|
I dont mind people thinking about their turn, I only get annoyed when the waste useable downtime. Other players are going and they could spend that time to consider what they might do, but nope, when its their turn they are like "WHA HUH? Oh ok... what happened? Gee I dont know what I'm gonna do...."
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 17:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 12:35 |
|
|
Dre2Dee2 posted:I dont mind people thinking about their turn, I only get annoyed when the waste useable downtime. Other players are going and they could spend that time to consider what they might do, but nope, when its their turn they are like "WHA HUH? Oh ok... what happened? Gee I dont know what I'm gonna do...." Hahah, this is the absolute worst. We have someone who does this. He'll respond to text messages, etc during other people's turns then take forever on his turn just figuring out what happened.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 17:51
|
|
|
Dre2Dee2 posted:when its their turn they are like "WHA HUH? Oh ok... what happened?" This is me when we play Ticket to Ride. It's not that I am not paying attention to what's happening, but for some reason if the last player drew cards instead of building my brain refuses to register that his turn is over and I am just waiting for him to put down some plastic wagons.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 18:22
|
|
|
Dre2Dee2 posted:I dont mind people thinking about their turn, I only get annoyed when the waste useable downtime. Other players are going and they could spend that time to consider what they might do, but nope, when its their turn they are like "WHA HUH? Oh ok... what happened? Gee I dont know what I'm gonna do...." gently caress me, I played a round of games with someone who did just this. I think the games were 3012 and Last Will, both of which are sort of important to keep track of. But the guy would just constantly be like "Oh wait, what happened? Okay, what can I do?" and it bugged the gently caress out of the rest of us. One big thing in board games that I wish designers would work around is when the actions on your turn are dependent on the cards you pick up at the beginning of your turn. Sounds kind of dumb, but it's so much better when you can draw at the end of your turn, checking out your options before it's your turn again, so you're not being presented with all possible choices on your turn. With games like Dominion, I guess that's sort of unavoidable, but from what I understand the turn-by-turn options available to you based on your deck are pretty simple to make, it's more about the overall strategy...though I think deck builders have you draw at the end of your turn? Been a while since I've played one. But like, imagine if worker placement games, beforeyou chose your action, wiped the entire board and replaced all the options with new possible actions. You'd have to look over each one and check which are the best ones to take, which are the worst, which screw over your opponent more, and that'd take forever. Drawing a new hand of possible cards is the same.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 18:27
|
|
|
Ticket to Ride is ok, at least that's a light game. But anything more involved... Thankfully my current game group doesnt have anyone who does that during the game... but rules explanation? gently caress. "....alright, so that's everything about the economy phase. So for deployme-" "Oh, wait! How does economy work? I missed that." "FUCKER "(they are a good group and I love them all)
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 18:29
|
|
|
I've found the best course of action in cases of misbehaving gamers is to keep a spray bottle on hand and give them a quick squirt in the face whenever they exhibit these sorts of offensive behaviours. Make sure you maintain eye contact at all times so they can see your dominance. If plain water doesn't work, add a teaspoon of lemon juice to the mix for each 12 oz of water. It won't cause any permanent damage, but that sting in their eyes will remind them that their behaviour needs correcting.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 18:34
|
|
|
My worst teaching experiences were when someone called me a teacher because I hadn't explicitly outlined the T&E strategy of: 1. Find a kingdom that has a leader with X support, but also has a leader slot that has X + 1 (or more) support. 2. Place one of your leaders in the X + 1 support area that matches the enemy leader. 3. If you win the conflict, good job, stop here! 4. If your opponent played more red cards than you, repeat the same attack in step 2. You probably used up all of the opponents cards, which gives you an autowin. It's not a game-breaking strategy since it is two actions and you give points to your opponents, but it does allow you to take over a kingdom you REALLY want. The guy got so annoyed that I hadn't explicitly outlined this tactic that he forced me to go find someone to confirm that yes, that is a tactic that can be used within the game. Guy apologised to me later on but c'mon. Also the reason why I outline that tactic in rule explanations from now on. Second time I had a bad time teaching T&E is when I played the resident 'doesn't understand any rules and will regularly get things wrong even when explained the same rule 4-5 times'.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 18:38
|
|
|
The Catan app tracks how long each player takes and displays it at the end.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 18:39
|
|
|
I tend to wait a reasonable amount of time (depending on the game and how familiar people are with the game) before I point out that a player is taking for loving ever. I usually start with a passive aggressive "So who's turn is it?" as a way to say hey, you're taking taking too long. Once I get comfortable with people and they get comfortable with me, I'll up it to "Goddamn Chris, just go." at which point Chris will give me the middle finger and do whatever move he would have done even if he hadn't wasted so much time. I usually only play with people I like, though, since my local meetup group is getting pretty loving big, so I know how to do it without coming off as (too much) of a dick. I don;t do this with new players. I love to teach new people games and have a lot of patience then. I also pretty much lose every game I teach because I tend to point out the best strategy to beat me. Once someone is experienced, though, it's game on, fuckers. The Supreme Court posted:The Catan app tracks how long each player takes and displays it at the end. I may do this myself next game to prove THAT YOU ARE TOO TAKING TOO LONG JAMES AND CHRIS! James and Chris are cool guys
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 18:59
|
|
|
I once played an online game of BSG over VASSAL where one of the players took an hour just to do his turn. This same guy also sided with a Cylon even after we had enough executions (pre-Exodus, so dying didn't change your loyalty card) that he would know 100% loving guaranteed that the other guy was a Cylon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:02
|
|
|
Lichtenstein posted:Hour of Glory: Stronghold Kit?
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:26
|
|
|
Dre2Dee2 posted:I dont mind people thinking about their turn, I only get annoyed when the waste useable downtime. Other players are going and they could spend that time to consider what they might do, but nope, when its their turn they are like "WHA HUH? Oh ok... what happened? Gee I dont know what I'm gonna do...." Sometimes it's just someone lacking awareness of the rest of the table, but sometimes I think it can also be a sign that they simply aren't that engaged with the game. It might be boring. Or it might not have them competitively engaged, such that they aren't motivated to try and strategize during other players' turns. Or it could be a design flaw in the game itself: quote:One big thing in board games that I wish designers would work around is when the actions on your turn are dependent on the cards you pick up at the beginning of your turn. Sounds kind of dumb, but it's so much better when you can draw at the end of your turn, checking out your options before it's your turn again, so you're not being presented with all possible choices on your turn. With games like Dominion, I guess that's sort of unavoidable, but from what I understand the turn-by-turn options available to you based on your deck are pretty simple to make, it's more about the overall strategy...though I think deck builders have you draw at the end of your turn? Been a while since I've played one. In general, I think people recognize and champion games that find clever ways to parallelize steps of a game's pipeline, like 7 Wonders, but it's rarer for people to call out games that have someone recalculate their moves every turn, to name one example. Some games encourage watching other players like a hawk because they might have a hidden agenda or you need to anticipate how they will bid on an auction, which is also effective. This can also be a sign that a game really needs to be played with less players. A game with 2-5 minute long turns can go from 2-5 minutes in between a specific player's turns to 8-20 and that's going to be over the threshold sometimes. Or sometimes games just kind of suck unless everyone has played it 5 or so times and can rapidly execute the easier decisions. Most mid to heavyweight euros feel this way to me. The other problem is that it can snowball. If you have one person who is not paying any attention until it's their turn, then their turns will both take a long time and will be boring because it's just someone rubbing their temples for 2-3 minutes. Then, everyone else becomes bored and might have their attention drift off whereas they would be engaged if the turns were shorter (which is related to the points above about fewer players and/or more experience).
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:27
|
|
|
I feel like I sort of helped prompt this derail, hyperbole and all, with my kvetching. I don't mind games that take longer to play because new people are playing and figuring stuff out, I don't even mind games that take longer to play because someone takes five minutes to perform a turn as long as they're at least engaged with the game somehow. What I do mind, and what one player at this game night is a living exemplar of, isDre2Dee2 posted:"WHA HUH? Oh ok... what happened? Gee I dont know what I'm gonna do...." Seriously, after two full games of Kemet you shouldn't still need stuff like "oh, how does teleportation work again?" explained to you, it's not a hard game. There's a difference between being kind of bad at the game (not playing aggressively, not considering power tiles unless prompted, etc.) which he also is but okay whatever, or fun tabletalk that gets distracting (of which I myself am guilty), and actively impeding the game which is what happens when he cheerfully takes a phone call from one of his friends in the middle of the game when it's coming around to his turn.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:30
|
|
|
Another thing that can help slow turns when doing a game with newcomers is printing out personal turn step-by-step references. Sometimes, people don't quite know yet what they can do, but aren't going to interrupt the game, so instead of planning out their turn, they are going to wait until their turn to ask some questions and then plan after they know what they are capable of. It's similar to the "dealt a new hand of cards at the beginning of your turn" problem. I wish more games just packed in player references.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:34
|
|
|
If the timer runs out, you offer a single finger to be broken with a ball peen hammer
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:35
|
|
|
So this exists and is a thing is happening. Note that $500 is the first tier that actually includes a copy of the game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:37
|
|
|
I saw someone playing Androminion while playing a game of Power Grid or something, but however one feels about those respective games, that sort of behavior would just annoy the poo poo out of me too (I was at another table). It doesn't help that that guy had no social skills to speak of and was a general weirdo.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:37
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:I feel like I sort of helped prompt this derail, hyperbole and all, with my kvetching. I don't mind games that take longer to play because new people are playing and figuring stuff out, I don't even mind games that take longer to play because someone takes five minutes to perform a turn as long as they're at least engaged with the game somehow. What I do mind, and what one player at this game night is a living exemplar of, is Not being aggressive enough is really the only problem I have with newish players in Kemet, even when I explicitly tell them, "Other than maybe the first turn, your should attack someone every turn of the game." Some players have a hard time with that type of aggression.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:39
|
|
|
Gutter Owl posted:So this exists and is a thing is happening. I talked with one of the Mayfair guys at a show last September and he mentioned this was coming, and that he expected this Deluxe edition to rival Ogre in size of packaging for the sheer amount and size of the components. I was among the handful of people who played their giant version at GenCon last year for charity, and it was a crazy amount of fun, albeit true to the source material it was also incredibly and absurdly thick with weird convoluted rules. This is mostly a fan service thing, where if you're not a fan of the show you probably will see little to no entertainment in the game its self; especially for $500. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:44
|
|
|
Madmarker posted:Not being aggressive enough is really the only problem I have with newish players in Kemet, even when I explicitly tell them, "Other than maybe the first turn, your should attack someone every turn of the game." I think that's what turned some of the folks in my group off of Hegemonic. It's a fairly aggressive area control game that kind of walks and talks like a 4x.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:45
|
|
|
On the topic of teaching games, I've been reading some stuff lately. This video is pretty good (and more interesting than the actual SU&SD reviews for myself): http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/blog/post/some-tips-rules-explanations/ The idea of hooking people with an objective and why you think this is fun is pretty fundamental. Sometimes rulebooks just start you with some fluff and then diving right into "1.1. Setting up the Board" and are tedious as gently caress to slog through. This game cafe instructor reiterates some of the same points: http://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/2csl51/how_to_explain_games_a_guide_from_a_professional/ And finally, a couple interesting blog articles: http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/TeachingRules.shtml http://questingblog.com/explaining-boardgame-rules/ Anyways, I've been thinking about this more. The least enjoyable aspect of this hobby for myself is teaching people how to play games over and over and over. But I like playing new games with new people so it's mostly unavoidable.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:45
|
|
|
One of the guys in my board gaming group trys to start rule explanations with how a turn goes, I always interrupt him with 'Ok, so how do I win?' because I never remember anything if it's done any other way. I got massively turned off on Mage Knight because I let him do that and I forgot the game-end condition, so was very surprised and annoyed when it ended.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:48
|
|
|
Hell, I lost the game we managed to play because while I was aggressive I wasn't aggressive in the right direction. I still need to work on my Kemet strategy. I absolutely don't want to quarterback people either, gently caress that noise, but yeah, if one player is squatting on two temples or the Temple of All Gods or whatever, that's your cue to go start some poo poo. Buy a giant scorpion and go to town. This experience was also frustrating because one of my pie-in-the-sky future plans now that I knew about a regular board gaming night was to at some point buy that copy of Risk: Legacy on the shelf and bust that out because Legacy is a really fun game that I love introducing new people to, but if folks are gonna be wandering off after the first turn then absolutely not, forget it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:52
|
|
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:Sometimes it's just someone lacking awareness of the rest of the table, but sometimes I think it can also be a sign that they simply aren't that engaged with the game. It might be boring. Or it might not have them competitively engaged, such that they aren't motivated to try and strategize during other players' turns. Or it could be a design flaw in the game itself: That is true, there are definitely games that exacerbate the problem. I find in a lot of fantasy games where you can buy things at a shop or choose a quest reward, if thats the last thing a player is doing, just let the next person start their turn. Shouldn't be anything that affects the next player and it keeps things moving. I usually find myself being the one keeping the game moving along at little opportunities like that, it adds up. One player in my group is really great at getting player hand outs and reference sheets printed and ready before a game, which can help save time flipping through a rule book. Gutter Owl posted:So this exists and is a thing is happening. This is like some post-modern commentary on kickstarter irony thing, right.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 19:55
|
|
|
Teaching is hard, no matter what it is. Maybe before you introduce a game to a group try going through your presentation at home before you just go unprepared at game night. I know I made a huge mistake when teaching Dominant Species I forgot about mentioning final scoring until the end. That didn't go over well. sonatinas fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jan 14, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:00
|
|
|
sonatinas posted:Teaching is hard, no matter what it is. Maybe before you introduce a game to a group try going through your presentation at home before you just go unprepared at game night. My friend who first taught me the game did the same thing.........needless to say I was quite unhappy about that as I had been winning until that point.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:02
|
|
|
Today is pay day, which means today is also new board game day!  I was hoping to get Twilight Imperium 3 but the local shop didn't have it so I picked up a few other things instead. Terra Mystica seemed a good choice due to the weight of the box, and I got Tragedy Looper because of this threads glowing recommendations. I wish they had the bigger Mage Knight Expansion but I grabbed Krang because it was all they had  
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:07
|
|
|
Gutter Owl posted:So this exists and is a thing is happening. Just watched this episode yesterday, immediately thought about this thread as he discussed it. I want to see this played.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:12
|
|
|
You should absolutely start any rules explanation with a thematic explanation of what you're doing in the game. So Mage Knight starts out with "we are 'heroes' [winking] sent out to discover a city for 'very noble purposes' [winking]. We are going to explore the land until we find the city, and along the way we will kill orcs, dragons, keeps, monks and probably everyone we meet. Right, so you have your player deck..." Vlaada actually does this in all his walkthroughs, and for a good reason. It's just so much easier to understand everything when you understand the narrative. More dry games like Power Grid also benefit from it: "So, you want to be the leading power company in Germany, which means you want to have a lot of power plants producing a lot of power, and you want them to be connected to a lot of cities." I am unsure about Dominion and highly abstract games like Mahjong or Ingenious, but in 95% cases, it is possible and very helpful. Also, I played Quantum recently, and for some reason, we got really into the backstory before even getting to the rules, and it really did work. I was yellow, so basically 'Murica, and I was going to really hate on the guy playing red, who we decided was basically furries. It didn't quite work out that way (I ended up picking on blue, AKA the Russians), but it provided a good narrative to get into what I should be doing with my dice-ships.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:17
|
|
|
I have a player who learns a million times better from a player aid or other piece of paper that he can refer to. Many times the rules include information that I print out for everyone, this can really speed up the game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:24
|
|
|
I really suck at explaining rules, but whenever I try there's always someone demanding I explain a thing that I haven't gotten to yet. Playing viticulture last night I was explaining the actions and when I got to "build a building" someone asked what buildings were. If I'd explained buildings first I'm sure someone would have asked how I build them. I don't know, maybe you just need to internalize that little bit of information for like 2 seconds until I get to explaining it. But also I'm terrible at explaining games so it's probably my fault.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:27
|
|
|
Lorini posted:I have a player who learns a million times better from a player aid or other piece of paper that he can refer to. Many times the rules include information that I print out for everyone, this can really speed up the game. Myself, I tend to hide player aids until I'm done explaining. In my experience people tend to zone out when given something with text, reading poo poo that was already explained/is pointlessly out of order and then complain about totally not being told crucial info, because they were busy reading.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:27
|
|
|
GrandpaPants posted:I saw someone playing Androminion while playing a game of Power Grid or something, but however one feels about those respective games, that sort of behavior would just annoy the poo poo out of me too (I was at another table). It doesn't help that that guy had no social skills to speak of and was a general weirdo. I've done it. I've also played simultaneous online games of Through the Ages WITH THE PEOPLE I'M PLAYING IRL THROUGH THE AGES WITH. Our group has that much AP problems that no-one minds at all. For Power Grid in particular, when you're out of the bidding first it can sometimes be a LONG time before anything relevant to you actually happens.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:35
|
|
|
I would say the worst is the person who tries to be helpful while you're teaching the rules by interjecting and explaining edge cases. I feel like I've taught a million and half games and I've got teaching down to a science - don't interrupt my mojo brah, you're messing with my system. This inevitably leads to people asking more questions that lead to a derail and adds 20 more minutes to the rules explanation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:37
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:I've done it. I've also played simultaneous online games of Through the Ages WITH THE PEOPLE I'M PLAYING IRL THROUGH THE AGES WITH. Our group has that much AP problems that no-one minds at all. At the same time I sorta understand it, but I still think it's kinda rude to disassociate completely with the people you're playing with. I also tend to play with mostly friends with the odd stranger, so that may contribute to it. Looselybased posted:I would say the worst is the person who tries to be helpful while you're teaching the rules by interjecting and explaining edge cases. I feel like I've taught a million and half games and I've got teaching down to a science - don't interrupt my mojo brah, you're messing with my system. This inevitably leads to people asking more questions that lead to a derail and adds 20 more minutes to the rules explanation. I think the worst is when you emphasize something as being super important to the game and that not knowing this rule will likely gently caress you over, they play the game, they interact with said rule, and they claim that you never explained said rule. Infuriates me to no end. This happens in even the most basic things, like explaining how the Provost works in Caylus or how the move phase works in Theseus (my most recent example), which includes examples and "audience participation" when I ask one of the players what would happen in this example. Somehow despite all this, they gently caress it all up. Man this is a ranty page.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:45
|
|
|
I've got a guy who will sit there with his 3DS and play Smash Bros or whatever between his turns. It is marvelously infuriating.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:50
|
|
|
Dre2Dee2 posted:This is like some post-modern commentary on kickstarter irony thing, right. Actually, I wouldn't necessarily put it past Larry Roznai (the president of Mayfair Games). He has a notoriously dim view of board game kickstarters, as anyone who's attended his seminars at GTS will attest. Specifically, he argues that Kickstarter hamstrings the relationship between the publisher and the brick-and-mortar. By his argument, a store isn't going to order the game through distribution if you already sold copies to their most enthusiastic customers, and your product/company won't be able to sustain itself through long term sales past the initial project. This Kickstarter makes sense for his philosophy, actually. Mayfair's kicking a product that almost certainly has no future in distro/retail, so it's not putting them in competition with their client stores.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 20:51
|
|
|
Rutibex posted:Today is pay day, which means today is also new board game day! badass -- Terra Mystica/Mage Knight may be on my tomorrow payday buy list as well but Cardhaus has so many good deals on Euroclassics that I feel like I kinda need to try that I may go that route. Although they also have a sale on Viticulture and K2, gently caress. Battlestar Galactica and Dominant Species shall be mine though, that's a loving guarantee 
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 21:08
|
|
|
On teaching: some people learn differently than others. My wife has no patience for being lectured or reading rulebooks. Know the game beforehand and let her dive right in with What Is The Point, followed by What Can I Do Right Now. The downside is that she'll need things explained more than once for a while because she isn't always learning in a straight line. That's rough on me because I really hate having to repeat myself (sometimes something I explained like 10 seconds ago), but but that's life. I'm the rules learner so it works out at least. Personally I learn best by reading. I read fast and absorb fast. For me, watching videos is like watching poo poo in slow motion. It's agonizing. I get tired of being in the driver's seat all the time though. It's a rare joy to be able to just focus on a game as a player. No explaining rules, no reminding people it's their turn, etc. But at least I'm appreciated. I was sick recently and didn't make it out to a game night. My wife came back and told me that without me there it was a confused mess even though they played games they had all played before. Got rules wrong, etc. Oh, but on the other hand we played a few times with one of my wife's co-workers. Never needs reminding of anything, sharp player, and only needs something explained once.  
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 21:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 12:35 |
|
|
Mister Sinewave posted:Oh, but on the other hand we played a few times with one of my wife's co-workers. Never needs reminding of anything, sharp player, and only needs something explained once. Time to trade the wife out for a newer model.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2015 21:19
|
|
