Game: Showmanager

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lineuphere — 2008-02-16T20:31:27+00:00

Game Pieces

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lineuphere — 2008-02-16T20:01:20+00:00

Character cards

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lineuphere — 2008-02-16T19:24:20+00:00

Box Back

Thread: Re: Language dependence? And... any reprints?

larryjrice — 2007-12-10T02:43:44+00:00

I doubt it will be reprinted as Showmanager. It is pretty much language independent. Names of actors and actresses are German. I believe the English rules are available on BGG.

Thread: Language dependence? And... any reprints?

richardolen2 — 2007-12-10T01:56:25+00:00

If I spent the money to get this, would I be hamstrung by the language?

And is there any chance this'll be reprinted? In this theme? Because I like this theme. I know there's Atlantic Star, but...

Thread: Re: Anyone has the rules for this game in English?

monkeyrobot — 2007-11-06T16:18:48+00:00

Thank you!

Thread: Re: Anyone has the rules for this game in English?

SteveK2 — 2007-11-06T11:44:37+00:00

There's a text-only translation under the game's Links section:

http://gamecabinet.com/rules/ShowManager2.html

Thread: Anyone has the rules for this game in English?

monkeyrobot — 2007-11-06T10:15:52+00:00

Hi,

My copy of the game only has the rules in german. Is there any translation to english out there?

Thank you in advance.

Dan

Thread: I am no Guitar Hero

Spielfreak — 2007-06-29T00:14:38+00:00

SHOWMANAGER: Bob.S, Kathy, Tami, Gary, Bob.C, Phil

This was one of my worst results in Showmanager in quite some time. I acquired very few 9pt actors, and always seemed to overpay for mediocrity. I blame it on playing the guitar rather than my usual harp. I had an opportunity to start my first show, a putrid Ballet, in a city more becoming of last place points, like Bochum, but I instead became dazzled by the 9pt King Lear actor sitting in the $3000DM spot and scoffed him up. Tami, who had my harps, subsequently started Ballet in New York, thus dooming me to 0 pts for my putrid show.

Bongo Bob.S managed to place well in New York after everyone had taken out loans on their Ballet productions, and coupled with his middle placements in Koln (King Lear) and Bochum (Wolf) he had enough to take the win in a fairly close game. Keyboard Kathy didn't place first in any city, but her two second places in New York and Koln coupled with her other decent shows gave her second place by a point over Harpie Tami. Panpipe Gary and Bugle Bob.C were also in the game, but were clearly second tier producers. Final scores were: 46, 44, 43, 34, 29, 24.

[c]B KL W Q
N.Y. KOLN BOCH TROI
==== ==== ==== ====
S 22 T 18 G 16 P 14
K 16 K 14 C 13 G 12
T 10 S 10 S 10 T 10
C 6 P 7 K 8 C 8
G 2 G 4 T 5 K 6
P 0 C 2 P 3 S 4[/c]

Thread: Re: Card "Ingrid van Stelen"

pakeleive — 2007-04-26T19:18:17+00:00

Thank you for the answer!
People do notice this when it is the last chance to win the game to use Ingrid as Colette... And we (other players) had to agree
At the first glance I wanted to correct F to E as it is easier than Colette to Nicole

Thread: Re: Card "Ingrid van Stelen"

Bernd — 2007-04-26T15:22:39+00:00

To give the offficial position I repeat my posting ffrom the showmanager picture gallery :

Nice shot !!!
There are not many people around to notice that detail !
The right way to handle this is the letter -F-
So, -F- Nicole is correct .
Hope that helps and all the best from germany
Bernd

Thread: Re: Card "Ingrid van Stelen"

Fledermaushaus — 2007-04-25T18:18:24+00:00

Noooooooo!!! (I'm just trying to sound a bit like a ham actor there).
You don't choose. It is a printing mistake (unless you really KNOW otherwise).
If you want to check through the cards, you will find that, with 18 roles to be played, there are 18 cards valued at '6', '3', one for each part as a '6' and one for each part as a '3'. The Ingrid van Stelen card is correctly numbered/lettered with 'F6/D3' but wrongly named 'Colette' where it should say 'Nicole'.
Perhaps Dave has misunderstood the question, and is thinking of the choice between her ballet and her King Lear role?
So, to re-state.... (dramatic pause).......
If you use Ingrid in the ballet, she can only play the role of Nicole.
(Exit, stage left)

Incidentally, all the other cards are printed correctly.

Thread: Re: Card "Ingrid van Stelen"

locusshifter — 2007-04-25T16:37:46+00:00

To actually answer your question:

You choose which she represents at the time the card is used. She can only be one or the other.

Thread: Re: Card "Ingrid van Stelen"

Fledermaushaus — 2007-04-25T08:38:45+00:00

Ingrid is Nicole. She is NOT Colette. So the 'F' and '6' are correct but the name printed is wrong.

Thread: Card "Ingrid van Stelen"

pakeleive — 2007-04-25T07:18:17+00:00

Which role does Ingrid van Stelen play in Ballet: -F- Nicole or -E- Colette? Or it depends on the situation...

]]>

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pakeleive — 2007-04-16T21:37:02+00:00

Which role does Ingrid van Stelen play in Ballet: -F- Nicole or -E- Colette?

Thread: Review by SOS (from 1999)

sos1 — 2007-03-03T02:16:22+00:00

Showmanager (or Premiere) is a game of producing Broadway and off-Broadway shows. I've played both games, and I believe the mechanics are identical - only the names of the shows and possibly show towns have been changed. Since I only own Showmanager, I'll write about that one.

Components

The game comes with 120 performer cards, each showing a different actor/singer and his/her rating at various roles. Each player has four different show cards to record your score for each on, and a summary card detailing the roles for each of the four shows. There is some play money to hire actors with. Finally, there are two boards: one shows the performers available for hire, and the other shows the cities the shows will be performed at. Oh - there's a grease pencil, too, for writing your score on the show cards.

The four shows are Wolf (which has three roles available), Queenie (four roles), King Lear (five roles), and Ballet (six roles). Each player is going to put on each of these shows, and score points depending on how much better or worse your version is than the other players' versions.

The Actors

The actors are largely unique, with provincial actors being the exception - they're all worth 1 point no matter what role they play in any show. Otherwise, you get such performers as Trixi who is a Star (9 points) in the role of Bella in Wolf, but is worthless in any other role or show. Or there's Sabrina, who is quite good as Queenie (7 points), and poor (2 points) as Suzette in Ballet, but is otherwise worthless. Or Hans is mediocre in three different roles (3 points each), but otherwise worthless. And so on. Except for the provincial actors, each performer is worth nine points total, but this can be spread over anywhere from one to three different roles, returning point values of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 9.

Your Goal

The object is to fill each play with the best cast you can. An optimum cast, then, is hiring the star performer for each role. This would give you a point value of 9 times (number of roles) for each show. While theoretically possible, I doubt this will ever happen. That's because other players will obviously want the star players, too, and there is only one per role available.

Basic Play

You start the game with four shows to put on a sum of money to hire performers with. Four actors are turned face up onto the performers-for-hire board - the rightmost one is desperate for work and you can have him/her for free. The next one to the left costs 1,000 DM to hire, the next one 2,000 DM, and the left-most one 3,000 DM. On your turn you may hire any one performer you wish - or spend 2,000 DM to clear the board and bring out four new actors. Once you select one, those to the left of that empty space all move one space to the right, and a new actor is placed in the 3,000 DM slot.

Play continues around the board - on your turn you can either hire an actor or put on a show. You may not simply grab all the best actors for every show and save them all to the end, however. The game forces you to focus on one show by a simple rule: when you open a show, you may not carry more than two actors in your hand after playing the cast for the opened show. Thus, if you want to open Wolf, you'll have to do it with five or fewer cards in your hand. Once you've hired that sixth performer, you'll have to wait to do Wolf until you've opened something else first ...

Opening a Show!

Once you open a show, you write your total value (points of all the actors) on the card, and place it on the show board. If you are the first to open a show, you pick which city it opens in. If someone else has opened the same show earlier, you must put your musical on in the same city. There are five different cities (so one won't get a show) with different scoring values. If you think your show is very good, open in New York or Hamburg. If you think you have a poor show, open in Troisdorf or Bochum. (You could have a very poor show if you have to use an actor not suited to a role, by the way: zero points for someone not rated in a role, unless it's a provincial actor, who gives 1 point for any role at all.)

The six slots in New York are rated from 0 to 22 Victory Points. As a show is opened in New York, it gets placed in order by its value (with an earlier show winning ties). Thus, if my show is worth 18 points and I open New York, I put it in the top spot: 22 Victory Points. If you then open the same show with 19 points, you take my 22 VP slot and slide me down to the 16 VP slot. If a third person opens the show with 15 points, we both retain our top slots, and the third show goes in the third slot for 10 VP. And so on. The six slots in Troisdorf are rated from 4 to 14 VPs, by the way - I guess they're so starved for theater there they're not so fussy, but nor do they pay as much as New Yorkers.

There is also a rule about borrowing money against a specific show, reducing its value and possibly place. Sometimes you have to do this, though, and I've seen players open a show at a low value just to borrow money against it.

Choices

The game plays very well, though I've found it's better with more players than fewer. It moves at a good pace, so even with six players you're never waiting for your turn too long. It's a resource management game with lots of interesting choices - do you spend your money to get those expensive actors, or go for the cheaper ones, saving money for special occasions? You can hold two actors between shows - do you grab a 9-point star for a show you're not working on now, hoping to use him later, or are you wasting your time and money doing that? Someone else is going head-to-head with you to open the same show, and seems to be grabbing the best actors - do you just open it quickly with a low score in order to place it in Troisdorf or do you fight to the last? And so on - the game has lots of interesting choices with a good pace, and takes just over an hour. The theme is one that appeals to women, I've noticed, so if you have female gamers, they might like it.

All in all, a very fine game - recommended.

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itiswon — 2007-02-08T07:57:48+00:00

for casting right actor

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itiswon — 2007-02-08T07:55:57+00:00

Is this real author's autograph ?

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dawnsworld — 2006-11-21T04:22:05+00:00

showmanager in play at bgg.con 2006

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Werbaer — 2006-11-01T13:53:30+00:00

box cover

Thread: Card Display Board

locusshifter — 2006-05-15T03:56:07+00:00

I own Atlantic Star, and the board used to display the cards sucks. It's set up in a circular pattern, which makes managing it a bit more fiddly than it needs to be. The Showmanager board lets you simply slide the cards to the right after you buy them.

Could some kind person upload a scan of the ShowManager display board please? I know I could either make one myself, or not use a board at all....but I'm too lazy to make one.

Thread: [SR] GSG 03/07/2006, 5 Players

Spielfreak — 2006-03-27T16:50:59+00:00

SHOWMANAGER: Phil, Mark, Anthony, Ken, Bob

It was time to show the new guys how to put on plays. I picked up several Queenie actors on the cheap, and put on a 27pt show in Bochum. Anthony followed by putting on a 10pt Queenie, as he had collected a lot of junkie cards and needed to reset his hand. Although the board was cleared many times, I was able to obtain not one, not two, but ALL THREE 9pt Wolf actors! The timing was exceptional, as the other players had just put on King Lear or Ballet, and so no one was able to disrupt my plans of putting Wolf on in New York. Ah, the perfect play in the highest point slot -- gotta love that. Several players then put on Queenie plays, much to Mark's chagrin, as he was hoping to complete the play and then take out a loan against it. But since his was the last Queenie, he could not squeeze any money out of it. Ken, too, was taking out loans to feed his board-clearing habit. Even tightfisted Bob got caught up in the board-clearing frenzy. In the end no one else could top the dummy player in Wolf, and the scores were quite close. I wound up with the win, thanks to my dominant Wolf and mid-range finishes in the other plays. Final scores were: 46, 42, 37, 36, 32. (The dummy player scored 29).
[c]
W KL B Q
N.Y. HAM. KOLN BOCH
==== ==== ==== ====
P 22 M 20 B 18 M 16
D 16 K 15 A 14 B 13
A 10 A 10 K 10 P 10
K 6 P 7 P 7 D 8
M 2 D 3 M 4 K 5
B 0 B 1 D 2 A 3[/c]

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BigWoo — 2006-02-10T22:48:25+00:00

Premiere (playing material) + a winning cast

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BigWoo — 2006-02-10T22:48:19+00:00

Premiere (box cover)

Thread: Show Manager - Session Report

gschloesser — 2005-12-10T13:55:07+00:00

Funny, I am not a big fan of Broadway plays or live theater, but Show Manager has always been a personal favorite. Of course, I also enjoy role-playing it a bit, announcing each show and performer with relish and much fanfare … or making apologies for poor performances. I coerced Kevin and Rhonda into doing the same, while Gail remained a bit more straight-laced.

Kevin was suffering horribly, being stuck with lousy performers and limited funding. His 10-point Queenie was abysmal, causing the audience to empty entire shelves of vegetables onto the stage.

Fortunately, other productions were significantly better, albeit not stellar.

Finals: Greg 54, Rhonda 43, Gail 39, Kevin 23

Ratings: Greg 7, Gail 7, Rhonda 7, Kevin 6.5

Thread: [SR] GSG 9/13

Spielfreak — 2005-09-23T22:11:03+00:00

SHOWMANAGER: Gary, Phil, Mark, Bill, Jeremy, Bob

It was the beginning of the “S” fortnight, and what better game to play than a game about putting on plays. Gary was the only rookie producer of the lot. Mark began the game, and he was followed in player order by Bob, Bill, Jeremy, Gary, and Phil. We should have oriented the actor board to face Bill, for each time his turn commenced he would ask for clarification about which letters and colors were on each actor card. Yeah, this game was played at a slow pace. I managed to collect a couple of 9pt actors for King Lear, but Bob beat me to the punch by putting on the first King Lear show, and placing his crappy show on Treisdorf, the city with the smallest payout. Curse you, Bob!! I then picked up what I needed on the cheap (why should I spend a lot for such a poor payout?), and eventually put on a decent (32pt) King Lear that held first position for most of the game. I even got to borrow 10,000 DM from this play and still retain the top position, until Gary put on a 33pt show at game’s end. Almost everyone then decided to work on building a Queenie, which Jeremy started in Koln, and my 24pt show wound up tied for last place. I then concentrated on Ballet, and managed to snag a 9pt actor in the end to put on a 39pt show, good enough for first place. And Ballet was being shown in New York, which has the largest first place bonus. Then it came time to put on a Wolf, and the pickings were slim to none at this point. Even though I had a 9pt actor, I had to round out the cast with a 3pt actor and a 1pt wild actor, for a total of 16pts, good enough for fourth place in Wolf. I ended up first in New York Ballet (22), fourth in Hamburg Wolf (7), last in Koln Queenie (2) and second in Treisdorf King Lear (12) for a total of 43 pts. Not bad, but Gary was the big winner with a second in Ballet (16), third in Wolf (10), first in Queenie (18), and first in King Lear (14) for a whopping 58 pts. And he did all this without taking out a single loan! Mark tied me with 43 pts, and the others were left to sweep out the theaters. Final scores were something like: 58, 43, 43, 29, 28, 20.

Thread: Tao of Gaming Review

Bankler — 2005-07-03T22:54:08+00:00

[This review was originally written in 2000. -- Brian]

Premiere is the first game by db Spiele to be 'picked up' by one of the larger companies. Queen Games has released this as Showmanager, but it's the same.

In Premiere, you are producing four plays. You start out with money to hire actors and actresses. There is a big deck of cards for the actors, four of which are available at any one time. One actor is free, the next costs $1, the next costs $2, the next costs $3. When a player buys an actor, all of the more expensive actors move down a slot and a new actor enters at the $3 slot. (I guess they get more despondent and desperate...)

On your turn, you

1. take out a loan on an already opened play (optional),
2. flush the talent agency for $2 (optional),
3. hire an actor OR finish producing a play (mandatory).

Typically a player just takes an actor. You get an actor, pay the cost, and then replace it (like I mentioned before). When a player finishes producing a musical, he takes a number of actors equal to the number that the play demands from his hand and assigns them a role. Actors are suited to particular roles, for example Michael G. Ray is worth 5 points as Mark Winner (in Freudi) and 4 points as Chris (from Miss Hanoi) and nothing in any other role. Actors always sum up to 9 points. Some actors are typecast (9 points in a particular role, but nothing anywhere else). Some are like Mike (5/4). Some are 3/3/3, some are 7/2/2. No actor is good at more than three roles, except for the Wilds, who are worth a point in any role. When you put on a play, you figure out how many points it is worth. You just sum up the actors. But if you have an actor worth at least 1 point in each role (ie, no zero point fillers) then your play has 'buzz' and gets a bonus equal to the number of actors. There are four plays, one each with 3, 4, 5, and 6 parts.

The tricky rule -- after you put on a play you cannot have more than two actors left over in your hand. (Plays have deadlines). In the early game that means that if you draw a sixth actor, you can't put on Freudi, the three actor play. Drawing an 8th card obligates you to start Katz the next turn. At the end of the game (after your fourth play) you can't have more than one leftover actor. So everyone finishes after 22 or 23 turns. (3 + 4 + 5 + 6 to draw actors for plays + 1 for a possible leftover, + 4 turns to produce the plays). Since the game takes a precise number of turns, gamelength depends on how fast or slow your group is. For me, a fairly precise gamelength is a plus, especially if that game length is short.

The first player to produce a play takes a chit (with his identifier and play name) and writes it's total and then puts it onto the scoreboard. If it's the first time the play has been produced, that player gets to pick a venue. Each venue scores a different amount. You can score well on broadway if you have a good play, but weak plays don't get many points. But in the boonies (where they are starved for entertainment), the distribution of points is more even. All other plays of the same name go to the same city. If a later play ties for score, it gets placed below earlier plays, opening early gives some benefit.

The other benefit for opening plays is that you can take out a loan against it. You simply subtract from the plays value (lowering it if there are other plays already on the board) and get that amount of cash. But you can't take more than $10 and you can't take more than one loan from each play. Additionally, once everyone has produced a play, nobody can take a loan from that play. Loans are the only way to get cash, which is in short supply. You only get $18 at the start to buy those 18 actors.

And just to encourage you to spend more money, you can spend $2 to discard all of the actors at the talent agency and redraw new ones. You can do this a lot (and at the end of the game, when the deck is small and has been reshuffled multiple times, this happens fairly often).

Once everyone has put on every play, you just add up the score and figure out who won.

Overall this is a fairly simple game, and it's a very good game to introduce to new gamers (apart from the game components of the db spiele game. I'm not sure about Showmanager). It's easy and new players can make decisions without pondering anything other than their hand. Stronger players can look at their opponents' actions and try to guess what play they are working on next, and hopefully pick a different play (so that all of the best actors for their play don't get snapped up). Even so, the play of the game isn't terribly deep. But it's a good game. It's a game that many wives of gamers seem to like, so that should tell you something.

Thread: Re: [SR] GSG 6/14/2005

DangerMouse — 2005-06-17T17:18:03+00:00

Spielfreak wrote:
SHOWMANAGER: Mark, Phil, Berna, Eric, James, Jeremy

This is a game that I enjoy while playing, but it always leaves me feeling empty afterwards because I invariably finish in second place. Mark blindsided James and I early by completing a dog of a Ballet and placing it in the cheapest city. This hurt us, as we had both grabbed top tier actors for Ballet and were looking forward to staging it in a more prominent city. As is typical, there were a lot of calls to "Clear the Board", as we all seemed to struggle to attain desired performers. Mark hoarded money just like Bob, and managed to buy key performers at just the right times. He wound up taking the win over me and Berna. Final scores were: 48, 43, 42, 31, 29, and 29.

My final score was only 46, so it was very close at the top.

My initial strategy of ditching Ballet in Troisdorf isn't a path I'd like to traverse often. There's just too much that can go wrong. It just so happened that in this game no one was picking up Wolf actors, not even bad ones really, so I figured that no one was doing the "Make a lousy Wolf, stick it in Troisdorf and borrow on it" strategy. Also, on my turn there wasn't much to choose from. I wasn't getting any juicy cards and decided to forego the route of clearing the board several times in order to look for '9's (I think I did this on my first turn and managed to net a '6/3' for a total of 4k DM). Meanwhile, James, who sat to my immediate left, was picking up some nice Ballet cards (including two '9's?). Thus the strategy was born. I figured if I could complete my Ballet before him (in the minimum amount of time) I could burn him and save money for later productions (which started to pop up in higher cities, notably a fine 37-point King Lear by Jeremy in New York).

It worked, but as I was doing it I realized what a bind I'd put myself into. In order to hit the deadline (minimum time to put out Ballet is obviously 6 turns although if I'd really paid attention to the cards James was picking up I might've realized I had more time) I would need to pass up great cards from other shows that might be sitting there when my turn came around. Thankfully that never occurred. Also, I wasn't paying close enough attention to what other players were picking up because I didn't realize till fairly late that Phil was also working on a strong Ballet (although I'm pretty sure that he'd picked up a '9' from some other show so I knew I had a turn on him even though he went before me). Another problem is that anyone else could have trashed one of the smaller shows and put it in Troisdorf before I got a chance to. Also, although I had money, your first show or two is usually your best because the '7/2's and the '9's have yet to be depleted. In a 6-player game the good cards get filtered out fairly quickly and the last shows tend to hit the bottom rungs of the ladder.

What was delicious about it was that it seemed like I was feeding James good cards (I think I might have even let a Ballet '9' slip to him (I had the '6' for that role already)) and no one saw my evil move coming. When it sprung it felt glorious!

Another factor that made the win sweeter is that I had made a serious boneheaded move about mid-game. I picked up a Queenie 'D9' when I already had a Queenie/Ballet 'D6/?3', thus creating a dead card in my hand (as I'd already done Ballet). When someone (I forget who) borrowed on their Queenie it allowed me to stick the dead card into my Queenie production so even though I missed the bonus it put my Queenie at the top (although to my chagrin it wouldn't last long there).

And finally the play that gave me the game was when I was down to my last 1k DM and needed a King Lear 'A' card on my final turn. I borrowed 2k DM on my Queenie (it stayed in 3rd place there), cleared the board and there was the King Lear 'A5' in the free spot. That one card vaulted my King Lear from 4th to 1st in New York and gave me the game. Total, blind, sheephouse luck. My midochlorian count was high Tuesday night.

As a side note, I think Jeremy made a serious mistake around mid-game that might have cost him the game by borrowing against King Lear (in NY) to complete a better Ballet (in Troisdorf). It's a crucial decision point in SM to borrow against completed shows in order to boost the show you're currently working on. The factors (such as how good the completed show is, how far, if at all, will it slip, what city is it located in, etc.) involved have to be weighed very carefully. The temptation is strong (I know because I've made this same mistake also) to boost the show you're working on by borrowing against a completed show, even when there's a fair chance it'll cost you VPs.

I love ShowManager, all that was missing was Dave B. doing an Arnold-esque "Horatio, get to the chopper!".

Thread: [SR] GSG 6/14/2005

Spielfreak — 2005-06-16T23:01:35+00:00

SHOWMANAGER: Mark, Phil, Berna, Eric, James, Jeremy

This is a game that I enjoy while playing, but it always leaves me feeling empty afterwards because I invariably finish in second place. Mark blindsided James and I early by completing a dog of a Ballet and placing it in the cheapest city. This hurt us, as we had both grabbed top tier actors for Ballet and were looking forward to staging it in a more prominent city. As is typical, there were a lot of calls to "Clear the Board", as we all seemed to struggle to attain desired performers. Mark hoarded money just like Bob, and managed to buy key performers at just the right times. He wound up taking the win over me and Berna. Final scores were: 48, 43, 42, 31, 29, and 29.

Thread: Session

Andrew York — 2005-05-26T11:33:32+00:00

Its been a while since we last played this one, Boog had never played it before and so Tel went over the rules with the odd reminder thrown in by Andy and Paul. For once though we were playing without "Clear the Board" Steve but this did not stop any of us from frequently tossing our two grand into the bank just to screw someone over or take a chance on better cards for ourselves. The game seemed to play out in a fairly predictable way though with the 3 card sets (Wolf) being the first onto the board, followed by the 4 (Queenie), 5 (King Lear) and 6 (Ballet) sets.

As the game played out, we all except Boog who was the last to put on the show, ransacked $10k cash from our productions of Wolf and that seemed to be just about enough to tide us over for the rest of the game, besides Wolf happened to be put on in Troisdorf which has the lowest range of VPs and therefore the least potential VP impact when reducing the value of your show.

Throughout the game, I followed an approach I have used sucessfully before in concentrating on getting two strong shows in before moving onto the final one - and then just chancing it to luck as my spare cash dwindled away. Fortunately for me, this worked a treat and I got 3 of my shows in the top two for the productions with the greatest VP ranges and took the game by some margin. I did however get lucky on teh final set by having a complete set of matching cards for the final show which being in the location with the highest VP range (New York) paid huge dividends, but with Boog back on 46 points in second and even if I had not managed that, I may well have still won the game.

I don’t think that this is the greatest game ever made but it does give you some agonising choices to make at times and players who are the most effective at managing their cash resources and their hand will generally do well. The luck element can’t be ruled out either and perhaps I was lucky but there is also an element of memory as cleared cards do recycle with few cards remaining by the end of the game, but this is unpredictable and consequently risky.

Scores : Andy 57, Boog 46, Paul 40, Oggie 36, Tel 35
Ratings: Andy 7, Boog 7, Paul 7, Oggie 7, Tel 7
Winner(s): Andy

Thread: Showmanager Role Count

junesen — 2005-05-15T23:47:27+00:00

Due to curiousity, I counted the Showmanager cards. They are as follows:

120 - Total cards
12 - X-1 (Provincial Artistes)
18 - 9
18 - 7/2
18 - 6/3
18 - 5/4
18 - 5/2/2
18 - 3/3/3

So for each role, there is
1 - 9 point
1 - 7
1 - 6
2 - 5
1 - 4
4 - 3
3 - 2

I've heard that Atlantic Star has more cards. Does anyone have the breakdown of the cards?

Thread: Group Session Report

junesen — 2005-05-15T23:32:04+00:00

Excerpt from: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist.php3?action=view&listi...
Showmanager
48 - Ray (8)
47 - Joseph (8)
37 - Jeff (9)
35 - Mark (7.5)
33 - Jean-Luc (6.5)
21 - Travis (8)

Ratings in ().

Jeff W. While one group started San Juan, I suggested Traumfabrik. But we got 6 players and we switched to Showmanager--one of the rare games that can handle 6 gracefully.

I was the only player who has played, so I gave a quick explanation of the game. My markers still have scores from the previous session, and it actually helped in the explanation of how the game is scored. This was a quick group because everyone caught on pretty quickly. Usually somebody has a problem with the "maximum of 2 actors when you put on a production" rule when I teach the game, but nobody seems to have any problems with that.

Joseph started the game well by putting on a stellar Wolf production. He wisely showcased this 25 pointer in New York. I, on the other hand, was struggling to get any good cards, and finally settled on a King Lear with 3 "wildcard" actors. This "high-school" production with 17 points was exiled to Troisdorf. Mark produced a so-so 21 point Queenie and placed it in Hamburg--perhaps not the best idea since it was quickly bested. King Lear became the financial backer for many players, and even after taking a hefty sum, they all still scored higher than my paltry 17.

Joseph put on a good 37 ballet, and debutted in Koln. But that left him with no money and two excellent placing productions. He went with the strategy of just taking what was available. Ray in the meantime, bested my Queenie in Hamburg. I had lots of cash after finally borrowing against my ill-fated King Lear. I attempted to improve my Wolf, but after firing nearly half of the remaining thin deck, I gave up--figuring that there was no actors left to improve my Wolf. I settled for a tie--2nd in the critical New York race.

The final score was close, with Ray just squeaking ahead of Joseph, which surprised me (I thought Joseph had a lock on the game). Everyone seemed to enjoy this game, and it is one of my favorites. It does seem that with six players, the cards tend to get a bit thin, but I think it is another factor you need to incorporate into your strategy.

Mark C. This is a great game. I would like to play again before I form my opinion. It seemed to stetch out a little too long at the end. But I hope they reprint this. Definitely worth playing.

Travis What a clever game this is. Definately my favorite of the evening. Too bad its OOP.

Just for the record, I'm quite proud of finishing 6th. It takes real skill to put together fabulous productions such as these. No one will know their true genius until I'm dead.

Ray What a great game! I really enjoyed this one.

What Jeff failed to mention as he produced his "high school" King Lear in the low scoring Troisdorf was that he obliterated my "all star" cast that I intended to produce my next turn in a much more coveted city. It was sad to see such a steller assembled cast banished to the off-off-off-off Broadway city. (Read: low scoring). I did find it useful to be able to borrow fully on it later in the game -- and dropping it ten points only cost me about 6 VP in the end.

News alert to everybody -- I found Atlantic Star, Show Manager's successor -- on Funagain.com for $42.25
Looks like they had stock, so I ordered a copy ... sounds like it plays the same. Jeff said it was OOP so those who wish may want to pick one up sooner rather than later.

Thanks everybody for another great night of gaming ... it is good to be getting back into the group.

Thread: Session Report

Claytonius Maximus — 2005-02-09T21:40:52+00:00

After playing Amun Re and PowerGrid, we decided to finish up our session playing Showmanager. Tadd and I have played this one before, and we were teaching it to Joe. Joe has lots of experience with games, so he had no trouble getting the hang of this really easy game.

Because there were only three of us, we each had to put on two productions of each type. We pointed out to Joe that it might not be good to save the same show as his last couple. Tadd then proceeded to put on two productions each of Queenie and the Ballet, leaving himself two Wolfs and two King Lears.

Joe seemed to be having a good time, as measured by the amount of swearing he was doing . He kept being disgusted with the available actors, and kept having the cavalier attitude with money to allow him to say "flip 'em!" This led to many good chuckles on our parts. I think his record was five or six flips before finally picking someone.

As for me, I was probably a little flip-happy myself. I got a couple of pretty good scores early, which helped. I borrowed a few times, but I don't think I lost more than a few places on the scoring chart. Joe, on the other hand, got some low scores on the show in New York, but he just borrowed the heck out of them and never looked back. Tadd got a couple of really high scores early, making Joe and I sweat it out.

As we neared the end of the game, it was pretty apparent that Joe wasn't quite up to where Tadd and I were score-wise. Still, it was his first game, so not a surprise. He did put on a very high scoring production of Queenie at the end, which helped him. Tadd had a couple of city wins, and so did I. We didn't actually add up the scores, but it seemed pretty close. With all of our hands full of cards, and one show left each, Joe put on his final show. I put on my last King Lear, for 33 points. Then, in a demonstration of how close this game was, Tadd put on his last King Lear, also for 33 points.

In the final tally, I won by 3 vps. If Tadd would have put down that last show before me, he would have beat me.

I could tell Joe really liked the game, because he talked about playing it again soon. I really like this game, but it is pretty influenced by luck. I'm hoping Tadd doesn't get sick of it and it's lightness, because I always have a good time when I play it. I'd like to get a 4-player game of this going. I think it'd be shorter, which would probably make it even better.

Thread: Re:User Review

Claytonius Maximus — 2005-02-09T17:39:11+00:00

shadowkeeper (#19583),

A very nice summary of the game. If I was learning it all over again, I'd hope someone would show me this article first.

We never say "Clear the board!" Our chant is "flip 'em! flip 'em! flip 'em."

Thread: Session Report

tcomfort — 2004-12-10T14:49:22+00:00

Dave, Mike, Lisa, Brian, and I sat down to a five player game of Showmanager, in which the players attempt to cast the highest quality plays possible. I started out with what was probably a mistake. I put on my production of “Wolf” in New York City when it was worth only 19 points. That is beatable, and you don’t want to get beat in the Big Apple. The scores are weighted such that New York pays the best plays the most in the game, but it pays the worst plays the least in the game. Surprisingly, as we started putting on more and more shows, my Wolf production was somehow holding up. Lisa eventually bumped me from the top spot, but I still ended up in second there. I had a bad break with my Ballet production, when I produced it for 30 points. It was not a terrible total, but the house production and another player had Ballets going worth 30 already on the board! Aargh, one more point and I would have passed both of them! Ah well, I borrowed money heavily from that one. The game was coming to a close, and casts were being fired left and right. Dave used his last $2000 to fire the cast one last time, and he needed a free actor that would help his last play. He got it, bumping Brian and me down a notch each, but he was completely broke. I put on a huge King Lear production, leaping into first place for that show. When the final score was tallied, Dave and I were tied. However, I still had $1000 left, the smallest non-zero amount of money possible in the game, and Dave was still broke.

Final Scores:
Tim 47 ($1000)
Dave 47 ($0)
Lisa 42
Mike 39
Brian 33

Thread: Session Report

DangerMouse — 2004-09-16T18:24:05+00:00

ShowManager: Berna, Tami, Eric, Matt, Bob and Mark (with help from Gilbert when he arrived)

Not one of my best games of ShowManager. It started well enough, I got some wildcards and a couple of decent Ballet cards for cheap, plus a couple of '9' cards for future use. I figured I'd put out a middlin Ballet in one of the lower cities and borrow heavily from it. The problem with that was everyone else had the same idea with the smaller shows. I was left with the choice of putting my crappy Ballet in New York or Hamburg, the top 2 cities. I tried to scramble and find some better Ballet actors to no avail and I blew my initial cash on the effort. I put Ballet in Hamburg.

So I was broke after my first show, which was a lousy one. Not good. I managed to put on a decent King Lear (in Koln), but when I took a piddly 1,000 DM loan on it to grab a '9' I essentially tanked it. It ended up in 3rd or 4th place because of that tiny loan and I didn't recover the lost VP with the '9' I grabbed either. Even my last gasp of clearing the board to find the lone remaining Queenie '9' went for naught. It ended up in 3K spot while I only had 2k left. Doh.

Tami took the win with two excellent shows in Hamburg (1st) and Koln (2nd). I assumed the tail end charlie position.

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2004-05-13T23:25:07+00:00

Time for one last game before closing the doors to the bungalow. With six players, we considered our options and opted to produce plays. Jim, Dave, Kurt, Keith, Spouey and I assumed the roles of producers and hoped to avoid presenting another “Springtime for Hitler”.

The very first show was produced by Dave, a disastrous “Queenie”, which opened in Troisdorf. The value of the show was a pathetic ‘6’, and the poor people of Troisdorf have since avoided the theater at all costs. Later, Dave ripped the show, pulling out all of its funding to support other productions.

I, on the other hand, produced two consecutive shows that were simply outstanding -- the very pinnacle of dramatic performances. I was fortunate to hire numerous top-notch actors and actresses for a janitor’s salary. This allowed me to produce two extremely high valued shows, including a ‘42’ King Lear which, naturally, opened in New York. Eventually, Keith managed to produce a few very good shows, but it wasn’t enough to overcome my outstanding productions.

Finals: Greg 60, Keith 46, Steve 30, Jim 29, Kurt 29, Dave 27

Ratings: Greg 7, Steve 7, Keith 7, Kurt 7, Jim 6.5, Dave 6.5

Thread: User Review

shadowkeeper — 2003-09-17T13:35:35+00:00

While a colorful board and some nifty components can disguise a fairly abstract board game, theming simple card games is tough. Perhaps in recognition of this, some designers give their card games absurd themes (bean farming, anyone?), while others just pick an interesting premise and slap it on ("you're, uh, archaeologists, yeah, searching for Lost Cities...". Still, every once in a while a designer cooks up a simple card game and actually finds a theme that suits it pretty well. Such is the case with Dirk Henn's "Showmanager".

I usually describe Showmanager as "rummy-like" to new players, although that's not entirely accurate. You do, however, draw cards and attempt to makes sets -- in this instance the sets are the casts for four musicals: Wolf (which requires three actors), Queenie (which has four roles), King Lear (five roles) and Ballet (six roles). Each card in the deck shows an actor, and while any actor can be used for any role most are "suited" for specific parts. The actors all have nine points of talent, which can be divided amongst two or three roles or all go into a single role. The actor "Ladwig Laber", for example, has a a 5 for the role of Martin in Ballet and a 4 for the role of Sir Wuff in Wolf. "Hermine van Rent", meanwhile, is only suited for one role (Zofe, in King Lear), but has a 9 for that part.

On a turn, a player either hires an actor or puts on a show. Four actors are always available for hire: the first is free, the second costs $1000, the third $2000 and the fourth $3000. To hire an actor just pay the price and take the desired card into your hand. The actors that were "above" the taken card slide down to fill the void (so if you took the second actor, the third and four actor shift downward) and a new card is drawn for the $3000 slot. To put on a show, you play, from your hand, one Actor for each of the roles in the show: if you were putting on Wolf, for example, you would need an actor for the roles of Wolf, Bella and Sir Wuff. Ideally each actor will be suited for the role he is cast in; if none of his talent points are allotted towards his role, however, he is considered "miscast" and has a value of 0. The overall value of the show is the total of all the actors in their respective roles, plus some bonus points if no actors are miscast.

Scores are recorded on a small board which shows five cities. Each of the five cities with it's own unique scoring scale, with slots for the shows that will be put on in that town. New York, for example, awards 22 points to whomever has the best show in town but 0 points to the person with the worst. On the other end of the spectrum is Troisdorf, which gives a modest 14 points to the person with the best show but still awards 4 points to the person with the worst. If the player is the first to put on a given show, he gets to decide what city it will open in. Deciding where to open your show is relatively easy: if you think your show is going to be the best of the bunch, put it in New York or another city on that end; if you think your musical is going to bomb, stick it in Troisdorf and at least reap a few points for your effort. When a new show opens in a town, all the previous shows are reranked with the highest-rated show always in the first spot followed by the rest in descending order. The trick is that once a show opens in a particular town, all showings of that same musical must open in the same town. (This doesn't make a whit of sense from a thematic standpoint, but oh well.) So if I open Wolf in Hamburg, that's where you are going to have to put Wolf as well. At the end of the game, each player will receive points in accordance to where they shows are ranked in each city.

That's pretty much it, although there are two other actions a player can take on a turn which really liven things up. First, he can take out a loan (although "loan" isn't really the right word, since the player never pays back the money). To do so, he picks one of the shows he has already put on, takes this show off the scoring board, subtracts up to 10 points from the show's rating and then puts it back in the hosting city (reranking the shows in that city to reflect the altered show's new value). Then, for every point the player removed from the show's value, he takes $1000 from the bank. So if I had a show ranked at 36, I could drop it's value down to 31 and receive $5000. Most players will have to do this at least once, since money is spent freely and this is the only way to get more.

The final action you can take is to fire all the available actors. You can do this before you hire an actor or put on a show, and you can do it as many times as you like. To do so, pay $2000 to the bank, discard the four faceup actors and deal out four more to fill the vacancies. Of course no one wants to fork over $2000 in cash if they can help it, so if you don't like the Actors available you may just want to try and convince the players before you to spend their money and do it for you. "Clear the board! Clear the board!" goes the chant in most Showmanager games I play.

If all this seems like a lot of rules to you -- well, you're right: it does seem like a lot of rules. But, really, this is what you are doing on your turn: drawing a card or making a meld. Yes it has a somewhat convoluted scoring system, and yes the "loan" and the "fire the actors" rules do throw a wrench into the works, but actual play is about as simple as can be. Which isn't to say that playing well is easy. Much of the game comes down to shrewd money management: knowing when to fork over the big bucks for an actor, when to take the freebie to conserve funds, when it's worth $2000 for a new set of cards and when to plunder a show (and for how much) to keep your finances afloat. And yet despite the fact that money is often the key to success, you never feel like you are bogged down in bookkeeping. There is so little number-crunching that it's easy to forget that you are, to some extent, playing a resource-management game -- and that's the way it should be in a game this light.

One rather grueling rule states that, after you put on a show and discard the used actors, you can hold no more than two cards in your hand. Because of this stipulation players pretty much have to concentrate on one show at a time. But if you are working on one show and a particularly attractive Actor for a different show arrives in the Talent Agency, it's tough not to spring for him, intending to "carry him over" to your next production. That's where you've got to be careful: if your hand gets cluttered with Actors for your next show, you may not wind up with enough thespians for your current show and have to make do with some miscasts.

I like Showmanager, but it often seems to go a little longer than I'd like. The first time folks play they often take a while learning all the complexities of the game -- which is to say that it takes folks a while to realize that there are no complexities, really. When playing with experienced players the game moves at a much more reasonable speed, although a single soul who isn't paying attention can slow things down for everyone. I usually pull out Showmanager when I feel like playing a card game, but still want something with a little more kick than, say, Rage! or Schnappchen Jagd. And you can roleplay for added entertainment: when you put on a really atrocious production of King Leer, be sure to act out some key scenes and give your opponent's some idea of why it was such a critical failure.

Despite all the trappings, Showmanager is essentially a simple game that's fun to play. And that's all that really matters. As they say, the play is the thing.

Thread: Re:rules clarification

Dandare — 2003-06-09T01:09:43+00:00

hpcthulhu (#6694),

I think that you must end with two cards in your hand. So if you would end with more than two cards you´ll have to use one of the cards as a miscast in the play that you are creating and then, because you´ll be using miscast, you´ll loose the bonus for the plays without miscast. That´s the penalty, I don´t know how this works on Atlantic Star.

Thread: Re:rules clarification

Randy Cox — 2003-03-07T13:36:31+00:00

Our group plays this game (and Priemer) a lot. And we've never had that happen. However, this is because we watch each other's hands (just the number of cards, mind you). And when a person draws a sixth card, we say "now you cannot put on Freudi or Wolf or whatever the 3-actor play is in the version you choose)."

Sometimes the player says "Oh, I forgot about that, so I'm stuck. I'll have to put on a really horrible, bigger play soon using up the good actors I have for (Freudi/Wolf)." Them's the breaks. Once we see a person start their turn with 8 cards we simply say "And now you'll put on Ballet (or whatever)." It seems to work just fine, since the player realizes that they have to abide by the rules.

Thread: Re:rules clarification

dwgteach — 2003-03-06T18:23:10+00:00

This is the biggest mistake made by new players in our group. When it happened in games at three consecutive Game Nights, "only 2 cards left in your hand when playing a cruise" became our mantra when reviewing the rules or explaining the game for the first time.
Since that fact was CLEARLY emphasized by this point, when the same problem cropped up, our solution was, "OK, shuffle the cards you have, and we'll randomly draw cards from your hand until you only have 2 left." Fairly harsh? Yes, however everyone agreed that it was the best option. No one's made that mistake in awhile!

Doug G.

Thread: rules clarification

hpcthulhu — 2003-03-06T14:54:10+00:00

In our playings of Atlantic Star, we have occasionally encountered a new player who after laying down their cruise (cast their play) they have more than 2 cards left. The rules state you aren't to have more than two, but doesn't say what the penalty is. Any suggestions for house rules, or does showmanager have a ruling on such situations?

Thread: Session Report

Randy Cox — 2003-02-28T17:19:33+00:00

We had 8 people, which meant that the Union Pacific game about to start with 6 when we arrived became a four player game and we (Randy, Rachel, Arthur, Dave) had to pick another four-player game.

Arthur suggested ShowManager, which the group had played in the past as Premier, and we commenced to reteaching the rules and setting up the "dummy" performances (this was only the second time I'd ever played with less than 6, as I recall).

Ballet was first to hit the road (in the bottom city), so it was pretty evident that this would be the production people would use as a cash cow. And that's exactly what happened. In fact, I believe that the two "dummy" hands eventually came in 3rd and 4th in this town and only the last person to put on a play (me, Randy) didn't get some money out of their efforts (but it did result in my having the best damn Ballet this hell-hole of a town had ever seen.

While Arthur and Dave were seeding the Ballet run, Rachel and I were both working on Queenie, which she plopped down in the next to worst city.

In the second play production phase (since everyone is pretty much producing plays in concert--ie, everyone finishes play #2 at approximately the same time, then play #3, etc), Rachel (to my right) and I were both working on Wolf, while the other two were getting Queenie and King Lear together. I knew I had the killer Wolf, so I had to get it down first in New York and the fates were with me, securing the top spot in the most lucrative city. Dave's Queenie stood up to be the best of all and Arthru's King Lear ended up third in the #2 city.

Everything went pretty much as planned, except that we didn't have to reshuffle the deck but one time, unlike the multiple reshuffles that occur in a six-player game.

In the end, the totals were:

Top City:
22-Randy, 16-Arthur, 10-Dave, 6-DummyA, 2-DummyB, 0-Rachel

2nd City:
20-Rachel, 15-Dave, 10-Arthur, 7-DummyA, 3-Randy, 1-DummyB

4th City:
16-Dave, 13-DummyA, 10-Arthur, 7-DummyB, 5-Rachel, 3-Randy

5th City:
14-Randy, 12-Rachel, 10-DummyA, 8-DummyB, 6-Arthur, 4-Dave

Total:
45-Dave, 42-Randy, 42-Arthur, 37-Rachel, 36-DummyA, 18-DummyB

We play that left over money breaks ties, but neither Randy nor Arthur had any cash left over at the end.

Thread: Session Report

Dan Bosley — 2003-02-27T14:31:30+00:00

We then split into 2 groups, with Diane, Bonnie, Toby and me playing Showmanager. I think this was the very first time I had ever played Showmanager with less than the full 6 people. While it was fine with 4, I do think I prefer it with the full six.

The breakdown of the scores was:
New York - Ballet
Diane - 22 points
Toby - 16 points
Dan - 10 points
Dummy player A - 6 points
Bonnie - 2 points
Dummy player B - 0 points

Hamburg - Wolf
Toby - 20 points
Dan - 15 points
Bonnie - 10 points
Dummy player A - 7 points
Dummy player B - 3 points
Diane - 1 point

Koln - Queenie
Diane - 18 points
Bonnie - 14 points
Dan - 10 points
Dummy player A - 7 points
Dummy player B - 4 points
Toby - 2 points

Troisdorf - King Lear
Dan -14 points
Dummy player A - 12 points
Dummy player B - 10 points
Diane - 8 points
Bonnie - 6 points
Toby - 4 points

Final standings:
Dan - 49 points (tied for winner)
Diane - 49 points (tied for winner)
Toby - 42 points
Bonnie - 32 points
Dummy player A - 32 points
Dummy player B - 17 points

Thread: Session Report

Dan Bosley — 2003-02-17T19:06:58+00:00

Final game of the night was a 6-player Showmanager. We seem to have played this game (or its clone, Atlantic Star) a lot recently. Game was a lot of fun as usual.

Jeff: 22 + 3 + 10 + 10 = 45 (winner)
Jeremy: 16 + 15 + 7 + 5 = 43
Dan: 10 + 20 + 2 + 8 = 40
Rick: 6 + 7 + 4 + 16 = 33
Tim: 0 + 1 + 18 + 13 = 32
William: 2 + 10 + 14 + 3 = 29

We haven’t rated any games for awhile, but for some reason, this one got rated.

Jeff - 8
Rick - 8
Dan - 8
Tim - 7
William - 6
Jeremy was communing with nature and was unable to give it a rating.....

Thread: Session Report

Andrew York — 2003-01-15T16:56:47+00:00

It's been a while since this hit the table, mostly due to unfounded allegations of rampant cheating within our group! Anyway, this is a game that I quite enjoy and following a quick review of the rules which our resident rules guru Steve got slightly wrong (much to his own cost during the early part of the game), we started the game with 3 players.

With only 3 players, each player has to put on each show twice. This added a bit of a twist to the game because as usual we were going through the deck of cards at a fair rate due to Steve clearing the board on just about every turn. Consequently, this mean't that the early shows utilised many of the high scoring actors. Evenvitably, it was these shows that were raided to get the extra cash needed to stand a modicum of a chance to produce decent shows later on.

The person who ultimately managed to constrain his spending unsupprisingly won the game quite comfortably despite not having the highest scoring individual show at the end of the game. For the other two players, being strapped for cash cost us dearly and I (being one of them) actually created my last two shows with no cash and being forced to take actors which did not fit the production.

Anyway, the randomness of the cards does not spoil the game which is intensive and fun. Watching Steve constantly clearing the board was quite funny as I could not plan ahead at all.

Scores (ratings/10):

Kev 81 (8), Andy 72 (7), Steve 67 (7)

Thread: Session Report

hinj — 2002-12-04T15:49:09+00:00

Even though I own Atlantic Star, it has never made it out of the box. I've read much about it, and its greatness, and how Show Manager was a far superior game even though it is exactly the same in mechanism. A month or so ago, I picked up ShowManager off of ebay, and decided it was time to give it a try. We read through the rules, and it wasn't exactly clear what we were going to be doing, but we started anyway. The first few rounds it seemed reallllly boring. Grab a card, turn it over. Once the first show got produced, the point became clear, and we started having a great time with our wonderful (or not so wonderful) productions. Kyra had the, ah, ummmm, finest, er, most economical production, Wolf, at 9 points. We thought it was actually quite good for an inner city high school with no drama teacher or stage. Somehow she managed to mortgage that production to bankroll some of our others.

We had fun, we laughed, we giggled. I cannot imagine this game being effective as a "manage ocean liner schedules" game. That would take so much away! My only regret was that we couldn't understand the names and the jokes contained therein.
Results:
Carl is a budding producer with 53 points.
Dave discovered a hidden talent 42 points.
Angela tried, but only managed 41 points.
Kyra had a terrific ballet but only ended up with 39 points overall.
Shane managed to garner 25 points, and
Ed should NOT give up his day job with a mere 21.

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2002-11-08T16:42:11+00:00

After having so much fun with Showmanager at the regular group session the night before, I brought it to the Tuesday night group. I explained to them the rule I missed about getting the bonus for filling a production with no miscast actors and while I was at it I realized I had missed another rule!

The rule I had missed was the one about ‘traveling productions’ – that is, if there are less than six players, the players chips that aren’t used start the game with numbers already on them and are put into the cities when the first production is put into the city - sort of like dummy players. I think I know the reason why I missed this rule, we tend to play Showmanager with a full complement of six and never needed to use it. For this game, we used them and will use them in the future. Hopefully I now know all the rules to Showmanager!

In this game, Shari started off very badly. She misremembered how the game worked and her first production was pretty bad, with a few miscast actors. She rallied though, and proceeded to win the game with 53 points. I came in second with 49 points after running out of money and not having any more productions to borrow against.

Score:

*Shari* - 53
Rick – 49
Joe - 36
Westley – 28

Ratings:

Shari – 8
Rick – 7
Joe – 7
Westley – 8

A good game made all the better when you use all the rules!

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2002-11-07T13:47:43+00:00

While the rest of the group got busy with TV Wars and Schrille Stille, Jy, Patrick, David, Sean and I broke out Showmanager.

Okay, I admit it – I missed a rule in Showmanager. I hang my head in shame. We were setting up the game and David noticed a reference to a bonus (in German!) on one of the reference cards. While I was going over the rules (we all had played it before, but a few of us were a bit rusty) he brought this to my attention. Thinking that he had eaten one too many of those funny brownies I brought, I ignored him. But he persisted and I read the rules – it turns out we were missing the bonus when you put on a show with no miscast actors. Also, the grey actors work for the bonus. Well, that gave an added dimension to the game. The grey actors, which we never thought of much before, were now worth something. My face is red.

Believe it or not, I actually missed another rule but I won’t tell you about it until my next Showmanager session report (which should be posted a day or two after this one). Read those rules, then read them again! Then again, wasn’t it Dan that taught me this game?

Anyway, David again took the game – this time by quite a margin. David is quite the producer.

Score:

*David* - 66
Jy – 44
Rick – 40
Sean – 34
Patrick – 32

Ratings:

David – 8
Jy – 9
Rick – 8
Sean – 8
Patrick – 7

We all like the game, Jy especially – he really liked the added dimension of the bonuses.

Thread: Session Report

Dan Bosley — 2002-09-11T13:12:53+00:00

With David and Ann having to leave, we reconvened into a group of six for a game of Showmanager.

This was quite an entertaining game, with yells of “CLEAR THE BOARD” occurring with great frequency.

Card management is key in this game. Sometimes you just have to switch shows. But because of the different size casts, you can’t go back again (until you’ve played your larger show).

And of course, as the plays get cast, those actors in those plays get eliminated from further productions. Leaving what is usually the dregs of the acting profession behind.

Wendy proved herself to be as astute casting director, but sort of blew it in her first show when she misunderstood about the “a, b, c” business - each actor is only trying out for a specific role in a show. But she rallied well. Without that booboo at the beginning, I think Jeremy might have found his victory threatened.

Rick and Dave specialized in amateur theatre with their productions, as their scores clearly demonstrate.....

Final standings:
Jeremy - 54 (winner)
Wendy - 48
Sean - 36
Dan - 35
Rick - 25
Dave - 23

Ratings: Everyone gave it an 8, except Sean, who just had to be different, and gave it a 7.

A fun game. It works very well with 6 people.

Just remember - when in doubt, pay $2000 and CLEAR THE BOARD!!!!!

Thread: Session Report

ssmooth — 2002-07-17T13:22:52+00:00

With Jeff and Jerry showing up, we headed into a four-handed Showmanager, a game Lionel had learned last week and wanted another chance at.

Jeff got the early breaks, putting on a really good Ballet in New York for his first show. I countered by putting on a really bad King Lear in Bochum and quickly borrowing 10,000 marks against it. Eventually I was able to put on the best show in the second-best city and the second-best show in the third-best city... but it wasn't enough. Jeff finished the game with a 12-point advantage over me in New York alone, beating me 63 to 48 overall.

Meanwhile Lionel did better than last week with 39, and Jerry, unfamiliar with the game, brought up the rear with 24.

Showmanager is a very particular sort of numbers game which rewards both attention to detail and the calculated risk. Fun to learn and fun to play.

Thread: Session Report

telbert — 2002-06-19T11:39:32+00:00

Last game of the night was Showmanager. And before I start this report I'd just like to say that Andy did not cheat.

Each player starts with a budget of 18k. With this money he needs to hire actors to be able to produce 4 plays. There are always 4 actors available for hire at a cost of 0, 1k, 2k and 3k. Alternatively the player may pay 2k to replace all 4 actors. Each actor is adept at playing either 1,2 or 3 of the available 18 roles, and will add towards the quality of the show. If an actor is miscast in a role, he contributes nothing towards the quality of the show. Performances made without a miscast actor recieve a bonus. Once everyone has produced the four shows the game is over and points are awarded according to the quality of the respective shows. Whoever gains the most points wins.

5 of the 6 players put the same show (Wolf) on first, only Kev was different prefering to produce the more difficult Ballet. As the players were collecting for the second show, Steve decided that he didn't like any of the actors available and seemed intent on searching the whole of Equity for the stars of his show. This of course was costing him 2k a time, but money was no object to a producer as determined as Steve. To the extent that at one point he had spent his initial allocation of 18k plus an additional 10k taken against his first production and was still missing cast members for his next production. Hence he was forced to take whatever actor came along to fill the last two roles. The final production was glittered with stars, unfortunately it was let down by a terribly miscast performance in one of the roles which prevented it from being the toast of the town. Impending bankruptcy also forced Steve to borrow heavily from the show further marring its reputation.

With 3 productions in place for everyone it appeared to be a two horse race as Andy and Tel shared the top 2 spots in the 3 productions they'd put on. However Kev had put an impressive Ballet on in the richest city. Four of the producers were desperately fighting over actors that could dance to put on a Ballet while Kev was happily having a free choice of the remaining actors for Wolf. While both Andy and Tel managed to fill the ballet without miscasting anyone, their productions were filled with the dregs of the acting community. However Kevs production of Wolf opened to rave reviews and he was soon crowned top producer.

The only gripe with tonights game of Showmanager was that it took 2 hours to play, far too long for the game it is. When we played with 5 earlier in the year the game played much quicker. Now whether the game took so long because there were 6 of us or whether it was because of the number of "burn em" calls to clear the actors roster I'm not sure, but I doubt it will hit the table again as a six player game. Howver the game is good fun and will certainly be played again with fewer players.

Final Scores
Kev 55, Tel 45, Andy 34, Oggie 33, Steve 32, Paul 22

Ratings / 10
Kev 8, Tel 6, Andy 8, Oggie 6, Steve 6, Paul 7

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2002-04-13T15:57:53+00:00

Ok due to unwarranted allegations of cheating, I thought it only right to give my version of events that night.

The game started late due to two things, the first being Kev's late arrival due to his complete inability to navigate his way to Tel's place despite having been there several times in the past: "I couldn't remember the house number was his lame excuse".

The second reason was Tel's compete inability to explain the rules to what he said to me was "A simple game to learn". Thirty minutes it took to explain the rules to this game and despite repeated requests for clarification from Kev, Tel (as usual) failed totally to explain the rules of the game.

Anyway, play proceeded AS EXPLAINED by TEL with people making early plays to put on production and Paul trying to monopolise the higher value cards for his first production. Andy's (i.e. my) 'sin' was to put on a play according to the RULES explained by TEL and the EXAMPLE of a production used by TEL during the pre-game RULES EXPLANATION.

Footnote: when making his first production, Andy did ask "Are you sure that this is right?" and "it doesn't make sense to me". This was required due to the garbled rules explanation by the game owner (TEL) and the gibberish being spoken by Kev at the same time (think Village people crossed with the Idiot's guide to board games and you will get the picture).

The mistake was eventually determined after most people had put on their second production and I would like to point out that my second production WAS completely legal according to the subsequent rules explanation, as were my 3rd and final productions.

What really bugs people of course, especially the game owner, is that out of all 5 players there I was the only one with a clear strategy and grasp of the tactics required to win the game. Being a professionally trained Statistician as I am, the game was rather easy to win especially against the inferior competition I had that day.

I might go on to mention other facts about the game session such as Kev's expressed preference for whipped cream and cream horns during (CENSORED) and TEL's nervous breakdown during the explanation of the rules.

I might add that TEL and PAUL are also well-known cheats in our group having played 100 games of Lost Cities incorrectly.

Thread: Session Report

telbert — 2002-04-13T15:56:31+00:00

This game shall be forever remembered as the game that Andy cheated at. In Showmanager each player takes on the role of a Producer trying to put on four shows. This is done by hiring actors to fill the roles required for each of the four shows, and in Andys case by cheating.

Everyone is aiming to put the same 4 musicals on, each of which has certain roles that need filling by actors. The actors are hired from an agency who always has 4 available, costing 0,1000,2000 and 3000. Once an actor is hired a new actor is unveiled in the 3000 slot pushing the rest down in price. Instead of hiring an actor a producer may decide to put on a show. This is done by using exactly the same number of actors as a show requires - did you hear that Andy? - exactly the same number. Each actor is adept at playing certain roles and scores if they are playing one of these roles. The show can then be rated by adding the value of the actors used. At the end of the game each show is ranked compared to the other players version of the same show and points scored accordingly.

During the explanation of the rules to everyone, the rule about a show requiring exactly the correct number of actors was missed. The first few rounds played relatively quickly as players took their required actors. Tel was the first to put on a musical (Queenie) using exactly the correct numer of actors. This was quickly followed by Kev and Paul producing King Lear again using the correct number of actors. Then the villian of the piece, Andy, put on his first show (Wolf). Now Wolf only needs 3 actors, but Andy decided that this was not enough so decided that in addition to the regular 3 (high scoring) actors he was going to miscast an additional 3 actors into roles that didn't even exist. Not content with cheating once, a couple of turns later he pulled a similar scam again. The game continued for another round before frantic reading of the rules discovered the incorrect ruling that Andy was merrily exploiting. We were nearing the end of the night after a late start so decided to continue with the game despite Andys clear advantage. The later shows scored lower than the first few as a rule. At the end of the game we all had to wait for Andy to draw enough actors to complete his last show because of his earlier blatant disregard for the rules. Unsuprisingly Andy won the game by a huge margin from Kev, Paul and Tel with Steve claiming the wooden spoon.

This game does have potential but the rules misinterpretation - oops sorry Andys cheating - did detract from the game for everyone. Yet again the Piddinghoe Gamers play a game completely wrong on its first play, I can't wait to play this one again. Oh did I mention that Andy Cheated.

Final Scores
Cheat 58, Kev 42, Paul 38, Tel 34, Steve 26

Ratings / 10
Andy 7, Kev 8, Paul 8, Tel 7, Steve 7

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2001-12-20T20:27:17+00:00

With David, his wife Anne and Jeremy arriving, we break out a six player game of Showmanager.

I ended up winning with the first place production of Ballet. Everyone else (except for Patrick) was very close in the standings. Anne did very well for a first-timer.

Score:

*Rick* - 54
David – 44
Jeremy – 39
Anne – 35
Dan – 34
Patrick – 14

Ratings:

Rick - 8
David – 8
Jeremy – 7
Anne – 8
Dan – 7
Patrick – 5

All of us liked the game, except for Patrick who felt that the game was too lucky - he wasn’t able to get any good actors for his productions. I somewhat disagree on the luck factor - I think the game has luck, but I think careful card management and watching what the other players are doing brings most of the luck into check.

Jeremy also felt the game worked better with fewer players. I think it’s a somewhat different game with fewer players (as each player can do two of each production) but I like the way it plays with more players just as much.

Nevertheless, a good game that seems to play well with both large and small groups (except if you dislike the luck factor).

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2001-12-20T20:26:57+00:00

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2001-12-18T21:14:46+00:00

After Union Pacific, we went for a game of Showmanager. This time Jeremy, Joe and I were the veterans and Sheri, David and Andrew were the newbies.

As we were putting productions together, everyone commented on how much they enjoyed the game. Jeremy and I noticed that the game is fairly different with six players as opposed to the three of four we’d played with before. We also were noticing more of the subtle strategies, especially when it came to borrowing cash from existing productions.

Joe, who was sitting next to his wife Sheri, seemed especially annoyed with her when she always seemed clear the board whenever there was an actor he wanted. In the end, Sheri beat us again by putting together some high scoring productions.

Score:

*Sheri* - 45
Andrew – 42
David – 41
Rick – 35
Jeremy – 32
Joe – 26

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-10-05T05:19:54+00:00

Showmanager
3 players: *JOE*, Chester, Rick
Avg enjoyment: 7.00

A game with an excellent reputation, it actually is just a really interesting card-management game. Juggle your hand of cards to play large sets which will be casts for particular productions. The idea of 1 city hosting six different productions of the same play seems a bit hard to swallow, but the game is a good one. No notes here, just some comments after playing.

Scores: Joe 89, Rick 75, Chester 58

Ratings: All 7's
Avg: Duh (7.00)

Chester thought it was a bit long but thought it may lay better and faster with more players. Joe enjoyed gameplay but thinks it will never get higher than a 7. (I have a feeling this game would be a lot of fun with more players.)

Thread: Session Report

derk — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Elizabeth, George, Neil, Derk

I picked this game up to play during our Memorial Day gaming vacation because I’d heard that it was a decent three-player game. However, we never did get a chance to play it because of an out of control game of Silverton. After running through the rules really quickly, we started the game. It’s mostly a card game, with the goal being collecting four different sets of cards. The interesting part is that you must buy the cards from a constantly changing pool of face up cards, which means you need to a have supply of money in order to search the cards effectively. And the amount of money you start with is not up to the task. So after producing shows, you can take loans against the value of the show in order to make subsequent better quality. The quality of you shows is judged against the other players’ shows. So relative value of the shows is all that’s important, not just their empirical value.

The first game was pretty fun, if perhaps a little conservative. I guess that’s to be expected considering it was our first game. The game progressed quickly as we learned the in’s and out’s of the game. As a whole, we didn’t take too many loans because we weren’t cycling the cards really hard. This would be evident in the final values of the shows. I was able to snag a nice 21-point Wolf in New York and as much as I wanted to take a loan on it, I didn’t want to risk the points. My show was quickly followed by George staging a 28-point Queenie in Hamburg. The rest of the game flew by quickly, and soon it was time to add up the final scores.

Derk: 58, George: 53, Elizabeth: 48, Neil: 43

Everyone really enjoyed the first game, and in spite of the late hour, I was able to convince them to play another one. It was easy to see the difference between the first game and the second. First of all, the shouts of ‘clear it!’ were much more frequent. George was declared the ‘Card Bitch,’ and proceeded to handle all-to-often clearings of the board. Because we all used a lot more money during this game, we all took out more loans. Plus after some post-game strategy discussion, we were able to figure out why a person would want to stage a show in the lower valued cities. The game took on a much more strategic aspect, but it was still very light and fun. For some reason though, George would be the one to beat in this game. Everywhere you looked, there was one of his shows topping the charts of another city. Oh well. I’m fairly certain that everyone enjoyed this game a lot. I’m anxious to try it with three players, as that’s the primary reason I bought it. But I’m very happy with the purchase, and I’m sure that we’ll be seeing this game in the future.

George: 62, Neil: 48, Derk: 46, Elizabeth: 38