Game Daze Park Place Mall Employee Review, May 2009

Andrew-

Baron Munchausen was an actual baron in Germany who had spent some time in the Russian military during the 1700's. Upon his return, he became famous for telling ridiculous tales of his exploits. The stories were so outrageous that no one was really sure if he was joking or not. An anonymous author collected his stories and, adding some flair from various myths and legends, published them as a book.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a role-playing game based on those stories. In it, the players adopt a title and pseudonym (such as Bishop Portly Alabaster or some such) and ideally come up with some sort of minor backstory or at least some distinctive mannerisms, and almost certainly a ridiculously fake British accent. They then take turns boasting about their extraordinary adventures in an attempt to tell the best story.

Everyone starts with an equal number of chips or coins or whatever. The starting player prompts the player to his left with some kind of question, like, "Sir, would you kindly regail us with tale of the time you accidentally impregnated the pope?" The player thus prompted responds with something akin to, "Ah yes, not one of my finer moments, but undoubtedly one of my better stories!" and proceeds to tell his story. Midway through, another player may interject by bidding one coin and sticking in some detail, like, "But sir, the stories I heard told that an entire legion of halbediers awaited you on the other side of the gate!" The storyteller may accept the coin and incorporate the detail into his story, or he may reject it by bidding a coin of his own and adding some insult. This bid can go back and forth until one player finally gives in and accepts the coin, either withdrawing the detail or incorporating it as the case may be. When the storyteller is finished, he prompts the player to his left. This continues until everyone has told a story, at which point each player chooses their favorite story and transfers all of their coins to that player. The one with the most coins at the end "wins," although this game is not one where anyone seriously cares about winning.

The rulebook for this game is very short, but the rules are even shorter. The rulebook has, as one of its last pages, a "Rules Summary," page which includes all of the rules. The rest of the book is basically the flavor text. The "Character Creation" section, for example takes up about a page, despite the fact that it entails nothing more than writing your fictional name on a piece of paper. It's one of the most enjoyable rulebooks I've ever read.

When my group played this, it was a lot of fun, but I came away concluding that it's the sort of thing you get better at with practice. I realized afterward that our tales were actually pretty mundane. We told about conquering savage natives in the Americas, defeating a Japanese pirate in a fight with knives, and expeditions to wild Siam. Afterward I wanted to play again, because I had ideas for prompts that were much more fitting to the game, such as, "Tell us about the time you journeyed to the center of the Earth to establish a trade route with the Mole people," or "Please regail us again with that old tale of the time you beat God himself at a game of dice."

I definitely look forward to my next game.