Author Archives: jacks241

Game of the Week: Ladies and Gentlemen

For this session, we played the board game Ladies and Gentlemen. This is a board game where the players are split in two groups: the ladies and the gentlemen. The ladies spend their turns figuring out what they want to buy from the shops so they look their best for the party. The gentlemen spend their turn getting money to buy the ladies what they want by trading stocks and completing contracts.

For our game, I wanted to be a lady, which worked out well since two people wanted to be gentlemen and the other guy wanted to be a lady. The gameplay was pretty cool. The ladies get to lay down cards of different clothing and accessories and pick out what they want. I tried to go for a somewhat fancy outfit that would go well together if it was real. Unfortunately, my ‘husband’ wasn’t able to afford everything so I had to make do with what I had.

I really enjoyed this game, and thought it was pretty fun. The hardest part was at the beginning when the other ‘lady’ and I had trouble figuring out how the shops worked. Once we read over the rules again, we figured it out and it went smoother than the first time we tried. If I had to recommend this game to someone, it would be my friend Nate. I think it would be really funny to see what he would come up with if he was one of the ladies. For leadership, I think this game teaches you that you have to rely on others sometimes and you might not always get what you want.

Game of the Week: D&D Week 3

This session was the last week of our DnD campaign. As always, we started the campaign by recapping what had happened previously so that everyone was caught up on what had happened. I found this a very helpful thing to do each time we played, as I found that I either forgot or misremembered some very minor things.

For this session of the story, we continued through the cave we were adventuring through to look for the man that was being held hostage by the goblins. We eventually found the man, and he was surrounded by some very angry goblins. My character tried to talk the head goblin here down but wasn’t the most successful. The goblin ended up dropping the man off the ledge we were on but one character in the group was able to jump down and catch the man in time. Sadly, we didn’t finish this section of the campaign before it was time to end.

The hardest part of the game this session was stopping. I really wanted to continue going and exploring the world around us with my group. We had a great DM who made sure that we all agreed on what to do and helped to navigate the fights and environments in a manner that really helped. The last person I’d like to introduce to this game would be my dad. He used to be into RPG games and I think he’d like it if he tried it out. I still agree on my views about leadership for this game, as it gives you the opportunity to be yourself and make the decisions you want to make.

Game of the Week: D&D Week 2

For this session, we continued our DnD campaign. We picked up from where we left off and ended up finishing the fight with the goblins. After this came the twist of having to introduce a new character to the group as we had someone new join the session. This was fun to do as we figured out a way that we all knew the character.

For the story in this one, we started to get into the plot. Our team trekked through the forest surrounding us and headed towards a cave guarded by goblins. This is where I really got to shine, as my character spoke Goblin. This moment really stuck out to me, as the whole time I’d been playing, I felt like I was in the background. But this let me try to do something that might advance the plot for everyone and just was overall a really good time for me. (Unsurprisingly, I failed and upset the goblin but it was fun to try!).

I think some of the hardship I was having the past week was a lot less this week. I understood the game a lot more and this allowed us to get through the story just a little faster than we had previously been going. The hardest part I had during this session was figuring out which weapon was best to fight goblins with! Another friend I’d like to play the game with is my friend Kaylynn. She’s very creative and I’d like to see how she reacts to things in the game. Lastly, the leadership ties to the game still remain the same as in my last review. DnD is a fantastic game for leadership I found!

Game of the Week: DND Week 1

For this session, we played the first session in our three week Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Dungeons and Dragons is an RPG game that sets the player up in a fantasy world, and you explore while trying to battle monsters and accomplish the goals of the team. For our group, we had five players, along with one person DMing the game so that we could get through the story.

For this first week, we mainly focused on getting introduced to the game. Both I and another player were completely new to the game, so we had to spend a bit of time getting the mechanics and everything about the game explained to us. When we started the story, it was pretty fun. The most we got through in the session was exploring the toppled wagon/cart and then almost completing a battle with some goblins (who almost killed one of our players).

I really enjoyed playing DnD for the first time. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, but have never had the opportunity for. For recommendations, I’d really like to play this with my roommate Aja. She likes games like this and I’d love to play it with her. Honestly, the hardest part of this session was figuring out how the rolls worked. It confused me a lot but after listening to the more experienced players do it, I started to understand it a little more. Lastly, for leadership, I think DnD shows that leaders can have many different abilities and that other people can help you with this. Stats are a big thing in this game, and a leader might not have everything they need to complete a scenario in the best way so they need to rely on other people around them.

Game of the Week: Free Play 2

For this session, I grouped up with a few others to play the popular game “Among Us.” This is a fun video game where you and your crew are in space and your goal is to do tasks around the ship. However, the twist is that there are impostors on the ship who want to kill all the regular crewmates.

Our play session went alright. There were 6 of us in the group, which is enough for a full game (usually with only one person being the impostor), but it got kinda boring with just the 6 of us. We eventually opened the lobby up to the public, which is always an interesting experience in this game. We got a few bad apples that joined, but we kicked them as soon as we were able and played with the people who were cool. Something else that was fun to help with was that two of the people in our group had never played the game, so we had to teach them about it.

Overall, this was a very chill week. I’ve played the game before, and I really enjoy it, but if I had to recommend it to someone, I think I would recommend it to my friend Benny who might enjoy it. The hardest part of the game wasn’t actually hard but more frustrating and funny when one of the new players exposed me as the other impostor. I think leadership ties into this game in the way that leaders still need to do everyday tasks/challenges and they aren’t always exempt because they’re a leader.

Game of the Week: Free Play 1

For this session, we had a week to play whatever game we wanted. For my game, I grouped up with 4 other people and we played a one-shot RPG called “Lasers and Feelings.” This was an RPG about a crew of adventurers on a space ship trying to tackle an evil threat while the captain was healing.

Our play session went pretty well and I had a lot of fun! I’d definitely recommend this to my friend Austin, who loves sci-fi and RPGs. What I loved was that we got to choose our characters and what they looked/acted like. I got to play a what was definitely not a dragonborn, because he had wings! We introduced our characters to each other and figured out how we all knew each other in game. The game went pretty smoothly, but the ending was a tad rushed since we didn’t have enough time to figure out exactly how we had beaten the evil threat but it was defeated nonetheless!

I thought the game was decently easy (after having experience from playing Fiasco). The hardest part was at the beginning, when a couple of us were confused on whether our rolls landed due to them having to be either above or below our lasers or feelings characteristic. This game relates to leadership in the way most RPGs do. It lets you be the person you’ve always wanted to be, and lets you take charge in situations you might not normally be in.

Game of the Week: Incan Gold/Can’t Stop

For the session this week we played two “quick” games about luck in small groups. The first game was Can’t Stop, which is a game involving dice where you keep pressing your luck to roll the number(s) needed to advance up the rows you’re in. However, you can press your luck too far and end up with nothing you can use and get reset to the beginning. The second game was Incan Gold. This is a game where you go through a dungeon with your team and try to collect the most amount of treasure while not encountering two of the same trap.

Our play session went pretty well for these games. The one issue we had though, was time constraint. We played a few games of Can’t Stop, but didn’t have enough time to finish our game of Incan Gold. For Can’t Stop, I won the first game, but after that I kept losing and kept falling back down after pressing my luck too far. For Incan Gold, I was the one that kept going through the dungeon and wound up with the most treasure at the end. Out of the two, Incan Gold was my favorite, and I think my little brother would really like this game.

Risk taking is a big part of these games. I was hesitant when we first started playing to keep taking risks, but after I won my first game of Can’t Stop, I felt less hesitant and went for it more. Each time I had a successful round, it made me want to keep pushing my luck. However, the hardest part was making myself keep pushing the limits when I constantly kept losing. I think this is incredibly similar to how you approach leadership. One of the qualities of being a leader is being willing to take risks. They might not always work out, but it’s important to keep trying and not give up.

Game of the Week: Fiasco (Weeks 1 and 2)

For these couple of weeks, we played the game Fiasco. Fiasco is a role-playing game where your character can be whoever you want them to be, as long as it fits under the conditions that you roll for at the beginning. There are four main categories you roll for: relationships (between you and the 2 players on either side of you), needs, location, and objects. These different categories build the world around you, as each player gets their own.

For the first week, we spent most of our time figuring out the rolling and how everything worked. However, we did manage to get started on the story and got close to where the Tilt happens. I really enjoyed learning how the game worked here, as I’d never played a tabletop RPG like this, and having Grayson in our group helped immensely!

The story that we set up and created, was in my opinion, pretty dang cool. We had a southern town, where I was a corrupt sheriff, Grayson was the county coroner (so our characters worked together a lot), Veronica had a really cool non-binary mechanic/plumber, and Yihao had Henry, who was a stranger with a golf cart. For the story in the first week, we spent most of it getting our characters together and setting it up to introduce our big twist and our crime boss named Morrow Wilson.

For the second week, we explored more of the twist (which involved a fresh skeleton hidden under a house along with a mysterious briefcase. However, we weren’t expecting the real-life twist of Yihao not being there for the meeting, so we had to adapt and eventually made one of the twists be that the skeleton was actually Henry. We continued working through the Tilt and the story and eventually we reached the end of class. We weren’t able to finish the story fully, but we got really close to the end and called it there.

One of the challenges I had with this game was the acting. Having never played anything like this, I wasn’t experienced at all with acting and getting into character. Both of my teammates were great at it and I felt like I was bad at it. However, I learned (albeit near the end) to embrace the goofiness of it and had a good time with it.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing Fiasco, and I think my dad would really enjoy playing the game too. It really relates to leadership in the way that you can become whoever you want to be. You lead your own life in the game, which means you can lead your groupmates/fellow characters through the story even if you wouldn’t do it normally. I think this game was what helped me to start taking charge a little more in other group projects.

Game of the Week: Roll Player

The game we played this week was Roll Player, and it was a gamified character creator. Personally, I really enjoyed this game. I’ve always wanted to get into Dungeons and Dragons, so making the character creation process into a game was a brilliant idea in my book. Honestly, I feel like the hardest part of the game was figuring out whose turn it was in the beginning. This continued a little bit throughout the game, but we figured it out pretty quick.

I really enjoyed this game. I think it has interesting mechanics, like how you can get more stars if a certain colored die was in a specific position in the row. Additionally, I enjoyed the art style of the game. It had really appealing designs, both for the characters and all of the items. Lastly, I loved that I got a Dragonkin Druid. This is the race and class I’ve always wanted to play, so it was great that Tabletopia had it set up by random chance! Our play session went pretty smooth as well, with everyone getting the hang of how the game worked within a couple turns. It definitely helped that we had Julia, who had played the game many times before.

While playing the game, you can easily see how it ties into leadership in many ways. I think the biggest one that I recognized is that the game gives everyone an equal opportunity to be their own person. You get to make your own decisions, and this might inspire others to make decisions similar to yours. In the game, everyone starts off on equal ground; everyone is just trying to get their stats to where they need to be, which means taking specific actions to get them there. You have to take the lead on making your own person before you can lead anyone else.