We played alot of board games as kids. It all stems from being trapped in the house during a long winter. In fact we usually got a few new ones every Christmas.
However, learning the rules of 'Snakes and Ladder' or 'Sorry' did nothing except make us take pleasure in the misfortunes and failures of others. I usually didn't care who won in the end except when we played one game.
As we moved up the game ladder we learned how to crush poor people in 'Monopoly'(where I must always be the magic hat or I don't play), but no game was ever better for inducing tears than 'RISK'.
You all know the set up. Your armies and the other player's armies compete with dice to control all the countries of the world. Fitting for a person like me who likes the idea of a world under my benevolent control.
I had rules however. I refuse to play with anyone (especially students on field trips) unless they understood that I would, at one point in the game, make them cry.
I would promise them the world but in the end I would back stab them, take their cards and then proceed to take from them any nations I choose. Every alliance was a lie and every ounce of my focus was on stomping my enemies into the dust. If you tried to be my friend you would usually be the first to go.
I dreamed of a version of the game where I could make a wall hanging out of my enemy's skin just as an example to the others who would dare attempt to take my lands.
It's the only game I am like this with. Hell, I slip money to the losing players in 'Monopoly' all the time - but 'RISK' is different. 'Risk' is life.
When I played with my adult friends on 'games night' it usually took a few days for them to forgive me. Like the children they went into the game fully understanding my lack of compassion for my opponents. They also had the added humiliation of hearing me hum the tune to 'The World Is Not Enough' by Garbage as I collected their armies and added them to my own.
I will play your 'Boggle' and 'Yahtzee' and 'Milles Bourne' and I will be your bitch, your huckleberry and thank you for the fun night out.
However, don't bring out the Risk board unless you want to walk the 'trail of tears' and see a side of Big Daddy that isn't my prettiest. I have many un-attractive sides, but that one is my worst.
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14 comments:
I totally agree. I didn't discover Risk until college but I made up for all that lost time when I finally found it. But now, I can't find anyone who has enough patience to play it with me. Stratego also ruled my board game world.
I always hated Risk. Must be the pacifist in me (odd that you can't spell "pacifist" without "fist").
Occasionally friends would talk me into Risk to make four players. I would go nuts my first turn, spreading my armies thinner than Sarah Palin's understanding of, well, anything. Then they'd get to scramble to eat up my little holdings. Oddly, they stopped asking me to play.
Ever played Diplomacy? It's even nastier, the whole process of making and breaking alliances is central to the gameplay and there's no dice.
Where have I been? I've never played it...
I remember a game of Risk that lasted from 6pm to 4am back in the 70s. Chips & dip, Cheetos, lots of Pepsi and about 12 joints. I got wiped out at about 3am.
North America, I'm telling you. always try to get North America.
Well, unless two or three other guys all insist on fighting over it.
And unless you play me, in which case I'd convince you of the intense strategic value of Madagascar.
And what, nobody's played Diplomacy?
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone say "one and one" I'd be a rich, rich woman.
And I started my Diplomacy career at age seven. As a spy for my mother...
Never cared for RISK, or Stratego. To each their own, right?
Evil mother, sending her daughter in as a spy... well played.
Spies like collaborations get sent to their rooms until the end of the game.
See, Wings I could figure that out about you because you are such a good guy. I suspect you played Candyland or Hungry Hungry Hippo just so that no one felt bad afterwards. Ah dear sweet cannon fodder how I love you. You would be the kid in risk that had 3 of four of the countries in Australia who failed to notice that he could mount a resonable challenge from there - who then I would crush.
Cal: I really can't say you are wrong! :)
I've tried playing Risk before, but it just got too tedious after a while, and I couldn't really even bother trying anymore. I like the idea, but the actual gameplay gets boring. Sort of like Monopoly, only more so.
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