Merric Blackman
Australia
Waubra
Victoria
Ramping up my reviewing.
Happily playing games for many, many years.
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We'd played BattleTech, Amun-Re, Cosmic Encounter and Vampire: Dark Influences... and then Patrick arrived. At this point, we had six players and a definitely casual player, which sort of restricted our choices. It was also somewhat late (around 10.30 pm). Repressing the urge to say, "Go away, Pat!", Randy got out Wits and Wagers, a somewhat light-hearted game that I'd never played before.
And if I play it again anytime soon, it's because I didn't say "Go away, Pat!" quickly enough.
It's not because it's a bad game. In fact, it's rather clever: guess the answer to a question, arrange all the answers in order, then bet on the answers. Yeah, that's clever.
No, it's because the game is full of questions aimed at people who live in the United States. Americans, to give them the inaccurate but colloquial name. This was something I found profoundly irritating, although it wasn't too bad for the first six questions.
We guessed, we betted, we won - or lost - depending on our answers and wagering. Randy did well, I did ok. Randy had an advantage (he's Canadian). We all bet on Randy, mostly. By the beginning of the seventh round, we'd managed to almost completely run the bank out of chips. It had about 3 5-point chips left.
Then came the last round. The question: "How many World Series have the Yankees played in".
Thinking of that question makes me remember a scene from Red Dwarf:
My answer in answering the question: "What does the red spectrum tell us about quasars?" Write bigger. There are various words that need to be defined: what is a spectrum, what is a red one, why is it red, and why is it so frequently linked with quasars? What the hell is a quasar? - Rimmer
Here in Australia, we once had a cricket competition called the "World Series Cup". One of the interesting points about that name and that of the competition run in the states is that it involved teams from around the world. Oh, and it was the entire competition, not just the finals.
Hmm.
You might tell by this rant that I didn't know that it was just the finals. Well, that's sort of true; it's is definitely true that most of the other players didn't know, and it is also undeniably true that it was a question that I really didn't care about the answer to.
You might wonder at this irrational response to what is generally a pretty well-designed game, and, indeed, I wonder myself. However, there's no denying that I am having the response.
So, Wits and Wagers: good game, pity about the questions.
Oh, and Sarah won the game, pretty substantially - a surprising result. I didn't have any money left at the end. Others kept some back and did ok. Not me.
Is there going to be an international edition of this game? With questions that are interesting to people who aren't from the USA?
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Australia
Sebastopol (Ballarat)
Victoria
That's Karl on the left. Eternity on the right.
I love Melissa, but don't tell her. It's a secret if she can find this. Shhhhh....
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I didn't win! Sarah won on the final question. (I came second)
Next time we play we can skip "Americancentric" questions.
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Richard Eldridge
Australia
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GeneSteeler wrote: I didn't win! Sarah won on the final question. (I came second)
Next time we play we can skip "Americancentric" questions.
Randy, I came second with somewhere around 80-100k dollars. Why is it so hard for some people to visualise me doing well?  This is the only game where I did remotely well, apart from third in Dark Influences.
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Australia
Sebastopol (Ballarat)
Victoria
That's Karl on the left. Eternity on the right.
I love Melissa, but don't tell her. It's a secret if she can find this. Shhhhh....
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Raharanor wrote: GeneSteeler wrote: I didn't win! Sarah won on the final question. (I came second)
Next time we play we can skip "Americancentric" questions. Randy, I came second with somewhere around 80-100k dollars. Why is it so hard for some people to visualise me doing well? This is the only game where I did remotely well, apart from third in Dark Influences.
But I had 81-101k dollars. 
I know Sarah hit big on the final question and finished somewhere over 130k.
edit: No idea. But I do remember offering you an alliance for second place in Cosmic Encounter that you turned down. 
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Richard Eldridge
Australia
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GeneSteeler wrote: Raharanor wrote: GeneSteeler wrote: I didn't win! Sarah won on the final question. (I came second)
Next time we play we can skip "Americancentric" questions. Randy, I came second with somewhere around 80-100k dollars. Why is it so hard for some people to visualise me doing well? This is the only game where I did remotely well, apart from third in Dark Influences. But I had 81-101k dollars. I know Sarah hit big on the final question and finished somewhere over 130k. edit: No idea. But I do remember offering you an alliance for second place in Cosmic Encounter that you turned down.
No more manipulation in games from now on...trust no one! 
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Evan Stegman
United States
Minneapolis
MN
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MerricB wrote: ...
No, it's because the game is full of questions aimed at people who live in the United States. Americans, to give them the inaccurate but colloquial name. ...
???
That is the accurate name. In country names, the 'of' means 'that make(s) up a country called'.
Same as in this small list of official country names:
Federated States of Micronesia
Commonwealth of Australia
Republic of Albania
Federative Republic of Brazil
Union of Myanmar
State of Israel
United Republic of Tanzania
It would be different if the name was United State of the Americas but it's not.
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Dominic Crapuchettes
United States
Bethesda
MD
North Star Games designs party games that don't suck! Play them with your non-gamer friends over the holidays.
First there was Hearts, then there was Spades, and now we bring you Clubs. The suit of clubs finally gets some respect!
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MerricB wrote: Is there going to be an international edition of this game? With questions that are interesting to people who aren't from the USA?
Sorry about the frustration caused by US centric questions. This version was designed for people who live in the US. Days of Wonder is producing a Commonwealth edition called Gambit 7 that should be released sometime soon. I expect those questions to be much more appropriate for you and all your down under friends.
In the mean time, I suggest skipping over the US centric questions. One way to do this would be to allow the person asking the question to choose any question from the card.
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Australia
Sebastopol (Ballarat)
Victoria
That's Karl on the left. Eternity on the right.
I love Melissa, but don't tell her. It's a secret if she can find this. Shhhhh....
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domcrap wrote: MerricB wrote: Is there going to be an international edition of this game? With questions that are interesting to people who aren't from the USA? Sorry about the frustration caused by US centric questions. This version was designed for people who live in the US. Days of Wonder is producing a Commonwealth edition called Gambit 7 that should be released sometime soon. I expect those questions to be much more appropriate for you and all your down under friends. In the mean time, I suggest skipping over the US centric questions. One way to do this would be to allow the person asking the question to choose any question from the card.
I really enjoy wits & wagers for the light party game it is. I find that it doesn't really matter if you know the answer or not, as long as the other people's answers give you a clue to what the real answer is. Which creates the "game" aspect and makes W&W 1000x better than Trivial Pursuit.
For now, I'm happy to just skip the American Sports questions, although most of us have at least an inkling for the history questions.
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Bill Gallagher
United States
Torrance
California
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MerricB wrote: Then came the last round. The question: "How many World Series have the Yankees played in".
Questions like this where the answer can change after the game is published is one issue I have with the game. This is true for Trivial Pursuit and other similar games as well.
Hopefully there will be more published decks with questions specific for other parts of the world so you Aussies don't have to suffer with ones like that above.
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