In Antoine Bauza’s Ghost Stories (published by Repos Games), you and up to three other players are the last line of defense against Wu Feng, Demon Lord of the Nine Hells. The tiny village that houses his funerary ashes is under siege by a horde of Wu Feng’s spiritual minions; if they succeed in locating the ashes, all is lost. The villagers will lend you what aid they can, but ultimately you and your fellow taoists must succeed on the strength of both your strategy and your willpower… and a little luck wouldn’t hurt either. 

The village consists of nine tiles randomly laid out in a three-by-three array. The four taoist boards are then randomly placed around that central array (with the side facing up also randomly chosen), indicating which player(s) will have which power(s). Each player receivers four Qi (life points), a tao token of his color (or one of each color in solo play), and their yin-yang token; if playing with less than four players, any neutral (unused) boards receive just the Qi, and then each player receives a Power Token (or all three tokens if solo). Finally, the Ghost Deck is prepared: after shuffling — and removing five cards per missing player, if any — one of the ten possible Incarnations of Wu Feng is secretly placed on top of the bottom ten cards of the deck, with the rest set aside unseen.

Each player’s turn is broken up into two phases. During the Yin Phase, the ghosts on that player’s board are active. Each ghost card has three stones on it (although many have one or more of those spaces blank) along with its name and strength. Any abilities on the center stone apply first; this usually involves a Tormentor causing the Curse Die (with four undesirable results and two blank faces) to be rolled by that taoist or a Haunter figure advancing one space (a haunter that advances twice has haunted the first tile in front of it, rendering that tile’s ability unusable). Then the toaist checks to see if his board is overrun with ghosts. If it is, then that player loses one Qi; if not, the player must draw the top card from the deck and place it on the board of its color or his own board if it is a black-aligned ghost (if there is no open space on the appropriate board then the ghost can be placed anywhere that is open). Any abilities on the left stone of the new ghost are applied, then the turn proceeds to the player’s Yang Phase.

During the Yang Phase, the player may move one tile (including diagonally, so a taoist in the center can reach any other tile), then perform one action. That action can either be to request the aid of the villager on his current tile or to perform an exorcism of any adjacent ghosts. An exorcism consists of rolling the three tao dice and then checking against the ghost(s) strength. If enough of the correct colored symbols are rolled, then the ghost is exorcised (discarded) and any effects on the rightmost stone are applied (this can be a curse and/or a reward); tao tokens can be spent to make up the difference, and any taoists on the same tile may share tao if necessary. At any point during the Yang Phase the player may also spend his Yin-Yang token to either request the aid of any villager or to un-haunt a tile, but it’s not easy to regain that Yin-Yang, so plan accordingly. Also, for games with less than four players you may spend a Power Token to temporarily gain the ability of one of the neutral boards; the Power Token is placed on the center tile and anyone who ends their turn there may pick up one or more Tokens present.

The players win once the incarnation of Wu Feng is defeated (and they have survived any curse that might be inflicted by doing so). That’s the good news. The bad news is that there are three ways for the players to lose: all players run out of Qi (and thus are dead; a dead player’s board is “possessed” and functions as a neutral board until the player is revived using the Graveyard tile), four tiles become haunted (even if all three tiles in the row of the ghost causing the haunting are already haunted), or when the Ghost Deck becomes exhausted. Oh, and that set-up is for the “Initiation” level of difficulty; on “Normal” each player/board only gets three Qi and it takes only three haunted tiles to lose. If you’re brave enough to attempt “Nightmare” you have to defeat four incarnations of Wu Feng (three for one or two players), and the brave souls who attempt the “Hell” difficulty will do so without the benefit of their starting Yin-Yang token!

As you can probably guess, every time the players win a game of Ghost Stories, it is an epic achievement and cause for celebration. Even a close loss can be a tale to be retold by those who suffered through it. The problem comes when the losses aren’t close, and with the heavy reliance on dice that can be a problem. A poor shuffle that brings up a bunch of horrific ghosts in rapid succession can possibly be overcome by strategy and luck, but there isn’t a lot that can be done about poor rolls. Every failed exorcism is essentially a wasted turn. Use of tao tokens and some other abilities can combine to make rolls unnecessary or otherwise reduce the luck involved if you’re really good about how you use them; this is much easier in solo play where you theoretically have access to all four Taoist powers on nearly every turn. Unfortunately every player beyond the first limits the combinations available, and with the full four players you’re relying on a fortunate roll more often then you would probably like. Additionally, neutral boards do not add ghosts during the Yin Phase; extra players may mean more ghosts and more actions, but actions can fail — adding ghosts does not (or else you’re losing anyway).

I enjoy playing Ghost Stories solitaire; it turns the game into a sort of puzzle that is actively trying to smash your face in. Playing with others is less fun for the reasons stated above. However, if your group isn’t as turned off by randomness ruining strategy as I am it can still be quite enjoyable. As with any cooperative game, there is the risk of one player taking charge and turning the game into a solitaire game with several pairs of hands doing the work, especially with newer players mixed with veteran taoists. As players gain experience with what strategies are best (where to place ghosts, which ghosts can be safely ignored to use a village tile, how much randomness to risk on a roll) that will go away, but it can affect the fun of the game until then.

Randomness issues aside, Ghost Stories is still a great-looking game with awesome flavor. The art is awesome and the figurines are well-sculpted; the cards are a little on the flimsy side, but it’s not a major issue. It’s worth a play just to experience it once. However, if you really want to enjoy Ghost Stories, both solo and with others, I highly recommend picking up the expansion, White Moon. But more on that next time… 

2009 may have been a somewhat poor year for me in terms of video games, but my board gaming experiences were fairly solid throughout the year. I wanted to look back at all of the great new games I’ve played this year. Not all of them have been featured in this column yet, but I’ll see what I can do about correcting that in the coming months.

10. Tales of the Arabian Nights

Tales is a strange game. It’s a game of storytelling more than it is of competition, featuring an absolutely massive “Book of Tales” that contains various matrices and descriptive paragraphs that will guide players on wild quests much like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel. Since victory conditions are secret there isn’t a lot of direct competition, but there are still ample opportunities to mess with each other. All of the reading and cross-referencing usually results in a long play time, but it’s quite the experience to have every now and then.

9. Revolution!

This Steve Jackson-published title pits players against each other as they vie for control over a small city. Each player has a board featuring the twelve personalities over which they can exert three types of influence (force > blackmail > money), although certain personalities can’t be affected by force and/or blackmail. Players secretly place all of their influence tokens on up to five personalities, then all are revealed simultaneously. Whoever exerts the most effective (or the most, in the event of a tie) influence on a certain personality gains their favor, which usually involves some combination of support (victory points), influence for the next round, and/or control of a location on the board. When all of the board’s control spaces are filled, the game ends and whoever has the most support wins. The bulk of the play is outguessing your opponents’ actions, which can make for some fascinating feints and bluffs.

8. Ghost Stories: White Moon

An expansion to one of my favorite (if “love/hate”) games of 2008, White Moon inhabits the besieged village with 24 villagers, broken up into twelve families of various size. Players have to try and rescue the villagers while fending off the evil spirits. Succeed in rescuing an entire family and they will grant a powerful boon; however, each family member that falls inflicts a horrible curse (some more devastating than others), and if twelve of them die then the players lose. Additionally, the players can receive the aid of Su-Ling, a village girl who gave her life to imprison Wu Feng, as well as erect a powerful Mystic Barrier using Moon Crystals. The twists added to last year’s base game seem to make the game a bit less random, which is a huge plus.

7. Zombiegeddon

Reiner Knizia’s post-apocalyptic scramble for survival bears a resemblance to Hey! That’s My Fish!, but adds varied scoring opportunities and a two-stage gameplay. After “the bomb” there will be more enemies out there, so plan accordingly!

6: FITS

Another Knizia design, this Tetris-like game is essentially a solo puzzle that can be experienced by up to four players simultaneously. While the way to gain points varies from board to board, the ways to lose them are always more numerous. Additional score boards can be downloaded for free if the four included aren’t evil enough for you and your group.  

5. Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age

RTTA is an elegantly-designed dice game, with players collecting goods, food, and workers in order to build cities and monuments while developing cultural improvements. There are several strategies to try, although you are always at the mercy of how the dice land so you have to be flexible. I prefer the “print and play” expansion to the base rules, but both are equally fun for both group and solo play.

4. Endeavor

Like many games, Z-Man’s Endeavor covers the period of European colonization and exploration that dominated the middle of the last millennium. Players get seven turns to amass victory points by various means, using actions fueled by constructed buildings. Everything is controlled by four categories of development (industry, culture, commerce, and politics), which are increased by collecting tokens and/or cards along the way. The seven-round limit goes by quicker than you think, so careful planning is necessary to maximize effectiveness. Despite the potential for “analysis paralysis,” play is usually quick, as most of the steps each round are handled simultaneously, with the individual actions going around the table one at a time. 

3. Dixit

This beautifully-illustrated family game plays in a similar manner to the classic definition game Balderdash, with the dream-like artwork taking the place of strange words. Each round’s storyteller has to be careful to give clues that are neither too obscure nor too obvious, due to the quirks of the scoring. The same supports up to six players (or, in theory, teams), although games with less than five tend to lose some of their magic due to a lack of options when it comes to guessing which card was the storyteller’s.

2. Race for the Galaxy: Rebel vs Imperium

Race for the Galaxy was, without question, my favorite game of 2008, helped by the expansion The Gathering Storm. This year’s expansion, Revel vs. Imperium, adds cards for a 6th player, new goals, and “takeover” rules that allow players to steal worlds from each other with the help of certain development cards. The deck is getting a bit unwieldy to shuffle (especially if you’ve sleeved them), but RftG is still a quick-playing game that has seen ridiculously heavy play in my group; one guy has accumulated over a thousand plays!

1. Small World

I’ve already discussed Small World and its two mini-expansions at length, but I wanted to officially name it my Unplugged Game of the Year for 2009. I like the elegance of the territorial conquest, which uses no randomness until your very last move of the turn (if then). But what I really love are the hundreds of potential combinations of races and powers that give each session a unique feel. The two expansions only add to the possibilities and keep the game fresh.

In Roll Through the Ages (RTTA), players must accumulate food, goods, and workers via three rolls of custom dice. Food must be spent to feed your cities (each city represents one die you can roll on your turn, starting at three and up to a maximum of seven); workers are used to build new cities or monuments, and goods can be traded in for developments (one per turn) to give you advantages.

Each die has the following faces: three food, three workers, two food/two workers (player’s choice), one good, two goods plus one disaster, and one coin (normally equivalent to seven points of goods when purchasing developments). Disaster results may not (normally) be rerolled, and accumulating more than one will result in penalty points or a loss of goods — although sometimes those penalties are applied to your opponents! The game ends once either one of each available monuments has been constructed or when one player achieves his fifth development; once one of those conditions has been met, the round will finish out so that each player has received the same number of turns before the final scores are tallied. Points are earned via monuments and developments, with bonus points being available under certain conditions and disasters costing you points.

Goods and food are recorded on a player’s pegboard, and everything else is recorded on the paper score pads. Earning goods is initially awkward; there are five types of goods (wood, stone, pottery, cloth, and spearheads) that increase in value as you work your way up the list, but you will never earn spearheads unless you collect at least five goods on your roll, as you always start from the bottom and work your way up (the 6th good translates into an additional movement of your “wood” peg, and so on). Similarly, trading in goods for developments is an all-or-nothing proposition; if your wood peg is in the second slot, representing three points, you cannot use only two of them and move your peg down to the first slot (one point). Finally, at the end of your turn you must discard any goods in excess of six peg-moves’ worth. The whole goods system takes some getting used to, but since it is the primary mechanic in the game you will quickly overcome its mild learning curve.

Despite its Yahtzee-like appearance, RTTA is a very strategic game filled with options. Building cities to roll more dice is obviously a good idea, but only if you can generate enough food to support your growing population; unfed cities cost you a point per food you are short each round. Every development gives you some sort of ancillary benefit in addition to its point value; some make you resistant to certain disasters, others give you bonuses to your food or worker rolls, and some award bonus points for monuments or cities. The cheaper developments are worth less points, but the game ends shortly after one player has achieved his fifth one; is a rushing strategy going to pay off and catch your opponents flat-footed? Monuments offer you big points if you’re the first to build a given type and a lesser award (often half the points or less) for anyone else to complete one; occasionally an especially worker-heavy roll has  “stolen” a monument from a player slowly chipping away at it, so plan accordingly!

The box you can purchase from Gryphon Games (at your FLGS for around $30) contains the dice, four pegboards, and score pads for “the Bronze Age”, which are the rules I’ve outlined above. But the beauty of Matt Leacock’s design is that the game can change just by using a different score pad and adjusted rules. He has a “print and play” expansion up for free on the game’s official website, representing “the Late Bronze Age.” In addition to new developments and adjusted versions of some of the originals, the expansion includes better rewards for finishing already-built monuments, a trading option via one of the developments that let you better control the value of your goods, and ends the game at seven developments rather than three. I actually prefer the expansion for its additional strategic options, but the base game is quite fun on its own. It supports two to four players and has a solo variant that works well (you take ten total turns and can re-roll disaster dice if you wish).