From: John Quarto <trader@CONAN.IDS.NET>

I just returned from DragonFLight Con in Seattle:

I have mostly good comments. Turnout seemed to be a touch higher this
year, and fortunately the Magic et al players and role-players were in a
separate building. I played a few new games and a few old ones, including:

1) Fast Food Franchise.  First time for me on this 'old' game. I actually
thought this was a good game for non-war-gamers you may know, since it
plays as easily as MOnopoly. the only drawback, so often the case in
TimJim games, was the odd and rather ugly game-board. However, also
typical of TimJim games, the game itself was well designed and one soon
forgets about the lack of expensive graphics.

2) They also had a prevue of "Reign of Terror" about the French
Revolution, due out sometime near end of the year I think. THis is a great
game for all you Republic of Rome fans out there and is slightly more
detailed and fixes MANY of RoR's flaws. (no huge series of
assassinations...it is much easier instead to simply get an
opponent-controlled character sent to the guillotine). Our game was unique
insofar as the person playing the Moderate faction (the ones trying
hardest to maintain status quo) was played by a nice guy who just finished
up in a Diplomacy game that morning, so I suspect he was in the wrong
mind-set for a politcal deal-making and deal-KEEPING game. SO we spent
some time slapping him around game-wise while the French populance became
more and more dissatisfied with the revolution. We all lost. :( but it was
fun and also funny  :)  Two importnat points about the game: each faction
leader (you) has a different set of victory conditions, so there is a lot
of jostling for position that doesn't exist in RoR. Next point: this game
is MUCH better graphically than other TImJim games I've seen. For me, I
rate this a must-buy when it comes out. You will NOT like it tho if you
don't like political games, and if you had moving chits around all the
time as in RoR for record keeping purposes.

3) Other games: Cow Wars (u play a farm species trying to tie up the
farmer and score point before other species kick u out of the barn. also
played a few toher which I'm sure you know about already

4) the auction: last year the auction was GREAT! this year I thought it
was a piece of ****. The only 'rare' thing I saw show up was a "AFter the
Holocaust"...everything else, except for a set of Moxes, was stuff you'd
find just about anywhere.