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Lottery of Babylon posted:It's actually a great and cool game if you don't play with assholes who go "I'm not giving you any information I'm just coincidentally giving you a thumbs-up whenever your hand moves near the card you should play come on that's fair are you going to pretend human beings are physically incapable of giving thumbs ups????" It's true. Bridge is still at least decently popular, especially with non-board gamers, and creating a convention entirely to convey information is not only allowed but encouraged. I think the key is that the goal of bidding in Bridge is too complex; you're trying to figure out what suit you want to be in *and* how many tricks you think you'll take, while opponents may be throwing bids in to disrupt or compete, so even with conventions it's impossible to convey all of the information you want to. Hanabi, on the other hand, if you created full conventions, you could be pretty much doing what you'd do if all the hands were face up, so the rules are in place to restrict that. Plus, it being fully cooperative means, as noted, it's harder for people to call eachother on their poo poo.
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Dec 30, 2014 02:56
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Merauder posted:It seems to me that this is the issue from people who have had bad experiences/don't enjoy Hanabi; they're playing with people who are inclined to bring out the faults in the rules, which I would agree, really would sap the enjoyment out of the game and make one not want to play it... with those people. I've played the game dozens of times with a variety of people I game with regularly and have never encountered any of this wink-wink-nudge-nudge behavior that some seem to think is common place when playing the game. Basically, while what people are saying about the rules requiring some discipline to adhere to (and a willingness to accept that accidental tells are going to happen) certainly has merit, it sounds like the bigger issue is the attitude of the people they're playing with, rather than issues with the game its self. But isn't that frequently true? I can say "well the problem with 18xx is that the people won't take the time to understand the calculations needed to play well". But that's not the people's problem nor is it the game's problem. But it'll be your problem if you try to force something that's not there. I like games that are pretty cut and dried and are played in front of me and not ask me to figure out some sort of discipline that I don't understand why I need. Just like I have a friend who hates Hansa Teutonica, which I love. But that's not a fault of his, nor is me not liking Hanabi a fault of mine or me having some sort of attitude. Not every game is for every player as we've said many times before.
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Dec 30, 2014 02:56
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Lorini posted:But isn't that frequently true? I can say "well the problem with 18xx is that the people won't take the time to understand the calculations needed to play well". But that's not the people's problem nor is it the game's problem. But it'll be your problem if you try to force something that's not there. I like games that are pretty cut and dried and are played in front of me and not ask me to figure out some sort of discipline that I don't understand why I need. Just like I have a friend who hates Hansa Teutonica, which I love. But that's not a fault of his, nor is me not liking Hanabi a fault of mine or me having some sort of attitude. Not every game is for every player as we've said many times before. Right, I fully agree. The argument that "X game requires the right people to be enjoyable" can be whittled down to apply to any game, absolutely. I wouldn't play Game of Thrones with a Ticket to Ride/Catan crowd right away, it's surely going to be a bad experience for me (though I recognize that comparison is a little off since we're talking about these grey-area rules disciplines vs overall game complexity). That's all I mean to point out though; I'm not saying that people who didn't enjoy the game are at fault of anything/having the wrong attitude (unless they openly admit that adhering to said rules just isn't enjoyable to them, but it has seemed that the finger is usually pointed at the other people they played with rather than owning it themselves), but rather that they might actually enjoy what the game has to offer if they played with people which the game is more inclined towards, rather than just writing the game off. It is of course a tough sell to get someone to commit to a second chance for game they already had a bad experience with, so I understand where the anti-sentiments are coming from all the same.
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Dec 30, 2014 03:07
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Merauder posted:It seems to me that this is the issue from people who have had bad experiences/don't enjoy Hanabi; they're playing with people who are inclined to bring out the faults in the rules, which I would agree, really would sap the enjoyment out of the game and make one not want to play it... with those people. I've played the game dozens of times with a variety of people I game with regularly and have never encountered any of this wink-wink-nudge-nudge behavior that some seem to think is common place when playing the game. Basically, while what people are saying about the rules requiring some discipline to adhere to (and a willingness to accept that accidental tells are going to happen) certainly has merit, it sounds like the bigger issue is the attitude of the people they're playing with, rather than issues with the game its self. Here's a hint: I don't consider a game great if the game isn't good in a wide variety of group mentalities. Parts of it can still be good, but it's the year 2014 and I don't have to settle for "partially good" anymore. It's just like the old quarterbacking argument. I have multiple bookshelves full of games that I don't have to worry about the wrong personality accidentally being caught in a game with me. Some games are better for certain situations, sure, but I'm a grown-rear end man who doesn't always have the time or luxury to risk on more volatile game experiences. It's much simpler to say "Hanabi doesn't meet these reasonable standards for being well-designed" and never have to deal with confronting people over whether or not they're cheating in a game that should be cooperative.
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Dec 30, 2014 03:13
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quote:And my sincere apologies to that one guy who is either upset that I'm giving stuff away or that I don't like Kemet. Or both. I dunno. Edit for content: just because someone doesn't enjoy a thing you are single mindedly emphatic about does not give you license to act like an rear end. This applies to all things, but is doubly true for hobbies. Dr. Lunchables fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 03:14
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Broken Loose posted:Here's a hint: I don't consider a game great if the game isn't good in a wide variety of group mentalities. Parts of it can still be good, but it's the year 2014 and I don't have to settle for "partially good" anymore. Well said, and I definitely respect this PoV a lot more than the watered down posts that seemed to add up to "the game is garbage because people cheat at it". 
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Dec 30, 2014 03:17
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To me the depth and length of Hanabi seem to aim it towards a filler slot, but it requires too much focus and memorization and restricts communication too much to function as a filler. On the other hand it has too much luck to function as a satisfying co-op deduction game. I can't think of a time where I wouldn't rather play a less demanding filler, or a much meatier main event game. The designer came up with a gimmick and forgot to design a real game around it, I guess because they knew all you need is novelty value to coast by on.
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Dec 30, 2014 03:37
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Picked up Shadowrun Crossfire, and it's a co-op deckbuilding game with the twist of having a character sheet that you level up and add abilities to inbetween missions. I believe you start off with a base deck at the beginning of each mission, and you keep your leveled up abilities rather than keeping the cards you bought in the previous mission. Each round you can basically match symbols on cards you play to enemy damage tracks to defeat them, and generally requires some amount of coordination. Following that you can buy a card from the black market to add to your hand so you can use it next turn. You pick 4 different roles, which change what starting deck you use, and all the basic cards just do 1 type of damage, with the majority of your deck being a type of damage based on the role; i.e. the Mage starts with 4 spell damage cards, and everyone else only has 1. All the cards from the black market do different things, like guns that add heaps of colorless damage, or as a mage spell example, one that lets you rearrange the top 3 cards of the deck, and get bonus damage equal to the number of spells you reveal that way. Only did the first mission a couple of times, and I enjoy it. Feels sorta like Dominion mixed with Lord of the Rings LCG. Also played Alcatraz: The Escape where all the players are convicts trying to ...escape. Random distribution of prison location tiles (Warden's Office, Cellblock, Exercise Yard, etc) makes up the map of the game. You have a number of action points each turn to interact with the board (move, use a location's ability, etc). Prison guards fill up the prison, and act as a clock, as well as blocking off certain locations from being used or increasing the AP cost to do things there. A number of tasks are dealt to the locations on the board, each task requires a certain number of inmates and a maximum amount of guards present to be completed, and items (that you aquire from the different locations) to be spent, like getting a screwdriver and a knife as an escape package. Each task has a type of A,B,C,D,E, or F. When 1 player completes it, he marks it off on his personal board, and you draw another task for the rest of the players, and they mark off whatever one that second card says.Once, between all the players, everyone has A-F filled, you win! The twist with this game is that one player is voted as the Scapegoat, and they cannot complete tasks, nor do they get the reward for others completing one. They get one extra AP per time in a row that they've been voted the Scapegoat, up to +3, and they can use Blackmail cards which can make things much harder or worse for the other players. The scapegoat isn't a traitor, so they still win or lose with the rest, but generally it can be tougher to win as one. It seems like it creates this really bizarre pacing and tension, where being the scapegoat can be beneficial because you can get around the board quicker and get more items to complete later tasks, as well as interact with the board. If people keep voting you as a scapegoat, you can gently caress with their plans more to deter them from doing it. The other thing is if at the time people win the game, if the Scapegoat is indispensable (he's the only one that has the B), then he escapes too, which is generally how you have to play. So the possibilities for losing is that everyone loses (due to too many guards) or 1 person loses (because they either didn't have enough components to complete the plan, OR the scapegoat managed to be indispensable to the plan and the loss goes to the convict that only has redundant plan types completed) OR everyone wins because they all have unique parts finished. It's a strange game.
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Dec 30, 2014 03:51
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I think the other issue is that sometimes people don't want to accept that you don't like a game that they like. I once had a guy spend an hour telling me how checkers was the best game ever (don't even start with 'it's solvable') and criticizing me because I don't like checkers. For some reason he needed (me? other people?) to like a game that he liked. Don't be that guy. I mean I guess if you only have three other people to play with ever and you want to play a game that they don't like, then I could see the angst, but sometimes you have to just accept people being who they are and move on.
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Dec 30, 2014 03:55
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Broken Loose posted:gently caress theme. Play Dominion. You're welcome. wrt theme: it's kind of a big deal so far with the group I've got together. Like I'd to play Caylus/Agricola (or maybe Caverna? definitely Dungeon Lords) at some point with them but I think Lords of Waterdeep will be a nice way to get them used to the mechanics. What's the best Dominion expansion to get if/when we like it and want to move to 5+ players. Intrigue? e: I kinda can't believe I haven't gotten into these kind of games earlier with the amount of loving risk/clue/monopoly I've played at family/friend gatherings. There are a lot of really cool games 
T-Bone fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 04:09
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T-Bone posted:What's the best Dominion expansion to get if/when we like it and want to move to 5+ players. Intrigue? Intrigue will give you an extra set of treasures and victory cards, though, so you can split games off and play simultaneously.
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Dec 30, 2014 04:12
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T-Bone posted:What's the best Dominion expansion to get if/when we like it and want to move to 5+ players. Intrigue? To play with 5+ you need another set of the generic victory point and money cards, which only come with the base game, intrigue or in a separate box with ONLY those cards. So yeah, Intrigue is what you want. However, if you're playing with more than 4 you'll definitely want to split up into two or more groups and play out separate games instead of cramming everyone into one giant dumb game. E: I deserve this avatar. Stan Taylor fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 04:13
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Dominion pretty much falls apart at 5+ players. Frankly, I don't think it works that well at 4. In terms of expansions, I'd say: Hinterlands > Intrigue > Prosperity > Seaside > Dark Ages > Alchemy I have a feeling guilds is right around Prosperity, but I don't have enough games in to be confident on that. All of the promos are cool as hell, by the way, except Black Market. I'd recommend getting them to round out any collection as some of them really open up new strategies.
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Dec 30, 2014 04:29
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Thanks bg thread for the glowing reviews of Tragedy Looper. My family went through the tutorial mission and really enjoyed it, they especially enjoyed winning by feeding the killer/ conspiracy theorist/ brain to the serial killer. Hoping to bring it out a couple more times before vacation is over.
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Dec 30, 2014 04:54
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I agree that it's fine not to like Hanabi (or any game), but if you think it's a luckfest then you and your group are just bad at Hanabi. If your group is cheating on purpose (in any game) then your group sucks and you probably shouldn't play Hanabi (or any game) with them but that's not a game design problem and it's nothing like the quarterbacking problem. If your group is accidentally leaking information, that's fine—just point it out and move on and the problem will go away. It takes kind of a lot of Hanabi to get good at Hanabi and if you're not good at Hanabi it's kind of boring and confusing, so I understand if a lot of people in this thread don't like and are bad at Hanabi. I also sort of understand the slinging of opinions based on being bad at Hanabi, because it's pretty hard to see that there is a "better at Hanabi" to be when you're bad at Hanabi, if nobody around you is good at Hanabi. But: after some number of games of Hanabi with the same group, it will suddenly click and you will all be good at Hanabi and it will be amazing. You will feel like a superhero.
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Dec 30, 2014 04:56
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Lord Frisk posted:Edit for content: just because someone doesn't enjoy a thing you are single mindedly emphatic about does not give you license to act like an rear end. This applies to all things, but is doubly true for hobbies. This is something awful, people need to expect a bit of gentle ribbing about their tastes/choices /appearances /opinions The End fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 05:04
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I meant that also in regards to the thread getting really upset and defensive about games. It's p much the munchkin discussion.
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Dec 30, 2014 05:12
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Alright, I'll tone down my response, but the sentiment stands
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Dec 30, 2014 05:16
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Fair enough. I can be a grumpy old man
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Dec 30, 2014 05:19
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Broken Loose posted:Here's a hint: I don't consider a game great if the game isn't good in a wide variety of group mentalities. Parts of it can still be good, but it's the year 2014 and I don't have to settle for "partially good" anymore. I know people who will keep talking in Space Alert during a Communications Down and then get annoyed at me when I shoosh them.
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Dec 30, 2014 06:12
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What are the best compact Dominion storage solutions? I just got a couple of the big expansions, and would rather not take my 3 boxes around when I bring it somewhere. Should I just get a bunch of MtG deck boxes and label them?
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Dec 30, 2014 08:36
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Oddly this time around Board Game Thread has not given me an irresistible urge to buy games but is actually totally wrecking my idea of buying Hanabi for a friend's birthday. Thanks for the well thought out criticism, it seems like it'd be a dud with my groups, I'll steer clear of this one.
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Dec 30, 2014 08:39
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Get them coup instead
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Dec 30, 2014 08:46
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The End posted:Get them coup instead That's just mean.
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Dec 30, 2014 09:35
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On Dominion: I really love the game, but I'm so terribly bad at it. I feel like I kind of just do whatever, and so does my one regular opponent. The stories that come out of its thin theme are very funny in their absurdity, but I'd very much like to get to the chess part of the game as well. So this long story boils down to: What can I do to get better at this game? I know of dominionstrategy.com, but I'm not sure how best to make use of it. And is there a mindset to get into when playing, or when thinking about a game after a match? I feel pretty lost, I'm sure you can tell.
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Dec 30, 2014 09:55
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unpronounceable posted:What are the best compact Dominion storage solutions? I just got a couple of the big expansions, and would rather not take my 3 boxes around when I bring it somewhere. Should I just get a bunch of MtG deck boxes and label them? That's what I did, since the boxes take up so much space. You can download nice printable labels with the names of all the cards on BGG too, if you want to go that far (or have terrible handwriting).
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Dec 30, 2014 10:19
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Lottery of Babylon posted:I know people who will keep talking in Space Alert during a Communications Down and then get annoyed at me when I shoosh them. Going straight to Cheating rear end in a top hat is kind of an extreme example. There's no game that would not be ruined by somebody who blatantly tries to break very clear rules. That would be like playing a video game against somebody who unplugs your controller during a match. Bobfly posted:On Dominion: I really love the game, but I'm so terribly bad at it. I feel like I kind of just do whatever, and so does my one regular opponent. The stories that come out of its thin theme are very funny in their absurdity, but I'd very much like to get to the chess part of the game as well. Step 1: Buy Silver. No, really. There's a lot for me to say (and I'm going to say it, so buckle the gently caress up), but the first big takeaway is that you're not grasping the economy of the game with respect to how you actually win. You WIN at Dominion by having the most points when the game ends (3-pile or emptied Provinces), and the best way to accomplish this 80% of the time is by buying more Provinces than your opponent. Make sense so far? A lot of beginners (I'm assuming you do this) don't buy enough money. The reaction to playing Dominion is that there are Action cards, they look interesting, I wanna try them all now while they're available because they might not be there next game. Well, that's actually quite harmful. Any action card that does not provide +Action is what we call a Terminal Action, which means that it will terminate your Action Phase upon being played (outside of gigantic action engines, which aren't nearly as good as they sound). A hand of Smithy + Smithy + Silver + Copper + Estate is actually worse than Smith + Curse + Silver + Copper + Estate, the reason being that one of those Smithies has been wasted the moment you drew it next to the other. Not only is that card wasted, but since buying that Smithy took you an entire turn to do so (most of the time), you wasted the turn buying that Smithy. Imagine if you had bought a Silver instead-- that turn would be AMAZING, because you could purchase a cost 5 outright or play the Smithy to practically guarantee buying a Gold. Eventually, you will buy more actions. When you choose to do so is up to you-- there's no "solution" for how much money:actions you need to make a perfect deck, which is part of what makes Dominion still such a good game. The point of actions is to get you enough money in hand to buy a Province whenever you have the chance. I can only give you a ballpark like "Buy an action for each 3 or 4 treasure you buy," but that doesn't account for the individual actions and what their abilities are. Once you get used to how helpful Silver is, you'll realize that Copper is one of the worst cards in the game. You'll understand why Provinces are preferred over the other victory cards. You'll start a game by focusing on a couple actions that you think work well together instead of splattering the whole Kingdom into a single deck. There's a bunch of other stuff like Chapel (which I won't spoil) and alternate victory conditions, but you can learn that later on. Step 2: Don't buy Village. Village is a really bad card. On the surface, it looks okay; it's not a Terminal and it gives some cool stuff. But buying Village costs you something more-- turns are a resource. Village, at its base nature, is +1 Card +1 Action (in Magic terms, a Cantrip). It's actually +2 Actions, but we'll get into that in a minute. Village, when played, draws a new card and replenishes the action used to play it. If you never bought that Village, you would have drawn that new card in your hand anyway a turn ago, and you wouldn't have spent that action in the first place. In other words, it does absolutely nothing. Cards that do nothing aren't inherently bad, but what it really implies is that you wasted a turn buying nothing. Silver costs as much as Village, and the benefits of Silver are immediate, obvious, and almost never disappoint. What about the +2 Actions? In order for Village to actually serve its purpose, you need to have a bad deck. Your deck should be flooded with Terminal actions to the point where it's mathematically likely that you'll draw a Village and 2 Terminal Actions in the same hand at once (or Village, Terminal, and have the second Terminal immediately within drawing distance). If this sounds kind of advanced, it is! Village tricks new players into thinking poo poo is happening (so many cards are being moved!) but it's only useful in high-end engine decks. Not to say that Village isn't useful, but for now it's a good practice to just imagine that it's useless until one day you come up with this really cool idea that absolutely needs Villages to work. Wow, I've said a lot. I'm gonna stop here. I hope this was helpful.
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Dec 30, 2014 10:42
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Broken Loose posted:Going straight to Cheating rear end in a top hat is kind of an extreme example. There's no game that would not be ruined by somebody who blatantly tries to break very clear rules. That would be like playing a video game against somebody who unplugs your controller during a match. Why is tabletalk during communications down any more of an extreme example than tabletalk during Hanabi? Hanabi has very clear rules for how you can communicate: as your turn, you can spend a clue to point to all cards of one color/rank in another player's hand and say "These are your [color/rank] cards". When people start going "So you told me this was blue so you want me to...discard it? Right? Play it? Discard it? Discard it." every turn, they're in full cheating rear end in a top hat mode.
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Dec 30, 2014 10:57
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Bobfly posted:On Dominion: I really love the game, but I'm so terribly bad at it. I feel like I kind of just do whatever, and so does my one regular opponent. The stories that come out of its thin theme are very funny in their absurdity, but I'd very much like to get to the chess part of the game as well. To expand: 3: learn that (absent things slowing it down) there's a fairly hard time limit to the game. If you just buy treasure and provinces/duchies according to an algorithm (3+: silver, 6+, gold, 8+ Province, when at least half the provinces are gone, 5 or less, duchies, I think it is) you will have enough points to win in 14 turns, on average. Engine-building is great fun but unless you have someway to either outpace 14 turns and be in the lead when you end the game, or to hoover up LOTS of VP after that time limit has expired or to slow your opponent(s) down, you will lose by building an engine. 4: learn trashing. This one's often key, because it takes a leap of logic to get to the point where you really understand why Chapel is a TOTALLY game-changing card which would probably be balanced at cost 5 or even 6, but costs 2 to make the game FUN for everyone. And why +2 cards, +1 action, trash 1 card would be fairly overpowered even at 5. 5: learn to recognise the key cards on a board which define its character - are there a couple of good draw cards and a village? It might be an engine board. Are there lots of attacks, or cheap VP liike Gardens with things to enable it (card gainers, +buy)? It's likely to be a slog board. Are there ways to massively reduce costs (bridge, horn of plenty) for a small amount of time? It might be a megaturn board. 6: Learn how to build towards engines and megaturns. In short, get the payload first, because the payload will work regardless of whether the rest of the engine is working. This is an expansion on the 'don't buy village' concept - you only need as many +action cards (villages, but also things like throne room, king's court, procession) as you have terminal action card *which appear in the same hand with them* - i.e. if you buy village after your first bridge, it's probably a wasted buy, because a second bridge probably wouldn't clash with the first one and would give you the bridge benefit twice per shuffle, where village/bridge would only give it once. 7: (getting more advanced): control your deck. Know roughly what the composition of your draw deck is at any given time - have you used both your Smithies this shuffle, or only one? If you have 3 cards left and your PLAY a Smithy, will you draw actions you can't play? Conversely, will you draw green cards and improve your next hand? Knowing when to reshuffle is also vital. If you're playing a BIIIG engine (Hunting Party often being a culprit as it dumps lovely cards into discard), then reshuffling in the middle of your turn means your next hand will be full of crap, because all your stuff in play isn't going into your draw deck. 8: Always be aware of the endgame, and try, if you can, to be aware of whether you're ahead or not. It's not a game about having the most points at the end, it's a game of *ending the game whilst you have the most points*. It's a subtle but important distinction, and it means being on the lookout for the three pile even if you could carry on draining provinces, or buying the last province even if you're in the middle of getting your engine firing, as long as it means you end the game whilst you're ahead. Forcing the game to end to your advantage is a crucial skill. 9: My final point; learn a few of the key cards and 2-card combos. Minion, for instance, is an engine all by itself. Goons is an insanely powerful card with the right support. King's Court is ludicrous (but only with the right actions to play it on). Rebuild is ridiculous. Then things like Native Village/Bridge, Beggar/Gardens, Horse Traders/Duke, Apprentice/Fortress, etc etc etc. That'll do for now. The real problem with learning high-level dominion these days is that the online implementations suck balls, so it's difficult to get a lot of games in a short time, which I found to be the only real way to get past certain skill barriers. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 30, 2014 11:09
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Why is tabletalk during communications down any more of an extreme example than tabletalk during Hanabi? Hanabi has very clear rules for how you can communicate: as your turn, you can spend a clue to point to all cards of one color/rank in another player's hand and say "These are your [color/rank] cards". When people start going "So you told me this was blue so you want me to...discard it? Right? Play it? Discard it? Discard it." every turn, they're in full cheating rear end in a top hat mode. I mean, you're right. It's extreme and a poor transition, but the concept of the Hanabi argument is that the talking rules are clear but the communication rules are nebulous at best to the point where many posters in this thread admit to "improving" at the game by finding ways to communicate with the rest of the players in ways that don't immediately violate the talking rules. Whoever said, "Hanabi needs an enemy player to keep the good players straight," was spot-on. The reason why perfectly planning card plays during the Time Spiral in Tragedy Looper doesn't work is because the Mastermind is listening to the plan and can gently caress with it all the way. It's another tick in the Hanabi Is Half a Game column.
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Dec 30, 2014 11:11
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Broken Loose posted:I mean, you're right. It's extreme and a poor transition, but the concept of the Hanabi argument is that the talking rules are clear but the communication rules are nebulous at best to the point where many posters in this thread admit to "improving" at the game by finding ways to communicate with the rest of the players in ways that don't immediately violate the talking rules. I'm not sure what you're talking about here. If you mean things like the "oh we're supposed to magically pretend human beings can't wink with one eye" guy, then no, that's bullshit and everyone knows it's bullshit. If you're not allowed to say it in English, you're not allowed to say it in sign language, or in morse code, or in winkspeak or in any other way that the clue system doesn't allow. If you just mean getting more information than you might initially expect out of a single in-game clue, then yeah, that's kind of the point of the game. Even at the most basic level of play, when someone points to a single card in your hand and says "This is your 2", they're not really just telling you "This card in your hand is of rank 2 and the other cards in your hand are not of rank 2", they're telling you "Hey this 2 here is important you should probably play it" (unless in context it obviously means something else), and you'll play it even without a second hint telling you its color.
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Dec 30, 2014 11:29
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It's pretty simple though: As a group, you have to agree that cheating makes the game less fun, and so you will avoid it. In my experience, this works, though I can understand that you apparently can't handle that. The policing is done by everyone because it makes the game enjoyable. If you can't be mature enough to do so, fine, play your Kemet instead, but it doesn't make Hanabi a badly designed game, it just makes you incapable of playing it. Just like how some people can't play Ghost Blitz because they're slow as all gently caress. I agree that an opponent would make the policing more effective, but then you'd remove the co-op element that is actually fun. You can also pause the soundtrack in Space Alert to gain more time, since there's no opponent to stop it, but then why are you playing Space Alert? Would Space Alert be improved by an opponent since it would prevent you from pausing the soundtrack? Or should you just all agree to play the game as intended? I don't even think the rules are particularly nebulous: Don't communicate anything except by game actions. Hand management and rearranging cards is the closest to nebulous, but those can be houseruled into conformity based on player abilities pretty easily. I majorly disagree that the pro-Hanabi players are getting around the rules by cheating. The game is basically about deduction. Deducing the point of a particular hint is the meat of the game. The rule is not "you cannot communicate anything", but instead "you cannot communicate except by your actions". The actions, whether they're the hint-action or not are clues to the other players, and this is what the game is about. You will develop a meta, but it will not consist of proper one-to-one signs that one should do this, but rather of knowledge of how players go about their deductions. And again, I strongly disagree that it's about luck. Good plays will improve your score, always, even though you may not get to 25. Very rarely will the stack completely gently caress you. It's about as likely as getting majorly hosed by bad luck in Dominion.
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Dec 30, 2014 11:37
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Lottery of Babylon posted:If you just mean getting more information than you might initially expect out of a single in-game clue, then yeah, that's kind of the point of the game. Even at the most basic level of play, when someone points to a single card in your hand and says "This is your 2", they're not really just telling you "This card in your hand is of rank 2 and the other cards in your hand are not of rank 2", they're telling you "Hey this 2 here is important you should probably play it" (unless in context it obviously means something else), and you'll play it even without a second hint telling you its color. That's what makes the game frustrating. What specifically you say has to be loaded information, but during the course of the game it's against the rules to ask or clarify what said loaded information actually means. For those situations, things like discarding from a specific direction or encoding a secret language to more generic clues does not outright violate the word of the rules but begins endless arguments over whether or not it violates the spirit of the rules. Further, and this is going to get a little sociopathic so please bear with, if subtext is allowed Rules As Written, then it opens the door to other non-verbal forms of communication. The rest of the time, you're struggling with trying to get clues to people without cheating, and games shouldn't be about trying your best not to cheat. You can use basic clues to complete a game of Hanabi fine. In order to get a high score, you either have to be lucky or cheating. There are simply not enough actions available to give players the information they need to determine what to discard without gambling or or metagame solutions. In the end, as Scyther said, it's filler that takes too much work and it's not deep enough to be a main course, in addition to the frustrating-feeling communication problem.
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Dec 30, 2014 11:41
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Broken Loose posted:That's what makes the game frustrating. What specifically you say has to be loaded information, but during the course of the game it's against the rules to ask or clarify what said loaded information actually means. You say that like it's a bad thing. Maybe you think Hanabi is less than a game because you view the actual game aspects as flaws to be removed? Broken Loose posted:Further, and this is going to get a little sociopathic so please bear with, if subtext is allowed Rules As Written, then it opens the door to other non-verbal forms of communication. No it doesn't. Broken Loose posted:You can use basic clues to complete a game of Hanabi fine. In order to get a high score, you either have to be lucky or cheating. Empirically false. Broken Loose posted:in addition to the frustrating-feeling communication problem. "uggh, I played this game where you can only communicate in certain ways, but the game sucks because it limits the ways you can communicate" *plays battlestar galactica instead* "uggh, I played this game where there are traitors and you lie to people, but the game sucks because you can't tell if people are telling the truth when they say things" The game's not for you dude, that doesn't make it a broken nongame.
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Dec 30, 2014 11:50
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Broken Loose posted:That's what makes the game frustrating. What specifically you say has to be loaded information, but during the course of the game it's against the rules to ask or clarify what said loaded information actually means. This is the core of our little argument. This frustrates you and thrills me. I know that the hint I got was loaded with information of some sort, but I don't know what the information was. I have to deduce that, not based on anything other than previous hints and board state, from the perspective of the guy who hinted me. The makes for an interesting deduction in my opinion. Any play will be guesswork to some extend though, since you can't know for sure what the other guy intended. The lack of certainty is probably a flaw to you, but it's a feature in my book. I like having to guess, because guessing right feels awesome. And consistently doing so is even better. Broken Loose posted:You can use basic clues to complete a game of Hanabi fine. In order to get a high score, you either have to be lucky or cheating. There are simply not enough actions available to give players the information they need to determine what to discard without gambling or or metagame solutions. Yes, there is gambling in playing, but cheating can be mostly avoided pretty easily. I agree that there are not enough actions, which is why you have to gamble, but this can be done randomly or in a calculated way. And you can minimize the risk pretty well. Much like you can gamble with a small risk by not getting getting food on your first turn in Agricola, knowing that you can get it later. Broken Loose posted:In the end, as Scyther said, it's filler that takes too much work and it's not deep enough to be a main course, in addition to the frustrating-feeling communication problem. It does fill a weird niche timewise, but no more than Seven Wonders or Space Alert in my opinion. And, as I have stated, I believe there is a lot more depth in the passing of information than you do, so it works as a short main event for me. But I am beginning to see why it doesn't work for everyone, despite my disagreements with your (plural) reasonings.
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Dec 30, 2014 11:57
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Spot on thread title, tekopo
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Dec 30, 2014 12:13
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Broken Loose posted:You can use basic clues to complete a game of Hanabi fine. In order to get a high score, you either have to be lucky or cheating. There are simply not enough actions available to give players the information they need to determine what to discard without gambling or or metagame solutions. I think this is really the key point but people are so entrenched in their meta and groupthink that they can't recognize the subtle ways in which they're subconsciously cheating.
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Dec 30, 2014 12:32
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Scyther posted:I think this is really the key point but people are so entrenched in their meta and groupthink that they can't recognize the subtle ways in which they're subconsciously cheating. I agree that this is the key point, but I disagree that it is subconscious cheating. Take an opening hand scenario with three player, A, B and C. A starts, and tells C about her two ones. B at this point knows that she has no ones or only one at most, presumably in the same colour as one of C's. This information was conveyed without direct hints. B then hints A about his two ones, both of different colours than C's. C plays a one because that's safe at this point. A then also plays a one, because he knows that B would have been stupid to tell about a card that possibly couldn't be played. B then hints A about a five in A's hand because those are worth keeping. C then plays her second one, because she knows it to be playable, because otherwise, someone, most likely B would have stopped her, instead of hinting about the five. In this short example, only three hints were given, but a lot more information could be deduced. It was, in my opinion, not conveyed by cheating, but by deduction and indirect clue-giving within the confines of the mechanics. The fact that C did not start with two blue ones could only be deduced from the absence of a hint, which is not really equivalent to verbal communication. You have to distinguish between pseudo-verbal communication, which is cheating, and communication through mechanics and deduction, which is the fun game. And to me, this is a pretty clear-cut difference. Wondering why someone gave a clue and figuring it out is not the same as wondering, asking and getting an answer.
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Dec 30, 2014 12:58
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I agree that getting a perfect score is pretty much completely down to lucky draws but the difference between a bad, average and good score is what I personally see as the challenge of Hanabi from my limited plays. Maybe you should be arguing that it's boring playing 20 times and getting the close to same score each time which is something I could agree with.
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Dec 30, 2014 13:01
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It depends on how many players you have. 2-player games fall heavily to luck because ten total cards in hand just isn't enough room to work with, but larger games you can win consistently. Most of my games are four-player, where being screwed by luck is rare.
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Dec 30, 2014 13:16
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