Cheeto dust edition.
If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
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>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
Rex. I love the dune system, and I'd love it if my friends were better at learning rules and things. It gets way better if everyone knows what going on and focuses on trying to figure what other people's actions are for, leading to a lot of deceptions and stuff. Probably on me for not explaining very well
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
Playing Rex, where the guy who plays the dude who knows where the influence is gonna drop and what cards are up next stopped giving a shit halfway through, much to the anger of everyone else
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
Idk. Still having trouble explaining Rex. Tried to pitch it as area control, where everyone knows one piece of information on the board and has to act on it, while reading into how other people use their own unique information. I like Rex a lot, just have trouble getting people to learn it to the point where its depth shows
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
I don't have any non-gaming friends :(.
Seriously, I would just play a modern party game with them.
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
The only examples that come to mind are when I caused bad experiences. I've heard that one guy walked away from a game of Terra Mystica he was loosing; he was subsequently banned for a short period and hasn't returned since.
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
My general approach for any game, as illustrated by Saint Petersburg, 2nd ed. (I just taught this game on Tuesday):
>Summarize the premise of the game in a sentence or two, even if that premise is weak.
>>We are helping Tsar Peter the Great in building his new capital for his Empire. We do this by recruiting workers, building buildings and attracting noblemen.
>Start with how you win the game; if it's by points, explain how you get those points.
>>In Saint Petersburg, you gain points by having cards in tableaux at the end of that card's phase, according to what is printed on the card, and by having different types of nobles and roubles in hand at the end of the game.
>Go over the general structure of play, especially if the game has different rounds, phases, etc.
>>The game consists of a number of rounds, each consists of 5 different phases; the worker, market, building, noble and upgrade phases. During each phase, the player with the phase token starts by taking an action. Play continues until players have all consecutively passed. Then cards of that round pay out and are scored, according to the rules of the round.
>Go over what a player can do on their turn.
>>On your turn you can do one of three actions. You can buy a card, paying the cost written in top corner in roubles, and place it in your tableaux. For each card of that type in tableaux, you get a discount of 1 rouble, but you always have pay a rouble. You can take a card into your hand, choosing to build it in later round; but if you have it in hand at the end of the game, you will lose 5 point per card. Or you can pass; you can take action afterwards, if possible.
>Explain the end game conditions, if they are separate from the winning conditions.
>>The game ends when any of the card stack is exhausted; once that is the case, the round is played out and the game is over.
>non-gaming friends
what non-gaming friends? seriously almost all of my friends have board game nights or at least rp nights now, even if it's not with me. This is a recent development over the past year or so.
But let's say my friends brought friends and we're all hanging out in someone's living room. I'd maybe choose a little-known Avalon-clone called Moriarty's Machinations. There is one "Merlin" on each team (Sherlock and Moriarty) and one assassin (Jack the Ripper and Inspector Lestrade). Most other characters are variations on Percival, but in this really complicated flow chart of who knows who. There's a character who can use a one-time special mission action (negate a fail), and a character (Irene Adler) who wants Moriarty's team to succeed missions but for Sherlock not to die at the hands of Jack. And each mission can have any number of participants, so long as no one mission roster is repeated.
It makes for a really neat web of deduction, but most of the deductive/deceptive powers of each role goes over the heads of casual players. I'd really love to see some expert-level play of this one, even if it's not with my friends really.
>favorite game rules explanation
It's all down to using the terminology. It usually clicks after the reshuffle. They don't have to be a strategy expert from the word go.
I hand them their decks, show them the cards that it starts with, then instruct them to shuffle and each deal themselves five cards. I show them my own hand, then motion to the supply.
With each pile, I note the cost of the card. With the treasure cards, I note that the money it earns is different than its cost.
Taking the first turn, I recite ABC. Action - I have no action cards in my hand, so I skip my 1 action. Buy - I take a card from the supply and start a pile. Cleanup - I place cards in play and my hand into the pile slowly. Then draw.
I then tell them the end game condition and the win condition. Then I explain each kingdom card in play.
Things you should also do:
>Be moderately redundant, by stating important rules and facts up front, and then repeating them during the relevant round and turn structure explanation.
>Always be willing to answer questions. If you going to say it later, just repeat it then.
>You could give a tip or two, especially if the game can be unforgiving. So in Saint Petersburg, I mentioned that it is important to save money in the first few rounds to buy workers for the next round, as they are you main method of income generation.
>Sometimes, it can be easier to teach a game by not following the strict chronological order of a round or a turn. So in Race for the Galaxy, I find it useful to skip Phase IV (Consume), the most complicated phase, and go straight to Phase V (Produce). Then I talk about Consume. In Saint Petersburg, 2nd ed. I often leave the scoring for market phase for later, as it quite different from how scoring in the building and noble phases work.
>Games with special ability cards can be tricky to teach, especially if the cards are secret and/or the cards use with a moderate amount of iconography. Just leave them for when they are relevant.
He's another question: that whole summary that wrote about Saint Petersburg was done completely from memory. How many games can you do this with? What are they?
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
I'd love to try Twilight Imperium, but I don't have enough friends into heavier games (plus I don't own it).
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
There's a guy at my FLGS who has absolutely mastered Axis & Allies and refuses to bother with the rules of any other game. That said, he still tries to play those games and will spend the entire time asking how to do basic stuff and how really simple ideas work.
> How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
Pretty much in this exact way. I learned the method from a SUSD video. I'd add that if a theme sounds boring, there's probably a way you can spin it so that its not.
Attaching an image of my collection. Not sure what kind of response I'm looking for, so if any of you want to ruthlessly mock me for my shit-tier taste then that might actually be kinda fun to read.
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
BattleCon
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
Yes. Improptu tournament game of Frag with just a few token prizes where I jumped in for another player without participating in the ranking. The only important thing in Frag are the eponymous Frags. I drew a couple of cards that made me nigh-unkillable. One player kept feebly attacking me and dying despite having better targets because I was the most experienced player, then he made a big stink because everything is unfair.
Most unpleasant experience I've had so far.
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
Explain styles, bases and triggers. Everything else is learning by doing.
Now another try.
I need a recommendation for a not too expensive (up to about 30 bucks) game that my friends who will soon return from the UK to Germany can get me from the LGS. My favorites from my current collection are:
>BattleCon
>Blue Moon Legends
>Sellswords
>Innovation
>Star Realms
I do not know what that tells you about my tastes, but I hope it tells you at least something useful.
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
Everyone I know is willing to play board games. Hell, I've even introduced my family to board games and we play when I visit.
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
The two actually 'bad' instances I can remember have been:
When I played Strife with a friend, he just couldn't 'understand' it and we stopped after two turns. Could of course been I didn't do well at explaining it, but he even read through the rulebook and just couldn't 'get' it. I was really enjoying it even though we barely got into it and he was just really complain-y about it.
Another time was when it was our first game of Caverna, a friend blamed me for not properly explaining the final scoring to him as he had left large amounts of his cave and fields empty, netting him a lot of negative points. I absolutely had explained that part of the scoring and everyone else says they heard it. and I had even brought it up about halfway through when I noticed he wasn't filling things out and he just had said 'I have a plan'. Needless to say he did not score well at all. He was VERY salty about it, saying 'If I had said it, he would have heard it' and continued to blame me about it for the rest of the night as we played some short, wind down games.
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
I would usually start with the theme and objectives/victory condition, and then go into how to achieve them and then into a bit more of the gears and cogs.
So when explaining Chaos in the Old World, I start out with 'You are horrific Eldritch beings who are making terrible, awful things happen to poor, innocent people', then explain victory by dial advancement and VP, and then explain how to get dial advancements and VP, then the round order, and then we should be good to go.
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
Anything really. I have no reason to play game X with non gaming friends when I can play said game with gaming friends.
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
Recently played Dead of Winter with a horrible sore loser guy. Absolutely miserable experience. And I already hate traitor games to begin with.
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
I'm the rules teacher for all of the games we play so... Same thing as usual : Awkwardly bumble my way through unclear rules explanations. I'm a shitty teacher.
>I do not know what that tells you about my tastes, but I hope it tells you at least something useful.
It tells me you like 2 player games.
If you're interested in another 2 player Level99 game, take a look at Pixel Tactics. It's good and you should be able to get a box for around $15USD.
Are you looking for games that have more players as well?
Actually, I'm not particularly fond of exclusively 2 player games. They're always awkward to put on the table. The games on my list I like despite being 2 player-only games.
I have the German version of Pixel Tactics, actually. Hard to get players for, thanks to the sheer front-loaded complexity.
> Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
Background: In my heart I'm super analytical always wanting to play the best strategy and better-myself.
This is unfortunately impossible in my group because at max I have maybe two other guys who can play any given game and the games we play usually start at 4.
So I kind of accepted it and even though we play serious games like Chaos in the old World we're laid back at it and we have fun. Sometimes it matters to be analytical, sometimes one of the more clueless players feed Khorn for example or does something equally stupid in another game.
Except there's That One Guy who will from time to time start loudly commenting/advising the more clueless players in such a way that he will win like saying to other players that they have to attack X or else he will win (when he's the one really winning), or saying to play something when he has a counter, "consulting" with another player and seeing his cards so that he knows what to play.
I usually don't give a fuck but when this behaviour is constant it started to grate on me until I exploded and told him to basically shut the fuck up.
Hhe defended himself that he only wants to see everybody playing optimally.
The next time he tries that shit will be probably the last I'm going to play with him. I don't play games to get piseed but to have a good time and it seems we're incompatible.
Anybody had similar experiances?
>Except there's That One Guy who will from time to time start loudly commenting/advising the more clueless players in such a way that he will win like saying to other players that they have to attack X or else he will win (when he's the one really winning), or saying to play something when he has a counter,
That stuff is within the spirit of the game. I'd be annoyed, but probably counter with my own explanations as to why TOG is full of shit.
>"consulting" with another player and seeing his cards so that he knows what to play.
That shit, however, does not fly. I'd tell him to sit down and play his own game. Second time would result in him getting a CitOW ban.
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
Backgammon. Preferably until they actually got good at it. Not really any fun playing an opponent who barely knows the game.
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
Hasn't everybody? Sore losers aren't uncommon, neither is kingmaking or other last-ditch efforts to piss off players who are ahead of everybody else.
Worst experience was having someone throw the board off the table. I'm not even a competitive player. They were just being unreasonable and choosing to internalize their impeding loss as some blow to their ego.
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
Rote memorization is the only way to learn anything, so I can't imagine any method that's more effective than visually demonstrating a sample game session, and repeating the steps several times along the way so they're not forgotten. Just reading a rules pamphlet lends to too much confusion, especially if the pamphlet doesn't clarify on things that may be ambiguous or may involve exceptions.
I should put an emphasis on that last part about ambiguity and rule exceptions. So many in-box rules are horribly underwritten and almost certainly need to be supplemented by online research. For instance, I once picked up a card game with trick-taking mechanics, and the rules threw around a lot of terminology like "tricks" and "trumps" without explaining what any of those terms mean. Not every customer who buys the game already has knowledge of this kind of terminology. I mean, this could very well be someone's introduction to trick-taking games.
> That stuff is within the spirit of the game. I'd be annoyed, but probably counter with my own explanations as to why TOG is full of shit.
I wouldn't care if we played with people on the same level.
As it is I can't even counter because in most of those situations he perks up when it's a choice between me and him so if I'd win people would feel cheeted that I duped them (as TOG usually does).
And yeah I tried it devolves into shouting matches/blame game so I just held my peace or told the other players to not listen but think for themselves until last time where I told him to shut the fuck.
I probably shuldn't even play these kinds of games with players that aren't on the same level but it would probably mean i wouldn't play them at all.
What are some other themes and mechanics that you like?
For light you could always get Bohnanza. it's fun, light, and you can always whip out the fact that 'bohne' means 'bean' in German.
If you want a light-medium game, perhaps take a look at Artifacts Inc. It's one me and friends have enjoyed, fits a wide range of players comfortably, and has a good balance of planning with a dash of luck mixed in.
So something more solidly in medium maybe Tiny Epic Kingdoms or Eight Minute Empires: Legends will be your speed. Solid area control, special powers, and slick art work in both.
Going heavier would be difficult under the budget as most heavy games are big, shiny boxes, but you might be able to get Race for the Galaxy, Seasons, or The Castles of Burgundy for that price.
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
Pretty much all of my friends are gamers - it's my family that need to get on my level, so I'll say that I'd like my family to play Shadow Hunters.
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
I've posted at some length about such experiences, and have no desire to do so again.
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
I'unno... read the rulebook? Ankh Morpork actually has a well-written set of rules, so it wouldn't be too arduous.
Themes... Well, I'm a sucker for anime-styled artwork, but most good games from Japan have the nasty habit of staying in Japan. And mechanically, I like games with emergent complexity. Easy to learn, hard to master. Which is why I was immediately smitten with Blue Moon Legends, even though most people seem to take some time warming up to it.
I hate Bohnanza. Striking deals with other players is abhorrent to me, because I am not a good negotiator. And if anyone I play with didn't know what 'Bohne' (nouns are always capitalized) means, that would be rather worrisome, living in Germany and all. Also, if I wanted that game, it would be much easier to get here.
Artifacts Inc. immediately hits three points that make me wary: worker placement, economics and an archaeology theme. Definitely not worth the risk of a blind buy.
Tiny Epic Kingdoms and Eight Minute Empires: Legends seem to be 4X, which I never could warm up to.
I think the problem here is that I grew up with and, living in Germany, I am still surrounded by Eurogames, so they are not something I want to have in my personal collection.
Onitama is a great oriental styled 1v1 game that is super easy to pick up but can allow for some very deep strategy.
Fairy Tale is a sort of generic fantasy theme, but has great anime-styled artwork, has a very unique 'card building' mechanic, and can fit in your budget easy.
Puzzle Strike could work since it's styled like street fighter, or at least the Puzzle Fighter game that's emulating Street Fighter. Should fit $30 or under.
Tragedy Looper is Stein's Gate in a box. Lots of good anime-styled artwork that has a well made 1vall element. Unfortunately this is more in the 40 burger bucks territory
Another good one that's higher than your proposed budget is Ghost Stories, a anime/wushu styled co-op where everyone is trying to fight off ghosts. VERY hard, but also fun. And a little bit more outside the $30 limit your set up earlier.
And you could always go for Tanto Cuore if you want your friends to look at you wierd.
Sorry my brain crossed wires, Fairy Tale isn't the one with the card building, but it does have some good artwork and is pretty good.
And I'm now having an insanely hard time finding that new card/deck building game that has the clear cards that have three segments that you assemble into a single card. I literally can't find it.
Okay, finally found it again. Mystic Vale. Great art, cool mechanics. But also a tad pricey.
Onitama sounds good. I'd still love to get my hands on a copy of RRR.
Even Fairy Tale is the wrong game, I read good things about it.
Puzzle Strike I tried at Spielwiesn and the whole poker chip-thing is way more tedious than cards.
Tragedy Looper I've had my eyes on for quite a while, but the price is prohibitive.
Ghost Stories' most popular review on BGG is overwhelmingly negative. Really don't like what I read there...
I've tried Tanto Cuore on TTS. Pretty meh anyway. I'm more curious about Heart of Crown.
Mystic Vale's reviews also make me think that I won't enjoy the game.
Well, that's two games. It's a start.
You might have time to print and play Tragedy Looper. It's pretty easy to do so.
Is it? Care to elaborate?
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
Assuming they'd be actually into it and not retarded? Probably fury of dracula because I've never gotten that to go off with a full 5. Same with roll for the galaxy.
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
Mostly play with my gf. I got 7 wonders duel while she was at work and really wanted to play it when she got home. She was hiding the fact that she was exhausted while we played and I destroyed her both games. She got depressed and beat up on herself about not being smart enough to challenge me etc (which I know isn't true since she kicks my ass at roll all the time)
So that sucked.
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
Roll dice to spend dice to buy tiles that get you more dice so you can buy more tiles.
I play ghost stories 2 player and solo all the time. It's got a good design and theme (same designer went on to do 7 wonders). I went and read that review; seems to me like the game was just too hard for him/he and his wife are bad at it. It is a very challenging game, but that's why I like it. Too many Co op games are too easy to win (pandemic, forbidden desert, elder sign, etc)
If I want tough as nails, I already have Say Bye to the Villains. And BattleCon, for that matter.
Not to mention that co-op don't really go all that well with most of the people with whom I play.
It'll be tedious, but should only take like 2 hours max.
The board itself can be represented with 4 pieces of paper. All other information on them is represented elsewhere, such as which characters cannot enter them.
The marker on the left is easily represented with a piece of paper. All counters can be replaced with coins.
Character cards can be printed up (there's a Persona 4 retheme that I believe is printer friendly on BGG) but otherwise are generally short enough to be written on a card, or even Post-it notes like I've done here.
The player aid can also be found on BGG. It is basically required for playing anyways.
boardgamegeek.com
Lastly, you'll need to make 3 sets of Action cards, (page 7 in the manual) and a Mastermind card set. You'll need to be careful to make sure all the cards backs look the same. This is because each plays a card face down, and no-one should know what the card is until it is flipped over. Each set should also look unique to that player, because they need to get back that specific card at the end of the turn. Same for the Mastermind cards.
I made an example here. The only time you need to care about the card backs is on the Action cards, so the Character card here can be easily represented with a post it note.
You also don't need to make a proxy for every card, since the first scenario only has like 6 characters.
Oh, sounds good.
I'll get my color printer up and running, bust out the heavy paper and see about adding that gem to my collection.
Dice Tower reviews are especially useful for trying to PnP a game, since they have very nice zoomed in shots of various assets.
You'll need to print about 30-40 cards total in order to play the first scenario of Tragedy Looper, by my estimate. Once you've done the character/action cards and player aid, you've basically gotten the whole game.
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
One guy in particular who is just sooo vindictive.
We like board games involving negotiation and hidden roles, and he wrecks both of those. If you do anything he doesn't like he'll accuse you of being whatever the bad thing is in the hidden role game all night. If you don't offer him deals that are heavily stacked in his favor in games with negotiation he will refuse every time.
>>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
I got banned from playing a game by a friend after he got mad at me.
He and another player worked together early game to beat me down so badly I stood no chance of winning, so I found a recurring loop I could exploit to continually blow both of their progress up at the cost of me never making any.
He was mad I didn't just sit there and do nothing for the rest of the game.
Sounds like the rest of the table should just conspire to destroy him in negotiation games until he learns.
Open a salt mine, make millions.
...
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
TI3
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
not really, just sore losers and having to sit through tedious, long games that clearly only 1 person enjoyed
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
As simply and clearly as possible, using examples as I go.
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
Casual games I can explain and play in 10 minutes or less. I want them to have fun too, submitting non gamers to fucking ASL is plain sadistic.
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
An ex gf could not stand losing. She was fiercely competitive, but her temper would flare at the slightest sign the game was not going to go in her favor.
Needless to say, I didn't play much of anything with her, because I knew I`d always have to end up letting her win to avoid a fight.
Once on a camping trip I brought Rummikub. Innocuous, right? Wrong. She flipped the table and I just would not take that shit any longer. I tossed the game into the campfire, got into a huge fucking fight that lasted the whole weekend and never again played anything with her. Broke up some 6 months later, and I became a much happier gamer.
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
Dunno. Play the game and go with the flow, explaining rules as the need comes up?
Which game?
Having run some BattleCON demos at gencon, i did it like so:
>this is a game like console fighting games like BlazBlue or Guilty Gear (i made a point of using these games for that, Street Fighter and Tekken for Exceed)
>we both have 20 life and are trying to kill the other
>each turn, take a base, which look like these and have blue backs, and styles, which look like these and have red backs, and put them face down
>highest yellow number goes first, do what the card says, then try to get them in your blue number to deal the red number
Then id explain triggers to them on the first round, letting us play out a game between two simple, straightforward characters.
Quick Race for the Galaxy rules dispute: When do you get the VP's from cards like Galactic Federation?
The cards usually spell out when they generate VPs - such as 'every time X happens' or 'at the end of the game you get X for every 2 red dice in your dice pool.'
The VPs? You mean from having developments? That's end-of-game scoring. All 6-devs are like that.
...
SE4X? I've never heard of any game that's based on...
I'll give you 3 guesses what the name of the game it's based on is.
What's the difference ebtween FoD and FoD 2nd ed?
A friend of mine has the first edition but we've never played it. I wanted to get it in my collection, but was hoping for no overlap, so I need to know if it's different enough to merit its own spot.
Played the first Mansions of Madness 2ed scenario last night. We found the win condition, but ultimately lost because my friend, who was in position to end the game, got held up by two baddies. I eventually died by trying to keep another monster away from him. If we had played a few things a little more strategically we might have won, and now I'm yearning to try it again.
We laughed so hard throughout. The writing is actually funny...I'm not sure if it was intentional, but it seemed that way. Sometimes we had to laugh not to cry (re: failing skill checks).
There were several things, not just the major plot points, that took us aback (one of the monster attacks in particular had me with goosebumps). With only minor complaints, the app worked beautifully.
Plus there was actually a decent amount of stuff we didn't even explore. I have more questions than I started with, which is a great sign for replayability. So yeah, I'm extremely happy with this game
They're both out of print (1st ed is long, long out of print, it's a really old game). They're both sort of characteristic of Ameritrash board games of their time, in that they have a lot of chrome to support the theme so you'll go back to the rulebook a lot. Also I've heard about fiddly combat but I don't know that much.
Current edition is 3rd edition. It has a more straightforward combat system that really emphasizes that the hunters build up an arsenal. Some other rules are cleaned up but there's still a lot of chrome. Really considered getting it for a long time but wanted a better price than FFG could give me
2nd and 3d then, thanks for clarifying
So, does it merit its own space in my shelf or should I go for something my friend doesn't already have?
Question is complicated by the fact that you're not playing the version you have. I'd advise getting a couple plays in of that one before you decide if you want the revised version. There's a few important revisions but they are largely the same game.
Sound advice. It's hard to resist the "OMG I don't even know what this is but I want it!" impulse.
Wait... You're allowed to resist that? Why didn't someone tell me! (Said by the guy waiting for more games & expansions to arrive from CSI.)
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
All I play is casual games these days:
Telestrations, Wits & Wagers (using family betting/scoring), Dixit, Loaded Questions.
Going to try Coup and Codenames next time we get together.
Played a few games today with some people from my roleplaying club...
>Samurai Spirit
Holy shit, this game is fun. You need to do a bit of the old "optimisation" shenanigans, and we did need to do a bit of quarterbacking for one guy (to be fair, he WAS hilariously drunk) but who cares, when you get to play Seven Samurai With Furry Magic?
>Resistance and Saboteur
We usually play these whenever we get together; we had some new people show up, who didn't quite understand either game, but they did okay and seemed to have fun.
Is Twilight Strugle as good as BGG makes it out to be?
>If you could have your non-gaming friends play a game of your choice, regardless of difficulty, what would you pick?
Struggle of Empires, I think. Haven't played it for a looong time so it'd be fun just for that, but I'm also a bit of a fan of euro/wargame hybrids. Also it'd be uncool to just go directly to Triumph&Tragedy or one of the COIN games.
>Have you had any bad experiences with another player during a game?
Fortunately not. I suppose the closest is a friend who can't stop talking, generally about anything but the game. Still a chill guy though.
>How would you go about explaining the rules to your favorite game?
Favourite game is Triumph&Tragedy (which has enough rules that I cba to type it out here but pretty simple for a wargame) and I gues it'd be something like:
>basic game structure, ie number of turns, relevant terms, how to win, etc.
>explain resource/population/industry track and what the three are
>use of cards for diplomacy/commands and industry/tech
>effects of diplomacy and tech
>here's how a turn looks, broken into its different phases
>consequences of declaration of war and violating neutral states
>units, movement, battles, retreat, rebasing, more units rules
>supply lines, trade routes, blockades
Uh, there's probably more I'm forgetting atm but yeah. Something like that.
I've a very limited number of plays, but I guess I'd say yeah, it is that good. Damn simple rules and I've gotten the impression the game has tons of depth and replayability. Also every time I've played it it's been a soul draining experience with what felt like choices varying from not so great to downright terrible, but somehow it was still really fun. Also fuck the Red Scare/Purge card.
I bought the Steam version of TS, because I needed practice to play VS a friend who has a physical copy.
I haven't won but once against the AI and my confidence to play a human opponent is shot. I dunno if the AI is fucking ruthless, the game is stacked or I simply suck that badly.
Aside from that, I can see why the game gets such praise, it is a tense dance with your enemy that gives you second thoughts about everything you do, as you try to outmanoeuvre him to painfully win a single victory point, just to see that advantage lost in the same turn. So good.
Yes and no. It's a wonderful game (maybe not in my top 10 but prolly top 25 or 30), but BGG is still less casual gamer friendly (their whole overhaul of the site into a facebook copy is trying to combat this) so you'll find more people there who are going to give it high marks, than in the general gaming populace. It's also worth looking at the number of voters, Catan and Carcassonne have 60,000 votes, these are games everyone tries, and the scores are very accurate as a result. There's a lot of people who see the time, weight, etc of Twilight Struggle, see that it's made by a company that does heavier war games, and just avoid it altogether which means their votes (likely 4s, 5s, 6s) aren't ever posted because they know enough to avoid it if they won't enjoy it.
excitement?
exotic belly dancing?
excrement?
These niggas already got things down pat. It is wonderful, and losing has seen both me and my mate feel physically ill as it dawned on us we were about to lose, and that sensation lingered for a good fifteen minutes after each match.
Of course, by then we were setting it up for round two and the feeling had passed.
>I bought the Steam version of TS, because I needed practice to play VS a friend who has a physical copy.
I have both steam and physical.
>I haven't won but once against the AI and my confidence to play a human opponent is shot. I dunno if the AI is fucking ruthless, the game is stacked or I simply suck that badly.
The A.I. is incredibly tough. It's been optimized and it's extremely rare that it misses an opportunity. That said, the game is great because it enforces the rules correctly the entire game (which is an awesome way to learn it) and if you look at the plays the A.I. makes you can learn some of the timings and strategies.
If you like 2p card games, try Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn. It's MtG+Dice but not a CCG like MtG or Android. When you buy an expansion you get all the cards for the new character. There's some deckbuilding options with the cards they've provided but it's not necessary.
Matches are more about timing than most other card games.
Android isn't a CCG either. It's an LCG. No rares, uncommons, etc. Buy what you like and everyone's on an even footing.
I bought GoT: board game as my first board game for my friends, we really liked it but we hate how long a match is, last time we played around 6hours.
So we were looking for some other game to play, these are my internet friends and we play videogames together, so we're not looking for any co-op game, and preferably videogame relatered.
Civilization's board game was my option but Im not sure, is it good? Is it too similar to GoT?
People keep telling me to get Catan, but goddamn yesterday a girl told me its like GoT for retards, and you need to get a lot of expansions to make it fun to play.
You might want to look at pic related... There are also Fantasy games you might like - Kemet, Deus, and Chaos in the Old World all might fit your bill and play faster even if not vidya game related. I can't say I'd recommend Catan, it was revolutionary for American gamers 20 years ago, but that was then and these days there are a lot of better choices out there.
So, I've played Chaos in the Old World, I've played Blood Rage, and now I've played Cry Havoc a couple of times, and I think I've realized something and I'm wondering if other people feel the same -- namely, I've realized that I greatly dislike area control games with a heavy card aspect. They just greatly, enormously annoy me, because I feel like everyone is one additional step removed from the game itself. I don't directly interact with the game, I interact with my hand, which in turn interacts with the game.
I liken it to playing Chess with a hand of cards -- you can't move the Queen without playing a Queen card, you can't move a pawn without a pawn card, and you don't know what cards your opponents have so you have no idea what they're capable of doing nor what they want to do. So you bumble around blindly, playing at percentages, and everyone just steps on each others' toes constantly and whoever gets their toes stepped on the least ends up winning. It's just frustrating and ultimately random, not in a dice sense but in the sense that the initial conditions of each game round are random and unknown to all actors.
Blood Rage is far and away the worst offender in this regard -- the quest cards in particular are just awful for this. It simply doesn't matter what plans people make, someone is going to come screaming across the map trying to colonize the region that is critical to your plan because they got two quest cards for that region which you never even saw in the draft. Sucks to be you! Try again next age maybe. Some people will say that you should try and prepare and expect shit like that, but the range of possibilities is so great that preparing and expecting everything is physically impossible and just results in you doing nothing because there are no safe actions.
Does anyone else feel this way, or am I just tilting at windmills here?
I can't keep track of all the terminology (ECG, LCG, CCG, TCG). I used CCG to refer to games with a collectible aspect, limited or not.
I still prefer the model Ashes uses with a new character every couple of months instead of every month. I also just like the resource management that dice add.
>Civilization's board game was my option but Im not sure, is it good?
It's pretty shit. Go to Boardgamegeek and look at their video game related board game category. I think the Doom one is recommended.
>I can't keep track of all the terminology (ECG, LCG, CCG, TCG). I used CCG to refer to games with a collectible aspect, limited or not.
Fair enough. I simply wish there were consistent terms used to differentiate between games like MTG / Android where one uses a 'per-constructed deck' verses games that are 'deck builders' (i.e. rely upon a drafting mechanism).
I'll be moving into a new apartment with 3 other people, what are some good 4 player games? I've already got most of the well known stuff like Forbidden Island but I want to expand my collection.
Kemet, Chaos in the Old World. Small world, or Neuroshima Hex! might all scratch the similar itch.
What user is focusing o is, in a new pack of Ashes, you get a complete deck rather than individual cards that expand the existing factions all at once. The deck has its own themes and synergies, and from what the tournament results show, about 3-4 cards reinvigorate the meta, which sounds about on par for what expansion packs in ffg's lcgs do.
In any case, I second Ashes. Small decksize makes keeps deckbuilding tight, knowing how to time your plays and seize tempo is one of the most entertaining parts of the game.
I wonder if designers feel that using cards is the most streamlined manner of adding assymetrical play and filling out different factions.
In something like chaos, though you may not know what precise cards are in a players hands at any given time, after a few plays you certainly know what a player is capable of, and should keep backup plans in mind. Khorne can and WILL teleport a warrior across the map to fuck your shit up, so how are you going to convince him that you are not worth mugging? There is certainly a subtle layer of politics in chaos, and it is more than just whose toes get stepped on the least. If you play your cards (snicker) right, you have an active role in ensuring your plans get the least disrupted. All of the gods goals are evident on the map from the outset. Nurgle is always wanting to get the middle regions, but therefore risks getting his shit kicked in by khorne, as it offer the bloodgod the greatest amount of mobility for picking on everyone. So it is up to nurgle to decide how to deal with this scenario from the outset, cards/dice be damned. I've been the victim of playing the pestilence role poorly, and I have seen it played brilliantly, leading to tzeetnch and slaanesh getting shat on in consequence.
As for bloodborne, never played, no comment.
Try some drafting/auction games. Little downtime, plays fast enough, and can still trigger some saltiness. Gotta get to know how much you can push your roommates around, right?
Check out For Sale, No Thanks! Sushi Go.
Co-ops or bluffing games are great too. I enjoy sheriff of nottingham, the Grizzled, and Hanabi
Thanks
From a fun perspective, probably not.
From a pure design perspective it's basically perfect.
ECG = Expandible card game. Means there will be expansions consisting of the exact same cards, with no random insertions and/or rarity.
LCG = Living card game. Trademarked FFG bullshit codeword for an ECG. As above, but expansions will be released periodically and competitive gameplay will see tournament legal expansions phased out as new expansions are released. Metagame is supposed to evolve around the progressive phasing out of older sets.
CCG: Collectible card game = TCG: Trading card game. Randomly inserted cards in booster packs. Commons, Uncommons, Rares, Ultra-rares, Foils, Bullshit.
Tentacle Bento
>What user is focusing o is, in a new pack of Ashes, you get a complete deck rather than individual cards that expand the existing factions all at once. The deck has its own themes and synergies, and from what the tournament results show, about 3-4 cards reinvigorate the meta, which sounds about on par for what expansion packs in ffg's lcgs do.
Yes, thanks for explaining it.
>In any case, I second Ashes. Small decksize makes keeps deckbuilding tight, knowing how to time your plays and seize tempo is one of the most entertaining parts of the game.
I'm looking forward to Rin although he may be OP. I'm hoping the game sticks around and it seems like Plaid Hat is dedicated to supporting it.
Rin is fine, as is Brennen. Leo on the other hand.....
>Leo
The faggot character? Oh man. I was looking forward to their Harley Quinn ripoff, but if the gay guy in fur ends up the most powerful character, that's fucking hilarious.
im hoping to identify some badly remembered games i played when i was younger, in an effort to see if they were as good as i remember/eventually purchase them
both were probably 10 years ago, and i know the second one was brand new when i played it
1. it had a board, possibly tiles you built similar to Zombies, or games like that. you played as the stereotypical horror movie tropes as your classes (jock, nerd, ect) and if i remember right, no one knew the games goal till it was started. then villians and heroes were given to people from the module, and for the most part, people wouldn't know who the villian was. (as in, the cheerleader, was also a werewolf, and had to hide it till win considion)
i THINK it was house on haunted hill, but im not sure
2. i have absolutely no clue the name. it was more of a pen and paper lite, in that everyone made a character from classes/races, and you were all on a spaceship you built together with tiles. each class had abilities that let them man stations on the ship, or do other activities (soldier boarding enemy ships instead of manning guns, like that). it had the "board" of the ships on a player scale, and an actual space board the pilot/enemies would navigate through for ship scale. it wasn't the best game, but it was definitely interesting, and im wondering what became of it
1 is without a doubt Betrayal at House on the Hill.
sweet thanks, that definitely looks like it. i had alot more fun with that one, but sadly we never ended up playing it as often as i would like. apparently it relatively recently got an expansion set, so thats even better.
A few people mentioned mystic vale in this thread, so I figured I'd share my thoughts on the solo variant some guy came up with on boardgamegeek. Basically it's just playing the game as you normally would on your own, but you start with 8 level 1 advancements in the pile, 15 vp in the pool, and you try to get as much as you can before 19 turns are over. Every turn past 19 increases the amount of points you lose (20 turns is -1 point, 21 turns is -3, 22 is -6, and it keeps going up). General goal is to beat 40 points.
Just ran through it myself and scored 36. I'm a really big fan of deckbuilders, and enjoy playing them solo. I have to say, from that point of view, mystic vale is a really good game. There's a lot more decisions you have to think about/make than in, say, ascension, which is one of my favorite games. You really can build your deck in a ton of different ways, from the placing of your advancements on your cards, to which cards you power up, and of course to how you gear your deck. I actually ended up going a little TOO fast and emptied the VP pool at about round 15, ending the game prematurely.
I've played it with friends twice now and it's a lot of fun, but I definitely recommend it for solo players. High score style, it's great, and I'm willing to be it's pretty easy to make variants for if you want to add some sort of AI to it.
Thanks for the info. Could there not be both ECG/LCG and CCG/TCG that used either preconstructed decks or drafting? I was thinking more about how the decks are made before vs during the game itself rather than the rarity of certain cards.
Well there's deck building for card games and there's deckbuilding games. Semantics.
In ANR or M:tG you pick the cards that go into your deck before a game to fit your playstyle. Customization.
In Dominion or Thunderstone you start with the same base deck and you build your deck buying new cards to explore a strategy, so the deck building is a game mechanic, not a prerequisite.
Preconstructed decks have been a thing for a while, MtG came up with thematic starter decks in the late 90s, so as a newcomer to the game you could just buy a and play a functional deck without buying a ton of boosters. Netrunner also has draft packs.
I'm not even making any sense, gonna hit the sack now.
To be honest, it isn't even about his mill package, which is a hoot to play out. Its the god damn standard bearing bird. Every round you are gonna waste resources to kill his stuff, so with an aggro shell and battlefield size 6, he can go to town on everyone. No link to a dice type for the bird also helps broaden the possible builds.
Also, the nerfs to enchanted violinist shakes things up. It is my least favorite way to deal with card imbalances (see l5r and AEG who did it frequently enough at the end of its life cycle.), but plaid hat did it once before with base set summoner wars, and then never again as they got their play testing and balancing shit together.
2 sounds like Battlestations, there's a second edition that is coming out next year
>People keep telling me to get Catan, but goddamn yesterday a girl told me its like GoT for retards, and you need to get a lot of expansions to make it fun to play.
1 - It's not like Game of Thrones. At all.
2 - Maybe. I've gotten Catan on my phone, which comes with some of the Seafarers scenarios. Playing those, I see how it does balance the game out, and I don't think I would ever play the base game electronically after that.
>I've realized that I greatly dislike area control games with a heavy card aspect. They just greatly, enormously annoy me, because I feel like everyone is one additional step removed from the game itself. I don't directly interact with the game, I interact with my hand, which in turn interacts with the game.
Honestly, most modern euros often have an "inner game" where you can do stuff to gain points but can only interact with it via an "outer game" that heavily restricts what players can do on their turns. Examples would be the worker placement games, where players are building something, but can only do actions as dictated by what they can and have selected by the board.
Also, has anybody played pic related? I know of a copy on sale for 20 bucks. Is it worth it?
Tried it at RPC Cologne.
I had to correct the guy teaching it to me on a couple of rules that didn't make sense to me until I read up on them and realized that they were all wrong to begin with.
Theme is meh, gameplay also felt meh.
It's pretty, but not worth the price, especially since it's an LCG.
once i read the name i was positive that is it. double checked, and it is.
hopefully i can find a copy thats not badly priced, and in good condition when i end up getting these. theres one cheap one, but most "new" ones im seeing are marked up amazon ones. i could just wait for 2nd edition , it looks alot better than the old one, though i might just be attracted to those 3d design tokens, instead of using the tiny fold out tokens
on a related note though, does anyone have any more "scenario" based boardgame suggestions? the only other one (other than both of these two apparently) iv played was heroquest, and loved that as well. i apparently might just have a hard on for scenario based boardgames
Just played 7 Wonders with ALL expansion, and Islebound.
Babel makes the game too random and swingy for my taste, great projects are amazing though.
6 hours? Jesus, you guys are slow. My first game was with 6 new players and we clocked in at only 3 hours. Civ the board game is pretty good, but it's probably got a similar complexity and time requirement per player to GoT. In our group it takes about 2-3 hours for a 4 person game, I'm guessing you'll be looking at 4-6.
>Might & Magic board game
... Huh.
Don't. It's not the fantasy 4x you're hoping for.
What I personally really don't like about Ghost Stories is the dice part, a bit too much random can fuck you up big time if you don't do the good roll at the needed time.
In fact, in kinda the same vein but simpler and less random, I think Bauza did a good job with Samurai Spirit (which is basically Ghost Stories, simple, without dices).
Plus samurai films > wushu flicks but that's just me.
So, narrative games and dungeoncrawlers.
>Traitor mechanics
Dead of Winter, Shadows over Camelot, Battlestar Galactica
>Full coop
Eldritch Horror, Gears of War, Shadows of Brimstone, Zombicide
>2 player
Claustrophobia, Space Hulk, Mr Jack
>1 vs Many
Mansions of Madness, Descent/ Imperial Assault, Fury of Dracula, Letters from Whitechapel
I dunno which category, but [redacted] is fun
>Also, the nerfs to enchanted violinist shakes things up. It is my least favorite way to deal with card imbalances (see l5r and AEG who did it frequently enough at the end of its life cycle.), but plaid hat did it once before with base set summoner wars, and then never again as they got their play testing and balancing shit together.
I prefer a nerf over an outright ban like WOTC always does. So he's like Saria+Aradel? Should be fun. I suspect they may end up nerfing him in the future if his aggro is that powerful. I'm surprised the bird wasn't at least a specific dice face.
I really wish Ashes got more love. It's such a great casual game with potential for tourney play but the card number just isn't high enough right now to get something like that going.
>Redacted
Seriously underrated.
>Semantics
I usually say there are Fixed Deck games for games like Sentinels of the Multiverse or Exceed, where there are different decks but they aren't customizable. There's Deckbuilding games, which are games like Dominion or Acension. And there's Constructed Deck games, like MTG or YGO, where you build your deck before getting to the table, but it is customizable.
scythe looks cool as hell as a setting
Mansions also recently got a 2nd edition which is 4(5?) vs phone app. Someone commented on it upthread.
I think Jamey mentioned that the artist got some offers of some sort for the setting too, here's to hoping whatever comes out of it is good.