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INVENTIVE CARDS & RULES
You'll be amazed at the depth
of strategy and Buffy tie-in scenarios to which they have thought
the game through. They didn't sit around and say, 'Oh lets just add
this', almost every element that they've added to expand the game
has been deliberated and successfully fits into an episode or ties
in to a character. Joe says, "There may be a couple tokens but most
everything in the game has to do with Buffy or Angel."
Mike was surprised at how well everyone's characteristics fit in the
game play, as he explains, "For example: Justine and Wesley had that
little moment in the park and so when Justine gets the 'switchblade'
she does +5 damage to Wesley. We used to have where you could use
a spell on Giles and turn him into a demon (just like he did in the
show), and then his Hit Points and his Fight Points go up, his Magic
Points go down and we made it so he had to attack anyone within a
5-space radius, even someone from his own team. If you're not familiar
with the world, it's tough." Joe was quick to agree, "Sometimes it
gets a little too complicated, a lot of stuff to remember. You have
to be a really big Buffy and Angel fan to get into the
game. When we first brought Andy in he had watched maybe three episodes
of Buffy and one of Angel. We got him to play one night
but he didn't know what he was doing; he kept asking, 'Who's this
guy, who's that guy?' He thought Skip was a door when he first saw
his Character Card."
They have added new cards to each of the categories as well. Mike
named two off the top of his head that he really likes: "Tabula Rasa"
and "Tempted Enemy". " "Tabula Rasa" on the show was the amnesia spell,
so if you use that spell on someone it makes them drop all their cards.
And "Tempted Enemy" (because everyone on the show is always changing
allegiances), if you use that spell and you're successful you bring
someone from another team over to your team. Some of the weapons are
different, we've put in a flame thrower, a grenade, freeze ray, and
the switchblade for Justine which is very good for Wesley." Joe has
his personal favorites, "Faith's knife, wrist stakes like Angel wears,
and there's a book bag that allows you to hold more cards." The added
Character Card "Glory" is very powerful with 30-life points, but it
has the ability to transform into "Ben" on a role of the die, not
so powerful and can be deadly in critical play. The new cards, which
Mike is proudest of because they best take elements of the show and
adapt them to game-play, are as follows:
Artifact Cards:
* The game always had "Military Costume" as an Artifact that allowed you to pick up two Help Cards instead of one. We created "Key to the Weapons Chest" to let you do the same thing with Weapon Cards, "Maggie Walsh's Computer" for Evil Cards, and "Library Terminal" for Research Cards.
Help Cards:
* "Xander" allows you to create a temporary opening through a wall or other solid structure to move through or attack through (because Xander's a carpenter).
* "Angel's Cadillac" allows you to go anywhere on the board (by cruising around town).
Evil Cards:
* "Spike Screwed Up" is a bad card that forces you to move to your nearest opponent, who gets a free attack on you.
* "Acathla Opened" is a bad card that forces you to drop your entire hand.
Weapon Cards:
* "Warren's Freeze Ray" makes any player you use it on skip their next turn.
* "Warren's Strength Orbs" adds 6-fight dice to an attack.
The simplicity or perhaps its own ingenuity of the original game did not require a large expansion of the rules, a good thing for new or existing players coming in to X-treme Buffy. "In terms of the actual core rules, they aren't that much different from the store bought game," Mike assures. "Really, the characters and the cards are the innovations. One thing that's different from our game is that each deck has at least a couple 'bad' cards that actually hurt you. So it kind of discourages just being a deck-hog all the time, although I still am." We wasted no time getting into the action of a real game so I could see how it would play out in comparison to the original version. I'd played the Buffy board game a few times so I was familiar with the rules and strategies, although Mike did give me a few pointers, but the ease with which one could fall into game-play was obvious.
SUCKED INTO THE HELLMOUTH
Joe plans an attack with his Hellhounds
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Everybody has a story as to how
and when they got hooked onto watching Buffy and each tale is
different. In all my years of talking to fans about the series I've
never heard two recounts quite the same but there has been one common
thread: the quality of its content, its appealing nature to all generations,
the characters, and then there's always that willing friend to
direct them towards Sunnydale. "I didn't get into Buffy until
midway through Season 2," Mike says. "Ryyn is the father of this feast
because he keeps a library and he lent me the tapes, and I think he
got Joe into it and collectively we got Andy into it." It's great when
you find a lifer, a person (guy or girl) who caught the show from the
very beginning, held on fast, and has never let go. Ryyn is one such
fan. "I think the first one I saw was the third episode, "The Witch"
and then after that I was taping everything I could." Although some
Angel fans found their niche on their own most carried over from
Buffy when David Boreanaz spun off in to his own series
in 1999. "Oh yeah, we were all over that. Especially Joe, he was probably
the biggest one on Angel, he was so amped."
"My reason for being an Angel fan was when he became bad," Joe explains, "I loved evil Angel; I just thought he was the best character ever." He started watching Buffy during Season 5 because of Glory, but Ryyn's library came to the rescue again. "Ryyn gave me probably one season a week; I watched the first season one week, I watched the second season one week, by the third season I was so hooked that I'd stay up late all hours of the night just watching it. I loved it." Andy is the group's late bloomer; he only started watching the series' full time in 2002. "I watched on and off for a couple years," he says, "but I decided to get the first and second seasons on DVD and from there I borrowed Ryyn's tapes and just got hooked like that." Ryyn attributes the popularity of his collection to the perfectionism of Andy by labeling all his tapes. It's fairly certain that the guys probably now seen every single episode but Andy was quick to mock, "I haven't seen a couple because of Ryyn's skillful taping abilities." Ryyn rebukes, "Don't blame me, blame Mike" As Mike asks, "Me! Why is it my fault?" Ryyn concludes this little banter explaining, "It was during that time that we lost Buffy and you had to go to JC Penney's to watch it." Oh, there's a story there!
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"Joss has created a very detailed, rich world; I mean look how many characters come out of one show." ~ Mike
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Joss has created
many-a-monster of metaphor but also of his fans and the lengths to
which they will go to watch Buffy. Mike tells the tale during
the first half of Buffy's third season when his area lost their
local WB affiliate. "I had a boss at the time who I snaked
into taping [the episodes] but I didn't trust him. I was responsible
for getting the tapes for everybody else but for myself I wasn't going
to rely on that. I would drive 35-minutes to a Montgomery Ward's
in Fredrick and go to the TV section. The show started at eight but
you had to get there around seven just to stake out your spot. There's
only one TV that actually got channels, every other TV was linked
to that one and they could be showing that TV to someone else. Clerks
would come ask me, 'Can I help you find something?' and I would make
up this fictitious fiancÈ who was off in lawn furniture, 'She's
looking for stuff for our patio. Sooo I'm here, ahh, I'm alright,
I don't know how long she'll be but I can't stand looking at lawn
furniture.' So I'd be standing there, standing, watching
Buffy and the clerk would keep coming and asking, 'There's
a game on, ya want me to flip over?' 'No, no I'm fine. I've
heard about this show, I figure I'll just watch it while the wife
gets lawn furniture.' I watched three episodes that way!" If
the store staff ever wondered why Mike's fiancÈ spent so much money
on her furniture fetish he had the perfect response waiting, "We had
a big porch! She was going for different themes; the east patio was
the Colonial porch and we went for an Apache, Navajo theme on the
west patio," he laughs. Oddly the store never thought about calling
security on this strange guy who watched Buffy every week in
their TV department as Mike jokingly adds, "Nah, I got along pretty
well with the clerks after awhile." A reflective pause later, "I still
call some of those guys."
FROM CREATOR TO CREATION
Joss and the worlds he has created have spurred on the fervent imaginations of these young men and the defining element for all can be summed up in one word: Continuity. "The Buffy/Angel world has an incredible sense of continuity which you don't see in a whole lot of shows," observes Mike. "Even shows that claim to have continuity like the X-Files, where you can tell halfway through that they had no idea what they were doing and just made it up as they went along. With Buffy, there's a real sense that these things are planned out years in advance and Joss does it every season. There're all these little plot threads that don't seem to go anywhere and then years later they'll bring something back; the best example is the First Evil. The First Evil was introduced in a one-episode show three years ago, completely forgotten about and then comes back. Joss has created a very detailed, rich world; I mean look how many characters [in the game] come out of one show." Andy adds his favorite part is the humor, "It's an incredibly funny show," which lends itself to the game in many aspects with one-liners from the series to how the characters interact with their history which has been so thoroughly created. The game and the shows truly come full circle.
"The general public is going to be rooting for me!" Andy Larson
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At the end of the day it all comes
down to what creating this game has done for these four friends and
the countless others who they've sucked in to it as well. The answer
is basic and simple and very much a guy-thing. "I once said the greatest
joy I've ever had in my life was watching Joe get mad," confesses Mike.
"If I had a choice between making Joe mad or making love to a beautiful
woman, I would choose Joe. There will always be other women but watching
Joe get mad is a rare treat. I've seen him throw chairs off balconies,
I've seen him break dice," all in the course of playing X-treme Buffy.
Andy has a more civilized yet honest viewpoint, "Since I never plan
on winning and I never actually think I will win, my drive is
to hang out with my friends." Ryyn is taken aback, "Ah, that's very
sweet," but Andy jokingly clarifies, "I didn't say these were
my friends! I mean 'friends' as in the Buffy characters, those
are my friends." Mike laughs, "He just went from sweet to sad in a heartbeat."
Joe admission is that, "I love beating Nehring and Currey in everything
I do. It really gets me through the week knowing I've beat them." Finally
Ryyn sits back and offers his typical Oz-like reflection, "Basically
it just gives me something to do for eight hours and the Joe-get-mad
thing? Pretty big on that too."
All four guys are absolutely great, they are really enthusiastic and it is so nice to see guys into Buffy and Angel and being proud of it. The game itself is very cool and if the creators of the original board game added this version, it would be amazing. With no more complexity in rules than the original, it offers an expanded world with more cards, more characters to play and more territory to more around in at 3x the size - it plays perfectly. And when you have the knowledge of the shows, as some fans do, you end up talking about the episodes as you experience all the tie-ins and metaphoric implications as well which makes it quite interesting and fun. It's all about the game! It's all about winning, it's extreme, its X-treme Buffy!
Written by CoA Head Writer, Kristy Bratton
CityofAngel would like to Wickedly Thank Joe Arch, Ryyn Currey, Andy Larson, and especially Mike Nehring for sharing the adventure of Buffy-X.
If you have any comments for CityofAngel.com regarding this 'Happenings' feature, we would love to hear from you. Just email us at: comments@CityofAngel.com
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