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A foggy day in London Town. That nattering dandy, Professor Elemental, has been regaling the folks at the London Adventurer’s Club with tales of high adventure. His travels in the South Pole. His conquest of Everest. His battle with savage tribes deep in the African jungle. His talking monkey captured in the heart of the Amazon.
And now that you’ve learned his game, you’d like to play it too. Stuff and Nonsense is a game of low adventure from James Ernest and Cheapass Games. You and your opponents compete to become the world’s most renowned explorers — without ever leaving the safety of London. Players move around the map collecting different items to support their stories. You’ll haunt cafes and pubs, eavesdropping on other explorer’s tales of fascinating comrades-in-arms and nail-biting anecdotes, and make them your own. Perhaps you were chased by bears, “nature’s killing machines and mankind’s fiercest natural enemy.” The scar you received chasing the nightlife in Billingsgate may just as well have come from running through sawgrass, which “cuts one’s legs like a thousand sweet-smelling knives.” You’ll frequent the antique mall, gift store, and junk shop to collect artifacts, photographs, and specimens as tangible proof of your exploits. Perhaps you’ll procure a poison dart gun, armed with psychotropic poison made from the skin of a rare and beautiful tree frog. (Unfortunately, no frogs or darts survived your return trip.) Alternately, you could discover a photograph of a giant snake, shown next to an equally giant pencil. (Pencils from that region commonly measure around a hundred feet long.)
You’ll need to match your lies to what you find. For example, it’s unlikely that you crafted a necklace of shark teeth while climbing Mount Everest. However, it’s entirely plausible you ran across Tobias Wetherbee while trekking through the Amazon rainforest. (Wetherbee was a master of six languages, rock climbing, sports wagering, and the identification of exotic birds before his tragic, but entertaining death.) When you’re ready to spin your tale of fantastic adventure, you’ll step into the Adventurer’s Club, and regale your fellow explorers with a wondrous tale (drawn from the flavorful card text or your own prodigious imagination). Different cards and The only real danger that you will face on your journey is Professor Elemental, himself, who’s not at all impressed that you’re stealing his bit. The Professor stalks the back streets of London, waiting to pounce on his careless imitators. If he lands on you, he’ll collect a bribe in cards or points, then send you on your way. “Stuff and Nonsense from Cheapass Games takes gentlemanly adventuring and turns it on its ear,” touts Jeff Provine, game reviewer at Blogcritics. “With its strong theme, it offers Steampunk and Victoriana fans a great time telling wild tales in haughty accents of how they were swallowed by a whale, yet survived with a handy oxygen tank and climbed their way out only to meet mermaids… if only that blasted photograph hadn’t have gotten wet!” "I enjoy the laughter and fun that can be had with Stuff and Nonsense… It's light, fun, and — best of all — portable enough to play anywhere," boasts Jonathan Nelson, reviewer for Gaming Bits. "I recommend it. The next great adventurer could be you." Stuff and Nonsense is a card game for two-six players for ages twelve and up, and takes around 40-minutes to play. It includes 100 cards, six player pawns, one Professor Elemental pawn, one 6-sided die, and clear, concise rules. Like most Cheapass Games, it’s printed in the USA.
Inspired to take a fake adventure of your own? Shoot us an email with a one- or two-sentence of your noteworthy and completely believable adventure, along with a picture to “prove” it, by April 31st. You could win a copy of the game along with whatever promos are lying around the Cheapass office. Obviously photo-shopped pictures and blatant lies about random tchotchkes are encouraged. Visit http://www.cheapass.com/low-adventure for more details. Our villain, Professor Elemental, is a real-life, Steampunk-flavored chap-hop artist and adventurer from Brighton, UK. Learn more about him and his endeavors at https://www.professorelemental.com/ or follow him on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ProfessorElemental/) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/prof_elemental). |
But secretly, you know the old dog for what he is: a tawdry, second-rate liar. He spins wild tales from thin air and spider silk, bolstered by cheap tricks, worthless trinkets, and stolen stories. It’s all stuff and nonsense. 
destinations are worth different amounts of points, and destinations can change in value over the course of the game as they move in and out of vogue.