Slashdot Mirror
Re-Release of Illuminati Card Game
William Tanksley writes "Anyone here remember the Illuminati card game? It seems that Steve Jackson Games got enough complaints about the horrid MagicTheGathering-clone version they'd released, and they're finally releasing an updated, full-color version of the original game."
As a going-away present to a friend of mine who liked conspiracies, but never had a chance to play the game. Is there no Dog?
teleny, friend of cats.
Well actually 9 is 2 squared = 3 * 3. 2 is of course a very important, being as it is 2 times 1 which is a very significant number, being as it is 1 more than zero which while not as significant. Should I go on?
Er... has Wired ever mattered?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I don't know one way or the other, myself - RAW may have invented the Illuminati as a name for the Worldwide Conspiracy he wanted to write about, or he may have drawn the name of a Worldwide Conspiracy that someone already thought existed. I can't help but imagine that RAW would have found it amusing to do the latter - he might have been hoping that those in the Region of Thud that actually believed the Illuminati existed would latch onto his Illuminatus! trilogy as a documentary work.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
INWO (The collector-card version) used action tokens instead of money. Each group got one action token (with, as usual for Illuminati, some exceptions) per turn, and could spend that token at any time until the player's next turn. Action tokens were used to initiate or participate in attacks, or to use some special powers. I'd say the equivalent in Illuminati Classic would be to spend X amount of money to /. another group.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
Steve is a genuine SF/Techie/Science geek too. Gibble-gobble, gibble-gobble, one of us!
And they're not owned by Hasbro!
Stefan
If there aren't enough cards for which this alignment makes sense, then just add a rule that Slashdot and Microsoft interact as if they each have an extra alignment that opposes the other's.
I agree with another poster, though, that Slashdot shouldn't really have any outgoing arrows. It's not really set up to Control other power groups directly. On another note, will the new Illuminati editions have a Linux Community or equivalent card, I wonder? (Guess I'll find out when my order comes in... *_*)
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
You name it. Also designed games back in the day.
But Illuminati was always one of my faves for game design. It's the sense of humor about paranoia, I guess. That plus it was a lot easier than designing RPGs. The whole simplicity movement in gaming was way overdue, IMHO.
Will in Seattle
Steve and I had fun writing it...
Some info about the re-release that I haven't seen covered here yet:
The Network's victory conditions have been changed, again. In the original little thin box set (with expansion sets 1 and 2 (and 3, but nobody ever used 3)) the Network had a special victory condition of 15 transferable power. Since it starts with 7, getting that 8 wasn't too hard-- IF any transferable power came up at all. The problem always was that everyone wanted transferable power, so the Network had to hope that the cards came up right so they could get what they needed to win.
The (first) Deluxe edition came out, with regular-sized playing cards instead of miniatures (yay) and cardboard money instead of paper (boo), and changed that to 20 transferable power. In our experience (myself and friends) this became nearly impossible. 13 xferable power is a *lot*, considering that only 1 group (the CIA) has 4, only a handful (5 or 6) of groups have 3, and maybe a quarter of the groups total have any.
Now in the new re-released deluxe, that's been upped *again* to *TWENTY-FIVE* (25). What I want to know is: has anyone *ever* played the Network in the new deluxe edition and won? IMHO the Network is now tougher to win with than the Servants of Cthulhu, who were never given a prayer to win by anyone.
Some cards were changed around as well between old Deluxe and new Deluxe; if there's sufficient interest I'll drag out my copies of both and diff 'em and see how it comes out. The only difference that I can remember right now is that the Semiconscious Liberation Army seemed to have been weakened (lost its transferable power, only +1 to destroy any group now.)
Also, for those who were talking about Hacker (another SJG release), there's a supplement called Hacker II: The Dark Side that has some neat stuff in it. Viruses, black Ice, outdials, more cards, more system expansions, more funny systems that can be added to the net with wacky specials, multiple accounts per system, even a 'net worm that can be released. I haven't had a chance to play it with the expansion set yet, but it looks good. Anyone have comments on the playability?
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Please moderate down to -1, Flamebait. Thank you.
wasn't 4/20 hitler's birthday?
This comes from knowing most of the former employees from the beginning...
23
For your own safety and that of others, you might want to ease off on the coffee a little. ;-)
--
If this has anything to do with Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's books in the Illuminatus! and Robert Anton Wilson's continuation in The Masks of the Illuminati and Schrodinger's Cat I am definitly gonna get sucked into this. Even if it doesn't, Illuminati stuff is cool and I'll probably play anyways.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
INWO was not a horrid M:tG clone. It was a great game (which I think M:tG is, too), that you didn't need to invest your life savings in in order to have a shot at winning (unlike M:tG ;-)). Though I really look forward to being able to get the original game, it should be great fun. And it isn't a CCG, which means I can get my friends to chip in, too.
It could be....
Post time: 05:03am ; 5 - 3 = 2
Post date: 21/9 ; 2+1+9=12 ; 1 + 2 = 3
XXIII
Go and look at the back issues...they're all about the Web (and making stupid puns about spiders and being caught in webs and such).
Everyone seems to think that this guy singlehandedly invented the Illuminati. He merely took a bunch of existing information and put it into books, with a bunch of lame sex scenes thrown in. The Illuminati have been around for centuries.
You want to talk about a waste of money (well, not really, but it reminded me of this anyway, so whatever :).. I read in Inquest a long while back about this Illuminati tournament.. When it got down to the two finalists, one guy told the other he would pay him 50 bucks or so to throw the match. Then he played that card that lets you go back on your word while your opponent still has to honor his side of the bargain, and the move was ruled legal. :)
What better game can you think of that actually says you can cheat if you can get away with it?
~ Kish
Program your robots a turn in advance to navigate around a maze containg hazards, conveyors, turntables etc. Confused by the fact that you may not have the right program cards, another robot may bump into you throwing your calculations off, and the robots shoot at each other. Long.
Much simpler, and yet far harder. Move robots with no brakes around a board to reach a target. You have to hit things to stop. Usually there is nothing in the right place to bounce off of. So you have to move several robots. Sometimes you have to work out 20 or 30 moves in your head, and then announce before anyone else gets there. (Best call I know of was 63, which involved iteratively bouncing two robots off of eachother).
Probably the best board game ever. A sort of colonisation/town building game, with a random board made up of hex tiles. Superbly balenced, and reasonably quick.
Actually, this one is easy enough for non-geeks, but has some of the same sort of puzzles as RoboRally - work out how fast you can go without ramming an island in a randomly twisting river.
Euphrat und Tigris (Hans im Gluck) is good but I can't work out how to win. Sixteen-thirty-something (Warfrog) is a very strange twist on the normal board wargame idea.
Needless to say, the best boardgames come from Germany, although there are some good US companies too. Rules translations are sometimes needed from Game Cabinet. In the UK we have the problem that board games are regarded as something you do at Christmas so you don't have to talk to your relatives.
Alignment: Straight, Criminal, Corporate
Attribute: Computer Image: a Borg Cube-ship with the Microsoft Logo
Slogan: "Who do we want to assimilate today"
Power: 4
The only card in the deck with 5 arrows out (2 on either side, 1 on botton). Microsoft, if controlled by the Network or the Bavarian Illuminati, is +10 to control any computer group If controlled by the Servants of Cthulhu, +20 to destroy any computer group
There is no Eric Conspiracy. You must be (fnord) imagining thing. Here, let this nice young men in their clean white coats stand with you until the next Orbital Mind Control Laser comes over the horizon ... er, I mean, isn't it a lovely sunset this evening?
i do
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Oh man, I played so much Traveller in HS and first two years of college. My set, of course, got worn out.
Definately had a well thought-out universe and time line. Unfortunately, it was two dimensional. Traveller 2300 fixed that, but had a lot of other problems, including a way-too complex rules system.
I wish I had people to RPG with. I miss my old group since I moved out of state. Sigh.
I wasted so much money on this game so many years ago, I can't wait to waste some more on a re-release. Even if you didn't want to really play the game, the cards themselves were hilarious and sometimes all too true.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I basically dropped out of the whole sci-fi/gaming scene when these pernicious collector games hit the scene. I continued roll playing for years after that with my small group, but the whole big "gaming community" that we used to hang out with was a thing of the past.
My poor 11 year old son has fallen prey to this disease now.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
They've used the money from that 'horrible' game to finance this one. The Illuminati 2000 has been in the works for a LONG time.
If you like conspiracies, you're gonna love this book.
Wow. Remember the early 1990's... back before that "Internet" thing became popular? Back when Boardwatch was all the rage and magazines like Wired didn't even matter?
Seems to me SJG led to the World(tm)'s first run in with the EFF. I guess we ought to all go buy a starter deck (even though we're all recovered addicts and this will just get us hooked againn) just to support the beginning of the end of electronic privacy and the efforts that the EFF have put in to protect us.
-Chris
(Okay, so it's off-topic, but I felt it was worthwhile.)
From the website(s):
Not yet listed at amazon.com or bn.com, but you will find the lowest price with PriceSCAN
#3 - you and me both brother. Only it was 1985 for me.
Junior prom, I actually had a date and went. It was kind of a dud. I learned from my mistake. If only I knew my wife then.
Have the cards been updated? I sincerly hope so, so they still are so true and to the point...
regs
kampi
-- a blessed +42 regexp of confusion (weapon in hand) You hit. The format string crumbles and turns to dust
I must say that I like both games. Very similar play, though different enough to appeal to me for different reasons.
One thing I wish they'd have done was add attributes to the new cards. That would have been a nice touch.
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
OK,
I sucked and bought loads of cards for the
collectible game, but all that time I just
wanted the old game where you just could
play without preparing your deck for days
in advance.
I was really interested in the One-with-all
edition, but then half of the cards would
be useless and it still was too expensive.
No, Illuminati 2000 or whatever must be the
real thing, like the _old_ game was.
Patrik Carlsson
Unfortunately, Hacker's been out of print for a while too, though Hacker II (expansion set, no good without the original) is still out in stores. If everyone started pestering Steve Jackson, think we could get him to bring it back too (possibly even with Hacker III)?
I found the game bloated, but those cards kicked ass. Disgruntled postal workers, Flat Earthers, Alien Abductees, hell even Eliza!
(It seems like everytime I mention Eliza, no one knows what I'm talking about, but this is
Looks like the new version will be really easy to retro-tread. Ah my, the hours of time "wasted" on realpolitic cutthroat monopoly...
I wonder when they will dust off Ogre and GEV, and release them as network aware computer games? "These kids today" just don't seem to get the point of (ahem) real worgaming, but the aforementioned could corrupt many minds.
Ahhhh, the Illuminati card game. I remember it well. I remember once in a friend's basement I almost pulled off the Great Double Cross. Rolled a 2 on 2D6, the whole nine yards. Then my damn brother pulled some "screw you, buddy" card out of his butt, to which I had no counter. So close, yet so far away . . .
:P Is that some sort of weird gaming record?
Wow. I think I'm going to buy this. I still have my old cards. Huzzah for SJG! =D
And it's about time! What. . . only four years since Assassins came out?
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
A couple of months ago, a friend of mine was rummaging around in this old hobby store and found an old version of Illuminati still in its shrink-wrap. He bought it, of course, and we all figured out how to play it.
It's one of the weirder games I've ever played, but it's really fun if you have 2-3 hours to kill. I can still remember hanging out after hours at the local computer store (massive Geek points here) eating chile relleno burritos and playing Illuminati.
Actually, for really high Geek points, Donnie brought it to the line for Star Wars (TPM), and we played it while waiting for a movie.
The game was a lot better than the movie, but that's not saying much. I've had better sunburns than TPM.
-- I can't think of anything witty to put here. Sorry.
Hacker was SJG's companion game to Illuminati. It was all about breaking into computer systems. The systems made up one huge "power structure" like in Illuminati, and you'd roll dice to get a presence on each system. You had to be able to trace a path from one of your systems to break into another, or else have a dialin. You started with a Plain Clone, but could move up to a Hackintosh or even an Amoeba.
Hmmm. Going to have to drag that out sometime.
(And, before someone decides to flame me, I know the difference between hacker and cracker.)
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
wait... was that a game or not ... ?
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Does Raisa Gorbachev count ? If so, we may be fnord in for another reaping by the Law of Threes.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
The Illuminati have been around for centuries.
... and so have the overly paranoid.
and they are only uncommen... which tell me that someone didnt know how to play... or all the cards. ( this is why i quit M:tg cause i couldnt remenber all the cards... )
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Yeah, the new Illuminati is great. They took all of the cards from the old set, slapped art on them from the collectable game they did, and re-released. Much as the old game was a pain for managing stickers, though, I liked the old money better than the new cardboard chits.
They also released an updated "expansion set", since Illuminati is getting a little dated, they wanted an expansion that brings it up to date. It's just as many cards as the base game, so combining them gives you a very different feel (makes things like Nuclear Power Activists nearly useless, though, because of the increase in card number).
Here's hoping SJGames comes out with an updated Hacker (for those who don't know Steve Jackson Games was considered very technically hip for a game company, and ran one of the best BBSs back when BBSs were all there were). Hacker was a great game (if a little silly), and made for wonderful in jokes all night long with a crowd of CS geeks. It had cards like "Moon Microsystems" (Sun), "HAL" (IBM) and many other great puns and twists.
When I was in living in residence at the university I attended, a bunch of guys would play a game and I think it may have been Illuminati (the original one- this was back around 1989-1990). It came in a little black plastic case and contained *lots* of little diamond or triangular shaped bits of paper. Does this sound like Illuminati? I've been in lots of games and comics stores looking for this game, but I haven't found it. :(
Man, I had Car Wars...nobody would ever play with me (pout)...but I spent tons of time designing the coolest cars...I loved it...I would just use their system to design up all sorts of cars...it was great...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
How would you ever deal with those itsy bitsy paper megabucks online? The just have to be fiddly and easily blown about for the game to work properly. Hmmm... I see a worthwile project in the making.
That's very odd. I'm still on Illuminati Online and I still have my shell account. It could be bacause I have one of their telnet-only accounts, which would be much less useful without a shell.
--
Someone you trust is one of us.
Card games are fine. The myriad strategies involved when there are literally thousands of different cards with all the possible interactions, are at least as complex as any RPG. Most of my fellow gamers play CCGs, sitdown RPGs and Live action role playing as I do. Trust me, CCGs and RPGs can be equally complex and interesting. Unless you mean Pokemon:)
Interested? email johnzo@cyberus.ca
The trading card game was still a nice game
(if all player agreed to buy the same amount of
cards). and the cards and drawings were very
cool.
i hope there will be localized versions again -
i love the german inwo edition with german cards
like "zuvieldienstliestende" or "stammtischpolitiker".
Hey, Cheapass Games (www.cheapass.com) produces some really good stuff. Kill Doctor Lucky is one of my favorites. mjt
-----------
-----------
100% pure freak
Anyone out there have a copy of the FIRST edition Top Secret (from TSR) rulebook? Please, send me an Email... Thanks!
J.R. "Bob" Dobbs (high epopt of the Industrial Church of the SubGenius) is currently at #1 in Time's poll of the 100 Phonies and Frauds of the Century.
The fact that we can't come up with a satisfactory response to that question itself answers it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
One of the many places you can download an Autoduel clone is http://www.pamedia.com/cpgames/autoduel/autoduel_d ownloads.html Hours of future-retro fun with machine guns and flamethrowers
I've been with them for about 5 years, and they've been great, but I'm leaving soon for more bandwidth. But they're a good shop - runs on Linux & Apache, EFF supporters... I'll miss 'em.
Sorry, since there is no 5 in any of that, you must be wrong.
Anyone besides me still have a copy of the original plastic-box set (and expansion sets I and II), with the dinky cards and the tissue-paper money? When the game was going badly, one could always fake a sneeze and blow everyone's money all over the table (we often played with elaborate rules controlling such events, not to mention set rules for cheating for the banker).
INWO made some playability improvements to the original game, but i still think the original was more fun. The more wildly varying winning requirements for the different Illuminati helped. It led to each player being treated very differently... like when the Assassins were encouraged to kill groups early in the game, but radically opposed later. Or the tilting-at-windmills attacks on the Gnomes of Zurich to get them to spend money.
Ah, so many happy memories...
---
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
Yea, SJ goes to alot of conventions. I bought my copy of the Principa Discordia from him at marcon(www.marcon.org). He's a hell of a nice guy, when they tried to charge tax on the book, i told him i didn't belive in the government, so i didn't have to pay the tax, he let me. Sadly though later that day at the marcon dance i got a picture of him doing the Macarena.
Non gratis rodentus anus
My buddy bought this game months ago and already bought an expansion to it! What a great game!
.since that's actually what you do. You don't just win the game.
.my friends weren't happy with me that day!
I'ld been playing it since the late 80's or early 90's and have gotten rather adept at arranging wins for myself. .
I've managed to pull wins out of my butt the last two times I played. The last time was the most memorable though. 5 player game. Me and another guy were horribly behind in terms of victory conditions. Next turn around each of the other 3 players would have won so we could stop them all. Suddenly I realized that we could share victory conditions if I gave him enough cards to win and he gave me the the last 2 "Wierd" groups I needed.
Ah. .
** Martin
For improvisation with rules or preparation, you might try a story-telling game.
Once-Upon-a-Time involes making up a fairy-tale including all the elements on cards in you hand, and ending with the line on your ending card. Other players may interrupt if you mention anything on one of their cards, or by using a generic interrupt when you play a card, and then have to continue the tale.
Baron Munchausen is even more free form, with little tokens as the only props. Players take it inturns to tell tall tales of their adventures. Other players may interrupt with challenges to the story (by paying a token), in which case the storyteller must either correct themselves or pay to refute the challenge. At the end, players spend their remaining tokens voting for the best story.
Star Fleet Battles: now there's a waste of money.
support gun control: take guns from cops
A reissue? I'm still trying to sell 4,000 of the first batch.
Steve Jackson Games also publishes a rather nifty RPG called GURPS. You can download a free, completely playable 32-page version of GURPS (called GURPS Lite) at http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite. And I just so happen to have some support material for GURPS Lite on my own web page at http://home.austin.rr.com/darkbox/gu rpslit.htm. Happy gaming!
They completely disrupted all of our D&D sessions :-)
In 1993 Wired was reporting that WAIS was a wired technology. They didn't talk much about the Web until they had their own Web site. Then it was OK to push the Web as a killer new technology. Man, I still remember when you had to register with a username and password to use http://hotwired.com. At the time it probably seemed like a good idea to use this new technology to make a big BBS. They got a bunch of shit from people because it didn't work properly in Lynx. I didn't care, I had NCSA Mosaic running on my 386 with Linux 0.9 and X11R5.
Absolutely, i always hated the card game over the original because you couldn't get into the haggling matches w/ Megabucks. Also, it seems they wanted to give every card special abilities; made things way too complicated.
Yes, seemed like an incredible leap of imagination at the time...wow, how things change...now there really are Iranian moderates, and they're changing the world, for the better. Who knows, some day, maybe Iran will even stop funding terrorists with Government funds. Just imagine if the British Gov't was officially supporting the Ulster terrorists with Official Funds, or if the USA was giving the Kosovo Liberation Army M-16's and M1 tanks...
Yes, seemed like an incredible leap of imagination at the time...wow, how things change...now there really are Iranian moderates, and they're changing the world, for the better. Who knows, some day, maybe Iran will even stop funding terrorists with Government funds. Just imagine if the British Gov't was officially supporting the Ulster terrorists with Official Funds, or if the USA was giving the Kosovo Liberation Army M-16's and M1 tanks...(and linux training classes)
QUOTE:
Additionally, SJG was awarded approximately $50,000 for its losses. SJG's lawyers got $200,000. Who really won this case? Dunno. Think they did pretty well. I started playing GURPS when I heard about it. Know a lot of other geeks. I still buy GURPS stuff just for nostalgia. And Illuminati Online is a rather popular ISP. Steve Jackson games is a great company, though, and it deserves all the business it can get.
The discussion of the Slashdot card brings to mind the applicability of the game paradigm to innumerable custom spinoffs. Way back when, some folks threw together a Brown U. Illuminati set that was extremely cool (I won't burden this post with any of it, becaus the jokes were mostly very inside and very early-'90s-topical). The Burningman Illuminati idea shows some potential. Basically, any subculture with enough baroque politics is destined to be turned into an Illuminati module. It's just a matter of time...
I always regretted that INWO took out the 'Income' attribute. Kind of makes some of the groups (Gnomes and the Multinational Oil Companies) pointless.
SlashDot
Power:1 Money:1
2 arrows out (L/U)
Special: Once a turn, owner may declare a given group "Slashdotted." This group may not attack, lend power to an attack, or grant money to an attack. If attacked, no money can be spent on defense by anyone other than the group itself, but defender's power is doubled (hard to attack a site you can't reach)
If owned by the network, Slashdot POW triples (3).
(Notes: Pow and money are weak, because the special is strong, and historical concerns. This really needs to be tested in a game-the power may be a little to strong. Pow modifier is a beta idea-/. should become more effective if combined with the network, but how much so depends. A POW 3 card with a special is a pretty potent card. 2 Outgoing arrows is another way to restrict power-game balance is important)
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
they have all kinds of old crap like that there. Also look at rec.games.board.marketplace.
Read "The Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling.
when I was in Highschool and college. We were such nerds, we were playing Illuminati the night of our senior prom. Not that any of us could have gotten dates even if we had wanted to.
I remember when SJG was offering to trade one Rare card for each INWO Instruction Booklet (that came with starter packs) because for some reason they were out of stock. My friends went down to SJG HQ (they just happened to live in Austin, coincidence? I don't think so) and traded in a pile of useless rulebooks (yes, they were useless ) for whatever rares they wanted. Note to SJ: Thought everyone forgot about that little printing problem, eh? heheheheee...the 'net never forgets...
It's nice to see a real game return! Along with Cosmic Encounter (which was re-released a few years ago), Car wars, AD&D, V&V, Traveller, Champions, Star Fleet Battles, Paranoia, GURPS, etc, this was a game I used to really enjoy playing years ago when I was single and had a lot free time to spend with friends.
I just bought the latest version of Car Wars in a fit of nostalgia and would like to get Illuminati too.
It's also nice to see someone publish a card game where the ability to win isn't simply a measure of how much money you throw into it. My one foray into playing Magic left me very unimpressed.
Don't feel bad for me not being able to play. I currently play Monopoly with my 3- and 5-year-olds (and eventually the 1-year-old and baby...) and will work them up to more interesting games once they learn to read and count money for themselves, etc. I know they will love these old classics.
Rick
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
mmmm...beer...
I was one of the first five or six people to play Illuminati. I was working at SJG in 1980/81, and one evening Steve brought out this new project, a card game. Steve Jackson is an insane genius-type, but quite fun...
(I also co-wrote one of his other games, BTW. Look it up.)
I don't actually have anything useful to say here. I just wanted to get that subject line in after the other two. :-)
Sorry.
What's this nonsense about 'action tokens'? You only get two actions per turn...period.
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
Seriously, if you've got a copy of the first edition, check the list of playtesters for someone with two hyphens in his name.
That's my Canadian name. I gave it up when I moved back to the US, so it's shorter now.
I still owe Steve a computerized version of Darwinopoly - maybe I'll do it for Linux first.
Will in Seattle
silly dealer, (or speculator, in which case I wish the fires of Hell upon you) go to ebay and get rid of them for cost.
Get down off your cross. Someone may need the wood.
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
While it's still a long way off, JohnCon represents all things geek, yet without a computer.
Pre-register now and come play all kinds of geek games like Illuminati, Spammers, Cults Across America, Iron Dragon, Over the Edge, AD&D, Call of Cthulhu, GURPS and more!!!
And after JohnCon, come to the Barnstormer's Spring Mainstage. You'll be coming down off your pixie stik high and still have enough attention span to watch a wonderful professionally directed musical!
Only yards away from JohnCon's Gilman Hall in the historic Arellano Theater.
-Chris
INWO never really appealed to me, but me and my
buddies used to play game after game of the
original game, so I for one am happy to see it
back. Ah, the backstabbing, second-guessing,
and downright dirty dealing of that game!
Now what I'd like to see is an online version!
:-)
Bryce
Heh, the game has been on the market quite a while now. I got it as soon as i could, and that was about 2 months ago. :)
The expansion is neat, And the 2 new conspiracies means there are even more ways for the UFO's to win.
It's nice to see SJ-games get a grip and go back to the real illuminati, not the money wasting junk INWO was.
What Illuminati really needs, of course, is a slashdot card.
- For example, Catan, Manhattan, 1630-something, Civilisation and both Illuminati games are point totting games, but only the first two are German, the third being a rare good UK game, the rest being American of course.
- Mississippi Queen, Ricochet Robot, Elfenland, Bausak (where you build a tower of awkward wooden blocks), Carabande (a big wooden motor racing game where you flick the counters) are all German (some republished elsewhere), and don't involve points.
I would agree that point totting games can get frustrating if you play with people who are too deparate to win. In Manhattan in particular the last player each turn can often spend 1/2 hour figuring a play which will turn the whole game upside down (but I've seen Monopoly played that way too). The solution is to play games for fun. Beer helps.I became completely infatuated with Illuminati after a friend taught me to play on his copy of the original tabletop game. My local games shop had packages of 12 INWO starter decks for sale for $10, so I decided to try the newer game on the reputation of the old.
The CCG drove me crazy! The original Illuminati was complicated enough -- it takes new players forever to learn the rules. A friend and I, both familiar with the original game's rules, spent an entire evening trying to learn INWO, and failed miserably.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. -- G.K. Chesterton
On the night of your senior prom, did you:
1) go the the prom with a date
2) go to the prom stag
3) play Traveller
4) play AD&D
5) play loderunner
6) surf the web
7) chat on irc
8) turnips, turnips, turnips
I'm pretty sure my choice was 3, since it was 1984.
George
I lost an awful lot to a serious RPG as a high school (but they gave it all back in college whe I played with a coed group). I also took part in the CCG trend in recent, though it defintely was not the same.
I really miss both the depth of those games and the bouts of wild improvisation (rules were really only suggestions and no victory condition meant that the beauty of play was the only draw.) But these things took so much preparation that life has made there continuation impossible. I really think that this is the fundamental difference between mid to late 80's games and what people seem to be playing today.
Oh, that and "Bard's Tale" while fun, was not even close to real game, while Quake offers a credible alternative.
Paul
Thanks! :)
Like dropping your car counter from a height of 2-3 inches. Really sucks in the summertime with fan blowing all around ; )
Great game.
I even drove a 'Killer Kart' (unarmed, of course) of my own quite a few years back. Renault 5 ('Le Car')
**>>BELCH
Originally, cards functioned differently in the playtest version. And all the playtesters kept changing the cards and making new ones.
The whole idea, in case you missed it, was to have fun and to get really, really paranoid. The latter was far easier than the former, of course.
But, I agree that INWO was overly difficult. It lost a lot of playability.
Will in Seattle
1. went to the prom with a date
...
but then, I'd sent in an article to White Dwarf with new Traveller rules for Gravity effects the day before
and you couldn't surf the web back then. IRC wasn't around. We used real typewritten letters and Liked It!
Will in Seattle
The original release of Traveller, 3 or 4 slim but action/stat-packed volumes and a pair of dice in an elegantly plain small black box, was one of the most intriguing and satisfying role-playing purchases I ever made. Their production consisted of very actual pictures, and lots of tightly packed, highly informative and inspiring text, printed on very high-quality paper. I still have it and I'm never selling it.
When role-playing games really caught on, they became way over-glamourized IMHO, with glitzy professional art. The more they rendered the images for you, the less clearly the images rendered in our heads.
Remember the original editions of AD&D's Dungeon Master's Guide and Player's Guide? They really felt like they had magic in them!
The later editions felt and read like grade-school text books.
**>>BELCH
Fallen empires was a damn good set!
I just wanted to apologize for that last post. I went a little overboard. Bad day and all that.
Sorry!
Card games are for those BRAIN IMPAIRED individuals that cannot grasp a full blown RPG...if you need help thinking refer to the card :) It is natural tho in this day and age, i cannot think for myself someone do it for me...oh thank-you steve jackson games, now what should i eat for dinner...thanks chef boyardee
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotected sex.
Bite the hand.
you nitwit the actual group exists.....
I've loved this game. Ever since a friend told me about it after I finished reading the Illuminatus trilogy (which is what the game is based on. It's by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, and is as wacky and mind-blowing as the game's cards would imply...)
;)
I bought the original edition of the CCG and had a blast with it, if nothing else for the hilarity involved when performing takeovers with various cards.
"I'm going to use the Republican National Committee to control the Women's Liberation Front..."
The original tabletop game is a blast, especially with a bunch of people clustered around the playing area, trying to control everything they can.
Remember, the Illuminati are out there, watching you...
... but what makes you say that when everytime you mention Eliza, no one knows what you're talking about, but this is /., you have faith?
Steve Jackson always made my favorite games. Car Wars was and is my all-time favorite rpg. The simplicity of the system made it extremely enjoyable. Does anyone know if Car Wars still survives in some form? Seems to me like that is what games like Twisted Metal and Vigilante 8 really SHOULD be.
dshahin
to mail me, first remove the evil spam.
I played that game so much that my cards started to fall apart. My favorite variation by far was the *cheating* version. I once won during a long full out cheating game by (I was the Gnomes of Zurich) declaring "Oh look how much money I have! I just won the game!"
:)
Heh, no one botherd to count the money, I was 50 megabucks short....
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I remember playing the game years back, the concept was good, the only thing that annoyed me was all the adding etc. (I get a +4, -2, +2, -5, so I need a 7 or more (but I can use card x, if the roll is even, etc)) It took some of the spontantity out of the game.
Personally, my best memory is one of the stories I heard of what allegedly happened at one of the prize competions:
Person A and person B are in the final, very close game... Person A says to Person B, "it's close, be a shame for one of us to lose now. If you conceed, I'll split the prize, okay?" Person B thinks, agrees, and calls the ref over and conceeds. Person A then shows the card "I Lied", which enabled him to default on an agreed deal. The refs found this amusing, judged it legal (and definitly within the spirit of the game) and awarded him the prize.
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
The longer the game goes on, the bigger the Gnomes of Zurich's lead...
What exactly is an Iranian Moderate anyway, a Shiite that ran out of bullets?
One of the best expansions ever... individually the cards were a little weak, but they combo really nicely..
:)
Farrel's Mantle? Probably my favourite card of all time.. (especially if you like Vampires
Order of the Ebon Hand... Great to combo with Pestilence, Drain Life, etc..
The only thing wrong with Fallen Empires is that they were overprinted.. (which isn't such a bad thing now, because you can get them cheap..)
I got the idea from a line uttered by the geek detective "Detrich" on the old "Barney Miller" cop comedy.
I've always been disappointed that SJGames didn't use my special ability for the Loan Sharks, which were accepted also. Loan Sharks should be able to move money around . . . for a price!
Stefan Jones
Shoot a black helicopter for me. :)
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Card games fill a definite niche. And if you gotta play 'em, play Steve's. Not the ones made by the Marketing Majors of the Coast Who Sold Out to Hasbro.
Stefan Jones
info at sjgames site
This story, strangely, came out at 2:40am on Tuesday, September 21. September 21 (9/21) is the birthdate of Mohammed the Prophet, an auspicious date for beginnings. 9 is the cube of 3, or 3*3*3. Three is the number of the Trinity. 21 is 7*3. Seven is a prime number, prime meaning there is only one of each kind, symbolizing the One True Prophet. 2:40am is 4:20am backwards. 4:20 is a known method of communication among Hashish users, probably a call to the Hashishim, a legendary band of political assassins. Don't be surprised if a major world leader dies within the next 24 hours. You have been warned!
the Secret Service had unlawfully read, disclosed and erased the messages - despite their repeated denials that they had done any such thing.
[the judge's] opinion was quite critical of the Secret Service's behavior, before, during and after their raid, calling the affidavit and warrant preparation "simply sloppy and not carefully done."
And these are the people who protect our President?Here's a nice excerpt from the complaint:
Although neither Steve Jackson nor SJG was a target of any criminal investigation, defendants caused a general search of the business premises of SJG and the wholesale seizure, retention, and conversion of computer hardware and software and all data and communications stored there.
This happened almost ten years ago, people.Additionally, SJG was awarded approximately $50,000 for its losses. SJG's lawyers got $200,000. Who really won this case?