My Tuesday evening gaming group enjoys conflict. Maybe "enjoy" is somewhat of an understatement: we relish opportunities to improve our own positions at the expense of those around us. When we first played El Grande, we enjoyed forcing other players' caballeros to remote areas of the map, preventing them from scoring. When we play Dominion, the Throne Room + Witch combination is a favorite combo. "Screw You" type elements allow for each player to have a say in the outcome of the game, even if it just means preventing a seemingly inevitable outcome from occurring.

Kill Doctor Lucky is a game that I had played a couple times prior to our group's session, and I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it. One of the games had been silly and enjoyable, but another had lasted well beyond the point of enjoyment. Our group decided to give it a shot a few weeks ago, and everyone enjoyed the theme and style of play. The game had been rather short, and we agreed that we needed another set of eyes roaming the board in order to help prevent frequent murder attempts. Therefore, when we all sat down to play our second game of Kill Doctor Lucky, we threw in Shamrock from the And His Little Dog, Too expansion. It was a welcome addition to the game.

Our second experience with Kill Doctor Lucky was fantastic, solely due to it ending unexpectedly, yet quite appropriately.

Jeff was clearly in the lead, having amassed 7 spite tokens. Everyone else had nearly exhausted their fail cards and spite tokens (used as last resort fail points) during his murderous frenzy, so it was assumed that the next time Jeff made a murder attempt, the game would be over. I was pouting in my chair, upset that my 3 spite tokens had been given away in order to foil Jeff's latest attempt--making him even more powerful. He was thoroughly enjoying his position of power, and was content with methodically counting his numerous red wooden discs as the game progressed.

Shortly thereafter, Eric found himself alone in the Carriage House with Doctor Lucky (Shamrock was resting peacefully in the Lilac Room, the product of an unfortunate interaction with a Civil War Cannon). He declared a murder attempt with the Loud Noise, and because he was in the Carriage House, the attempt was at power 8 (6 plus his 2 spite tokens). I was sitting to Eric's immediate left, and had to pass because I didn't have anything to contribute to failing the attempt. Jeff was next, and he only played 6 fails out of his many fail cards and spite tokens before passing to Brenden--the last player--who had 2 spite tokens in his possession. Jeff had figured that even if Brenden didn't have any fail cards in his hand, he would be able to fail the murder attempt by using his remaining spite tokens.

Well, Brenden decided to match Jeff's accumulation of in-game spite with real-life spite by refusing to spend his tokens to fail the murder attempt--even though he didn't have any fail cards to contribute, either.

Confused looks abounded, and I hurriedly grabbed the rulebook to see if such inaction was even allowed. Finding nothing that disallowed Brenden's decision, it was decided that Eric had successfully murdered Doctor Lucky.

Brenden laughed maniacally, having thoroughly enjoyed the role he played in the outcome of the game. Jeff, however, quietly mumbled obscenities in Brenden's general direction as he put away his wasted stockpile of weapons and spite tokens.

A lot of people think this kind of play is unsportsmanlike. I think it's a part of Kill Doctor Lucky, although I have to admit it was a real borderline case - after all Jeff HAD paid up quite a bit.

But judging how your fellow players will play failure - or not play failure is part of this game.

Me, I just decide that the Spite tokens can NEVER be used as failure tokens. It both quickens the game and also, doesn't allow for "I KNEW you could foil his attempt" situations.