Biology Students Passing Time
Back when I studied biology when I was 18, I swiftly bonded with a group of biologist students, all female, which is not a surprise considering how from an entire classroom of 300+ students the men were like 20 or so. One of our favorite things to do was to go into board-game coffee shops, order our drinks and a board game and pass the time playing a variety of board games.
With Dixit, Taboo and other similar games being our go-to board games, we often strayed to the more bizarre and unknown, just for the fun of it, and today I will tell you about a fascinating board game we played back in the day, called Nuns on the Run.
Nuns On The Run
The premise of the game is simple enough. There are two teams of players. The matrons and the nuns. The matrons have the solemn duty to patrol the holy grounds of the Abbey and make sure all nuns are in their cells praying, sleeping and generally doing the good gods work.
The nuns on the other hand, have to leave their cells and each of them accomplish their hidden mission, then return to their cell before they get spotted.
Players play either as a nun, or as one of the two matrons. The novices move in secret and avoid being seen or heard by the Abbess or Prioress. The goal is to make it to the location on the board where the novice can get her mission, or "secret wish" and return to their room without being detected. All of the novices move in secret by marking their movement and locations on hidden sheets. The Abbess and Prioress move on regulated paths around the board, but can diverge and chase down novices that they see or hear. The player or players who complete their secret wishes and return to their rooms win, or the Abbess and Prioress win if they catch a certain number of novices.
We decided to split the team in men vs women, which meant that it was me vs the ladies in this epic clash of devout faith, holiness and mischief
The basics
The game seems like a handful at first, so I will try my best to get the basics down.
The matrons move in a predetermined path on the board in every round, with the direction they are facing being very important, as it decides their "line of sight" and as such, may hinder or see any sneaky little nun as they move around
The nuns have to simply avoid being seen or heard, get the item of their "secret mission" and return to their cell without being caught. The matrons have to catch the nuns a number of times equal to the total players
The nuns on the other hand, play in secret, recording their movement on separate hidden logs. However, after the matrons finish their movement, all nun players who moved will have to roll a die to determine if they were heard or not. You calculate the roll as well as any modifier the type of movement your nun performed had. Then you start counting from your location up to the closest matron. going around walls but through doors. If you reach a matron then you were heard, and must place a noise token from the side of the matron that is the shortest direct route to your character. And that is when things get interesting.
Matrons can only walk a predetermined path, however if they hear a noise, or end up within line of sight from a nun character, then they can move freely until they "lose them", which means that they no longer have line of sight, or during the next noise roll the player succeeds in being silent (though this may have been a house variant we played)
This enables for some interesting situations, as you may move to cut off one of the unruly nuns and end up in the line of sight of another, thus deciding which one will get a scold and a swift whack on the hand with a ruler, and who gets a shot at achieving their secret mission.
Finally, every time a matron arrives at the location of a player character, they earn one point and the player's nun must return back to her cell in the shortest route from it, and only then can she attempt another run. Being caught by a matron also means you lose your "secret mission" item if you had it, which means you have to start all over again
Fun Factor
The game turned out to be more fun than we anticipated. 1vs4 turned out to be less fun than what it could potentially be with a full roster of players, but even so it turned out to be a sneaky joyous game.
With fun artwork, even funnier secret missions ranging from "studying witchcraft" to "exchange letters with a paramour", the game utilizes its dual gameplay perfectly providing challenging gameplay for both parties.
One one side, the matrons have to anticipate and predict the movements of the nun players, and vice versa, as they move around in an almost literal cat and mouse game. The chase sequences are fun and exciting, followed by the usual triumphant roars of victory from the player that manages to either capture or avoid being captured.
The only drawback I can think of is that the game felt a bit too short. Despite us not realizing it had been an hour or so that we played, it felt us wanting more, partly because with only four nun players, I only had to capture four of them, which is not -that- hard, considering you can catch the same nun multiple times. Furthermore the task of the matron, though interesting is a lot easier for a beginner to grasp than the nun, and the mistakes that we all made, as newbies to the game, were a lot more forgiving for the matron side than it is for the nun side.
Overall despite it all, it is a very fun and simple board game I completely recommend for any board game fan out there
