Ladies and Gentlemen Reflection

This week we played the game Ladies and Gentlemen. This game places you into teams of two and has a very sort of endearing way of encouraging you to roleplay during the game. By often having the opposite gender roles on each side of the team, it is intentionally paradoxical, and funny how disregarding it is of the culture upon which the game is referenced. One player plays as the husband/’breadwinner’ and the other plays as a Victorian era wife. A team wins by having the most decadently dressed wife at the ball at the end of the game. The hardest part of the game seemed to be the helplessness felt when your ‘husband’ seemed incompetent at manipulating the in-game economy. As a result, there could be some fun lost from knowing early on that you did not have much of a chance of winning the game. Fun could thankfully be regained by screwing over the other two teams and roleplaying though. I think this could be a very frustrating game for anyone who was highly competitive if their teammate was deemed unconducive to winning the game. This game I think really encourages the ladies to be leaders and request things of their husbands in order to of course win the game. The husbands also have to be leaders at times too though when they decide what the woman can be allowed to buy. I think my mother would like this game because she is a fun roleplayer in board games I played with her in the past. Overall, to me this game was just alright as it was not really my kind of game but I could see where some people might find it more enjoyable.