From: Brian Bankler Subject: Re: Lords of the Sierra Madre, Thought? Randy Cox wrote: > > elements in todays games. How does it play? > > It doesn't play at all. We started a game awhile back and played for > several hours and absolutely nothing happened. Also, the rules are > horrible. Important points are scattered throughout, but never placed in > a single place where you can find them. I'm told this was a wonderful > game when it was a gamekit, but it seems to have been gutted and > destroyed in its current incarnation. Stay away from it. LotSM is definitely not for everyone's tastes, but it's not nearly as dire as Randy says. General quick thoughts: The rules are very poorly written, it's true. Although once you realize that sections 1.6 are definitions (mainly) and rules start in section 7...it's a little easier. There is a lot that can happen, but in most cases it doesn't. A rare game will see one of the players elected president of the US, for example (I think that should just be a victory condition but that's me). In most games you simply buy stuff, try to finance it, and move units around to protect your stuff, tax other people's stuff and burn down a few mines during a crisis. However, if the right cards come up (a lot of bandits, a big 'crisis card' or whatever) then there can be a lot of play on the board. Our group has played the game around 8 times now (in about a year and a half) and most games play in about 4 hours. The real problem is that it's an average of four hours with a big standard deviation. One game had an early stock market crash, which dried up the economy, and turns played in a minute or two (a turn is a season, a full game is 8 - 16 years or so) and the game played in about an hour and a half (after a few years the world 'recovered' from the stock crash). Another game saw an amazing boom economy early one, so there was plenty of cash, turns bogged down...6 or 7 hour game. Not being able to predict the length of time is a big problem. There is definitely a game there, but you have to like long games; you have to be able to stand having a game sound a trumpet blast from on high and have it mean 'You lose' (I've had a game where a few random events just bankrupted me...). LotSM is a game that I would say is not solid...sometimes you play it and the events bog the game down too much for my tastes, or speed it up too much. Sometimes you get eliminated (effectively). I have the same complaint about Titan, to a lesser extant (Titan still being one of the games I play most often). My advice is to play LotSM with someone who knows the rules who you can stand. It's a definite try before you buy, but it's not the ebola of games that others make it out to be. Brian -- (sung) "You're having parental issues. You're having parental issues." "Xander!" "What? Frued would have said the exact same thing... except he might not have done that little dance." -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer