489: the Land Record Sheet debuts

As previously mentioned, the group last week agreed to spend the bulk of the evening's gameplay rolling up wives and trying out Greg's new Land Record Sheets and Manor Income Sheets.

Most of us were excited about the manor sheets—after all, most of the knights just got control of their manors from Duke Corneus. But rolling up wives? Hmm, seemed like something we had to finish before we got to have dessert. However, all that changed when Greg announed that we would be rolling up each other's wives, not our own. Skills, passions, traits, all left up to someone else.

Have you played Parthenon? Then you know it pays to be moderate with your power.

I don't think anyone in our Saturday group besides Greg and I have played Parthenon.

...

After the fur settled, Greg handed out a packet with our Land Record Sheets and Manor Income Sheets. I won't bore you with this other than to say that while I've read and heard some concern that players will minimax the extras and end up with identical manors, ours each ended up being quite different. One, the knights had different amounts of money to spend. But the big differentiator came from the yearly Manor Income Sheet: what was your manorial luck for the year? (Oh, no! The Duke came and stayed at my manor and practically ate me out of house and home!). Did your wife make her Distaff roll? Was the weather harsh?

Only manorial improvement was duplicated among the players, the apiary, but one player's manor luck resulted in the beehive going up in flames. Goodbye, duplication. And I'm still not sure what happened, but poor Adam ended up in the hole for 10 librum. Yikes! After squeezing his peasants and logging his forests and selling all his loot from Bayeaux he was still in the hole until his Generous comrades-at-arms sent him a few extra Yule gifts. Can't have a tatty-looking companion now, can we?

And that was only one year of recordkeeping. I think it's going to enliven the Winter Phase considerably, just like the Ladies Tournament will enliven Spring Court at the beginning of the year.