/bgg/-Board Game Genearl-Taking the Good with the Bad Edition

Inis is only good for the first 3/4ths of the game. Becomes a shitshow at the end with awful kingmaking and the red deckdeciding a winner. So much so it becomes 1 player gets to choose a winner (in a literal sense) so we just implemented a draw victory condition which fixed it.

I cant really stand Secret Hitler (I cant lie) but I know is super well designed from a balance/fun perspective.

>SH is super well designed
funniest thing ive read all day

"Random elements" applies to both randomness and luck. You must speak clearly what you mean.

Example: Le Havre has a boatload of randomness, but zero luck or hidden information.

I refuse to play it. After the waste of money stunt they pulled in the election, it's pretty much a game that dipshits play to feel intelligent.

>I cant really stand Secret Hitler (I cant lie) but I know is super well designed from a balance/fun perspective.

Being Mafia isn't particularly groundbreaking and it got old so long ago.

>After the waste of money stunt they pulled in the election
what are you talking about

I'm about to organize a friday night boardgames.

Which ones should I focus on?

This will be for normies.

Here I stand
Weed out the weak from the getgo

Secret Trump reskin

>normies
Skip the boardgames and just buy a case of whisky.

what a strange thing to be angry about

Have the normies played the normiecore board games before? Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, etc? How normie we talking?

Alright so I can buy either mare nostrum empires or Inis, thoughts on these titles?

Camel Up my dude. Carcassonne has worked well for me too

Mare Nostrum
Inis is a complete FotM shitshow.

>Camel Up
The concept is interesting, but the execution feels like it wasn't even playtested.

The desert/oasis tiles are completely useless and passing is objectively the best option unless there's only one die left.

In the end player order decides who wins.

(Yeah, you could play this without turning on your brain and just have ""fun"", but that defeats the whole point, no?)

Mind telling me why you think so?

Inis has way better art, and will play a little faster.
Mare Nostrum has better expression of player agency and will feel much less restrictive and random - despite being the one with dice. It's the one I'd pick.

So Inis' only good point is the pretty art?

>The desert/oasis tiles are completely useless
No they aren't. They can help push a camel you want to win forward or one you want to lose backward. The optimal use I've found is putting the desert tile in front of the pack of camels so when one gets pushed back, there's a chance it could land there again on a future turn

>passing is objectively the best option unless there's only one die left.
I don't know where you're getting this from, you can't pass your turn. The picture include the four allowed actions you can take, none of which are passing.

>In the end player order decides who wins
This isn't true

>Yeah, you could play this without turning on your brain and just have ""fun"", but that defeats the whole point, no?
What "whole point" are you talking about? Is the goal to crush everyone else you're playing with and show you're superiority? Is it to plan complex and highly strategic plays to outsmart everyone else? Is it to wheel and deal and sweet talk everyone into giving you what you need while making them think it was their idea? Or is it to relax with people you enjoy being around and have a lighthearted time? Or pick your other reason that wasn't listed, that isn't the point.

The point is that Camel Up is a lighthearted family game that is quick and novel. Of course it's silly because you're betting on racing camels that stack on each other, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game (it may just be a game that's not your type). Everyone I've played this with has loved it and begged me to play it again, it's exciting trying to guess which one is going to win and then eagerly waiting to see if they do.

On the surface, Camel Up is a light and silly game that is great for families or people who don't play board games much (which is why I recommended it because the user was playing with normies). However, "under the hood" Camel Up is a game based entirely around statistical probabilities. So if you know this, then you can calculate the (1/2)

Probability of the most likely outcome and go with that. Playing that way, on average you'll probably do very well if not win. If that's something you like, then by all means, math crunch away.

Camel Up is not meant to be an ultra serious or competitive game. It's a game that doesn't take itself seriously and neither should you. Again, Camel Up may not be your cup of tea and that's ok.
(2/2)

>No they aren't.
Yes they are. The expected payoff (if you play by the rules) is worse than any other action you can take.

> The picture include the four allowed actions you can take, none of which are passing.
"Passing" = rolling a die and taking $1. It's a passing action because it benefits everyone, not just you.

> This isn't true
Player order and dumb luck, OK. All other things being equal, player order completely determines this game.

> What "whole point" are you talking about?
It's a betting game where, if you're playing to actually bet money, you'll be bored and the winner is decided by seating order. Playing a betting game without intending to bet money is pointless.

> Of course it's silly because you're betting on racing camels that stack on each other, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game
I never complained about "silliness", you nincompoop. I complained that the game is boring if you play it as designed.

>Playing a betting game without intending to bet money is pointless.

Spoken like a true gambling addict. Bravo Grandpa!

It's too early for this shit

looking for recommendations for board games to play with my family when i see them in a few weeks.
I was thinking of something like Superfight or Funemployed (although im not sure on that one because my family is pretty sheltered and I heard that game is for a older audience)
also nothing too long, my dad is very impatient and will not play if the rules take 15 minutes to go through, teaching him Catan was hard enough

> should work
Love Letter
Code Names
Flick Em Up
any social deduction game
> might work
Pandemic
Sheriff of Nottingham
Welcome to the Dungeon
> seriously doubt but maybe
Lords of Xidit
Kemet
Last Night on Earth

Pitchcar (or Pitchcar Mini) is another good one that should work

Camel Up is probably a bit juvenile.

>should work
>social deduction

This is not my experience at all. I've almost always found that social deduction games need a very specific group to actually have fun playing them. The closest thing to that that I'd recommend is Citadels because it's got some structure to it that people who aren't into abstract nonsense can work with.

I would take Carcassonne with you as a fall back regardless.

Bought a copy of Ticket to Ride Europe yesterday, found out today that it's a counterfeit...

Has anybody used the Gloomhaven scenario app?

Is it worth using? It'd just be on my phone, not a tablet.

>[angry Christian Peterson noises]

Someone sell me on superfight. I must have be taught how the game plays incorrectly, but I can't imagine why people find arguing about nonsensical topics entertaining.

But it's just like snake oil right? Snake oil is p damn fun

Blokus
Carcassonne

user, email the actual owners of Ticket to Ride and tell them you got a counterfeit copy. They might offer to replace it with a genuine copy in exchange for info on the person / place selling counterfeit copies.

No, I think the game is interesting, but I think the art resulted in it getting a little overhyped. And blood rage convinced me that I don't like drafting very much as the central mechanic of a dudes-on-a-map game - though it's less obnoxious in Inis.

So, superfight has a couple variants in it, so it's hard to know if you were taught "incorrectly" or simply "incompletely".

Some quick rules clarifiers:

In almost every game mode, your "character" will consist of a white card and one black card they picked from their hand, AND one black drawn blindly from the top of the deck.

That out of the way, the variant summaries:
Vanilla: as you say, basically a reverse Snake-OIl. Instead of the whole group pitching to one person, it's two people pitching to the rest of the table.

Villain Battle: Arguably closer to Snake Oil. One player will make a "villain" using the normal rules, and the rest of the table will make a fighter TO DEFEAT THAT VILLAIN. The villain player decides who made the best argument, and gives that player a point.

Free-For-All: Everyone makes a fighter, and EITHER everyone draws their second random ability, OR everyone gets to play a second black card from their hand on ANY character. Everyone votes.

If you were playing Free-for-all style rules, I think it's easy to feel like it's mostly pointless arguing.

Personally, while I have nothing against Superfight, I found it fell into what I call "CaH syndrome": the game outstays its welcome. It's perfectly fine and enjoyable for the first 10-15 minutes, but no one lets it end before 30.

They sent hundreds of copies for free to senators/governors etc with some cuck note about how trump is literally hitler. People weren't happy because they'd been waiting ages for it to be in stores, and they were just sending them for free to people who would likely never play it, or even open it.

Drafting is terrible, you can basically end up with entire turns wasted because you either get crap cards or player turns before you result in none of your cards being of any use. Suffers from Munchkin syndrome, way to long (severely bored from halfway through because this dross was just dragging on and on) and not only can everyone jump on the leader but you can see the obvious leader because he has to blatantly advertise himself, leaving 2nd place to waltz in when everyone has expended their 'fuck you' cards.

Everyone keeps saying 'oh but look at the artwork, isn't it so great'. No, it's not. It's a complete mishmash of shit that looks like someone vomited on the table. As individual art pieces they may indeed look quite nice. As an overall board game, it looks like a spastic mess.

>hundreds of copies

That's not how fucking math works. Actually, fuck that, that's not how COUNTING works.

There are 100 US senators, and 50 State Governors, and they didn't even send it to the governors.

They sent 100 copies. not "hundreds", 1 hundred.

The complaint about them not being in stores, however, I'm fine with. Those CaH guys always have shit distribution.

Ah okay, thanks for the input. I definitely played the free for all setup. As I recall the experience was something like this

>I've got chainsaw baby, he's the strongest because reasons
>I've got snake bird, he's the strongest because reasons
>I've got tazer get, he's the strongest because it's pikachu
>everyone agrees on pikachu because nostalgia
>This took about 50 minutes to go through

N-no homo, but I was totes wanting to deep throat a revolver long before the game finished. Never ever again. I dare say I hate that game far more than ticket to ride.

I guess snake oil gets a pass with flying colors because it's about selling things, and I like bartering in real life

Ticket to Ride is a good game. Too long and random for what it is, yes; but there's still nothing that does better what it does.

What's the longest you've ever played a game wrong without realizing it?

Machi Koro.
I didn't know you were supposed to set up the store with all the cards, I was taught to just draw the top 5 or so cards from the deck and replenish as they are bought. It makes the game a lot better, honestly.

Not the longest (statistically, there's probably some rule we continue to play wrong unaware to this day), but the most memorable was in Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle.

If you're unfamiliar, basically it's a cooperative deckbuilder, where each year there's more cards and more villains. The villains all have a nasty effect that fires each turn. As you progress through the years, the stacks of villains get deeper, stronger (or highly synergistic) villains are added, and you start facing two, three, or even four villains at once.

Well, we played probably 12-15 hours of the game before learning that last bit - we'd been facing every villain at once from the outset. It took us multiple attempts to even get to year 4, by the seat of our pants.

Unknown.

I have a bad habit where I don't read the rules thoroughly before showing them off, so I have to quickly read them as the rest of the group sets up the game.

In a perfect world, we play our first game like a tutorial, with me reading the steps and so on as we play. Since we don't live in a perfect world, it's not uncommon for me to have to fumble through the rules as we go, leading to us discovering on the 3rd or 4th time we play that I misread something, or missed a sidebar.

And without thoroughly reading all the instructions to every game I own, I can't be sure that I'm not carrying around the wrong idea.

I think we had played one game for like, a year, before we found out that some relatively niche rule wasn't being followed. (something like "If no one can do X, discard and yada yada.")

've only recently found out that in Monopoly, if a player decides not to buy unowned property the property is to be auctioned.

Evolution: the beginning. You get to eat each others furry little creatures.

Century Spice Road if they can into pictograms (e.g. trade two yellows for three reds or whatever)

7 wonders maybe if you have a good pitch down

There is a guy in my group who literally cannot into rules.

He bought Photosynthesis and played FIVE complete games, teaching it to fifteen different people over several weeks before someone said, "dude".

Luckily I learned my lesson after playing a full game of 51st state absolutely and completely fucking wrong. It was about the 4th game he'd totally shitted up teaching but it was so completely wrong I swore I'd never play with him again without reading the rules myself.

To compound the problem he'll often announce he is bringing one thing, then pull out a completely different game at the last minute.

I have literally never once had him teach a game correctly (or understand a game being taught, although that's rare), no matter the game, no matter the complexity. He literally fucks up Sushi Go.

Normally I just avoid his table like the plague, but that's not always possible so I wind up speed reading the rules then arguing some fundamental point that he has totally mishmashed. The worst part is he seems completely oblivious- I've tried to talk to him and he just waves it off as "well rules are generally all the same" and I overheard him two weeks ago saying he played Photosynthesis wrong but just once, just that first time before he figured it out.

So for me it was 51st state, about 3 hours.

well and you probably put money in free parking

>tfw have never played an unbastardized game of monopoly

I actually realised mt group has played aGoT board game wrong for six years now. In the event decks there is a card that makes you shuffle the deck, but we never added the discard pile to the shuffled cards and the card had no effect on gameplay. It might sound like a dumb interpretation(and it is), but we genuinely thought that game designers just left the card in as a huge oversight.

It's not any better. Just, mercifully, ends quicker.

>put money in free parking
Guilty :(

>streamlined Twilight Struggle

Are you hype?

Western Legends' kickstarter is ending in two day. You guys have any opinions and is it worth it?

Who the fuck cares, honestly? If you got it cheap then its a win for you either way. If you didn't do what that other user said and contact whoever really makes TtR and they'll probably send you a real one.

>streamlined luck fest
Just play Craps

Games that do what Western Legends does but better:
Xia
Merchants and Marauders
Wasteland Express Delivery Service
Runebound
Runewars
The only reason to buy WL is because you want to play as a cowboy. If that's why you want I'd honestly suggest a video game since it has more player agency and you won't have to force other people to play a subpar game with you. The models don't even look good.

>>streamlined Twilight Struggle
>Not buying Twilight Snuggle

user, I am disappoint.

The other user might have issues due to shit component quality. It might look good in the 'image' online, only to find out the rule-book is printed on toilet-paper and the board is literally recycled cereal box. China - sometime the source of quality knock-offs. Other times, not so much...

For a year I forgot you can spend 1 surge per attack recovering fatigue in Descent

Got it for like 20 dollars and the components look "playable".
I'm more worried about getting lead poisoning from the plastics trains, kek

>kek

Three or four quests into Gloomhven we realized that the numbered decks are for the players. We thought they were for the monsters until we read in the set-up part of the guide that the deck inside the character boxes was for leveling up.

That's a super common mistake. Another one is not realizing all monsters drop a coin on death, or that you automatically pick up loot on your tile after your turn.

I fell asleep after making that post, thanks for the replies, many of those I have not heard of but I will give all of them a look

>bgg still using my hastily-cobbled-image after many years

Feels.. good? I guess?

Who's the best game designer and why is it Uwe Rosenberg?

Uwe is one of may absolute faves! For #1 though, I'd have to go with Eric M. Lang. He's made some incredible games that have absolutely revolutionized the board game industry. Blood Rage merges drafting and area control and PURE BRUTALITY in a way that no one else has even attempted! Rising Sun is a game set in a completely true-to-life Eastern mythological setting and tackles diplomacy and betrayal in a way no one believed possible!

Truly Eric M. Lang is the board gaming genius we've all been waiting for!

To be fair Blood Rage is pretty good. I don't understand all the flak it gets.

This is actually decent bait for this general, so I'm just gonna go ahead and call it out right away before the thread devolves into us discussing a game we all know is dogshit.

I haven't been in /bgg/ in years so I don't follow. I've bought the game and I find it just fine, honestly, tell me what these issues are.

>I don't understand all the flak it gets
>haven't been in /bgg/ in years
Like I said, just gonna let the bait die. Are there any other games you'd like to discuss?

Not trolling, would also like to know.

I've played it once, it was OK. Nothing special but hardly worth sperging out over. Better than ticket to ride or catan for instance.

I'm just gonna bring it up again some other time in /bgg/ so you might as well humor me because I'm honestly just curious but I can't find anything about why this game would be so bad online.

Is it some clan upgrade combinations? Is there some out-of-game issues with the designer or something?

>Better than ticket to ride or catan for instance.
That doesn't take much though.

Sure, I listed them as examples of games I hate, but that seem to get a lot of play. I would venture that 'serious gamers' (if there is such a thing) would agree.

From the one play-through of blood rage it seemed like a reasonable but relatively luck dependent game. The drafting was the (mechanically) best part, and then you just kinda grind out the fighting part. But it didn't give me cancer or anything. I don't get the hyperbole.

I like how there are so many ways to play the game successfully, even if some upgrades are pretty broken, there are enough of them that over time every player should be able to concoct their own broken strategy that it balances out and these lead to very different playstyles.

This compared to many games where the best strategy is almost solved, it's just whoever puts that one strategy together the best that wins.

The game has the same problems as every other Lang game. It started with a really interesting idea, then had all the interesting possibilities thrown away in favor of making it as easy for the masses to understand after watching a two minute KS commercial as possible. It wasn't playtested because CMON needed another project on KS asap. The theme is literally irrelevant but pushed hard through poorly produced, preconstructed minis because that's how they get their KS money. This is what Lang does and why CMON now pays him a salary.

Huh, I don't get this at all. The game feels pretty balanced overall, the minis are honestly really fucking nice except all the spear being bent and all that and I don't see how this game is "easy for the masses", it employs several mechanics seen in fully respected strategy games that new players will have problem grasping their first times.

I don't get it.

I'm pretty much just pissed that it's a drafting game and a worker placement and does neither very well.

Oh. I guess I can see that. Yeah there's definitely a lot of ameritrash in it, I'll agree on that.

>Yeah there's definitely a lot of ameritrash in it
That's another facet of my disappointment: it takes the most middling aspects of eurotrash and amerispiel to craft the a game which can only be described as "eh."

>actually believes there are deep mechanics in BR
You sound like their target market. Have you backed your three copies of HATE yet?

so... it's a Dakimakura in a box?

>this guy
>only 3

Have a game day organised for tomorrow, the plan is to crack out Twighlight Imperium II.
What should i expect as I've never played it, pretty damn excited. (owner has obviously played it).
Also snacks: what do you guys bring to your game day/nights and what treats and nibblies do you recommend. anything that makes your fingers messy and sticky is always a big nono obviously.

cheetos
spicy flaming hot cheetos

>TI2
I've never heard of this being played

I never said it's *deep*, it's not like it's Agricola or like either TM, but it's at least decent. It has card drafting which most casuals have no idea what it is, it has a nontrivial area control mechanic, it has interactions where you actually come out ahead by losing battles, etc etc.

It just feels like this bandwagon is rather poorly nuanced. There are A LOT of games that are more poorly designed than Blood Rage yet retains at least middling or grudging respect here.