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Spring Training is coming

On Thursday, tickets went on sale for the Phillies spring training games.  I was very excited to pick up tickets for their March 17th match where they were hosting the Yankees.  I saw the Phillies host the Reds on St. Patty’s Day last year, and it was very festive.  The Phillies wore Kelly Green jerseys and the Reds wore kinda ugly dark green caps.  The tickets went on sale to the public at 9 AM.  I logged into the ticketmaster link at 9 AM, asked for three of the best available… and got Berm.  Berm, for the uneducated (I was one of those uneducated folks until a couple years ago… ) is where you sit on the grass just outside the outfield.  Its a neat area for a picnic, but its also the last seats to sell out.  I thought it was a bit of a rip that everything but Berm was sold out that quickly.  Spring Training is becoming less accessible for the regular fan who doesn’t want to drop MLB-type money for an exhibition game nowadays by buying them from StubHub or some other secondary outlet that jacks up the prices after buying them in bulk before I ever got a shot.  So, I decided to give the game a miss and let those precious Berm tickets fall to someone else.

However, yesterday I bought three tickets to the Yanks vs. the Tigers on March 21st, continuing my annual trek to Tampa to watch some Yankees spring training baseball.  I’ll be taking the wife and son down to Tampa for the weekend and enjoying some fun in the sun and then a Yankees game.

Funds are limited this year, so I didn’t do my normal splurge of buying tickets for about three Yankees games, then picking up tickets for a new ballpark each year as well.

I do plan on heading down to see an Astros game, since it is in Orlando and pretty close.  Plus, the Florida Marlins are coming to Jacksonville on April 2nd to play their Double AA affiliate the Suns, and I’ll grab a GA ticket for that game and hopefully attend with some of my work friends.

So, I’ll get in three games, but spend much less on gas and travel and get to see some different teams.  Spring is in the air already!!!

Examples of passes in a Boile match

I would like to illustrate a few difference scenarios in card plays during a match that you may encounter.  It is my hope this will clarify the game for you.  Please feel free to ask questions.

Expansion on Missions

Upon review of your questions, I have some thoughts on how it is we conduct the missions that happen between matches of boile de muerte.  Let us say that your team of gladiatuers have just won a thrilling match and it is time for your Royal to ask a favor of you and send you on an errand for them.

I become the painter now, the one who describes all things that your gladaiteurs see and hear.  I also am the sculptor of the characters and places you will encounter.  I take my Team Deck, the one I built to combat you in our recent match of boile and draw up a hand of six cards which we call the Royal Hand.  From these six cards I may choose the difficulty of your mission.  While I have six cards in my Royal Hand, it is customary to only play four of those cards during the mission.

During the mission, you will face obstacles.  I will describe the obstacle and set down one of the cards from my Royal Hand.  This is the numeric difficulty to overcoming the obstacle ranging from one to nine, with one being incredibly easy to nine, which is virtually impossible.  If you are able to play a Number card equal to or higher than the obstacle, you tell the story of what happens.  If you are unable to do this, you discard your hand and draw up another and I tell the story of what has happened.

When playing cards from a Royal Hand, the Action Cards take on a slightly different meaning.

• The Skip, or Nulle is an automatic failure for the gladiateurs.  If you describe a difficulty and lay down the Nulle, you are telling the player to move on, choose another route.
• The Reverse is used to indicate that one of the gladiateurs will be hurt in this obstacle.  Whatever card the player chooses to play will result in the corresponding gladiateur being hurt during the exchange.  The higher the number played is the greater the damage.  A damage of 5 customarily results in that gladiateur being removed from further progress in the mission.
• The Draw Two allows you to draw two more cards from your Team Deck and play them immediately or play only one and place the other in your Royal Hand.
• A Wild means that the Royal player may choose any difficulty for the obstacle.

This continues until you complete the story, either through victory or defeat.  Defeat occurs when either you decide to quit the mission or if you run out of cards after discarding your hand due.

If you are victorious, you gain the card offered by the Royal and place it into your Team Deck.  If you fail, then you do not gain the card.  Upon either result, we play a new match of Boile de Muertre and continue the chronicle.  But this time I play my personal team of glorieux gadiateurs and you build a Team Deck of competitors.

What do you think of this?  does this make the process of setting obstacles during a mission easier?  It is used in this manner to keep the game “in the cards” and easier to manage as opposed to calculating various difficulties and having no idea when a mission is concluded.

A Thought on Cards

It has been suggested to me that in your world, companies are loathe to share their creations.  It is possible that I could infringe upon the rights of a company by simply repurposing their cards for a different game.  This is a sad thing to hear.

For the purpose of this conversation, we shall continue using Uno cards.  However, if you are still insterested once we are finished, perhaps we shall take the plunge and look into your printers to make our own cards.  What do you think of this?

I apologize for being quiet recently.  This shall soon change.  You see, I have written down many of your questions and I am working those answers into a new document on how you play Boile de Muertre.  In the meantime, please review the current draft of our conversation to see if you have further questions.

You have my thanks.

2nd Draft

I have compiled our conversation into a document.  If you please, peruse it and give me some feedback.

What does not make sense?

What doesn’t look fun?

What’s missing?

Many thanks

More text on Royals

Your Royal:

If we are playing a game of Boile de Muertre together, I would create your Royal and you would create mine.  Since I will be portraying the Royal your gladiateurs serve, this is the easiest process to ensure it is a character that I can portray with gusto.  You may make requests of the design of this Royal and I should not create a Royal that is not fun to play.

It is my option to make a Royal who is pleasant or loathsome.  Keep in mind that you also make my Royal and Royals do set the tone of the stories, so it is important that we work together.

A Royal should be striking and memorable.  Their style of dress, mannerisms, turns of phrase, should be unique and interesting.  Some Royals are good to their Boile team, some are cruel.  Keep in mind that a team of Boile de Muertre gladiateurs are commoners, they are living above their station and they are well paid for risking their lives and limbs.

They are also expendable.  Refusing to accept a mission from your Royal will most likely lead to the end of your team’s lives… unless they can arrange a sponsor of greater power.  I believe you call it “trading up”?  This can be done by winning matches and courting more powerful or influential Royals.

A Different Way to Murder

Thank you for playing a match of Boile de Muertre.  Don’t fret that I trounced you, it was expected.  I am the teacher, am I not?

Now that you have played a match using the Diviseur method, we shall play with a more advanced method.  The scoring is similar, but the plays are much more… deadly.  Not to you and I, but to our masques.

This play method is known as the Fonce method.  The play is nearly the same as before (described here and here), except how the plays to damage your opponent’s glorieaux gladiateurs and the play space.  A play to murder is still a Numbered card play as an attack to the gladiateur of the same color of the murder card, but the way the number counts against your gladiateur differs.

In the Fonce method, when a player plays a card to murder, the number value of the card becomes the highest card the opponent can play for the remainder of the match.  so if I were to play a Green 2 in an attack, then your Green Gladiateur may only play Green Action cards and the Green 1.  Since plays to score are based on the highest Numbered card, your Green Gladiateur has been reduced to playing defense with Action cards or trying to murder with the Green 1 or hoping to score when I have declared I am playing to score.

In this method, the Zero card is needed to eliminate an opponent.  Since it is impossible to play a card below 0, a play to murder with a  card will kill an opponent’s gladiateur of the same color.

As you can imagine, the Fonce method quickly devolves into vicious games with a high amount of blood and death.  Another aspect of this method to note is that in the Diviseur method, you may only murder if your team’s Rank is higher than your opponent’s as it takes a card numbered higher than a team’s Rank to destroy a gladiateur.  But in the Fonce method, all teams of all ranks have access to the 0 card.

I also mentioned the play space is different in the Fonce method.  In the Fonce method, there are no longer zones, so plays to score or murder happen without placing the card in a zone.

What mission should I create?

Ah yes, the game of the royals, my favorite part of Boile de Muertre.  It is intriguing, do you not agree?

There is a confused look upon your face again.  Zut allors, I have forgotten you have never created a royal’s mission before!  Here, I shall illustrate the version we teach to children or to foreigners.  Do not take offense, everyone must learn the game at some point.

If you have lost the match of Boile de Muertre and now it is your turn to portray your opponent’s royal, you must take on the role of storyteller and create a scene where after the match, your opponent’s team speaks with their royal, receives congratulations and the like, perhaps is invited to a party in their honor or a public spectacle of some kind, this is your choice.  It is perfectly acceptable for your opponent to request a certain scene.  To the victor goes the spoils and all that.

At some point during the story the royal of your opponent’s team, as portrayed by you, will approach the team and request a favor.  This is phrased as a request, but in reality, it is a demand.  As you portray the royal, you look into your opponent’s deck, not his team deck, but the deck of unassigned cards in their base Uno deck, and produce a card.  This is the reward offered by the royal.

There is a delightful exchange opportunity here that takes place sometimes.  You see, some royals are greedy and do not wish to offer the world to their team.  As the royal, you may offer up a Red 7 to a Rank 5 team.  If your opponent is satisfied with this offer, the team accepts the mission.  If not, they must politely negotiate with their royal, gently asking for something else.  It is up to you if this is acceptable and you may draw out a different card.  It is recommended that you do not offer Wild Draw Fours until the team has reached Rank 8, but ultimately, it is up to you.  Keep in mind that if you are extremely cruel, you are setting the tone for your opponent when he or she portrays the royal of your team later.  But all good stories have conflict, so do not be easy on them either.

But now, we come to the creation of a adventure.  How do I do this easily?  The answer is in your cards, of course.  Your deck can quickly help you dream up a mission for the boile de muertre team if you wish.

Take your own team deck, which should be equal or very similar to that of your opponents, and draw cards from it for inspiration and guidance.  You are best served if you do not share these cards with your opponent, but instead use them for inspiration and note them secretly.  Once you have drawn your first card, the color of the card should the colors you use to paint the mission.

• Red represents the emotions of anger, hatred and lust
• Blue represents sadness, bitterness, melancholy and loneliness
• Yellow represents the emotions of fear, suspicion or anticipation
• Green represents the emotions of envy or greed

If you draw an Action Card, the type influences the adventure as well.

• A Draw Two means that you draw two more cards (and if one of them is a Draw Two, you draw even more, but you use those you wish to use, not all of them if it is too confusing)
• A Reverse means that the mission given is not the real reason for the adventure, that during the story, a new reason will be revealed; you should draw again and look for a color and number in order to give the false reason for the adventure.
• A Skip or Nulle card means the adventure was trivial and without challenge, the opponent may tell you the story of how it has happened and then you continue into a match.  A Wild means that the mission was completed however you wish and you tell the story to your opponent of how they succeeded or failed.

The Number on the cards can be used against the following chart of plots.

• 1 – Theft
• 2 – Revenge
• 3 – Pursuit
• 4 – Rivalry
• 5 – Temptation
• 6 – Rescue
• 7 – Escape
• 8 – Discovery
• 9 – Transformation
• 0 – Love

Now you have the colors and numbers, I will give a few examples of how I would create a mission for your team, the L’oiseau Marin and their Royal – Countess Fabienne.

Let us say I draw a Green 4, which is Envy + Rivalry.  After a splendid victory, I describe Fabienne inviting your team to a well appointed townhome in an enemy’s city and offering a Red 8 for your team to attack and maim her enemy’s rogue gladiateur before your upcoming match.

Or perhaps I draw a Blue Draw Two and then draw a Yellow 5 and a Blue 3, which is Bitterness and Fear + Temptation and Pursuit.  This would result in Fabienne begging the team to find her lost heirloom from the House of Bonaparte that was stolen from her during the last match.  She would offer a Green Reverse.

Of course, I could instead have drawn a Red Reverse.  I would then draw a second card, which would be the Green 5, which is Hatred masking Envy or Greed + Temptation.  Ah, a tricky one.  In this instance, Fabienne would command the team to attack a minor royal she claims offended her at a recent match, but as the team sneaks into his domicile, they find an extremely expensive trinket that would be easily missed during the investigation of the royal’s death.

Does this help you to understand how easy it can be to create missions offered by your royal?  Feel free to ask me questions if you need assistance.

The Game of the Royals

Now we discuss the second half of the game, which to many, including myself, is the most exciting.

The legends of the gladiateurs is most often associated with their escapades away from the court.  Some were involved with romances with their royals, or even each other.  Others were arrested and executed for crimes against the crown in pursuit of their royal’s  desires.  But many more were suspected but never convicted for crimes they committed in service of their royal’s whims.

I paint the royals as caricatures, do I not?  Perhaps this is cruel, but in the legends, they are nothing but excuses for the adventures of the Glorieaux Gladiateurs.  Even today, many royals are little more than old guarde rich with supersilious titles and little to no responsiblities other than maintaining a level of notoreity in court amongst their other counterparts.

Ah, but I am getting political now and we are playing a game.  We shall proceed.

Once a match is over, the winning player decides if his team has an interaction with his Royal or if he wishes to give the scene to the losing player.

You see, each of you have your own team of gladiateurs and during a chronicle, it would make little sense if the same two teams played each other again and again.  It would create this cycle of redundancy that results in a boring game and a story of ennui.

So yes, each of you have your own team and you take turns playing the opposition of the other player’s team.  When it is your turn to play your beloved L’oiseau Marin, I will protray not only the hated rivals of Les Faucons, but also the Countess Jean Maricelle of Nouveau Bonaparte.

We have already discussed how I would portray a match of Boile de Muertre.  I shan’t repeat myself. Now we speak of how Jean Maricelle would interact with your team.

After a match, Jean Maricelle would meet with your team and ask you for a favor.  As I speak with Jean Maricelle’s voice, I would offer you an Action card, most often a Wild card, one that is not in your deck already.  Yes, I take an Action card from your Uno deck and I offer it to you for this favor.

If your team accepts, then you will draw up a hand from your deck.  We then proceed to the story of your team’s mission.  During the mission, you will face obstacles.  I will describe the obstacle and set a difficulty to overcoming the obstacle.  If you are able to play a Number card equal to or higher than the obstacle, you tell the story of what happens.  If you are unable to do this, you discard your hand and draw up another and I tell the story of what has happened.

This continues until you complete the story, either through victory or defeat.  If you are victorious, you gain the card offered by the Royal and place it into your team deck.  If you fail, then you do not gain the card.  Either result, we play a new match of boile de muertre and continue the game.