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Scyther posted:As much as I like Galaxy Trucker I feel it suffers some as a two player game. If you don't have the expansion rules for removing a number of components before the building phase, everything is too abundant, and as soon as you have a basic grasp of the game it becomes way too easy to build a ship. Time pressure becomes much less of an issue, because at worst you'll start in second place, which matters very little when you get a full extra flip of the hourglass to leisurely finish your ship compared to the player who rushed his shipbuilding trying to push the timer forward and grab the first place marker.
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# ? Apr 20, 2013 22:10 |
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# ? Jun 7, 2024 08:01 |
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By the way folks, I love Archipelago and all, but I kind of have to share this card with everyone so they know just how the subject matter is
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# ? Apr 20, 2013 22:49 |
modig posted:I finished a short game in less than one hour, but closer to two is more likley. It plays ok with two, but most of the negotiation is meaningless with two, and its easy to never have units in the same place. Thanks, that helps my decision. Unfortunately, this Trynant posted:By the way folks, I love Archipelago and all, but I kind of have to share this card with everyone so they know just how the subject matter is makes me think twice.
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# ? Apr 20, 2013 23:45 |
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Trynant posted:By the way folks, I love Archipelago and all, but I kind of have to share this card with everyone so they know just how the subject matter is How should slavery be treated?
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# ? Apr 20, 2013 23:47 |
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XyrlocShammypants posted:How should slavery be treated?
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 00:57 |
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XyrlocShammypants posted:How should slavery be treated? The white slave to black slave ratio for starters. I don't know the significance of those 'native heads' in the corner either but they are are bit cartoonishly "savage natives".
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 00:58 |
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If a game is trying to recreate a period of history should it strive to be accurate? I mean these things did happen even if they are horrific. Bit of a can of worms I guess.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 01:32 |
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dishwasherlove posted:If a game is trying to recreate a period of history should it strive to be accurate? I mean these things did happen even if they are horrific. Bit of a can of worms I guess. Archipelago expressly does not try to be accurate.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 01:41 |
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Ah ok I haven't played it. Just musing.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 02:19 |
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JoshTheStampede posted:Archipelago expressly does not try to be accurate. I can't assume you disagree with the use of the concept in the game, but I am just using your post as a starting point for my thoughts. It's obviously fiction, but slavery and other horrible things are found in any number of science fiction/fantasy books/films and other media. In the Game of Thrones universe, it doesn't seem unreasonable that there would be slavery or rape. In a game about the colonial era, it shouldn't surprise anyone that slavery was something fairly common. As long as there isn't an apparent endorsement of the 'bad thing' in question I don't think it's really an issue.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 02:27 |
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There's always going to be tension when you try to use history as a setting, at least for broad strokes. It's kinda like when you see WW2 as setting for a movie or game, and the Nazis are treated as cartoonishly evil or fetishised - how much can you dance within the margins without being historically insensitive. Sid Meier's Colonisation back in the 90's was heavily criticised for not properly acknowledging African slavery by including 'Indentured servants' but not slaves, despite being a somewhat ahistorical game by the end of proceedings. Context is everything, really. If Archipelago is simply a game set in a generic 'age of sail/colonialism', it can probably get away with it, but the moment it starts tying into real history (even just with using historical nations/figures/time) it could drift into historical whitewashing with it's 'white slavery' card.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 02:43 |
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XyrlocShammypants posted:I can't assume you disagree with the use of the concept in the game, but I am just using your post as a starting point for my thoughts. It's obviously fiction, but slavery and other horrible things are found in any number of science fiction/fantasy books/films and other media. In the Game of Thrones universe, it doesn't seem unreasonable that there would be slavery or rape. In a game about the colonial era, it shouldn't surprise anyone that slavery was something fairly common. As long as there isn't an apparent endorsement of the 'bad thing' in question I don't think it's really an issue. I don't personally have an issue with the game, or how it presents things, but I can recognize that use of historical settings in games runs the risk of either trivializing or glossing over the atrocities of the period, or including them in the name of total accuracy and making people uncomfortable. You might notice that there are no games wherein you play Germany during World War 2 and play cards depicting the Final Solution or concentration camps. That's intentional because thinking about those things makes people uncomfortable and is not conducive to fun gaming. There's still plenty of WW2 games though, and you can play Germany in many of them. So maybe it would have been a better idea to just not really mention slavery in Archipelago and leave all the morally repugnant stuff about colonialism in the background.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 02:51 |
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Yeah I don't think horrific real events should necessarily be ignored in the context of games with a historical setting, but it's the idea of Slavery being reduced to some one-off event card that makes it seem like really poor taste. I haven't played the game, though.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 03:01 |
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goferchan posted:Yeah I don't think horrific real events should necessarily be ignored in the context of games with a historical setting, but it's the idea of Slavery being reduced to some one-off event card that makes it seem like really poor taste. I haven't played the game, though. Yeah this also. Slavery was a Big Deal, so if you are going to include it in your game, it should be given appropriate weight, not simply be an event card with roughly as much impact as Commercial Fishing or a shortage of pineapples. Even so, if you were to make a game ABOUT slavery, it would be depressing for a lot of people, and a lot of people wouldn't want to play it because that's not how they want to spend their gaming time.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 03:09 |
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If you are playing Castle Panic completely co-op with adults you need to try against a human opponent controlling monsters. Makes the game much more compelling.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 03:15 |
the shutup review address the theme before they even discuss the game and its worthwhile pointing out, it's not just the presence slavery as a card but there is a total glossing over of colonialism in general and some really iffy decisions like the caricature savage native art and white meeple for population/black meeple for native unrest track it all adds up to being a bit offputting. not saying its a reason not to play it but its absolutely worth being aware of
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 03:22 |
Lottery of Babylon posted:Why yes, in this hidden traitor game if you all listen to what one person says and do whatever they tell you to do and that person is a traitor, you will lose. That's not "unbalanced", that's the core premise of the game, and it's excellent motivation not to just blindly follow one leader. PerniciousKnid posted:This shouldn't happen more than once unless the players are either morons or not interested in the game. Unfortunately, The Resistance really falls apart in either case. SatelliteCore posted:Were you playing with the assassin? Eventually that poo poo will work itself out if people pay attention. When the loudmouth wins as a spy make sure people remember that constantly.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 06:14 |
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goferchan posted:Yeah I don't think horrific real events should necessarily be ignored in the context of games with a historical setting, but it's the idea of Slavery being reduced to some one-off event card that makes it seem like really poor taste. I haven't played the game, though. Endeavor does the same thing in the same period. I'm a slave descendant and I have no issue with it. On the other hand in Spartacus you buy slaves. That I won't play although I'm not offended by Spartacus because people did buy slaves during that period. It's just distasteful to me. Same issue I have with Dungeon Petz. Good game, I'm not offended but starving/suffering pets is just not a theme I want to deal with.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 06:33 |
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Ayn Randi posted:the shutup review address the theme before they even discuss the game and its worthwhile pointing out, it's not just the presence slavery as a card but there is a total glossing over of colonialism in general and some really iffy decisions like the caricature savage native art and white meeple for population/black meeple for native unrest track it all adds up to being a bit offputting. not saying its a reason not to play it but its absolutely worth being aware of The creator of the game said that the coloring of meeples was based on some other design ascetic than white or black race, but of course people make their own interpretations. Of course, the guy does have a weird candyland view of game making, where he wanted to point out that bad things happened without really addressing them in a deep, meaningful way. It's very clear from his interviews that the negative aspects (nearly every aspect) of colonialism and slavery deeply offends him and he likely wanted to at least mention it as part of the theme, but not approach it so much as to make it the focus of the game.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 06:46 |
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Next up: complaining about the brown workers in Puerto Rico.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 08:40 |
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Played a few games of Founding Fathers last night. It's a decent, relatively fast-playing game with a lot going on under the hood. You're fighting political battles on three fronts, there are multiple viable ways to score points, it's really heavy on confrontation, and it's actually strongly tied to the theme. I admit that it's a good game, a great game even, but it just doesn't grab me like other games and I can't really explain why. The graphic design of the cards is also very, very poor. The colors are dark and muddy and the graphic designer decided that black text on dark backgrounds was a good idea. One player suggested that they wanted you to look at the flags and colors on the cards but if you're sitting just a few feet away you can't tell the cards for poo poo. It would not have hurt the game to make the loving text white. I also think it's a good game for younger gamers. It's educational, with a ton of flavor text on the cards, and it's relatively simple to play. Lorini posted:Same issue I have with Dungeon Petz. Good game, I'm not offended but starving/suffering pets is just not a theme I want to deal with. I actually did have a player who gasped when I said "New round, this level 3 pet is sent to a happy farm and 1 extra meat is produced in the meat stall." I followed up with "There's no thematic reason for this rule!" and he looked me dead in the eye and whispered "Bullshit."
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 11:20 |
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Does that seriously offend people? I'm amazed at how oversensitive people can be over some of this stuff. Regardless, I got Sentinels and now I'm wishing I had bought the oversized villain cards. I thought they came with the game but apparently not. They really make it so much easier for everyone to see the text as opposed to the small villain cards.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 13:45 |
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Honest Ray posted:Does that seriously offend people? I'm amazed at how oversensitive people can be over some of this stuff. Are you talking about the Petz thing? There's no accounting for someone else's personal experience. When I described the rules for Petz I said, in explanation of the disease card, "It's possible for your pet to fester and die in a poo poo ridden cage." I wouldn't have described it like that if my group wasn't a bunch of sailor-mouthed hairy nerds but clearly someone was bothered at the thought of a game chopping up fantasy creatures into sacks of meat. I also played a game of Agricola were someone got audibly upset when I killed my pet sheep. She wasn't offended or anything but it was a shocked "Oh my god, how could you?!" Sorry lady, my peeps are hungry.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 13:55 |
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I specifically said it didn't offend me. In other words I'm not upset with Vlaada or wonder 'how could anyone play this game' or anything like that. I just happen to love my own pets and there's a zillion other games I could play. It's not a big deal.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 14:09 |
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This whole conversation reminded me of this comic:
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 14:21 |
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Honest Ray posted:I got Sentinels and now I'm wishing I had bought the oversized villain cards. I thought they came with the game but apparently not. They really make it so much easier for everyone to see the text as opposed to the small villain cards. echoMateria fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Apr 21, 2013 |
# ? Apr 21, 2013 14:24 |
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Why is the boy in a thong?...
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 14:52 |
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djfooboo posted:Why is the boy in a thong?...
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 14:56 |
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Question: What's the verdict on Resistance vs Resistance: Avalon?
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 15:09 |
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Pascallion posted:Question: Hell they're both pretty cheap so get 'em both.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 15:23 |
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real_scud posted:Avalon is better, having Merlin plus all of the other role cards makes things a lot more interesting for both teams and now you're not at the luck of the action cards in regular Resistance. The plot cards suck, don't use them. The core game of the Resistance is still my favorite because it's easy as gently caress for new players to come into and get into, particularly if those people aren't new players. Having someone who doesn't play games get a role like Merlin will ruin a game easily. poo poo I've still had people gently caress up and go on a mission with spies where neither voted to fail because they weren't sure what they were supposed to do, on the last mission of the game!
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 15:30 |
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PaybackJack posted:The plot cards suck, don't use them. The core game of the Resistance is still my favorite because it's easy as gently caress for new players to come into and get into, particularly if those people aren't new players. Having someone who doesn't play games get a role like Merlin will ruin a game easily. poo poo I've still had people gently caress up and go on a mission with spies where neither voted to fail because they weren't sure what they were supposed to do, on the last mission of the game! You can play "core" Resistance with Avalon though, right?
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 15:32 |
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Tekopo posted:This whole conversation reminded me of this comic: (BTW, where's that comic from?)
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 17:38 |
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Pierzak posted:You now have to start saying Dungeon Animal Slavez.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 17:40 |
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Why is pitch car so goddamn expensive? Also I'm going to have 5 for catacombs (maybe) and cosmic encounter on Wednesday, I'm psyched. Any first time play tips for cosmic encounter? Edit: I also got DOOM yesterday for $48 at a local game convention. I thought it was a good buy. The game was open but nothing was punched. SatelliteCore fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Apr 21, 2013 |
# ? Apr 21, 2013 18:29 |
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SatelliteCore posted:Why is pitch car so goddamn expensive? For Cosmic, make sure people don't just invite the whole table into alliances. Be picky about when and who you ally with, if at all.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 18:59 |
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Ledhed posted:For Cosmic, make sure people don't just invite the whole table into alliances. Be picky about when and who you ally with, if at all. Agreed, I see this happening with newbie groups every time. Everyone invites everyone, everyone joins the offense, everyone except the defense gets a colony ever encounter, the game ends in three or four turns, the winners are those that destiny never targeted to be the defense, and nobody has fun. The key point to remember is that you want to not only get colonies but also get colonies before everyone else does. So if you invite the whole table to join your attack and win, then sure, you got a colony... but so did everybody else, so you didn't actually pull ahead of the competition on your turn.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 19:05 |
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Sure, if you can get a colony without sharing that's great.. but you should expect to share often. Honestly, the first few points are meaningless mostly - if you're behind in getting to three, that just means you'll be welcome in every attack and soon enough the game will be tied again. After three colonies are out for everyone, it's down to a surprise trick, lucky encounter draw, or "everyone is out of ways to boost the defender". Or sometimes you just get to watch someone march to 5 because their power outclasses everyone else's. Cosmic Encounter is a goofy, see-what-happens game that occasionally has some weird, interesting situation pop up. I'd like it more if it was much shorter - perhaps it should be played to two, like Epic Spell Duellorz. There are some who take it seriously, but when played seriously the mechanics of the game are completely subsumed by politics and luck.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 19:23 |
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jmzero posted:Sure, if you can get a colony without sharing that's great.. but you should expect to share often.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 19:26 |
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# ? Jun 7, 2024 08:01 |
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Crackbone posted:You can play "core" Resistance with Avalon though, right? Yes, you just leave out all the roles including Merlin and Assassin, though maybe not with the full 10 people, I'm not sure how many vanilla cards it comes with.
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# ? Apr 21, 2013 19:48 |