Doomtown News

Halloween 1999, California

Coalition and Sweetrock Outfits Prevail in Southern California Kingdom Come Storyline Tournaments

Hari, playing the Coalition Outfit, won the All Star Games tournament in Diamond Bar on Saturday. His deck includes the original J.P. Colman, and a slew of action cards such as Miss Me, Take Ya With Me and Pistol Whip. His final victory was assured when he defended the Lode against the Sweetrock Mining Company.

Later on Saturday, Jason, also playing the Coalition, won the Game Zone tournament in Pasadena. His deck includes many hexes and spells such as Demon's Eye and Babble On.

On Sunday, John, playing Sweetrock, won the All Ways Gaming tournament in Chatsworth. His deck includes jobs

Saturday, October 2, 1999, All Ways Gaming, Chatsworth, California

Blackjack eaten by a Mountain Lion

The Flock, lead by Avarice, collected a bounty yesterday for the capture of the Blackjacks lead by Blackjack himself. The Blackjacks were wanted for winning last week's Quickdraw tournament. After two members of the Blackjack Outfit had been run out of town for cheating, and just before dawn on the fifth day of the game a Mountain Lion appeared. It was followed by a Byron Wackwitz Joker that caused the lion to entirely consume the outlaw. Soon afterwards, a Full Moon rose, and a dude went crazy joining the victorious Flock

This thrilling series of events might never again occur in Doomtown play. There is a pending proposal to change the rules of the game to limit Events. The current set of cards do place considerable power in certain Event Cards. If the design team wishes to reduce this power they could do so with the next batch of cards. Event immune dudes, Event immune deeds, Event-flipping actions or even a "No Further Events in this Game" Event could change the hierarchy of cards and be a lot of fun. If done thoughtfully this would not make for a boring event/anti-event contest. The mere existence of other powerful cards in the playset, including ones not susceptible to Events would make the inclusion of numerous Events in a deck less appealing

Collectible card games should have short and simple constitutional rules. The ebb and flow of power to specific cards should be occasioned by successive card releases, not by revising the rules. Opinions on this matter have been sought by David Williams, the lead Doomtown game designer

Sunday, September 26, 1999, Cyberspace
Broadcast Electricity has been updated. The new features include a ranking program, and a card image viewer. To work the ranking program click on the Passion Flower in the upper left corner. The Top Doomtown Sites ranked by the number of references made to Broadcast Electricity will be displayed. To work the card image viewer, go to the Card Images section and press the "Next" button to advance to the next image -- this may take a few seconds. In the coming weeks this section will be used to feature various artists and decks

Friday, September 24, 1999, Santa Monica, California

Wizards of the Coast Flagship Center Lacking in Spirit

This summer, Wizards of the Coast opened a retail store and game center here. This area is one full of restaurants, people and entertainment in a very together low rise creative urban center. There are many unique sites that would make terrific showcases for Doomtown and other trading card games. Unfortunately, Wizards chose none of these, but instead a medium-sized standard unit in the third floor of the indoor shopping mall.

The location isn't all that is over-standardized. The design is that of the already out of style studio store. Cardboard cutout figures are in the entrance. The entire layout is uninspired, like it is following a manual for retail marketing of standard stuff. Most of the space is filled with displays of unremarkable toy store fare positioned so as to leave room for only two gaming tables. Neither was in use this Friday night.

The back is lined with monitors (a combination of game stations and computers) which the Wizards T-shirt wearing staff of two rented by the hour. No Doomtown cards were displayed outside of their official packaging. There were no loose cards at all. Further, there were no decorations other than official retail displays. The effect was sterile and corporate, and the resulting atmosphere far inferior to any of the independent gaming centers in Southern California.

How disappointing that Wizards missed the opportunity to build a much better center -- one that would have been enjoyed by thousands of people and moved trading card games further into the mainstream.

1998, Calabasas, California

A Rave Review of Doomtown

Doomtown -- poker played with freshly printed illustrated cards -- dramatizes ideas, sets them in confrontation with each other, and tests them in action. The paradoxes of Doomtown play resonate for us as they could not have even for the populace of the Wild West depicted on the cards, for the progression of fate through the millennium compels us to embrace Doomtown's treatment of our paramount concerns: self-knowledge and self-definition, the nature and value of happiness, the power of ideology, the intrications of spirit, and the obduracy of flesh. Each character taunts the gambler, "I may even be more 'alive' than you are."

The name Doomtown as used in this review and these pages, means not just the collectible card game, but also the phalanx of collaborators involved its creation and play. Beyond this, it also means the great complex of social, political, economic, and psychological forces that influence all these people in uncountable ways. Doomtown is the transcendence of cards and death over physical confrontation and over psychological and even moral confrontation with evil.

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