McGuire House Rules for Settlers of Catan

The Settlers of Catan is perhaps the most widely-played modern board game, easy to learn, deep

enough to be interesting for everyone, and playable by anyone old enough to add small numbers. The game was designed by Klaus Teuber and first published in 1995 by Kosmos and other companies. It has since been revised and expanded many times.

The basic gameplay is similar to Monopoly: players gain resources through random events, build small and large buildings to increase their income, and trade resources.  Unlike Monopoly, Settlers grants players significant control over the randomness, expands from a single resource to a five-commodity economy, separates points from resources, and keeps all players in the game until the end (which usually arrives after about 45 minutes). These elements are the hallmarks of Eurogames and were popularized by Settlers, which initiated the current board game Renaissance.

McGuire House Rules for Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a family-friendly Eurogame (modern board game) that, with appropriate expansions and modifications, scales well from two to six players and admits serious competition at any age from five up. It allows players to chose a game length from about 20 minutes up to hours (with multiple sets). The game was designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and was first published in 2000 by Rio Grande and others. This post describes our house rules for Carcassonne. For simplicity when learning the game, I give a nearly complete rulebook rather than differences from printed rules.

We've been playing Carcassonne for over a decade (most recently with small children). The McGuire house rules arose from that play experience, some in-depth game theory analysis, and analysis of rule differences in different regional editions and printings. We believe that compared to the American printed rules, these increase fairness and balance, extend the game to meaningful two-player play, manage game length, and increase strategy, while avoiding unnecessary complexity and staying true to the core mechanics that made Carcassonne great originally. I wrote an analysis of the original rules a few years ago for my game design course that explains the motivation for many of these changes.

For various reasons, including marketing and a desire to not reprint even when errors are discovered, the box that you buy of a game doesn't always have the best version of the rules. I encourage everyone to experiment with the rules of games that they play, and if you're playing Carcassonne, here are some to start with. Lots of folks will disagree with our rule set, and that's great too. The best part of playing a game is often changing the rules and finding where the lead you, and everyone has their own taste for what makes the game ideal.

The Joy of Modern Board Games

Depiction of the ancient Egyptian game of Senet

Board games have been enjoyed for thousands of years. This category includes card and dice games, as well as table-top games with proper boards. In the 19th and 20th century, standardized commercial games began to appear, with Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, and Hasbro dominating the themed "American board games" market into the late 20th century. This includes popular titles such as Monopoly, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, and Chutes & Ladders. These are the games that many current young parents grew up playing at home.

The Settlers of Catan

In the late 1990's, board games experienced a revolution. New games emerged in Europe (especially Germany) such as The Settlers of Catan. These games combined the accessibility of Monopoly with a level of strategy previously found only in hardcore wargames and role playing games. These quickly became popular around the world. They scaled from family board game sessions to college game nights. This accessibility was due to relatively short play times (compared to wargames and role playing games), strong themes attractive to a wide audience (compared to chess), and the crucial ability to accommodate many players who are not eliminated during play. Many entries in this new genre of "Eurogames" drew on advances in design from video games and from mathematical principles such as set theory.

Favorite Short Films from Annecy 2014

The 2014 Annecy International Film Festival  screened 500 new films in the beautiful resort town of Annecy, France. Since 1960, the best animated films have been shown here, with emphasis on experimental short films. I've attended since 2004, and each year been amazed--and often overwhelmed--by the quality and diversity of ideas. Last year I began posting summaries of my favorite films.

My 2014 favorites films are here. I'm partial to representational; uplifting, humorous, or sexy; narrative shorts. From recalling the previous years' award winners, this is the festival audience's preference as well. That bias is perhaps partly because it is hard to present a new aspect of important but well-explored topics such as abuse, genocide, and aging; and also because it is very easy to make overwrought films on those topics.

Yet, this year many of my favorites were atypical. In those cases, they took on difficult subjects with maturity and grace. My favorites usually overlap heavily with the festival award winners, however this year only two appeared on that list and my (tied) top two choices won no awards in competition at all.

The Best Film of Annecy 2014

These two radically different films impressed me greatly. Both displayed mastery of the medium, expert pacing, and bent in unexpected directions. I consider them tied for "best short".

Hipopotamy (Piotr Dumala) - A beautifully executed film for its animation, music, pacing, and maturity, with deeply disturbing content: human forms applied to animal (titually hippotamus, but most likely elephant seal) behaviors, which are deplorably not so implausible on human forms.  It is important and an intelligent combination of beauty and ugliness directed with enough space for the audience to draw their own conclusions and parallels. http://www.fumistudio.com/

Moulton og meg (Torill Kove) - Three girls raised by modernist architects. A killer concept with ready-made art humor, nice coming-of-age elements, and heartwarming comments on families. The clean modernist-meets-children's style of black lines and solid, marker color fits the material perfectly. The narration is top-notch, as is the script and timing. Trailer