/bgg/ Board Games General - Library of Alexandria edition

Yes, as long as it's not Netrunner, which has its own general.

>> What do you use to transport your games in when traveling - be it the 'Shoebox of shame' (tm) or something fancier? (We had a good set of suggestions a while back and then I lost all my links...)

What do you mean by "travelling"? I use the bus and the metro to get to my gaming sessions, so I just my old laptop back and if need be a small blue bag, to carry the games I want to bring. This means I have limit for approx. 4-5 "medium" sized games I find that limit acceptable.

>Had a look at GMT's Thunder Ally
No, that's me. I only looked at Thunder Alley, the other game suggested looked cool but I suspect I just don't like racing games (Automobiles was more of a deck builder imo).

Absolutely.

>What do you mean by "travelling"?

What do you mean by 'What do you mean by Traveling?' Isn't it obvious? I mean when you leave the place you live - whether you're going down the block or half way round the world - if you're going somewhere and taking board games with you, how do you transport them?

Once Upon a Time
Arctic Scavengers
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Coup
Code Names
Saboteur
The Grizzled
Citadels
Illuminati

Thanks for the descriptions. Now I want *BOTH* games. Sigh... :)

> If you were involved in creating a "board game archive for the ages" to preserve and pass on board games, what 5 games would you include and why?
I don't have a good answer, probably monopoly, go, chess, talisman

> Board games with miniatures? (Yes, No, Only if I don't have to paint them...) I have execution force, dungeonquest, lost partrol, silver tower, just got arena of planeswalkers for 15$, I prefer pre-painted, or at least pre-made not quite into "the hobby"

> What 'gaming itch' do you feel the market just doesn't have a good offering (or a desent selection) for yet? (Or is there a game you want but it isn't in your collection yet?)
A solid solo RPG game less dependent on dicing.

> What do you use to transport your games in when traveling - be it the 'Shoebox of shame' (tm) or something fancier? (We had a good set of suggestions a while back and then I lost all my links...)
Guys, try fishing tackle boxes to store your bits like the plano mini-magnum, or also try the school supply aisle for pen holders and note card holders for cards. for the boards you can use one of those expanding folders for draft documents.

> And of course you might as well flaunt it - what are you playing / have played recently? OP is in a no-gaming rut.
I dont have any real life friends so I play execution force and DQuest solo, and I also am researching and developing solo ways to play on the other games I have.

Boardgames sure are a gateway drug to harder stuff like freeform RPGs, but the convenience of having all the parts, pieces and rules in one box is nice.

I search the second hand market for used boxed games and usually save a bundle.

Is any user here a heavy BGG user?
I mean really participative there, posting stuff, replying to threads, rating and logging plays, uploadiing content and so on?
I just kinda browse through stuff, and even though I love gaming, I wonder how people find time and energy for all that community-ing.

What do people think of Seasons? I was thinking of getting it because I love the art and it looks like the kinda game I enjoy being a mix of elements with some strategy and some chaos. Just some questions:
>Do you enjoy it? Are there any major flaws I should be aware of like one strategy that dominates or kills all fun?
>Is there a decent amount of depth? I don't need nor want a super skill based game, but I want people to still come up with their own strategies. Cosmic Encounter is about the depth I look for in a game.
>Do you interact with the other players a decent amount? Games where you feel like you're playing competitive solitaire are a deal breaker for me.

>I just kinda browse through stuff, and even though I love gaming, I wonder how people find time and energy for all that community-ing.

Many hands make for light work. I browse as well, but if you stop and think about it - some of their users are in fact professional game designers or those who otherwise make their living off of the gaming industry. Gaming and thinking / enthusing about gaming is their primary job. Add in the fact that there are very large numbers of users each adding small bits (as well as a few heavy contributors - and the odd totally obsessed fan) and the amount of content generated adds up quickly.

It is a fun little card game. Very attractive visually, the boards, tokens and cubes are little more than pretty player aids and phase summaries, and the dice are random color mana generators, which yucks anti-RNG folks away from the game.
Strategy is surprisingly deep for a non CCG, a lot of card combos are not immediately evident, and though there are some very powerful combos, the pre-game drafting/deck building and the randomness of the dice mean you won't see the exact same game again and again due to a dominant strategy.
Interaction is there, definitely not competitive solitaire, but not as high as a tactical battles game either.

Speaking of fun little 2 player card games, there's another one on KickStarter that looks like it might be interesting.

kickstarter.com/projects/fowers/fugitive

Anyone else seeing any interdasting board games on KS currently?

>I don't have a good answer, probably monopoly, go, chess, talisman

I could easily see Chess, and Go. And while I like Talisman, it and Monopoly are both pretty 'Meh' in terms of game mechanics. Modern games have spoiled me apparently.

> A solid solo RPG game less dependent on dicing.
Hmmm, obviously decks of cards could be used, both for challenges and potentially plot / story elements as well to give lots of replayability. I just don't know of any diceless / low dice dungeon crawler RPGesque board games off the top of my head.

>Board game archive
>5 games
Only 5? Bizarre.
Well. Probably Keyflower, Agricola, Robo Rally, Pandemic, and Diplomacy.
>Miniatures
Nah. Typically price keeps me away from minis anyway
>Itch that hasn't been scratched
Area control or area majority game with emergent map/region boundaries. Probably a bitch to balance but I'm sure it's achievable
>Transport
Either a regular duffle bag (biggest, any size, fits like 10 medium plus a dozen small games), a padded cajon drum bag I bought by an user's suggestion (~6 medium-sized games), or my leather shoulder bag (only fits one medium box and a few smaller games)
>Playing
The holiday disrupted my usual Meetup so yeah
Not heavy but I definitely post occasionally and log plays religiously. I've uploaded a few player aids of my own creation too. It's perfect for questions about specific games, but most of the community is garbage there imo
Try it yourself on Board Game Arena. I like it decently enough and it's not solitaire at all so you'll probably like it

hello page 10 my old friend

Hello /bbg/

I am as new as it gets to board games. To keep it short i used to live in a nerd world country where you wouldn't see more board games than monopoly.

Now I moved to the states and I want to finally scratch that itch I had for board games. However I don't have friends here so I think I should start with 1 player games.

I heard tons of good stuff about Magik Knight and Marvel Legends, any other recommendations for solo play? I am currently playing Friday which is pretty fun imo

>Nerd

I meant 3rd.

> If you were involved in creating a "board game archive for the ages" to preserve and pass on board games, what 5 games would you include and why?
Catan, Dune and that absurd wargame set in the African campaign of WWII for historical importance, Ankh Morpork because it's genuinely amazing, and Munchkin to remind future generations how far the hobby has come
> Board games with miniatures? (Yes, No, Only if I don't have to paint them...)
Third option.
> What 'gaming itch' do you feel the market just doesn't have a good offering (or a desent selection) for yet? (Or is there a game you want but it isn't in your collection yet?)
Licensed games have come on leaps and bounds in the past 10 years, and there are enough good superhero games to sink a battleship, but I do feel that European comics have been neglected. True, we have Witness and Corto, but we could always do with a good Lucky Luke board game, maybe a Tintin game that isn't a shameless cash-grab...
> What do you use to transport your games in when traveling - be it the 'Shoebox of shame' (tm) or something fancier? (We had a good set of suggestions a while back and then I lost all my links...)
A nice sturdy jute bag has served me well this past year or so. Of course, I have to wrap my prettier games in bubblewrap so the boxes don't get scratched, but it's a small price to pay for not having to worry about the handle snapping.
> And of course you might as well flaunt it - what are you playing / have played recently? OP is in a no-gaming rut.
Guillotine (great), base Carcassonne (surprisingly tense in the endgame) and Space Cadets: Dice Duel (nowhere near as fun as Space Cadets proper... then again, I was playing against That Guy, and one of the people on my team had no clue, in spite of being told several times that he had to return the white dice to Engineering after he'd used them)

>used to live in a nerd world country

I picture an entire country of pic related...

> any other recommendations for solo play?
There are a number of good games you can play solo:
The Hunters (GMT games - World War II submarine warfare game)
Xenoshyft (Deck based Sci-fi game where you attempted to survive an alien onslaught while strip mining a distant world.)
Nations (nation building game that plays 1 - 5 players)
Robinson Crusoe (survive as a group of castaways on desert island - various scenarios.)
Forbidden Island / Forbidden Desert and Pandemic are all co-operative games that can be played solo.
There's also a game called 'Nemo' coming out based on the story of Captain Nemo and his famous fictional submarine.

I'm sure there are a lot of others too.

so it turns out I'm pretty bad at explaining the rules of games to people. I think a game is pretty easy and they'll pick it up right away, but they end up getting stuck on things that I didn't even consider as a potential problem.

how do I get better? a bad learning experience can really sour people's opinion of a game, and I want to minimize that as much as possible.

Practice mostly, social skills, and have a passion for teaching. I've known people who were amazing at certain games, but were utterly shit teir teachers.

>how do I get better?

Extemporaneous speaking can be challenging. Watch game play run-through videos on Youtube by your favorite presenters and watch not only what they present but how they present it. (If you need a list of suggested game reviewers on Youtube - check out the pastebin link in the opening post.) Also look at a multitude of really good presentations on the 'Ted Talks' website. Knowing the material and being confident in your ability to explain things helps. Making a 'game play summary' sheet (or grabbing one from boardgamegeek.com) will also boost your confidence and help ensure you don't miss any important details. Extra copies of said sheets for the players help them learn more easily too. I do this when teaching games like 'Dead of Winter' and it helps a lot.

Or you can be like me and cheat. I tend to send out copies of the rules in PDF format prior to game day in the unlikely even that my friends will read the rules prior to the game. I also send out links to 'how to play' videos I like for a given game as they're more likely to watch those than actually read the rules in advance.

Prepare beforehand. You MUST know how to play the game properly and fluidly, and while you may not need to dominate every minute detail, it never hurts. I've seen gaming sessions grind to a halt because there were rules that needed checking every single turn.
Print out cheat sheets, player aids, flow charts, teaching aids. They will save you a lot of time.
Introduce the game: General description and overview, objectives, phases and winning conditions.
Present the board and its important areas, hand out each player's pieces and sheets while you describe what each thing does. Go into each phase in order and in as much detail as possible, while keeping it simple.
Explain rare situations or rules broadly, tell the players not to fret over stuff, you can explain the cases on the go.
Go deeper into victory conditions, and quicky sum up everything. Answer questions as they come up, but don't spend too much time on them, too many questions and you'll never finish explaining the game.
Go into a couple of practice rounds so everyone gets a feeling for the flow, mechanics and goals. Detail a few simple strategies on the go.
Then play for real, keeping in mind you're still teaching, not humiliating tthe newbies.

Survey results so far with the 'Games Archive' for the future. (Pic Related). An interesting cross section of modern and classic games with a few surprises. (Minifig just wants to troll future generations with Munchkin! ;) And I didn't think anyone would vote for Monopoly, but it's there.

>Detail a few simple strategies on the go.

This is an excellent point - helping new players recognize some sound strategies to pursue from the start of the game can make them much more comfortable taking up a new game without feeling lost.

>Then play for real, keeping in mind you're still teaching, not humiliating the newbies.

Agreed. This is also highly important. One of the rare times I was irked while learning a new game was playing 'Terra Mistica' for the first time. I built a bridge only to be informed later (by the players who knew it was my very first game) that I couldn't use it as it only worked if there was already a settlement on the other side of the river. They could have told me that at the time I wanted to build it since they knew I hadn't read the rules at all. Instead they waited until it was far to late and basically said "Well, you're hosed there." Thanks guys - not exactly an ideal teaching moment.

Teach first - then play competitively during later games once other players have the hang of the game. Otherwise you run the risk of players having a negative experience and not wanting to play again later.

This is a reason I generally lean towards myself sitting out during a game if I'm teaching multiple new players - makes it much easier for me to explain contextual importance and function of things on the fly without damaging the validity of the game in progress.

Legend encounters alien, LOTR lcg, space hulk death angel and Mage Knight do me.
Currently half way through a game of mage Knight, still a beginner but doing better than before

I post quick ratings/reviews for games I've played, usually just to bring their overall rating closer to what I think it should be.

Thanks guys, some really nice recommendations. Would any of you know where i can buy board games at good price?

Amazon doesnt look that bad but i am guessing there are better stores.

amazon does typically have the best prices. might be worth checking camelcamelcamel.com/ to see if there's been a recent spike in the price

>pastebin.com/PkAVzU3T

The pastebin in the original post at the top of the thread really is worth spending a few minutes looking through... ;)

If you are in the U.S. the following are good places to check out:
coolstuffinc.com
miniaturemarket.com
cardhaus.com

I'm in Ireland and Amazon or eBay have been best for me, though Mage Knight I bought in store as it wanted it one particular day so travelled to get it

>tfw your county has its own price comparison site
www.boardgameprices.co.uk

tfw Amazon s the only viable choice because of free shipping to Mexico, while every other fucking online retailer in the US ships as if we were on a different fucking continent.

Ok, that *DOES* kind of suck. I wonder if it's a tariff issue or something else...

>NAFTA
There fucking shouldn't be.

Can I preorder the Troyes reprint now or do I still have to wait until August?

>tfw Amazon s the only viable choice because of free shipping to Mexico, while every other fucking online retailer in the US ships as if we were on a different fucking continent.

I guess payoff to cartels don't come cheap for the shipping companies.

Preorder it whenever you want, but it isn't out until August I believe, and it's already been delayed once. I preordered mine, and the expansion already.

Thank you

Just bought Quadropolis last weekend.

Game's incredible. I like how colorful and well presented the game components are (transparent meeples and cylinders!). It's a city building game where you place workers and acquire buildings that you're allowed to put in certain slots, depending on the worker's number (1-4, or 1-5 for expert mode).

You get people or energy for each building acquired, and you get to assign them to other builds to power them up or activate them for points.

10/10 production value. Would recommend.

Watched a review. Seems like a single-player game where the other players act as an RNG to forbid actions.

Favourite games at 3 players?

>Seems like a single-player game where the other players act as an RNG to forbid actions.
A lot of board games are like that when you think about it.

I just treat board games as a way to spend time together with friends and families, since most of them don't like games that are too complicated or confrontational.

I play MTG to scratch that confrontational competitive itch when needed.

>A lot of board games are like that when you think about it.
And I tend not to play them, but to each their own.

>A lot of board games are like that when you think about it
Most Euros are, unless they made a design decision to emphasise player interaction. Those are the best Euros

Triumph&Tragedy
Le Havre

What are some euros that emphasizes player interaction?

Its something like 100 shipping to get the conversion kit to use legendary encounters alien and predator together. It's about 15 cards.
Luckily there was an absolute hero on bgg willing to middle man it for a bunch of us

Keyflower

>If you were involved in creating a "board game archive for the ages" to preserve and pass on board games, what 5 games would you include and why?
Cosmic Encounter, Dominion, Risk, Catan, and Pandemic. I would pick those because it is a variety of games that while not necessarily the best, have spawned countless ideas that have built on their mechanics. If we want anything in a museum, we want what inspires people.
>Board games with miniatures? (Yes, No, Only if I don't have to paint them...)
I appreciate good miniatures but only if movement is a major part of the game. Miniatures are a waste of money without positioning and movement being key.
>What 'gaming itch' do you feel the market just doesn't have a good offering for yet?
I would love more readily available Arena. More tactical combat where you're someone on a grid, but maybe for a smaller price.
>What do you use to transport your games in when traveling - be it the 'Shoebox of shame' (tm) or something fancier?
X Wing and Armada get fishing tackle boxes. The rest get carried in the shameful large amazon box.
>And of course you might as well flaunt it - what are you playing / have played recently?
Seasons, Star Realms, and some regretful machi koros.

>get call from irs saying they're suing me
>fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
>research
>it's a scam
>can't go back to sleep
Any good games where I can play as the IRS or scammers?
>implying there's a difference

Did you give them any personal information?

No, it was just an automated thing saying, basically, "final call, we're suing you, call us here," I looked up the number and it's from a residential line in Texas. I was scared awake but I never give away personal information, didn't even profit off Brexit because I was too wary of the Forex broker wanting my SS.

After several months, I managed to get Xia to the tabl- floor.

I am in love.
What do y'all think of it?

The dice rolling for most actions kind of bothers me and the missions are VERY specific making them hard to do without most of the tiles on the board, but I love the overall feel of the game.

There's a lot of those coming to me for the last 4 months or so outta Florida, West Virginia, and Detroit; you can tell they're auto-dialers because of the grammar. Get used to adding more numbers to the auto-reject on your phone.

>pic unrelated, it's my face when the Gencon tix showed this morning and the lanyard was Legendary: Big Trouble in Little China

I just bought Mage Knight from amazon, its the first board gamei ill play (besides the obvious ones).

How hard is the game for solo play? its supously to be one of if not the best board game for solo players. all i have heard is good stuff.

Any tips for beginners? i should get the game tomorrow night.

Biggest tip I have is to be patient with the rulebooks, they make the game seem more complicated than it is at first.

I found it difficult to wrap my head around, but really I had built up the game in my head to be more difficult than it is.
People say it's more of a puzzle than a game which is sort of true.
This helped me figure out a couple of bits recently imgur.com/a/ldttL

And there's plenty of help on board game geek. Take your time with it, it can feel overwhelming at first but really it isn't

>Any tips for beginners?

Find some cheat-sheets / player aids for the game on Board Game Geek. Also see if you can find a game play or 'run-through' video like Rahdo does to help teach you the basics of the game before plowing straight into the rules. I find this to be ideal in my case.

>boardgame archival
No clue, there's a ton of really good games that I don't feel like they're worthy of preserving for posterity. I'd lean towards abstracts though, they sorta feel timeless.
>minis?
Yas!
>special flavor?
Someone needs to make an Amundsen vs Scott antarctic expedition game.
>Big Samsonite bag with a semi-rigid base. Boxes are starting to show wear, maybe I'll get some bubble wrap like another user uses.
>do you even game?
Had a disastrous first 6-man AGoT game last night. I believed former Risk fans would have had a somewhat easier time grasping how the game works, but for the first full hour I only got blank stares, redundant questions, random moves and frustrated groans, then two people bailed by turn 5, because they had to wake up early for work.
I'm probably a shit teacher. I also should have played a couple solo turns myself to be able to answer some of the questions without looking up the rulebook.

In your defense, AGoT is not particularly easy to teach, and plays quite slowly.
Vastly prefer Dune/Rex for 6-man political Not-Risk.

i got everyone to watch the ffg video for GoT before our first game and i think it definitely helped

Got my copy of Falling Sky today and been skimming through the rules and playbook. Very happy I picked this up before it went out of stock/OOP. Wonderful production as well, though that's to be expected with the COIN series I suppose. Now if only I had the opportunity to play it sometime the next 3-4 weeks...

So many games...

>Now if only I had the opportunity to play it sometime the next 3-4 weeks...

Dem feels - I know them...

They're different enough though. The orders system makes for some pretty nice tactical plays, which I like. It just feels more like Risk, so, nostalgia bonus.
Rex could have sucked me in if it had a planetary map that made it feel less abstract... like Dune has. Immersion plays a big role for my group, they adore GoT but aren't too keen on sci-fi, and they're not at all familiar with the TI franchise.

>I would love more readily available Arena. More tactical combat where you're someone on a grid, but maybe for a smaller price.

Don't know if you've seen Tash Kalar but it might interest you.

Xia-bro. Definitely like this, but the random movement and somewhat player vs player combat can slow things down at time. That said it's still a vastly enjoyable game.

Yeah, definitely agree that the dune version has the better theming.

speaking of dune, is there any relatively easy way to get the dune dice game now that print & play got a cease and desist?

Tigris and Euphrates, though it's not the most euro-y euro

Traders of Genoa is a good one, but it's hard to get people to play it in my experience

Here is my winning kodama tree. It has scored me 92 victory points! I apologize for the poor resolution of the image.

I purchases the game yesterday and it is a surprisingly high-quality design for such a simple system. The scoring cards really give you multiple long term strategies to pursue. I expected an almost mind-numbing game like ticket to ride but i's much more enjoyable and also attractive.

Sorry. i meant to say "Purchased"

Order Proxima Centauri Revised, its expansion, Les Grizzleables' expansion, and enough sleeves for a fully expanded Eldritch Horror, and it gets here on my birthday.

Would Race for the Galaxy be a good game to paly on the beach?

I'll be spending a week on the beach with 3 more friends and I'm wondering what to get. I'll probably get a bigger game for a rainy day to play in the hotel but I'm wondering what would be playable on the beach itself.

So far got:
> classical playing cards (either Hearts or Bridge)
> Enter the Dungeon
> Love Letter

Any other ideas?

>play group is always busy
>can never get a regular game going
>always have to relearn rules
>they always want to play the newest games so old favorites get left in the dust

I think its time I find people to play with on tabletop simulator

any of you niggas willing to get together every week to play some boardgames /bgg/?

Not with you.

fug

Take WWE Supestar Showdown, and pretend every match is taking place during SummerSlam
/bgg/ has its own TTS group on Steam - I think it's somwhere in the pastebin

>I think it's somwhere in the pastebin

should be towards the bottom of the pastebin IIRC.

Not a manufactured set, you'll have to PnP the files.

When does Dune enter the public domain?

2060 (28 year initial copyright + 67 automatic 2nd term)

Man I'll be dead by then.

I have those somewhere. I'll upload when I have a bit of time free

Links to a dropbox for the pnp files are still on BGG, if you email the guy who was making it, you could prolly still get a set of the dice if not the game. Earlier this summer people were still getting full copies he just pulled the item off the site so he could claim he wasn't selling it.

I'm pretty new to board games, played risk growing up and that's about it other than garbage like monopoly etc. I also played mtg but I don't count that for here. Anyway, got into miniatures games in the past year (40k and x wing) and its drawn my interest to board ganes. I played settlers of catan for the first time this week, and really enjoyed it though I was expecting a bland "euro" game that wouldn't hold my interest. What are some staple games to look into getting next and will attract my video game playing group of friends? IE thematic appeal would almost be more important than gameplay just to get them interested. I was thinking War of the Ring. Is it any good?

These are all very thematic games. There are some coops, dungeon crawlers, hidden roles/traitor, area control...
Star Wars: Rebellion
Imperial Assault
Dead of Winter
The Resistance/Secret Hitler
Kemet
Cosmic Encounter
Ankh Morpork
Diskwars
Chaos in the Old World
Eldritch Horror
Star Realms

Risk 2210 is great, they probably are familiar with the idea and it's straight forward
A Game of thrones the board game is also very good and there's A good chance they watch the show so would give it a decent shot, thematic too!

Even then, Herbert's estate could still make a fuss over certain attempts to cash in on it. Look at that fuss Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate made in the US courts over whether Sherlock Holmes is public domain over there.

On that note, how would /bgg/ improve 221b Baker Street: The Master Detective Game? Honestly, I think just swapping the regular d6 with a d12 to cut down play time would work wonders.

/bgg/ please help.
I'm looking for a game with a strong exploration and discovery themes. The only two I've found that kinda fit the bill were Robinson Crusoe and Archipelago.
There's also upcoming Seafall that I think will be perfect in that regard.

Any other recommendations?

While we're at it, how about horror games? Can 'scary' exist within a board game box?