The Judge
I’m unable to retrieve the URLs I have stored online for the Building a Campaign World Mapping entry, so that is delayed until tomorrow when I’ll be able to fetch everything. In the mean-time, this is the story of The Judge from my second trip to Gen-Con.
At the behest of my friends, I entered a Magic: The Gathering booster draft tournament with them. As Wikipedia says:
In a booster draft, several players (usually eight) are seated around a table and each player is given three booster packs. Each player opens a pack, selects a card from it and passes the remaining cards to his or her left. Each player then selects one of the 14 remaining cards from the pack that was just passed to him or her, and passes the remaining cards to the left again. This continues until all of the cards are depleted. The process is repeated with the second and third packs, except that the cards are passed to the right in the second pack. Players then build decks out of any of the cards that they selected during the drafting and add as many basic lands as they want.
This was my first booster draft game, and I was more than nervous given the unpredictable nature of it. I wasn’t sure how to plan what cards to take to put into my deck, or even what a lot of the cards might be, as this tournament was limited to cards from the Ravnica block, which I was unfamiliar with.
I put on my brave face and built my deck, determined to have a good time regardless of how I did and to learn so I could build a better deck during the next draft. In my first match, I was paired up against an obviously experienced player who entered these sorts of tournaments on a regular basis. Each pairing played best two out of three, so I knew that I had more than just one chance.
During our first game my opponent, who we’ll call The Judge, was quick to spot any flaw in game-play. For instance, after noticing that I had played my cards in the incorrect order, playing a creature card before I had played the last land card needed to pay the cost, he insisted I untap the land and return the creature to my hand. I obligingly did so, re-tapped the land and played the creature again. This made no difference in the course of game-play.
He continued to give advice of this sort to other players as well on both sides of the table, pointing out if someone had done something wrong or misread a card. Grumbles were thrown at him from around the table, as well as at least one evil eye.
I lost the first game, but I re-shuffled my deck and started the second, hoping to best him. At some point in the first few turns, we came to a disagreement about how to interpret a card I had just played. The person in charge of the event noticed our dispute and came over to resolve it and declare an official ruling. When he approached and asked what the problem was, my opponent raised his hands and declared quite loudly, “It’s cool. I’m a Judge.”
The Judge then insisted that the official leave, and actually managed to bully him into it. As I was pretty sure I was going to lose anyway, I scooped at this point to save myself further contact with him.
I continued to sit at the table to wait for my friends to finish, and happily watched their games and dissected different matches with them when they weren’t in the middle of a match. The Judge continued to offer advice, criticism and rulings on matches that he was in and observing. At several points, he was physically threatened with violence by other players at the table.
I’ve never encountered a player quite like The Judge before, and with a little luck I never will again.
Weird Gamers
A thread was recently re-opened on RPGnet, where players swapped disgusting gamer stories. Reading them, they’re sometimes hilarious, sometimes depressing, usually disgusting and always interesting. I don’t have any disgusting gamer stories of my own, but I do have a few experiences with gamers that can be described only as weird.
One such gamer, we’ll call him Hank, always existed at the periphery of my high school gaming group - he had introduced our GM to gaming, and had gamed with him for years before our group formed. Occasionally, he’d sit in for one session or come by and run a one-night game, usually of a system and setting he had himself created. Hank seemed normal enough at first, and I discounted his strangeness as awkwardness due to being around new people and under-developed social skills - neither of which I considered unusual high school gamer-geeks.
One of the things that kept Hank out of group in the long run was his involvement in several LARPs, which proved to provide ample schedule conflicts. After my experience with the Cthlhu LARP, I was open to trying new things in gaming. Hank helped me prepare my character for the Vampire: The Masquerade game, explained the different clans and breeds of vampires and the current set-up of the group. After character creation, I was feeling pretty good about my character’s build and personality, and I looked forward to the game.
I arrive at the game, quasi-dressed as my character and with whatever props I had on hand - I had no problem diving into the game, but I wasn’t about to invest money in it until I’d played it and was sure I’d be playing it regularly. Among the props I brought were a pocket watch, a metal flask and a metal cigarette case. I arrive at the game and begin mingling with people out of character, introducing myself and trying to do my best to learn everyone’s name.
Among the twenty-five people there, there were three Story Tellers present - apparently two less than normal. After some time of mingling, one of the STs comes into the room and announces to everyone that the local nursing home had been robbed and several people were shot and killed. Apparently this was the start of the game.
As the game commences, I am grouped with ten or so other players who are attacking or defending something. The details were never clear to me, but bad-guys from a specific clan were unloading from a helicopter and attacking us. Several ridiculous feats of vampire strength and several thrown cars later, the bad guys have been beaten. I am told I am to call the others on the phone and tell them what happened. I explain that I am unclear on exactly what happened, and the players and STs proceed to feed the explanation I am to deliver, as I deliver it, line-by-line.
Realizing that I am not going to be clued into what’s going on, and thus I’ll be unable to roleplay my character with any accuracy, I retreat into the corner and drain the bit of vodka that was still in my flask from it’s last outing. Eventually, I am assigned baby-sitting duty for a little girl, which occupies my time for the rest of the evening.
At the end of the night, Hank, as one of the STs, talks to me about my character and informs me that he’s been promoted to the local head of his clan. After the massive reward with no involvement and no actual gameplay, I vowed never to return.
At this point, Hank is only a bad gamer and not a weird person. Years go by before I see him again, and I learn that despite being in his late twenties, he now dates high school girls on a regular basis and still lives in his parents basement. He listens to only German metal music, and works at a book store exclusively for the discounts provided on geek supplies.
On one trip to the book store, I was unlucky enough to be cornered by Hank and roped into a conversation about the new games he’s building. The newest one that he was most excited about was “like a cross between Magic and poker, but there are event cards like in Monopoly.” The following twenty minutes of the conversation always remind me of something Captain Picard once said, “He kept talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence, moving from topic to topic so that no one had a chance to interrupt.” Unfortunately, the conversation never left his new card game.
Hank doesn’t approach J.C. in weirdness. J.C. was a Convention Troll, going to every convention he could find in hopes of meeting new people and getting to play in games. If you go to any of his conventions, you probably know him - he looks like Malcolm McDowell in Star Trek Generations, if he were twenty years older and suffering from Alzheimer’s. J.C.’s approach was enough to scatter a table of people in the middle of the game. I once found out why, when he managed to strike up a conversation with me.
J.C. : “Do you wanna play in my game later on? It’s a cross of Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Blade Runner, Battlestar Galactica, the original and the remake, Dune, Terminator, and Doctor Who.”
Me: “Uhhhhhhhhhhh”
J.C. : “It’s all perfectly legal! I did it using GURPs!”
Me: “Yeah, no thanks man.”
Later at the same convention, I would walk up to a gather game table and nodded at the hex map on the table.
Me: “Third edition DnD?”
J.C. (previously unseen): “No. We’re playing three point five.”
I took the opportunity to scurry away.
Honorable Mention to the M’Ladies Man, the West Point Orc, and The Judge.
Got any good weird gamer stories?
