Gaminess

Yesterday we had a very small game mob. First we tried Elfengold, which is an add-on to Elfenland. The fundamental mechanics are unchanged: cities are connected by roads, you can play a transport chit on a road, and then anybody with a corresponding card can use the road, with the goal being to visit all the cities. Elfengold adds a couple of things that make Elvish Pub Crawl actually be interesting: cities have gold values, you get fewer cards, and you bid for the transport chits. Also, there are chits that let you exchange two chits on the board; combined with the roadblock and sea monster chits, this meant that the chit-laying phase tended to start enthusiastic and very quickly move into bitter recriminations. Fun, but would be less hosing with more than three players (board would have more chits, more chits to bid on, potential chat the swapper won't take away something you need even if you didn't buy it).

This was followed up with a game of Kings & Things*. This is another game that has lots of rules but isn't actually that hard. It had an interesting cyclical nature, in that the first player rotates around and has a reasonably large military advantage, so that's when you get to come back from being beaten down. It has some amount of Titan-style dice rolling, but the combats are pretty quick. The chance aspect of it was well-controlled; being ahead was usually an advantage, but it's definitely possible to draw eight Things really needing creatures and not get them.

Cute people are useful

...they get you doing ET things and outdoorsy things.

It's not my fault none of y'all have any cold tolerance.