Bootleggers

Tim had a game day, so I decided to stop by after disc golf. And we played Bootleggers. Because John keeps dragging it around and trying to get people to play it. He says that someone told him that it was a 10 game.

This game is set in the 20s when prohibition was enforced. We play gangsters who are delivering alcohol to speakeasies. And we start with one still, one truck, and one mobster. Be forewarned, this game uses a lot of dice! The stills initially have one die to determine alcohol production (you can add improvements which are extra dice and even get more stills later on). And the speakeasies have dice which determines their demand for alcohol (with improvements later on). The mobsters are used to try and control majority influence in the speakeasies. If you have the most mobsters, then your trucks will have delivery precidence. If you have at least one mobster in a joint, then you have priority over “general deliveries” (those who have no prescence). And if you have at least as many mobsters as everyone else, then you get bonus money for all deliveries. The speakeasies all have price that they pay for alcohol. The bigger the speakeasy, the more dice it uses to determine demand and the more money it pays out for deliveries. But those speakeasies need more initial mobsters in it to open it up for business.

This game does have a Chinatown like feel to it where you can barter your alcohol and trucks in order to make money. And like that game, not many people traded with me. Which really hurts. Especially when I had really bad dice rolls where I rolled a 1 four times in a row for my production. I also rolled lower than average in the speakeasy that I controlled which caused me to not be able to buy the goods that I tried to deliver.

Another negative thing about the trading is that deals are non-binding. So in John’s first trade with me, he decides to go against our agreement. Sigh. Sure, I understand that that may happen. But on the first trade at the beginning of the game? Come on!