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I just returned from a week spent ignoring all of my problems by attending the World Board Gaming Championships in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. esrblog and I first attended WBC last year and loved it, so we decided to avoid the cost and hassle of attending the Montreal Worldcon and went to WBC instead.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, WBC is a gaming convention for people who like to play strategy games of all types. Some of the games played are military strategy games, like one of esrblog's favorite, Commands and Colors: Ancients, but lighter "Euro" board games such as Empire Builder, Puerto Rico and Power Grid also abound. It is possible to find people to play a friendly game of just about every board game ever invented, but the main event at WBC are tournaments in a large variety of board games both old and new.

This year, esrblog and I took pains to talk WBC up to those of our friends who are interested enough in board gaming to be likely to go, and as a result never had any trouble finding people to game with. We'd invited one of our Michigan sword-fighting buddies to come out to Pennsylvania and crash with us while we were at WBC, and our friends Craig and Carrie were there, as well a number of friends we know from live-action roleplaying, and some of the gang who frequents our favorite game store, The Games Keep, also showed up, as well as Even pmat and shakati drove out to check out the scene on Friday.

So we had an excellent time overall, even though we did not win any tournaments, and despite the fact that the restaurant food most easily available in the Lancaster area is the kind of heavy, greasy "good ol' American" stuff I've been trying to avoid for the last 15 years. The week is kind of a blur, but moments do stand out. For those people on my friends list who don't want my graphic account of My Week to hog their Friends Pages, I'll put my blow-by-blow account under an lj-cut.

Monday

The three of us (me, esrblog, and our Michigan friend Jordan) arrived on Monday afternoon. Since we had nothing special planned for Monday, we merely checked into our hotel, went for an early dinner at a good Thai restaurant (the best restaurant we found all week), and wandered over to WBC to do some open gaming. We taught ourselves a game I'd never heard of before called Aqua Romana (with the help of esrblog), and Jordan taught us and several other friends a dice-rolling game called To Court the King. Jordan referred to it as "Yahtzee the Gathering," and that's a fairly good description of what it's like.

Tuesday

Not much to do until 6:00 p.m., when esrblog went to play in the Power Grid tournament and I planned to play in the Empire Builder tournament. So we drove to the [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]Wilbur Chocolate Factory in Lititz, PA, to pick up a five-pound box of semi-sweet chocolate buds. Last year's box lasted us nearly a year, and we expect this one will also.

After that, I was supposed to cover a telephonic scheduling conference with a judge for work at 2 P.M. This was supposed to be a routine scheduling conference, of a type I've handled many times before, several of them before the judge presiding over Tuesday's conference. Such a conference before that judge typically takes no more than 10-15 minutes, maximum. But Tuesday's conference turned into an hour of suck.

First, the judge was nearly a half-an-hour late, so the judge's secretary told everybody to call in to the conference number again, at 2:30. I tried to comply, but this time, my cellphone wouldn't connect, complaining that "all circuits are busy." So I called in from the room phone. Once again, it took nearly 10 minutes to connect the group.

During the call, the volume on my hotel room phone dropped to 20% of normal, so low that I could not make out what the participants were saying. So I apologized (hoping I was being heard) and hung up, tried to call again on my cellphone and failed. Then I tried calling the hotel front desk on my defective room phone, found that I could at least make out the desk clerk's voice, and explained the problem. She said "we'll send Maintenance to check it out."

Knowing that the conference would likely be over soon, I tried calling in on my cellphone once more, and succeeded. As I had suspected, the judge and parties were wrapping up the last of the scheduling matters. I contributed as best I could. The "conference" finally ended at 3:05.

As I was leaving my hotel room to head over to the hotel across the highway where WBC was being held, I ran into the maintenance guy and explained the phone problem. He looked at it, checked the connections, dialed a few numbers, and announced that likely some kid had spilled soda on it and partly fried some of the circuitry. "I'll get you a new one," he said. "You don't have to hang around." So I left him to it, went back to the conference, and spent the rest of the afternoon learning how to play Dominion with Craig and Carrie.

After 6, our tournaments began. esrblog did not do well at Power Grid, and I did just as poorly at Empire Builder. The 6:00 p.m. game in particular was a disaster. "Empire Builder", according to the WBC tournament rules, refers to all of the "crayon rail" games published by Mayfair Games; though they have the same basic rules, each game has a different map, and some have different rule mechanics. Players may bring, and play, any one of the games, so long as they can get three other people to agree (most of the tables were set up for four players).

Empire Builder is the oldest of the lot. It is played on a map of North America, and has been totally redesigned at least once. It was my luck to end up playing at a table using the oldest, and least well-balanced, versions of the game, with five players, two of whom are extremely experienced and skilled at the game.

As a result, the game turned into a 3+ hour nightmare. The gaming room was crowded and hot, all of the players made serious mistakes (even the experienced player who finally won), and disasters and derailments came thick and heavy. I was grateful to have managed to end the game with $52 M in last place (it takes $250 M to win) and have all of my necessary cities connected.

...to be continued....