Black Death
Published by BTRC
Written by Greg Porter
$9.95
There are few board games whose subject is disease. Death, destruction and willful mayhem at a variety of different scales, yes. Disease itself -- no. Which is all perfectly fine, because a game about disease would be really rather sick, would it not? But if I were to tell you that Greg Porter -- the creator of Black Death the game in which, ". . . Your friends can play the exciting role of bubonic plague, typhoid, cholera or any real or imagined disease of your choosing in a fun-filled attempt to depopulate 14th Century Europe!" -- also wrote Macho Women With Guns, then I doubt that you would be surprised. Of course, there have been other disease-themed games, such as B&B's Plague -- set in the English seaside town of Weymouth at the time of the 1348 outbreak of the bubonic plague, but of course, you do not get to be that disease!
Black Death is a little game, but played on a big scale. The format is just like a Dungeons & Dragons scenario, with the map on the inside of a stiff card cover. Inside are four pages of rules, the counters on thin card, twenty event cards, and a range of new-city templates. Using these, Black Death can be updated from the 1348 outbreak of the bubonic plague to the 1665 outbreak for a bonus game. A single six-sided die is required to play, but is not supplied, as the provided components all fit into an A4-sized plastic envelope.
The game begins with each player determining the virulence and mortality . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: September 21, 2001
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