Board Games

On a blustery autumn evening, five old friends met in the backroom of one of the city’s oldest and most private clubs. Each had traveled a long distance — from all corners of the world — to meet on this very specific day… October 2, 1900 — 28 years to the day that the London eccentric, Phileas Fogg accepted and then won a £20,000 bet that he could travel Around the World in 80 Days. When the story of Fogg’s triumphant journey filled all the newspapers of the day, the five attended University together. Inspired by his impetuous gamble, and a few pints from the local pub, the group commemorated his circumnavigation with a more modest excursion and wager – a bottle of good claret to the first to make it to Le Procope in Paris. Each succeeding year, they met to celebrate the anniversary and pay tribute to Fogg. And each year a new expedition (always more difficult) with a new wager (always more expensive) was proposed. Now at the dawn of the century, it was time for a new impossible journey. The stakes: $1 Million in a winner-takes-all competition.

The objective: to see which of them could travel by rail to the most cities in North America — in just 7 days. The journey would begin immediately…

Taught the game to literally dozens of people, today I find out there's an actual interesting lore / backstory tidbit I could have been using to intro it! Damn!