After having numerous successful and huge Game Parties, I was starting to miss the deeper stuff. Could I convert the success of these bigger game parties into more intellectual contests with fewer people? For the guys, it was no problem: we successfully did an El Grande night, the guys knew exactly what to expect, came looking for intensity, and we had a very satisfying session (of a game, by the way, that I have yet to win).

Now the tougher part... inviting girls to more competitive game nights.

My first problem was one of expectations. Deeper Eurogames take much longer than party games and have strict limits on the number of players. However, after several massive parties where people freely came and went, any new invitation to a game night may very well imply a boisterous party followed by a lot of cuddling. The trick was to communicate a very different type of party with much stricter controls and expectations of attendence. How to communicate a completely different paradigm and "lay down the law" on attendance without appearing Nazi or creating confrontations?

It doesn't work to issue warnings about being on time with an invitation: not only is that an implied threat, but it also creates an expectation of a strict, uncomfortable and possibly tyrannical environment.

What I decided to do was market the whole thing as a night of "Tea and Games". This sets a pleasant expectation of sober sophistication that's quite at odds with our previous nights of laugh riots and cuddling. It doesn't, however, imply a structured invitation, so I was still forced to apologetically explain that the nature of these games don't allow me to freely invite others and require that people be on time. On the other hand, I was hoping that the vastly different image "Tea and Games" creates would help open minds to new restrictions that we normally wouldn't require.

In any social endeavour, the number of variables is overwhelming, so to control them you always start with a sure fire thing, watch for subtle signs of dysfunction, adjust, then work your way up. In my case, I started with the guys game night, which was a success in every way. My first try at a more feminine thing would be especially challenging as it was finals week, which adds a layer of unpredictability to the ability of people to estimate their free time. I thus played it safe, inviting only the most committed members of my game group, two of which have come to strict game nights before.

The first success was that everyone arrived contemplative and calm as they ordered Chinese while I served tea. Lauren is the only one who hadn't been to a strict game night before, so she was the one sorta walking on eggshells, wondering exactly what to expect. Her non-verbal response to this would be the most important predictor of more general reactions.

Everyone arrived in the same car, so there was no need for warm-up games, and we jumped right into San Juan. This game tests many of parameters I'm most concerned about. It's rules are unlike anything these folks have seen, there is a bewildering variety of cards to understand and the strategy can be counter-intuitive, all of which are factors that often alienate non-gamers.

I started by explaining that cards had many unrelated uses, then centered my explanation on the production of goods: ya gotta build the building, it's gotta make something, then you gotta sell it. At each critical point, I heralded to them yet another completely unrelated use for cards. After those concepts were down, explaining the roles and the turn sequence was easy. Finally, I handed the cards out to everyone and had them read them and ask questions.

As it turns out, Lauren was very short on sleep and was having trouble concentrating. This skewed data I was looking for from her on how well this will work with other non-gamers, as she couldn't soak in any more and we just launched into the game.

Audra has a long record of rough times with my games. She has played Liar's Dice, Antike, Bang!, Werewolf and many others, and in every one of them she felt utterly lost and got crushed. However, it's a tribute both to the strength of her personality and the bonding experience of the game sessions that she has remained enthusiastic about these nights no matter what the outcome. I felt a bit guilty about introducing San Juan to this group, as this was even more more a "gamer's game" than the others, so I was pretty much condemning her to being massacred.

Racheal had some early luck and got great leverage out building some production bonuses. Audra quickly grasped the significance of what Racheal was doing and immediately extended Racheal's ideas farther to produce a production juggernaut that exceeded Racheal's. To parry this, I played a denial strategy, grabbing roles that accentuated the bottlenecks in Audra and Racheal's production chain. This shut down Rachael pretty hard, but Audra easily outmaneuvered my attacks with far more depth, foresight and strategy than I had. As a result, everything I did not only was ineffective, but was anticipated to the point it made her stronger.

The change in Audra's demeanor from previous sessions was remarkable. Usually the quote we get from her is, "Ugh, I think I'm just sucking at LIFE". When we play Werewolf, she is almost always a Werewolf, and after a while it became tradition to eliminate her immediately. In more complex games, she simply "doesn't get it" and stares blankly as her fortunes tumble. San Juan is even more complex than all of those other games, and yet not only did she grasp the rules immediately, she was playing several moves ahead, and - most importantly - had correctly anticipated all my counter-strategies! Instead of sitting detached and somewhat glazed over, she was now at the edge of her seat, aggressive and pro-active. It was an absolutely wonderful thing to behold - if it weren't so darn threatening to my position!

Lauren and I were pretty much out of the goods game, so both of us satisfied ourselves with minimal production facilities to take advantage of the few crumbs landing from Audra and Racheal's depredations. Lauren had gotten some monument bonuses early, so she built a few of those, but her economy was barely functioning. She was kept in the game by the fact that she had built a silver mine earlier than anyone else. I took a subversive approach, building all sorts of bonuses oriented toward cheap specials buildings and bonuses the rewarded me for being poor. As a result, I was well set up for my strategy, which was to out-VP folks with a lot of cheap glory houses then end the game before the slower factories could react.

After folks had build 6 or 7 buildings, I warned everyone that they needed to switch emphasis on building glory houses. Lauren was all spent out, and was only able to build a few more VP makers. Racheal was being suffocated by the bottlenecks in her setup and was unable to exploit. The critical decision lay with Audra, who build victory houses that accentuated her wealth of production, but decided not to build non-functional glory houses. Here she made a critical miscalculation: she greatly underestimated the VP impact of these non-functional buildings and instead chose to try to increase the point contributions of her existing factories.

It was time for my 12th building. I was in position for the win, popping high VP buildings quicker before others were ready to spend. I took advantage of everyone's ignorance of the Councilor phase and was able to choose from one of 7 different cards to add to my already formidable hand to add my final grand building. To my shock, every one of those 7 cards I drew were for buildings of 1 or 2 points - not a single glory house amongst them! When the next person selected the building phase, I went ahead and ended the game by building one of these worthless cards - to wait any longer would give the production hounds a chance to build a glory house that I could not respond to.

Even with my disappointing final building, my fast and brutal finish caught Audra with a lot of money but no buildings to show for it, and so I was able to edge her out by a few points. Audra was shocked at how poorly the VP bonuses she had set up for her production buildings compared to the power of building full-fledged glory houses, a miscalculation she is sure to never repeat. What I hadn't counted on was the astounding multiplying effect of Lauren's monuments: despite her fatigue, initial difficulties with the rules and her stilted economy, she had enough multiplying glory buildings to give her the unexpected win. As far as I can remember, here was the score:

Lauren 40
Me 36
Audra 32
Rachael 24

Despite losing, Audra was completely undeterred, as her error was minor (I myself underestimated the power of functionless glory buildings the first few times I played). She was clearly empowered that she could see and analyze in gory detail what she needed to do differently for next game, and had the incisive and aggressive outlook of a competitor after the game was done, rather than the somewhat glazed confusion of someone who just got trampled on.

We had a little time left after this game which we diverted to a pleasant session of Fish Eat Fish. I had folks remove the duplicate cards in their hand. The smaller hand size made it much more feasible for people to score and exit the game before their dearth of cards affected them. The end result was much closer than all of our previous Fish Eat Fish games, as everyone had a competitive score, not just the last players standing.

The awful puns that had dominated our earlier game of this simply didn't resurface, much to everyone's disappointment. After this game was finished, the hideously evil Countdown to Finals made itself felt, and we hurriedly disbanded to give folks time to confront their academic torture.