rue, more of a good thing is always better; The Master was good, but add Angelus, Spike & Drusilla, (and Darla, resurrected) and things get better. One slayer is good, but bring on Kendra, Faith and the Slayers-in-Waiting and better still. Angel? Good, then give him his own show with brains, brawn, and evil lawyers, and watch heads roll. This also applies to mediums outside the universe of Joss Whedon's vampires and slayers - as in the Buffy CCG (Collectable Card Game) by Score Entertainment. The base set is first-rate with game scenarios drawn from Buffy's original episodes but add the expansion sets of "Class of '99" and "Angel's Curse" and yes, once again better. But not all manufactures of tie-in products are willing to invest in such undertakings and that's where the fans get in on the act as in fan-fiction, which is so prevalent around the web, allowing them to take their favorite characters further or in different directions than the series creators intend to go. And so, this is true of the simpler yet fun Milton Bradley board game: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - when two young men decided it could be a Hellmouth of a lot better and created a highly exciting expanded version, including the characters of Angel, the Series and all the buff action to date with what they've deemed . . . X-treme Buffy!
A RITUAL SACRIFICE, WITH PIE
Mike Nehring and Ryyn Currey, just two of the Buffy-X'ers
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CoA met Michael Nehring while covering Creep Con in Baltimore this past summer. Over the next several months we struck up a dialogue through email, and he began to tell us about a game he and his friend had contrived, an expansion to the already existing Buffy board game. We were intrigued and the more he told us about it the more we had to see the game in action first hand. In mid-December I drove the 4+ hours from New York down to Maryland and found myself in Hagerstown, a quaint little metropolis not so unlike Sunnydale, it felt oddly surreal and just off Prospect Street was Mike's office that was going to be 'slayer central' for the day. The stenciled front door stood open which read: Terrance J. Holderby, PC, Attorney at Law, Michael E. Nehring, Esq., and as thoughts of Wolfram & Hart came to mind I wondered had I done the right thing. But then a booming, cheerful voice called out, "Hullo!" Gathered were Mike, (33) an Attorney by profession and key game-guy; "one-half idea man/one-half doer". Joe Arch, (23) the "workhorse" and idea-guy having created the board, the additional characters and the rules of how the game is played in their extended world. Joe's from Williamsport, MD a suburb of Hagerstown and works for Sprint.
The other two gamers joining in for the day were Ryyn Currey, (26) from Waynesboro, PA, an actor and self-described: "Cannon Fodder". Ryyn is kind of laid back and very Oz like. Lastly there's Andy Larson, (24) an assistant manager of a theatre and also from Hagerstown. He describes himself as, "Sexy, single, newest member who always loses." The joining together of these four young men is not as varied as their self-observations; rather it's down right providential. They all met and worked at the local cinema which began all the way back to 1990. By the time Ryyn started working there, Mike was relegated to the figurehead of theatre mascot, which was a generous way of saying that he still 'snaked his way to free tickets'. Membership has its privileges, indeed.
CONCEPT & CHARACTERS
Boredom truly is the
mother of invention and thus we embark on the origins tale when Joe
managed the R/C Theatres in Hagerstown. "After 10 O'clock there's
not much for the manager to do but he can't leave until midnight or
1am," says Mike, "so we used to go over there and play games just to
kill time." They played the original Buffy board game for about
4-months with just the basic rules until that got 'tapped out'. "Then
we had the idea of doing teams from the characters that the game gave
you. Instead of doing the Evil characters vs. Willow, Oz, Xander and
Buffy," Mike explains, "I went home one night, did some character sketches
and came up with a 'Gunn' and a 'Anya', and I think two others. I turned
the notes over to Joe and he ran with it way more than I'd even considered.
He came up with just about everybody's stats." They've put together
a one-inch thick binder with each page consisting of a character's name,
picture, game specs (life points, hits points, fight and magick points)
and a brief pros/cons description. The binder includes characters already
represented in the game but complete with their new additions the total
tally is mind-blowing. "There are over 70 playable ones," Joe tells
us, "and then there are 10-15 characters that aren't playable; they're
just there to hurt your chances of winning; for example: if you draw
a "Hellhound" card (Buffy's "The Prom"), or a Big Bug (Angel's
"Fredless")." Mike adds there are also demons in the hell dimensions
that they've created, "When you get sucked into one of those there's
M'Fashnik (Buffy's "Flooded"), and you can summon Sweet (Buffy's
"Once More with Feeling") as well."
The women of Buffy take on the Hell Dimension
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It didn't take long before they
brought the Angel characters into the game. "I was such a big Angel
fan," enthuses Joe. "I like Angel more than I like Buffy
(the show) so they'd always make fun of me, they thought I had an infatuation
with Angel, but it's not true . . ." Mike teases, "It's slightly true."
And Joe adds to the fun whispering, "It's a little bit true." Kidding
aside he explains, "I liked Angel a lot; he's always a good main character
in the game. He was always one of the first ones picked, still is; he's
one of the best players." Mike reiterates that, "When we did the initial
sketches, one of the first ones we came up with was the stats for was
Gunn. I've always viewed Buffy and Angel as the same show,
it's the same universe." Within that universe Angel affords many
promising scenarios and with the total list of characters added from the
Angel series alone (23 in all) one can see the exciting possibilities.
Here are just a few from that list: Billy, Boone, Doyle, Gavin, Groosalug,
Holland, Kate, Landock, Lilah, Lindsey, Merl, and Silas from the Pylea
episodes. The addition of Angel characters offers much versatility
when it comes to forming teams and alliances such as a potentially deadly
Wolfram & Hart. Joe offers, "You'll see if you team Wolfram & Hart up
together, the more powerful they are. The same with Angel Investigations,
you team up Cordy, Angel, Gunn and Fred, they're more powerful when they're
a team. There was 'Team Holtz' which Mike tried to put together but I
stopped him." Mike explains with an evil grin, "Because Holtz, Connor
and Justine together are just devastating." Sometimes too devastating
as Joe explains why they took Sahjhan out of the game, "Because
if you put Sahjhan in with them they're really powerful." Also,
another omitted heavy was D'Hoffryn.
THE BOARD EVOLUTION
Expanding the characters soon discovered a need to have more places for them to go and with Buffy moving on to college and the Scoobys in to the real world it was only natural that the simple board of Sunnydale would expand too. "I was originally going to do two boards where one was Sunnydale, one was L.A. and then the middle was just stuff that I make up," Joe begins. "But because there are not many main locations in L.A.; we know about the hotel, the sewers, Caritas, Cordy's house, Wesley's apartment, Wolfram & Hart, I just made one big Sunnydale map. Andy doesn't like that, 'it should be Angel and Buffy', and I agree but all the same buildings are still there from the original board." Joe took us on a walking tour of their board and the new places he's added. "I've made a much bigger college; up here is the shopping district; liquor store, Starbucks, hardware store, and the Magic Box are all right beside each other."
And even as in the real world there's room for renovating. Joe's board
did not have the local Sun Cinema, "No, but I do have Sunnydale
Cinama-10." Drawing a big laugh Joe goes on to point out the mall, local
grocery store, and Faith's digs: the Sunnydale Motel. "Then you go over
here and you have the school district, the Bronze of course, the bookstore,
a lot of the apartments of the people; you have the Doublemeat Palace,
and the bank." There's even the hideout of the Legion of Doom! But what
do you do when some really cool new location is added to the series,
like the new Sunnydale high school? Joe states, "That's why I made the
board a little bigger." But not everything could be accommodated for
as in the cave of Gnarl from Buffy's "Same Time, Same Place".
"I really had nowhere to put it. I tried to make everything centrally
located to itself--say Buffy's at her house--she can get to school or
she can run to the graveyard real quick. Then over here is Angel's mansion
in back of the forest, a construction site for Xander, and the museum
was expanded big time."
Distance is not a problem with the Sunnydale sewer system
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One can only guess the number of
mental hours that were required in planning out the expansion, but physical
hours creating it became just as demanding. "The board alone took about
two weeks, and probably two months with everything," Joe admits. "It just
got to the point where sometimes we were playing 10-characters each and
you have this little tiny board, everybody's just on top of each other.
Even when I made the second board, which was detachable, same thing, you're
playing with 4-5 people with 50 characters, that's just so crowded. It
was time to make a giant board or really a map and that's how this evolved."
Mike explains that the board has progressed several times since its original
conception, "This is probably version 3.0 because we had a board before
that fit onto the existing board. In the beginning when we added new characters
we used to just take little scraps of paper and paperclip them on to existing
pieces. I'd write 'Anya' and clip it to Willow. Joe's the one who went
online and printed out the characters, but it does evolve. Before we came
up with the idea of the hell dimensions we were going to use the Angel
board game, but the game itself has nothing to do with Angel, there's
no reference to any characters, the cards have nothing to do with the
show. The only thing that even ties the game to the show is that each
card has a quote on the bottom."
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