Risk just needed a little faith

I am a self proclaimed Risk hater (Risk being the popular board game in which world domination by obliteration is the one and only object and not the metaphysical idea of potential sacrifice) I use the word "hate" because I have experienced first hand the effects of the game of Risk. To give a little back information as to the real implications of Risk, it is actually the game of choice for college age men going through their mid-college crisis. This is sort of likened to a mid-life crisis, but one in the midst of college does not have the money to buy a fancy car nor, usually, does this individual have a family he can leave as do some men during their proper mid-life crisis.

Therefore, these individuals find the next best thing to buying a car or attempting to start life over again, world domination, in which the outcome of the battles leading up to it are completely and entirely based on the luck of the final resting point of two to three dice. As was said and in opposition to an authentic mid-life crisis and furthermore ironically, these individuals really have nothing to risk so the idea of putting the fate of a population of polymer based legions of soldiers to the luck of a die roll is of no real consequence.

Throughout my college career, I lost many friends to this sickness. Which, again, is why I can whole-heartedly say I truly hate this game. One does not simply lose a friend to this game however, they slowly fade away. Actually, not even that, they first give you a chance to join them in their conquest escapades. It begins as simple experimentation. They tell you they just want to try it once, you know, see what it's like, but it's nothing serious. After a while it becomes all they want to do. Then you begin to meet all these other people, new "friends" begin to stop-by and hang out. One day you walk in and your life dissolves around you as you stare, open mouthed to a scene of a table set up in the room surrounded by people you've never met, your friend at the head a handful of dice and blood on his lips destroying the plastic armies of Madagascar one by one. This is when you know it's gone too far.

For one, who the hell are all these people, these new friends? Secondly, Madagascar? Going for Madagascar in Risk is one of the major tell-tale plays of the game. It either means you're greedy or you're attempting to take and hold Africa in its entirety, which everyone knows is impossible. Even the worst of Risk players, regardless of prior motives, will not stand to allow someone to hold Africa in its entirety. Your friend drops the dice and runs over to comfort you, rattling out some idiotic reasoning, something about how he was going to tell you, but, or, you were fun to play against at first, but you're just too easy to beat. Then they try to make it your fault, if you'd just accept them for who they were, you'd get along. What's wrong with illusions of word domination anyways?

You end up tearing off in tears, and they run out of armies while attempting the Madagascar conquest, in which the owner of it, upon their next turn, refortifies the island and proceeds to sweep across half of Africa, not because he wanted it, but to prove a point, sort of like a "don't try to take all of Africa" bitch slap (notice I said they take half of Africa, another tell-tale play, that of taking half a continent, which means, basically, "don't fuck with me").

However, a new dawn has come. A group of friends from college who my wife and I get together with every week were going out dancing. Specifically, the girls were going out dancing, which left a handful of guys with nothing to do for an evening. Naturally, the guys called, well, a "guys" night and that's when it started. It was all going well to begin. We went out to eat, I successfully finished the "Manly-Man" sandwich, we were all happy and then we returned back home and Risk was mentioned. I could feel the night dragging out, the fun dissolving. How could I have been so stupid, I walked right into it, the word RISK, it was like a night stick to the face.

The guys tried to comfort me. Apparently, this was no ordinary risk. I didn't buy it. I had heard of these new "other" risk games. During the height of the popularity of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy a "Lord of the Rings" risk was produced. I tried it, hated it. Later, a futuristic risk was developed, in this one you could actually take over the moon. No good though, just as NASA has, I realized that the moon just isn't interesting enough.

This new Risk is entitled "Risk, God Storm." I went into the game with not a little amount of skepticism. In this new version, a mystical element is introduced. There are four gods in which one can summon, each one carries its own uses, for example, allowing one to win ties in battle. Each god's abilities are ultimately helpful in battle in some way and not entirely difficult to utilized or manage. Along with each god is a deck of "miracle" cards. These cards can be drawn when a player one, has that particular god summoned and two, they are able to perform certain labor, for example, when one has the god of war out, if they take three or more countries within their turn, they earn a card. These cards have all kinds of different abilities.

After playing this game for about an hour, and enjoying it, I began to realize what they had done which made the game so good all of the sudden. Basically, they merged the ideas of Risk and the card game Magic, and promptly took out all the intricacies which make the two games difficult and not as widely accepted. They removed the aspect of world domination in the Risk game (now it is played in five epochs, so each player only has so many turns and there is a defined end to the game). As far as the cards are concerned, the abilities are useful and easy to access. One can activate the uses of any card by paying out a certain amount of tokens.

This brings me the real interesting point, the tokens or money of the game is properly called "faith." In the game of "Risk, God Storm," one can do quite a bit of damage to anyone at any time with the right amount of faith. It's amazing to sit around a table playing a risk-like game hearing the players say things like, "if only I had more faith." Damn right. The game was engineered to be maximally interesting for the length of the game for every player. A genius developed it.

I realize some may still be skeptical even after hearing all this. I would be too as I really hate Risk. At this point, those that simply have no luck or ability in rolling dice would pose a proper objection, that being, no matter the frills, I will still lose battles. This is a valid point, however, this is the real twist. Risk, God Storm comes complete with an afterlife. Soldiers who die in battle go to a respective heaven. Once in heaven, soldiers can exit heaven to the underworld and fight there as well. Ground can be gained in the underworld, crypts can be taken and if you own at least one crypt in the underworld and one temple on the map, one can resurrect armies. Of course, if your armies die while fighting in the underworld, they go back into your main pool (that's the pile of unused plastic men which sits before each player).

Apparently the creators are still working out the theological kinks dealing with war in the underworld. Because of this, I tended to fight very little in the underworld. I figured my soldiers had already served me well in life and who was I to pluck them from heavenly bliss just to fight and die all over again?