King Put

I am copying this post made by my brother on BGG so that I can always find it and re-read it and LMAO. I can so hear him saying, “I can’t do any worse than you did fighting that giant rat. "


Yesterday, I answered this question with a one word answer “Beer”. Well I’d like to explain that answer more clearly. Back in 1989 life was simple. I was single living in house with 4 other guys. Once or twice a month me and my friends would buy a case of cheap beer take it back to the house and play games. The games we played were Risk, Rise and Fall, Diplomacy, Supremacy and few other AH games. For us playing the game was secondary to hanging out drinking cheap beer. Fast forward to 2001 after getting married, having 2 kids and giving up playing board games. This is about when I was introduced to my first Euro game.

My first thought was “Wow, this is great. Now I can relive my youth. I can play these great games, hang out with people and drink beer.” We’ll I soon learned that Euro gamers don’t drink beer and hangout. In fact drinking beer while playing Euro games is frowned on. You wouldn’t want to play Princes of Florence and over bid for a jester just because you have a good beer buzz going. You don’t want some sober tea toddler telling you that you could have gotten 7 VPs if you had done some move when you only got 5 VPs.

Then there’s the whole bathroom thing. The 8th law of thermodynamics says for every beer you drink, you’ll have to use the bathroom. The turns in most Euro games are very quick. Take Puerto Rico for example. There is no mathematical way I could use the bathroom in time for the guy next to me to ship his indigo.

Americatrash games are just the opposite as Euros, they were designed to drink beer to. A couple of times I tried to play an Americatrash game in the middle of the afternoon without a beer. We’ll after sitting there for 30 minutes waiting for one of the other players to roll the dice 20 times and use 6 spells I was ready to explode with boredom. If instead, I using my 30 minutes of waiting time for good use like drinking a beer, using the bathroom and making fun of the player for having to use 6 spells to kill a giant rat I’d have be having a great time. Then when it was my turn I’d have a good beer buzz going and I announce “I’m ready to go kill the great evil demon with my +1 sword and a four leaf clover”. The other players would yell “that impossible with only a +1 sword you’d have to roll about twenty 6 in row and use up your four leaf clover” And I’d I yell back “I don’t care I have a good beer buzz going and I can’t do any worse than you did fighting that giant rat. If I lose the battle I just lose a turn and then I’ll teleport back to the monks who will heal me besides by that time I’ll have to go to the bathroom again.”