The Tao of Gaming

I tried out Ruse & Bruise last night. I've seen it compared to Citadels, but that feels ... superficial? I suppose they are both psychological games.

To quickly recap -- there are six rounds, and each round you put out one scoring card per player. Each player has an (identical) stack of 25 characters, with numbers ranging from 0-20. Most characters have a special power. You play characters face down on a scoring card, but any placement reveals the prior character on that card. Once all the cards have the minimum needed to complete that column, you flip up the rest and resolve. Highest total wins (usually).

Simple idea (although I'm skipping scoring), but lots of chrome. About half of the characters have enough rules to warrant a paragraph or two. In fact, our big problem was that the summary phrases on the cards that remind you what the do mislead. Apparently that's a common problem.

But I enjoyed it. You only have a hand of three cards, and only a few columns (one per player) so at most you have 18 possible plays each round. Quite likely you'll be focused on trying to win a specific card or two, and ignoring the rest, meaning you'll probably only have a few real options. The special abilities interact nicely. Get a knight and squire, and you just win that card (no scoring). The beggar makes the lowest score win. The witch removes weak characters, the wizard removes strong characters ... but two witches (or wizards) cancel each other out. You've got doppelgangers, assassins, romeo & juliet, an invisibility cloak, the king. And my favorite, the "Small giant."

I didn't read the rules, but I suspect that some of the interactions are not intuitive. We winged a few questions.

Enjoyable. I certainly want to play again and I may pick up a copy.

[Sidenote -- $24 retail seems steep for a filler, although it has a ton of cards. Then again, To Court the King retails for $30. I'm mentally comparing prices to when I started collecting 15 years ago. Still, now that Big Box games routinely go for $50-60 (and that's not counting the huge FFG titles), I guess it's in line. Inflation ...]

Last night I played Ruse & Bruise again, earning it a nickel on the year. I'm sticking with my initial thoughts, I'm definitely suggesting my variants from now on. [Instead of the convoluted scoring, getting all six categories earns you a +5, and remove a specified card of each suit for each player less than six (so the distribution is even). (I'd remove the spare 3s, first, then the 2s, then 4s, but that's just a hunch).

Anyway, once you know the cards, some of the chaos goes away. (I was able to guess my opponents cards much higher than chance would predict, not that it helped me out). Overall, I was generous in my initial rating; but R&B is an enjoyable filler. [Granted, the 20-40 minute category has fielded a murderer's row of great games over the last few years. But I like variety].

Last night also saw three games in my "Top 10 most played" hit the table again -- San Juan (#5), To Court the King(#2), and the inevitable Glory to Rome(#7).