Ambrosia Software Web Board: Best and Worst - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Thing about munchkin is that it can get really cutthroat. I recommend at least 4 players, and enough of a sense of humor that you'll actually want to play again after getting completely screwed over by your alleged friends. My game group only plays about two or three times a year. Seems to take about 10 weeks for people to forget how much they hate each other.

A game everyone can enjoy and not get mad over is Guillotine. Ah, those crazy French revolutionaries and their executions. I could play it all day, win or lose.

Most of the games my gaming group play involves back stabbing in one way or another. We're so used to it now that it's all considered very funny now. However when the need arises we can work equally as well as a group.

Munchkin is great if not taken too seriously, the main problem we have is with game length. They can go on and on and on, our record is something along the lines of 5 hours, and we never finished.

The Guild has been backstabbed in Enigma, by none other than Sarg himself. His Groovalicious Empire of Groove sat neutral for the first few months of the game, building up treasury cash... and now they're unloading the whole mess on us because we didn't want to help them blow up the Chicotoriat right away...

I'm bumping this topic.


I need something new to read. Preferably fiction. Throw some stuff at me. Convince me. Why should I read your suggestion?

World War Z - contains zombie goodness.
Callahan books - weird fun to read
Harry Potter books 1-6 should last you until Saturday when book 7 is out.

The night sky darkens, as the star that pass around Mu Ceti moves to the far side of the planet.

Orders has been being shouted out, all day as the Disconsolate Society of Perfunctory Enlightenment. Under the orders of Consul CheeZBall.

The Battleships fall into formation as they prepare for the onslaught of the Guilds powerful Avalanches.
Many a battleship commander has trained all of his life for this trying moment

all is silent waiting for to final command to commence the bombardment.

Scouts are sent ahead to make sure the powerful avalanche fleet has not detected there presents.

LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!
-CheeZBall, of the Enigma boards
AppleCore's note: Ironically, in the game, that fleet is called CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER.

AppleCore knew the Society fleet knew about his Avalanche swarm, code-named "a very angry dretch", so he had it completed in a massive underground silo with much ECM over the whole planet, essentially creating a fog.

The Avalanches warmed their engines. Liftoff in ten. Nine...

...The DSPE fleet was caught completely unaware. The Avalanches were essentially staring down the Irwins' exhaust ports before they were noticed. The Irwin commander got jumpy and ordered turret fire be directed at the sensor blip. Bad mistake.

"Open fire!"
The tail-end Irwin ate several antimatter warheads and railgun slugs. It was down almost immediately. The rest of the Society fleet was in a search pattern-and wasn't prepared for the attack from there. The fleets were too close for the dreaded Fireball missiles to be effective, and pointed the wrong way. They scattered, and vectored for the jump to Cortana. The Avalanches could keep with them easily, however, while showering them with laser fire, rails, and antimatter torpedoes.
Slightly more than half of the Irwins were destroyed-the rest had managed to flee to the nearby, essentially empty Cortana system. The Guild fleet pursued, and the Irwins attempted to flee again. Bad mistake-the hyperdrives were still cooling, and their thrusters weren't yet ready for combat action. The Irwin swarm was reduced to slag. Total Guild losses: one Avalanche. The fleet then returned to Mu Ceti, and did a clean sweep of the system, before heading out to neutral Adema for refitting.

Manta, on Jul 16 2007, 04:41 PM, said:

Fairly sure she's read those cover to cover several times

If you enjoyed Dan Brown's novels, I can highly recommend Sam Bourne. He's a British journalist turned novelist. His first book, Righteous Men is really good, reading his second one, The Last Testament now.

I like Leven Thumps (both of them), but they're more children's books than anything, you might not like them.

Lektor, on Jul 16 2007, 01:13 PM, said:

I was merely suggesting another rereading before the 7th book.

I'm currently working on finishing up every book Robert A. Heinlein ever wrote (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Past Through Tomorrow are absolutely necessary reads for everyone as far as I'm concerned), the Dune series, all the Lew Archer mysteries (I've finished all the Spencer mysteries by Robert B. Parker, also good), and my usual assortment of various other things. I'll read at least two or three novels a week, so I tend to go through them.

If you haven't read them, I'd suggest RAH's Stranger in a Strange Land, Huxley's A Brave New World, and Replay by Ken Grimwood.

-Pufer

Manta, on Jul 16 2007, 12:10 PM, said:

Already done that

I don't care for Dan Brown much. I liked Da Vinci Code, but too many people pissed me off taking the book as pure fact. GAH!

Brave New World is classic.. I've read it at least 5 times. I love it! Someone else suggested Stranger in a Strange Land. Perhaps I'll try that.

Pufer, on Jul 17 2007, 12:22 AM, said:

This was required reading in my English class this year, and, if we hadn't also read Wuthering Heights, I would say it was the worst book I read last year. Huxley just failed at writing compelling fiction. Sure his ideas are important, to an extent, but his novel lacked dynamic characters, people I could really sympathise with. They all felt to me like cardboard cutouts and the action, what little there was, comparable to a Medieval morality play. This is one book I can say that the only part you need to read is the introduction, where he far more eloquently summarises the message of his novel, and spare yourself from the rest of the drivel.

Wuthering Heights I disliked for similar reasons. I like to describe it as several bored rich inbreeds pretending their lives actually mattered.

To continue with the negativity, I wasn't really a fan of Heart of Darkness, I loved the ideas and history behind it, much more so than Brave New World, but Conrad definitely wrote like English wasn't his native tongue. It really was too bad his writing got in the way of an otherwise engrossing story. (Apocalypse Now is one movie I though was much better than the book, although every time someone watches the Redux version God massacres thousands of kittens).

My favourite piece of required reading that I hadn't read before it was assigned is the Oedipus Trilogy, which I read one at time from 7th to 9th grade (coincidentally in the order they written, too). If you haven't read it yet, do so now!

Right now I'm just reading some Sherlock Holmes and Philip K. Dick short stories, so I don't start anything too big before the last Harry Potter book. Although after that I'm going to need to find some new stuff to read for the rest of the summer.

His Dark Materials.

HDM > Harry Potter

^^^^The Complete and Unadulterated Truth

I'm glad you agree. Dude.. I saw the spyfly. Like the one they're going to have in the movie. It's amazing!

Like the actual prop?

Yes OMG.

The only thing that could top that would be to actually hold a lightsabre from Star Wars. (Or play with the alethiometer prop)

Oh wow.. I know. My sister has a friend who has a friend (stay with me ) Who works with all the props and things for Golden Compass. She got sent a bunch of pictures of the alethiometer and spyfly. Oh man this stuff is genius!

This post has been edited by moonunit4eva: 17 July 2007 - 02:14 AM

If you have the pictures why haven't they been posted.

Because they're actual photographs so that they cannot be spread around. This is very top secret stuff, but lemme tell ya.. you won't be disappointed!

The Real Darth Bob, on Jul 17 2007, 12:45 AM, said:

That's kinda' the point. Huxley's books are more about the ideas than the characters. Point Counter Point has virtually no storyline at all, it's just a series of somewhat interconnected character sketches and intellectual conversations establishing a point (actually, two primary points) about post-WWI society.

-Pufer

I just started reading Atlas Shrugged. It's really good..

For your own good, I must insist that you stop reading Ayn Rand immediately. A few weeks ago I began to read The Fountainhead. The characterization was pretentious and one-dimensional, but the story was fairly interesting (at least through the first part, "Peter Keating") and the writing was readable and engaging. Everything was going fine until Roark met Francon's daughter, at which point the characterization reached new heights of idiocy and absurdity. After he raped her (around 200 pages in), I went outside and winged the book into a large commercial trash compactor. I will never read Ayn Rand again.

Instead, I recommend The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz. It describes the severe oppression that existed in Poland during and after World War Two. It also documents the intellectual capitulation of four prominent Polish writers to Stalinist ideology. While the dire warnings against the pitfalls of communism seem a bit dated at this point, the plight of the Poles is just as moving now as it was when it was written. After reading about massacre of the Warsaw Uprising, I realized that all of my own problems are completely insignificant, which has proved to be a great stress reliever.

My friend wants me to go to The Golden Compass with her. Has anyone seen the trailer? Did they get anything right at all?