks and a lantern I use for extra light. There was no room for the Earthdawn books.
Board Games are Great!
One of my players always has a bunch of board games in their car. In fact, thinking about this, most of my players do. They are obviously much more prepared for when life happens. So we went the route of the second fallback. Bryce, one of my players, grabbed out several board games and the three of us played those. Lords of Waterdeep was new to me and I really liked it. Kind of a resource management game flavoured by Dungeons & Dragons tropes. We then played Hoax which was a game much in the vain of Coup. I can’t say I liked this one terribly much. It was OK but there is a win condition that is pretty average. Finally, we played a game that was about collecting cocoa beans and getting warriors to raid others cocoa beans. It was called Otontin and it was horrible. It was one of those games that might be nice to start a fire with. The rules were confusing and the gameplay just plain awful.
That was what happened this week. That means no real review of one of the four games we are trialling. I am interested to hear about the fallbacks that other people use when life happens. Do you just call the night off or do you do something else with those that can make it? Let me know in the comments. Keep rolling!