Why are...

[bradfordl]

Wow! And I thought Greek & Hebrew were difficult.

My wife claims I register pretty high on the nerd-o-meter, but you guys are sending the needle off the chart.

 

[TigerBunny]

Wow! And I thought Greek & Hebrew were difficult.

My wife claims I register pretty high on the nerd-o-meter, but you guys are sending the needle off the chart.

Oh? Don't get us started on Star Trek.

 

[xapis]

Wow! And I thought Greek & Hebrew were difficult.

My wife claims I register pretty high on the nerd-o-meter, but you guys are sending the needle off the chart.

I was thinking the same thing, Brad. ...next time the wife calls me a nerd, I'm going to show her this thread.

 

[GrinningDwarf]

Wow! And I thought Greek & Hebrew were difficult.

My wife claims I register pretty high on the nerd-o-meter, but you guys are sending the needle off the chart.

I used to be fluent in Gamer's Cant...a 'cant' being a sort of 'trade lingo'. In high school we played a lot of wargames that had thirty page+, small-type rule books. (Such as Squad Leader and D&D.) Only quite a few of my friends couldn't understand the rules by simply reading them, so they would loan me their games to learn and then teach them how to play. It's been over twenty-five years, though, so my Gamer's Cant is probably kind of rusty. (But I dunno...maybe reading Calvin and John Owen have kept the mind sharp enough!!)

I was wondering if this thread had drifted off topic. Then I went back and read the OP....and I'm not sure what the OP's topic was!

 

[xapis]

LOL... I played MtG in high school. I had a bunch of nerd friends (I wasn't a nerd myself, of course ), one of which worked in and LIVED in a seafood restaurant (yes, literally). We used to go there after closing and have all-nighter tournaments with ten or twelve of us gathered around a big table in the dining area drinking sweet tea!

...and, btw, that restaurant was later closed down for sanitation reasons!

 

[Paleoconservatarian]

LOL... I played MtG in high school. I had a bunch of nerd friends (I wasn't a nerd myself, of course ), one of which worked in and LIVED in a seafood restaurant (yes, literally). We used to go there after closing and have all-nighter tournaments with ten or twelve of us gathered around a big table in the dining area drinking sweet tea!

...and, btw, that restaurant was later closed down for sanitation reasons!

I love seafood too much to work in a seafood restaurant.

I played MtG a little in middle school, but quickly came to the realization that CCGs are a bit too expensive a hobby. I was always more into the tabletop RPGs, like D&D, SWRPG, and Shadowrun.

But I dunno...maybe reading Calvin and John Owen have kept the mind sharp enough!!

My folks always used to complain about my gamer's cant... now they complain about my theological jargon! I can't win.

 

[TigerBunny]

I used to be fluent in Gamer's Cant...a 'cant' being a sort of 'trade lingo'. In high school we played a lot of wargames that had thirty page+, small-type rule books. (Such as Squad Leader and D&D.) Only quite a few of my friends couldn't understand the rules by simply reading them, so they would loan me their games to learn and then teach them how to play. It's been over twenty-five years, though, so my Gamer's Cant is probably kind of rusty. (But I dunno...maybe reading Calvin and John Owen have kept the mind sharp enough!!)

I was wondering if this thread had drifted off topic. Then I went back and read the OP....and I'm not sure what the OP's topic was!

Neither was I...and I'm the one that wrote it. It has, however, been somewhat edifying and entertaining.

 

[TigerBunny]

LOL... I played MtG in high school. I had a bunch of nerd friends (I wasn't a nerd myself, of course ), one of which worked in and LIVED in a seafood restaurant (yes, literally). We used to go there after closing and have all-nighter tournaments with ten or twelve of us gathered around a big table in the dining area drinking sweet tea!

...and, btw, that restaurant was later closed down for sanitation reasons!

Ahhhhh!!!! MtG is EVIL!

My wife and I are currently trying to catalog 14,000+ cards from 3rd to slightly past 5th edition. Once that is done they all go to Blackborders for sale. We had fun with it ( and a *slight* addiction ) but sanity and lack of funds asserted itself.

The sad thing is that I was around for the birth of the game. I was in a booth selling collectable art cards ( Frazetta, The Brothers Hildebrandt,...) when these nuts showed up trying to sell a game based on trading cards. They wanted $80-90.00 per box which was OBVIOUSLY insane.

I think I've forgiven myself for not buying a case. I think.

 

[xapis]

LOL... yeah. That was about the time I was into it, too. I had friends that had boxes full of Alpha and Beta cards... don't know if they ever came off those gold mines or not. I sold out after a couple years of it and was hardly able to make back even a fraction of the money I had put into it.

 

[GrinningDwarf]

MtG was after my gaming day. I got into it a little bit when I went back to college in the early '90s, but my hey-day was in the early '80s. (It didn't take long to realize that MtG was gonna be a money pit, so I didn't really pursue it very long.) We played a lot of D&D in the early '80s, but our favorites were historical board wargames. I still have a few of the games...unfortunately, Squad Leader is not one of them.

For those who may have been wondering, here are a couple of examples of Gamers Cant. The first is from Third Reich, a strategic game of Europe in WW2. It is from the rules section 10, on Strategic Warfare (SW) Resolution:

10.24 If Britain is conquered, her SW counters remain in play if America has entered the war. If America has not entered, British SW counters are reduced prior to SW resolution as follows: if conquered on a Fall turn, 1/4 (rounded down) of the British SW factors are removed; Summer, 1/2; Spring, 3/4; on a Winter turn there is no reduction. If both ASW and SAC counters are involved, the fractional reduction is applied separately to each. The turn of conquest is the game turn in which Britain fails to recapture London. Should any British SW factors survive the subsequent SW resolution, they are nevertheless removed from the game (after inflictin BRP and/or submarine losses).

That's one paragraph from a thirty-six page rule book. Games like these are usually so complex the rules include at least one page of Q&A, such as

(Question on Rule) 43.2 May a German unit attack or attrition across a neutral border as in the case of a German garrison unit in Rumania attacking Russia while Rumania is still inactive?

A. Yes, but such an action would be limited to German garrison units which, in turn, are limited to 20 factors on the Eastern Front. See also the last sentence of 25.6.

This is from a tactical modern air combat game called Flight Leader:

12.2.2.5 SPOTTING MAINTENANCE: Tallies and visuals are automatically maintained unless a spotting movement prohibition (see 12.2.2.2) applies during a Contact Phase, the contact is eliminated or exits the mapboard or the player wishes to drop (at any time) some or all of them. Unlike lock-ons (see 12.3.2.1.4), losing a spotting contact never has to occur during an Action Step.

Yes...we played these games for fun!!! (And I started in 7th grade.) For instance, a Flight Leader scenario pits two British Harriers against four Argentine A-4s in the Falklands War. Fun stuff!!

 

[TigerBunny]

Sounds a lot like WarHammer 40k rules GD