Pit Omega

Pit was one of my favorite games as a boy. I don't remember why or when I got rid of the game, but it was at least 20 years ago.

I recently found a copy of the 70's edition of Pit (the same version I had) at a local thrift shop for a $1. I immediately bought it and played it a few times with the family. I broke it out at the last board game night with my friends. So far, I have only played 3-player games. I really enjoy the frenetic pace of the game, but with only a few players, it is easy to track what is going on.

With more players, I imagine that it would be harder to track cards, especially the Special cards. But I still want to up the play-ability within my gaming group--alcohol is likely an increase in fun too!

Pit Omega card back

That got me thinking. I am putting my Omega treatment to Pit, focusing on two aspects: 1) Allowing more players, and 2) Adding more special cards. I researched the interwebs and found that Pit was released in 1904. It is almost an exact copy of a game that came out the year before--Gavitt’s Stock Exchange. In that game there are no Bull or Bear card, but there is a Telegram special card.

In addition to the different special cards(s), there are also a couple mechanical differences between GSE and Pit:

• Must trade one or two cards only (in Pit: up to four)
• Winner gets 2x points printed on their commodity (in Pit: 1x)
• Anyone that has 6 or more of their commodity when the winner is rings the bell gets the points printed on their commodity (in Pit: no equivalent rule)

So I set forth to create a new set of rules and to design a new set of cards. The commodities in the 70s edition are all grains, so the three new commodities I added are also in the grain family. The complete set of Commodities in Pit Omega are:

• Wheat - 100 points
• Barley - 85 points
• Corn - 75 points
• Rye - 70 points
• Poppy - 65 points
• Oats - 60 points
• Millet - 55 points
• Hay - 50 points
• Rice - 45 points
• Flax - 40 points

I decided to include all three special cards from both Pit and GSE (Bull, Bear, and Telegram) and I came up with an additional 2 (Hybrid and Surplus).

• Bull: A Wild Card if you are winner, but worth -20 points if you are not the winner. Score triple points if you win with a set of ten commodities plus any Bull cards(ie a set of eight plus two Bulls)
• Bear: Worth -20 points. Can not win with it in your hand.
• Telegram: Worth +30 points if you didn't win, worth -30 points if you did. Two telegrams in the same hand cancel each other out.
• Hybrid: Worth -40 points. May win with a set of six commodities (instead of nine). Score points based on the majority commodity.
• Surplus: Worth -30 points. May win with this card in hand.

For the design of Pit Omega, I wanted to pay homage to my version (the 70's edition) as well as earlier sets. I took inspiration from the colors from the 70s edition (orange and ocher/green) and the art within a circle from earlier editions. This is what I came up with for the front:

Sample card from Pit Omega

In full disclosure, I used clip art for the grain artwork and the pattern on the back of the card.

Pit is an excellent party game! If you are interested, pick up a copy of the game and download my variant of the rules below.

A PDF of the Rules can be found here. 

The rules presented in this post are home brew variant rules for Pit. No copyright intended.

Talisman Island Talisman 2ed Content

Jon New over at Talisman Island contacted me to provide some pics for his site. I happily obliged, and took some new pictures better suited for his needs.

In addition to the following official 5 figures, I sent pics of 16 "home brew" minis of the characters form Talisman City, Talisman Dragons, White Dwarf #115 and La Heraut #2. The alternates are not up on TI's site yet, so I will only show the ones that are.

Princes from Talisman

Gladiator from Talisman Expansion Set

Soldier from Talisman The Adventure

Scout from Talisman Dungeon

Astronaut from Talisman Timescape

These minis have either already been posted or will soon be posted in the Talisman 2ed Figure Collection series. After the series is over, I will show my alternate/home brew characters, as well as home brew expansions I downloaded over at Talisman Island.

That's all for now. 

DeviantArt

I recently joined DeviantArt.

In an effort to expand my social footprint (and increase my odds of landing a freelance gig :D ), I have finally joined the ranks of the artists on DeviantArt. So far I have only uploaded my Risk Omega map, but I will be adding more content over the next couple of weeks.

My focus will be more on Graphic Design and Illustration rather than gaming, but they will sometimes overlap. Hopefully there won't be too much duplication of content between there and here.

That's all for today.